Edmund Bunny
Edmund Bunny (1540–1619) was an Anglican churchman of Calvinist views. Life. He was born in 1540 at the Vache, the seat of Edward Restwold, his mother's father, near Chalfont St Giles, Buckinghamshire. He was the eldest son of Richard Bunny (d. 1584) of Newton or Bunny Hall in Wakefield parish, who was treasurer of Berwick, and otherwise employed in public services in the north, under Henry VIII and Edward VI; he suffered as a Protestant under Mary, and obtained some compensation from Elizabeth (16 June 1574). Edmund was sent to Oxford University at the age of sixteen , and after graduating B.A. was elected probationer fellow of Magdalen College. His father meant him for the law, and sent him to Staple Inn and Gray's Inn. He decided to enter the church, and was disinherited in favour of Richard, the second son, for so doing. On 30 March 1564 he received the prebend of Oxgate in St Paul's Cathedral, in succession to John Braban. Returning to Oxford he graduated M.A. on 14 February 1565, and was soon after elected fellow of Merton College; this was an unprecedented move, but the reason was that Merton had no one  who could preach, while Bunny was a fluent extemporiser. On 10 July 1570 he was made B.D., and became in the same year chaplain to Edmund Grindal, archbishop of York, who made him subdean of York, in succession to Robert Babthorp, D.D. (d. 1570), and gave him the rectory of Bolton Percy. This he held for twenty-five years, and then resigned it. His subdeanery he resigned in 1579, and was succeeded by Henry Wright, M.A. In February 1579 he applied for the degree of D.D., but was refused. Retaining his London prebend, with another at York (Wistow, installed 21  October 1575), and a third at Carlisle (first stall, collated 2 July 1585), he devoted himself to the work of an itinerant preacher, travelling over most parts of England, attended by two servants on horseback, visiting towns and villages, and sometimes his university, as an evangelist. He died at Cawood, Yorkshire, 26 February 1619, and was buried in York Minster, where there is a monument (with effigy) to his memory. Works. Bunny published: Anthony Wood makes use of "A Defence of his Labour in the Work of the Ministry" (written 20 January 1602, and circulated in manuscript among his friends , against the charge of thrusting himself forward as a preacher), and mentions that Bunny had translated (apparently with revisions) the "Imitatio Jesu Christi".