on, which had gained him the friendship and correspondence of
Erasmus; he was also mild, charitable, and of unblemished morals.
Attached by principle to the faith of his forefathers, but loth either
to incur personal hazard, or to sacrifice the almost princely emoluments
of the see of Durham, he had contented himself with regularly opposing
in the house of lords all the ecclesiastical innovations of Edward's
reign, and as regularly giving them his concurrence when once
established. It was not, therefore, professedly on a religious account
that he had suffered deprivation and imprisonment, but on an obscure
charge of having participated in some traitorous or rebellious design: a
charge brought against him, in the opinion of most, falsely, and
through the corrupt procurement of Northumberland, to whose project of
erecting the bishopric of Durham into a county palatine for himself, the
deprivation of Tonstal, and the abolition of the see by act of
parliament, were indispensable preliminaries. This meek and amiable
prelate returned to the exercise of his high functions, without a wish
of revenging on the protestants, in their adversity, the painful acts of
disingenuousness which their late ascendency had forced upon him. During
the whole of Mary's reign, no person is recorded to have suffered for
religion within the limits of his diocess. The mercy which he had shown,
he afterwards most deservedly experienced. Refusing, on the accession of
Elizabeth, to preserve his mitre by a repetition of compliances of which
so many recent examples of conscientious suffering in men of both
persuasions must have rendered him ashamed, he suffered a second
deprivation; but his person was only committed to the honorable custody
of archbishop Parker. By this learned and munificent prelate the
acquirements and virtues of Tonstal were duly appretiated and esteemed.
He found at Lambeth a retirement suited to his age, his tastes, his
favorite pursuits; by the arguments of his friendly host he was brought
to renounce several of the grosser corruptions of popery; and dying in
the year 1560, an honorable monument was erected by the primate to his
memory.

With views and sentiments how opposite did Gardiner and Bonner resume
the crosier! A deep-rooted conviction of the truth and vital importance
of the religious opinions which he defends, supplies to the persecutor
the only apology of which his foolish and atrocious barbarity admits;
and to men natur