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__NOTOC__{{Infobox_Contents |topic_name =[[Thomas Cranmer]] [[Image:Cranmer.jpg|thumb|center|200px]] |subtopics =Synopsis=[[Book of Common Prayer]] |opinion_pieces ={{short_opinions}} }}
==Contents== {{topics}}* [[Book of Common Prayer]] {{opinions}} {{quotes}} ==Main article== Thomas Cranmer (July 2, 1489 – March 21, 1556) was the archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of the English kings Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was also an influential theologian who is , arguably being the co-founder (with Richard Hooker and Matthew Parker) of Anglican theological thought. He helped build the case in favor of Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Cranmer guided the English Reformation in its earliest days. Following the death of King Henry, Thomas Cranmer became a key figure in the regency government of King Edward VI.
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Image:Cranmer.jpg
Thomas Cranmer (1489 – 1556) was the [[archbishop of Canterbury]] during the reigns of the English kings [[Henry VIII]] and [[Edward VI]]. He was an influential theologian who is arguably the co-founder (with Richard Hooker and Matthew Parker) of [[Anglican]] theological thought. He is credited with writing and compiling the first two Books of Common Prayer which established the basic structure of Anglican liturgy for over four centuries and influenced the English language through its phrases and quotations. Cranmer was an important figure in the English Reformation which denied papal authority over the English Church. After Queen Mary reunited the Church of England with the Roman Catholic Church, he was executed in 1556 for heresy.
He is credited with writing and compiling the first two Books of Common Prayer which established the basic structure of Anglican liturgy for over four centuries and influenced the English language through its phrases and quotations. Cranmer was an important figure in the English Reformation which denied papal authority over the English Church.
The German doctors had nothing more to propose and finally King Henry, unwilling to break with Catholic practices, dissolved the conference.
Seeing and hearing the Lutheran doctors on his own soil had given Henry pause. At the end of 1538, a proclamation was issued, among other things, forbidding free discussion of the Sacrament and forbidding clerical marriage, on pain of death. Henry personally presided at the trial of John Lambert in November 1538 for denying the real presence. At the same time, the king shared in the drafting of a proclamation giving Anabaptists and sacramentaries ten days to get out of the country.
The Six Articles of June 1539 was an Act of the Parliament of England which reaffirmed the general national leaning towards Catholicism. The articles reaffirmed six key Catholic doctrines such as transubstantiation, clerical celibacy and the importance of confession to a priest and prescribed penalties if anyone denied them. Penalties under the act ranged from imprisonment and fine to death. However, its severity was reduced by an act of 1540 which retained the death penalty only for denial of transubstantiation, and a further act limited its arbitrariness. The Six Articles were opposed by the secretly married Cranmer. The reforming bishops Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Shaxton resigned their sees in response to the act and thereafter spent time in custody. Many other arrests under the Act followed. Cranmer, it is said, laid low.
While Cranmer opposed the action of the Six Articles, he supported a new translation of the Bible. With Thomas Cromwell, the king's chief minister, Cranmer oversaw the translation of the Bible for the laity. He felt strongly, however, there should be only one edition of the Bible in English, one authorized and overseen by the Church and State.
The Great Bible of 1539 accomplished that goal. Although called the Great Bible because of its large size, the book was known by several other names as well. It was called the Cromwell Bible, since Thomas Cromwell directed its publication. It was also termed the Cranmer Bible, since Thomas Cranmer wrote the 1540 preface. Cranmer was also credited as being the man who convinced the king to commission this authorized version. The Great Bible would be in use until it was superseded as the authorized version of the Anglican Church in 1568 by the Bishops' Bible. The last of over 30 editions of the Great Bible would appear in 1569. Cranmer’s preface would also be included in the front of the Bishops' Bible.
Cromwell had supported King Henry in disposing of Anne Boleyn and replacing her with Jane Seymour, who gave birth to a male heir, Edward VI. His downfall was the haste with which he encouraged the king to re-marry following Jane's premature death. The marriage to Anne of Cleves in 1540, a political alliance which Cranmer and Cromwell had both urged on Henry, was a disaster. Cranmer would marry Henry to, and then divorce him from, Anne of Cleves in short order. Cromwell was arrested in May. Cranmer turned his back on Cromwell almost as quickly as he had on Anne Bolyen. Cromwell was executed later that year, Cranmer was spared.
When Henry had his marriage to Anne of Cleves annulled on July 9, 1540, rumours swirled that Catherine Howard was pregnant with the king's son. Their quick marriage just a few weeks after the divorce from Anne, on July 28th, 1540, reflected Henry's lifelong urgency to secure the Tudor succession by begetting healthy sons. Henry was rapidly nearing the age of 50 and expanding in girth. The Reformation had cost him much of the goodwill of his people and he was then suffering from a number of ailments. Matters would grow worse for the king, as Catherine found her marital relations unappealing. She was not pregnant upon marriage, and became repulsed by her husband's grotesque body. Still, preparations for any signs of pregnancy (which would lead to a coronation) were in place. By late 1541, Catherine's marital indiscretions rapidly became known thanks to John Lascelles, a religious reformer whose sister, Mary Hall, was a chambermaid and witnessed some of Catherine's youthful liaisons. Motivated by the growing threat to reform from conservative Catholicism, Lascelles presented the information to Cranmer.
Cranmer, aware that any precontract with a man would invalidate Catherine's marriage to Henry, gave Henry a letter with the accusations against Catherine on November 2, 1541, as they attended an All Souls' Day mass. Henry at first refused to believe the allegations, thinking the letter was a forgery, and requested Cranmer further investigate the matter. Within a few days, corroborative proof was found, including the confessions issued from two men after they were tortured in the Tower of London; as well as a love letter written distinctively in Catherine's handwriting to one of them. Catherine was arrested on 12 November. Her pleas to see Henry were ignored, and Cranmer interrogated her regarding the charges. Even the staunch Cranmer found Catherine's frantic, incoherent state pitiable saying, "I found her in such lamentation and heavyness as I never saw no creature, so that it would have pitied any man's heart to have looked upon her." [18] He ordered the guards to remove any objects that she may use to commit suicide. Catherine's was executed at on 13 February 1542.
===Works=Quotes==
==Links==
* [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cranmer Wikipedia - Thomas Cranmer]
{{returnto}} [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Cranmer Wikipedia [Christianity]] - Thomas Cranmer> [[Famous Christians]]
