3. Cranmer's Position in the Church of England. 1547.—Somerset's ecclesiastical reforms were as rash as his political enterprises. Cranmer had none of that moral strength which would have made some men spurn an alliance with the unscrupulous politicians of the time. He was a learned student, and through long study had adopted the principle that where Scripture was hard to understand it was to be interpreted by the consent of the writers of the first ages of Christianity. As he had also convinced himself that the writers of the first six centuries had known nothing of the doctrine of transubstantiation, he was now prepared to reject it—though he had formerly not only believed it, but had taken part in burning men who denied it. It is quite possible that if Henry had been still alive Cranmer would have been too much overawed to announce that he had changed his opinion. His exact shade of belief at this time is of less importance than the method by which he reached it. In accepting the doctrines and practices of the existing Church till they were tested and found wanting by a combination of human reason and historical study of the scriptures, interpreted in doubtful points by the teaching of the writers of the early Church, Cranmer more than any one else preserved the continuity of the Church of England, and laid down the lines on which it was afterwards to develop itself. There was, therefore, a great gulf between Cranmer and the advanced Protestants, who, however much they might differ from one another, agreed in drawing inferences from the Scripture itself, without troubling themselves whether these inferences conformed in any way to the earlier teaching. This gulf was constantly widening as time went on, and eventually split English Protestantism into fractions.
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1533-1556: from a painting dated 1547, at Jesus College, Cambridge.
4. Ecclesiastical Reforms. 1547-1548.—In 1547 a fresh blow was struck at the devotions of the people. In the churches—by the order of the Government—there was much smashing of images and of painted glass bright with the figures of saints and angels. Gardiner, who protested that the Government had no authority to alter religion till the king was of age, was sent to prison as the easiest mode of confuting him. As Parliaments were usually packed in those days, it does not follow that the nation was eager for changes because Parliament ordered them. There was, however, no difficulty in filling the benches of the House of Commons with men who profited by the plunder of the Church, and when Parliament met, it showed itself innovating enough. It repealed all the statutes giving special powers to Henry VIII. and all laws against heresy. It also passed an Act vesting in the reigning king the whole of the chantries and other like foundations which Henry had been permitted to take, but which he had left untouched. Cranmer, indeed, would have been glad if the money had been devoted to the relief of the poorer clergy, but the grasping spirit of the laymen was too strong for him. So violent was the race for wealth that the Act decreed the confiscation even of the endowments of lay corporations, such as trading companies and guilds, on the excuse that part of their funds was applied to religious purposes. It was soon, however, found that an attempt to enforce this part of the Act would cause resistance, and it was therefore abandoned. In 1548 the Government issued orders abolishing a great variety of Church practices, and, in consequence of the opposition offered by the clergy to these sudden measures ordered that no sermons should be preached except by a few licensed preachers.
5. The First Prayer Book of Edward VI. 1549.—In 1549 Parliament authorised the issue of a Prayer Book in English, now known as the First Prayer Book of Edward VI. The same Parliament also passed an Act permitting the marriage of the clergy.
6. The Insurrection in the West. 1549.—Somerset's own brother, Lord Seymour of Sudley, was sent to the block by this Parliament. He had spoken rashly against the Protector's government, but it has been thought by some that his main fault was his strong language against the rapacity with which Church property was being divided amongst the rich. That rapacity was now reaching its height. The Protector had set an evil example in order to raise the palace which, though it has since been rebuilt, still bears the name of Somerset House. He had not only seized on a vast amount of ecclesiastical property, but had pulled down a parish church and had carted off the bones of the dead from their graves. The Reformers themselves, men of the study as most of them were, had gone much farther than the mass of the people were prepared to follow. In 1549 an insurrection burst out in Devon and Cornwall for the restoration of the old religion, which was only suppressed with difficulty.