CHAPTER IV. CRANMER MADE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY. 14 of Canter AND this great trust the king, his gracious master, com- Ann.1532. mitted to him, as a mark of the honour he had for him, Made and a sign of further preferment he was minded to advance archbishop him to. And about this very time happened a fair oppor- bury. tunity to the king to manifest his favour to him; Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, departing this mortal life, whereby that see became vacant. The preferment indeed seemed too great for Cranmer at one stride to step into, without some other intervening dignities to have been first conferred on him. But the king, thinking him the fittest man of all the English clergy to be promoted to this high office, resolved to give it to him, though now absent abroad upon his business. Hereupon the king commanded him to hasten home, though he concealed the reason from him, which was to take the archbishopric he had designed for him. Which when he came home, in obedience to his majesty, though much against his inclination, and after many refusals, proceeding from his great modesty and humility, and certain scruples, at length he did accept. It doth not appear to me what ecclesiastical places he His dignihad before only that he was the king's chaplain, and archdeacon of Taunton. The pope also, in honour to archbishop. his master, had constituted him penitentiary general of England. He had also a benefice, while he lived in the earl of Wiltshire's family, which was bestowed upon him by the king: a mention whereof I find in one of his letters to the said earl. ties before he was Archbishop It was in the month of August 1532, that William Warham Warham, archbishop of Canterbury, died: a wise and Thomas to grave man, a great patron of the most learned Erasmus, foretells a succeed him. and once lord chancellor of England: who seemed to fore- It is not unusual, (nay it is seldom otherwise), for popish historians to stuff their histories with strange prophecies and falsehoods, mixed with some truth. And I suppose the matter might be no more than this: This grave and sober archbishop was sensible of the gross encroach y [Imo huic nepoti [Gulielmo Waramo] dicere solebat, a cujus ego id rursus ore aliquando audivi, futurum non ita multis postea annis, ut Thomas quidam in metropolitana ille sede locaretur, qui per laxam et remissam vitæ licentioris indulgentiam populo concessam perque prava dogmata, magis Cantuariensem, omnemque reliquam Angliæ ecclesiam deformaret, quam eam olim Thomas martyr suo martyrio amplificasset; admonuitque nepotem, ut si quis forte Thomas, eo vivo ea sede potiretur, ne ulla ratione in illius famulitium se ascri bi pateretur. Nicolai Harpsfeldii Hist. Anglic. Eccl. p. 633. ed. Duaci. 1622.] ments of the bishops of Rome upon the authority of the Warham premacy. And that archbishop Warham was of this judgment, it Archbishop may appear, if we trace some footsteps of him. In the for the year 1530, when all the clergy were under a præmunire, king's suand a petition was drawing up in the convocation for that cause, the king in the said petition was addressed to by the title of Supreme head of the church and clergy of England. At this title, when the archbishop found some of the clergy to boggle, who were yet afraid openly to declare their disallowance of it, he took the opportunity of their silence to pass the title, by saying, that silence was to be taken for their consent?. In the last synod, wherein this archbishop was a member, and the main director, many things were debated about abolishing the papacy. This synod was prorogued from April 26 to October 5. In the meantime he died. Ant. Brit. But had he lived, and been well, unto the next sessions, some further steps had been made in evacuating the bishop of Rome's usurpations; as may be guessed by what was done under his influence the last sessions, when the supremacy of that foreign prelate was rejected. z [See Epistle Dedicatory, su pra.] a [See abp. Parker, de Antiq. Brit. Eccl. in vita Warham. pp. Cranmer's testimony of War ham. A reflection upon a passage relating to Cranmer in Harpsfield's history. Something more of this archbishop's endeavours of restoring the king to his supremacy appears by what archbishop Cranmer said to Brookes, bishop of Gloucester, before a great assembly, not long before his burning. Brookes had charged him for first setting up the king's supremacy. To which Cranmer replied, "That it was Warham gave the supremacy to Henry VIII, and that he had said, he ought to have it before the bishop of Rome, and that God's word would bear it. And that upon this the universities of Cambridge and Oxford were sent to, to know what the word of God would allow touching the supremacy. Where it was reasoned and argued upon at length and at last both agreed, and set to their seals, and sent it to the king, that he ought to be supreme head, and not the popeb." All which was in archbishop Warham's time, and while he was alive, three quarters of a year before ever Cranmer had the archbishopric of Canterbury, as he also added in that audience. So that, these things considered, we may conclude, that Warham did think that none would be so fit to come after him as Cranmer, a learned and diligent man, to carry on this cause, which he, before him, had begun: and so might speak of him as the properest person to be advanced in this see. To this I will add the sense of an ingenious and learned friend of mine concerning this passage in Harpsfield's history; which the author also of the Athene Oxonienses 16 hath made use of to the good archbishop's discredit and which Somner also had unluckily selected, though without design, to hurt his good name, and is all he writes. b [See abp. Cranmer's examination before Brookes. Foxe's Acts and Monuments, pp. 18751880. ed. Lond. 1583.] c [Wood's Athenæ Oxonien. vol. ii. col. 739. ed. Bliss. 1813Somner's Antiq. of Canterbury, p. 272. ed. Lond. 1640.] 20. Cant. of him. But may it not be considered, saith he, that Antiq. of the pretended martyr Thomas Becket, though he died. in vindication of the privileges of the church, yet he was the first betrayer of the rights of his see? He made the greatest breach upon the authority of the primacy of Canterbury, by resigning the archbishopric into the pope's hands, and receiving it again from him, as the pope's donation. But it is the honour of the blessed martyr, Thomas Cranmer, that he was the first who began to claim the primacy, and retrieve the rights of his see from being slavishly subjected to the Roman power. Indeed, little credit is to be given to the author who first published this story; considering what a violent man he was, and how much prejudiced against Cranmer, and interested in the popish cause; and coming into the archdeaconry of Canterbury by the deprivation of the archbishop's brother. tries to Cranmer noluit episcopari, had no mind to be arch- Cranmer bishop. He loved his studies, and affected retirement, evade the and well knew the dangers and temptations of a public archbishopric. station. But especially he could not induce his mind to take his office from the pope, and to swear fidelity to him as well as to the king: whereby he should ensnare himself in two contrary oaths. Wherefore, when the king sent for him home from his embassy in Germany, with a design to lay that honourable burden upon him, he, guessing the reason, first endeavoured to delay his coming, by signifying to the king some matters of importance that would require his tarrying there somewhat longer for the king's service: hoping in that while the king might have bestowed the place upon some otherd. In fine, our his d ["I protest before you all, there was never man came more unwil lingly to a bishopric than I did to that [of Canterbury], insomuch that when king Henry did send |