Bishop Edmund Bonner, RIP

Bishop Edmund Bonner, who at first accepted Henry VIII's supremacy and takeover of the Church in England, died on September 5, 1569 in Marshalsea Prison. As the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica describes his career during the latter part of Henry's reign and Edward VI's more radical Reformation:

Hitherto Bonner had been known as a somewhat coarse and unscrupulous tool of Cromwell, a sort of ecclesiastical Wriothesley, He is not known to have protested against any of the changes effected by his masters; he professed to be no theologian, and was wont, when asked theological questions, to refer his interrogators to the divines. He had graduated in law, and not in theology. There was nothing in the Reformation to appeal to him, except the repudiation of papal control; and he was one of those numerous Englishmen whose views were faithfully reflected in the Six Articles. He became a staunch Conservative, and, apart from his embassy to the emperor in 1524–1543, was mainly occupied during the last years of Henry's reign in brandishing the “whip with six strings.”

The accession of Edward VI opened a fresh and more creditable chapter in Bonner's career. Like Gardiner, he could hardly repudiate that royal supremacy, in the establishment of which he had been so active an agent; but he began to doubt that supremacy when he saw to what uses it could be put by a Protestant council, and either he or Gardiner evolved the theory that the royal supremacy was in abeyance during a royal minority. The ground was skilfully chosen, but it was not legally nor constitutionally tenable. Both he and Gardiner had in fact sought fresh licences to exercise their ecclesiastical jurisdiction from the young king; and, if he was supreme enough to confer jurisdiction, he was supreme enough to issue the injunctions and order the visitation to which Bonner objected. Moreover, if a minority involved an abeyance of the royal supremacy in the ecclesiastical sphere, it must do the same in the temporal sphere, and there could be nothing but anarchy. It was on this question that Bonner came into conflict with Edward's government. He resisted the visitation of August 1547, and was committed to the Fleet; but he withdrew his opposition, and was released in time to take an active part against the government in the parliament of November 1547. In the next session, November 1548-March 1549, he was a leading opponent of the first Act of Uniformity and Book of Common Prayer. When these became law, he neglected to enforce them, and on the 1st of September 1549 he was required by the council to maintain at St Paul's Cross that the royal authority was as great as if the king were forty years of age. He failed to comply, and after a seven days' trial he was deprived of his bishopric by an ecclesiastical court over which Cranmer presided, and was sent to the Marshalsea. The fall of Somerset in the following month raised Bonner's hopes, and he appealed from Cranmer to the council. After a struggle the Protestant faction gained the upper hand, and on the 7th of February 1550 Bonner's deprivation was confirmed by the council sitting in the Star Chamber, and he was further condemned to perpetual imprisonment.

Because Edward VI died in 1553, that perpetual imprisonment did not last that long. He participated in the ecclesiastical investigations of heresy, but the Catholic Encyclopedia notes that the image of him as "Bloody Bonner", presented by Foxe and Bale, had been corrected in later centuries:

Tardy justice is now being done to his memory by historians, Catholic and Protestant alike, yet there remains immense prejudice against his memory in the popular mind. Nor could this be otherwise in face of the calumnies that have been. repeated by tradition. The reckless charges of Bale and Foxe were repeated by Burnet Hume, and others, who join in representing him as an inhuman persecutor, "a man of profligate manners and of a brutal character, who seemed to rejoice in the torments of the unhappy sufferers" (Hume c. xxxvii). The first historian of note to challenge this verdict was the Catholic, Lingard, though even he wrote in a very tentative way and it was by an Anglican historian, S.R. Maitland, that anything like justice was first done to Bonner. This writer's analysis remains the most discriminating summary of the bishop's character. "Setting aside declamation and looking at the details of facts left by those who may be called, if people please, Bonner's victims, and their friends, we find, very consistently maintained, the character of a man, straightforward and hearty, familiar and humorous, sometimes rough, perhaps coarse, naturally hot tempered, but obviously (by the testimony of his enemies) placable and easily intreated, capable of bearing most patiently much intemperate and insolent language, much reviling and low abuse directed against himself personally, against his order, and against those peculiar doctrines and practices of his church for maintaining which he had himself suffered the loss of all things, and borne long imprisonment. At the same time not incapable of being provoked into saying harsh and passionate things, but much more frequently meaning nothing by the threatenings and slaughter which he breathed out, than to intimidate those on whose ignorance and simplicity argument seemed to be thrown away-in short, we can scarcely read with attention any one of the cases detailed by those who were no friends of Bonner, without seeing in him a judge who (even if we grant that he was dispensing bad laws badly) was obviously desirous to save the prisoner's life." This verdict has been generally followed by later historians, and the last word has been added, for the present, in. the recently published volume on the Reformation, in the "Cambridge Modern History" planned by Lord Acton (1903) where the statement is expressly made: "It is now generally admitted that the part played by Bonner was not that attributed to him by Foxe, of a cruel bigot who exulted in sending his victims to the stake. The number of those put to death in his diocese of London was undoubtedly disproportionately large, but this would seem to have been more the result of the strength of the reforming element in the capital and in Essex than of the employment of exceptional rigor; while the evidence also shows that he himself patiently dealt with many of the Protestants, and did his best to induce them to renounce what he conscientiously believed to be their errors."

Even A.F. Pollard, a definite Whig historian, in the Encyclopedia Britannica tries to be more balanced in his view of Bishop Bonner:

On the other hand, Bonner did not go out of his way to persecute; many of his victims were forced upon him by the council, which sometimes thought that he had not been severe enough (see Acts of the P.C. 1554–1556, pp. 115, 139; 1556–1558, pp. 18, 19, 216, 276). So completely had the state dominated the church that religious persecutions had become state persecutions, and Bonner was acting as an ecclesiastical sheriff in the most refractory district of the realm. Even Foxe records instances in which Bonner failed to persecute. But he had no mercy for a fallen foe; and he is seen at his worst in his brutal jeers at Cranmer, when he was entrusted with the duty of degrading his former chief. It is a more remarkable fact that, in spite of his prominence, neither Henry VIII. nor Mary should ever have admitted him to the privy council. He seems to have been regarded by his own party as a useful instrument, especially in disagreeable work, rather than as a desirable colleague.

Pollard describes Bonner's last years:

On her accession Elizabeth refused to allow him to kiss her hand; but he sat and voted in the parliament and convocation of 1559. In May he refused to take the oath of supremacy, acquiring like his colleagues consistency with old age. He was sent to the Marshalsea, and a few years later was indicted on a charge of praemunire on refusing the oath when tendered him by his diocesan, Bishop Horne of Winchester. He challenged the legality of Horne's consecration, and a special act of parliament was passed to meet the point, while the charge against Bonner was withdrawn. He died in the Marshalsea on the 5th of September 1569, and was buried in St George's, Southwark, at midnight to avoid the risk of a hostile demonstration.

John Jewel, RIP and His "Apologia"

John Jewel was the Anglican bishop of Salisbury; born on May 24, 1522, he died on September 23, 1571.

His most famous work is The Apology of the Church of England which was originally written in Latin with the title Apologia pro ecclesia Anglicana, as this introduction to the work, posted at Project Canterbury, reminds us:

The great interest of Jewel's "Apology" lies in the fact that it was written in Latin to be read throughout Europe as the answer of the Reformed Church of England, at the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, to those who said that the Reformation set up a new Church. Its argument was that the English Church Reformers were going back to the old Church, not setting up a new; and this Jewel proposed to show by looking back to the first centuries of Christianity. Innovation was imputed; and an Apology originally meant a pleading to rebut an imputation. So, even as late as 1796, there was a book called "An Apology for the Bible," meaning its defence against those who questioned its authority. This Latin book of Jewel's, Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae--written in Latin because it was not addressed to England only--was first published in 1562, and translated into English by the mother of Francis Bacon, whose edition appeared in 1564. That is the translation given in this volume. The book has since had six or seven other translators, but Lady Ann Bacon's translation was that which presented it in Queen Elizabeth's time to English readers, and it had the advantage of revision by the Queen's Archbishop of Canterbury, her coadjutor in the establishment of the Reformed Church of England, Matthew Parker. It was published, with no name of author or translator on the title-page, as "An Apologie or answere in defence of the Churche of Englande, with a briefe and plaine declaration of the true Religion professed or used in the same." The book was prefaced by a letter, "To the right honorable learned and vertuous Ladie, A. B." [Ann Bacon] "M. C. wisheth from God grace, honoure, and felicitie," where M. C. signifies Matthew Cantuar, Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, whom Lady Ann Bacon had made her judge, and whose judgment, the letter says, her book had singularly pleased.

Lady Ann Bacon was the second daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, who was tutor to King Edward VI. Sir Anthony gave to his five daughters a most liberal education. His eldest daughter, Mildred, married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, while Ann became the second wife of the Lord Keeper, Sir Nicholas Bacon. Their father had made Mildred and Ann two of the most learned women in England.

John Jewel was forty years old when he wrote the "Apology." He was born in Devonshire in 1522, on the 24th of May, at the village of Buden, near Ilfracombe. He studied at Oxford, where he became tutor and preacher, graduated as B.D. in 1551, and was presented to the rectory of Sunningwell. At the accession of Queen Mary he bowed to the royal authority, but he was a warm friend and disciple of Peter Martyr, who had come to England in 1547, at the invitation of Edward VI., to take the chair of Divinity at Oxford. On the accession of Queen Mary, Peter Martyr (who was born at Florence in 1500, and whose family name was Vermigli) returned to Strasburg, and went thence to Zurich, where he died in 1562. Jewel, repenting of his assent to the new sovereign's authority in matters of religion, followed his friend Peter Martyr across the water, and became vice-master of a college at Strasburg. Upon the accession of Elizabeth, in 1588 (sic, should be 1558), Jewel came back, and he was one of the sixteen Protestants appointed by the Queen to dispute before her with a like number of Catholics.

In 1559 John Jewel was appointed a commissioner for securing, in the West of England, conformity with the newly-arranged Church service, and he had to see that the Queen's orders were obeyed in the churches of his native county. Before the end of the same year he was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury. He was most zealous in performance of all duties of his charge. To his good offices young Richard Hooker owed his opportunity of training for the service of the Church. Among Jewel's writings, this Apology or Defence of the Church of England was the most important; but he worked incessantly, and shortened his life by limiting himself to four hours of sleep, taken between midnight and four in the morning. Bishop Jewel died on the 21st of September, 1571 (sic, other sources concur on September 23), before he had reached the age of fifty.

His Apologia did not go without a response: Thomas Harding, who had been the treasury of Salisbury, debated with Jewel on Anglican doctrines and its sources. The Catholic Encyclopedia has this entry:

Controversialist; b. at Combe Martin, Devon, 1516 d. at Louvain, Sept., 1572. The registers of Winchester school show that after attending Barnstaple school he obtained a scholarship there in 1528, being then twelve years old. If this information be correct, he was three years younger than is commonly stated. He went to New College, Oxford, in 1534, was admitted a Fellow in 1536, and took his Master's degree in 1542, in which year he was appointed Hebrew professor by Henry VIII. Having been ordained priest he became chaplain to Henry Grey, Marquess of Dorchester and afterwards Duke of Suffolk. He at first embraced the Reformed opinions, but on the accession of Mary he declared himself a Catholic, despite the upbraidings of his friend Lady Jane Frey, and the events of his later life proved his sincerity. In 1554 he took the degree of Doctor of Divinity and was appointed prebendary of Winchester, becoming treasurer of Salisbury in the following year. He also acted as chaplain and confessor to Bishop Gardiner. When Elizabeth became queen he was deprived of his preferments and imprisoned (Sander, "Report to Cardinal Moroni"). Subsequently he retired to Louvain to escape persecution. There he served St. Gertrude's church and devoted himself to study and to his long controversy with Jewel, the Bishop of Salisbury and champion of Protestantism.

In 1564 he published "An answere to Maister Juelles Challenge", Jewel having undertaken to conform to the Catholic Church if any Catholic writer could prove that any of the Fathers of six centuries taught any of twenty-seven articles he selected. Jewel replied first in a sermon (which Harding answered in a broadsheet "To Maister John Jeuell", printed at Antwerp in 1565) and then in a book. Against the latter Harding wrote "A Rejoindre to M. Jewel's Replie" (Antwerp, 1566) and "A Rejoindre to M. Jewel's Replie against the Sacrifice of the Mass" (Louvain, 1567). Meanwhile he had become engaged in a second controversy with the same author, and, in his confutation of a book entitled an "Apologie of the Church of England" (Antwerp, 1565), he attacked an anonymous work, the authorship of which Jewel admitted in his "Defence of the Apologie of the Churche of Englande". Harding retorted with "A Detection of Sundrie Foule Errours, Lies, Sclaunders, corruptions, and other false Dealinges, touching Doctrine and other matters uttered and practized by M. Jewel" (Louvain, 1568). In 1566 Pius V appointed Harding and Dr. Sander Apostolic delegates to England, with special powers of giving faculties to priests and of forbidding Catholics to frequent Protestant services. Harding was of great assistance to his exiled fellow-countrymen and to Dr. Allen in founding the English College at Douai. He was buried (16 Sept., 1572) in the Church of St. Gertrude, Louvain.

Image Credit of Salisbury Cathedral photograph from Wikipedia Commons.

William Cecil's Birthday

The History of Parliament website has a section dedicated to the English Reformation, particularly to the MPs (Members of Parliament) who engaged in the legislative battles over religion in England from Henry VIII's to Elizabeth I's reign. Here are some comments from the page on William Cecil, one of Elizabeth I's most important counselors:

Cecil served in Parliaments under Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I. He became Elizabeth I’s most trusted minister, and played a major role in her government and her religious settlement.

Cecil was the son of one of Henry VIII’s minor courtiers. His father made sure that Cecil was well-educated at grammar school and Cambridge University, and this education helped make Cecil an excellent scholar, administrator, and Protestant reformer.

Cecil was a member of Edward VI’s Privy Council, but when Mary came to the throne he retired from public life. He did not want to implement Catholic policies. He mostly stayed out of trouble during Mary’s reign, but did, on occasion, speak against her. During this time he entered the service of Mary’s sister, Elizabeth.

When Elizabeth became Queen she immediately made Cecil an important government official, the Secretary of State. He played a vital role in her 1st Parliament, shepherding through the major religious laws. Cecil agreed with Elizabeth that England should be Protestant, but in such a way that would not upset a country that was divided by religion and had lived through many dramatic changes.

Cecil was Elizabeth’s most trusted advisor. In 1570 he was even allowed to stamp documents with her signature without speaking to her first. Yet they did not always agree. Cecil was not afraid to use Parliament to put pressure on Elizabeth. For example he supported, and sometimes even wrote, the petitions Parliament made to Elizabeth asking her to marry. He also supported some of the Puritan attempts to further change Elizabeth’s religious settlement.

Cecil’s attitude towards Catholics hardened in later years, and he began to see them all as a threat to Elizabeth and Protestant England. This included Elizabeth’s cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, and he was instrumental in Mary’s execution after the Elizabeth's 6th Parliament. For this, he was banished from Elizabeth’s sight for four months.

This site provides some background on Cecil's birth and early life:

William Cecil was born on September 13th 1520. He was born into a minor Welsh noble family that had fought for Henry VII at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485. Rewarded for their loyalty, the Cecil family worked for Henry VIII and Edward VI. Cecil was educated at Grantham and Stamford Grammar Schools and at St. John’s College, Cambridge University. At Cambridge, Cecil was very influenced by Humanism and Protestantism. After Cambridge, Cecil went to Gray’s Inn in London. In 1543, Cecil became a Member of Parliament and quickly developed a reputation as a fine administrator.

Morton Selten, who is "generally acknowledged" to be an illegitimate son of the future Edward VII, played William Cecil in Fire Over England (1937); Vivien Leigh plays his fictional granddaughter Cynthia. The film contains a tender scene of Flora Robson as Elizabeth feeding her Lord High Treasurer some soup!