Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556). Library of Literary Criticism. 1901-05

Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556). Library of Literary Criticism. 1901-05 Dictionary Biographies Literary Criticism Welcome Terms of Service ⧏ Previous Next ⧐ Contents Bibliographic Record Charles Wells Moulton, ed.  Library of Literary Criticism.  1901–05. Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) Born at Aslacton, Nottinghamshire, July 2, 1489: died at Oxford, March 21, 1556. Archbishop of Canterbury. He was educated at Cambridge, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1512 and that of M.A. in 1515. In 1529 he obtained the favor of Henry VIII. by proposing that, in order to avoid the necessity of an appeal to Rome, the question of the king’s marriage with Catharine of Aragon should be referred to the universities. He was appointed chaplain to the king, and in 1530 accompanied the Earl of Wiltshire on a mission to the Pope in reference to the divorce. In 1532 he was sent on a mission to the emperor in Germany, and in the same year infringed the rule of the Roman Catholic Church by marrying a niece of Osiander. He was appointed archbishop of Canterbury in 1533, and in the same year pronounced the marriage of Henry with Catharine of Aragon invalid. He abjured his allegiance to Rome in 1535, and became a member of the regency for Edward VI. in 1547, and in 1548 was head of the commission which composed the first English prayer-book. He invited a number of distinguished foreign Protestants to settle in England, including Peter Martyr, Ochino, Bucer, and Alasco the Pole. He was induced by Edward VI. in 1553 to sign the patent which settled the crown on Lady Jane Grey to the exclusion of Mary and Elizabeth, and was in consequence committed to the Tower for treason on the accession of Mary. He was subsequently tried for heresy, and in spite of numerous recantations (which he repudiated at his execution) was sentenced to the stake.—Smith, Benjamin E., 1894–97, ed., The Century Cyclopedia of Names, p. 288.    

1 Personal

  He never placed the function of a bishop in the administration of secular things, but in a most faithful dispensation of God’s Word. In the midst of wicked Babylon he always performed the part of a good guide of Israel. And among papists, that tyrannised against the truth of Christ, he governed the people of God with an admirable prudence. No man ever so happily and steadily persisted, with Christ himself, in the defence of the truth, in the midst of falsely learned men, in such imminent hazard of his life, and yet without receiving any harm. No man did more prudently bear with some false apostles for a time, although, with St. Paul, he knew what most pestilent men they were, that so they might not be provoked to run into greater rage and madness.—Bale, John, 1549–59, Scriptorum Illustrium Majoris Britanniæ, p. 690.    

2   He feared not to ride the roughest horse that came into his stable, which he would do very comely; as otherwise at all times there was none that would become his horse better. And when time served for recreation after study, he would both hawk and hunt, the game being prepared for him beforehand, and would sometime shoot in the long-bow, but many times kill his deer with the crossbow; and yet his sight was not perfect, for he was purblind.—Maurice, Ralph, 1555? A Declaration Concerning Archbishop Cranmer.    

3   Who that considered their preferments in time past, the places of honour that they some time occupied in this commonwealth, the favour they were in with their princes, and the opinion of learning they had, could refrain from sorrow with tears, to see so great dignity, honour, and estimation, so many godly virtues, the study of so many years, such excellent learning, put into the fire, and consumed in one moment.—Foxe, John, 1562, Book of Martyrs, ed. Kennedy.    

4   He was a man raised of God for great services; and well fitted for them. He was naturally of a mild and gentle temper, not soon heated, nor apt to give his opinion rashly of things, or persons: and yet his gentleness, though it oft exposed him to his enemies, who took advantages from it to use him ill, knowing he would readily forgive them, did not lead him into such a weakness of spirit, as to consent to everything that was uppermost…. His meekness was really a virtue in him, and not a pusillanimity in his temper. He was a man of great candour; he never dissembled his opinion, nor disowned his friend: two rare qualities in that age, in which there was a continued course of dissimulation, almost in the whole English clergy and nation, they going backward and forward, as the court turned…. He had a good judgment, but no great quickness of apprehension, nor closeness of style, which was diffused and unconnected: therefore, when anything was to be penned that required more nerves, he made use of Ridley. He laid out all his wealth on the poor, and pious uses: he had hospitals and surgeons in his house for the king’s seamen; he gave pensions to many of those that fled out of Germany into England; and kept up that which is hospitality indeed at his table, where great numbers of the honest and poor neighbours were always invited…. He was so humble and affable, that he carried himself in all conditions at the same rate. His last fall was the only blemish of his life; but he expiated it, with a sincere repentance, and a patient martyrdom…. Those who compared modern and ancient times, found in him so many and excellent qualities, that they did not doubt to compare him to the greatest of the primitive bishops; not only to the Chrysostoms, Ambroses, and Austins, but to the fathers of the first rate that immediately followed the apostles, to the Ignatiuses, Polycarps, and Cyprians.—Burnet, Gilbert, 1681, The History of the Reformation of the Church of England, ed. Nares, vol. II, pt. ii, bk. ii, pp. 521, 522, 523.    

5   The name of the most reverend prelate deserves to stand upon eternal record; having been the first protestant archbishop of this kingdom, and the greatest instrument, under God, of the happy Reformation of this Church of England: in whose piety, learning, wisdom, conduct, and blood, the foundation of it was laid. And therefore it will be no unworthy work to revive his memory now, though after an hundred and thirty years and upwards.—Strype, John, 1694, Memorials of Archbishop Cranmer, Oxford ed., p. 3.    

6 Bearing the palm of martyrdom, Cranmer was there in his meekness, Holy name to be ever revered! —Southey, Robert, 1821, A Vision of Judgment, ix.    

7 Outstretching flameward his upbraided hand (O God of mercy, may no earthly Seat Of judgment such presumptuous doom repeat!) Amid the shuddering throng doth Cranmer stand; Firm as the stake to which with iron band His frame is tied; firm from the naked feet To the bare head. The victory is complete; The shrouded Body to the Soul’s command Answers with more than Indian fortitude, Through all her nerves with finer sense endued, Till breath departs in blissful aspiration: Then, ’mid the ghastly ruins of the fire, Behold the unalterable heart entire, Emblem of faith untouched, miraculous attestation! —Wordsworth, William, 1821–22, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, pt. ii, xxxv.    

8   Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in a disgraceful affair of his first divorce. He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the king. On a frivolous pretence, he pronounced it null and void. On a pretence, if possible, still more frivolous, he dissolved the ties which bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of Cleves. He attached himself to Cromwell, while the fortunes of Cromwell flourished. He voted for cutting off his head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned. He conformed backwards and forwards as the king changed his mind. While Henry lived, he assisted in condemning to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation. When Henry died, he found out that the doctrine was false. He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn…. Equally false to political and to religious obligations, he was the first tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumberland. When the former wished to put his own brother to death, without even the form of a trial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer. In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence…. If he had shown half as much firmness when Edward requested him to commit treason, as he had before shown when Edward requested him not to commit murder, he might have saved the country from one of the greatest misfortunes that it ever underwent…. We do not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of wickedness. He was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent and violent change. That which has always been represented as his distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his enemies, belongs to the character.—Macaulay, Thomas Babington, 1827, Hallam’s Constitutional History, Edinburgh Review, and Essays.    

9   Lingard speaks of seven recantations signed with his name. Yet the whole of this transaction was in the space of two days. We may suppose him under a degree of mental alienation, brought on by want of firmness and resolution. Or, we may conclude with the Catholics, that the recantation was occasioned by the fear of an agonizing death. To us it matters little. It was extorted from him by that kind of force, which induces a victim to lay his head voluntarily upon the block, when brought to the place of execution.—Lee, H. F., 1840, The Life and Times of Thomas Cranmer, p. 266.    

10   The incidents of Cranmer’s death were but too conformable to those of his consecration, and his general public career. As long as he had a hope of life, he made but little difficulty in subscribing to any confession of faith, however different from that of either the Calvinists or the Lutherans. He made no fewer than six recantations; and acknowledged at the stake that they were all insincere; all made “to save his life if it might be.”—Flanagan, Thomas, 1857, A History of the Church in England, vol. II, p. 126.    

11   Both by his character and by his ability Cranmer was eminently fitted to become a useful tool in the hands of Henry and Cromwell. He was now a man of forty-three, rather learned, of ready wit, a good controversialist, and withal elegant, graceful, and insinuating. An admirable deceiver, he possessed the talent of representing the most infamous deeds in the finest words.—Friedmann, Paul, 1884, Anne Boleyn, vol. I, p. 176.    

12   Men will continue to judge him very variously, according as they agree with his opinions or disagree; but it may be hoped that from henceforth one fault will not be so frequently laid to his charge—a fault which was wholly foreign to his character. Whatever else he was, Cranmer was no crafty dissembler. He was as artless as a child. Even those actions of his which have brought upon him the accusation of double dealing—the reservation with which he took the oath at his consecration, the acknowledgment that he should not have withdrawn his recantation if he had been allowed to live—are instances of his naïve simplicity. He may sometimes have deceived himself; he never had any intention to deceive another. Trustful towards others, even to a fault, he had little confidence in himself. His humility amounted almost to a vice. His judgment was too easily swayed by those who surrounded him—especially by those in authority…. He was indefatigable in his industry. His placid character knew no ambition. In an age of rapine, the friend of Henry remained unenriched. So courteous and amiable in his manners that his enemies found fault with him on that account, he was unstinted in his hospitality, especially toward scholars, and lavish in his gifts. Unless marriage is a sin, no breath ever assailed the purity of his life.—Mason, Arthur James, 1898, Thomas Cranmer (Leaders of Religion), pp. 199, 201.    

13 General

  Cranmer was more remarkable for his patronage of theological learning, than for the merit possessed by any writings of his own.—Spalding, William, 1852–82, A History of English Literature, p. 165.    

14   Cranmer’s extant original works are very many, and possess considerable merit; but his literary reputation will always rest mainly on the fact that he was what we may call editor-in-chief of those three great works of the English Reformation already noticed,—the Book of Common Prayer, the Twelve Homilies and the Great Bible.—Collier, William Francis, 1861, History of English Literature, p. 89.    

15   Cranmer was the greatest writer among the founders of the English Reformation.—Craik, George L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. I, p. 438.    

16   He holds the highest rank as a writer among the Reformers, and was influential in establishing the present polity of the Church of England.—Gilman, Arthur, 1870, First Steps in English Literature, p. 62.    

17   Cicero himself had not a nicer and more exquisite ear for rhythm, for the rhythm of prose as distinguished from the rhythm of poetry. Cranmer’s sentences are not like those of Hooker and the Elizabethan rhetoricians framed on the Latin model, and his music is not the music of the Ciceronian period. But as Cicero modified the harmony of Isocrates to suit the genius of the Latin language, so Cranmer modified the harmony of Ciceronian rhetoric to suit the genius of our vernacular. He adjusted with exquisite tact and skill the Saxon and Latin elements in our language both in the service of rhythm and in the service of expression. He saw that the power of the first lay in terseness and sweetness, the power of the second in massiveness and dignity, and that he who could succeed in tempering artfully and with propriety the one by the other, would be in the possession of an instrument which Isocrates and Cicero might envy. He saw too the immense advantage which the co-existence of these elements afforded for rhetorical emphasis. And this accounts for one of the distinctive features of the diction of our liturgy, the habitual association of Saxon words with their Latin synonyms for purposes of rhetorical emphasis.—Collins, John Churton, 1893, English Prose, ed. Craik, vol. I, p. 212.    

18   Cranmer was, of all men of his time, most powerful in hastening the English reformation.—Hurst, John Fletcher, 1893, Short History of the Christian Church, p. 249.    

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