The fact is that, if a martyr be a man who chooses to die rather
than to renounce his opinions, Cranmer was no more a martyr than
Dr. Dodd. He died solely because he could not help it. He never
retracted his recantation till he found he had made it in vain.
The Queen was fully resolved that, Catholic or Protestant, he
should burn. Then he spoke out, as people generally speak out
when they are at the point of death and have nothing to hope or
to fear on earth. If Mary had suffered him to live, we suspect
that he would have heard mass and received absolution, like a
good Catholic, till the accession of Elizabeth, and that he would
then have purchased, by another apostasy, the power of burning
men better and braver than himself.

We do not mean, however, to represent him as a monster of
wickedness. He was not wantonly cruel or treacherous. He was
merely a supple, timid, interested courtier, in times of frequent
and violent change. That which has always been represented as his
distinguishing virtue, the facility with which he forgave his
enemies, belongs to the character. Slaves of his class are never
vindictive, and never grateful. A present interest effaces past
services and past injuries from their minds together. Their only
object is self-preservation; and for this they conciliate those
who wrong them, just as they abandon those who serve them. Before
we extol a man for his forgiving temper, we should inquire
whether he is above revenge, or below it.

Somerset had as little principle as his coadjutor. Of Henry, an
orthodox Catholic, except that he chose to be his own Pope, and
of Elizabeth, who certainly had no objection to the theology of
Rome, we need say nothing. These four persons were the great