recent course of dissimulation. With regard to every other act of his life, he expresses himself, throughout his persecution, like one who had exercised himself to have a conscience void of offence towards God and

man.

In a word, then, we have seen Archbishop Cranmer, in his last moments, surrounded, as it were, by the ruins of his own good fame; and yet, in the midst of that piteous wreck, enabled to resume his courage, and to rise, like the Apostle who denied his Lord, from the depths of human frailty, to the honours of Christian martyrdom. It is scarcely to be credited that a man like this could have borne to live "infamous and contented," if the Church of Rome had allowed him to survive. Had his life been granted him, he must soon have loathed a gift, which would only have reserved him for sufferings worse than the bitterness of death. He might then, possibly, have sunk under the silent, though inglorious martyrdom, of a wounded spirit: but, more probably, he would have been enabled to renew his strength, and to seek a refuge from his anguish, by rushing, a voluntary martyr, into the flames.

CHAPTER XVII.

Review of Cranmer's Character-Some general Reflections on the Reformation in England.

Ir any one were to derive his knowledge of Archbishop Cranmer solely from the foregoing narrative, he would possibly rise from the perusal without any impression seriously unfavourable to his character for integrity and fortitude. And yet I am utterly unconscious of having wilfully mis-stated any fact in his history, or disguised the moral complexion of the man by artificial colouring. It may be asked, then, how is it that the individual represented in these pages, should have been stigmatised, always by Romanists, and occasionally by Protestants, as a time-server, and a courtier, a man destitute, not only of mere animal courage, but of high moral principle?

The acrimony of the Romanists towards the memory of Cranmer may reasonably be viewed with some little indulgence. His life was devoted to the subversion of their greatness. In their judgment, therefore, his very virtues would be transformed into failings, and his failings would be aggravated into vices. For the faint and penurious praise which is occasionally dealt out to his memory by Protestants of later times, it may be more difficult to account. Still less explicable is the positive rancour with

which his name has, in some instances, been recently assailed. Possibly this may, in part, be a natural effect of that reaction which often follows an unqualified vehemence of admiration. The Archbishop was so distinguished a benefactor to the Protestant cause, that his reputation was long identified with it. The veneration entertained for him by the Reformers and their successors was, sometimes, well nigh unbounded and indiscriminate. To him it was, that the Church of England principally stood indebted for her sound and moderate doctrines, her impressive services, and her incomparable forms of devotion. To think of the faults of such a man would seem a breach of charity, and, almost, of gratitude. To exalt his services and his virtues would be only to speak the language of fidelity to the establishment of which he was regarded as the founder. Such was the state of feeling respecting Cranmer in the earlier days of the Reformation. In our own times, it seems to have been thought necessary to correct the suavity of former commendations, by an extraordinary infusion of bitterness. Every failing has been dragged forth and placed in the most trying point of view. Every excellence, and every merit, has been invidiously suppressed or perverted. A sinister and repulsive expression has been given to every feature of his character; so that it would be scarcely possible for any one, incompetently versed in his history, to rise from the contemplation of the picture, without unmixed feelings of aversion and contempt!

As the office I have undertaken is that of a chro

nicler, rather than an advocate, I shall dwell no longer on these forcible distortions of the truth. The cause of the Archbishop is safe in the hands of every intelligent reader, who will but dispassionately examine the incidents of his life, and the peculiar circumstances in which he was fated to act. I shall, accordingly, be content to adopt the language of the honest and indefatigable Strype, in the full confidence that it will commend itself to every impartial understanding, and to every kindly and generous spirit. "I do not intend these my collections for such a panegyric of him, as to make the world believe him void of all faults and frailties, the condition of human nature. He lived in such critical times, and under such Princes, and was necessarily involved in such affairs, as exposed him to greater temptations than ordinary. And if any blemishes shall by curious observers be espied in him, he may therefore seem the more pardonable; and his great and exemplary goodness and usefulness in the Church of God may make amends for some errors."

The reader will easily have collected from the whole tenor of the Archbishop's life, that it was not so much for an 66 unconquerable will" and stern inflexibility of purpose, that Cranmer challenges the homage of posterity, as for eminent wisdom and caution; for sober, patient, unwearied, and conscientious inquiries after Christian truth; and for the steady perseverance with which he sought its advancement. is tolerably clear that his peculiar temperament was never designed for a fierce and angry struggle with

It

the bad passions of other men. It might, therefore, have been happy for him, had he been allowed to serve his country and his God, as a retired scholar and divine, instead of being forced up into the region of whirlwinds and tempests, and constantly exposed to dangers almost too formidable for any but the most heroic resolution. Even among those who are least disposed to regard him with veneration, some have been willing to allow that his faults were the result, not of evil design, but of the circumstances in which he was placed. But then it is contended, on the other hand, that he was placed in the midst of those circumstances by his own voluntary act; and can therefore be entitled to little benefit from a consideration of his difficulties. Now, when it is affirmed that Cranmer voluntarily placed himself in this arduous post, nothing more can be meant than this—that he did not persist, to the last, in opposing the resolution of his Sovereign to fix him there. Of course, he did not become Primate of England by positive compulsion; but it is still indisputable that the power and influence exerted to raise him to that dignity were all but irresistible. And that he mounted, with bitter reluctance, to his dangerous elevation, is absolutely certain; unless we are to fix the note of falsehood on his own solemn asseveration to that effect before the Commissioners at Oxford.

Of the perils that surrounded him, no correct notion can be formed by us, without recollecting that he lived in days of violence, and almost of semibarbarism;—in an age when the gates of destruction