appear before the Council and having subjected him to the indignity of waiting for an hour in their antichamber, they directed him to be called in, and reciting their charges against him at great length, concluded by communicating their resolution to make him prisoner; when he produced the ring, and the assembly breaking up in confusion, immediately repaired to the King, who reproached them for falsely accusing his faithful servant, and terrified them into a shew of reconciliation with him. At the death of Henry VIII. Cranmer was one of the sixteen executors and guardians to Edward, named in his will, and now that his power to proceed in the reformation was uncontrolled, his triumph over his enemies, Gardiner and Bonner, was exercised with mildness and humanity. His palace at Lambeth, says Gilpin, might be called a seminary of learned men; the greater part of whom persecution had driven from home. It is said that he argued boldly in the Council in favour of Mary's succession, but was at last prevailed upon by Edward himself, at a personal interview during his last illness, to subscribe to the Will by which that Prince had bequeathed the crown to Lady Jane Grey.

On the accession of Mary the whole weight of her vengeance and that of her hierarchy, burst upon him with irresistible fury. He was attainted at the meeting of parliament, and in November adjudged guilty of high treason at Guildhall, and degraded from his dignities. He sent an humble letter to Mary, explaining the cause of his signing the will in favour of Edward, and in 1554, he wrote to the Council, whom he pressed to obtain a pardon from the Queen, by a letter delivered to Dr. Weston, but which the latter opened, and, on

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seeing its contents, basely returned. A calumny was now spread against Cranmer, that he complied with some of the popish ceremonies to ingratiate himself with the Queen, which he dared publicly to disavow, and justified his articles of faith. The active part which the prelate had taken in the divorce of Mary's mother, had ever rankled deeply in the heart of the Queen, and revenge formed a prominent feature in the execution of Cranmer.

At the disputation at Oxford, whither he was sent with Ridley and Latimer, Cranmer adhered to his principles with a noble constancy, and on the 20th of April, 1554, two days after the disputation, was again brought before this singular court; required to recant; and, on his refusal, condemned as a heretic. He was now remanded to his prison, till a confir. mation of his sentence should be obtained from Rome, instead of which the Pope ordered a new trial, under his own authority, and directed Cardinal Pole, his Legate, to issue a commission for that purpose. On the 12th of September, in the following year, Cranmer appeared before the commissioners, at the head of whom was Brooks, Bishop of Gloucester, in St. Mary's church in Oxford, and, after some slight form of trial, was again vehemently exhorted to renounce his errors, and he again firmly refused: whereupon he was declared contumacious, and cited to appear personally at Rome within eighty days, to which he agreed. In the mean time letters arrived from the Pope to the King and Queen, demanding that he should receive immediate condemnation, and be delivered over to the secular arm. This mandate was accompanied by an order to Bonner, and Thirleby, Bishop of Ely, to degrade him publickly,

which ceremony was performed in the most mortifying and humiliating manner that vulgar malice could contrive.

To use the words of the eloquent Lodge :-" All however was not yet lost. Cranmer with the crown of martyrdom suspended but by a hair over his head, was still a formidable adversary. His courageous maintenance of that faith, from either the letter or spirit of which he had never for an instant swerved, was a weapon which his enemies could not have wrested from him: but, alas! he let it fall from his hand, and the glory of the Saint was lost in the weakness of the man. Seduced, as Lord Herbert gives us room to suppose, by hopes treacherously held out to him, in an evil hour he signed a written recantation of all his doctrines. The rest is horrible to relate. Having thus sacrificed a splendid reputation in this world, and hazarded his salvation in the next, for the sake of a small remnant of mortal life, which he must have passed in disgrace and obscurity, an order was secretly issued for his execution on the 21st of March, 1556. He was led to St. Mary's Church to hear a sermon, and placed opposite to the pulpit, which was mounted by a friar, who exhorted him to persist stedfastly in the faith which he had lately embraced, and that to death itself, which,' added the Friar, it is the will of the magistrate to inflict on you this day.'

"In this dreadful moment Cranmer sprung above himself, and nearly redeemed all that he had lost. 'He rose from his seat,' says Bishop Godwin,' and, without the smallest discovery of fear, made an excellent speech to the people, in which having premised many things concerning reformation of life and morals, he repeated the principal heads of his doc

trine, and briefly explained his faith, affirming that in the power of the Pope was contained and established the Kingdom of Antichrist; and, finally, representing how heinously he had offended God by renouncing the truth, he declared therefore his resolution that his right hand, which had so impiously sinned in subscribing the doctrines proposed by the enemies of truth, should be the first to suffer punishment.' On this the friars pulled him off the stage with the greatest fury, and hurried him directly from the church to the place of execution. "There he stood," says Godwin, as translated by Bishop Kennet, "exposed, the most piercing spectacle in the world, sufficient, one would think, not only to extort compassion from his enemies, but to melt inanimate things into tears; the Primate of England, that lately flourished in the highest honour and authority with Princes; most venerable for his great sanctity of life, for his age, person, learning, gravity, and innumerable excellencies of mind; now by the malice of the Romanists drest in a ridiculous old habit; baited with scurrility, and contemptuous revilings; and dragged to a most inhuman and tormenting death. When he was bound to the stake,` as soon as the fire was kindled, he raised his left hand to Heaven, and, thrusting out the other, held it in the flames, not removing it except once to stroak his beard, till it was quite consumed. At last, as the flame increased, lifting up his eyes, he cried out, Lord, receive my spirit! and, continuing as motionless as the stake to which he was tied, endured the violence of the torture till he expired."

Thus perished the illustrious Cranmer, in the 67th year of

his age, a man whose temper was so mild and forbearing that he was never known to resent an injury, but was ever remarkable for shewing kindness to his bitterest enemies.

Among many instances of the Archbishop's charity, may be mentioned the following.-He fitted up his manor-house of Beckesburn in Kent, as an hospital for the reception of wounded and disbanded soldiers, many of whom were daily landed on the southern coasts of the Island; here the patients were attended with the utmost care, physicians, surgeons, and nurses, being provided at his expense; and each man on his recovery was supplied with a sufficient sum of money to bear his expenses to his home, however distant that might be.

Cranmer's zeal in the cause of truth, regardless of personal interest or safety, is shewn by the following letter to Queen Mary, written by him while in confinement.

"I learned by Dr. Martin, that on the day of Your Majesty's coronation, you took an oath of obedience to the pope of Rome, and at the same time you took another oath to this realm, to maintain the laws, liberties, and customs of the same. And if your majesty did make an oath to the pope, I think it was according to the other oaths which he useth to administer to princes; which is, to be obedient to him, to defend his person, to maintain his authority, honour, laws, lands, and privileges. And if it be so, then I beseech your majesty to look upon your oath made to the crown and realm, and to compare and weigh the two oaths together, to see how they do agree, and then do as your majesty's conscience shall direct you: for I am surely