William Petow

William Peto and William Petow OFM (* 1485 in Warwickshire, England; † April 1558 in London) was a Roman Catholic Cardinal and Bishop of Salisbury.

The grandson of Sir Thomas Throckmorton of Coughton studied at Oxford, where he graduated with the baccalaureate and at Cambridge, where he earned his MA in 1505. Here he also joined the Order of Franziskanerobservanten.

As a confessor of the Princess Mary, he was in 1522 elected Provincial of his Province of the Order, and had contacts with Thomas More, John Fisher and Reginald Pole. On a trip to Italy in 1537, he met the future Pope Paul IV know. Chosen on March 30, 1543 to the Bishop of Salisbury, he was since 1553 confessor of Queen Mary Tudor.

Pope Paul IV raised him on June 14, 1557 cardinal priest, but without assigning it a titular church. Instead, he appointed him legate a latere for England, which was by then Cardinal Reginald Pole.