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Summary
Cranmer enters, hoping he isn’t late for the Privy Council meeting. The doorkeeper says he must wait until he is called. Doctor Butts crosses the stage, noting that malice is afoot if the council members are requiring Cranmer, himself a member, to wait outside. Cranmer sees Butts and hopes he will be kind to him. The king and Butts appear at a window above the scene, and Butts tells the king how Cranmer has been forced to wait at the door. Henry is surprised that the council would be so rude, and he says that there is one above them who will yet judge them—either himself or God. The two stand aside as they watch the council enter.
Lord Chancellor enters with Suffolk, Norfolk, Surrey, Lord Chamberlain, Gardiner, and Cromwell. They allow Cranmer to enter. The Lord Chancellor says he is disappointed to have heard complaints that Cranmer has been teaching new opinions and ideas around the kingdom, ideas they deem to be heresies. Gardiner speaks more harshly, saying that they must swiftly deal with such bad behavior or the whole kingdom will become ill, and the state will fall.
Cranmer says that he has always taught approved teachings, and he has never tried to disturb the public peace. He says he would like to hear what his alleged accusers have to say. But because Cranmer is a council member himself, no one can bring complaints against him. So, Gardiner explains that they want to imprison Cranmer in the Tower. This act will return him to the status of a common man, enabling his accusers to make their claims against him public and the council to investigate. Cranmer responds kindly to Gardiner, saying that love and humility serve churchmen more than ambition. Cranmer doubts that Gardiner acts ethically, but he will submit. Gardiner accuses Cranmer of being a Protestant, but Cromwell tells Gardiner to hold his tongue, for he is being too sharp. Gardiner then lashes out against Cromwell and accuses him of favoring Protestants. The two men argue viciously until Lord Chancellor stops them.
Lord Chancellor tells Cranmer that he will be conveyed to the Tower, and Cranmer asks if there is not another alternative. A guard enters to take him away, so Cranmer reveals that he wears the king’s ring. The council members see they have made a mistake in targeting Cranmer, not having realized how much he was in favor with the king. The king and Butts exit the window above and come down to the council.
Gardiner addresses Henry and gives thanks for having a king who privileges the church in his rule. The king notes how Gardiner is a master flatterer—but he isn’t interested in flattery now, and he believes Gardiner has bloody plots in mind. Henry tells the council that he thought they were men of understanding and wisdom, but he sees they are not. It was cruel, he says, to make Cranmer wait outside the meeting hall, since he is their equal. He had given them the authority to try Cranmer, but some would simply send him to the Tower to rot. The Lord Chancellor disagrees, saying they really did intend to allow for a full investigation of the charges against him. The king urges them to trust Cranmer, since he himself does, and he orders them all to embrace and be friends.
The king then asks Cranmer to baptize his young daughter. Cranmer weeps, and the king recalls an old saying: that even if one does malice to the archbishop of Canterbury, he will still be your friend forever.
Analysis
The pattern of false accusations finally comes to a halt with the interrupted sentencing of Archbishop Cranmer. The first three acts of the play were each structured around the downfall of one character: Buckingham in act 1, Katherine in act 2, and Wolsey in act 3. Act 4 provided a bit of ventilation, allowing space for Anne’s coronation to be celebrated, Wolsey’s death to be mourned, and Katherine’s honor to be secured. However, as act 5 began, it initially seemed that the old pattern would reassert itself, and that Cranmer was next on the chopping block. Yet for the first time, the king asserts his authority as sovereign and intervenes in the malicious scheming of the kingdom’s top religious and political figures. When Buckingham fell, the king barely seemed to have been involved. When Katherine was ousted, the king seemed sad but convinced that his advisors were right. With Wolsey, the king reacted against Wolsey’s betrayal but was absent for his actual sentencing. Now, though, he has already anticipated the events and engineered the outcome, ensuring Cranmer’s security. He ends by facilitating a reconciliation.
The king’s intervention doesn’t just save the life and reputation of an honest man. It also introduces an emphasis on charity and forgiveness to the court. In a play where so much of the drama has stemmed from semblances and scheming, the king insists on seeing through the dissimulation and speaking the truth. In this case, the key truth he uncovers is that Gardiner, now the bishop of Winchester, appears to be a harmless “spaniel” (5.2.195) who wags his tail when he sees his master, but who in fact has “a cruel nature and a bloody” (198). Recall that Gardiner originally worked for Wolsey, and that even when he worked as the king’s secretary, he continued to report to the cardinal. Gardiner could therefore be seen as having inherited Wolsey’s ambition, and this ambition must be purged before order can be restored to the kingdom.
The surest sign of order’s being restored is the birth—and, soon, baptism—of the newborn princess. She represents the promise of a peaceful and flourishing future, and the play focuses on the promise of her arrival to the exclusion of all else. Indeed, Shakespeare’s audience would have known that both Cranmer and Cromwell, as well as Wolsey’s replacement Sir Thomas More, were all soon to be executed. Anne Bullen will also be executed in the play’s immediate aftermath, a fact perhaps hinted at in her relative absence from the play. She is necessary for the celebrated birth of Elizabeth, but otherwise she is kept by the wayside.
