Thomas Cranmer

Nottinghamshire-born Thomas Cranmer (1489-1556) enrolled at Cambridge University aged 14 and remained there for more than two decades, taking holy orders in 1520 and obtaining his Doctorate of Divinity in 1526. His first marriage, to Joan, cost him his Fellowship at Jesus College but when she died in childbirth he was reinstated. It was on a break from Cambridge in 1529 that he first met King Henry VIII (1491-1547).

Thus began his pivotal role in the establishment of the monarch as supreme head of the English Church instead of the Pope, and the introduction of Protestantism. He made the most progress in drawing up new Articles for the Church of England during the reign of young Edward VI (1537-53), as Henry had not really been interested in any religious reform and had appointed Cranmer as Archbishop of Canterbury (1533-56) in order for him to pronounce Henry’s various marriages successively invalid and valid..

Cranmer’s involvement was not without its dangers (he sent his second wife, Margarete, and their children abroad for their safety) and Henry gave him his ring as proof of royal backing against anyone who came to arrest him. His luck finally ran out with the accession of Catholic Queen ‘Bloody’ Mary (1516-58), Henry’s first deligitimised daughter, and he was burnt at the stake for supposed treason.

(Images LtoR: first official Bible in English distributed by Cranmer to all parish churches, by University of Glasgow Library at Flickr.com / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0, and Thomas Cranmer / Public domain)