biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1489–1556)
|
| biography:
| Archbishop of Canterbury, born in Aslockton, Nottinghamshire, C England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, took orders in 1523, and became a divinity tutor. His suggestion that Henry VIII appeal for his divorce to the universities of Christendom won him the king's favour and he was appointed a royal chaplain. He was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533, making allegiance to the pope ‘for form's sake’. He later annulled Henry's marriages to Catherine of Aragón and to Anne Boleyn (1536), and divorced him from Anne of Cleves (1540). He was largely responsible for the Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552). On Henry's death, Cranmer rushed Protestant changes through. He had little to do with affairs of state, but agreed to the plan to divert the succession from Mary to Lady Jane Grey (1553), for which he was arraigned for treason. Accused later of heresy, and sentenced to death, he retracted the seven recantations he had been forced to sign, before being burned alive. |
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