An excellent portrait of Fisher is preserved among the Holbein drawings
at Windsor Castle, and others are to be found in several of the Colleges
of the University of Cambridge.
THOMAS CRANMER, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 1489-1556
[Illustration]
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, the events of whose life are
so well known that it is not necessary to give an account of them here,
possessed a very fine library, both of manuscripts and printed books.
Many of the volumes it contained are still in existence, and fortunately
they can be identified without difficulty, as almost all of them bear
the Archbishop's name written, it is believed, by one of his
secretaries. As might be expected, the books are principally of a
theological nature, although copies of the Greek and Latin Classics, and
of works treating of historical, scientific, legal, medical, and
miscellaneous subjects are fairly numerous. Strype tells us 'that the
library was the storehouse of ecclesiastical writers of all ages: and
which was open for the use of learned men. Here old Latimer spent many
an hour; and found some books so remarkable, that once he thought fit to
mention one in a sermon before the King.' Strype adds that Cranmer both
annotated the books in his library, and also made extracts from them,
and the notes which are found in many of those which have been
preserved to our time confirm his statement.
The fate of the library after the fall of its owner can only be
conjectured.
Soon after the accession of Mary to the throne Cranmer was put on his
trial for high treason, and sentence of death was passed upon him; and
although at that time his life was spared, he was included in the Act of
Attainder passed in Parliament against the Earl of Northumberland,
deprived of his archbishopric, and committed to the Tower. He had to
produce an inventory of his goods; and a list of all the property found
in the Archbishop's palaces is still preserved in the Record Office,
but, with the exception that it is stated that a 'bible with other
bookes of service' were 'conveyed and stolen awaie' from the chapel, no
mention is made of the books. They probably shared the fate of the goods
of Robert Holgate, Archbishop of York, who was deprived of his see in
1554, and imprisoned in the Tower, and while confined there had his
houses at Battersea and Cawood rifled of all their valuables.
It is evident that many of Cranmer's books were acquired by Lord Lumley,
then a young nobleman in high favour at Court; and others by Lord
Lumley's father-in-law, Henry Fitzalan, Earl of Arundel, the Lord
Steward, who at that time was forming a library at Nonsuch, which he had
recently purchased of the Queen; as a number of the volumes which were
in their libraries have the Archbishop's name inscribed in them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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