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For his part, Henry intervened for Cranmer when court politics threatened Cranmer's position and life. And it was Cranmer for whom Henry asked on his deathbed.

With the accession of Edward VI in 1547, Cranmer's time arrived. The young king's guardian, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset (and his successor, the Duke of Northumberland), began to make the Church of England decidedly Protestant.

Cranmer took the chief role in directing doctrinal matters. In 1547 he published his Book of Homilies, which required clergy to preach sermons emphasizing Reformed doctrine. He composed the first Book of Common Prayer, only moderately Protestant, in 1549, followed in 1552 by a second that was more clearly Protestant. Cranmer also produced the Forty-Two Articles (1553), a set of doctrinal statements that moved the Church of England even further in a Reformed, Calvinist direction.

These documents became critical to the formation of Anglicanism, and the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), though revised over the years, still retains Cranmer's distinctive stamp and is used by millions of Anglicans worldwide. The BCP contains some of the most well-known prayers in Christendom, including:

"Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning; grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast, the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen."

After Edward VI died in 1553, Cranmer supported Protestant Lady Jane Grey (great-niece of Henry VIII) as the new sovereign. But Lady Jane Grey was deposed within nine days, and Mary (Henry's devoutly Catholic daughter by Catherine of Aragon) triumphantly entered London.

Immediately, Parliament repealed the acts of Henry VIII and Edward VI and reintroduced heresy laws. Mary's government began a relentless campaign against Protestants. Cranmer was charged with treason and imprisoned in November 1553. After spending nearly two years in prison, Cranmer was subjected to a long, tedious trial. The foregone verdict was reached in February 1556, and in a ceremony carefully designed to humiliate, Cranmer was degraded from his episcopal and priestly offices and handed over to be burned at the stake.

A weary and depressed Cranmer, hoping to avoid the stake, was convinced that he should submit even to a Catholic sovereign and repudiate the Reformation. He signed a document that said, "I confess and believe in one, holy, catholic visible church; I recognize as its supreme head upon earth the bishop of Rome, pope and vicar of Christ, to whom all the faithful are bound subject."

Still, the government believed Cranmer must be punished for the havoc he had wreaked. He would still be burned at the stake—after making one more profession of his Catholic faith.

On the day of his execution, Cranmer was led into a church, and when it was his turn to speak, he drew out a piece of paper and began to read. He thanked the people for their prayers and then said, "I come to the great thing that troubleth my conscience more than any other thing that I ever said or did in my life." Referring to the recantations he had signed, he blurted out, "All such bills which I have written or signed with my own hand [are] untrue."

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