[655a] See letter in Burnet History Ref. b. iii. p. 200.
[655b] Burnet, p. 203.
[655c] The two sentences, the one of attainder for adultery, the other of a divorce because of precontract, did so contradict one another, that one if not both must be unjust. Burnet.
[655d] Heylin, Edw. p. 28.
[656a] Collier, vol. p. 218. Burnet.
[656b] See Milner’s 5th Letter to Sturges, whence the above passages or quotations are taken, mostly verbatim.
[657a] Fuller says: “It cannot be denied that he had a hand in the execution of Lambert, Frith, and other godly martyrs,” adding that he would leave him to sink or swim by himself where he is guilty. Ch. Hist. b. 5. sec. 2. He elsewhere accuses Cranmer of arguing against the aforesaid Lambert contrary to his own private judgment; and remarks that “as the latter was burnt for denying the corporal presence, so Cranmer himself was afterwards condemned and died at Oxford for maintaining the same opinion,” b. 5. sec. 6.
[657b] She is also called Joan Butcher and Joan of Kent—“When he (Cranmer) was on the point of passing sentence upon her, . . . she reproached him for passing the like sentence upon another woman, Ann Askew, for denying the carnal presence of Christ in the sacrament; telling him that he had condemned the said Ann Askew not long before for a piece of bread, and was then ready to condemn her for a piece of flesh.” Heylin, Edw. vi, p. 89.—As three other protestants, Lassels, Otterden, and Adams were burnt with Askew for the selfsame cause, there is every appearance that Cranmer was as instrumental in their punishment as he was in that of Askew. (Milner, 207.)
[657c] See the process of their condemnation in Burnet’s Collect. of Rec. part ii, b. 1, n. 35.
[658a] In 1538 a special commission was granted to Cranmer, with two other bishops and six other persons, to try summaris el de plano, even though they had not been denounced or detected, all Anabaptists, &c. and to deliver them over to the secular arm. Collier vol. 2. sec. 46.—Within a month from the date of this commission, viz. Nov. 24. I find two Anabaptists burnt, and four bearing faggots. Stow.—About a year after this, by virtue of a special commission, Cranmer with certain other bishops tried Alexander Seaton for protestant opinions, and condemned him to bear a faggot and recant at St. Paul’s Cross, which he did accordingly. Collier, vol. 2 p. 184. The same year three other Anabaptists were burnt by virtue of the former commission. Stow—In Edward’s reign certain chiefs (of the Gospellers and Anabaptists) were condemned April 12, 1549, before the archbishop (Cranmer), the bishop of Westminster, and Drs. Cox, May, Cole, and Smith. Being convicted, some of them were dismissed only with an admonition, some sentenced to a recantation, and others condemned to bear their faggots at St. Paul’s. Heylin, p. 73. About the same time John Champneys of Stratford was convented before Cranmer, Latimer, and two other doctors, at which time he was forced to recant upon oath certain “heretical and damnable opinions” concerning regeneration, &c. as also to carry a faggot. In like manner John Ashton, priest, being convented before Cranmer, abjured his heresies, &c. and took an oath to submit to whatever penance was enjoined. Ex. Regist. Cranm. Collier part ii. b. i, rec. 35.