Burning of Thomas Cranmer ~ Archbishop of Canterbury
On 21st March 1556, Thomas Cranmer was burnt at the stake for heresy.
A Protestant martyr in the reign of Mary I, Thomas Cranmer was a significant figure, serving as the first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury.
Thomas Cranmer is one of the most influential religious characters of his time.
When Henry VIII’s marriage to Katharine of Aragon was splintering, the king was keen to find support for his annulment, Cranmer stood up and accepted the task.
Cranmer’s public profile was growing and by 1532, he had been appointed at the court of Charles V~Holy Roman Emperor, as the resident ambassador.
It was there, with increasing contact with some of the many reformers, little by little the ideas extolled by Martin Luther began to resonate with Cranmer.
In the meantime, his attempt at garnering support for Henry VIII’s annulment, was not going so well.
Nevertheless, this did not appear to have an adverse effect on his career, as he was subsequently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury.
This role was secured largely due to the influence of Anne Boleyn’s family, who had a vested interest in seeing the annulment secured.
Cranmer returned to England and on 30th March 1533, was consecrated as Archbishop of Canterbury.
With his newly acquired role bringing him prestige and status, Cranmer remained undeterred in his pursuit of annulment proceedings.
These became even more important after Anne Boleyn’s revelation of pregnancy.
With much urgency, the king and Cranmer looked into the legal parameters for ending the royal marriage, and on 23rd May 1533, Cranmer announced that King Henry VIII’s marriage with Katharine of Aragon, was against the law of God.
Whilst Henry could not have been happier with this outcome, back in Rome, Pope Clement VII was incandescent with rage and had Henry excommunicated.
In September the same year, Anne gave birth to a baby girl, Elizabeth.
Cranmer himself performed the baptism ceremony, and served as godparent to the future queen.
Now in a position of power as Archbishop, Cranmer would lay the foundations of the Church of England.
After Anne Boleyn was arrested for treason and imprisoned in the Tower of London, Cranmer wrote a letter to Henry VIII expressing his doubts about her guilt, and highlighting his own esteem for her.
After it was delivered, he was resigned to the fact that the end of Anne’s marriage was inevitable and that she would ultimately be ex3cuted.
This was a time of great change in religious, social and cultural terms, and with Cranmer fast becoming one of the influential figureheads at this time.
Whilst serving as archbishop, he created the conditions for a new Church of England, and established a doctrinal structure for this new Protestant church.
Cranmer’s position of authority continued when Henry VIII’s son Edward VI succeeded the throne.
Cranmer continued with his plans for reformation.
Under King Edward VI came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote some major religious reforms, which he had been unable to do under Henry’s reign.
In this time he produced the Book of Common Prayer, which amounted to a liturgy for the English Church in 1549.
When Edward VI passed away only a few months later, his sister Mary I, a devout Roman Catholic, restored her faith in the country and thus banished the likes of Cranmer and his Book of Prayer to the shadows.
By this time, Cranmer was a significant and well-known figurehead of the English Reformation, and as such, became a prime target for the new Catholic queen.
In the autumn, Queen Mary ordered his arrest, placing him on trial on the charges of treason and heresy.
Desperate to survive his impending fate, Cranmer renounced his ideals and recanted his faith, reconciling himself with the Catholic Church ~ but to no avail.
Imprisoned for two years, Mary had no intentions of saving this Protestant figurehead ~ his destiny was his ex3cution.
On 21st March 1556, the day of his ex3cution, 66 year old Cranmer boldly withdrew his recantation.
Cranmer vowed that his right hand, the hand that he had used to write his recantations, and written for fear of death, would be the first part of him burned in the fire.
“This is the hand that wrote it, and therefore shall it suffer first punishment.”
Proud of his beliefs, he embraced his fate, burning at the stake ~ dying a heretic to the Roman Catholics, and a martyr for the Protestants.
As the flames licked around him, Cranmer stretched out his right hand and thrust it into the flames, crying with a loud voice,
“This hand hath offended!!”
He held it in the fire till it was burnt to a cinder, even before his body was injured
The last words from a man who changed the course of history in England forever, were ~
“Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
I see the heavens open and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.”
Cranmer was buried in St Mary Magdalen’s Church, Oxford, Oxfordshire, England.
Cranmer’s legacy lives on within the Church of England, through his ‘Book of Common Prayer’
