Richard Hunne

Richard Hunne was an English merchant tailor in the City of London during the early years of the reign of Henry VIII, who was king from 1509 to 1547. After a dispute with his priest over his infant son's funeral, Hunne sought to use the English common law courts to challenge the church's authority. In response, church officials arrested him for trial in an ecclesiastical court on the capital charge of heresy.

In December 1514, while awaiting trial, Hunne was found dead in his cell, and murder by church officials was suspected. His death caused widespread anger against the clergy, and months of political and religious turmoil followed.

In March 1511, Hunne refused to pay the standard mortuary fee, the baby's christening robe, to the rector of St Mary Matfelon in Whitechapel, Thomas Dryffeld, after the funeral of his dead five-week-old son called Stephen. The matter was not pursued by the Church until Hunne and a friend challenged the rector of St Michael Cornhill over the title to a tenement in November 1511. Hunne was then sued by the rector of St Mary Matfelon for the mortuary fee and appeared in the ecclesiastical Court of Audience, presided over by Cuthbert Tunstall, chancellor to the Archbishop of Canterbury, in April 1512. The court found in favour of the rector.

On 27 December 1512, Hunne attended vespers at the same church and the priest refused to proceed with the service until Hunne left. According to the account of Hunne in John Foxe's Acts and Monuments, the priest shouted "Hunne, thou art accursed and standest accursed!", meaning by this that Hunne had been excommunicated by the ecclesiastical court. Hunne responded in January 1513 by suing the priest for slander claiming his character and business had been ruined by the priest's accusation. He also counteracted with a praemunire charge against the church court in which he had been arraigned and argued that its authority derived from a Papal legate and therefore was a foreign court which could have no legitimate jurisdiction over the King of England's subjects.

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