England under the Tudors

by Arthur D. Innes

The condemnation by the court which tried the Archbishop carried with it no penalty; that was reserved for the Pope to pronounce—by implication, in handing him over to the secular arm, and explicitly by sentence of degradation, which was notified in December. Until this time Cranmer remained steadfast; but about the new year, he displayed signs of wavering, and was said to have been influenced by the arguments of a Spanish friar, Garcia. Possibly he attended Mass; certainly, about the end of January and beginning of February (1556) he wrote three "submissions" recognising the papal authority. These did not avail to save him from public degradation, in the course of which ceremony he produced a written appeal to a General Council, which was ignored. Two more "submissions" followed, but in neither did he go beyond the admission that the papal authority was now valid, since the Sovereign had so enacted. Nevertheless, on February 24th the writ committing him to the flames was issued. There is no reason to suppose that the idea of sparing him was ever entertained; but, wherever the blame lay, he was led to believe that a recantation might save him; and he did now at last break down utterly, and recant in the most abject terms. Had this won a pardon, the blow would have been crushing; the Court in its blindness suffered him to retrieve the betrayal. His doom was unaltered. While the fagots were prepared, he was taken to St. Mary's Church to hear his own funeral sermon and make his last public confession; but that confession, to the sore amazement and dismay of the authorities, proved to be the cry of the humble and self-abasing sinner repenting not his heresies but his recantations. And in accordance with his last utterance, when he came to the fire he was seen to thrust forth his right hand into the flame, crying aloud "this hand hath offended"; and so held it steadfastly till it was consumed. The chief prelate of the English Church was struck down at the bidding of a foreign Ecclesiastic; the recusant had been gratuitously glorified with the martyr's crown. It is likely enough that he won less personal popular sympathy than his fellows; but the moral effect must have been tremendous.

[Sidenote: Cranmer's record]

It is natural but hardly just that Cranmer should be judged on the basis of the impression created by his last month of life. That the protagonist in a great Cause should recant in the face of death seems to argue an almost incredible degree of pusillanimity, and suggests that pusillanimity and subservience are the key to his career. Nevertheless, but for that short hour of abasement nobly and humbly retrieved, the general judgment would probably be altogether different. And that breakdown does not appear to have been characteristic. Twice in the reign of Henry he had bowed to the King's judgment, acknowledging that Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell must be guilty since Henry was convinced: but there was no man in the country who took the part of either. To have defied the King would have been heroic, and there is a wide interval between failing of heroism and being pusillanimous. He withdrew his resistance to Northumberland's plot; but he resisted on the ground that it was illegal and withdrew only when he was assured that the Judges had unanimously affirmed its legality. He changed his views on Transubstantiation; but to surrender an abstruse dogma is not a crime. He repeatedly maintained opinions in opposition to Henry as well as to Mary at the risk of losing royal support and favour—which loss would certainly have meant delivering himself into the hands of his enemies. In practice he conformed to the restrictions laid upon him, but it was only on points of expediency that he personally gave way, though he would fain have allowed to others a larger latitude of opinion than he required for himself.

[Sidenote: His character]

Yet the virtues of Thomas Cranmer fail of recognition. The extreme Anglican joins with the Roman Catholic in condemning the ecclesiastical leader of the Schism; the puritan condemns the advocate of compromise; and the advocate of compromise, at least within the clerical ranks, condemns the Erastian cleric. In his day, and in Elizabeth's, the lay statesmen were Erastians to a man; that is forgiven to them; but the ecclesiastic who adopts and preaches without reservation the theory that the Church—its organisation, its administration, even its doctrines—is ultimately subject to the secular sovereign, essentially and not owing to the accidental sanction of force—such a one is inevitably regarded as a traitor to his order; that he was guided by honest conviction seems incredible. Cranmer was a man of peace, driven to do battle in the front rank; an academic, forced to take a leading part in exceedingly practical affairs; a student, compelled so far as he might to control a revolution. Yet to him, more than any other single man, it is due that the Church of England allows a larger latitude of opinion within her borders than any other, and that she possesses a liturgy of unsurpassed beauty. A man so weak, so lacking in self-reliance, can hardly be called great; yet one who, despite his weakness, has carved himself so noble and so lasting a monument can hardly be denied the epithet.

For the rest of the persecution it is sufficient to say that year by year the number of victims did not diminish; neither sex nor age brought immunity; but as they were of less standing, an attempt was made to intensify the effect by putting them to death in larger batches—which increased the horror. The laymen of station, it may be remarked, with one accord conformed, at least outwardly.

[Sidenote: 1555 Philip's policy]

The Parliament which passed the Heresy Acts was dissolved before the end of January. Rogers was burnt some three weeks later. Symptoms of unrest were quickly apparent, and Philip felt it necessary to dissociate himself publicly from the persecution. On this point Renard was urgent, and he was also anxious about the succession. If the Queen's hopes of a child should be disappointed, neither Mary Stewart nor Elizabeth would be satisfactory. The only thing to be done was to secure a convenient husband for the latter, and a project was on foot (not with her approval) for marrying her to the Prince of Savoy, which might incidentally make the English more disposed to join in the war with France, which was in occupation of Savoy. But by April the belligerents were thinking of holding a conference to discuss terms of peace, with an English Commission to mediate.

[Sidenote 1: Pope Paul IV.]
[Sidenote 2: Mary has no child]

The death of Pope Julius, however, promptly followed by that of his immediate successor Marcellus, caused the election of the Cardinal Caraffa who became Paul IV. On both occasions, Reginald Pole had been perhaps the favourite candidate: but the election of Paul was a victory for the French, the new Pope being an austere zealot with a violent anti-imperial prejudice. Having thus secured the papal alliance, Henry of France was by no means disposed to so easy a compromise as had been looked for. The conference collapsed. If Philip really had hoped, as rumour said, to be enabled by the peace to introduce Spanish troops into England for his own ends, he was doomed to disappointment. So it was also with his hopes of an heir to secure him the English succession. Mary had been misled partly by the symptoms of what proved to be a fatal disease and partly by hysterical hallucinations. It became certain that there was no prospect of her ever having a child at all; which necessitated a complete reconsideration of the Spanish prince's policy. Possibly also the expectation that the Queen's life could not be a long one led the nobles with protestant inclinations to acquiesce in the prolonged persecution rather than countenance a danger of civil war. Neither they nor Elizabeth could be implicated in any of the abortive conspiracies which cropped up periodically during the remainder of the reign.