Thomas Cranmer: A Life Book

Diarmaid McCullough did such a thorough job with this biography of Thomas Cranmer that I can't give it any less than 5 stars.

Thomas Cranmer was the Archbishop of Canterbury during Henry VIII's and King Edward VI's reign and he was responsible for most of the English Reformation of the 16th century, and their schism/split with the Catholic Church. His crowning achievement was the English Book of Common Prayer which made the liturgy accessible in the English language to laypeople.

I learned many things about Cranmer as a person and the minefields he traversed in England during his time as Archbishop. He was first and foremost uber-loyal to King Henry VIII and then his son Edward VI, but he also brought his skills from his Cambridge doctoral degree in divinity to the table to craft the Prayer Book, a breviary, and numerous defenses for his beliefs and the canons of the Church of England. His fights and arguments with his primary antagonist, Stephen Gardner, came through in this book as the main struggle during his career. Gardiner was constantly a thorn in Cranmer's side, fighting his reforms point by point. Archbishop Cranmer absolutely defied the Catholic Church in all of his evangelical reforms, which ultimately (and ironically) ended in his downfall. One part of his theology that didn't make sense to me was that Cranmer did not believe in transubstantiation of the Eucharist, but he never let go of his belief in predestination. For some reason, these things conflicted for me.

This biography was so very well written and researched, I could tell that the author really put a lot of effort into writing this book. It was rather difficult and dense reading at times which made it kind of a slog for me to get through, but I'm glad I persevered and got through all of it. Cranmer's story is fascinating and I recommend this biography if you want to learn more about the man behind the English Reformation and the Book of Common Prayer.