This coarsest and most cruel persecutor of the Protestants, whose anger
was particularly rife against married priests, was himself the
illegitimate son of a priest, George Savage, the illegitimate son of Sir
John Savage of Cheshire. His father was parson of Dunham; and during
his earlier years he was known indiscriminately as Edmund Savage or
Bonner, which last appears to have been his mother's name. The only
punishment which this monster received at the hands of men lay in the
refusal of Elizabeth to permit him to kiss her hand when the Bishops met
her on her coronation progress, and the restriction of his residence for
the remainder of his life. Probably he might even have been spared the
last penalty, had he not had the cool effrontery to take his seat in the
House of Lords as Bishop of London in Elizabeth's first Parliament.
This provocation was too much for the patience of that determined
Princess, and Bonner speedily found himself in the Marshalsea, where he
was not uncomfortably accommodated until his death.
Elected Bishop of Hereford, December 17, 1539, but translated to London
before consecration; consecrated Bishop of London, in the Bishop of
London's Palace, by Stephen Gardiner of Winchester, Richard Sampson of
Chichester, and John [? William] Skippe of Hereford, April 2, 1540;
deprived, October 1, 1549; restored, August 5, 1553; re-deprived, May
29, 1559; died September 5, 1569; buried in the churchyard of Saint
George, Southwark.