Edmund Bonner, an English bishop, born at Hanley, Worcestershire, about 1495, died in the Marshalsea prison, London, Sept. 5, 1569. His reputed father was a sawyer, but some affirm that he was the illegitimate son of a priest. In 1512 he entered Pembroke college, Oxford, where in 1519 he took the degrees of bachelor of the canon and civil laws, and was soon after ordained. By 1525 he had attained the degree of doctor, and was appointed chaplain to Wolsey. After the fall of Wolsey he became a favorite of Henry VIII., and received several livings. Much of his promotion was due to the favor of Thomas Cromwell, into whose schemes for religious reformation he warmly entered. In 1532 he was sent as envoy to Rome, and the next year to Marseilles, where Pope Clement VII. then was, to appeal to a general council from the papal decree of excommunication against Henry VIII. on account of his divorce from Catharine of Aragon. In 1538, while on an embassy to Paris, he was named bishop of Hereford, but before his consecration was translated to the see of London; his commission from the king was dated in 1540. In 1547 he was sent as ambassador to the emperor Charles V. After the death of Henry, Bonner broke with the reformers, and, protesting against the measures of Oranmer, hesitated to take the oath of supremacy; for this he was committed to the Fleet, but making submission was soon released.

His continued hostility to the reformation drew upon him the displeasure of the privy council, before whom he was arraigned on charge of failing to fully comply with an order directing him to preach a sermon on the contested four points. For this, in October, 1549, he was deprived of his bishopric, and committed to the Marshalsea prison. Upon the accession of Queen Mary, in 1553, he was restored to his see, and became a prominent upholder of the persecutions which followed. He was appointed to perform the act of degradation upon Cranmer, against whom he had an old grudge, and executed this function with extreme insolence. The names of 125 persons are given who were executed for heresy in his diocese, and through his agency; and 22 more whom he had condemned were saved only through the influence of Cardinal Pole. When Elizabeth ascended the throne in 1558, she manifested a strong repugnance to Bonner, but left him in possession of his see until the next year, when, upon his refusing to take the oath of supremacy, he was deposed, and again committed to the Marshal-sea prison, where he remained until his death.

Even after ten years' confinement public feeling was still so bitter against him that he was buried at midnight for fear of a tumult.