Thomas Cranmer

Archbishop of Canterbury

Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – )

You are the introvert to Cromwell’s extrovert. You act so much in concert that some less well-informed European politicians think you are one person: Dr Charmuel. When you and your other self are with Henry, you go smoothly into action, able to communicate everything to each other with a glance or a breath.

Mantel, Notes on characters

The story so far…

Week 7: Entirely Beloved Cromwell (Part 2)

The Cambridge scholar has been to Rome in the service of the king’s great matter. He used to work for Wolsey, but now he is close to the Boleyns. He says he is no heretic, but he did not take lightly the news of the dead scholars in the fish cellar at Cardinal College. Cramner knows many things, not least that Mary Boleyn once propositioned Thomas Cromwell.

Cromwell gets Cramner’s story out of him, one slow night over roast roe deer. The son of a gentleman from Aslockton, which is nowhere. His schoolmaster beat him, “sought out weakness”. He went to Cambridge to study, but was sent down for marrying Joan. She died in labour, and the university took him back. His colleagues considered it a miscalculation. “Like losing your way in the woods.”

Week 8: The Dead Complain of Their Burial / Arrange Your Face (Part 1)

When Cromwell gets to the king, that night at the end of 1530, Cranmer is already there. “The dead do not come back to complain of their burial. It is the living who are exercised about these matters.” He is telling the king, his brother Arthur has not returned to him. But his guilt, in the form of his brother. Cromwell silences him with a nod and tells Henry a different story. Untheologically sound, but a “vigorous invention.”

‘But I wonder,’ Cranmer says, almost to himself. ‘I wonder what you think the gospel is. Do you think it is a book of blank sheets on which Thomas Cromwell imprints his desires?’

Cranmer “speaks about your character.” God “has arranged your face on purpose to disconcert our enemies.”

Week 9: Arrange Your Face (Part 2)

Summer, 1531. Cranmer and Latimer, arm in arm in Cromwell’s garden at Austin Friars. The priests of Anne’s household discuss theology beneath Halley’s Comet. Cromwell thinks: “Give them a season’s respite from Thomas More, and they will fall to persecuting each other.”

Week 10: 'Alas, What Shall I Do For Love?' (Part 1)

In July 1532, Cranmer writes to Cromwell from Nuremberg. He is an unlikely diplomat on the king’s business. This letter is strange and includes a subscript in the margin: “Something has occurred. Not to be trusted to a letter. It may make a stir. Some would say I have been rash. I shall need your advice. Keep this secret.”

Week 12: Anna Regina (Part 1)

Cranmer has finally returned from the continent to take up his new office as Archbishop of Canterbury. “You were long enough coming. Why did you delay? Doesn’t every boy want to be an archbishop?”

Officially, Cranmer doesn’t know about the child and new marriage. He is to judge the matter of the king’s old marriage.

The king sounds astonished to learn that Cranmer is penniless. Cromwell borrows the money to pay Rome for Cranmer’s appointment. “It will be the last money Your Majesty sends to Rome, if it rests with me.”

Week 13: Anna Regina (Part 2)

At Anne’s coronation, Cranmer “looks mildly excited, as if someone had offered him a cup of warm milk.”

Later, he summons Cromwell to see her secret: his pregnant German wife, Margarete.

‘Do you know what the king will do to you when he finds you out? The master executioner of Paris has devised a machine, with a counterwieghted beam — shall I draw it for you? — which when a heretic is burned dips him into the fire and lifts him out again, so that the people can see the stages of agony. Now Henry will be wanting one. Or he will get some device to tease your head off your shoulders, over a period of forty days.’

Cranmer hopes for a daughter, as the king expects a son. He tells Cromwell he has spoken to Frith, but cannot “turn him from his path.” He did not expect that one of his first tasks as Archbishop would be to turn men away from the true religion. “Welcome to this world below,” Cromwell tells him.

Week 14: Devil’s Spit / A Painter’s Eye

Like the night of Henry’s bad dream, Cromwell and Cranmer are there to see him through the nightmare of a daughter. “Perhaps God intends some peculiar blessing by this princess,” Cranmer says. The king rises like Lazarus to continue his day.

Elizabeth Barton says he is no archbishop and will be dead within six months, along with all other heretics. She tells him she should have poured boiling water on Elizabeth at her christening. Still, at the end of the interrogation, he can see no case for heresy.

At Austin Friars, they gossip about Cranmer’s wife. He asked for a daughter, and he got one. The king was not so lucky.

Cranmer is enthroned in Canterbury, and Cromwell writes to him to take a new broom to the priory at Christ Church. “Put in people from home, your sad east Midland clerks, formed under sober skies.” Shake out the Oxford men and put in Cambridge men we know.

Week 16: The Map of Christendom (Part 1)

Cromwell falls ill in 1535. “Cranmer comes and looks at him dubiously. Perhaps he is afraid that he will ask, in his ever, how is your wife Grete these days?”

Week 22: The Black Book (Part 1)

After Anne’s miscarriage, the king talks to ‘Dr Chramuel’ his ‘composite counsellor’, Thomases Cromwell and Cranmer. He tells them that he ‘was somehow dishonestly led into this marriage.’

Cranmer protests. Afterwards, when Dr Chramuel is alone with himself, Cromwell separates Cranmers love of Anne away from his love of true religion. Reform can continue without Anne. He suggests that they make peace with Norfolk, at Lambeth Palace. ‘He will like to come to you.’

At last, Cranmer laughs. ‘It has been a hard-fought campaign, to get him even to smile.’

Week 22: The Black Book (Part 2)

Cranmer hosts Norfolk and Cromwell at Lambeth Palace. Norfolk does not think Cranmer is a proper archbishop: ‘he’s some petty clerk Henry found in the Fens one year, who promised to do anything he asked in return for a mitre and two good meals a day.’

When Henry is writing his love letters to Jane, he asks Cromwell to look at them, not Cranmer. ‘Over their sovereign’s bent head, Cranmer looks up and meets his eyes: full of accusation.’

Week 27: The Book of Phantoms (Part 3/5)

Cranmer writes to Henry to repudiate Anne. Later, the king is in a theological mood asking his married archbishop some awkward questions on the Christian Fathers’ views on marriage. ‘Just kill me now, the archbishop’s face says.’

‘All will work for good,’ Cromwell tells Cranmer as they go out.

Week 29: The Book of Phantoms (Part 5/5) / Spoils

After Anne’s sentencing, Cranmer goes to see her. He tells Cromwell that she has not confessed but is asking whether she will go to heaven. ‘She talks of works,’ he says, ‘She says nothing of faith.’

‘I am forced to think I don’t know anything. Not about men. Not about women. Not about my faith, nor the faith of others.’

Cranmer explains to Cromwell why the Earl of Worcester glares at Master Secretary. Word has got around that Cromwell has given Lady Worcester a baby.

‘I want all this to be over,’ he tells Cromwell. And get back to Kent and his secret wife.

At Lambeth, he suggests that the cause. for annulment are kept secret. Which is just as well, since there is no good cause.

Week 32: Salvage (Part 2/3)

Cramner heard Anne’s last confession. Cromwell tries to get him to betray with his face what she said. ‘Cranmer turns away.’

Thomas Cranmer talks to Cromwell about the manors at Wimbledon and Mortlake. They belong to the archdiocese, but Baron Wimbledon will want them now to go with his new title.

Week 37: The Five Wounds

Cranmer joins the councillors with the king at Windsor, as rebellion sweeps England. He has come because the slogans are against him and his religious reforms. But he is frightened for his secret wife, and he ‘emits a shriek’ when she is spoken of openly in council.

‘You will not talk it away, Wriothesly. It is no light matter and I believe we are ill-prepared. I do not believe this is the action of a few malcontent men. You will find the Emperor’s finger in the pie. You will find certain families of his Majesty, who look to a future without him. They will proclaim Mary if they can get her, and then we shall have war. You need not mince matters with me, Mr Wriothesley. I hav seen the worst men can do, to their fellow men and to women. In Germany I have seen a battlefield. I have not spent all my life at Cambridge.’

Week 43: Nonsuch

May 1537. Cranmer sees Cromwell about Mary Fitzoy: Cranmer has told Henry that she was legally married to his son and he must pay what is due. He asks Cromwell about Father Forest. Cromwell: ‘If you do not burn him I will hang him.’

   Archbishop Cranmer says, I wish all this diplomacy would stop, this casting of Mastter Hans to the four winds and this bandying of women's honour. The king's bride should be someone he knows and feels he can love.

Is Cranmer still thinking of Anne Boleyn?

Week 45: Corpus Christi (Part 2/2) / Inheritance

Thomas Cranmer attempts to reason with the outspoken John Lambert. He tells him ‘we do not quarrel with your views’ and asks him to be ‘circumspect’ and ‘patient’.

Cranmer lectures Lambert at Westminster in tones so mild ‘people at the back shout they cannot hear.’

After the burning, after dark, Cranmer visits Cromwell. ‘A pastoral visit.’ He tries to console Master Secretary. ‘You know, what we have begun will not come to fruition in one generation.’

Cranmer says his wife is afraid. ‘We are living on borrowed time, in small rooms, a bag always packed , an ear always alert; we sleep lightly and some nights hardly at all.’

Cranmer reassures Cromwell. ‘We could not save John Frith. Yet look at all we have been able to do, since Frith went into the fire. We could not save Tyndale, but we could save his book.’

Week 47: Ascension Day (Part 2/2)

Cranmer comes to see Cromwell about the Six Articles. He tells him their German friends ‘are appalled.’ He, Cranmer, is forced to send Grete abroad.

The king arranges a peace conference between the warring factions at Lambeth Palace. Norfolk praises Cranmer’s humble ways in order to attack Wolsey and Cromwell.