Tunstall

Tunstall, CUTHBERT, was born at Hackforth in Yorkshire in 1474, brother of the Sir Brian Tunstall who fell at Flodden. He was educated at Oxford, Cambridge, and Padua, and became in turn Rector of Stanhope, Archdeacon of Chester, Rector of Harrow-on-the-Hill, Master of the Rolls, Dean of Salisbury (1519), Bishop of London (1522) and of Durham (1530). In 1516 he went on an embassy to Charles V. at Brussels, and there formed a fast friendship with Erasmus. Between 1516 and 1530 he was often employed on embassies to France and Germany, and in 1527 he had accompanied Wolsey on his magnificent embassy to France. He accepted the Royal Supremacy, but took alarm at the sweeping measures of reform under Edward VI., and was at length in 1552 deprived, through the influence of Northumberland, who coveted the wealth of the see. The accession of Mary restored the bishop, but under his mild rule not a single victim died for heresy throughout the diocese. On Elizabeth's accession he refused to take the oath of supremacy and was deprived, September 29, 1559. About six weeks after he died at Lambeth in the house of Archbishop Parker, and was buried in the chancel of Lambeth church. Tunstall was a ripe scholar and an admirable man, but left little beyond a defence of transubstantiation and a number of Latin prayers. He was uncle to the famous apostle Bernard Gilpin.