Cranmer Readings: 10/9/2022

Diarmaid MacCulloch’s Thomas Cranmer. Yale University Press, 1996. Prof. Mac notes that Cranmer in 1543 and 1544 was tinkering with the Litany as per Henry’s need for a vernacular Litany in connection with his war at Boulogne. Cranmer had learned of the value of vernacular Bibles and the liturgy from his Continental travels and correspondence. The number of saints’ invocations were drastically reduced from about 60 to just Biblical saints. One reads of the serious dustups and conflicts at Canterbury with its refoundation including 6 preachers—three trads and three reformed types. The effort at balance was the stuff of combustion with Serles in the lead for the trads and Nicholas Ridley for the reformers. Division was apparent not just in the Cathedral, but in the city as well. Wily Winchester, or, Stephen Gardiner was returning from ambassadorial duties to the Emperor and stops by the Cathedral en route to London. He attends Mass and gets an earful from the varied trads. He gives Ridley a “good talking to.” Meanwhile, the Catherine Howard story of illicit and immoral sexual liaisons emerges. Cranmer, Hertford and Audley get the reports. Cranmer breaks the news to Henry at the All Souls’ Day Mass, 2 Nov 1541. Cranmer is the interrogator of Catherine Howards and reports the lurid details to Henry. So much for the priest-penitent privilege, but this isn't Cranmer's first go-around on violating his conscience. Ultimately, she is executed in Feb 1542 after a thorough investigation. The boy bubbas are executed in late 1541 (282-289). Meanwhile, there’s the large dumpster fire in Canterbury which will develop into the Prebendaries’ Plot of 1543—an event that nearly fells Cranmer. Ridley, Jaspar. Thomas Cranmer. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962. Chapter 16. The New Policy: The Death of Henry, 246-257. On 18 Dec 1543, after the Presbendaries Plot, Cranmer’s Canterbury Palace burned. Several died, including his brother-in-law married to his sister. Ann Cranmer? Or Alice Cranmer. She’s not named. Meanwhile, in 1544, the Royal Army was despoliated Scotland’s monasteries in an anti-Popery thrust. And, in 1544, Cranmer is fiddling with the Litany, reducing the saints invoked from 58 saints to 38 saints, including patriarchs and prophets. No doubt that Cranmer was favorable to English Bibles and liturgies, but he could only proceed at a pace allowed by the Tudor King. Also, the King was pressing for higher taxes to refurbish his treasury after the siege of Boulogne in July 1544. People aren’t happy and clergy aren’t happy with their first-fruits going to the King. The plot thickens in merry ole England.