Gardiner

Gardiner, STEPHEN, Bishop of Winchester, was born between 1483 and 1490 at Bury St Edmunds—a clothworker's son, say some; others, a natural son of Bishop Woodville of Salisbury. He studied at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, in 1520-21 proceeding doctor of civil and of canon law; and soon after, through the patronage of the Duke of Norfolk, he was introduced to Wolsey, who made him his secretary. In this capacity he won the confidence of Henry VIII., and by him was employed during 1527-33 in promoting at Rome and elsewhere his divorce from Catharine of Aragon. At this time he was known as Dr Stephens. He had become master of his old college in 1525, Archdeacon of Norfolk in 1529, and two years later of Leicester, when in November 1531 he was consecrated Bishop of Winchester. Good Catholic though he was, he supported the royal supremacy, and wrote a treatise in defence of it, De verâ Obedientiâ (1535). Still, he opposed all measures tending to a doctrinal reformation, he had a principal hand in the downfall of Thomas Cromwell, and the 'Six Articles' were largely of his framing, though the story that he lost Henry's favour by an attempt to impeach Catharine Parr of heresy is not based upon contemporary authority. On Edward VI.'s accession (1547), for refusing to comply with the new teaching he was committed to the Fleet prison, but released three weeks afterwards, to be next year again seized and lodged in the Tower, and in 1552 deprived of his bishopric. When in 1553 Mary ascended the throne, he was set at liberty, restored to his see, and appointed Lord High Chancellor of England. He now took the lead in the persecution of the Protestants, and has been charged with the grossest cruelty. Dr Maitland shows, however, that in very many instances the parties brought before his court were arraigned for treason rather than heresy; and certain it is that he helped Peter Martyr to leave England, and interposed to protect Roger Ascham. He died very wealthy at Whitehall, of the gout, on 12th November 1555, and was buried in his cathedral. On his deathbed he cried out in Latin, 'I have denied with Peter, I have gone out with Peter; but I have not wept with Peter'—referring doubtless to his temporary renunciation of the papal supremacy. We have a dozen Latin and English treatises from his pen; but the Necessary Doctrine and Eru-dition of a Christian Man (1543) was probably Henry's own, not a joint production of Gardiner and Cranmer. Gardiner's character has been the subject of much debate; but it can scarcely be doubted that he was a zealous, though not a spiritually-minded, churchman. His devotion was that of an out-and-out partisan; but it was none the less real, for he would have laid down his life for the cause which commanded his sympathies. See Bass Mullinger in the Dict. Nat. Biog.; and Dixon's Hist. of the Ch. of England (vol. iv. 1891).