“To this recantation” (7. e. the fifth, witnessed by J. de Villa Garcina, and H. Sydall) “there is no date. But it was probably made immediately after the writ for burning him had been sent to Oxford, as Noailles, the French ambassador to Mary (whose character for veracity, however, is not spotless), mentions to his court, that with this fifth paper Cranmer sent a letter to Pole, begging the respite of a few days, that he might yet give to the world a more convincing proof of his repentance. Mary is said to have cheerfully granted what Cranmer asked; but, determined not to spare him, she only ordered the day of his approaching fate to be concealed from him. Meantime the sixth recantation was prepared. To a more laboured disavowal (more complete it could not be than what the fifth recites) of tenets he had maintained, to louder cries for mercy, to deeper expressions of self-abasement, he was now to be earnestly pressed under the fallacious persuasion that from the terror of the stake he might be wholly freed. That this outrageous composition was drawn up by Pole, Strype long since assumed, by comparing it with the tedious prolixity and style of the recantation, which the cardinal prepared for the friend of Cranmer, Sir John Cheke3.”—Id. Vol. II. pp. 479, 80.
[1d. ibid. o 51d. p.d.]
[? Vid. Strype’s Eccl. Mem. Vol. III. part 1. 9 Lingard, Hist. Eng. 8vo. VII. 276, n.]
[p.395. Ed. Oxon. 1822,:]
is flippantly pretended as his expression by the French ambassador; not a shadow of authority for which is any where to be found. That it was incorrectly printed is probable enough. - But Pole and Boner intended not merely to correct it, but to reprint it with the four preceding papers, and with the production of a sixth. Indeed this is the only recantation, to which historians formerly drew the attention of their readers. Hence Collier, after Foxe’, relates, that on the day of Cranmer’s execution the Spanish friar, (J. de Villa Garcina,) who was a witness to his recantation, proposed the reading his recantation to a public audience, and to this purpose desired him to subscribe the instrument with his own hand and sign it^ Of any new submission on the fatal morning, this historian seems to have entertained no belief. Burnet is alike silent. Thus too. the Romish biographer of Pole, with the printed submissions of the archbishop at his service, speaks apparently of none but that which is numbered the fifth by Boner; and after noticing the writ for burning him, says, Cranmer had again renewed his subscription, and transcribed a fair copy of the whole; but, having some misgivings of his approaching punishment, he secretly wrote another declaration, which contradicted, in every point, the doctrine he had before signed. What here is called a renewed subscription, is affirmed, however, in the recent history of our country, to be nothing less than the copy of a seventh instrument of abjuration. Is it improbable, however, that what the friar proposed was merely the fifth recantation more correctly written than the hastily printed copy had given it? To this the signature of Cranmer was requisite, and it was made together with that of the friar; but, it is especially to be observed, is undated. It would now be ready for Boner’s publication, as the fifth instrument; while a written abbreviation of the material parts of it would be sufficient for Cranmer openly to profess before the people;’ and accordingly Boner, without the statement of its being a new subscription, without the pretence of its being a seventh recantation, prints only what the martyr was to have spoken, but basely conceals the fact that he did not speak it. The faith that he was to assert was thus worded for him: First, I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, &c., &c. I believe every article of the catholic faith, every clause, word, and sentence taught by our Saviour Christ, and his apostles and prophets, in the new and old Testament, and all articles explicate and set forth in general councils. And now I come to the great thing that so much troubleth my conscience, more than any other thing that ever I did; that is, setting abroad untrue books and writings, contrary to the truth of God’s word, which now I renounce and condemn, and refuse them utterly as erroneous and for none of mine. But you must know also what books they were, that you may beware of them; or else my conscience is not discharged. For they be the books which I wrote against the sacrament of the altar since the death of king Henry the Eighth. But whatsoever I wrote then, now is time and place to say truth. Wherefore, renouncing all those books, and whatsoever is in them contained, I say and believe, that our Saviour Christ Jesus is really and substantially contained in the blessed sacrament of the altar under the forms of bread and wine.’
“So ends the tract, affirmed in the title page to have been seen and examined by Boner.” Upon him, therefore, rests the responsibility of the compilation, even if by any other hand than his own it had been compiled; upon him the shame also,
[7 Foxe calls it a paper with articles, which 1829.) But the most curious, and I believe hitherto]
[Cranmer should openly profess in his recantation unnoticed, mention in regard to this fifth recanta-]
[before the people, earnestly desiring him that he tion, and what was selected from it for Cranmer to]
[would write the said instrument (with the articles) avow before the people at his execution, occurs in]
[with his own hand, and sign it with his name: the continuation of the Chronicles of Fabian,”]
[which when he had done, the said friar desired Lond. 1559. Vol. II. p. 564. “In this year (1556)]
[that he would write another copy thereof, which in Lent, Thomas Cranmer, Archbishoppe of Can-]
[should remain with him, and that he did also.” terbury, after that he had recanted his supposed]
[(Vid. Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, p. 1885. Ed. recantation, was brent at Oxford.” Note, Todd’s]
[Lond. 1583.) Hence the interpretation of Burnet: Life of Abp. Cranmer, Vol. II. p. 486.]
[he was (now) dealt with to renew his subscription 5 Colliers Eccl. Hist. Vol. VI. p. 139. Ed.]
[and to write the whole over again.” (Burnet’s Lond. 1840, 1.]
[Hist. of Reformat. Vol. II. p. 670. Ed. Oxon.]
which, if not to other parts of it, at least to the conclusion, belongs, where what the sufferer really spoke is concealed, but what was prepared for him to have spoken is related, and by many of the compilers party was afterwards reported, as if indeed he did speak it.”—Id. Vol. IT. pp. 484—489. Vide also Todd’s Vindication of Archbishop Cranmer, pp. 116 et sqq. 2nd Ed. Lond. 1826. Soames’ Hist. of Reformat. Vol. IV. pp. 515, et sqq., who enters largely into an examination of this portion of the archbishop’s history. Wordsworth’s Eccl. Biog. Vol. IV. pp. 258—260. Ed. Lond. 1839. Original Letters relative to the English Reformation, Letter XC. p. 173, n. 1, Park. Soc. Ed. 1846.]