GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



diocese. In 1559 he was again suspended for refusing to take the 

 oath to Elizabeth. This time he was not committed to the state 

 prison, but to the kindly guardianship at Lambeth, of Matthew 

 Parker, the Archbishop at whose consecration he had refused to 

 assist. Tunsdall was respected by all parties. " He showed 

 mercy," said Thomas Fuller, in his " Worthies of England," 

 " and found it in his adversity, having nothing but the name of 

 prisoner, in which condition he died on 18th of November, 1559, 

 aged eighty-five, and was buried at Lambeth." 



Tunsdall was a distinguished scholar, educated at Oxford, Cam- 

 bridge, and Padua. Erasmus bore witness to his attainments 

 when he said " he was comparable to any of the ancients ; " and 

 Fuller tells us that " he was one of the politest scholars of the age.'* 

 It speaks well for the Romish bishop that so convinced a Protestant 

 as the author of " Church and State " and of the ic History of the 

 Worthies of England," has only high praise for both his character 

 and his learning. But then Fuller, in the opinion of Coleridge, 

 '* was incomparably the most sensible, the least prejudiced great 

 man of an age that boasted a galaxy of great men "namely, the 

 middle of the sixteenth century. 



In the annals of the Bishops of London the truculent and relent- 

 less Bonner for some dozen years plays a leading part. He was 

 the successor, though not the immediate successor, of Tunsdall 

 in the See of London but in disposition and principles he differed 

 widely from that excellent prelate, in whom Fuller could find no 

 other fault than his religion. Bonner has earned an unenviable 

 notoriety by his cruel persecution of the Reformers, and by his 

 vindictive treatment of his fallen opponent, Cranmer. 



Supposed to be the natural son of a priest who was himself 

 illegitimate, Bonner first rose to power by attracting the attention 

 of Thomas Cromwell, and later, by playing into the hands of 

 Henry VIII. in the matter of the royal supremacy, and the divorce 

 of Katherine of Arragon. In 1529 he was Wolsey's chaplain, and 

 he was with him at the time of his fall, after which, probably 

 through the influence of Cromwell, he was transferred to the 

 King's service. Sent to Rome to further Henry's cause, he greatly 

 incensed the Pope by the unmannerly violence of his denunciation 

 of the tyranny of the Holy See ; but there seems to be no real 

 ground for the story that the Pontiff threatened to throw him into 



66 



