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THOMAS CRANMER

Thomas Cranmer was archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII. He was born in 1489 at Aslacton, Nottinghamshire and died in 1556 when he was burnt at the stake for refusing to revert his religion under Mary. He was famous for the part he played in the English reformation during the reign of Henry VIII. He entered as a student of Jesus College, Cambridge, in 1503, took the degree of MA, obtained a fellowship, and in 1523 was chosen reader of theological lectures in his college, and examiner of candidates for degrees in divinity.

An opinion which he gave on the question of Henry VIII's proposed divorce from Catharine brought him under the favourable notice of the king. Thomas Cranmer was sent for to court, made a king's chaplain, and commanded to write a treatise on the subject of the divorce. In 1530 he was sent abroad with others to collect the opinions of the divines and canonists of France, Italy, and Germany, on the validity of the king's marriage. At Rome he presented his treatise to the pope, but his mission was fruitless.

In January, 1533, he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Soon after he set the Papal authority at defiance by pronouncing sentence of divorce between Henry VIII and Catharine, and confirming the king's marriage with Anne Boleyn. The pope threatened excommunication, and an act of parliament was immediately passed for abolishing the pope's supremacy, and declaring the king chief head of the Church of England. The archbishop zealously promoted the cause of the Reformation; and through his means the Bible was translated and read in churches, and monastic institutions were vigorously suppressed.

In 1536 he pandered to Henry VIII's passions by promoting tlie divorce of Anne Boleyn. This and other services secured him in the king's favour, who appointed him by will one of the council of regency to Edward VI. By his instrumentality the liturgy was drawn up and established by act of parliament, and articles of religion were compiled, the validity of which was enforced by royal authority, and for which infallibility was claimed.

The exclusion of the Princess Mary from the crown, by the will of her brother, was a measure in which Thomas Cranmer joined the partisans of Lady Jane Grey, apparently in opposition to his own judgment. With others who had been most active in Lady Jane Grey's favour he was sent to the Tower on the accession of Mary. He was tried on charges of blasphemy, perjury, incontinence, and heresy, and was sentenced to be degraded and deprived of office. After this flattering promises were made, which induced him to sign a recantation of his alleged errors, and become, in fact, a Catholic convert. But when he was brought into St Mary's Church, Oxford, to read his recantation in public, instead of confessing the justness of his sentence, and submitting to it in silence or imploring mercy, he calmly acknowledged that the fear of death had made him belie his conscience; and declared that nothing could afford him consolation but the prospect of extenuating his guilt by encountering, as a Protestant penitent, with firmness and resignation, the fiery torments which awaited him. He was immediately hurried to the stake, where he behaved with the resolution of a martyr.
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