Thomas Cranmer (July 2, 1489 - March 21, 1556) was the protestant Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of the English kings Henry VIII and Edward VI. He wrote two prayerbooks and is considered to be the founder of the Church of England. In 1556 he was burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Queen Mary I and is among the first Anglican martyrs.
Cranmer was born in 1489 in Aslacton, now Aslockton, near Nottingham. His parents Thomas and Agnes Cranmer were from the common gentry and had only enough land to support their eldest son upon their death. Due to this lack of land Thomas and his younger brother were forced to join the church.
In 1510 Cranmer was given a fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge. In 1515 while still at Cambridge he married Joan, the niece of the landlady of the nearby Dolphin Tavern, this led to his expulsion from the college due to the rule that fellows were to remain celibate. In 1519 Joan Cranmer died during childbirth; this allowed him to be re-accepted into the college. He was known as a dedicated student and was noted for his interest in unorthodox philosophy. He became a doctor of divinity in 1523.
A plague forced Cranmer to leave Cambridge for Essex. Here he came to the attention of Henry VIII, who was staying nearby. The King and his councillors found Cranmer a willing advocate for Henry's desired annulment from Catherine of Aragon and he became involved with the case as a researcher. Cranmer was sent as part of the embassy to Rome in 1530, and in 1532 he became ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V
Cranmer met his second wife Margarete, relative by marriage of the Lutheran scholar Andreas Osiander, while spending the summer of 1532 in Nuremberg.
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By January 1533 Henry found out that Anne Boleyn, the woman Henry wanted as his wife, was pregnant. This added urgency to the matter of the King's annulment and they were married in secret by the end of the month.
On March 30, 1533, he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury after the death of Warham. Cranmer was chosen as Henry believed that he would support his policies and find solutions to his problems. This appointment by Henry, despite the consent of the Pope, shows that he had given up the hope of getting consent for an annulment from Rome.
Cranmer brought his German wife Margarete with him when he became Archbishop but kept her presence quiet so as not to be seen breaking the rules on clerical celibacy.
In May, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry to Catherine of Aragon void and Anne Boleyn his lawful wife. In doing this, Cranmer went directly against the Pope's command. In September, Anne gave birth to Henry's second daughter Princess Elizabeth. Cranmer was made the godfather.
Under Henry, Cranmer was able to push through the reforms that led gradually to the reform of the Church of England. In 1538 he condemned the views of John Lambert when he denied the Transubstantiation (physical presence of Christ in the bread and wine) of the eucharist. Lambert was burnt at the stake, but Cranmer later came to adopt his views. Cranmer also opposed Henry VIII's 6 Articles, which reaffirmed clerical celibacy.
At the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries Cranmer was given various former church properties, such as the former Cluniac Nunnery at Arthington.
Cranmer greatly admired Henry and on his death declared he would not shave his beard again as a sign of mourning.
On Henry's death in 1547, Cranmer became an indispensable advisor to his son and successor, Edward VI, who, though still a child, had been brought up with Protestant views. During Edward's reign, Cranmer set about the completion of his great liturgical work, begun during Henry's reign, of producing an English language prayer book of Protestant character. The Book of Common Prayer as it came ot be known, was heavily influenced by continental theologians, such as Peter Martyr and Martin Bucer whom he invited to England and also by Hermann of Wied archbishop of Cologne, whose *Consultatio* was the source of a good number of elements of the new book which, in Cranmer's hands, had two editions. The first in 1549 was comparatively conservative, though full of Cranmer's inimitable prose; the second, in 1552 was more radical, destroying the sacrificial element in the eucharist, removing all prayers for the dead, and abolishing many ceremonies. Cranmer also encouraged the destruction of images. (He described these latter activities as 'jolly musters'.) Concerned about the need for good preaching and the lack of literate clergy he wrote a book of homilies, as well as the 42 articles that summarise anglican doctrine and in general led the Church of England in a more Protestant direction.(The 39 articles, which replaced them, are still recognised as part of the Anglican heritage to which clergy are expected to swear allegiance.)
Edward VI died in 1553, to be succeeded by his half-sister, Mary I. Mary was the daughter of Henry's first wife (Catherine of Aragon, a Spaniard) and was brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. In line with her Catholic beliefs, she began the process of counter-reformation. On February 14, 1556 Cranmer, as a Protestant, was removed from office, imprisoned and charged with treason; he had, after all been responsible for the removal of Mary's mother Catherine of Aragon. He was tried and sentenced but the Queen spared his life. However, he was subsequently tried for heresyand, being found guilty he made several recantations, as he said later, in order to avoid execution. Despite this recantation, which should have absolved him under Mary’s own Heresy Act, Cranmer was sentenced to death by burning. Her change of heart is difficult to explain. She had previously spared him and had he had been reluctant to accede to the determination of Northumberland, Edwards' advisor to have Lady Jane Grey made Queen in her stead.
According to John Foxe on 21st March 1556 Cranmer was brought in procession to St. Mary’s Church in Oxford where he was to make a public statement affirming his recantation. Cranmer withdrew his recantation and denounced Catholic doctrine and the Pope from the pulpit, reportedly stating, "And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy and Antichrist, with all his false doctrine." After this Cranmer was taken to be burned at the stake:
“Then was an iron chain tied about Cranmer and fire set unto him. When the wood was kindled and the fire began to burn near him, he stretched forth his right hand, which had signed his recantation, into the flames, and there held it so the people might see it burnt to a coal before his body was touched. In short, he was so patient and constant in the midst of his tortures, that he seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound; his eyes were lifted up to heaven, and often he said, so long as his voice would suffer him, “this unworthy right hand!” and often using the words of Stephen, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” till the fury of the flames putting him to silence, he gave up the ghost.” (The Book of Act and Monuments, Book of Martyrs, By John Foxe – 1563)
Bishops Ridley and Latimer had also been burned at this place in October 1555 and these three martyrdoms are commemorated with the nearby Victorian Martyrs' Memorial in Oxford.
| Preceded by: William Warham |
Archbishop of Canterbury | Followed by: Reginald Pole |
See also
Further reading
- Diarmaid MacCulloch, Thomas Cranmer: A Life (1996)
External links
Thomas Cranmer and The Book of Common Prayer - http://www.stpeter.org/cranmer.html
The Book of Common Prayer (Church of England) - http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/
The Book of Common Prayer (Catholic Encyclopaedia)- http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02678c.htm