Contemporary Catholic writers attributed to Bonner and the other bishops who died in prison the honour of martyrdom: "in vinculis obierunt martyres". On the walls of the English College, Rome, an inscription recording the deaths of eleven bishops, but without naming them, found a place among the paintings of the martyrs. Bonner was attacked during life with a rare hatred which has followed him into the grave, so that in English history few names have been so execrated and vilified as his.