BONNER, Edmund, bishop of London, was born at Hanley in Worcestershire about the end of the fifteenth or beginning of the sixteenth century, and generally supposed to be the natural son of one Savage, a priest, who was the natural son of Sir John Savage of Clifton in the same county. Strype, however, says he was positively assured that Bonner was the legitimate offspring of a poor man, who lived in a cottage long afterwards known by the name of Bonner’s Place. About the year 1512 he entered as a student of Broadgate Hall in Oxford; and in 1519 was admitted as bachelor of the canon and the civil law. About the same time he took orders, and obtained some preferment in the diocese of Worcester. In 1525 he was created doctor of the canon law. Having now acquired the reputation of a shrewd politician and civilian, he was soon distinguished by Cardinal Wolsey, who appointed him commissary for the faculties, and heaped upon him a variety of church preferments. He possessed at the same time the livings of Blaydon and Cherry-Burton in Yorkshire, Ripple in Worcestershire, East Dereham in Norfolk, a prebend of St Paul’s, and the archdeaconry of Leicester. Bonner was with the cardinal at Caw-wood when he was arrested on a charge of high treason. After the [7:4:770] death of that minister, he soon found means to insinuate himself into the favour of Henry VIII., who made him one of his chaplains, and employed him in several embassies abroad, particularly to the pope. In 1532 he was sent to Rome with Sir Edward Kame, to answer for the king, whom his holiness had cited to appear in person or by proxy. In 1533 he was again dispatched to Pope Clement VII. then at Marseilles, to intimate King Henry’s appeal to a future general council, from the sentence which had been pronounced against his divorce. On this occasion he threatened the pope with so much resolution, that his holiness talked of having him burnt alive or thrown into a cauldron of melted lead; intimations which Bonner judged it prudent not to contemn, and, accordingly, he suddenly decamped without the ceremony of taking leave. His holiness did not foresee that the man whom, in his ang¢r, he had thus menaced with the flames, was destined to burn heretics in England, and to operate by fire in support of the very faith which, under Henry, he had lent his aid to overthrow. In 1538, being then ambassador at the court of France, he was nominated bishop of Hereford; but, before consecration, he was translated to the see of London, and enthroned in April 1540. Henry VIII. died in 1547, at which time Bonner was ambassador at the court of the emperor Charles V. During this reign he was constantly zealous in his opposition to the pope; and, in compliance with the king, he favoured the Reformation. Henry VIII. was not a man to be trifled with, and exacted a rigid compliance with all his whims and caprices; but on the accession of young Edward, Bonner refused to take the oath of supremacy, and was committed to the Fleet, where he remained until he thought fit to promise obedience to the laws. After his release he continued to comply with the Reformation, but with such manifest neglect and reluctance, that he was twice reprimanded by the privy council, and in 1549 was, after a long trial, committed to the Marshalsea, and deprived of his bishopric. The succeeding reign, however, gave him ample opportunity of revenge. Mary was scarcely seated on the throne when Bonner was restored to his bishopric, and soon afterwards appointed vicegerent and president of the convocation. From this time he became the chief instrument of persecuting cruelty, and is said to have condemned no less than two hundred Protestants to the flames in the space of three years. Nor was this vindictive and persecuting priest less remarkable for his impudence than his cruelty. On the accession of Elizabeth he appeared with the rest of the bishops, at Highgate, to congratulate her on the occasion. But having, in the second year of her reign, refused to take the oath of allegiance and supremacy, he was again deprived, and committed to the Marshalsea, where he died in 1569, after a confinement of ten years’ duration. There cannot be a stronger instance of the comparative lenity of the Protestant church, than its suffering a man like this, devoid of mercy or compassion, and who had pronounced so many cruel and odious sentences, to die a natural death. The character of Bonner was remarkable for obstinacy and inflexibility in every thing save principle; yet, even in this respect, it exhibits some striking contrasts. In the early part of his career he took care to accommodate his principles to his convenience and ambition; in the latter, after his return to Catholicism, he remained stedfast in his adherence to the ancient faith, and, when disgraced, bore his deprivation and imprisonment with calmness and resignation. He was constitutionally merciless and austere; fitted by nature for a persecutor of all opinions adverse to his own; and equally capable of employing in favour of Protestantism the same burning zeal which he displayed against it. But he was a determined enemy to all laxity of conduct in the ministers of religion, and took the most energetic measures for reforming the manners of his clergy, over whom he exercised the most rigorous superintendence. The pieces ascribed to him are, 1. Letters to Lord Cromwell; 2. Responsum et Exhortatio in laudem Sacerdotii, 1553; 3. The Thirty-seven Articles of his Visits; 4. An Exposition of the Symbol, and of the Seven Sacraments, in thirteen homilies, 1554, 4to; and some other writings on passing subjects.