Mr. Hallam has been severely censured for saying with his usual placid severity, that, “if we weigh the character of this prelate in an equal balance, he will appear far indeed removed from the turpitude imputed to him, by his enemies; yet not entitled to any extraordinary veneration.”  We will venture to expand the sense of Mr. Hallam, and to comment on it thus:—­If we consider Cranmer merely as a statesman, he will not appear a much worse man than Wolsey, Gardiner, Cromwell, or Somerset.  But, when an attempt is made to set him up as a saint, it is scarcely possible for any man of sense who knows the history of the times to preserve his gravity.  If the memory of the archbishop had been left to find its own place, he would have soon been lost among the crowd which is mingled

“A quel cattivo coro
Degli angeli, che non furon ribelli,
Ne fur fedeli a Dio, per se foro.”

And the only notice which it would have been necessary to take of his name would have been

“Non ragioniam di lui; ma guarda, e passa.”

But, since his admirers challenge for him a place in the noble army of martyrs, his claims require fuller discussion.

The origin of his greatness, common enough in the scandalous chronicles of courts, seems strangely out of place in a hagiology.  Cranmer rose into favour by serving Henry in the disgraceful affair of his first divorce.  He promoted the marriage of Anne Boleyn with the King.  On a frivolous pretence he pronounced that marriage null and void.  On a pretence, if possible still more frivolous, he dissolved the ties which bound the shameless tyrant to Anne of Cleves.  He attached himself to Cromwell while the fortunes of Cromwell flourished.  He voted for cutting off Cromwell’s head without a trial, when the tide of royal favour turned.  He conformed backwards and forwards as the King changed his mind.  He assisted, while Henry lived, in condemning to the flames those who denied the doctrine of transubstantiation.  He found out, as soon as Henry was dead, that the doctrine was false.  He was, however, not at a loss for people to burn.  The authority of his station and of his grey hairs was employed to overcome the disgust with which an intelligent and virtuous child regarded persecution.  Intolerance is always bad.  But the sanguinary intolerance of a man who thus wavered in his creed excites a loathing, to which it is difficult to give vent without calling foul names.  Equally false to political and to religious obligations, the primate was first the tool of Somerset, and then the tool of Northumberland.  When the Protector wished to put his own brother to death, without even the semblance of a trial, he found a ready instrument in Cranmer.  In spite of the canon law, which forbade a churchman to take any part in matters of blood, the archbishop signed the warrant for the atrocious sentence.  When Somerset had been in his turn destroyed, his destroyer received the support of Cranmer in a wicked attempt to change the course of the succession.