Thomas Cranmer: Biography, Achievements & Lasting Legacy

Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was an English theologian who was a leader of the English Reformation and served as Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He is honoured as a martyr in the Church of England.

Cranmer was ordained a Catholic priest and served on the theology faculty at Cambridge University. At the behest Cardinal Wolsey, he later served Henry VIII as a diplomat in Europe. Cranmer helped build the case for the annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, which was one of the causes of the separation of the English Church from union with the Holy See. Along with Thomas Cromwell, he supported the principle of royal supremacy, in which the king was considered sovereign over the Church within his realm and protector of his people from the abuses of Rome. During Cranmer's tenure as Archbishop of Canterbury, he established the first doctrinal and liturgical structures of the reformed Church of England. Under Henry's rule, Cranmer did not make many radical changes in the Church due to power struggles between religious conservatives and reformers. He published the first officially authorised vernacular (English) service, the Exhortation and Litany.

When Edward, who was devout and had been raised in the tenets of a reformed Church, came to the throne, Cranmer was able to promote faster changes. He wrote and compiled the first two editions of the Book of Common Prayer, a complete liturgy for the English Church, turning to the language of the people. With the assistance of several Continental reformers to whom he gave refuge, he changed doctrine or discipline in areas such as the Eucharist, clerical celibacy, the role of images in places of worship, and the veneration of saints. Cranmer promulgated the new doctrines through the prayer book, the Homilies and other publications.

After the accession of the Catholic Mary I, Cranmer was put on trial for treason and heresy. Imprisoned for over two years and under pressure from state and Church authorities, he made several recantations and reconciled himself with the Catholic Church. While this would have customarily absolved him from the heresy charge, Mary wanted him executed on the treason charge, and he was burned at the stake on 21 March 1556; on the day of his execution, he publicly withdrew his recantations, to die a heretic to Catholics and a martyr for the principles of the English Reformation. Cranmer's death was immortalised in Foxe's Book of Martyrs and his legacy lives on within the Church of England through the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-nine Articles, an Anglican statement of faith derived from his work.