Reformed Anglicans

CHAPTER I. EDWARD VI. 1547. The accession of Edward occurred on 20 Feb 1547, within the month of Henry VIII’s death. Sixteen persons are on the Regency as appointed by Henry VIII and, as we believe, excluding Gardiner but including Cranmer as a Co-Regent. Cranmer's commission as archbishop and commissions for the other bishops is issued from the new sovereign, acknowledgements or reaffirmations of the sovereign Source for ecclesial authority, the King himself. We dispute this affirmation. Cr. Cranmer gives his speech at the King’s coronation of the king, alluding to the divine ordination to Kingship, Josiah, and the need to rule in God’s fear. " Your Majesty is God's vicegerent, and Christ's vicar within your own dominions…” (5). Rev. Todd includes the speech. Some putdowns of Papal authority are made, as expected. “…God truly worshipped, and idolatry destroyed; the tyranny of the bishops of Rome banished from your subjects; and images removed” (5).— He proceeds cauti...

CHAPTER I. HENRY VIII. 1489 to 1529. The standard discussion of Dr. Cranmer’s lineage, his youth in Aslockton and parochial education is described with a brief notice of his father’s death in 1501 and dispatch to Jesus College in 1503 at age fourteen. Todd notes that Erasmus had been at Cambridge before Cranmer took his BA and Erasmus was pleased with developments at Cambridge. In 1510-1511, Cranmer became a fellow of Jesus College. The story of his marriage to Joan (Black or Brown?) of Dolphin Inn is briefly retailed. Dr. Cranmer was not ordained nor in orders. He simply married as a young scholar, something for the Papists’ hateful grist mill of later years; Dr. Cranmer’s “lewdness” and marital "lasciviousness" would arise later at his trial at Oxford. During the 1-year marraige, Cranmer became a reader (lecturer?) at Buckingham College while his wife resided at Dolphin Inn. The hot Papists would later call him an “ostler,” one who deals with the horses and mules, a put-dow...

PREFACE. The Preface promises to deliberatively look at the faults and merits of the great English Reformer. He lists the stock notables of detractors—Sanders, Pollini, Rosotto, Cardinal Allen, Dr. Champney’s, Person, and Bishop Milner. He briefly lists the four appreciative champions and historians—Foxe, Parker, Burnet, and Strype. Rev. Todd gives a wonderful ancestral tree of the Cranmers backwards to the 13 th century and forwards into the 17 th century. “The name certainly still exists” (xi). Further, he discusses the issue of armorial heraldry and a variety of portraits, including the famous Flicke portrait of 1546 with Dr. Cranmer holding a Bible in his hand and, on the table, Augustine’s De Fide et Operibus.

Theology and Philosophy—types of relationships between theology and philosophy, some 20th century philosophies, theology’s use of philosophy. Four relationships between theology and philosophy: (1) no connection (Tertullian), (2) limited use of philosophy (Augustine), (3) philosophy establishes theology (Aquinas), philosophy judges theology (Deism). We are unsatisfied with his views of Augustine and Aquinas at this point. Four 20th century philosophies: pragmatism, existentialism, analytic philosophy, and process theology. Pragmatism emphasizes no absolute truth, just the practical, observable results—the focus was problem solving. Existentialism is irrationalistic, individualistic, freedom-driven, and subjectivistic—Barth, Bultmann, Brunner, Niehbur, Tillach and others reflect varied aspects of this. Analytic philosophy has two stages—the aggressive “logical positivist” stage and the more modest one of confinement to the study and clarification of language. Process philosophy is unive...

Tertullianistic opposition to philosophy, Augustinianism, Platonism, Aristotelianism, pragmatism, existentialism, analytic philosophy and process theology.

1.      CHAPTER I. Anno 1553. Queen Mary was soon recognized as Queen over Lady Jane Grey. The archbishop's and counsellors' concern with the lady Jane, meeting in the Tower, and resolve to support “Queen Jane.” This falls apart fast. Several fold on 20 July 1553, declaring for Queen Mary and write to Northumberland to lay down his arms. The queen owned by the ambassadors. The archbishop was immediately, within the month, slandered by hot mouths. The archbishop is misreported to have said the Romanist Mass at Canterbury. Dr. Cranmer imputes the falsity to a “false, flattering, lying monk, Dr. Thornden” whom Cranmer noted was a title-mongerer of little academic ability and whose sermons were chaotic—he loved the “glorious titles, monk, doctor, vice-dean and suffragan” (14). Further, it was bruited abroad that Dr. Cranmer would sing the Mass and requiem at the funeral for Edward VI. Dr. Cranmer makes a public declaration against the false, bruited imputation of re-esta...

1.      Dr. Cranmer, the bemitred, chief celebrant, crowns king Edward on 20 Feb, 1546 (but it is 1547) at Westminster Abbey. Previous to the coronation, on 7 Feb 1547, the archbishop had taken an official, formal commission to execute his archepiscopal office, crafted carefully and founded in/on supreme Royal authority and, as a result, authorizing nearwise dominant powers to Dr. Cranmer. The coronation service began at 0900 AM. The gilded, bejeweled setting is described including vested participants—bishops, choristers, and others. Kneeling and bowing noblemen are present. The manner of the coronation is described including choirs, organs, and trumpets, including the Te Deum . Dr. Cranmer and other Bishops meet the young King at the western door of the Abbey. An elevated stage is placed in the Quire afore the altar. Dr. Cranmer conducted the “Mass of the Holy Ghost” (4). King Edward crowned by the archbishop. The archbishop gives speech at the coronation. He concei...

In the Psalter lection, God's omniscience is handled. In Genesis 45, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and the brothers return to Canaan to tell their father, Jacob, that Joseph is the Vice-Regent of Egypt, so sent to protect and extend their posterity in accordance with the Abrahamic promises. In 1 Corinthians 12, one reads of the diversity of gifts operating for the unity and edification of the one body. The WSC is what it is--golden.

1.      Dedicatory and Preface, xi-xxxvii. The volume is dedicated to Archbishop Tillotson and went to press in 1694. Strype is an Anglican clergyman in an east London parish and was of Huguenot extraction. He speaks of his love for Dr. Cranmer and the methods, purposes, ends and personages of the English Reformation. He traveled and researched widely in English libraries, cathedrals, private collections, collegial and government collections. He speaks favorably on Foxe’s instincts as an historian and his Acts and Monuments. Reference is made to historical works by Fuller, Heylin the Arminian and Burnet of Salisbury. Otherwise, he laments an overall lack of historical works covering Henry, Edward and Mary. Aside from the mere love of history, which he evinces, he wants the “English nation…to value and esteem as we ought our reformed religion” (30). This influence “manners” by observing “discreet behavior, just management of matters..their zeal, their charity, their a...

1.      The Background of the Swiss Reformation, 3-17. Prof. McNeill gives a tour de force, as it were, on Swiss history down to Zwingli and the German, Swiss Reformation. It’s a digest of speedy historical developments over centuries until definitive changes between 1530-1564, one generation. Historically, a rather independent confederacy had developed in the Alpine Valleys, not quite attached to the Reich yet with a “slender attachment to the Empire” (6). An occasional Hapsburg intrusion unified them. Efforts to collect taxes were rebuffed and unsuccessful. They had no representatives at the Reich’s Imperial Diet. Luzern, Zurich, Glarus, Zug and Bern rapidly expanded as cantons. Prof. McNeill states that the Swiss were “culturally retarded” in the 15 th century (9), but Basel later became an high-end academic center and had been a trading center since the 10 th century. The Council of Basel and the fall of Constantinople (1453) brought academic celebrities to Bas...

PREFACE. In the preface, due notice is given to Foxe's Acts and Monuments , ix—xx. His manuscript collections, xii, are discussed including varied corrections that were never incorporated. Foxe was aware of some of these imperfections. The works of Strype, xvi, are discussed but not with a large appreciation but a diminution of sorts. The character of Foxe and of his great work, xxviii, is brought forward. The current interest is the anecdotal and contemporaneous accounts during Dr. Cranmer’s times, including the memorials by his faithful, longtime secretary, Ralph Morice.

The Daily Life and the Secret Marriage, 131-153. We learn from Morice and Foxe of Cranmer’s generalized daily schedule: 5-9 AM: study and prayers, followed by suitors or public affairs, chess in the afternoon, a 1-hour walk after supper, and 9 PM for sleep. He “spent three-quarters of each day in study, as he had done when he was in Cambridge” (132). He stood while reading and dictated books and letters to Morice, including the use of a filing system with a “summary of the opinions of some thirty, forty, sixty or more somewhiles of authors” (132). He considered the “primary duty of an Archbishop of Canterbury was to be a divine and a theologian” (132). Suffragans largely handled administrative task. Dr. Cranmer was involved in judicial matters: Court of Arches (appellate court) and Court of Audience (court of instance). Dr. Cranmer played a role in “collecting information from English spies abroad” (135). Patronage issues were before him, but he sought only the qualified for preferment...

1.      Introduction, 1. This volume is not for scholars, but for seminarians, priests and lay students of English history and theology. The focus is anecdotal for a lively retelling of the story. The volume leans on Dr. MacCulloch’s Thomas Cranmer and John Foxe’s Acts and Monuments. 2.      Beginnings, 2-6. The well known story is retold of Aslockton on the edge of the fertile Vale of Belvoir in the English Midlands. Cranmer was born   on July 2, 1489 to a family of Norman descent. His grandfather had married into a knighted family to an Isabella de Aslockton and had inherited land in the village of around forty people and having 500-600 acres. The Cranmer family worshipped at St. John’s, Whatton, allegedly 0.5 miles from Aslockton. The story of the family coat of arms with three cranes is retold (pun on the family name of Crane-mer), something Cranmer will change once he’s an archbishop. Thomas Sr. and Agnes Cranmer have three sons and fo...

1.      Political Condition of the Empire, 5-23

The Dunstable decree of the nullity of Henry-Catherine's marriage, shortly thereafter, Anne's marriage to Henry and her coronation by Dr. Cranmer at Westminster Abbey.

1. Cranmer’s Life Until the Divorce, 1-43

1.      Life, State, and Story of Thomas Cranmer— Henry  makes Dr. Cranmer the Archbishop of Canterbury. Henry always defended Dr. Cranmer, e.g. contrary to Steve Gardiner’s efforts. Dr. Cranmer’s was born to an ancient family in an Esquire’s home. He went to Cambridge and became a fellow of Jesus College. After the decease of his first wife, Joan, he was readmitted to Jesus College, became of Doctor of Divinity and public examiner of those proceeding to divinity degrees. The friars hated him, but were thankful later for Dr. Cranmer’s insistence on Biblical studies and knowledge, e.g. Dr. Barret. Dr. Cranmer was solicited by Cardinal Wolsey to be a fellow of the Cardinal’s College, Oxford but he declined the offer. The question of the King’s divorce with Catherine is discussed at Waltham with Wily Steve (Dr. of canon law) and Dr. Fox. Fox and Gardiner refer Dr. Cranmer’s suggestions to Henry. The King summons Dr. Cranmer and interrogates him. The King charges th...

1.      Biographical Notice of Archbishop Cranmer—the standard dates are reviewed. Birth: 2 Jul 1489. Cambridge: 1503. 1 st marriage: 1512ish. BD/ DD studies. 1529: Waltham Abbey and service to Henry. 1530: envoy to Rome. 1532: envoy to Charles V. 30 Mar 1533: Archbishop of Canterbury. 1534: Reformation efforts. 1536: Anne Boleyn axed. 1537: Tyndale’s Bible. 1538: German Lutherans at Lambeth; John Lambert. 1539: Six Articles. 1540-1543: Prebendaries’ Plot. 1544: Litany.   28 Jan 1547: Henry VIII dies. 1547-1553: Edward VI and Edwardian Reformation. 1549: 1 st BCP. 1549: Devonshire uprisings. 1549-1551: Vermigli, Bucer, etc. 1552: 2 nd BCP. Jun 1553: 42 Articles. Summer, 1553: Mary 1’s accession. Sept 1553: Tower. 1554: Oxford jail. 21 Mar 1556: Burned-at-stake at Oxford.

Preface—7 pages. The usefulness of the Preface are varied notes on biographies. He says Dr. Cranmer is “the most mysterious figure in the English Reformation” (13). Perhaps. Fortunately, Prof. Pollard calls for the effort to “get into the times,” as it were, rather than impose an alien construct on the period. That is, get the facts strictly and fully. Then, and only then, the opinions can be put behind a thick, high firewall. Facts and the factual pattern. Then, the opinions. Prof. Pollard complains of the “Whiggish historians” of Hallam and Macaulay. Dr. Cranmer, though “weak” (14), is the “storm-tossed plaything of forces which even Henry could not completely control” (14). Prof. Pollard points to: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII Acts of Privy Council (1542-1599) Hall’s Chronicles—Henry VIII J.G. Nichols’s Literary Remains of Edward VI (1857, 2 vols.) Camden Society’s Wrioethesley’s Chronicle, Greyfriars’ Chronicle, Chronicle of Queen ...

Introduction—the Reformer. KITCHEN SINK AND ALL-THINGS-CRANMER IN 22 PAGES. “By Shakespeare’s classification Thomas Cranmer was one of those who have greatness thrust on them. Neither by birth, training, connections, nor opportunity could he expect to play any great part in the affairs of church of nation” (11). This is a 20-plus page, high-speed flyover that covers all major issues with amazing clarity. 1489, Aslockton, a “marvellous severe and cruel schoolmaster,” reduced memory “which he could never recover,” a B.A. from Jesus College of Cambridge with a fellowship, a first marriage, a readership at Buckingham College (now Magdalene), readmission to Jesus, Cardinal Wolsey’s invitation to Oxford University (declined), the quiet life of academia although “nozzled in the grossest kind of sophistry,” possible influences from John Colet and, more likely, Erasmus, love of plain and “simple exposition” (12), slow and cautious inquiries into Lutheranism, the early belief that Rome’s jurisdi...

Cranmer. Privately, he was enormously self-controlled and was almost a pacific and quiet spectator to actions in Parliament and Court. Cranmer’s books are notoriously marked up and he had an elaborate, classification-system for his notes. Dr. MacCulloch prefers the term “Evangelicalism” to “Protestantism” or “Lutheranism” for the 1530s/1540s. Also, he prefers the terms “traditionalist” or “conservatives” for Thomas More, Bishop Fisher and the vast majority of the English population. He also believes that the historians of the hero-narrative, overall, distort fewer pieces of the evidence. Part 1: Academic Prelude 1. Simple Esquire: 1489-1503. Apparently, Alsockton, the small hamlet where Cranmer was born in 1489, has a secular and sacred sense of their famous son: two pubs in town are christened with “The Cranmer Arms.” On the sacred side, the Victorians—3 centuries later--built a parish church there with stained-windows commemorating two historic Thomases: A’ Becket and Cranmer. But...

1.      Persecutions in the Third Century—persecution under Septimus Severus, Decius, and the Question of the Lapsed: Cyprian and Novatian. The last years of the second century had enjoyed relative peace, although Trajan’s policy was still in force resulting in local persecution. However, new and imperial-wide policies were brought to bear in the reigns of Septimus Severus (202) and Decius (249). Septimus Severus, though dealing with barbarians and internal imperial conflicts, legislated “syncretism,” to wit, all religions are subordinated by sovereign edict to the “Sun God” (Sol Invictus)—a state-controlled religion. These imperialized and widened persecutions throughout the Empire. Irenaeus, Felicitas, Perpetua are famed martyrs. Emperors following Septimus Severus retained the policy, but did not enforce it bringing relative peace back for Christian “confessors,” or, believers confessing Christ. The storm broke, however, with Emperor Decius in 249 who mandated res...

In terms of Biblical authority, Dr. Allison discusses the Romanist novelty of Scripture + church traditions as a multiple-source hypothesis of co-equal veneration and co-equal authority. Logically, this will lead to Papal infallibility over Scriptures, a further consequence of their departure from the ancient and medieval church...which held to Biblical authority above all and everyone. Dr. Allison does an excellent job.