Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 13.djvu/24

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Cranley
18
Cranmer

in Camden's Britannia, p. 835, ed. 1607), and died at Faringdon in Berkshire on the 25th of the following month (Ware, l.c.) He was buried, not at Dublin, as Bale (Scriptt. Brit. Cat. xiii. 96, pt. ii. 158) and Pits (De Angliæ Scriptoribus, § 767, p. 597) say, but before the altar of New College chapel in Oxford, with a memorial brass, the inscription on which is given by Wood (Colleges and Halls, p. 201), and which fixes the date of the archbishop's death. The brass is now in the ante-chapel.

Cranley is described by Henry of Marlborough (ubi supra) as a man of commanding character and great learning, bountiful with his goods (he is known to have given books to New College in 1393—Wood, p. 197), a distinguished preacher, and suorum locorum ædificator. This last trait, it is not hard to presume, commended him to William of Wykeham, but we are not informed as to whether he took any part in his patron's works at Winchester or Oxford. Cranley's name is often mis-written Crawley (in Cotton), or Crawleigh (in Wood); but contemporary documents offer only the alternatives of Cranley, Cranle, Cranele, and Cranlegh.

[Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiæ Hibernicæ, ii. 16.]

R. L. P.

CRANLEY, THOMAS (fl. 1635), poet, was the author of ‘Amanda, or the Reformed Whore, and other Poems, composed and made by Thomas Cranley, gent., now a prisoner in the King's Bench,’ 1635, 4to, dedicated ‘To the worshipfull his worthy friend and brother-in-law, Thomas Gilbourne, Esquire.’ In 1639 the work was reissued under the title of ‘The Converted Courtezan, or the Reformed Whore.’ It is valuable for the vivid description that it gives of the town-life of the time; nor is the verse ill-written. ‘Venus and Adonis’ is mentioned as one of Amanda's books in her unregenerate days. Cranley was a friend of George Wither, who in ‘Abuses Stript and Whipt’ addressed a copy of verses ‘To his deare friend Thomas Cranley.’ The complimentary verses prefixed to Wither's satire, subscribed ‘Thy deare Friend Th. C.,’ were probably written by Cranley. A reprint of ‘Amanda’ was issued (for private circulation) by Frederic Ouvry, in 1869.

[Corser's Collectanea Anglo-Poetica; Collier's Bibl. Cat.]

A. H. B.

CRANMER, GEORGE (1563–1600), secretary to Davison and friend of Hooker, born in Kent in 1563, was the eldest son of Thomas Cranmer by his wife Anne Carpenter. His father who was registrar of the archdeaconry of Canterbury, was nephew to the archbishop, and son of Edmund Cranmer, archdeacon of Canterbury. One of Edmund Cranmer's daughters married Jervis Walton, and became the mother of Isaac Walton, who was thus first cousin to George Cranmer. At the age of eight he was sent to Merchant Taylors' School, and thence in January 1577 (or, according to other accounts, in December 1579) to Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he entered simultaneously with Sir Edwyn Sandys, and with him was placed under the tuition of Richard Hooker, the divine. Between the tutor and his two pupils there grew up a firm friendship, which continued long after they had separated on leaving Oxford. Hooker found Cranmer very useful in compiling the ‘Ecclesiastical Polity;’ and Walton, in his ‘Life of Hooker,’ relates, how Sandys and Cranmer went to see their former tutor while he was rector of Drayton Beauchamp, and how, in spite of their mutual pleasure at the reunion, the visitors had to leave after a stay of one night, disgusted with the shrewishness of Mrs. Hooker. At Oxford Cranmer did well, gaining a Merchant Taylors' scholarship in 1581, and being elected a fellow of his college in 1583. It was his father's wish that he should enter the ministry; but Cranmer himself had no inclination in that direction, and was of opinion, as he wrote to his maternal uncle, John Carpenter, that ‘so great a calling ought in no case to be undertaken with a forced minde.’ These words occur in a letter (Cal. State Papers, Dom. Ser. 1581–90, p. 361) dated 9 Oct. 1586, which Cranmer wrote to his uncle thanking him for having obtained him an appointment in the service of William Davison, the secretary of state. There was already a connection between the two families, Carpenter having married Anne Davison, the statesman's sister. Cranmer remained in this position till his patron fell, when he became secretary to Sir Henry Killigrew, and accompanied him on his embassy to France. Subsequently, Cranmer started on a continental tour with his old college friend Sandys, and remained abroad three years, visiting France, Germany, and Italy. Shortly after his return to England he was chosen by Charles Blount, lord Mountjoy, to accompany him in the capacity of secretary to Ireland, whither he was going to replace Essex. The appointment held the promise of better things, but Cranmer did not live to enjoy its fruits, for in the following year (16 July 1600) he was killed in a skirmish with the Irish rebels at Carlingford.

Contemporary writers all agree in declar-