Foundations of the Anglican Church CXX

King's Chapel, Boston MA

The Glorious Revolution of 1688 deposing James II and offering the Crown to his daughter and son-in-law, William and Mary, marks an immensely critical shift in the British Constitution, and co-incidentaly in the Church of England.  Going back to Anglo-Saxon days, the Crown of England had always been seen—in theory—as “elective,” but the consistent practice of male-primogeniture had obscured the elective element of English Kingship and the theories of “Divine Right of Kingship” advanced during the Tudor/Stuart dynasties created a real moral dilemma for the Bishops of the Church of England at Parliament’s deposing James and inviting William and Mary to take the throne.  There had been dynastic shifts before, of course, such as when Henry VII seized the Throne after defeating Richard III, but the process had not been as blatantly parliamentary as the 1688 coup.  Henry VIII’s having Parliament ratify the Act of Succession granting the Throne to his son, Edward, and then—should Edward die without issue—to his daughters who were seen as illegitimate (his marriages to their mothers having been annulled) rather than to the next legitimate heir is another trace of the Crown being constitutionally elective (remember, the British Constitution is unwritten and subsists in the tradition rather than in a document), but even though it was by act of Parliament, the Crown was passing from father to children and male primogeniture sequence.  So following the 1688 coup, the bishops, in having to make a choice as to whether or not swear allegiance to the new monarchs, were on some pretty untested ice.  The Archbishop of Canterbury and the other eight bishops who refused to take the oath all subscribed to the theory that the King ruled not at the invitation and consent of Parliament but by Divine Right.  A cynic would suppose—and there is probably some truth to it, that the remaining bishops who did take the oath did so for the sake of political convenience—so that they could keep their jobs. To give them some moral credit, however, they also were concerned about the survival of their Protestant faith and preferred the Protestant William and Mary to the Catholic James—who had shown himself somewhat antagonistic to the Established Church.  But they—and others who favored the new monarchy—also perceived a wider reality.  They recognized that the Crown is not personal, that is that there is a difference between the Crown—the institution of kingship—and the individual who wears it.   An oath of loyalty to the King is not a pledge to an individual but to the institution he—or even more precisely—his crown, represents: the rule of Law in the nation. 

I bring this up because I think we religious people are often literalists who cannot see beyond the literal face of our symbols to the realties they represent.  Religious people are inclined to imprison themselves in thinking inside the box rather than apprehending the broader and more profound perspectives.  I think we are seeing this sort of blindness today in those who struggle with Pope Francis and his new vision for the Church.  They can’t move from a Church of power, a religious institution, a “we have always done it this way” (even when we haven’t), into the sorts of possibilities that Francis is presenting for the Church to grow into to better serve the world and the spiritual needs of its people.  For some the Church subsists in its traditional liturgy—or even its pomp—and its canon law.  When a Pope comes with a vision of how to make the Church’s mission to proclaim the Kingdom of God in a post-modern world, they see this as a departure from Tradition rather than the preservation of what has always been at the heart of the Tradition. 

In any event, as the High Church party among the bishops represented this stuck-in-the-past model of Church and Crown and thus supported James and (what was perceived to be) traditional kingship, under William and Mary there was a favoring of Whig government both in Parliament and in the Church. The Whigs believed in a dynamic approach to the English Constitution, not a static and preservationist approach.  Whigs were optimists who saw change as a positive factor permitting institutions to evolve into ever better forms. Whig bishops were particularly important to the government as the bishops sat in the House of Lords, which in the 18^th century, was still the more powerful House of Parliament.  When Queen Anne came to the Throne, she favored the Tories but found that she too needed the Whigs to govern.  England was rapidly evolving from its old aristocratic/oligarchic monopoly on power to what was becoming a bourgeois democratic constitutional monarchy and there was no reversing the trend.  The economic vitality of the expanding British Empire was creating a new social class with the merchant and industrialist forces making their political power felt and the new rich were Whigs.  When upon Anne’s death the Hanoverians Georges (I, II, and III) reigned, the Whigs found themselves more often than not in power and the candidates put forward to the various episcopal sees tended to represent their social and political agenda.  Whigs tended to be Latitudinarian (Tories were High Church) in theology and Church polity.  This made for some pretty mediocre leadership in the Church of England in the 18^th century. 

Many of the Latitudinarian bishops of the late 17^th and early 18^th centuries sought to re-integrate the Dissenters (Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists) into the Church of England and consequently were both soft on enforcing the official liturgy and did not see the importance of the doctrines that made the Church of England a via media between Protestantism and Catholicism.  Gone was the intellectual and spiritual vitality of the Caroline Divines.  The Church of England acquired the reputation for doctrinal vagueness that persists even today when there is no consistency of doctrine among Anglicans on such questions as the nature of the Eucharistic Presence, the nature of the ordained ministry, or even what constitutes the Church. In the 18^th century even Unitarianism was condoned in Anglican circles leaving closet Arians secreted among clergy and laity alike, our American George Washington apparently being one.  Another example is King’s Chapel in Boston, an Anglican church founded in 1686 and whose minister, James Freeman, and congregation adopted Unitarianism in 1785.   Although the historic creeds have continued to be used in the Anglican liturgy they are often more formulaic than actually reflecting the faith of the Church’s members.  This spills over too into moral issues where often precise theological methodology has been trumped by a rather superficial liberalism and feeling of good will that has not asked some of the hard questions that need to be part of the theological critique regarding issues such as abortion, human sexuality, and Christian marriage.  And much like the situation at the time of the Glorious Revolution, Anglicanism is threatening to come apart at the seams because of a theological latitude that is more an indifference or at least an unwillingness to face hard issues rather than to sit down and hammer out a consistent theological framework rooted in tradition but able to respond to the contemporary world.  Other than N.T. Wright and Rowan Williams (and with no disrespect to the late John Macquarrie and J.A.T. Robinson), these days Anglican theologians are rare birds and you have buffoons like John Shelby Spong being sported as the intellectual du jour. Well, my biases are showing and I had better get back to the 18^th century. 

One example of Whigish episcopal mediocrity in the Established Church was Thomas Tenison who, as Rector of the prominent London parish, Saint Martin in the Fields had preached the funeral sermon for Nell Gwynn in 1687.  Gwynn, an actress whose life had been marked by numerous sexual liaisons as she climbed her way up from the gutter (not just a figure of speech: her mother, drunk, had drowned in a gutter) to the palace, was the somewhat notorious mistress of Charles II by whom she bore two children.  Tenison pretended in his sermon that “pretty, witty Nell” (so termed by Samuel Pepys) had repented of her somewhat sordid life, a claim that was widely scoffed at by contemporaries.  Gwynn was a famously witty person and not one to take herself seriously.  Once, when her coachman attacked a man for calling Nell “a whore,” she broke up the fight insisting: “I am a whore; find something else to fight about.”  But courtesan though she was, she had been courtesan to a King and so Tenison was rewarded for his pastoral sensitivity to the King’s “Protestant whore” (to distinguish her from the King’s “Catholic whore,” the Duchess of Portsmouth), by being made Bishop of Lincoln and eventually Archbishop of Canterbury.  Today I think we would commend the generosity of a clergyman who conducted so public a funeral for a person of such shady repute: after all, prostitutes and tax collectors are entering the Kingdom of God before most of us more reputable Pharisees.  In the 18^th century though it would have been thought more proper for the duty to bury such a sinner to be delegated to a more obscure clergyman than the Rector of Saint Martin in the Fields.  

Foundations of the Anglican Church LXXVIII

Well, let’s talk about Elizabeth.  Mary died on the morning of November 17, 1558 and Elizabeth became Queen with no opposition.  She was at her primary residence, Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, just less than 25 miles north of London, where she and her brother, Edward VI, had spent much of their childhood.  The Accession Council came to inform her of her new position and pledge their loyalty.

Mary had not only turned the Church back to its medieval status, though admittedly without most of the monasteries.  She reversed the policies of her father and brother who drew their counsel primarily from the newly ennobled laity and filled key government posts with clergy.  Her Secretary of State was John Boxall who was dean of Peterborough, Norwich, and Windsor.  Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York, was Lord Chancellor.  Lay members of her Council, such as her secretary Sir John Bourne, were invariably Roman Catholics—though some such as William Paulet, the Lord Treasurer, went with whichever religious wind was prevailing at the moment.  William Paget, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, was another committed Catholic who served Mary.  One member of the Council who was missing to greet the new Queen was the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Reginald Pole.  He died at Lambeth Palace, the London Residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury, only twelve hours after Mary.

When Elizabeth looked at the Council she have realized that so much and so many would have to go if she were to bring England into the path she would set for it.  Polite to her guests—unlike the other Tudors, she was always gracious—she determined at once to choose her own advisors and dismiss those who had served her sister.  The clergy were, within a year or two, deprived of both royal and ecclesiastical office and remanded to custody—usually a fairly gentle custody—most eventually be released and returned to very private lives.  The laity who remained loyal to their Catholic faith likewise lost their places on the Council and at Court, though not usually their peerages and place in the House of Lords.  By and large it was a gentle reshuffling of the deck as Elizabeth replaced Mary’s Catholic ascendency with a Protestant Council of her own choosing.  Elizabeth was to have a much smaller Council than her sister, but it was comprised of men chosen for their competence (and at least nominally Protestant faith) and she was to entrust them with far greater responsibility than any of her predecessors. Sir William Cecil was her chief advisor.  His son, Sir Robert Cecil along with Sir Francis Walsingham and Robert Devereaux, Earl of Essex were the second tier.  Sir William Bacon, Sir Francis Bacon, and Sir William Knollys were other important advisors.  She did not appoint any of her bishops, even her new Archbishop of Canterbury to her Council or to key government posts, remarkable innovation only because the Archbishop of Canterbury had always served as one of the Privy Councillors. 

Elizabeth’s first aim was to restore the independence of the English Church from Roman authority.  She was aided by the fact that the Primatial See, the Archbishopric of Canterbury, was vacant due to the death of Cardinal Pole.  She would be able to choose her new Archbishop.  But this proved to be a more difficult challenge than one would think.  Elizabeth had her man in Matthew Parker, but he was not interested in the post.  Parker had been a much beloved chaplain to Anne Boleyn, Elizabeth’s mother, and despite his being married (Elizabeth did not like a married clergy, one of her “Catholic quirks”) insisted on him as Archbishop.  A second problem was getting the requisite three bishops to consecrate him as Mary’s bishops were, to a man, convinced Catholics who, many having betrayed the Church once under Henry, saw that a break with Rome inevitably led towards a Protestant doctrine and practice they were unwilling to stomach again.  While the bishops had failed miserably to resist her father in his break with Rome, Elizabeth’s bishops—some of whom had been among her father’s lackeys—stood their ground.  It would not, however, stop the royal policy of an independent and Protestant Anglican Church.

Foundations of the Anglican Church LXXX

Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin
Welby with Pope Francis 

Pardon the most recent hiatus.  I have been down with a temperature, but now am ready to resume my blogging.  Though actually, I had written this posting before I became sick and just wasn’t up to posting it until this afternoon.

I was interested to see on the neo-traditionalist  blog New Liturgical Movement a posting about and a link to an article calling for a new examination of the English Reformation by historian and barrister, Dominick Selwood that appeared in England’s Daily Telegraph.  Though I strong disagree with New Liturgical Movements underlying agenda, and often with their conclusions from historical and liturgical-historical data, they represent thorough scholarship so I while I was interested to see a reference to Selwood and his article on re-thinking the Reformation, I was not surprised.  According to Doctor Selwood, the Reformation has always been taught in England with a bias in favor of the Reformers and there is a need to take a critical look at that.  I will be anxious to read more of Professor Selwood’s observations as he continues to publish, but as “the winners write the history books” I have no doubt to the basic validity of his premise that the Protestant writers wrote England’s history—not just its Reformation History or its Ecclesiastical History, but its national history.     

Selwood sums the establishment historiography as

For centuries, the English have been taught that the late medieval Church was superstitious, corrupt, exploitative, and alien. Above all, we were told that King Henry VIII and the people of England despised its popish flummery and primitive rites. England was fed up to the back teeth with the ignorant mumbo-jumbo magicians of the foreign Church, and up and down the country Tudor people preferred plain-speaking, rational men like Wycliffe, Luther, and Calvin. Henry VIII achieved what all sane English and Welsh people had long desired ­– an excuse to break away from an anachronistic subjugation to the ridiculous medieval strictures of the Church.

This is obviously a gross characterization of the historical data but not without foundation.  Remember Lord Grantham saying to the Archbishop of York in Season 3 of Downton Abbey: “ I don’t want thumbscrews or the rack, but there always seems to be something of Johnnt Foreigner about the Catholics”?  Yes, yes, I know Downton Abbey is fiction and we don’t mix history and fiction, even historical fiction.  But trust me, the writers well captured the traditional English bias against those whose religious allegiance lay outside the realm rather than beneath the crown.

Selwood, for his part, does a mixed task of redressing the misinformation.  Very much in the style of Eamon Duffy, Selwood paints a vibrant picture of parish life in the first years of the sixteenth century.  On the other hand, he makes the break with Rome appear to be much more immediate than it was. He also fails to distinguish between Henry’s schismatic Church and the Protestant Church of England of Edward VI, Elizabeth, and her successors.  We can look at this a bit down the line, but it brings us the problems of writing history.  We all have our biases—and our biases are formed—often unconsciously—by our politics, our economic interests, our social position, our ethnic background, and the web of personal experiences and relationships that has brought us to this point of life. 

For centuries Catholics were not particularly interest in history, but rather “tradition.”  (note the small “t.”)   Facts and faith are apples and oranges.  An so when the Church encountered “facts” they didn’t like (Think Copernicus, Galileo) they either ignored them (Copernicus) or tried to stamp them out before they could spread (Galileo).  However, in the nineteenth century some highly perceptive minds in the Church realized that our not being more pro-active about the History of the Church, was leaving the field to the Protestant thinkers, and even worse, the rising anti-Catholic wing of the intelligentsia.  Perhaps it was Gibbons Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, (published between 1776 and 1789) with its consistent theme of how Christianity weakened Rome and left it to fall into oblivion that made the difference.   (I know that Gibbon’s book was 18^th century and I am talking 19^th, but it takes some time for these turgid words to have some impact on a culture. It isn’t like today—one Sunday in the New York Times Book Review and you can buy that little villa in the Keys.)   In England people like Lord Acton and Cardinal Gasquet rose to the occasion and used history to present the Catholic side of the story.  While they may have been more nuanced than the Protestant colleagues, they were often no less biased. 

Fortunately in the last thirty years a variety of first-rate historians—some Catholic, some not) such as Owen Chadwick, Eamon Duffy, Geoffrey Elton, Christoper Haigh, Diarmud MacCullough, A.G. Dickens, and J.J. Scarisbrick have done much to approach the English Reformation from a far more objective perspective.   The question is however, when will these studies begin to make an impact on both the people in the pews and on the institutional churches involved.  For all the cordiality when the Archbishop of Canterbury visits the Vatican—or the Pope comes to Canterbury—where are the ties between the local Catholic and Episcopalian parishes?  Where are the joint prayer services?  Where is the cooperation in mission for the needs of the local poor?  I remember seeing the Episcopal Bishop of Virginia struggling into his robes in the parking lot of a Catholic Cathedral where he had come for the funeral of the bishops and had not been provided any sort of welcome, much less an invitation to vest and sit with the clergy. No, the time has come to rekindle our interest in ecumenis, study the history, reflect together on the scriptures, and embrace the common mission of proclaiming not our respective Churches, but the one Mission left to us all by Christ.  

A Red Hat For (A Once) Anglican See

Cardinal-designate Nichols

Well, despite holding the premier see in the United States Bill Lori didn’t get his red hat this time around.  In fact, no US Cardinal was named for this upcoming consistory, but Lori was the only one who had a right—if there be a right to such a thing—to expect one.  Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia might expect it in the future, but his predecessor, Cardinal Justin
Rigali, is still (barely) under 80 and Rome tends not to give the hat to two Cardinals in the same town while one still has the possibility of being a Cardinal elector in a putative conclave.  (If I were Archbishop Chaput and wanted the hat, I would start mending my ways as Chaput’s track-record is not in the Francis' style.  Chaput, when Archbishop of Denver, had a policy that children of same-sex couples were not to be enrolled in Catholic Schools and isolating children for the “sins of their fathers” doesn’t seem to be Francis’ –or Jesus’—style, not that Jesus’s style has had a lot to do with things until somewhat recently.)  Also Philadelphia has been rocked particularly hard by the clerical sexual abuse scandal and that might make Francis a little gun shy about drawing attention to the See until he is sure that it is cleaned up.  Admittedly, the Philadelphia mess wasn’t Chaput’s doing and while I am in general no fan of Archbishop Chaput, I will be the first to say that he is a man of integrity.   But we will see if integrity alone ever translates into a red hat.  Meanwhile, let’s pray for him that he get the Archdiocese cleaned up and back on track.  When one looks at the last several Archbishops of Philadelphia—well, actually one can go back to Dennis Dougherty who was named Archbishop in 1918—one sees a line of arrogant autocrats: Dougherty, O’Hara, Krol, Bevilacqua, and Rigali, that demonstrates Lord Acton’s axiom that “Power Corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely.”  We should not be surprised that Philadelphia ended up in the scandal to the level it did as there was an unbroken line of prelates that held themselves accountable to no one.  Let’s hope that Archbishop Chaput’s Capuchin/Franciscan vocation will kick in and that he can become the sort of Shepherd that Francis seems to want for the Church. 

But I hadn’t intended to get sidetracked into Philadelphia and Archbishop Chaput, but rather highlight a man who did get the red hat, Vincent Nichols—or rather highlight his See.  Nichols himself isn’t that exciting.  He is 68 years old.  His parents were teachers.  He has a couple of Master’s Degrees—including one from Loyola in Chicago, a fairly liberal place.  He was himself considered a liberal when younger but seems to have moved slightly to the right under JPII and Benedict.  He worked well with Rowan Williams when the latter was Archbishop of Canterbury and finessed the delicate matter of Anglican groups who wished to come over to the Catholic Church because of such Anglican developments as the ordination of women to the priesthood.  English conservatives have been disappointed in him for not taking a hard line against gay adoptions or sex education Catholic schools.  He also has been more open on inter-religious dialogue—especially with Muslims—than neo-traditionalists like.  While Nichols does not seem to have celebrated Mass in the pre-conciliar rite, he has given permission for it in his Cathedral on several occasions and rather than ban it, seems to have tried to make sure that those who favor the old liturgy are well catechized and conform to Church legislation and doctrine.  Over all, Archbishop Nichols is no ideologue, walks the middle of the road, but is pastorally approachable by any and all.     

What I really wanted to write about was not Archbishop Nichols but his See—Westminster.  When the English hierarchy was “restored” in 1850 there was a huge nationalist outcry.  Who was the Pope to award English titles to his clergy in the United Kingdom?  Pretending to dispense titles to Sees within the Kingdom of Great Britain was an affront to Queen Victoria’s royal prerogatives.  A law had been passed during the reign of George IV prohibiting any but bishops of the Established Church (Church of England) from using the titles of the historic sees—Canterbury, York, Durham, London, Winchester, etc.   Thus new titles were used for the newly appointed Catholic bishops.  But Westminster was an opportunity not to be missed.  There had been a Diocese of Westminster, erected by—of all people—Henry VIII, and suppressed after his death by his successor, Edward VI.   When Pius IX named Nicholas Wiseman to lead the newly restored English hierarchy, naming him Archbishop of Westminster was the pontifical way of delivering an ecclesiastical “FU” to Henry, to the Church of England, and to the Parliament that had forbidden Catholics to restore their ancient titles.   Unfortunately the old Abbey did not go along with the title as Cathedral (as it had been under Henry) and so the Catholics had to build their own.  They did.  Westminster Cathedral in the borough of Westminster in London is somewhat akin to our Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC.  It is large.  It is expensive.  It is of questionable taste.  But it is a lively center of Catholic life and worship.  Unlike our National Shrine, any number of Cardinal’s hats hang from its ceiling over the tombs of its Archbishops there interred.  (Actually there are nine hats suspended over the tombs of the nine deceased Cardinal Archbishops.) 

By ceding the point and not claiming the ancient titles, Rome (probably inadvertently, though Rome never does anything inadvertently) recognized the legitimacy of the Anglican hierarchy standing in succession to the pre-Reformation Church and made “Roman Catholics” a new Church introduced into the British Isles.  I am not saying that Rome recognized the validity of Anglican Orders (it didn’t and it hasn’t), but rather it recognized the legitimacy of their hierarchy.  Church law always differentiates between validity and legitimacy.   We will eventually look at the complicated issue of Anglican Orders but in avoiding naming Catholics to the ancient sees and in creating new jurisdictions, Rome tacitly broke the historic cords and left the claim of legitimate succession to the Anglican place-holders.  This in turn leaves the Church of England able to claim that it is and remains a branch of Christ’s Church, similar to Orthodoxy.  Catholicism has always rejected this branch theology, but ceding the point of Anglican titles gives a foothold to ultimately revise our understanding of Anglicanism.

Foundations of the Anglican Church XLVIII

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury 

Well, back to our story of the Church of England for a few episodes and then I want to look at all the fuss that the Holy Father’s interviews are creating.  Boy, are those crazy neo-trads angry with the Pope.  They feel betrayed for all their “loyalty” now we have a Pope that sees things from a very different perspective than their tired old locked-in Jansenism.    I, for one, am enjoying their frustration.  It is always good seeing a shoe go on the other foot.  And speaking of shoes going on the other foot, Judie Brown—the American Life League Maven—is getting more and more frustrated as her efforts to undermine Catholic Relief Services goes nowhere.  You might remember that Ms. Brown turned on Catholic Relief Services when CRS dropped its multi-million dollar contract with the Brown family printing business.  Judie started bad-mouthing CRS in retaliation, alleging that the agency isn’t following Catholic teaching in its distribution of medical services in developing countries, but her claims can’t be supported and despite a flurry of letters to the American Bishops she isn’t getting any traction.  CRS not only has the support of the Bishops, but of the Holy See—they are the American branch of Caritas Internationalis, the Holy See’s program of Aid to developing nations.  Ol’ Judie burned too many bridges over the years with various bishops and now nobody wants to answer her frantic calls.  Of course hitching her campaign to Michael Voris’ horse wasn’t helpful as the Church is backing off from him as well because of his outlandish claims about what is and isn’t authentic Catholicism.  So history is being made even as we look back centuries into schisms and heresies of the past.  And now on to Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.

We have looked at some of the key players in the separation of the English Church from the Roman Communion.  We have seen Henry VIII, of course, and his queen, Katherine of Aragon.  We have looked at wife and queen 2, Anne Boleyn.  And there has been Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas More.  Now let’s look at Henry’s compliant Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Cranmer.  Cranmer was born in Nottinghamshire in 1489 to a small farmer, not a member of the aristocracy, much less the nobility.  His older brother inherited the family farm and so Thomas had to make his way in the world.  After initial studies in a village school he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, at age 14.  By 22 he had his bachelor’s degree and by 25 his master’s.  He was elected a fellow of the College but abandoning the path towards priesthood he married and consequently lost his position in the College. (At that time it was expected that the residential fellows of a College would be clerics.)  When he was widowed after only a few years of marriage, he applied for ordination and was also named a University Preacher—a sign of the high regard in which he was held.  By age 37 he had attained the doctorate in theology. 

By the 1520’s Luther’s ideas had spread to various European Universities and Cambridge had become a hothouse of reformed ideals.  Cranmer was a habitué of the White Horse Tavern where Lutheranism was embraced with impunity.  The White Horse Tavern was often called “Little Germany” for its connection with Lutheranism and its clients were a virtual Who’s Who of the Anglican Reformation: Hugh Latimer, Miles Coverdale, Robert Barnes, John Bale, William Tyndale, Nicholas Shaxton and even Stephen Gardiner whose career would go in quite a different direction after several convoluted turns.   

Cranmer came to Wolsey’s attention and shortly before Wolsey’s fall entered the King’s diplomatic service in a minor role.  His friendship with Stephen Gardiner, formed at the White Horse tavern, let to Cranmer suggesting to Gardiner that Henry, rather than appealing for a Roman annulment, should canvas the theological faculties of Europe’s universities for their opinion on whether or not the marriage of Henry and Katherine was valid.  Henry, at this point having great difficulties with the proceedings in Rome, liked the idea—as did the King’s Chancellor, Thomas More.  Cranmer was put on the team to solicit the opinions.  The Universities, of course, overwhelmingly gave their opinions in the King’s favor.  It was in this work that Cranmer first started a correspondence with Simon Gyranaeus, a disciple of the Swiss reformer, Martin Bucer.  Later that summer, Henry sent Cranmer as ambassador to the court of Charles V, the nephew of Katherine of Aragon.  It was a delicate and difficult position, but being in Germany it afforded Cranmer with direct contact with the Lutheran reformers among whom was Andreas Osiander.  Despite his priestly commitment to celibacy, Cranmer secretly married Osiander’s niece.  There was a formal marriage but it had to be kept secret as Henry, though he was indifferent to any man’s chastity, insisted on celibacy for the clergy.

On October 1, 1532 Henry appointed Cranmer Archbishop of Canterbury.  Cranmer was in Italy with the Imperial Court at the time and was summoned home.  The break with Rome was not yet formalized and Henry followed all the correct procedures.  The monks of Christchurch Cathedral at Canterbury duly “elected” Cranmer; the King petitioned Pope Clement for all the proper bulls authorizing the consecration.  On March 30^th 1533 Cranmer was consecrated Archbishop in St. Stephen’s Chapel in Westminster by the John Longland, Bishop of Lincoln; John Vesey, Bishop of Exeter; and Henry Standish OFM, Bishop of St Asaph in Wales.  Ironically all three bishops were conservatives and would die within the Roman Communion.

Cranmer’s first task was to find a solution to the royal mess in which Henry found himself.   At the time of Cranmer’s consecration, Henry had two wives—he had secretly married Anne (who was pregnant) about eight weeks before—but had not yet been annulled of Katherine. On April 7^th Henry had Parliament pass the Act in Restraint of Appeals which declared that all legal actions were to be decided in England without appeal to foreign power.  This meant that the annulment was to be heard in England and by an English court, not in Rome by a papal one.  Five days later Cranmer was authorized by Parliament to hear the case.  He convened a court at Dunstable for May 10.  Katherine refused to appear in court, either in person or by proxy as that would acknowledge its legitimacy.  On May 23^rd   the decision was announced in Henry’s favor and on May 28^th Cranmer declared the January wedding of Henry and Anne to have been a valid marriage.  Three days later, June 1, Archbishop Cranmer crowned Anne as Queen in Westminster Abbey.  The crowds massing outside the Abbey booed Anne and pelted the procession with garbage. 

Anne had used her position with Henry to nominate Thomas Cranmer to be Archbishop.  It is difficult to know precisely what connections existed between Cranmer and the Boleyn family but they were confident that he would take the necessary steps in favor of securing her position.  Anne Boleyn and her family were religious conservatives and while they were obviously not attached to the papacy were not known to be in favor of Lutheran ideas.  Anne’s connections in France with Marguerite of Navarre, sister of Louis XII, disposed her to religious reform but more in the line of Erasmus than of Luther; that is to say an institutional and scholarly reform more than doctrinal upheaval or the sort of religious revolution proposed by the more radical reformers.  In fact in the few years left to Anne little would change—the Mass would be in Latin, priests would be forbidden to marry (Henry either not knowing about or choosing to ignore Mrs. Cranmer), monks and nuns would continue to live and pray in their abbeys.  There would be statues in the churches and Holy Communion would be given in only one kind.  Masses would be offered for the dead, confessions would be heard, and those with Lutheran ideas—excepting the Archbishop of course—would be burned at the stake.  Cranmer himself however would continue to evolve theologically from Lutheran to Calvinist to Zwinglian in his ideas, ever more radical against the day when he could introduce true Protestantism into the ancient English Church.  More on that in the future.