The Reign of Mary Tudor

by James Anthony Froude

These three submissions must have followed one another rapidly. On the 16th of February, two days only after his trial, he made a fourth, and yielding the point which he had reserved, he declared that he believed all the articles of the Christian religion as the Catholic Church believed. But so far he had spoken generally, and the court required particulars. In a fifth and longer submission,[541] he was made to anathematise particularly the heresies of Luther and Zuinglius; to accept the pope as the head of the church, out of which was no salvation; to acknowledge the real presence in the Eucharist, the seven sacraments as received by the Roman Catholics, and purgatory. He professed his penitence for having once held or taught otherwise, and he implored the prayers of all faithful Christians, that those whom he had seduced might be brought back to the true fold.

The demands of the church might have been satisfied by these last admissions; but Cranmer had not yet expiated his personal offences against the queen and her mother, and he was to drain the cup of humiliation to the dregs.

A month was allowed to pass. He was left with the certainty of his shame, and the uncertainty whether, after all, it had not been encountered in vain. On the 18th of March, one more paper was submitted to his signature, in which he confessed to be all which Pole had described him. He called himself a blasphemer, and a persecutor; being unable to undo his evil work, he had no hope, he said, save in the example of the thief upon the cross, who when other means of reparation were taken from him, made amends to God with his lips. He was unworthy of mercy, and he deserved eternal vengeance. He had sinned against King Henry and his wife; he was the cause of the divorce, from which, as from a seed, had sprung up schism, heresy, and crime; he had opened a window to false doctrines of which he had been himself the most pernicious teacher; especially he reflected with anguish that he had denied the presence of his Maker in the consecrated elements. He had deceived the living and he had robbed the souls of the dead by stealing from them their masses. He prayed the pope to pardon him; he prayed the king and queen to pardon him; he prayed God Almighty to pardon him, as he had pardoned Mary Magdalen; or to look upon him as, from his own cross, He had looked upon the thief.[542]

The most ingenious malice could invent no deeper degradation, and the archbishop might now die. One favour was granted to him alone of all the sufferers for religion—that he might speak at his death; speak, and, like Northumberland, perish with a recantation on his lips.

The hatred against him was confined to the court. Even among those who had the deepest distaste for his opinions, his character had won affection and respect; and when it was known that he was to be executed, there was a widespread and profound emotion. "Although," says a Catholic who witnessed his death, "his former life and wretched end deserved a greater misery, if any greater might have chanced to him; yet, setting aside his offence to God and his country, beholding the man without his faults, I think there was none that pitied not his case and bewailed not his fortune, and feared not his own chance, to see so noble a prelate, so grave a councillor, of so long-continued honours, after so many dignities, in his old years to be deprived of his estate, adjudged to die, and in so painful a death to end his life."[543]

On Saturday, the 21st of March, Lord Williams was again ordered into Oxford to keep the peace, with Lord Chandos, Sir Thomas Brydges, and other gentlemen of the county. If they allowed themselves to countenance by their presence the scene which they were about to witness, it is to be remembered that but a few years since, these same gentlemen had seen Catholic priests swinging from the pinnacles of their churches. The memory of the evil days was still recent, and amidst the tumult of conflicting passions, no one could trust his neighbour, and organised resistance was impracticable.

The March morning broke wild and stormy. The sermon intended to be preached at the stake was adjourned, in consequence of the wet, to St. Mary's, where a high stage was erected, on which Cranmer was to stand conspicuous. Peers, knights, doctors, students, priests, men-at-arms, and citizens, thronged the narrow aisles, and through the midst of them the archbishop was led in by the mayor. As he mounted the platform many of the spectators were in tears. He knelt and prayed silently, and Cole, the Provost of Eton, then took his place in the pulpit.

Although, by a strained interpretation of the law, it could be pretended that the time of grace had expired with the trial; yet, to put a man to death at all after recantation was a proceeding so violent and unusual, that some excuse or some explanation was felt to be necessary.

Cole therefore first declared why it was expedient that the late archbishop should suffer, notwithstanding his reconciliation. One reason was "for that he had been a great causer of all the alterations in the realm of England; and when the matter of the divorce between King Henry VIII and Queen Catherine was commenced in the court of Rome, he, having nothing to do with it, sate upon it as a judge, which was the entry to all the inconvenients which followed." "Yet in that Mr. Cole excused him—that he thought he did it, not out of malice, but by the persuasion and advice of certain learned men."

Another occasion was, "for that he had been the great setter-forth of all the heresy received into the church in the latter times; had written in it, had disputed, had continued it even to the last hour; and it had never been seen in the time of schism that any man continuing so long had been pardoned, and that it was not to be remitted for example's sake."