nitary, he preferred a continuance with that foundation by whose members he had been so kindly distinguished. In 1528 he commenced doctor in divinity. "At that time many unworthy scholars scrambled up to the highest degrees, whose scarlet gowns might seem to blush at their wearers' ignorance.' "* The University gave him a proof of its esteem, by appointing him one of the examiners of candidates in divinity, whom he rejected as insufficient, when he found them unacquainted with scripture; advising them to apply themselves closely to the study of the sacred writings; as it was shameful for a professor of divinity to be unskilled in that book, wherein lay the knowledge of God, and the grounds of that very science which they professed. Herein," says Fuller, ried himself with such remarkable moderation, neither over remiss to encourage any unworthiness to presume, nor too rigid to dishearten the endeavours of the ingenuous, that it is questionable whether his carriage brought more profit to private persons, or credit to the University. Some whose graces (for degrees) were for the present stopt by him, returned afterwards to thank him; because (preferring rather to displease than hurt them) the gentle check he gave them occasioned their greater diligence in the race of learning."

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An epidemic, raging at Cambridge, occasioned the students to quit their colleges, and Cranmer removed to Waltham Abbey, to the residence of Mr. Cressy, of whose lady he was a relative, and to whose sons he was tutor. This movement led to his acquaintance with his Sovereign, and his high ecclesiastical preferment. Henry at that season was impatient to obtain the divorce of his marriage with Catharine. He had sent agents to Rome to expedite the affair; and the Pope

* Abel redivivus, p. 224.

had commissioned Cardinals Campeggio and Wolsey to judge the cause in England with legatine authority. The court proceeded with deliberation; the canonists and civilians having their private ends to answer by lengthening the forms and examinations, and the Queen on her part protesting against the authority of the court and the justice of the trial. She appealed to the Pope himself, and demanded that her cause should be heard at Rome, to which the King would not consent, and Campeggio left England.

For the double purpose of recreation and private conference, the King removed to Waltham with some confidential attendants, among whom were the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, with the Doctors Gardiner and Fox, his Secretary and Almoner. The two latter taking up their quarters at Mr. Cressy's, met with Cranmer, and knowing his reputation for learning and piety, inquired his opinion on their master's cause which was dividing the nation into two parties. He showed at first a disinclination to give his judgment on so delicate an affair: but on their importunate request, he replied, "I cannot say much on the sudden in so weighty a business without study and meditation; but in my opinion, seeing the King is in so great trouble of mind and conscience, nothing can more increase it than so great delays, and wandering in Romish suits; in which, whosoever are once entangled, can scarce ever extricate themselves out of the snares. think it better therefore, that laying aside all delays, and court-suits, wherein the King hath been too long tossed with great affliction of mind, the judgment of divines, both in our own and foreign Universities be searched out, which may be strengthened with the law of God; and as they shall by God's word prove it lawful or unlawful, so let the King proceed, and have the

I

cause then determined in his own country, whereby he may live in lawful matrimony, with a cheerful mind and quiet conscience, which is much to be desired by all his faithful subjects."*

The next day they reported to Henry, that they had been discoursing on the topic with a new divine. The subtle Gardiner, who suspected that the counsel given by Cranmer would be agreeable to the monarch, represented the particulars of the interview in such a way as to convey the impression that this counsel had originated with himself: but Henry, who had sufficient sagacity to perceive the superior ingenuousness of Fox, asked him if Cranmer were still in the neighbourhood, and, being answered in the affirmative, ordered him to be sent for. "That man," said he, has got the right sow by the ear!' If I had known his opinion two years ago, it would have saved me infinite expense and anxiety." This exultation, expressed by the monarch in a low proverb, which was then as common in the palace as the cot, was very natural, and accordant with the King's character. He was very partial to the agitation of casuistical points in divinity; and he was disgusted with the chicanery exercised by the papal agents, suspecting withal that Wolsey, a man whom he had loaded with favours, was playing a double game, and courting the Queen's friends on the continent; while he was not without hope that some theologians would decide on the case according to his wishes, and that others might be influenced by himself and such princes as were associated with him in political sentiment in giving their suffrages. When Cranmer came into his presence, he made many apologies for his presumption in delivering a judgment on so important a question, but repeated the advice he

*Clarke, p. 242.

had already given. Henry desired him to draw up his opinion in writing, in the form of an argument, and committed him to the care of the Earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, named Sir Thomas Boleyn, who then dwelt at Durham House, and was judged a fit person for Cranmer to reside with, as he had been employed in embassies to Rome and Germany about the same matter, and might assist him with his advice. As this nobleman was the father of the Lady Anne, whom Henry wished to espouse, he could not but feel great interest on the occasion; there was, however, besides, a growing dislike to papal encroachment and arrogance: and it is recorded of Sir Thomas Wyat, a poet and wit of the court, that he humourously remarked, on understanding that the King's conscience was troubled at having married his brother's widow, "Strange, that a man cannot repent him of his sin, without leave from the Pope!" In engaging therefore in this argument, which he did with all seriousness, he undertook a part gratifying to his Sovereign, and pleasing to many of the nobility and gentry, because it went to take the cause out of the hands of his Holiness.

Henry soon afterwards nominated him his chaplain, gave him a benefice, and advanced him to the Archdeaconry of Taunton. Cranmer so ably defended his argument at Cambridge, that he brought over many of the contrary part to his opinion; particularly five of those six doctors, who had before given in their judgment to the King, for the legality of the papal dispensation in the celebration of the marriage. The argument was taken from Scripture; and partly from fathers, councils, and schoolmen.

From scripture it was alleged: "That the prohibited degrees in Leviticus were not only obligatory to the Jewish nation, but moral precepts and the primitive laws of marriage; as appeared from the

judgments denounced against the Canaanites for the violation of them, and their being said to have polluted the land thereby; which cannot be accounted for, if these were only positive Jewish constitutions. That among those prohibited degrees, the marriage with the brother's wife was one; see Leviticus xviii. 16; and xx. 21. And that the breach of these precepts was called an unclean thing, wickedness, and an abomination. That the dispensation in Deuteronomy, of marrying with the brother's wife, only showed that the foundation of the law was not in its own nature immutable, but might be dispensed with by immediate divine revelation; but that it did not follow, that the Pope by his ordinary authority could dispense with it: And to pretend the sense of the precept to be only a prohibition of having the father's wife in his life time, was a poor low cavil, it being universally unlawful to have any man's wife whatever, while he was yet living."

"The constant tradition of the church was clear against the lawfulness of the marriage. Origen on Leviticus xx.-Chrysostom on Matthew xxii.-and Basil in his epistle to Diodorus, expressly asserts these precepts to be obligatory under the gospel; and in the Latin church, St. Ambrose, Jerome, and Austin, were of the same opinion. And Tertullian, who lived within an age after the apostles, in his fourth book against Marcion, affirms, that the law of not marrying the brother's wife doth still oblige Christians. Pope Gregory the Great had given the same determination, in answer to Austin, the first Archbishop of Canterbury; and directed him to advise all, who had their brothers' wife, to look on the marriage as a most grievous sin, and to separate from her society. Other Popes had declared themselves of the same judgment; and particularly

Innocent the Third had wrote with great vehemence against such marriages."

To these were added many testimonies from the writers of later

ages, and the schoolmen and canonists; but the judgment of the purest antiquity being so full and express, they may be omitted; with the single observation, that on the contrary side none could be produced, before Wickliffe and Cajetan, who looked on these prohibitions as only branches of the judicial law of the Jews.

"The second canon of the council of Neo-cæsarea decrees, that if a woman were married to two brothers, she should be excommunicated till death; and that the man, who married his brother's wife, should be anathematized : which was confirmed in a council held by Pope Gregory the Second. The fifty-first canon of the council of Agde reckons the marriage with a brother's wife among incestuous marriages; and decrees that all such marriages are null, and the parties so contracting to be excommunicated till they separate from each other. And the contrary doctrine and error of Wickliffe had been condemned, not only in convocation at London and Oxford, but in the general council of Constance."

Cranmer was now despatched to Rome to justify his argument before the Pope. He was accompanied by the Earl of Wiltshire as Envoy, and the Doctors, Lee, Stokesley, Trygonnel, Carne, and Bennet. When the embassy was introduced to Clement the Seventh, a circumstance occurred, ludicrous in itself, but which must have shocked the etiquette of the Romish court, and was sufficiently remarkable at that period. His Holiness presenting his foot to be kissed, a spaniel which had followed the Earl snapt at it and caught it in his mouth; on which the Envoy and the rest declined making the

ordinary humiliating salute, and the embarrassed pontiff was fain to draw back his leg. They expostulated with the Pope in the name of Henry, insisting on the prerogative of the crown of England, and that their master would not permit any citation to be made of him to a foreign court, and therefore would not consent that his cause should be tried at Rome. The Earl presented Cranmer's writing to the Pope, telling him, that learned men had accompanied him from England, who were prepared to defend its contents against all opponents. His Holiness repeatedly promised to appoint a day for the disputation; but as often broke his word. According to the usual subtlety of the Romish court, trying to bribe in its favour those whom it secretly feared, the Pope constituted him his Penitentiary-general in England, Ireland, and Wales. The envoy and his train returned home, leaving Cranmer to make good his challenge, who so far prevailed, that they were brought to allow, even in the chief court of the Rota, that the marriage was contrary to the law of God; but the dispensing power of the Vicar of Christ upon earth was too advantageous a tenet to be parted with on any account.*

The King sent a commission to Cranmer to proceed to Vienna, and endeavour to conciliate the Emperor, to whom as the near relation of Catharine, the cause could not but prove peculiarly obnoxious. There he offered to dispute on the subject with any divines whom Charles V. might think proper to appoint. That monarch directed Cornelius Agrippa, his privy-counsellor and judge of the prerogative court, to give the English theologian a meeting. Agrippa was a lawyer of great ability and information, who had incurred the dislike of the Romish clergy by the

* Clarke, p. 243.-Warner's Eccl. Hist. V. 2. p. 73.-Strype's abr. Life of Cranmer, p. 6.

confessed to his opponent that there was truth and reason in his arguments, but that he dared not avow his conviction, for fear of giving umbrage both to his imperial master and the pontiff. He persuaded the divines in the Emperor's court to avoid a discussion with Cranmer, while the Emperor himself declared that he chose to leave the settlement of a question of that description to the See of Rome. Cranmer went next to Nuremberg, and had a private interview with John Frederick, Duke of Saxony, to whom he exhibited the credentials with which he had been entrusted by Henry to the Elector, Philip of Lune burg, and Wolfgang of Anhalt. This interview was merely of a preparatory character; but he returned the following day, when he found Pontanus and Spalatinus, with whom he had a long and varied conversation, on the pacification with the Emperor, the state of religion, auxiliaries against the Turks, and the violation of ecclesiastical property; on all which subjects the Archdeacon of Taunton, though new in the science of diplomacy, delivered himself in such a manner, as to gain the respectful attention of the two practised lawyers.* During his stay at Nuremberg, he became acquainted with Osiander, а celebrated reforming divine, whom he prevailed on to declare the King's marriage unlawful, in his treatise on incestuous unions, and to draw up a form of direction for the management of the process, which was transmitted to England. He also encouraged him in the prosecution of a harmony of the gospels, which he afterwards published with a dedication to Cranmer as Archbishop. The friendship between the two divines was cemented by the niece of Osiander, who gave her hand to Cranmer ;

*Seckendorf, Hist. Lutheran. L. 3. p. 41.

he did not however take her over with him, when he returned from his embassy, but sent for her in 1534. The Romanists, who from their enmity against him, have represented him as a man who acted a part throughout with a view to preferment, have not failed to observe that he was incapable of a bishopric on account of his second nuptials; but his defenders have replied, that the Apostle in the scripture to which they refer (1 Tim. ii. 3.) only forbids the bigamy, and even polygamy, which was too common among the Jews.

While Cranmer was negociating in Germany, other agents were employed to the same effect in France and Italy; and when Henry had obtained favourable decisions not only from the two Universities in his own dominions, but from those of Bologna, Padua, Ferrara, Paris, and other foreign seminaries, he laid them before his parliament, together with opinions obtained from leading individuals, and the books that had been composed on the subject by the supporters of his cause. There were twelve seals of universities shown, and a hundred books produced. On the display of this formidable host of authorities, the Chancellor desired the members to report in their respective counties, that they clearly saw the King had not attempted this matter of his mere will and pleasure, but for the discharge of his conscience, and the security of the succession to the crown.

On the decease of Archbishop Warham, August 23, 1532, the King resolved to advance Cranmer to the vacant see of Canterbury, and sent him word to expedite his return, without particularizing the reason; but as he suspected the design of his royal master, he ling ered on the continent with a view to its counteraction. His reluctance to accept this high dignity arose from several causes. Burnet observes, that a promotion so far

above his thoughts, had not its common effects on him; for he had a true and primitive sense of so great a charge; and instead of aspiring to it, shrunk from it: but this declining of preferment, being a thing of which the clergy of that age were so little guilty, discovered that he had maxims very far different from most churchmen. * Clarke says, "He knew that there was an oath to be taken to the Pope of Rome before he could be installed in that place. He feared also what issue the King's divorce might have, and was not ignorant of the King's violent disposition. He knew that sudden and great changes were dangerous; and that the court, to which he was not accustomed, was full of deceits and counterfeitings; that he must in all things obey the King's will; and that if he tripped in any thing never so little, there would be some who out of envy at his felicity, would tumble him down headlong when he began to fall."

He told the King he could not accept the pall at the hands of the pontiff; because the full right of donation of all manner of benefices appertained to his majesty, and not to any foreign authority. This declaration coincided with the feelings of Henry in substance, who was employing many pens to maintain his right to supremacy in all causes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, and obtaining a statute from Parliament to forbid all appeals to Rome, while the clergy in convocation fully acknowledged his claim; but some difficulties arose in the detail, and the monarch consulted Oliver, an eminent civilian, who advised that bulls should be received from Rome as usual, but that the prelateelect, on acceding to his dignity, should make such protestation as might satisfy his own conscience, and save the King's honour. Eleven

* Burnet's Abridg. Hist. of Reform. vol. i. p. 90,