A commission was appointed by Pole in September, consisting of Brookes, Bishop of Gloucester, Holyman, Bishop of Bristol, and White, Bishop of Lincoln, to try Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, for obstinate heresy. The first trial had been irregular; the country was then unreconciled. The sentence which had been passed therefore was treated as non-existent, and the tedious forms of the papacy continued still to throw a shield round the archbishop.
On Saturday, the 7th of September,[497] the commissioners took their places under the altar of St. Mary's Church, at Oxford. The Bishop of Gloucester sat as president, Doctors Story and Martin appeared as proctors for the queen, and Cranmer was brought in under the custody of the city guard, in a black gown and leaning on a stick.
"Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury," cried an officer of the court, "appear here, and make answer to that which shall be laid to thy charge; that is to say, for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy; make answer to the Bishop of Gloucester, representing his holiness the pope."
The archbishop approached the bar, bent his head and uncovered to Story and Martin, who were present in behalf of the crown, then drew himself up, put on his cap again, and stood fronting Brookes. "My lord," he said, "I mean no contempt to your person, which I could have honoured as well as any of the others; but I have sworn never to admit the authority of the Bishop of Rome in England, and I must keep my oath."
The president remonstrated, but without effect, and then proceeded to address the archbishop, who remained covered:[498]—
"My lord, we are come hither at this present to you, not intruding ourselves by our own authority, but sent by commission, as you know, by the pope's holiness partly; partly from the king's and queen's most excellent majesties; not utterly to your discomfort, but rather to your comfort if you will yourself. For we are come not to judge you immediately, but to put you in remembrance of that which you have been partly judged of before, and shall be thoroughly judged of ere long.
"Neither our coming or commission is to dispute with you, but to examine you in matters which you have already disputed in, taught, and written; and of your resolute answers in those points and others, to make relation to them that shall give sentence on you. If you, of your part, be moved to come to a uniformity, then shall not only we take joy of our examination, but also they that have sent us. Remember yourself then, unde excideris, from whence you have fallen. You have fallen from the unity of your mother, the Holy Catholic Church, and that by open schism. You have fallen from the true and received faith of the same Catholic Church, and that by open heresy. You have fallen from your fidelity and promise towards God, in breaking your orders and vow of chastity, and that by open apostasy. You have fallen from your fidelity and promise towards God's vicar-general, the pope, in breaking your oath made to his holiness at your consecration, and that by open perjury. You have fallen from your fidelity and allegiance towards God's magistrate, your prince and sovereign lady the queen, and that by open treason, whereof you are already attainted and convicted. Remember, unde excideris, from whence you have fallen, and in what danger you have fallen.
"You were sometime, as I and other poor men, in mean estate. God hath called you from better to better, from higher to higher, and never gave you over till he made you, legatum natum, Metropolitan Archbishop, Primate of England. Who was more earnest then in defence of the real presence of Christ's body and blood in the sacrament of the altar than ye were? Then was your candle shining to be a light to all the world, set on high on a pinnacle. But after you began to fall from the unity of the Catholic Church by open schism, and would no longer acknowledge the supremacy of the pope's holiness by God's word and ordinance;—and that by occasion, that you, in whose hands then rested the sum of all, being primate, as was aforesaid, would not, according to your high vocation, stoutly withstand the most ungodly and unlawful request of your prince touching his divorce, as that blessed martyr, St. Thomas of Canterbury, sometime your predecessor, did withstand the unlawful requests of the prince of his time, but would still not only yield and bear with things not to be borne withal, but also set a-flame the fire already kindled—then your perfections diminished; then began you, for your own part, to fancy unlawful liberty. Then decayed your conscience of your former faith, your former promise, the vow of chastity and discipline after the order of priesthood; and when good conscience was once cast off, then followed after, as St. Paul noteth, a shipwreck in the faith. Then fell you from the faith, and out of the Catholic Church, as out of a sure ship, into a sea of dangerous desperation; for out of the church, to say with St. Cyprian, there is no hope of salvation at all. To be brief; when you had forsaken God, his Spouse, his faith, and fidelity to them both, then God forsook you; and as the apostle writeth of the ingrate philosophers, delivered you up in reprobum sensum, and suffered you to fall from one inconvenience to another, as from perjury into schism, from schism into a kind of apostasy, from apostasy into heresy, from heresy into traitory, and so, in conclusion, from traitory into the highest displeasure and worthiest indignation of your most benign and gracious queen."[499]
When the bishop ceased, the crown proctors rose, and demanded justice against the prisoner in the names of the king and queen.
"My lord," Cranmer replied, "I do not acknowledge this session of yours, nor yet yourself my mislawful judge; neither would I have appeared this day before you, but that I was brought hither; and therefore here I openly renounce you as my judge, protesting that my meaning is not to make any answer as in a lawful judgment, for then I would be silent; but only for that I am bound in conscience to answer every man of that hope which I have in Jesus Christ."