The Hand will Be the First to Burn

Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556), the archbishop of Canterbury from 1532 to 1556, played a pivotal role in the English Reformation. A key figure in Henry VIII’s break with the Roman Catholic Church, Cranmer faced intense opposition, particularly from Mary I, who despised him for his involvement in her mother’s divorce. 

Accused of heresy, Cranmer was forced to sign a recantation, but later, when brought to St. Mary’s Church in Oxford to make a public renunciation of his former beliefs, he declared that his conscience would not…