CRANMER'S RECANTATION.

[The archbishop had, after a stern and protracted refusal, been persuaded to renounce his convictions; and he is brought forth from the Tower to proclaim publicly his new faith.]

THE March morning broke wild and stormy.

The sermon intended to be preached at the stake was adjourned, in consequence of the wet, to St. Mary's, where a high stage was erected, on which Cranmer was to stand conspicuous. Peers, knights, doctors, students, priests, men-at-arms, and citizens, thronged the narrow aisles, and through the midst of them the archbishop was led in by the mayor. As he mounted the platform many of the spectators were in tears. He knelt and prayed silently, and Cole, the Provost of Eton, then took his place in the pulpit.

Although, by a strained interpretation of the law, it could be pretended that the time of grace had expired with the trial, yet, to put a man to death at all after recantation was a proceeding so violent and unusual that some excuse or some explanation was felt to be necessary.

Cole, therefore, first declared why it was expedient that the late archbishop should suffer, notwithstanding his reconciliation. One reason was, "for that he had been a great causer of all the altercations in the realm of England; and when the matter of the divorce between King Henry VIII. and Queen Catherine was commenced in the Court of Rome, he, having nothing to do with it, sate upon it as a judge, which was the entry to all the inconvenients which followed." Yet in that Mr. Cole excused him, that he thought he did it not out of malice, but by the persuasion and advice of certain learned men.

Another occasion was, "for that he had been the great setter forth of all the heresy received into the Church in the latter times, had written in it, had disputed, had con

tinued it even to the last hour, and it had never been seen, in the time of schism, that any man continuing so long had been pardoned, and that it was not to be remitted for example's sake."

"And other causes," Cole added, "moved the queen and council thereto, which were not meet and convenient for every one to understand."

The explanations being finished, the preacher exhorted his audience to take example from the spectacle before them, to fear God, and learn that there was no power against the Lord:

There, in their presence, stood a man, one "of so high degree sometime one of the chief prelates of the Church -an archbishop, the chief of the council, the second person of the realm; of long time, it might be thought, in great assurance, a king on his side;" and now, notwithstanding all his authority and defence, debased from a high estate unto a low degree of a councillor become a caitiff, and set it in so wretched estate that the poorest wretch would not change conditions with him."

Cranmer's own turn to speak was now come. When the prayer was finished, the preacher said, "Lest any man should doubt the sincerity of this man's repentance, you shall hear him speak before you.

"I pray you, Master Cranmer," he added, turning to him, "that you will now perform that you promised not long ago, that you would openly express the true and undoubted profession of your faith.”

"I will do it," the archbishop answered.

"Good Christian people," he began, "my dear beloved brethren and sisters in Christ, I beseech you most heartily to pray for me to Almighty God that He will forgive me all my sins and offences, which be many and without number, and great above measure; one grieveth my conscience more than all the rest, whereof, God willing, I shall speak more; but how many or how great soever they be, I

beseech you to pray God of His mercy to pardon and forgive them all.

"For this you may be sure, that whosoever hateth his brother or sister, and goeth about maliciously to hinder or hurt him, surely, and without all doubt, God is not with that man, although he think. himself never so much in God's favor.

"Next I exhort them that have great substance and riches of this world, that they may well consider and weigh these three sayings of the Scriptures. One is of our Saviour Christ himself, who saith that it is a hard thing for a rich man to come to heaven; a sore saying, and spoken of Him that knoweth the truth. The second is of St. John, whose saying is this: 'He that hath the substance of this world, and seeth his brother in necessity, and shutteth up his compassion and mercy from him, how can he say he loveth God?' The third is of St. James, who speaketh to the covetous and rich men after this manner: 'Weep and howl for the misery which shall come upon you! your riches doth rot, your clothes be moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered and rusty, and the rust thereof shall bear witness against you, and consume you like fire; you gather and hoard up treasure of God's indignation against the last day.' I tell them which be rich, ponder the sentences; for if ever they had occasion to show their charity they have now at this present, the poor people being so many and victuals so dear; for although I have been long in prison yet have I heard of the great penury of the poor.

The people listened breathless, "intending upon the conclusion."

"And now I come to the great thing that troubled my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here I now renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and written for fear of death, to

save my life, if it might be; and that is, all such bills and papers as I have written and signed with my hand since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue; and forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand therefore shall first be punished, for if I may come to the fire it shall be the first burnt."

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So far the archbishop was allowed to continue before his astonished hearers could collect themselves. 66 Play the Christian man," Lord Williams at length was able to call; "remember yourself; do not dissemble." "Alas! my lord," the archbishop answered, "I have been a man that all my life loved plainness, and never dissembled till now, which I am most sorry for." He would have gone on, but cries now rose on all sides, "Pull him down!" "Stop his mouth! Away with him!" and he was borne off by the throng out of the church. The stake was a quarter of a mile distant, at the spot already consecrated by the deaths of Ridley and Latimer. Priests and monks "who did rue to see him go so wickedly to his death, ran after him, exhorting him, while time was, to remember himself." But Cranmer, having flung down the burden of his shame, had recovered his strength, and such words had no longer power to trouble him. He approached the stake with a cheerful countenance," undressed in haste, and stood upright in his shirt. Soto and another Spanish friar continued expostulating; but finding they could effect nothing, one said in Latin to the other, "Let us go from him, for the devil is within him." An Oxford theologian his name was Ely-being more clamorous, drew from him only the answer that, as touching his recantation, "he repented him right sore, because he knew that it was against the truth."

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"Make short, make short!" Lord Williams cried hastily. The archbishop shook hands with his friends; Ely only drew back, calling, "Recant, recant!" and bidding others not approach him.

"This was the hand that wrote it," Cranmer said, ex

tending his right arm; "this was the hand that wrote it, therefore it shall suffer first punishment.” Before his body was touched, he held the offending member steadily in the flame," and never stirred nor cried." The wood was dry and mercifully laid; the fire was rapid at its work, and he was soon dead. "His friends," said a Catholic bystander, "sorrowed for love, his enemies for pity, strangers for a common kind of humanity, whereby we are bound to one another."

So perished Cranmer. He was brought out, with the eyes of his soul blinded, to make sport for his enemies, and in his death he brought upon them a wider destruction than he had effected by his teaching while alive. Pole was appointed the next day to the see of Canterbury; but in other respects the court had over-reached themselves by their cruelty. Had they been content to accept the recantation, they would have left the archbishop to die broken-hearted, pointed at by the finger of pitying scorn; and the Reformation would have been disgraced in its champion. They were tempted, by an evil spirit of revenge, into an act unsanctioned even by their own bloody laws; and they gave him an opportunity of redeeming his fame, and of writing his name in the roll of martyrs. The worth of a man must be measured by his life, not by his failure under a single and peculiar trial. The Apostle, though forewarned, denied his Master on the first alarm of danger; yet that Master who knew his nature in its strength and its infirmity, chose him for the rock on which he would build His Church.

Froude.