Thomas Bentham (1513/14–1579) was a scholar and a Protestant minister. One of the Marian exiles, he returned to England to minister to an underground congregation in London. He was made the first Elizabethan

bishop of Coventry and Lichfield The Bishop of Lichfield is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Lichfield in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers 4,516 km2 (1,744 sq. mi.) of the counties of Powys, Staffordshire, Shropshire, Warwickshire and West Mid ...

, serving from 1560 until his death in 1579.

Life

Bentham was born in 1513/14, to unknown parents, in Sherburn, Yorkshire (although which of the two places of this name is uncertain). He was admitted perpetual fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, on 10 November 1546, proceeded M.A. in 1547, and "about that time did solely addict his mind to the study of theology and to the learning of the Hebrew tongue, in which last he was most excellent, as in those of Greek and Latin". On the accession of Mary he was turned out of his fellowship "for his forward and malapert zeal against the catholic religion in the time of

Edward VI Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour ...

, by the visitors appointed by her to regulate the university". He went to Zurich and afterwards to

Basle Basel ( , ), also known as Basle ( ),french: Bâle ; it, Basilea ; rm, label= Sutsilvan, Basileia; other rm, Basilea . is a city in northwestern Switzerland on the river Rhine. Basel is Switzerland's third-most-populous city (after Zürich an ...

, and became preacher to the exiles there, to whom he delivered an exposition of the Acts of the Apostles.

John Foxe John Foxe (1516/1517 – 18 April 1587), an English historian and martyrologist, was the author of '' Actes and Monuments'' (otherwise ''Foxe's Book of Martyrs''), telling of Christian martyrs throughout Western history, but particularly the s ...

, another Fellow of Magdalen, includes anecdotes of Bentham in his '' Book of Martyrs''.''Book of Martyrs''
/ref> He was back in England before the accession of Elizabeth I in 1558, despite the persecution of protestants. In 1559

Ralph Baines Ralph Baines or "Bayne" (c. 1504 – 18 November 1559) was the last Roman Catholic Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, in England. Early life Baines was born around 1504 at Knowsthorpe in Yorkshire. Educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, h ...

, the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who was a Roman Catholic, was imprisoned; he died the same year. Bentham was appointed to the bishopric. He faced a number of economic challenges. He was buried at Eccleshall, where he had his official residence.

Life

Notes

Attribution

Further reading