BUSH, PAUL, the first bishop of Bristol, was born in 1490. He became a student in the university of Oxford about 1513, and five years later took the degree of B.A. He afterwards became a brother of the order called bon-hommes; of which, after studying some time among the friars of St Austin, now Wadham College, he was elected provincial. In that station he had lived many years, when, on account of his great knowledge in divinity and physic, he was appointed chaplain to Henry VIII., and in 1542 to the newly erected episcopal see of Bristol. In consequence of his marriage, he was, on the accession of Mary, deprived of his dignity, and spent the remainder of his life in a private station at Bristol, where he died in 1558. Wood says that Bush, while a student at Oxford, was numbered among the celebrated poets of that university.
He wrote, 1. An Exhortation to Margaret Burgess, wife to John
Burgess, clothier, of King's Wood, in the county of Wilts. London, printed in the reign of Edward VI. 8vo. 2. Notes on the Psalms. 3. Treatise in Praise of the Cross. 4. Answer to certain Queries concerning the abuse of the Mass, Records, No. 25. 5. Dialogues between Christ and the Virgin Mary. 6. Treatise of Salves and Curing Remedies. 7. A Little Treatise, called the Extirpation of Ignorance. 8. Carmina diversa.