Every man desireth, good people, at the time of their deaths, to give some good exhortation that others may remember after their deaths, and be the better thereby. So I beseech God grant me grace, that I may speak something at this my departing, whereby God may be glorified and you edified.
It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish; ask the England Rugby Team who just won a remarkable last second victory against Ireland. I’m afraid I have yet another snub for our Irish friends as I’m not going to write about St Patrick, who is remembered on 17th March. Maybe I’ll write about him in the future.
But I’m an Anglican and Englishman. It would be remiss of me not write about Thomas Cranmer, who is celebrated by the Church of England on 21st March. It is the day on which Archbishop Cranmer was burned under Queen Mary in 1556. The words above come from the opening of Cranmer’s final sermon before he was bundled off to the stake.
The Church of England remembers Cranmer with a ‘Lesser Festival’. It sounds rather ungrateful, doesn’t it? It is at least better than a ‘Commemoration’. The ‘Lesser Festival’ puts him on a par with Anselm, Aquinas, St Cuthbert and St Patrick. This is not a list of spiritual also-rans. Being a reformed denomination, you need to be in the actual Bible to get a ‘Principal Feast’ in the Church of England, the only exception being St George.
If one other person could be upgraded to ‘Principal Feast’ within the Church of England, Archbishop Cranmer would have to be a strong candidate. He practically invented the Church of England. Henry VIII demanded it – like Steve Jobs demanded the iPhone – and Thomas Cromwell facilitated it. But Cranmer was the one who actually delivered it. He burned the midnight candles drafting the liturgy which didn’t just get the job done. These words, collects and formularies have proven to be words and phrases for the ages, for which he should be lauded alongside Milton, Shakespeare and Chaucer.
Cranmer was not starting from a blank sheet of parchment. He was a reformer, not a revolutionary. He was adapting, translating, editing and rewriting rather than writing original material. One suspects that Chaucer was doing the same with his Canterbury Tales, using a framework that he had established in order to retell traditional stories in the vernacular.
Cranmer was creating vernacular liturgy for the first time, as well as nudging the liturgical year in this direction and that. This would include downgrading folks like him, in time, to Lesser Festivals. It’s what Cranmer would have wanted.
Brute Beastes that have no understanding
Given this editorial role, we cannot quite say that Cranmer was the author of the Book of Common Prayer. But he must take much of the credit for it, not least for the most oft repeated forms of words in England over the last five hundred years: the marriage service which, in 1549, read as follows (and I recommend reading it aloud to yourself):
Deerely beloved frendes, we are gathered together here in the syght of God, and in the face of his congregacion, to joyne together this man and this woman in holy matrimonie, which is an honorable estate instituted of God in paradise, in the time of mannes innocencie, signifying unto us the misticall union that is betwixte Christe and his Churche: whiche holy estate, Christe adorned and beutified with his presence, and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galile, and is commended of Sainct Paule to be honourable emong all men; and therefore is not to bee enterprised, nor taken in hande unadvisedlye, lightelye, or wantonly, to satisfie mens carnal lustes and appetites, like brute beastes that have no understanding: but reverentely, discretely, advisedly, soberly, and in the feare of God. Duely consideryng the causes for the whiche matrimonie was ordeined.
One cause was the procreacion of children, to be brought up in the feare and nurture of the Lord, and prayse of God.
Secondly it was ordeined for a remedie agaynst sinne, and to avoide fornicacion, that suche persones as bee maried, might live chastlie in matrimonie, and kepe themselves undefiled membres of Christes bodye.
Thirdelye for the mutuall societie, helpe, and coumfort, that the one oughte to have of thother, both in prosperitie and adversitie. Into the whiche holy estate these two persones present: come nowe to be joyned.
Therefore if any man can shewe any juste cause why they maie not lawfully be joyned so together: Leat him now speake, or els hereafter for ever hold his peace.
Isn’t that something? These words really have stood the test of time. In a sense they already had, as they were based on words that were said in the previous missal, The Sarum Rite. Cranmer was working with existing liturgies.
To have and to holde from this day forwarde
The rite continues a little later with the vows, and the bride says:
I take thee to my wedded husbande, to have and to holde from this day forwarde, for better, for woorse, for richer, for poorer, in sickenes. and in health, to love, cherishe, and to obey, till death us departe: accordyng to Goddes holy ordeinaunce: And thereto I geve thee my trouth.
Cranmer added the promise for the groom to ‘love and cherish’, and to the bride he added the word ‘obey’, in accordance with Ephesians 5. He also deleted a promise for the bride to be:
“bonner and buxom in bed and at the board.”1
The alliteration is strong, but it’s pretty creepy. Cranmer took that out and was probably called a bleeding heart closet feminist for doing so.
He did all of the above whilst surviving the brutal tyranny of Henry VIII who had a habit of not just executing enemies but close friends. And after he gave us his prayer book and articles of faith, he was imprisoned by Mary, forced to recant, made to watch his friend burned alive and then burned himself – even though he had recanted. Not cool. Quite the opposite.
The Dismissal
But Cranmer finished well, with a winning drop goal as the whistle blew. Preaching his final sermon before his execution, he ended with the following words:
And now I come to the great thing that troubleth 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 now I renounce and refuse, as things written with my hand contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death, and to save my life, if it might be: and that is, all such bills, which I have written or signed with mine own hand, since my degradation; wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished. For if I may come to the fire, it shall be first burned. And as for the Pope, I refuse him, as Christ's enemy and antichrist, with all his false doctrine."2
He was shouted down, pulled from the pulpit and subjected to the flames. He thrust the right hand that had signed his recantations into the flame, crying out
“This hand hath offended”
If Cranmer’s example won’t make you fight for the Church of England, I don’t know what will.
So on 21st March let us celebrate – albeit in a lesser Anglican way – the Patron Saint of the Church of England, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop, politician, scholar, translator, liturgist and hero of the faith.
It is mete and right so to do.
Further reading
You could read MacCullouch’s bulky biography. I’ve dipped into it and plan to read the whole thing one day. But for some lighter reading, here’s something by Jonathan Aitken – who knows a thing or two about realpolitik. He wrote an article for The American Spectator celebrating 350 years of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, in which he rightly pays tribute to the work of Thomas Cramner.
And now for something completely different
Many of you will find this amusing. It’s about how Anglicans love sticky notes to the point where I’m convinced they must be in the Bible. Let me explain:
Or listen to it - and many other things like it - on the Gospel According to a Sitcom Writer podcast:
p420 Thomas Cranmer, Diarmaid MacCullough, Yale University Press