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His Eminence William Petow O.F.M.
Cardinal Bishop of Salisbury
Diocese	Salisbury
Appointed	30 March 1543
Term ended	1553 (resignation)
Predecessor	Gasparo Contarini
Successor	John Capon
Orders
Created cardinal	14 June 1557 byPope Paul IV
Personal details
Born	c. 1483 Chesterton,Warwickshire,England
Died	1558 (aged c. 75/74) London,England

William Petow (orPeto,Peyto;c. 1483 – April 1558 or 1559?) was an EnglishFranciscan friar and, briefly, aCardinal.

Though his parentage was long unknown, it is now established that he was the son of Edward Peyto ofChesterton, Warwickshire, and Goditha, daughter of Sir Thomas Throckmorton ofCoughton. He was educated under the guidance of theGrey Friars, that is the Franciscans and took his degree of B.A. at theUniversity of Oxford; he was incorporated in theUniversity of Cambridge, 1502–1503, and becameM.A. there in 1505. In 1506 he was elected fellow ofQueens' College, Cambridge, and on 14 June 1510, was incorporated M.A. at Oxford.

Entering theObservant branch of the Franciscan Order, he became known for his holiness of life, and was appointed confessor toHenry VIII's daughterMary. Later on he was elected Provincial of England and was the holder of that office when in 1532 he denounced Henry's divorce in the King's presence;R. W. Chambers wrote that Peyto did not fall afoul of the statutes against prophesying evil to the king when he warned Henry of possible consequences in the future (having dogs lick his blood, as they hadAhab's, after death.^[1]), because he spoke conditionally of this happeningif the king were to behave like Ahab.^[2] He was imprisoned till the end of that year, after which he went abroad and spent many years atAntwerp and elsewhere in theLow Countries, being active on behalf of all Catholic interests.

In 1539 Petow was included in theAct of Attainder passed againstCardinal Pole and his friends (31 Hen. 8. c. 5), but he was in Italy at the time and remained there out of the king's reach. On 30 March 1543,Pope Paul III nominated himBishop of Salisbury, though he could not then obtain possession of his diocese. On Henry VIII's death in 1547, Petow's reputation was greatly enhanced, as reported byGilbert Burnet in hisHistory of the Reformation of the Church of England, when Henry's coffin, having sustained some damage from jolting along the rough roads to Windsor, was placed at the former Sion Abbey for a night, where some bodily fluids mixed with blood leaked through a cleft in the lead coffin onto the pavement; the next morning, when a workman came to repair the damage, a dog crept up and was observed licking up the fluid, in apparent fulfillment of Petow's prophecy.^[3] Nevertheless, Petow did not claim the see even on the accession of the Roman Catholic Mary I in 1553, but resigned it and retired to his old convent atGreenwich.

There he remained tillPope Paul IV, who had known him in Rome and highly esteemed him, decided to create him cardinal andpapal legate in place of Pole. But as Petow was very old and his powers were failing, he declined both dignities.^{[citation needed]} While he was subsequently created cardinal on 14 June 1557, Queen Mary would not allow him to receive the hat, and his appointment was received with public derision.^{[citation needed]}

It was a tradition among the Franciscans that he was pelted with stones by a London mob, and so injured that he shortly afterwards died.^[4] Other accounts represent him as dying in France.^{[citation needed]}

The date frequently assigned for his death (April, 1558) is likely incorrect, as on 31 October 1558, Queen Mary wrote to the pope that she had offered to reinstate him in the Bishopric of Salisbury on the death ofBishop Capon, but that he had declined because of age and infirmity.

• Charles Henry Cooper,Athenæ Cantabrigienses, I (Cambridge, 1858), giving new particulars as to his family and his university career
• Anthony à Wood,Athenæ Oxonienses, ed. Bliss (London, 1813–20)
• Anthony Parkinson,Collectanea Anglo-Minoritica (London, 1726)
• Dodd, Charles,Church History (Brussels vere Wolverhampton, 1737–42)
• William Maziere Brady,Episcopal Succession, I, II (Rome, 1877)
• Francis Aidan Gasquet,Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (London, 1888)
• James Gairdner inDictionary of National Biography, citing state papers but otherwise an imperfect and defective account
• Joseph Gillow,Bibliographical Dictionary of the English Catholics (London, 1885)
• Mary Jean Stone,Mary the First (London, 1901)
• Marie Halle,Life of Cardinal Pole (London, 1910)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Edwin Burton (1911). "William Peyto". In Herbermann, Charles (ed.).Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 11. New York: Robert Appleton Company.

• 16th-century English cardinals
• English Franciscans
• People from Stratford-on-Avon District
• English Roman Catholics
• 1550s deaths
• Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge
• 1483 births

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