BENTHAM, Thomas, bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, was born at Sherburn, in Yorkshire, in 1513, and educated in Magdalen College, Oxford. On Edward VI.'s accession to the crown, he threw off the mask of popery, which, during the equivocal reign of Henry VIII., he had worn with reluctance. On the accession of Mary he was deprived of his fellowship, and retired to Basle in Switzerland, where for some time he expounded the Scriptures to the English exiles in that city, but returned before the death of the queen, and was appointed superintendent of a private congregation in London. In the second year of Elizabeth, Bentham was consecrated bishop of Lichfield and Coventry. He died in 1578. He had the character of a pious and zealous reformer, and was particularly celebrated for his knowledge of the Hebrew language.