Diarmaid MacCulloch, Ph.D.: Thomas Cranmer"--Ch. 4: Queen Anne, 108ff.

1.     Apparently, ABC Warham had a bastard son (called a “nephew” like clerical wives being called “housekeepers”), named William Warham, Archdeacon of Canterbury, a powerful and rich post. Nepotism in Canterbury (again), like Rome and other hierarchal contexts (we would include the military too). In dismantling Warham's clientage, patrons, pensioners, time-servers and others, Dr. picks his brother, Edmund Cranmer, a faithful "soulmate" as MacCulloch calls him, as the replacement of William Warham the "nephew." That means $$-transfers and the nephew is quietly pensioned off (bought off) at 80 pounds/year. He disappears as did Cardinal Wolsey's bastard son who was pensioned off and disappear. Edmund Cranmer follows his married brother, Thomas, and marries in 1535. Well now. The Six Articles are not a long off. What will Ed do? Will Ed send his wife packing to the Continent like brother Tom did? Ed will flee c. 1555 and survive Tom's brutal assassination on 21 Mar 1556. Cranmer also staffs-up Calais, Hadleigh, and some other Canterbury-peculiars, dozens of posts. Cranmer gives politico-ecclesiastical cover to/for Latimer and Shaxton—iconoclasm issues in summer 1534, but we can imagine other "agenda items." We need a list. We need to know what Cranmer is accommodating and theological items are not being mentioned. MacCulloch tells us, “Cranmer continued this unspectacular tinkering with his patronage in good times and during Henry’s reign" (113). Heath, the once-reliable-evangelical-turncoat-to-recusancy-Vicar Bray, goes as an evangelical to Germany, probably at Crumwell’s behest to promote the English Church with the German Lutherans. Nothing came of it in 1534. MacCulloch definitely views Cranmer as a strong Lutheranizing man, yet, without theological details, unfortunately. He's giving cover to evangelicals is one upshot here. But, the ever-vexatious questions arise--what did Cranmer believe theologically from 1520-1534 and when did he believe it? We must remember that Dr. Cranmer was a principal to the first degree homocide of the Oeocolampdian John Frith, brutally burned on 4 July 1533.