Letter of Archbishop Cranmer to Thomas Cromwell.

April 17, 1534.

Cott. MS. Cleop. E. VI. fol. 181.

This letter was written shortly after Parliament passed the first Act of Succession. The clergy, the nobility and government officials were all required to swear an oath to the same, but Sir Thomas More and John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester refused. Cranmer writes here to Cromwell to see if they might be allowed to swear just to the legitimacy of the succession, not requiring them to swear to the preamble, which included declaring Henry VIII's first marriage illegitimate and the disavowing of the Pope's power over the English Church.

         Right Worshipful Master Crumwell, after most hearty commendations, &c. I doubt not but you do right well remember, that my Lord of Rochester and Master More were contented to be sworn to the Act of the King's succession, but not to the preamble of the same.¹ What was the cause of their refusal thereof I am uncertain, and they would by no means express the same. Nevertheless it must needs be, either the diminution of the authority of the Bishop of Rome,² or else the reprobation of the King's first pretensed matrimony.³ But if they do obstinately persist in their opinions of the preamble, yet meseemeth it should not be refused, if they will be sworn to the very Act of succession: so that they will be sworn to maintain the same against all powers and potentates. For hereby shall be a great occasion to satisfy the Princess Dowager and the Lady Mary, which do think they should damn their souls, if they should abandon and relinquish their estates. And not only it should stop the mouths of them, but also of the Emperor, and other their friends, if they give as much credence to my Lord of Rochester and Master More, speaking and doing against them, as they hitherto have done and thought that all other should have done, when they spake and did with them. And peradventure it should be a good quietation to many other within this realm, if such men should say, that the succession, comprised within the said Act, is good and according to God's laws. For then I think there is not one within this realm, that would once reclaim against it. And whereas divers persons, either of a wilfulness will not, or of an indurate and invertible conscience cannot alter from their opinions of the King's first pretensed marriage, (wherein they have once said their minds, and percase have a persuasion in their heads, that if they should now vary therefrom, their fame and estimation were distained for ever,) or else of the authority of the Bishop of Rome: yet if all the realm with one accord would apprehend the said succession, in my judgment it is a thing to be amplected and embraced. Which thing, although I trust surely in God that it shall be brought to pass, yet hereunto might not a little avail the consent and oaths of these two persons, the Bishop of Rochester and Master More, with their adherents, or rather confederates. And if the King's pleasure so were, their said oaths might be suppressed, but when and where his Highness might take some commodity by the publishing of the same. Thus our Lord have you ever in his conservation. From my manor at Croydon, the xvii. day of April.

Your own assured ever,           
Thomas Cantuar.⁴

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