Bunney, Edmund

, descended from an ancient family in Yorkshire, was born at a house called the Vache, near Chalfont St. Giles’s, in Buckinghamshire, in 1540, and when sixteen years old was sent to Oxford, and having taken his bachelor’s degree, was elected probationer fellow of Magdalen college. He was at this time distinguished for his knowledge of logic and philosophy, and soon after went to Staple’s Inn, and then to Gray’s Inn, where he spent about two years in the study of the law, which profession his father wished him to follow. His own inclination, however, was for the study of divinity, which displeased his father so much, that, to use his own words, he “cast him off,” although a man of piety himself, and one that had fled for his religion in queen Mary’s days. He returned accordingly to Oxford, and took his master’s degree in 1564. In, the year following he was elected fellow of Merton college, an irregular act of the society, which, however, Wood says was absolutely necessary, as there was no person then in Merton college able to preach any public sermon in the college turn; and not only there, but throughout the university at large, there was a great scarcity of theologists. In 1570 he was admitted to the reading of the sentences, and about the same time became chaplain to 'archbishop Grindall, who gave him a prebend in that church, and the rectory of Bolton-Percy about six miles distant. This rectory he held twenty-five years, and then resigned it, but retained his prebend. In 1570 we also find that he was subdean of York, which he resigned in 1579. In 1585 he was collated, being then B. D. to a prebend in Carlisle, and had likewise, although we know not at what period, a prebend in St. Paul’s. It appears | that he preached and catechised very frequently, both in Oxford and in many other places, travelling over a considerable part of the kingdom, and preaching wherever there appeared a want of clergy. This zeal, his being a Calvinist, and his preaching extempore, brought him under the imputation of being too forward and meddling, against which he vindicated himself in “A Defence of his labours in the work of the Ministry,” written Jan. 20, 1602, but circulated only in manuscript. He died at Cawood in Yorkshire, Feb. 26 (on his monument, but 27 in archbishop Matthews’s ms diary) 1617, and was buried in York cathedral. He published, 1. “The Sum of Christian Religion,” Lond. 1576, 8vo. 2. “Abridgment of Calvin’s Institutions,” from May’s translation, ibid. 1580, 8vo. 3. “Sceptre of Judah,” &c. ibid. 1584, 8vo. 4. “The Coronation of King David, &c.” 4to, 1588. 5. Three or four controversial pamphlets with Parsons, the Jesuit. 6. “The Corner Stone, or a form of teaching Jesus Christ out of the Scriptures,” ibid. 1611, fol. ¹