12 September 1555 A.D. The Trial of Archbishop Cranmer
12 September 1555 A.D. The Trial of Archbishop Cranmer
Mann, Claire. “12 September 1555—The
Trial of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.” The
Anne Boleyn Files. 12 Sept 2011. http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/12-september-1555-the-trial-of-archbishop-thomas-cranmer/.
Accessed 12 Sept 2015.
On
this day in history, Thursday the 12th September 1555, the trial of Archbishop
Cranmer began in the University Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Oxford. He was
accused of two offences, or doctrinal errors: repudiating papal authority and
denying transubstantiation.
A
ten foot high scaffold, decorated with cloth of state, had been erected in the
eastern end of the church in front of the high altar and it was on this
scaffold that James Brooks, the Bishop of Gloucester and representative of the
Pope, sat. Below him, sat Dr Martin and Dr Storey, Queen Mary I’s commissioners
(or proctors) and doctors of the law.
Archbishop
Thomas Cranmer was brought into the court. John Foxe describes him as “clothed
in a fair black gown, with his hood on both shoulders, such as doctors of
divinity in the university use to wear, and in his hand a white staff” and goes
on to say that he would not doff his cap to any of the commissioners. One of
the commissioners called him forward, saying, “Thomas archbishop of Canterbury!
Appear here, and make answer to that shall be laid to thy charge; that is to
say, for blasphemy, incontinency, and heresy; and make answer here to the
bishop of Gloucester, representing the pope’s person!”, and Cranmer was brought
up to the scaffold. Cranmer then doffed his cap and bowed to the Queen’s
proctors but did not bow or doff his cap to Brooks. An offended Brooks asked
Cranmer why he did not show him respect and Cranmer replied “that he had once
taken a solemn oath, never to consent to the admitting of the bishop of Rome’s
authority into this realm of England again; that he had done it advisedly, and
meant by God’s grace to keep it; and therefore would commit nothing either by
sign or token which might argue his consent to the receiving of the same; and
so he desired the said bishop to judge of him.”
After
Brooks and Martin had given their ‘orations’, Cranmer replied that he did not
recognise or acknowledge this court:-
“My
lord, I do not acknowledge this session of yours, nor yet you, my mislawful
judge; neither would I have appeared this day before you, but that I was
brought hither as a prisoner. And therefore I openly here renounce you as my
judge, protesting that my meaning is not to make any answer, as in a lawful
judgment, (for then would I be silent,) but only for that I am bound in
conscience to answer every man of that hope which I have in Jesus Christ, by
the counsel of St. Peter; and lest by my silence many of those who are weak,
here present, might be offended. And so I desire that my answers may be
accepted as extra judicialia.”
Then he knelt, “both knees towards the west”, and recited the Lord’s Prayer and then rose and recited the Creed. According to John Foxe, Martin asked Cranmer who he thought was “supreme head of the church of England”, to which Cranmer replied, “Christ is head of this member, as he is of the whole body of the universal church”. When Martin pushed him further, asking why he had then made Henry VIII the supreme head, Cranmer stated, “Yea, of all the people of England, as well ecclesiastical as temporal” and went on to say, “for Christ only is the head of his church, and of the faith and religion of the same. The king is head and governor of his people, which are the visible church.” He explained that “there was never other thing meant” by the King’s title.
After
the commission had heard from Cranmer, they ordered him to appear at Rome
“within fourscore days” to answer to the Pope. Cranmer agreed to do this and was
then taken back to his prison. Cranmer was never taken to Rome but his fate was
decided there on the 4th December 1555. The Pope stripped him of his office of
archbishop and gave the secular authorities permission to sentence him.
Cranmer’s friends and colleagues, Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, who were
also tried for heresy on the 12th September 1555, had already been burned at
the stake on the 16th October and now Cranmer desperately tried to save himself
by recanting. Between the end of January and mid February 1556, Cranmer made
four recantations, submitting himself to the authority of the monarch and
recognising the Pope as the head of the church, but despite this his priesthood
was taken from him and his execution was set for the 7th March. Cranmer
quickly made a fifth recantation in which he stated that he fully accepted
Catholic theology and that there was no salvation outside of the Catholic
Church, and announced that he was happy to return to the Catholic fold. This
recantation and statement of faith really should have led to him being absolved
but although his execution was postponed another date was soon set. This
postponement simply allowed a final, public recantation to be organised at
University Church, Oxford.
On
the 21st March, the day of his execution, Thomas Cranmer was taken to the
church to recant in front of the waiting crowd. After opening with the expected
prayer and exhortation to obey the King and Queen, Cranmer suddenly changed
tack and instead of recanting he actually renounced his recantations:-
“And
now I come to the great thing which so much troubleth my conscience, more than
any thing that ever I did or said in my whole life, and that is the setting
abroad of a writing contrary to the truth; which now I here renounce and refuse,
as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my
heart, and written for fear of death, and to save my life if it might be; and
that is, all such bills and papers which I have written or signed with my hand
since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch
as my hand hath offended, writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall
first be punished; for when I come to the fire, it shall be first burned. As
for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy and antichrist, with all his
false doctrine. As for the sacrament, I believe as I have taught in my book
against the bishop of Winchester, which my book teacheth so true a doctrine of
the sacrament, that it shall stand at the last day before the judgment of God,
where the papistical doctrine contrary thereto shall be ashamed to shew her
face.”
He
was quickly pulled out of the church and led to the stake, where he knelt and
prayed. John Foxe describes his execution:-
“Then
was an iron chain tied about Cranmer, whom when they perceived to be more
steadfast than that he could be moved from his sentence, they commanded the
fire to be set unto him. And when the wood was kindled and the fire began to
burn near him, stretching out his arm, he put his right hand into the flame,
which he held so steadfast and unmovable, (saving that once with the same hand
he wiped his face,) that all men might see his hand burned before his body was
touched. His body did so abide the burning of the flame with such constancy and
steadfastness, that standing always in one place without moving his body, he
seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound; his eyes were
lifted up into heaven, and oftentimes he repeated `his unworthy right hand,’ so
long as his voice would suffer him; and using often the words of Stephen, `Lord
Jesus, receive my spirit,’ in the greatness of the flames he gave up the ghost,
in the sixty-seventh year of his age.”
You
can read more about Cranmer’s execution, including an eye witness account, in
my article “The Execution of Thomas Cranmer”.
Notes and Sources
- “THE
LIFE, STATE, AND MARTYRDOM OF THE REVEREND PASTOR AND PRELATE, THOMAS
CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY” from “Actes and Monuments” or “Foxe’s
Book of Martyrs”, John Foxe, 1889 edition.
Read more: http://www.theanneboleynfiles.com/12-september-1555-the-trial-of-archbishop-thomas-cranmer/#ixzz3lWrUNNzq
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