or
whether he was obstinate, was a suspicion which his experience of the
legate had not taught him to entertain.

So it was that Cranmer's spirit gave way, and he who had disdained to
fly when flight was open to him, because he considered that, having
done the most in establishing the Reformation, he was bound to face
the responsibility of it, fell at last under the protraction of the
trial.

The day of his degradation the archbishop had eaten little. In the
evening he returned to his cell in a state of exhaustion:[539] the
same night, or the next day, he sent in his first submission,[540]
which was forwarded on the instant to the queen. It was no sooner gone
than he recalled it, and then vacillating again, he drew a second, in
slightly altered words, which he signed and did not recall. There had
been a struggle in which the weaker nature had prevailed, and the
orthodox leaders made haste to improve their triumph. The first step
being over, confessions far more humiliating could now be extorted.
Bonner came to his cell, and obtained from him a promise in writing,
"to submit to the king and queen in all their laws and ordinances, as
well touching the pope's supremacy, as in all other things;" with an
engagement further "to move and stir all others to do the like," and
to live in quietness and obedience, without murmur or grudging; his
book on the sacrament he would submit to the next general council.

[Footnote 539: Jenkins, vol. iv. p. 129.]

[Footnote 540: Forasmuch as the king's and queen's
majesties, by consent of parliament, have received
the pope's authority within this realm, I am
content to submit myself to their laws herein, and
to take the pope for chief head of this Church of
England so far as God's laws and the customs of
this realm will permit.--Thomas Cranmer.]

{p.251} These three submissions must have followed one another
rapidly. On the 16th of February, two days only after his trial, he
made a fourth, and yielding the point which he had reserved, he
declared that he believed all the articles of the Christian religion
as the Catholic Church believed. But so far he had spoken generally,
and the court required particulars. In a fifth and longer
submission,[541] he was made to anathematise particularly the heresies
of Luther and Zuinglius; to accept th