Diarmaid MacCulloch, Ph.D.: "Thomas Cranmer," Ch. 3--Campaign to end a m...

1531-1532. Where was Dr. Cranmer theologically at this period of 1531-1532? Prof. MacCulloch states “there is nothing to make us suppose that the theological opinions of Thomas Cranmer and Stephen Gardiner were notably out of step” (67). We are not sure of this. Dr. Cranmer is all over the issue, including Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More and Henry's harangues about Lutheranism. The providential meeting in Aug 1529 at Waltham indicates compatibility between Gardiner, Fox and Cranmer, prima facie. Cranmer meets Dr. Barnes at Hampton Court in Dec 1531 when Barnes and Gardiner tango. Apparently, Cranmer, as usual, played his cards close to his chest. Cranmer heads off to the Continent in 1532—two events shift the trajectories of Cranmer and Gardiner. Gardiner in the spring of 1532, at home, defends the Church’s liberties against Henry in the “parliamentary row” over the Supplication against the Ordinaries. That shot holes in Henry’s trust of Gardiner hereafter and thereafter. Cranmer meets Osiander, takes to his scholarship, reviews the Lutheran experiment in liturgy at Nuremberg, but, curiously, picks up a wife, a niece of Osiander, Margarete.