The fate of Cranmer was, in many respects, more melancholy, perhaps more instructive, than that of his brothers in suffering. He was first convicted of high-treason, but obtained, on his earnest supplication for mercy, the queen’s pardon. Hating the man, both on public and on private grounds, she desired to destroy his character as well as his life; and it must be confessed that she had well-nigh succeeded. Being transferred from the Tower to Oxford, he was arraigned on a charge of heresy, before a court constituted with a marked attention to form, and by a commission obtained direct from Rome. He defended himself with great modesty as well as talent; but from such a court only one verdict was to be anticipated;--he was found guilty. The fear of death seems to have operated with extraordinary force upon Cranmer. Again he implored the queen’s mercy, in terms partaking too much of the abject; and being beset by many temptations,--by the terrors of the stake on one hand, by promises of favor and protection on the other,--in an evil hour his constancy gave way, and he signed a recantation. The triumph of his enemy was now complete. Notwithstanding this humiliating act, the sentence of death was confirmed; and he was carried, as custom required, into the church of St. Mary, where an appropriate sermon was preached. During the whole time of divine service, Cranmer kept his eyes rivetted on the ground, while the tears chased one another, in rapid course, over his cheeks. The audience attributed his emotion to remorse; and it was expected, when he indicated a desire to address the populace, that he would before them acknowledge the enormity of his transgressions, and ask their prayers. But the persons who harbored this idea had deluded themselves. After running over a sort of history of his past career, he came at length to the period of his trial, which he summed up the narrative in the following words:--“Now I am come to the great thing which troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life, and that is, the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth; which here now I renounce and refuse as things written with my hand, contrary to the truth which I thought in my heart, and writ for fear of death, and to save my life if might be, and that is all such papers as I have written or signed since my degradation, wherein I have written many things untrue. And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, my hand, when I come to the fire, shall be first burned.” The penitent was as good as his word. As soon as the flames began to arise, he thrust his right hand into them, and held it there till it was consumed. His end resembled, in other respects, those of his fellows in affliction.