ARCHBISHOP CRANMER (Cont’d)
On February 14, 1555, Cranmer was recalled before a new commission, condemned, stripped of his church offices, and turned over to the secular authorities.
By now Cranmer had been in prison for almost three years. The doctors and divines of Oxford all tried to make him recant, even allowing him to stay in the dean’s house while they argued with him, and eventually Cranmer gave in to their requests and signed a recantation accepting the pope’s authority in all things. The queen was delighted with his recantation but still determined that Cranmer would die. He remained in prison.
Cranmer was miserable, not being able to die honestly or live dishonestly. In the meantime, Queen Mary secretly told Dr. Cole to prepare a funeral sermon for Cranmer’s burning on March 21. On March 30, Cole went to Cranmer to see if he was standing by his recantation. Assured that he was, Cole returned early on March 21 to give Cranmer some money for the poor. Cranmer realized what was about to happen to him. A Spanish friar came in to ask him to write his recantation out twice with his own hand and sign it, which he did, then Cranmer wrote a prayer and sermon that he secretly tucked into his shirt and waited.
Since it was a cold, rainy day, Cranmer was brought into St. Mary’s Church with all the nobles, justices, and the crowd that had gathered. Dr. Cole gave his sermon, saying that although Cranmer had repented of his errors, the queen had other reasons for sending him to his death. He commended Cranmer for his works, saying he was unworthy of death but that masses would be said for his soul in all the churches of Oxford. Then Cole asked Cranmer to read his profession of faith, so everyone would see he was a good Catholic.
Cranmer’s prayers and confession of faith were well within the doctrine of the Catholic Church until the very end, when he said, “And now I come to the great thing that troubles my conscience more than anything I ever did or said in my whole life, and that is the publishing of a writing contrary to the truth, which now here I renounce and refuse, as things written by my hand contrary to the truth I believed with my whole heart, written because I feared death. Since my hand offended, it will be punsihed: When I come to the fire, it first will be burned. As for the pope, I refuse him, as Christ’s enemy and antichrist, with all his false doctrine. And as for the sacrament,I believe as I have taught in my book. . . . “
The congregation was amazed at Cranmer’s words, and the Catholic churchmen there raged, fretted, and fumed because they had nothing left to threaten him with. He could only die once, after all.
When he came to the place where Hugh Latimer and Ridley had been burned before him, Cranmer knelt down briefly to pray then undressed to his shirt, which hung down to his bare feet. His head, once he took off his caps, was so bare there wasn’t a hair on it. His beard was long and thick, covering his face, which was so grave it moved both his friends and enemies.
As the fire approached him, Cranmer put his right hand into the flames, keeping it there until eeryone could see it burned before his body was toched. “This unworthy right hand!” he called out often before he gave up the ghost.
(To be continued …)
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