View source for Cuthbert Tunstall

{{Short description|English bishop and diplomat (1474–1559)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2021}}
{{Use British English|date=May 2012}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| name = Cuthbert Tunstall
| honorific-prefix = [[The Right Reverend]]
| honorific_suffix = Confessor-Bishop
| title = [[Bishop of Durham]]
| image = CuthbertTunstall.jpg
| church = [[Roman Catholic]]
| diocese = [[Diocese of Durham]]
| elected = 1530; 1556
| ended = 1552; 1559 (twice deprived)
| predecessor = Cardinal [[Thomas Wolsey]]
| successor = [[James Pilkington (bishop)|James Pilkington]]
| other_post = [[Bishop of London]]<br />1522–1530
<!---------- Orders ---------->| ordination =
| consecration = 19 October 1522
<!---------- Personal details ---------->| birth_date = 1474
| birth_place = [[Hackforth]], [[Yorkshire]], [[Kingdom of England|England]]
| death_date = {{death date|1559|11|18|df=y}}
| nationality = [[English people|English]]
| parents = Thomas Tunstall
| alma_mater = [[University of Oxford]]
| consecrated_by = [[William Warham]]
}}
[[File:Durham Castle - external Coat of Arms - geograph.org.uk - 1007792.jpg|thumb|Arms of Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, [[Durham Castle]]. [[See of Durham]] impaling Tunstall (''Sable, three combs argent''), ''"which arose from the first of the name and family in England, being barber to [[William the Conqueror]]"''<ref>{{Cite book| title= Historical Anecdotes of Heraldry and Chivalry: Tending to Shew the Origin of&hellip; | author = Mrs. Dobson (Susannah)| date = 1795| url= https://books.google.com/books?id=dMg3AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA117}}</ref>]]
'''Cuthbert Tunstall''' (otherwise spelt '''Tunstal''' or '''Tonstall'''; 1474 – 18 November 1559) was an [[England|English]] [[humanist]], bishop, diplomat, administrator and royal adviser. He served as [[Bishop of Durham]] during the reigns of [[Henry VIII]], [[Edward VI of England|Edward VI]], [[Mary I of England|Mary I]] and [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]].

==Childhood and early career==
Cuthbert Tunstall was born in [[Hackforth]] near [[Bedale]] in [[North Yorkshire]] in 1474, illegitimate son of Sir Thomas Tunstall of [[Thurland Castle]] in [[Lancashire]], who was later an [[esquire of the body]] of [[Richard III]].<ref name="DNB">{{cite web|last1=Newcombe|first1=D. G.|title=Tunstal, Cuthbert (1474–1559)|website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|publisher=Oxford University Press}}</ref> His half-brother, Sir Brian Tunstall, the so-called "stainless knight," was killed at the [[Battle of Flodden]] in 1513. [[Sir Walter Scott]] mentions "stainless Tunstall's banner white" in Canto Six, line 790 of ''[[Marmion (poem)|Marmion]]''.

Little is known of Tunstall's early life, except that he spent two years as a kitchen boy in the household of Sir Thomas Holland, perhaps at [[Lynn, Norfolk|Lynn]], Norfolk.<ref name="DNB" /> He was admitted to [[Balliol College, Oxford]] around 1491, where he studied mathematics, theology, and law. Around 1496, he became a scholar of the [[King's Hall, Cambridge]]. He did not receive a degree from either Oxford or Cambridge; he graduated from the [[University of Padua]] in 1505 as a [[Doctor of Civil Law]] and a [[Doctor of Canon Law]]. At Padua, he studied under some of the leading [[Humanism|humanists]] and became proficient in [[Greek language|Greek]] and [[Hebrew language|Hebrew]].<ref name="DNB" />

[[William Warham]], [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], made Tunstall his chancellor on 25 August 1511, and shortly afterward he appointed him rector of [[Harrow on the Hill]]. He became a [[canon (priest)|canon]] of [[Lincoln Cathedral|Lincoln]] in 1514, and [[archdeacon of Chester]] in 1515. Soon thereafter, he was employed on diplomatic business by King [[Henry VIII]] and [[Thomas Wolsey|Cardinal Wolsey]]. In 1515, Tunstall was sent to [[Flanders]] with Sir [[Thomas More]], a friend since his school days, which More mentions in a glowing tribute in the opening paragraph of [[Utopia (More book)|Utopia]].<ref>"More's closest associate in life was Cuthbert Tunstall" R.W. Chambers, apud {{cite journal |last1=Gee |first1=John Archer |title=Cuthbert Tunstall's Copy of the First Edition of Utopia |journal=The Yale University Library Gazette |date=1941 |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=77–83 |jstor=40857097 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40857097 |issn=0044-0175}}</ref> At Brussels, he met [[Erasmus]] as well, becoming the intimate friend of both scholars and [[Pieter Gillis|Peter Gilles]], becoming the godfather to Gilles' daughter.<ref>{{cite book|last=More|first=Thomas|title=Utopia: A Revised Translation, Backgrounds, Criticism|year=1991|publisher=W. W. Norton & Company|location=New York City|isbn=0-393-96145-1|page=[https://archive.org/details/utopiarevisedtra00more/page/3 3]|edition=2|author-link=Sir Thomas More|editor=Robert Adams|url-access=registration|url=https://archive.org/details/utopiarevisedtra00more/page/3}}</ref> He helped Erasmus make corrections to the second edition of his [[Novum Instrumentum omne#Second edition|New Testament]].<ref name=odds/> In 1519, he was sent to [[Cologne]]; a visit to [[Worms, Germany|Worms]] (1520–21) gave him a sense of the threatening significance held by the [[Lutheran]] movement.{{refn|In Worms he was an early reader of Luther's [[On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church]], writing: "They say there is much more strange opinions in it near to the opinions of Bohemia (Hussites). I pray God keep that book out of England." ''1. ‘Quae pestis unquam tam perniciosa invasit gregem christi?’: The Role of the Book in the Reception of Lutheranism in England''<ref>{{cite book |title=Project MUSE - Languages in the Lutheran Reformation: Textual Networks and the Spread of Ideas |publisher=Project MUSe, Amsterdam University |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/315/edited_volume/chapter/2321289 |language=en}}</ref> }}

Tunstall was made [[Master of the Rolls]] in 1516 and [[Dean (religion)|Dean]] of [[Salisbury Cathedral|Salisbury]] in 1521. In 1522, he published the first book of mathematics printed in England, based on the Italian [[Luca Pacioli]].<ref name=odds>{{cite web |title=Bishop Tunstall: The man who survived the Tudors by calculating the odds |url=https://dulib.blog/2022/03/14/bishop-tunstall-the-man-who-survived-the-tudors-by-calculating-the-odds/ |website=Durham University Library and Collections Blog |access-date=22 September 2023 |date=14 March 2022}}</ref> In 1522, he became [[Bishop of London]] by papal provision, and on 25 May 1523, he was made [[Lord Privy Seal|Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal]]. In 1525, he negotiated with the Holy Roman Emperor [[Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor|Charles V]] after the [[Battle of Pavia]], and he helped to arrange the [[Treaty of Cambrai, 1529|Peace of Cambrai]] in 1529.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

==Protestantism==
Tunstall met [[William Tyndale]] in 1523 seeking patronage to translate the Bible (into contemporaneous [[Early Modern English]],) which Tunstall declined, saying he already funded several scholars. Tunstall, who preferred burning heretical books to heretics,<ref>"No one was ever burned in the diocese of Durham under Tunstall’s rule. " {{cite web |title=Bishop Tunstall: The man who survived the Tudors by calculating the odds |url=https://dulib.blog/2022/03/14/bishop-tunstall-the-man-who-survived-the-tudors-by-calculating-the-odds/ |website=Durham University Library and Collections Blog |date=14 March 2022}}</ref> later presided over the buying up and burning of almost all copies of the first edition of [[Tyndale Bible|Tyndale's New Testament]] at Paul's Cross in October 1526. According to some scholars this helped fund Tyndale's subsequent improved edition,[https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3366/more.2008.45.3.9] as [[Thomas More]] had warned.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Gee |first1=John Archer |title=Cuthbert Tunstall's Copy of the First Edition of Utopia |journal=The Yale University Library Gazette |date=1941 |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=77–83 |jstor=40857097 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40857097 |issn=0044-0175}}</ref>{{rp|81}}

==Bishop of Durham under Henry VIII and Edward VI==
[[File:History of the great reformation in Europe in the times of Luther and Calvin.. (1870) (14765778105).jpg|thumb|Bishop Tunstall burning a translation of the Bible in London, 1870 illustration]]
On 22 February 1530, again by papal provision, Tunstall succeeded Cardinal Wolsey as [[Bishop of Durham]]. This role involved the assumption of [[County palatine|quasi-regal power and authority]] within the territory of the diocese, the [[County Palatine of Durham]]. In 1537, he was made President of the new [[Council of the North]]. Although he was often engaged in time-consuming negotiations with the Scots, he took part in other public business and attended parliament where, in 1539, he participated in the discussion on the [[Six Articles (1539)|Bill of Six Articles]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

In the question of [[Henry VIII of England#The King's Great Matter|King Henry's divorce]], Tunstall acted as one of [[Catherine of Aragon|Queen Catherine]]'s counselors. Unlike Bishop [[John Fisher]] and Sir Thomas More, Tunstall adopted a policy of passive obedience and acquiescence regarding many matters for which he likely held little support during the troubled years following the English Reformation. While Tunstall adhered firmly to [[Catholic church|Roman Catholic]] doctrine and practices, after some hesitation he accepted Henry as head of the Church of England, and he publicly defended this position, accepting a schism with Rome.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

Tunstall disliked the religious policy pursued by the advisers of King [[Edward VI of England|Edward VI]] and voted against the first [[Act of Uniformity 1549|Act of Uniformity]] in 1549. However, he continued to discharge his public duties without interruption and hoped in vain that the [[John Dudley|Earl of Warwick]] might be convinced to reverse the anti-Catholic policy of the [[Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset|Duke of Somerset]]. After Somerset's fall, Tunstall was summoned to London in May 1551 and confined to his house there. During this captivity, he composed a treatise on the [[Eucharist]], which was published in Paris in 1554. At the end of 1551, he was imprisoned in the [[Tower of London]], and a bill for his deprivation was introduced into the [[English House of Commons|House of Commons]]. When this failed, he was tried by a commission on 4–5 October 1552 and deprived of his bishopric.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}}

==Bishop of Durham under Mary I and Elizabeth I==
On the accession of the Catholic Queen [[Mary I of England|Mary I]] to the throne in 1553, Tunstall was granted liberty. His bishopric, which had been dissolved by Act of Parliament in March 1553, was re-established by a further Act in April 1554. Tunstall assumed his office as Bishop of Durham once more. He maintained his earlier conciliatory approach, indulging in no systematic persecution of [[Protestants]].{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} Through Mary's reign he ruled his diocese in peace.<!-- any proof of this? -->

When the Protestant [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]] ascended to the throne, Tunstall refused to take the [[Oath of Supremacy]] and would not participate in the consecration of the [[Church of England|Anglican]] [[Matthew Parker]] as [[Archbishop of Canterbury]]. He was arrested, deprived again of his [[episcopal see|diocese]] in September 1559, and held prisoner at [[Lambeth Palace]],{{sfn|Chisholm|1911}} where he died within a few weeks, aged 85. He was one of eleven Roman Catholic bishops to die in custody during Elizabeth's reign.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Phillips |first1=G. E. |title=The Extinction of the Ancient Hierarchy |date=1905 |publisher=Sands |location=London |page=23 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=olwLAAAAYAAJ |access-date=2 Dec 2022}}</ref>

He was buried in the parish church of [[Garden Museum|St Mary-at-Lambeth]], now a deconsecrated building.<ref>[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]</ref>

The Anglican historian [[Albert Pollard|Albert F. Pollard]] wrote:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Pollard |first1=A. E.|title=Dictionary of National Biography |date=1899 |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |page=58:314 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xicJAAAAIAAJ&dq=Tunstall%27s+long+career+of+eighty-five+years,+for+thirty-seven+of+which+he+was+a+bishop,+is+one+of+the+most+consistent+and+honourable+in+the+sixteenth+century.&pg=RA1-PA314 |access-date=2 Dec 2022}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|Tunstall's long career of eighty-five years, for thirty-seven of which he was a bishop, is one of the most consistent and honourable in the sixteenth century. The extent of the religious revolution under Edward VI caused him to reverse his views on the royal supremacy and he refused to change them again under Elizabeth.}}

==Works==
* ''[[De arte supputandi libri quattuor]]'' (1522)
::Based on the ''Summa'' of [[Luca Pacioli]], this was the first printed work published in England that was devoted exclusively to [[mathematics]].
* ''Confutatio cavillationum quibus SS. Eucharistiae Sacramentum ab impiis Caphernaitis impeti solet'' (Paris, 1552)
* ''De veritate corporis et sanguinis domini nostri Jesu Christi in eucharistia'' (Paris, 1554)
* ''Compendium in decem libros ethicorum Aristotelis'' (Paris, 1554)
* ''Certaine godly and devout prayers made in Latin by C. Tunstall and translated into Englishe by Thomas Paynelle, Clerke'' (London, 1558).
* Tunstall's correspondence as president of the Council of the North is in the [[British Library]].

==See also==
*[[James Stonnes]] (b. 1513; d. after 1585) Catholic priest, ordained by Tunstall in 1539

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==References==
*{{EB1911 |wstitle=Tunstall, Cuthbert  |volume=27 |page=410}}
*{{CE1913 |wstitle=Cuthbert Tunstall |first=Edwin |last=Burton |volume=15}}
*{{cite DNB|wstitle=Tunstall, Cuthbert|volume=57|first= Albert Frederick|last= Pollard}}
*{{cite ODNB|first=D. G.|last= Newcombe|title=Tunstal, Cuthbert (1474–1559)|id= 27817}}

==External links==
*{{MacTutor Biography|id=Tunstall}}
{{s-start}}
{{s-rel|ca}}
{{s-bef
| before = [[Richard Fitz-James]]
}}
{{s-ttl
| title = [[Bishop of London]]
| years = 1522–1530
}}
{{s-aft
| after = [[John Stokesley]]
}}
{{s-rel|en}}
{{s-bef
| before = Cardinal [[Thomas Wolsey]]
}}
{{s-ttl
| title = [[Bishop of Durham]]
| years = 1530–1552<br />1553–1558
}}
{{s-aft
| after = [[James Pilkington (bishop)|James Pilkington]]
}}
{{s-off}}
{{s-bef
| before = [[Henry Marney, 1st Baron Marney|The Lord Marney]]
}}
{{s-ttl
| title = [[Lord Privy Seal]]
| years = 1523–1530
}}
{{s-aft
| after = [[Thomas Boleyn, 1st Earl of Wiltshire|The Earl of Wiltshire]]
}}
{{s-end}}
{{Deans of Salisbury}}
{{Bishops of London}}
{{Bishops of Durham}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tunstall, Cuthbert}}
[[Category:1474 births]]
[[Category:1559 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Hambleton District]]
[[Category:Lords Privy Seal]]
[[Category:Bishops of Durham]]
[[Category:Bishops of London]]
[[Category:Latin commentators on Aristotle]]
[[Category:Deans of Salisbury]]
[[Category:Archdeacons of Chester]]
[[Category:Masters of the Rolls]]
[[Category:16th-century English Roman Catholic bishops]]
[[Category:Alumni of the University of Oxford]]