The people listened breathless, 'intending upon the conclusion.'
'And now,' he went on, 'forasmuch as I am come to the last end of my life, whereupon hangeth all my life past and all my life to come, either to live with my Saviour Christ in joy, or else to be ever in pain with wicked devils in hell; and I see before mine eyes presently either heaven'—and he pointed upwards with his hand—'or hell,' and he pointed downwards, 'ready to swallow me. I shall therefore declare unto you my very faith, without colour or dissimulation; for now it is no time to dissemble. I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; in every article of the Catholic faith; every word and sentence taught by our Saviour Christ, his apostles, and prophets, in the Old and New Testament.
'And now I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that ever I said or did in my life, and that is the setting abroad of writings contrary to the truth, which here I now renounce and refuse,[1] as things written with my hand
- ↑ There are two original contemporary accounts of Cramner's Words—Harleian MSS., 417 and 422,—and they agree so far almost word for word with 'The Prayer and Saying of Thomas Cranmer a little before his Death,' which was published immediately after by Boniier. But we now encounter the singular difficulty, that the conclusion given by Bonner is altogether different. The Archbishop is made to repeat his recantation, and express especial grief for the books which he had written upon the Sacrament.
There is no uncertainty as to what Cranmer really said; but, inasmuch as Bonner at the head of his version of the speech has described it as 'written with his own hand,' it has been inferred that he
