Gilbert Bourne

Entering the University of Oxford in 1524, he became a Fellow of All Souls in 1531, proceeded in Arts in 1532, and in 1543 was admitted to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity,[1] having in 1541 been named prebendary of Worcester, on the suppression of the old monastic chapter there.

Soon after Queen Mary's accession, while preaching at St Paul's Cross, Bourne was pulled violently from the pulpit and narrowly escaped a dagger which a fanatic hurled at him.

He set out, as his reply to Parker shows, well knowing what to expect, and on 18 June was committed to the Tower of London as a close prisoner, joining five other bishops already confined there.

The Council, in June, 1565, sent them all back to the Tower, although a little later in a letter of Parker (January 1566), Bullingham is mentioned as though again for a time Bishop Bourne's actual or intended keeper, while all the captive prelates continue during the next two years to be referred to as then in the public prisons.

After nearly ten years of this, Bishop Bourne died, at Silverton in Devonshire, having been there committed (apparently not long) to the custody of George Carew, Archdeacon of Exeter and Dean of Windsor.