CRANMER By Hilaire Belloc
Mr. Belloc is hardly the ideal biographer of Cramner (Cassell, 154.). But the skill and passion with which he paints a most unflattering portrait of the Archbishop whom he hates are not to lie denied. And Protestant readers will be none the worse , for, knowing what a Roman Catholic thinks about the man whom circumstances compelled to guide the English Church thrOugh the Reformation. Mr. Belloc's version of the history_ of a most critical period is deceptively clear ; it contains, in fact, so many controvertible statements that no review short of another book could deal faithfully with them. In one respect at least Mr. Belloc does justice to Cranmer. He was " a hypocrite, a time-server, a coward, a great scholar, timid and suave in manner, cautious also, usually averse from
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cruelty, a splendid horseman, a gentleman, in his modest faShion an intriguer and a quite successful layer of traps for the unfortunate—such as the woman (Anne Boleyn), who made - 'din and whom he betrayed." But, to his credit he was .a.. ranter of the Word,'he-possessed the secret of Magic. TR& itif have " a treasure of prose "- in the Prayer Book was largely Cranmer's doing. Mr. Belloc has planned his narrative in dramatic fashion, and brings down the eurtaineffectively on the burning at Oxford in 1560.
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