Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 3.pdf/28

CRANMER

ON THE EVE OF HIS EXECUTION^[1]
(1556)

Born in 1489, died in 1556; made Chaplain to Henry VIII. in 1529; Archbishop of Canterbury in 1533; declared the marriage of Henry and Catharine invalid in 1533; abjured his allegiance to Rome in 1535; member of the regency for Edward VI. in 1547; signed the patent which settled the Crown on Lady Jane Gray in 1553; sent to the Tower for treason on the accession of Mary; condemned and burned for heresy.

Good people—my dearly beloved brethren in Christ—I beseech you most heartily to pray for me to Almighty God, that He will forgive me all my sins and offenses, which are without number, and great above measure. But yet one thing grieveth my conscience more than all the rest, whereof, God willing, I intend to speak more hereafter. But how great and how many soever my sins be, I beseech you to pray to God of His mercy to pardon and forgive them all. [Here, kneeling down, Cranmer made the following prayer;]

O Father of heaven, O Son of God, Redeemer of the world, O Holy Ghost, three persons and one God, have mercy upon me, most wretched caitiff and miserable sinner. I have offended both against heaven and earth

 

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1. > Printed here from Foxe's "Book of Martyrs." Slightly abridged. Cranmer’s writings, in two volumes, edited for the Parker Society by the Rev. John Edmond Cox, were published in 1844–6.