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Ridley, the powerful bishop of the last reign, was seized and sent to the Tower. LATIMER, also celebrated among the Clergy of the last reign, was likewise sent to the Tower, and Cranmer speedily followed.
But now he shall learn all; now we will go before him and tell him that we love each other, and constrain him, by our prayers, to bless our union, and join our hands." "Impossible!" cried Seymour. "That can never be!" "How! What do you say?" asked she in astonishment. "I say that Cranmer will never be so insane, nay, so criminal, as to fulfil your wish. I say that you can never be my wife."
Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah, John the Baptist, Peter, Luther, Cranmer. And it is full of instruction for us. Then we turn to the contrast in Christ's perfect obedience and faithfulness in His prophetic office. In Him is no trace of shrinking even when the grimness of the Cross weighed most on His heart.
All or very nearly all of the martyrs of the Marian persecution would have been sent to the stake under Henry for making the same profession of faith. The crucial question was acceptance of Transubstantiation, for the denial of which several victims had perished within the last twenty years, whose doom both Cranmer and Latimer had at the time held to be justified.
These were Sir Thomas More, Thomas Cranmer, and Thomas Cromwell. More was the most accomplished, most learned, and most enlightened of the three. He was a Catholic, but very exemplary in his life, and charitable in his views. In moral elevation of character, and beautiful serenity of soul, the annals of the great men of his country furnish no superior.
Then followed the Thirty-nine Articles, setting forth the creed of the Established Church, substantially the creed which Cranmer had made, and a new translation of the Bible, and the regulation of ecclesiastical courts. But whatever was done was in good taste, marked by good sense and moderation, to preserve decency and decorum, and repress all extremes of superstition and license.
The Queen, therefore, found it necessary expressly to disclaim that sacerdotal character which her father had assumed, and which, according to Cranmer, had been inseparably joined, by divine ordinance, to the regal function.
He made Thomas Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury, who was inclined toward Protestant views, but, though sincere in his beliefs, was a man of pliant temper, indisposed to resist the king's will, preferring to bow to a storm, and to wait for it to pass by. By Cranmer the divorce was decreed, but this was after the marriage with Anne Boleyn had taken place. Henry was excommunicated by the Pope.
All the saints have passed through similar experiences. They knew, as Cranmer said, that they could never hope to kindle a fire that should never be put out, unless they were prepared to stand steadily at the stake and give their bodies to be burned.
Among them were the three bishops, Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, who were burned at the stake at Oxford . Gardiner, Bonner, and the rigid advocates of persecution, had full sway. These severe measures were not popular; and, although the queen was not in her natural temper cruel, they have given her the name of the "Bloody Mary." Each party used coercion when it had the upper hand.
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