THE LIFE

OF

ARCHBISHOP CRANMER.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

HENRY VIII.

1489 to 1529.

Birth and education of Cranmer-Is sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, and becomes a fellow of it-Marries, and is appointed reader at Magdalen College-His wife dies, and he is re-elected to the fellowship of his former College -Declines the offer of preferment in Wolsey's new foundation at Oxford-Is appointed divinity lecturer in his College; and, by the University, one of the public examiners in that faculty-Leaves Cambridge on account of the disease there-Repairs to Waltham-Interview there with Fox and Gardiner-Is asked by them his opinion as to the king's divorce-Gives it-Is, in consequence, brought before the king, and introduced to the earl of WiltshireWrites a treatise respecting the divorce-Is promoted by the king, and by him intended to be sent on an embassy. THOMAS CRANMER, the first Protestant archbishop of Canterbury, was born on the 2nd of July, 1489, at Aslacton, in the county of Notting

1

ham. His father was "a gentleman of right ancient family, whose ancestor came in with the Conqueror." His great-grandfather, Edmund, married Isabel, an heiress, of the name, as well as of the village, of Aslacton. Their son was John Cranmer, who married Alice Marshall, of Muskham, in Nottinghamshire. These were the parents of Thomas Cranmer, who married Agnes, the daughter of Laurence Hatfield, of Willoughby, in the same county; and the archbishop was their second son. So 2 late as in 1790, might be traced the pleasure-grounds which belonged to their mansion; at which time the ancient appearance of the walks is said to have been preserved; while it is regretted that a mount had been removed, which had been formed by Cranmer, upon the summit of which tradition reports that he was wont to sit and survey the country, and listen to the peals of village bells. Such are usually among the delights of contemplative minds.

3

He was, at first, instructed by a man of harsh temper; whose conduct, as it afterwards was related by Cranmer himself, was such as to "tap

1

Strype. And Addit. to Thoroton's Nottinghamshire, 1797,

i. 264.

3

2 Addit. to Thorot. ut suprà.

Straight mine eye hath caught new pleasures,

Whilst the landskip round it measures

When the merry bells ring round.-MILTON, L'Allegro.

+ MS. Life of Cranmer, C. C. Coll. Camb.

pal and dull the tender and fine wits of his scholars, so that they rather hated than embraced good literature."

To

The father of Cranmer was very desirous, however, that his son should be learned. better guides his progress was, therefore, entrusted; and he was 66 1 I brought up not without much good civility." He was accustomed to the diversions of hunting and hawking, and was skilled in the use of the bow. In a word, he received the usual education of a gentleman; and, at the early age of fourteen, was sent to Jesus College, Cambridge, by his mother, his father being then dead. There, among the better sort of students, as Foxe denominates them, he proceeded in "right good knowledge."

Erasmus was at Cambridge before Cranmer took his first degree. The student had then been trained to little more than scholastic subtleties, but was now, perhaps, encouraged by this restorer of learning to worthier pursuits. Erasmus himself informs us, a few years afterwards, how Cambridge had been improving in elegant and useful literature; and, not long before this testimony was given, Cranmer (about 1510 or 1511)

1 Foxe. 2 Ibid. 3 In 1506. Knight, Life of Erasmus. After adverting to the solemn trifling of the academical studies for many preceding years, he rejoices, in 1513, at the. sound learning, good taste, and particularly the knowledge of the Greek language, that had gradually appeared. Lett. of Erasm. to Dr. Bullock, at Camb. Jortin, i. 49.

was elected a fellow of his College. Some have 'supposed that he was not led to the cultivation of general learning till about this time, which may reasonably be doubted; since we find him, very soon afterwards, the instructor of others. As a mere schoolman he would then have been disregarded; ancient prejudices being on the decline, and a taste for critical studies evidently encouraged. We may, therefore, fairly believe that to the excellent guidance before him he had resorted somewhat earlier than the date of his fellowship, and was then highly distinguishing himself as a scholar, when love interfered with learning, and prevailed.

He married when he had not attained the age of twenty-three, and before he had been admitted into holy orders. The late Dr. Milner, a prelate of the Church of Rome, professing to describe" facts as he finds them recorded by the most celebrated Protestant writers," says,

1 Strype.

2 As reader at Buckingham College. See note 2. p. 7.

"The works of Faber, (Stapulensis,) Erasmus, and other good Latin authors." Foxe." The Greek and Hebrew languages also." Archbishop Parker, 495.

He admitted that he married his second wife, about twenty years after the death of the first. The second marriage was in *1532. These are his words to the papal cominissioners in his last examination : se duxisse mulierem in uxorem

circa

viginti annos post mortem primæ uxoris sute!" Lambeth MSS. No. 1136. Printed at the close of the Oxford edit. of Strype's Cranmer, 1812.

"that Cranmer privately married a woman of low condition." Yet Foxe, the leader of those writers, informs us that she was the daughter of a gentleman. Nor do we know of any attempt being made to conceal the marriage. But the low condition is, perhaps, inferred from the words of another Romish writer, Dr. Thomas Martin; who, having published, in 1554, a book against the Marriage of Priests, in which he bestows the coarsest ribaldry upon the clergy who had wives, and many a taunt besides at the learning of Cranmer, was, in the following year, the queen's proctor in the last proceedings against the archbishop, of whom he then asked, whether he had not married one Joan, surnamed Black or Brown, dwelling at the sign of the Dolphin, in Cambridge." The sneer was treated with indifference." Whether she was called Black or Brown," said the archbishop, "I know not." The antinuptial proctor was thus silenced as to further personal insult;

663

1 Letters to a Prebendary, Lett. 5.

{ Y¢

2 He dedicated his book to queen Mary, telling her that " even heresy itself granteth us that your Highness hath ever continued a virgin," glancing, perhaps, at the slander that had been raised against herself and Gardiner, (Burnet, iii. b. 5.) and giving her the assurance that the heretics of her realm, the Cranmers, the Ridleys, and the Latimers, did not believe it. This book could have preceded her marriage, which was in 1554, only a very short time. Martin appears to have been a man of despicable character. His book is supposed to have been formed by Gardiner and others, t