FULHAM PALACE 



a cauldron of molten lead a fate that it is said he only escaped 

 by flight. Violence also distinguished his conduct when on an 

 embassy to Paris, about 1538. On that occasion, owing to his 

 behaviour, Francis I. threatened him with a hundred strokes 

 from the halberd. 



In 1539 he became Bishop of London, but, up to the close of 

 Henry's reign, he not only failed to protest against the drastic 

 changes introduced by the King, but was an active agent in intro- 

 ducing them. 



On the accession of the boy Edward, however, both he and 

 Gardner, Bishop of Winchester, began to see whither these changes, 

 in the hands of a Protestant Council, might lead. Bonner opposed 

 the Act of Uniformity, and he refused to enforce the use of the new 

 Book of Common Prayer, nor would he consent to preach at 

 Paul's Cross in support of the young King's supremacy. For this 

 he cannot be blamed ; he was acting a more manly part than when 

 he obsequiously supported Henry VIII. in actions of which he could 

 not have conscientiously approved. He was deprived of his 

 bishopric, and was further condemned to perpetual imprisonment, 

 and Ridley, Bishop of Rochester, was translated to London in his 

 place. 



But alas ! too soon for the Reformers came the reversal of all 

 this, and Bonner's hour of triumph ! The young King died, and 

 his half-sister Mary ascended the throne ; and Bonner, making 

 no difficulty about submitting again to the papal authority that he 

 had forsworn, took active measures to restore Roman Catholicism 

 in his diocese, in which he had been reinstated, and in 1555 began 

 that terrible persecution of heresy to which he owes his undesirable 

 fame. 



On the accession of Elizabeth, Bonner refused to take the oath 

 of supremacy, and was committed to the Marshalsea, where some 

 years later he died. He was interred at midnight, because, owing 

 to his unpopularity, the authorities feared that there would be a 

 disturbance of the peace were his obsequies performed in daylight. 



It is said, in mitigation of his offences, that he did not go out of 

 his way to persecute, and " that many of his victims were forced 

 upon him by the Council, which sometimes thought that he had not 

 been severe enough. So completely had the State dominated the 

 Church, that religious persecutions had become State persecutions, 



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