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THOMAS CRANMER (1489-1556)
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It was a somewhat curious concurrence of circumstances that transferred Cranmer, almost at one step, from the quiet seclusion of the university to the din and bustle of the See also:court
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In See also:August 1529 the See also:plague known as the sweating sickness, which prevailed throughout the See also:country, was specially severe at Cambridge, and all who had it in their See also:power forsook the See also:town for the country
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Cranmer went with two of his pupils named See also:Cressy, related to him through their mother, to their father's See also:house at See also:Waltham in See also:Essex
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The See also: When the treatise was finished Cranmer was called upon to defend its See also:argument before the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, which he visited, accompanied by Fox and Gardiner . Immediately afterwards he was sent to plead the cause before a more powerful if not a higher tribunal . An See also:embassy, with the earl of Wiltshire at its See also:head, was despatched to Rome in 1530, that " the See also:matter of the divorce should be disputed and ventilated," and Cranmer was an important member of it . He was received by the See also:Pope with marked See also:courtesy, and was appointed " See also:Grand See also:Penitentiary of See also:England," but his argument, if he ever had the opportunity of stating it, did not See also:lead to any See also:practical decision of the question . Cranmer returned in See also:September 1530, but in See also:January 1531 he received a second See also:commission from the king appointing him " Conciliarius Regius et ad Caesarem Orator." In the summer of 1531 he accordingly proceeded to See also:Germany as See also:sole See also:ambassador to the See also:emperor . He was also to See also:sound the Lutheran princes with a view to an See also:alliance, and to obtain the removal of some restrictions on See also:English See also:trade . At See also:Nuremberg he became acquainted with See also:Osiander, whose somewhat isolated theological position he probably found to be in many points analogous to his own . Both were convinced that the old See also:order must See also:change; neither saw clearly what the new order should be to which it was to give place . They had frequent interviews, which had doubtless an important See also:influence on Cranmer's opinions . But Osiander's house had another attraction of a different See also:kind from theological sympathy . His niece See also:Margaret won the See also:heart of Cranmer, and in 1532 they were married . Hook finds in the fact of the marriage corroboration of Cranmer's statement that he never expected or desired the primacy; and it seems probable enough that, if he had foreseen how soon the primacy was to be forced upon him, he would have avoided a disqualification which it was difficult to conceal and dangerous to disclose .
Expected or not, the primacy was forced upon him within a very few months of his marriage
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In August 1532 Archbishop See also:Warham died, and the king almost immediately afterwards intimated to Cranmer; who had accompanied the emperor in his See also:campaign against the See also:Turks, his nomination to the vacant see
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Cranmer's conduct was certainly consistent with his profession that he did not See also:desire, as he had not expected, the dangerous promotion
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He sent his wife to England, but delayed his own return in the vain See also:hope that another appointment might be made
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The papal bulls of See also:confirmation were dated See also:February and See also: It showed weakness, but it added nothing to whatever immorality there might be in successively taking two incompatible oaths . In the last as in the first step of Cranmer's promotion Henry had been actuated by one and the same See also:motive . The business of the divorce—or rather, of the legitimation of Anne Boleyn's expected issue—had now become very urgent, and in the new archbishop he had an See also:agent who might be expected to forward it with the needful haste . The celerity and skill with which 376 Cranmer did the See also:work intrusted to him must have fully satisfied his See also:master . During the first See also:week of See also:April See also:Convocation sat almost from See also:day to day to determine questions of fact and See also:law in relation to Catherine's marriage with Henry as affected by her previous marriage with his brother Arthur . Decisions favourable to the See also:object of the king were given on these questions, though even the despotism of the most despotic of the Tudors failed to secure See also:absolute unanimity . The next step was taken by Cranmer, who wrote a See also:letter to the king, praying to be allowed to remove the anxiety of loyal subjects as to a possible See also:case of disputed See also:succession, by finally determining the validity of the marriage in his archiepiscopal court . There is See also:evidence that the See also:request was prompted by the king, and his consent was given as a matter of course . See also:Queen Catherine was residing at See also:Ampthill in See also:Bedford-See also:shire, and to suit her convenience the court was held at the priory of See also:Dunstable in the immediate neighbourhood . Declining to appear, she was declared contumacious, and on the 23rd of May the archbishop gave See also:judgment declaring the marriage null and void from the first, and so leaving the king See also:free to marry whom he pleased . The See also:Act of Appeals had already prohibited any appeal from the archbishop's court . Five days later he pronounced the marriage between Henry and Anne—which had been secretly celebrated about the 25th of January 1533—to be valid .
On the 1st of See also:June he crowned Anne as queen, and on the loth of September stood godfather to her See also:child, the future Queen See also: 
Meanwhile Cranmer was actively carrying out the policy which has associated his name more closely, perhaps, than that of any other ecclesiastic with the See also:Reformation in England . Its most important feature on the theological as distinct from the See also:political See also:side was the endeavour to promote the circulation of the Bible in the See also:vernacular, by encouraging See also:translation and procuring an order in 1538 that a copy of the Bible in English should be set up in every church in a convenient place for See also:reading . Only second in importance to this was the re--See also:adjustment of the creed and See also:liturgy of the church, which formed Cranmer's See also:principal work during the latter See also:half of his life . The progress of the archbishop's opinion towards that See also:middle Protestantism, if it may be so called, which he did so much to impress on the formularies of the Church of England, was See also:gradual, as a brief enumeration of the successive steps in that progress will show . In 1538 an embassy of See also:German divines visited England with the See also:design, among other things, of forming a See also:common See also:confession for the two countries . This proved impracticable, but the frequent conferences Cranmer had with the theologians composing the embassy had doubtless a See also:great influence in modifying his views . Both in See also:parliament andin Convocation he opposed the Six Articles of 1539, but he stood almost alone . During the period between 1540 and 1543 the archbishop was engaged at the head of a commission in the revision of the " Bishop's See also:Book " (1537) or Institutions of a See also:Christian Man, and the preparation of the Necessary Erudition (1543) known as the " King's Book," which was a modification of the former work in the direction of See also:Roman See also:Catholic See also:doctrine . In June 1545 was issued his See also:Litany, which was substantially the same as that now in use, and shows his mastery of a rhythmical English See also:style . The course taken by Cranmer in promoting the Reformation exposed him to the See also:bitter hostility of the reactionary party or " men of the old learning," of whom Gardiner and See also:Bonner were leaders, and on various occasions—notably in 1543 and 1545—conspiracies were formed in the See also:council or elsewhere to effect his overthrow . The king, however, remained true to him, and all the conspiracies signally failed . It illustrates a favourable trait in the archbishop's See also:character that he forgave all the conspirators . He was, as his secretary Morice testifies, " a man that delighted not in revenging." Cranmer was See also:present with Henry VIII. when he died (1547) . By the will of the king he was nominated one of a council of regency composed of sixteen persons, but he acquiesced in the arrangement by which See also:Somerset became lord See also:protector . He officiated at the See also:coronation of the boy king Edward VI., and is supposed to have instituted a sinister change in the order of the ceremony, by which the right of the monarch to reign was made to appear to depend upon See also:inheritance alone, without the concurrent consent of the people . But Edward's See also:title had been expressly sanctioned by act of parliament, so that there was no more See also:room for See also:election in his case than in that of See also:George I., and the real motive of the changes was to shorten the weary ceremony for the frail child . During this reign the work of the Reformation made rapid progress, the sympathies both of the Protector and of the See also:young king being decidedly See also:Protestant . Cranmer was therefore enabled without let or hindrance to See also:complete the preparation of the church formularies, on which he had been for some time engaged . In 1547 appeared the Homilies prepared under his direction . Four of them are attributed to the archbishop himself—those on Salvation, Faith, See also:Good See also:Works and the Reading of Scripture . His translation of the German See also:Catechism of Justus See also:Jonas, known as Cranmer's Catechism, appeared in the following year . Important, as showing his views on a cardinal doctrine, was the See also:Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the See also:Sacrament, which he published in 1550 . It was immediately answered from the side of the " old learning " by Gardiner . The first See also:prayer-book of Edward VI. was finished in See also:November 1548, and received legal See also:sanction in March 1549; the second was completed and sanctioned in April 1552 .
The archbishop did much of the work of compilation personally
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The See also:forty-two articles of Edward VI. published in 1553 owe their See also:form and style almost entirely to the hand of Cranmer
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The last great undertaking in which he was employed was the revision of his codification of the canon law, which had been all but completed before the death of Henry
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The task was one eminently well suited to his See also:powers, and the See also:execution of it was marked by great skill in See also:definition and arrangement
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It never received any authoritative sanction, Edward VI. dying before the See also:proclamation establishing it could be made, and it remained unpublished until 1571, when a Latin translation by Dr See also:Walter Haddon and See also:Sir See also: Any See also:chance of safety that lay in the friendliness of a strong party in the council was more than nullified by the bitter See also:personal enmity of the queen, who could not forgive his share in her mother's divorce and her own disgrace . On the 14th of September 1553 he was sent to the See also:Tower, where See also:Ridley and See also:Latimer were also confined . The immediate occasion of his imprisonment was a strongly worded declaration he had written a few days previously against the See also:mass, the celebration of which, he heard, had been re-established at Canterbury . He had not taken steps to publish this, but by some unknown channel a copy reached the council, and it could not be ignored . In November, with Lady Jane Grey, her See also:husband, and two other Dudleys, Cranmer was condemned for See also:treason . See also:Renard thought he would be executed, but so true a Romanist as Mary could scarcely have an ecclesiastic put to death in consequence of a sentence by a See also:secular court, and Cranmer was reserved for treatment as a heretic by the highest of clerical tribunals, which could not act until parliament had restored the papal jurisdiction . Accordingly in March 1554 he and his two illustrious fellow-prisoners, Ridley and Latimer, were removed to Oxford, where they were confined in the Bocardo or common See also:prison . Ridley and Latimer were unflinching, and suffered bravely at the stake on the 16th of See also:October 1555 . Cranmer had been tried by a papal commission, over which Bishop See also:Brooks of See also:Gloucester presided, in September 1555 . Brooks had no power to give sentence, but reported to Rome, where Cranmer was summoned, but not permitted, to attend . On the 25th of November he was pronounced contumacious by the pope and excommunicated, and a commission was sent to England to degrade him from his See also:office of archbishop . This was done with the usual humiliating ceremonies in See also:Christ Church, Oxford, on the 14th of February 1556, and he was then handed over to the secular power . About the same time Cranmer subscribed the first two of his " recantations." His difficulty consisted in the fact that, like all Anglicans of the 16th See also:century, he recognized no right of private judgment, but believed that the state, as represented by See also:monarchy, parliament and Convocation, had an absolute right to determine the See also:national faith and to impose it on every Englishman . All these authorities had now legally established Roman Catholicism as the national faith, and Cranmer had no logical ground on which to resist . His early "recantations " are merely recognitions of his lifelong conviction of this right of the state . But his See also:dilemma on this point led him into further doubts, and he was eventually induced to revile his whole career and the Reformation . This is what the See also:government wanted . See also:Northumberland's recantation had done much to discredit the Reformation, Cranmer's, it was hoped, would complete the work . Hence the enormous effect of Cranmer's recovery at the final See also:scene . On the 21st of March he was taken to St Mary's church, and asked to repeat his recantation in the See also:hearing of the people as he had promised . To the surprise of all he declared with dignity and emphasis that what he had recently done troubled him more than anything he ever did or said in his whole life; that he renounced and refused all his recantations as things written with his hand, contrary to the truth which he thought in his heart; and that as his hand had offended, his hand should be first burned when he came to the See also:fire . As he had said, his right hand was steadfastly exposed to the flames . The See also: |