Note 231 — Chapter VII

Mr. Ellis remarks, (Original Letters, vol. ii. p. 47,) that upon Wolsey’s fall, Henry pressed the chancellorship upon Cranmer, more than once, before he offered it to Sir Thomas More. Had it been so, the refusal would but have been of a piece with the rest of Cranmer’s private history; and, accordingly, we had once adduced this fact as a further argument of his unambitious spirit—but it has been pointed out to us by a high authority in ecclesiastical history, that Mr. Ellis has here mistaken Warham for Cranmer. Both the words of Erasmus’s letter (which is the reference, Epist. lib. xxvi. 55,) and its date prove this to be the case. It is there said, that the chancellorship was offered more than once to the Archbishop of Canterbury, and that he excused himself on the plea of age. Now, the date of the letter being January 1531, Cranmer was not then Archbishop, but Warham who died in August 1532; moreover, Cranmer was at that time only in his 42d year, and therefore could not possibly consider himself too old for the office. We notice a solitary error, for the sake of having an opportunity of expressing our thanks to Mr. Ellis, for the invaluable materials for English history which his researches have brought to light and the very instructive notes with which they are accompanied.