It is natural but hardly just that Cranmer should be judged on the basis of the impression created by his last month of life. That the protagonist in a great Cause should recant in the face of death seems to argue an almost incredible degree of pusillanimity, and suggests that pusillanimity and subservience are the key to his career. Nevertheless, but for that short hour of abasement nobly and humbly retrieved, the general judgment would probably be altogether different. And that breakdown does not appear to have been characteristic. Twice in the reign of Henry he had bowed to the King's judgment, acknowledging that Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell must be guilty since Henry was convinced: but there was no man in the country who took the part of either. To have defied the King would have been heroic, and there is a wide interval between failing of heroism and being pusillanimous. He withdrew his resistance to Northumberland's plot; but he resisted on the ground that it was illegal and withdrew only when he was assured that the Judges had unanimously affirmed its legality. He changed his views on Transubstantiation; but to surrender an abstruse dogma is not a crime. He repeatedly maintained opinions in opposition to Henry as well as to Mary at the risk of losing royal support and favour--which loss would certainly have meant delivering himself into the hands of his enemies. In practice he conformed to the restrictions laid upon him, but it was only on points of expediency that he personally gave way, though he would fain have allowed to others a larger latitude of opinion than he required for himself. [Sidenote: His character]