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Gardiner, Stephen c.1483-1555
English prelate

Born in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, he received a PhD in civil and canon law at Cambridge (1520-21), and was made Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1525-49, 1553-55). He became Thomas Wolsey's secretary (1525), then Bishop of Winchester (1531), and was sent to Rome to further Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragon (1527-33). He supported the royal supremacy, but opposed doctrinal reformation, and for this was imprisoned and deprived of his bishopric on Edward VI's accession. Released and restored by Mary I, Tudor (1553), he became a vigorous persecutor of Protestants.