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Bible Dictionaries
Cranmer, Thomas
1910 New Catholic Dictionary
or
Prelate, born Nottinghamshire, England, 1489; died Oxford, England, 1556. While a public examiner in theology at Cambridge, he gained the favor of Henry VIII by a plan to obtain his divorce from Catherine of Aragon. As his counselor in this matter, he was sent on an unsuccessful embassy to Rome. He was consecrated Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533. In the presence of witnesses, he declared that the oath of obedience to the pope which he had to take was only a matter of form which would bind him to nothing against the king's interest. He became his tool in obtaining his divorces, and in framing a new ecclesiastical organization based on the theory of royal supremacy. After Henry's death he was a powerful potentate of the kingdom, and signed the will of Edward VI which designed Lady Jane Grey as heir. The nation rallied to Mary, the rightful heir. Cranmer was tried and sentenced. After a disputation upon the Mass with Catholic theologians, 1554, he was sentenced to go to Rome to answer the charge of heresy. He refused and sentence was pronounced. Though he made a recantation of his heretical opinions, a council of the Church decreed that since he had caused a schism he must be executed. Four recantations of his erroneous doctrines followed. He retracted immediately before his execution all that he had denied in his recantations.
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Entry for 'Cranmer, Thomas'. 1910 New Catholic Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/ncd/c/cranmer-thomas.html. 1910.
