James Pilkington (bishop)

James Pilkington (1520 - 1576), was the Bishop of Durham from 1561 until his death in 1576.

James was the son of Richard Pilkington of Rivington Hall, Rivington, in the parish of Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, where he was born. He entered Pembroke College, Cambridge in 1536, but then moved to St John's College, Cambridge, from where he graduated BA in 1539, and MA in 1542. He was ordained at some stage before 1550, when he was presented to a living by Edward VI. However, he resigned this to return to Cambridge, where he graduated Batchelor of Theology in 1551.

During the reign of Queen Mary I, he went abroad, staying at Zürich, Geneva, Basel, and Frankfurt. He only returned in 1559, after an uneventful stay on the Continent.

On 20 July 1559, he was appointed Master of St John's, and also Regius Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. Obviously in favour at court and at the University, he was an active preacher in Cambridge and London, on 20 July 1560 he preached at the memorial service for Martin Bucer and Paul Fagius at Cambridge.

After turning down the bishopric of Winchester over a dispute about crown alienation of church land, he was eventually nominated Bishop of Durham, being consecrated on 2nd March 1561, and enthroned on 10th April. However, he only resigned the mastership of St John's in October of that year, where he was succeeded by his brother Leonard Pilkington.

In 1560, he married Alice, daughter of Sir John Kingsmill of Sydmonton Court in Hampshire, a leading Protestant. They had two daughters.

As bishop, Pilkington sought to bring the diocese back in to order, dealing with the problems of recusancy, the conflicting power of the Earls of Westmorland and Northumberland, in which he was helped by the new Dean, William Whittingham (appointed 1563). Pilkington and Whittingham worked together to ensure the appointment of numerous committed Protestants in what had been an area of strong recusant Catholic feeling.

He died at Bishop Auckland, January 1576 at the age of fifty-five. A contemporary remarked that ‘this wicked country ... caused Mr James Pilkington to spend his life in continual pains and mournings and at length ended him’. His body was reburied on 24 May 1576 at the head of Bishop Beaumont's tomb in front of the high altar of Durham Cathedral