CRANMER, Thomas, the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, was descended of an ancient family, and was born on the 2d of July 1489, at Aslacton in the county of Nottingham, being the second son of Thomas Cranmer and of his wife Agnes Hatfield. He received what was then considered as a suitable education for a gentleman; nor did he neglect the recreations of hunting and hawking, and the use of the bow. After his father’s death, and when he himself was only fourteen years of age, he was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, and about the year 1510 he was elected to a fellowship. Erasmus, one of the great restorers of solid and elegant learning, had already contributed his powerful aid in rescuing this university from scholastic jargon and monkish barbarism. The rectitude of Cranmer’s understanding enabled him to give a beneficial tendency to his academical studies: not satisfied with the antiquated course, he likewise devoted a portion of his time to the acquisition of the Greek and Hebrew languages; and if he never became celebrated for the purity or elegance of Latinity, it must be recollected that his chief attention was devoted to higher objects. Before be had reached the twenty-third year of his age, he vacated his fellowship by marriage. His wife, who in reality appears to have been the daughter of a gentleman, some Catholic writers of his own time have industriously represented as a woman of low condition; and were we even to admit the accuracy of their representations, it is not easy to perceive that he would thus be curtailed of any portion of his moral dignity. He was now employed as a reader or lecturer in Magdalen, or, as it was then called, Buckingham College; and, says John Fox, “for that he would with more diligence apply that his office of reading, placed his said wife in an inn called the Dolphin, the wife of the house being of affinity to her. By reason whereof, and of his open resort unto his wife at that inn, he was much marked of some Popish merchants; whereupon rose the slanderous noise and report against him after he was preferred to the archbishoprie of Canterbury, raised up by the malicious disdain of certain malignant adversaries to Christ and his truth, bruiting abroad everywhere, that he was but a hostler, and therefore without all good learning.” FIis wife died about twelve months after their marriage; and it is an obvious proof of the estimation in which he was held,* that he was immediately restored to the fellowship which he had vaeated. He pursued his studies with renewed ardour; and adhering to the plan of reading with a pen in his hand, he now prepared a stock of materials which he found of no small value in his future controversies.

In the year 1524 be declined the offer of a fellowship in the college which Wolsey had founded at Oxford. About the same period he took the degree of D. D., and was appointed to the lectureship in that faculty by his own college. In 1526 he was nominated one of the public examiners in divinity; and in this situation he appears to have been instrumental in scattering the seeds of reformation. He had been entrusted with the education of the two sons of a gentleman named Cressy, who resided in the parish of Waltham-Abbey and county of Essex, and whose wife was related to Cranmer. Being driven from Cambridge by an epidemic distemper, the preceptor and his pupils retired to Cressy’s house; nor does it clearly appear that he afterwards resided in the university. The king had made an excursion to the neighbourhood; and two of his attendants, Dr Gardiner, afterwards bishop of Winchester, and Dr Fox, afterwards bishop of Hereford, having met Cranmer at Waltham, began to discuss with him the momentous question of the king’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon. This princess had been married to Arthur, the elder brother of Henry, but, according to [7:7:445]her own solemn averment, their nuptials had never been consummated. For the second marriage, a papal dispensation had been obtained in due form; nor'does the king appear to have been accessible to any compunctious visit-ings, till he found this nļarriage an impediment to his union with Anne Boleyn. He then exerted all his influence with the pope to procure a sentence, declaring the nullity of a marriage contracted with his brother’s widow; but although his holiness might otherwise have been disposed to lend a willing ear to such a suitor, he was restrained by the consideration that Catherine was the aunt of the emperor Charles the Fifth. Many intrigues had been employed, and much delay had intervened, when this casual discussion took place at Waltham, and when Dr Cranmer suggested the expediency of “trying the question out of the word of God, and thereupon to proceed to a final sentence.” He strongly urged the propriety of continuing the appeal to canonists and divines, for the faculties of various universities had already been solicited to deliver a' formal opinion; but it is clear that the peculiar merit of his advice must be resolved into a hint, more or less direct, respecting the necessity of deciding the question without the authority of the pope. This controversy, originating, not in the king’s scruples of conscience, but in feelings of a very different nature, contributed in no small degree to the elevation of Cranmer, and to the downfall of the church. When Fox, who was then the royal almoner, communicated this plan of effecting a divorce, Henry “swore by the Mother of God, that man hath the right sow by the ear.” His attendance at court was immediately required; and at their first interview, the king enjoined him to lay aside all other avocations, and to bend his faculties to the furtherance of this important device. In the mean time he commended him to the hospitality of the earl of Wiltshire, father to Anne Boleyn. It is evident that Dr Lingard has very erroneously described him as “a dependant on the family of the king’s mistress ;” for this appears to have been the true origin of his connexion with the family, and his real dependence was first on the hopes, and afterwardson the gratitude, of the king himself. Henry appointed him archdeacon of Taunton, and one of his chaplains; he likewise bestowed upon him some parochial benefice, of which the name is not ascertained.

Unwilling to hazard an open rupture with the visible head of the church, the king again had recourse to negotiation, and Cranmer was conjoined in a mission to the court of Rome, where he saw “many things contrary to God’s honour.” During the following year, 1531, he was commissioned as sole ambassador to the emperor. He resided for several months in Germany; and there, about the beginning of the year 1532, he married Annc, a niece of the wife of Osiander, an eminent pastor of Nürnberg. At the period of his first marriage he was a layman; but as he was now in priest’s orders, he plainly disregarded the authority of the church. His residence in this country is, with great probability, supposed to have had the effect of bringing him much nearer to the sentiments of the Protestants: here be must have enjoyed many opportunities of becoming acquainted with their views and feelings; nor could his soundness of understanding and honesty of purpose be unprofitably exercised, in a situation so well calculated to second the impulse which his mind had already received. From the gross error of the real presence he only extricated himself by slow degrees. The human understanding had for many centuries been so stultified by this portentous doctrine, that it seemed incapable of regaining a sound and healthful state; and, in this article of belief, the progress of Luther and his followers was only from one absurdity to another; by rejecting transubstantiation, and adopting consuhstaìitiation, they introduced a change of scholastic and unscriptural terms, leaving their ideas involved in the ancient maze of Popish errors.

Archbishop Warham, the patron of Erasmus, died in the month of August 1532, arid Dr Cranmer was immediately recalled from Germany to fill the vacant see of Canterbury. This sudden and high preferment he is said to have accepted with no small reluctance; and one of the difficulties which presented themselves, is supposed to have been connected with the peculiarity of his situation as a married priest. During the preceding reign, it had been decided by the courts of law that the marriage of a priest was voidable, but not void; and consequently that his issue, born in wedlock, was entitled to inherit. But such a marriage was not reconcilable with the principles of the canon law, and much was to be apprchended from the capricious ferocity of the king. His wife was never publicly acknowledged; and, after the promulgation of the six articles in 1539, he found it expedient to send her to her native country. When he was afterwards charged with having thus entered into the state of matrimony, he admitted the fact, but at the same time affirmed “that it was better for him to have his own, than do like other priests, holding and keeping other men’s wives.” Before he took the oath of episcopal obedience to the pope, he adopted the expedient of making a formal protest, that he only took it in such a sense as was consistent with the laws of God, with the rights of the king and his realm, and with the liberty of declaring his own sentiments in matters of religion, even when they might be in opposition to the authority of the pope himself. How far this protest was privately-interposed or publicly divulged, has been much and eagerly disputed between Protestants and Catholics, but it appears to be a question of very little importance. While we are ready to admit that his latest biographer has refuted various allegations of the Popish historians, we still retain a strong conviction that the character of Cranmer is not materially benefited by his zealous defence. To entitle the archbishop elect to receive the bulls from the pope, it was necessary for him to take a prescribed oath: the authority which imposed this oath manifestly left no room for private interpretation; nor can we regard such an expedient in any other light than that of a mere subterfuge. “It was,” says Mr Todd, “the pleasure of his sovereign, but his own aversion, we have seen, that these forms should yet be followed. But instead of engaging himself to the oath, he declared to the king, that without the liberty of opposing it he would decline the honour that was proffered. Of this conduct he never afterwards repented.”^[1. Todd’s Life of Archbishop Cranmer, vol. i. p. G8. Lond. 1831, 2 vols. 8vo. ] ∙ But is not this a most lame and impotent conclusion? When swearing is not a mere act of profanity, it is in its very essence the act of a man engaging himself by his oath; and if Cranmer thus reserved to himself the liberty of opposing an oath, which he yet consented to take, he was openly-swearing to perform what he secretly considered as unlawful. What his biographer subjoins is not more satisfactory. “Thus much for the notoriety of the protest. It has been wished that he had taken the papal oath, as his predecessor Warham had taken it, without reserve or explanation, and then proceeded quietly in opposition to the pontiff, as that prelate is believed to have done by submitting, not long before, to the rcgal supremacy, and thus [7:7:446]advancing a decisive step towards a reformation. The clamour against Cranmer, as to disingenuousness, might then, it has been thought, have been comparatively little, or none. But Cranmer was sincere, and Warham the reverse.” Casuists may suggest divers expedients and salvos, but an honest man has only one method of taking an oath.

That Cranmer’s elevation is chiefly to be referred to the aptitude which he had discovered for promoting the dissolution of the royal marriage, is a faet which cannot well be doubted. Soon after his consecration he addressed to the king a letter, in which he zealously urged the necessity of bringing this important question to a determination; and as the pious monarch had already been declared the head of the church of England, he had no hesitation in returning an answer, which, says the biographer, “was in perfect accordance with the primate’s suggestion; in which he forgot not to maintain the supremacy he had lately recovered^' Of the origin and progress of the anomalous, and, we will venture to add, very absurd maxim, that the king is the head of the church, this may be considered as rather a curious account; for in what sense could Henry the Eighth be said to recover a right or prerogative which had never been possessed by him or any of his predecessors?^[2. Dr Martin, when counsel against the archbishop, reduced him to the necessity of admitting that, according to his principles, Nero was the head of the Christian church at Rome, and the Turk at Constantinople. “Then,” rejoined the civilian, tç he that beheaded the heads of the church, and crucified the apostles, was head of Christ’s church; and he that was never member of the church, is head of the church, by your new-found understanding of God’s word.” ] The queen of England was cited to appear before the archbishop at Dunstable, within a few miles of Ampthill, the place of her residence; and on the 8th of May 1533, he opened his new court, assisted by the bishop of Lineoln as his assessor. Catherine having failed to make her appearance before this irregular tribunal, was, after the expiration of fifteen days, declared contumacious; and the marriage was adjudged to be null and void from the beginning, as having been contracted in defiance of the divine prohibition. In the month of January, F1enry had privately married Anne Boleyn, after having cohabited with her for several years; but it seems to have been asserted without foundation that Cranmer was present at their scandalous nuptials. It is well known that she did not long retain the king’s affections. Ardent love, in so ferocious a breast, was easily converted into deadly hatred; and Anne, when supplanted by a new favourite, was accused of various acts of infidelity, of which it is not certain that she was guilty.^[3. See Dr Lingard’s Hist, of England, vol-iv. p. 239, and Mr Turner’s Hist, of the Reign of Henry the Eighth, vol. ii. p. 458. ] The archbishop was again required to exercise his divorcing faculty. “The trial and condemnation of the queen,” says Mr Todd, “almost immediately followed. Not content with this result, the king resolved on further vengeance; and after two days more, the afflicted archbishop was obliged judicially to declare her marriage invalid, and her offspring illegitimate.” But how was the archbishop obliged to perform an act which is tacitly admitted to have been wrong? The reader must bear in mind that this sentence could have no reference to the queen’s alleged adultery; for, according to the canon law, marriage, which is one of the seven sacraments, cannot be dissolved by any course of judicial procedure; and we may here remark, in passing, that although the modern law of England does not professedly adhere to this notion of a sacrament, it is not completely disentangled from the ancient superstition: the ecclesiastical courts may declare a marriage to have been invalid from the beginning, but they cannot dissolve the sacred bond of matrimony. Cranmer was now obliged to declare invalid from the beginning a marriage, which he had formerly pronounced good and valid; and there is too much justice in the remark of Dr Lingard, “never perhaps was there a more solemn mockery of the forms of justice, than in the pretended trial of this extraordinary cause.” Nor is this the last case of divorce to be mentioned. After the death of Jane Seymour, the king married Anne of Cleves; and as he did not find her person agreeable to his taste, he again had recourse to the agency of the dutiful archbishop, and the sentence of invalidity was confirmed by the seal of Cranmer. The next consort of this atrocious tyrant, whom Cranmer has described as “a most godly prince of famous memory,” was Catharine Howard, who was beheaded without being divorced.^[4. Her crime was incontinency before her marriage. A modern civilian has laboriously discussed the question, “Utrum quis mulierem pro Virgine ductam possit repudiare, si postea comperiat, eam jam antea ab alio fuisse devirginatam ?” (J. F. W. 1'agenste-cheri Jurisprudentia Polemica, p. 59. Hardervici, 1730,4to.) He maintains the affirmative, for this among other reasons: “quoniam error circa virginitatem continet errorem circa substantiam, cum personae, tum matrimonii.” ]

In these transactions, the archbishop of Canterbury appears to little advantage; nor is it easy to believe that he did not act against the clearest conviction of his own conscience. All or most that can be urged in palliation of his conduct is, that he had fallen on evil days, and that to resist the commands of such a master was certain death. In other respects, he was too much tainted with the errors of the time; but, if he was not exempted from the spirit of persecution, he was subject to an error which, however hideous it may appear to us, extended to nearly all his contemporaries. The execution of Servetus for his theological opinions was formally approved by Melanchthon,^[5. Calvini Epistolarum et Responsorum editio secunda, p. 306. Lausannae, 1576, 8vo. ] who is universally regarded as one of the mildest of the early reformers. Soon after his elevation to the primacy, Cranmer acted as one of the inquisitors who condemned John Frith for denying the doctrine of transubstantiation. “His said opinion is of such nature,” he states in a private letter, “that he thought it not necessary to be believed as an article of our faith, that there is the very corporal presence of Christ within the host and saerament of the altar, and holdeth of this point most after the opinion of Oeeolampadius. And surely I myself sent for him iij. or iiij. times to persuade him tojeave that his imagination; but for all that we could <l<>therein, he would not apply to any counsel, not-withstaħdíng now he is at a final end with all examinatioris; for my Lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him to the secular powers, where he looketh every day to go unto the fire. And there is also condemned with him one Andrew, a tailor of London, for the said self-same opinion. And thus fare you well. From my manor of Croydon.” Is not this a cool contemplation of such an inhuman act as the burning of his fellow-creatures? It was Andrew Hewet who, honouring Frith, and adhering to his doctrines, was thus condemned to the same cruel death; and, after the lapse of a few years, Cranmer, following the dictates of common sense, adopted the very opinion for which his brethren had been doomed “to go unto the fire.” These holy butcheries were followed by many others. The persecutions which commenced in the reign of the unrelenting father, were not discontinued in that of the milder son; but the case of Joan Bocher, commonly called Joan [7:7:447] of Kent, deserves a more particular notice. The charge against her was to this effect: “That you believe that the Word was made flesh in the Virgin’s belly; but that Christ took flesh of the Virgin you believe not, because the flesh of the Virgin being the outward man, was sinfully gotten and born in sin; but the Word, by the consent of the inward man of the Virgin, was made flesh.”^[6. Strype’s Memorials of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, p. 181. Lond. 1G94, fol. ] For persisting in her refusal to recant this unhappy jargon, the poor creature was committed to the flames. When Cranmer excommunicated her as a heretic, and, in the true inquisitorial style, ordered her to be delivered to the secular arm, she exclaimed, “It was not long ago that you burned Anne Askew for a piece of bread, and yet came yourself soon after to believe and profess the same doctrine for which you burned her.” The young king was extremely reluctant to imbrue his hands in the blood of such a victim, and a year elapsed before she was ordered for execution. It is plainly stated by the martyrologist that his scruples were at length overcome, or his resolution shaken, by the urgency of the archbishop. About the same period, George Van Paris, a Dutch surgeon residing in London, was burnt for denying the divinity of Christ; nor does it appear that, in any of the various cases which have been recorded, the archbishop felt, or professed to feel, the slightest doubt or misgiving as to the perfect propriety of committing such atrocious murders under the sanction of law and religion.

Another unequivocal proof of his having deeply imbibed the spirit of persecution, is to be found in the book entitled Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum. The plan of this book had originated in the reign of Henry; and in that of his son, Cranmer was placed at the head of eight commissioners, who were enjoined to prepare it for the inspection of a much larger committee, and afterwards for that of the privy council. It is supposed to have been translated into Latin by Sir John Cheke, the king’s preceptor, and by Dr Haddon, master of Trinity Hall at Cambridge, both of whom were eminent for their classical learning, but the latter was a greater master of Latinity. It is not to be regretted that this code of ecclesiastical law never obtained any public sanction. Much of the re^nųpsibility evidently belongs to Cranmer; and his biograpb^ţţàs¾ures us that an abler canonist was not easily to be'iς⅛⅛jσ*within the realm. The title respecting the mode of proceeding in cases of heresy, contains a chapter on obstinate heretics, which adjudges them, after all other remedies have been attempted, to be delivered over to the civil magistrate in order to be punished. “Consumptis .omnibus aliis remediis, ad extremum ad civiles magistratus ablegetur puniendus.”^[7. Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, p. 23. edit. Lond. 1640, 4to. ] What is the language of the canonists when they deliver to the secular arm those unfortunate beings whom they describe as heretics? Lancelottus expresses himself in the following terms: “Saecularis relinquentur arbitrio potestatis, animadversione debita puniendi.”^[8. Lancelotti Institutiones Juris Canonici, lib. iv. tit. iv. § 3. ] Canisius thus delivers the same dpetrinc: “Relinquantur judici saeculari debita animadversione puniendi.”^[9. Canisii Summa Juris Canonici, lib. in. tit. xv. § 3. Opera quae de Jure Canonicoreliquit, p. 9.97· Lovanii, 1649, 4to. ] And Gravina, a more recent writer, conveys the same meaning in these words: “Saecularis judicis punitioni traduntur.”^[10. Gravinae Institutiones Canonicae, p. 218. August. Taurin. 1742, 8vo. ] To these three examples of such phraseology it would not be difficult to add ninety-seven more; and the direful import of such expressions in the mouth of a canonist, can only be doubtful to those who are unacquainted with the history of the inquisition. In point of form, the hands of churchmen must not be stained with blood; but the sentence of the ecclesiastical judge, when it awards a cruel and ignominious death, or any inferior degree of corporal punishment, must be inflicted under the sanction of the civil power. Mr Hallam has remarked, that “infamy and civil disability seem to be the only punishments intended to be kept up, except in case of the denial of the Christian religion; for if a heretic were, as a matter of course, to be burned, it seems needless to provide, as in this chapter, that he should be incapable of being a witness, or of making a will.” But the Spanish inquisition did not punish with fire and fagot every offence against the Catholic faith; and when, in a subsequent chapter, Cranmer and his associates contemplate the possibility of a heretic avoiding extreme punishment, they 7 do not necessarily disown the fellowship of their brother inquisitors. It is scarcely to be considered as a sufficient vindication of the archbishop, that in a manuscript copy of the work, formerly in his possession, the punishment of perpetual banishment or perpetual imprisonment is specifically mentioned. This correction is not in the hand-writing of Cranmer, but is supposed to be in that of Martyr;^[11. Todd’s Life of Archbishop Cranmer, vol. il. p. 334. ] so that we are by no means persuaded that the question of capital punishment is completely set at rest. Of the Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum, the first edition was published by John Fox, in the year 1571, from a copy which had been transcribed by the archbishop’s secretary, and corrected by himself as well as by Martyr. It is not therefore difficult to perceive where we must expect to find the text as it was finally adjusted. This bloody text seems to admit of another mode of illustration equally legitimate. The practice of the archbishop was in perfect conformity with the principles which we have here explained. In the reign of Henry, he was accessory to the death of several individuals who denied the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation; and in the reign of Edward, he was accessory to the death of others who denied articles of the creed to which he then adhered. What meaning he himself attached to the expression of delivering a heretic to the civil magistrate, we have already ascertained in the case of Frith; in reference to whom he states, “my Lord of London hath given sentence, and delivered him to the secular powers, where he looketh every day to go unto the fireľ

Such errors as these are too glaring to be easily concealed; but it is equally certain that his character was adorned by many private virtues, and that the great body of his countrymen cannot fail to regard him in the light of a public benefactor. Under his influence, books of religious instruction were circulated among the people,^[12. Of the book which passes under the name of Cranmer’s Catechism, an edition, begun by Bishop Lloyd, was recently published by Dr Burton. “A short Instruction into Christian Religion; being a Catechism set forth by Archbi-hop Cranmer in m.d.xlviii. : together with the same in Iartin, translated from the German by Justus Jonas in m.d.xxxix.” Oxford, 1829, 8vo. The archbishop did not himself translate this catechism, but, as Wharton states, he “added a large discourse of his own to the exposition of the second commandment, and inserted some few sentences elsewhere.” ] and, what was of inestimable benefit, the Bible was opened to every man capable of reading his mother tongue. It was in a great measure owing to his exertions that the reformation of the church of England was nearly advanced to that point where it still rests. That this reformation should then have been left so incomplete, is less surprising[7:7:448] than ι that it should scarcely have been resumed for two hundred and fifty years.

By the testament of King Henry, who died in the month of January 1647, the archbishop was placed at the head of a regency, consisting of sixteen individuals, of whom the greater part were favourably disposed to the reformed doctrines. Edward, who was of a tender age, was anxious to promote the same cause; and the seeds which had been sown during the late reign, now became much more vigorous in their growth. The chief instrument of the reformation was undoubtedly Cranmer, who promoted it by his talents and learning, as well as by the influence necessarily connected with his high station. He was one of the compilers of the service-book, and the author of at least three of the homilies, those on salvation, faith, and good works. He was likewise the sole or principal author of the first Articles of Religion, forty-two in number, which were slightly altered in the reign of Elizabeth, and reduced to the number of thirty-nine.

Edward died at a premature age in the year 1553, after having, at the instigation of the duke of Northumberland, nominated as his successor Lady Jane Grey, who had married the duke’s fourth son, and who was the daughter of the duke of Suffolk, and grand-daughter of Mary, sister to Henry VIII. The king’s two sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, were superseded on the ground of their illegitimate birth. To this scheme the archbishop acceded with no small reluctance. Jane was proclaimed queen, but, after a reign of a few days, was committed to the Tower, and soon died by the hand of the executioner. On the accession of Queen Mary, many of the Protestants were subjected to the extreme tortures which they had felt too little compunction in applying to others. Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, were first committed to the Tower, and were afterwards removed to Oxford, where they were confined in the common prison called Bocardo, and were at length condemned as obstinate heretics. A long interval elapsed before their execution. Ridley, who had been bishop of London, and Latimer of Worcester, suffered with that noble resolution which became martyrs of the truth, but the mind of Cranmer recoiled under so great a trial of human fortitude; the vain and delusive hope of life impelling him to deny his faith, and to sign no fewer than six recantations. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel: his offences were not to be pardoned by such a sovereign under the influence of such counsellors; and on the 21st of May 1556, this learned, venerable, and aged man was committed to the flames. Rejecting his unfortunate recantations, he died in the pious profession of the Protestant faith, and suffered the cruel torture of the fire with an undaunted resolution, which his recent conduct had not encouraged his friends to expect. It is not for us, who are placed beyond the reach of such fiery trials, to condemn the weakness for which he made this atonement.

In the history of Cranmer’s persecution, we find no mention of his wife, or any of his near relations. He however left a widow and two children, Thomas and Margaret. Another daughter, named Anne, had died before him. The surviving children were restored in blood by an act of parliament, passed in the year 1563, but it does not appear that they were reinstated in their property. It is asserted by Ames, who however quotes no authority, that the widow married Edward Whitchurch, an eminent printer,^[13. Ames’s Typographical Antiquities, p. 205. Lond. 1749, 4to. ] who had heen a merchant, and had been well known to her first husband. The archbishop’s younger brother, Edmund Cranrner, was archdeacon of Canterbury, but in the reign of Mary was deprived of his preferment, on the ground of his being a married priest. His elder brother John was still in possession of the hereditary manors of Aslacton and Whatton; and four sisters, all married to persons of distinction, likewise survived to bewail the cruel doom of their illustrious kinsman.

His principal works relate to the portentous doctrine of transubstantiation. The first is entitled “A Defence of the trve and catholike Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of our Sauiour Christ, with a Confutation of sundry Errors concernyng thesame, grounded and sta-blished vpon Godes holy woorde, and approued by the consent of the moste auncient doctors of the Churche.” Loud.

1550, 4to.^[14. An edition of Cranmer’s Defence, with the orthography modernized, was lately published by Mr Todd. Bond. 1825, 8vo. ] This publication was speedily followed by “An Answer vnto a crafty and sophisticall CauiIIation deuised by Stephen Gardiner, Doctour of Law, late Byshop of Winchester, agaynst the trewe and godly Doctrine of the moste holy Sacrament of the Body and Bloud of our Sauiour Iesv Christe: wherein is also, as occasion serueth, answered such places of the booke of D. Rich. Smyth as may seeme any thyng woorthy of the aunsweryng. Item ye shall fynde here also the true copye of the booke written, and in open courte delyvered, by D. Stephen Gardiner, not one woorde added or diminished, but fayth-fully in all poyntes agreeyng with the oryginall.” Lond.

1551, fol. Both these works were printed by Reynold Wolfe. Of the Defence, a Latin version appeared soon after the death of the author. It bears the title of“Defensio verae et catholicae Doctrinae de Sacramento Corporis et Sanguinis Christi Servatoris nostri, &c. ab autore in vinculis recognita et aucta.” 1557, 8vo. The place of printing is not mentioned. Prefixed is a preface of thirteen pages, omitted in the subsequent edition, in which likewise the title is somewhat altered. “Assertio verae et catholicae Doctrinae,” &c. Lichae, 1601, 8vo.

Cranmer was a person of a vigorous understanding, improved by extensive learning. His travels and studies had rendered him as familiar with the French, Italian, and German, as with the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew languages. In theology and the canon law he appears to have been deeply skilled; and, possessing an acute intellect and a clear head, he was capable of applying his various stores of knowledge to the most useful and practical purposes. His works afford a very favourable specimen of the English style of that period; and we are glad to be informed that a complete edition is speedily to issue from the university press of Oxford. With his intellectual endowments he united many of the amiable virtues of private life: his natural disposition was mild and conciliating, and he was distinguished by the engaging affability of his manners. He was however capable of being roused to fierce indignation; for we learn from unquestionable authority, that, on a certain occasion, he offered single combat to the duke of Northumberland. He was a zealous encourager of learning, and eminently practised the virtues of charity and hospitality. But his character, as we have already seen, was not without glaring defects. His compliances with the unhallowed wishes of the king, are partly to be ascribed to his want of that invincible firmness which could alone have sustained him under the frowns of so unrelenting a tyrant; and much influence must doubtless be ascribed to the prevailing notion of the time, that the will of a sovereign prince is not to be resisted by any of his subjects. Compliance in almost every possible case seems to have been regarded as an act of duty; nor is it easy, on any other hypothesis, to account for the long and [7:7:449]abject submission of the English nobility and gentry to the tyranny and caprice of the house of Tudor. Although this consideration does not increase our respect for the archbishop’s character, it is nevertheless obvious that the pliancy of his disposition, by enabling him to retain the favour of the king, enabled him to become a more powerful instrument in promoting the cause of learning and religion. For his deep participation in the bloody persecutions of two successive reigns, we must likewise endeavour to find some apology in the current maxims of the age to which he belonged. FIis own nature was far from being ungentle; but his intellect was bewildered by the doctrines, and his heart hardened by the practices, of the church in which he had been educated. (x.)