had been appointed by Henry VIII one of the executors to his will, concurred in the elevation of Somerset to the protectorate, and officiated at Edward VI's coronation (20 Feb. 1546–7). He took, however, no part in the deprivation of Lord-chancellor Wriothesley, the leading catholic in the council, and, though he was included in the privy council as reconstituted in March, he does not seem to have abetted the measures by which Somerset rendered himself independent of its authority. He attended various meetings of the council until illness incapacitated him, and on 12 April he was directed, owing to news of the aggressive designs of the new French king, Henry II, to proceed to the borders and take up his duties as president of the council of the north (Acts P. C. ed. Dasent, ii. 475). During the summer he was busily engaged in putting the borders in a state of defence and in making preparations for Somerset's invasion. On 8 July, as a last effort for peace, he was commissioned to meet the Scots' envoys at Berwick; but they failed to appear, and the Scots' attack on Langholm caused the council to revoke Tunstall's commission (Acts P. C. ii. 515; Selve, pp. 160, 163).
Tunstall's compliance with the ecclesiastical proceedings of the council provoked a complaint from Gardiner in the spring of 1547, but in the parliament which met in November he voted against both the bills for the abolition of chantries (Lords' Journals, 15 and 23 Dec.). He seems, however, to have acquiesced in a bill ‘for the administration of the sacrament.’ He was not included in the famous Windsor commission appointed in the following year to amend the offices of the church, and in the parliament of November he took a prominent part on the catholic side in the debates on the sacrament and on the ritual recommendations of the commission (Royal MS. 17 B. xxix; Gasquet and Bishop, Edward VI and the Common Prayer). He voted against the act of uniformity and the act enabling priests to marry (Lords' Journals, 15 Jan. and 19 Feb. 1548–9). Nevertheless, after the act of uniformity had been passed, Tunstall enforced its provisions in his diocese. He took no part in the overthrow of Somerset in October 1549, but attended parliament in the following November, and sat on a committee of the House of Lords appointed to devise a measure for the restoration of episcopal authority. He also attended the privy council from December to February 1549–50, and on 5 March was directed to repair to Berwick in view of a threatened Scottish invasion (Acts P. C. ii. 406).
But the hope that the catholics who had aided Warwick in the deposition of Somerset would be able to reverse his religious policy proved vain, and Tunstall, like the other catholics, soon found himself in a difficult position. In September 1550 he was accused by Ninian Menvile, a Scot, of encouraging a rebellion in the north and a Scottish invasion. The precise nature of the accusation never transpired, and it is probable that the real causes of the proceedings against him were his friendship for Somerset, sympathy with his endeavours to check Warwick's persecution of the catholics, and Warwick's plans for dissolving the bishopric of Durham and erecting on its ruins an impregnable position for himself on the borders. On 15 May 1551 he was summoned to London (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1547–80, p. 33), and on the 20th was confined to his house ‘by Coldharbor in Thames Streete’ (Acts P. C. iii. 277; Wriothesley, ii. 65). During his enforced leisure he composed his ‘De Veritate Corporis et Sanguinis Domini nostri Jesu Christi in Eucharistia,’ perhaps the best contemporary statement of the catholic doctrine of the eucharist. It was completed in 1551, the author being then, as he states, in his seventy-seventh year. Canon Dixon asserts that it was published in the same year, but the fact is extremely improbable, and no copy of such an edition has been traced. The first known edition was issued at Paris in 1554; a second edition appeared at Paris in the same year. On 5 Oct. 1551 Cecil and Sir John Mason [q. v.] were directed to examine Tunstall, probably with the object of obtaining evidence against Somerset, whose arrest had already been arranged. Nothing resulted from the inquiry, but some weeks later a letter from Tunstall to Ninian Menvile, containing, it is said, the requisite evidence of his treason, was found in a casket belonging to Somerset. On 20 Dec. he was consequently removed to the Tower, and Northumberland determined to proceed against him in the approaching session of parliament. On 28 March 1552 a bill for his deprivation was introduced into the House of Lords; it passed its third reading, and was sent down to the commons on the 31st. There, being described as ‘a bill against the bishop of Durham for misprision of treason,’ it was read a first time on 4 April. But, in spite of Northumberland's elaborate efforts to pack it, the House of Commons showed many signs of independence, and before proceeding further demanded the attendance of the bishop ‘and his accessories.’ This was apparently refused, and the bill fell through. Tunstall, was, however, detained in the
