Bush, Paul

, first bishop of Bristol, was born in 1490, and became a student at the university of Oxford aboiU 1513, and five years after took the degree of B. A. being then, Wood says, numbered among the celebrated poets of the university. He afterwards became a brother of the order called Bonhoms, and after studying some time among the friars of St. Austin (now Wadham college) he was elected provincial of his order at Edington in Wiltshire, and canon residentiary of Sarum. In that station he lived many years, till at length king Henry VIII. being informed of his great knowledge in divinity and physic, made him his chaplain, and advanced him to the newly erected see of Bristol, to which he was consecrated June 25, 1542, at Hampton. Pits very erroneously says he was made bishop of Bristol by Edward VI. partly with a design to draw him from the ancient religion, and partly because they could not find among the reformers any other person of sufficient erudition. This author, however, allows that he denied the true faith by taking a wife, whom, as an excuse, Pits turns into a concubine. In consequence of this connection he was, on the accession of queen Mary, deprived of his dignity, and spent the remainder of his life in a private station at Bristol, where he died in 1558. He was buried on the north side of the choir of the cathedral, and a monument was afterwards erected to his memory; his wife was also buried here in 1553. Pits, and after him a congenial lover of popery, the late Mr. Cole, says, that he dismissed her of his own accord; but that is improbable, as there could be no necessity for such dismission till queen Mary’s accession, which happened in July 1553, and the bishop’s wife died in October following. | Dr. Bush wrote, 1. “An exhortation to Margaret Burges, wife to John Burges, clothier, of Kingswuod, in the county of Wilts,” London, printed in the reign of Edward VI. 2. “Notes on the Psalms,” London, 1525. 3. “Treatise in praise of the Crosse.” 4. “Answer to certain queries concerning the abuses of the Mass,” in Burnet’s History of the -Reformation, Records, No. 25. 5. “Dialogues between Christ and the Virgin Mary.” 6. “Treatise of salves and curing remedies,” 8vo. printed by Redman, no date. 7. “A little Treatise in English, called the Extirpation of Ignorancy, &c.” in verse, printed by Pinson, without date, 4to, and dedicated to the lady Mary. 8. “Carmina diversa.” ¹