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Born 1489, died 1556
Thomas Cranmer was an obscure Cambridge theology don when Henry VIII's search for a way to annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon reached crisis point in 1529. Cranmer suggested that, rather than see the issue as a legal one, Henry should regard it as a moral dilemma and seek the counsel of university theologians throughout Europe. Cambridge was the first university to be canvassed, and it came up with the right answer – in Henry's eyes. Other universities soon followed suit.
For his help, Cranmer was richly rewarded: in March 1533, he was appointed archbishop of Canterbury. Within days, he held a trial into Henry and Catherine's marriage and, to no one's surprise, quickly declared the union unlawful. In August, he crowned Anne queen.
Cranmer continued to act cravenly on Henry's behalf. Having made the king's marriage to Anne legal, he declared it invalid in 1536, paving the way to her execution. Four years later, after promoting a marriage between Henry and the Protestant Anne of Cleves, he agreed heartily to its annulment. And in 1542, he became one of the accusers against Henry's fifth wife Catherine Howard.
On Henry's death in 1547, Cranmer flourished in the court of the young Edward VI, whom he persuaded to follow a radical Protestantism. In 1549, the archbishop published the Book of Common Prayer, which established the doctrine of the Church of England and set it in law, with just enough of the old liturgy left in to prevent wholesale revolt. However, three years later, a new edition contained much hardened Protestant doctrine.
Edward's death in 1553 spelt disaster for Cranmer. The Protestant boy king was succeeded by the militant Catholic Mary, who believed that the archbishop had ruined her life by aiding in her parents' annulment and thus bastardising her. She promptly imprisoned him and had him tried for treason.
After his conviction for heresy, Cranmer recanted his 'heretical' religious views, but Mary was determined that he should suffer the full penalty. He was burned at the stake at Oxford on 21 March 1556. However, before he succumbed to the fire, he repudiated his recantation, then stuck his right hand, which had signed his recantation, into the heart of the fire. 'It has sinned so it should first be punished,' he said.
It was a magnificent gesture that vindicated Cranmer's personal integrity, saved Protestantism and forever blackened Mary's name.
1556: The execution of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
http://englishhistory.net/tudor/pcranmer
.html
A dramatic account of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's execution, written by an anonymous bystander.
Thomas Cranmer: A life by Diarmaid MacCulloch (Yale University Press, 1997)
Traces Cranmer's life from his Midlands roots to his death at the stake in Oxford.
Get this book
Martyrs' Memorial
Corner of St Giles and Broad Street
Oxford
This Victorian construction was erected in 1843 in front of Balliol College, not far from the original site where Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, bishop of London, and Hugh Latimer, bishop of Worcester, were burned at the stake on 21 March 1556. The actual spot is 20 metres (66 feet) away, marked by a cross sunk into Broad Street.
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