GILPIN, BERNARD (1517-1583 ), the "Apostle of the North," was born at Kentmere in 1517, and educated at Queen's College, Oxford, where he was elected fellow in 1542 ; in the same year he was ordained. Gilpin was one of the first scholars elected to Wolsey's new foundation at Christ Church. At Oxford he defended the doctrine of the church against Hooper, but his con fidence in his own cause was somewhat shaken by a public dispu tation in which he supported Hooper against Peter Martyr. In 1552 he preached before Edward VI. a sermon on sacrilege, in which he denounced the expropriation of church property. About this time he became vicar of Norton in the Durham diocese, and obtained a licence, through William Cecil, as a general preacher throughout the kingdom during the king's lifetime. On Mary's accession he went abroad to study at Louvain, Antwerp and Paris, returning to England in 1556 as rector of Easington and archdeacon of Durham. His outspokenness excited hostility, and he was brought before Tunstall, bishop of Durham, on a charge of heresy. Tunstall dismissed the case, and presented Gilpin with the rich living of Houghton-le-Spring, and when the accusation was renewed, he again protected him. Gilpin's enemies, however, obtained a royal warrant for his apprehension from Bonner, bishop of London, but his arrival in London was fortunately de layed by an accident in which he broke his leg, and he was freed from danger by the news of Queen Mary's death. He died at Houghton on May 4, 1583.
Gilpin steadily refused promotion. He held a great position in the North, and displayed a magnificent hospitality at Houghton to all classes of his parishioners, and treated them with great generosity in critical times. He built and endowed a grammar school, maintained a large number of poor children at his own charge, and helped the more promising pupils to enter the uni versities.
See Chr. Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Biography (vol. iii., 4th ed.), which contains a contemporary sketch by G. Carleton, originally printed in Bates's Vitae selectorum aliquot virorum.