Thomas Cranmer

Whenever I think of Cranmer I associate him with the horrors of the English Reformation which, despite arguments to the contrary, was instituted mainly to satisfy the whim of a brutal Kings wish to divorce his wife and replace her with a younger model who could give him a son. At a stroke the peasants were deprived of their beautifully ornate churches where they could read the story of the bible through the imagery of the stained glass windows and the wall paintings. They lost their Saints days and passion play festivals and had them replaced with white washed churches where the pulpit replaced the altar as the main focus. The Pilgrimage of Grace, Western Prayer Book Rebellion and Kett's Rebellion reflect the poor peoples verdict on the Reformation.

Although there had long been criticism in England of the Bishops and Priesthood over issues such as their secret wives and concubines, nepotism, simony, vacant parishes and so on there was no groundswell of opinion among the ordinary folk and the gentry to replace the Catholic Church. So what happened? In stepped Cromwell, Cranmer and their cronies with a brilliant wheeze. They knew the only way an English Reformation could gain support was to get the Aristocracy and Gentry onside and the best way this could be achieved was by appealing to their greed. This they achieved by selling off huge tracts of Church property and land to the politically important at bargain basement prices. Job done.

I, of course, agree that Cranmer deserves his place in history for the reasons you point out above and he did have a prodigious intellect, but he is not immune from criticism and I just wanted to point out some of his failings in the pursuit of balance.