Thomas Cranmer died today in 1556. The first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury, it was he who organised Henry VIII’s divorce from Catherine of Aragon and wrote the Anglican Prayer Book. So when Catherine’s daughter Mary (a Catholic) became Queen, he was in trouble. He was sentenced to death, but since he wasn’t a martyr by inclination, he was persuaded to recant his Protestant faith. However, Mary couldn’t resist burning him anyway, so he used his farewell sermon – which was supposed to confirm his recantation – to recant his recanting, and died a Protestant martyr after all. When the fire was lit, he put his right hand into it (above), to make the hand that signed his recantation burn first.
The baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach was born today in 1685, in Eisenach, Germany. His father, Johann Ambrosius Bach, was the director of the town musicians, and his extended family already included many musicians and composers. His father taught young Johann his first instruments, the violin and harpsichord.
Today in 1800, Pius VII was crowned Pope. Two adjustments had to be made to the traditional ceremony. First it took place in Venice, because the leadership of the Catholic Church had been driven out of Rome by an armed conflict. And secondly, Pius had to be crowned with a temporary tiara made of papier-mâché.
The Butler Act, prohibiting the teaching of human evolution in Tennessee, was signed into law today in 1925. The act also made it illegal for public school teachers to deny the Genesis account of creation by God, with the threat of a $100 to $500 fine. The law was challenged two months later when John Scopes was arrested after teaching evolution to his science students, and was convicted in the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. The Butler Act remained in force in Tennessee for 40 years, until it was repealed in 1967.
It is the feast of St Nicholas of Flüe, disappointingly patron saint not of flu, but of Switzerland, who died today in 1487. In the 1460s he left his life as a farmer (plus his wife and 10 children) and became a hermit, living for 19 years by eating nothing but the eucharist. He was sought out for his spiritual counsel and was popularly known as Brother Klaus.
Image: Wikimedia Commons