Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 4.djvu/44

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BON—BON

the Transition style, surmounted by five towers. The town also possesses a " Kathhaus," of modern erection, a court house, a hospital, a gymnasium, and a theatre. By the far the finest of its buildings, however, is its famous university, which occupies the larger part of the southern frontage of the town. The present establishment only dates from 1818, and owes its existence to the king of Prussia; but as early as 178G the academy which had been founded about nine years before was raised by Archbishop Maximilian Frederick of Cologne to the rank of a uni versity, and continued to exercise its functions till 1794, when it was dissolved by the last elector. The building now occupied was originally the electoral palace, con structed about 1717 out of the materials of the old fortifications. It was remodelled after the town came into Prussian possession. There are five faculties in the university a legal, a medical, and a philosophic, and one of Catholic and another of Protestant theology ; in 1873 it was attended by 752 students, ranking as eighth among the German universities. The library num bers upwards of 200,000 volumes ; and the antiquarian museum contains a valuable collection of Roman relics discovered in the neighbourhood. A separate building for anatomical operations is situated in the extensive garden to the south of the university ; and an academy of agriculture, with a natural history museum and botanic garden attached, is established in the palace of Clemensruhe at Poppelsdorf, which is reached by a fine avenue about a mile long, bordered on both sides by a double row of chest nut trees. A splendid observatory, long under the charge of Argelander, stands on the south side of the road. Among the numerous men of learning who have taught or teach in Bonn are the theologians Bleek and Lange, Hermes and Achterfeldt ; the jurists Walter and Bocking ; Harless, Mayer, and Eindfleisch in the medical faculty ; and Niebuhr, Welcker, Ritschl, Brandis, Lassen, Simrock, Diez, and Sybel, in various branches of literature and history. Beethoven was born in the town, and a statue was erected to him in the Miinsterplatz in 1845. Niebuhr is buried in the cemetery outside of the Sternthor, where a monument was placed to his memory by Frederick William IV. But for its university Bonn would be a place of comparatively little importance, its industry and com merce being of moderate dimensions. Its principal manufactures are cotton and silk, earthenware, soap, vitriol, and tobacco ; and its trade, chiefly carried on by the Rhine, consists largely of corn and wine. Population in^ 1871, 26,030. Bonn (Bonna or Castra Bonnensia), originally a town of the TIbii, became at an early period the site of a Roman military settlement, and as such is frequently mentioned by Tacitus. It was the scene, in 70 A.D., of a battle, in which the Romans were defeated by Claudius Civilis, the valiant leader of the Batavians. Greatly reduced by successive barbarian inroads it was restored about 359 by the Emperor Julian, but its import ance only dates from 1268, when it became the residence of the electors of Cologne. During the various wars that devastated Germany in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries, the town was frequently besieged and occupied by the averal belligerents, but continued to belong to the electors I 1794, when the French took possession of it. At the peace of LuneVille they were formally recognized in their occupation ; but by the Vienna Congress of 1814 the town was made over to Prussia. The fortifications had

been dismantled in 1717.
BONNER, or Boner, Edmund, an English prelate,

lous for his persecutions of the Protestants during the reign of Queen Mary, was born at Hanley in Worcester shire about the end of the 15th century, and generally 1 for the natural son of George Savage, a priest who was the natural son of Sir John Savage of Clifton in tho same county. Strype in his Memorials of Cranmcr, how ever, says he was positively assured that Bonner was the legitimate offspring of a poor man, who lived in a cottage long afterwards known as Boner s place. About 1512 he entered as a student of Broadgate Hall (now Pembroke College), Oxford; and in 1519 he was admitted as bachelor of the canon and of the civil law. Having been admitted into orders, he obtained some preferment in the diocese of Worcester. In 1525 he took his degree as doctor, and attracted the notice and patronage of Wolsey. Bonner was with the cardinal at Cawood when he was arrested on charge of high treason. After the death of AVolsey he adopted Lutheran sentiments, and insinuated himself into the favour of Henry VIII., who made him one of his chaplains, and employed him in several embassies abroad. In 1532 he was sent to Rome with Sir Edward Carne, to answer for the king, who had been cited to appear in person or by proxy in regard to the divorce of Queen Catharine. In 1533, being again despatched to Pope Clement VII., then at Marseilles, to intimate Henry s appeal to a future general council from the sentence pro nounced against his divorce, he threatened the Pope with so much resolution, that his holiness talked of having him burned alive or thrown into a cauldron of melted lead. Clement did not foresee that the man whom he had thus menaced with the flames was destined to burn heretics in England in support cf the very faith which, under Henry, he had lent his aid to overthrow. In 1538, being then ambassador at the court of France, he was nominated bishop of Hereford ; but before consecration, he was translated to the see of London, and was enthroned in April 1540. When Henry VIII. died in 1547, Bonner was ambassador at the court of the Emperor Charles V. During Henry s reign he was constantly zealous in his opposi tion to the Pope, and favoured the Reformation in obedience to the king, who exacted rigid compliance with all his caprices. On the accession of Edward, however, Bonner refused to -take the oath of supremacy, and was com mitted to the Fleet, where he remained until he pro mised obedience to the laws. After his release he assented to the Reformation, but with such manifest reluctance, that he was twice reprimanded by the Privy Council, and in 1549 was, after a long trial, committed to the Marshalsea, and deprived of his bishopric, to which, however, he was restored on the accession of Mary ; and soon afterwards he was appointed, in place of Cranmer, vicegerent and president of the Convocation. From this time he became the chief instrument of persecution, and is said to have condemned no less than 200 Protestants to the flames in the space of three years. On the accession of Elizabeth he appeared with the rest of the bishops at Highgate, to congratulate her ; but the queen refused to permit him to kiss her hand. Having, in the second year of her reign, refused to take the oath of supremacy, he was again committed to the Marshalsea, where he died, September 5, 1569, after a confinement of ten years. The character of Bonner was remarkable for obstinacy and inflexibility in everything save principle ; yet even in this respect it exhibits some striking contrasts. In his early career he accommodated his principles to his convenience and ambition ; after his return to Catholicism, he remained steadfast to the church, and, when disgraced, bore his deprivation and imprisonment with apparent resignation. The charge of atheism brought against one so defiled with blood was superfluous. He was constitutionally merci less and austere, fitted by nature for a persecutor, and equally capable of employing the same ardent zeal either against or in favour of any cause that he espoused. Among

his works &VQ,Responsum fiExhortatio in LaudemSacerdotii,