Cranmer was greatly troubled at the discussions of the clergy respecting the removal of altars from the churches and the placing of communion tables in their stead. This had been done (1550) partly at the recommendation of Hooper, a divine who had been driven from England by tho Act of the Six Articles, and who, during his residence abroad, bad adopted very scrupulous opinions. Iu July, Hooper was made bishop of Gloucester : and soon after Cranmer received from him a refusal to wear the usual episcopal habits. This question, upon which the primate himself seems sometimes to have hesitated, was now brought to an issue. If a dignitary of the church bad been suffered to discontinue the vestments of his order, such was the state of the lower clergy that they would immediately have obeyed the signal and relinquished the surplice and the gown.. Cranmer, upon consideration, determined to oppose Hooper's intentions, and in case of an obstinate adherence to his scruples, to remove him from his bishopric : a compromise eventually followed, and he adopted some of the usual habits.
The Bishop of Chichester would not obey the order respecting the removal of altars, and the primate consequently deprived him of his see. The case of Bishop Gardiner, who had now been in prison nearly two years, was also proceeded in. Articles were sent to him touching the king's supremacy—the full obedienco owed to him notwith standing his youth—that he had power to correct what was amiss iu the church, &c.; and these, with some exceptions, he signed. Other articles were then framed, treating of the marriage of the clergy, the suppression of masses and images, the new book of service, itc.: to these ho refused to put his name, upon which the commission, con sisting of the primate, Bishop Ridley, who had succeeded Bouner in London, and six others, eventually deprived him of his bishopric and sent him back to the Tower. The conduct of Cranmer in the cases of Bonner and Gardiner was a great exception to his usual modera tion. Gardiner, during his imprisonment, occupied himself in answering a treatise published by Cranmer, entitled the 'Defence of the True Doctrine of the Sacrament.' This controversy was carried on by the archbishop until the end of his life. The subject of it was one which had greatly occupied the mind of his friend, Bishop Ridley, as well as his own ; he had more than once changed his opinions, which at length became fixed according to the doctrine maintained in his treatise. (Jenkyns's ' Remains of Cranmer.') His arguments with Gardiner and Smythe, his chief opponents, show considerable skill and learning.
At the close of this year a revision of the Service-book of 1548 was commenced by him, with the assistance chiefly of Ridley and Cox, who, with Peter Martyr and Bucer, stated objections and recom mendations in writing. The undertaking was checked in 1551, by the death of Bucer, who (Burnet says) was, "by order of Cranmer and Sir John Cheek, buried with the highest solemnities that could be devised." The bishops being now (1551) for the most part divines favourable to the Reformation, the compilation of articles for the greater uuiformity of faith was undertaken by them at the suggestion of the king. This additional labour so filled the hands of Craumcr,
that his time was nearly always occupied by one or other of the great duties that he had imposed upon himself : scarcely could he be spared to attend at the trial of Bishop Tonstal, a man of moderation and learning, against whom accusations were brought forward in December. The bishop was deprived of his see, a sentence which was so contrary to Cmnmer's wishes and opiuion, that, together with Lord Stourton, a Roman Catholic, ho entered his protest against it. It was not till this year (1552) that Creamer gave up all hope of effecting an agreement in religious doctrines among all the churches that bed withdrawn from the Papal supremacy, and for the bringing about, of which he had entered into an earnest correspondence with Calvin aud Melancthon as well as other loading divines of the conti nental churches lie was greatly disappointed et the failure of a scheme lu which he had always been sanguine of success. The reformers had now to lament the declining health of the king, but they did not relax their exertions in the cause of religion, for the Servioe-book was finally completed and the Book of Common Prayer adopted by parliament in the spring of 1552. A project for the reformation of the ecclesiastical oourte was revived, and soon com pleted under the superintendence of the archbishop : only the king. signature was required for its validity. Iu May 1553, Edward Issued A mandate that the clergy should subscribe to the Forty-two Articles upon which the divines had agreed ; but ho died soon afterwards without authorising the new ecclesiastical code, which it scarcely need be said was never adopted.
No sooner was Edward dead than Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed queen ; and a letter was sent to the Princess Mary declaring Queen Jane to be the sovereign. This letter was signed by many of the principal persons in the state, and among others by Creamer, His seal for the Protestant cause must have blinded him to the danger of an enterprise directly contrary to the resolution he had formed upon first hearing of the project. On the 0th of July 1553, the chief officers of the date swore allegiance to Jane ; on the 20th we find many of those who had been zealous in her cause, "impatient to send in their submissions to Mary." On the same day an order was sent by Mary to Northumberland to disarm, which paper, strange to say, was signed by Cranmer. The hopes of the Protestants, were now at an end ; Queen Mary's unshaken attachment to the Roman Catholic creed was universally known ; Oardioer was released and made chancellor, and power of appointing preachers granted to him instead of to the primate : a commission was also given to the bishops of London, Winchester, Chichester, and Durham, to degrade and imprison Protestant prelates and ministers on the charges of treason, heresy, and matrimony.