Bentham was born in 1513/14, to unknown parents, in Sherburn, Yorkshire (although which of the two places of this name is uncertain).
in 1547, and "about that time did solely addict his mind to the study of theology and to the learning of the Hebrew tongue, in which last he was most excellent, as in those of Greek and Latin".
On the accession of Mary he was turned out of his fellowship "for his forward and malapert zeal against the catholic religion in the time of Edward VI, by the visitors appointed by her to regulate the university".
John Foxe, another Fellow of Magdalen, includes anecdotes of Bentham in his Book of Martyrs.
[4] In 1559 Ralph Baines, the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, who was a Roman Catholic, was imprisoned; he died the same year.