Thomas Cranmer

Stan Evers

The 66 year-old Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury and a former chaplain to Henry VIII! stood at his prison window in Oxford. He struggled to hold back the tears when he saw two of his dearest friends, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, on their way to death by burning. Five months later, on a cold, wet morning, 21 March 1556- 450 years ago- Cranmer also died a martyr's death near Balliol College.

The queen's hatred

Why did Mary Tudor order the arrest of Cranmer soon after she became the queen of England? Because he supported the ill-fated attempt to place Lady]ane Grey, a Protestant, on the throne following the death of young Edward VI. However, this pretext thinly covered her hatred of Cranmer's efforts to replace Roman Catholic dogma with biblical teaching. Three years after his arrest, Cranmer was sentenced to death as a heretic. What was his heresy? Preaching that Christ died once-for-all to save sinners. 'The priest cannot offer Christ as a sacrifice in the Mass and the bread and wine do not become the body and blood of God', declared Cranmer.

Who was Thomas Cranmer who so aroused the queen's hatred? He was born in 1489 at Aslacton, between Grantham and Nottingham; entering Jesus College, Cambridge, at the age of fourteen, he later became a fellow and an ordained priest. In 1515, he married Joan, the daughter of the licensee of the Dolphin Inn, who died in childbirth a year later. Pivotal events took place while Cranmer was at Cambridge, such as Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, publishing his Greek New Testament (1516) and Martin Luther, the German monk, nailing his 95 Theses, attacking the sale of indulgences, to the door of the Wit ten berg Castle Church (1517). An indulgence bought pardon of sin and less time in purgatory.

Henry VIII, determined to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, despite the remonstrations of the Pope, enlisted the help of Cranmer, commissioning him to discover the views of leading Continental scholars. Returning to Europe in 1532, as the Ambassador to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Cranmer wed Margaret. This marriage proved embarrassing when the king ordered him back to England in 1533 to become Archbishop of Canterbury, following the death of the aged primate, William Warham. Celibacy was an essential qualification for the position, so Cranmer kept his marriage a secret for fifteen years!

His first duty was to declare Henry's marriage void and marriage to pregnant Anne Boleyn valid -a marriage the Archbishop invalidated in 1536. Declaring Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon void meant that her daughter, Mary, was illegitimate -more fuel for her hatred of Cranmer. A year later, in 1534, Henry, though still theologically a Roman Catholic, proclaimed himself head of the Church of England.

Cranmer's attempts to move the English church from papal dogma to biblical tenets was along and painful task. In 1536, Cranmer revised Ten Articles, a compromise between the old and the new, written by Henry. Nevertheless, these Articles rejected indulgences and did not clearly define Christ's presence in the Communion Service. Injunctions, issued in connection with these Articles, resulted in Henry VIII's permission, in 1537, to sell the newly published Coverdale Bible. Later that year, a more accurate translation became available, the Matthew's Bible, mostly the work of William Tyndale (1494-1536) and his assistant Miles Coverdale (1488-1568). This paved the way for The Great Bible (1539) being placed in every parish church by the king's command. The revised editions of 1540 and 1541 became known as Cranmer's Bible. God had answered Tyndale's prayer at the stake in 1536, 'Lord, open the king of England's eyes'. Cranmer felt depressed when Henry passed the Six Articles Act (1539) reinforcing Roman Catholic theology and then in 1543 when the king published a book prohibiting Scripture reading. However, the king defended Cranmer from his many enemies who sought his downfall. As the king's life ebbed away on 27 January 1547, he sent for Cranmer, his trusted chaplain, for spiritual comfort.

When Cranmer crowned ten year-old Edward (son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour) the door for his reforms swung open. The archbishop encouraged preaching by publishing the Book of Homilies (1547), promoted Protestant worship in the Book of Common Prayer (1549) and proclaimed Calvinist theology in the Forty- Two Articles (1551 ). The revised Prayer Book of 1552 was more distinctly Protestant than the first edition. The Forty- Two Articles, later reduced to Thirty-nine, became the doctrinal basis of the Anglican Church. These reforms came to an abrupt end with Edward's death in 1553. His half-sister Mary, a fanatical Catholic, became queen.

Three years later, 1556, Cranmer courageously dies at the stake in Oxford. At the service in St. Mary's, prior to execution, Cranmer, with tears rolling down his face, listens to a sermon rejoicing in his six recantations, signed under pressure from Romanist friars. After the sermon, Cranmer reads a reaffirmation of his Protestant convictions. Cranmer's voice rises above the din of the astonished crowd and the enraged officials, 'As for the Pope, I refuse him as Christ's enemy and antichrist with all his false doctrines'. The Archbishop is pulled from the platform and dragged through the streets of Oxford to the spot where Latimer and Ridley had been burnt the previous October.

After kneeling for a brief prayer, he takes off his frayed coat and then stands, with bare feet, wearing a long shirt and his long white beard flowing down his chest. His executioners bind him to the stake with a steel band round his waist before lighting the faggots. Holding his hand in the flame, without flinching, Cranmer says, 'This hand has offended', then prays several times, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit'.

Did the Reformation go far enough? Anglican and Baptist places of worship answer the question. Anglicans look at an altar -called a 'table' in the 1662 Prayer Book -Baptists look at a pulpit. The Reformers were too sacramental, though they emphasized the importance of preaching. As Baptists, we disagree with Cranmer's belief that kings have a divine right to rule both church and state. We are also grieved by his attitude towards Anabaptists. However, we ought to thank God that Cranmer brought the church out of medieval darkness into gospel light.

Masters of the English Reformation, Sir Marcus Loane, Banner of Truth Travel with the Martyrs of Mary Tudol; Andrew Atherstone, Day One

Edward VI (1547-1553) [Son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour]

Mary (1553-1558) [Daughter of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon] Elizabeth (1558-1603) [Daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn]

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