Background
He was the son of Francis Tunstall of Wycliffe Hall, Yorkshire, England, and Cicely, daughter of John Constable, second Viscount Dunbar.
He was the son of Francis Tunstall of Wycliffe Hall, Yorkshire, England, and Cicely, daughter of John Constable, second Viscount Dunbar.
He was educated at Douai and subsequently studied medicine at Montpellier, where he took the degree of doctor of medicine.
He also maintained friendly relations with non-Catholic scholars. And among the Burton Constable papers are two volumes of his correspondence with Francis Nicholson (1650–1731), a Catholic convert, formerly of University College, Oxford, and the well-known antiquary, Thomas Hearne. His correspondence with the former was chiefly concerned with particulars for the biography of Abraham Woodhead, for whom he had a great veneration.