Tofig The Dane Inspired The English Reformation
Who Was Present At The Birth Of The English Reformation?
Answer: Edward Foxe, Stephen Gardiner and a man called Mr Cressy.
Tofig the Proud, the Dane from Montacute, unwittingly conceived it. It was born at Waltham in Hertfordshire, on 2 August 1529. Oh, and the godfather there was Thomas Cranmer.
Jesus Christ, obviously, was responsible for it all.
Joseph of Arimathea was the Virgin Mary’s uncle and thus was Jesus’s great-uncle. It was Joseph who took down Jesus’s body, and prepared it for burial in a tomb that he had donated. It was from that tomb that Christ ascended to heaven.
After the passion of Christ, Joseph, a trader in tin, left Jerusalem for Britain. He had business here and had visited several times before. Tin had been mined in the south-west of Britain for thousands of years, even before the birth of Jesus. Much of the tin was exported by sea to the Mediterranean. In Jerusalem, Joseph’s life was in danger, but in Britain he was welcomed to stay by King Arviragus who granted him the island of Tnys Avalon, now known as Glastonbury, where he founded the first Christian church in the world.
The story of Joseph of Arimathea, though obscured by the mists of time, has existed in these isles for centuries and it was Thomas Cranmer who wiped the thick layers of dust from the storybook.
Kicked Wolsey’s Backside Around Blackfriars
Cranmer retold the story and changed Christianity, because a few days before the end of July 1529 Cardinal Campeggio announced, with Cardinal Wolsey complicit, that Henry’s divorce hearing at Blackfriars would be adjourned at the end of the month. Campeggio was taking his annual holiday, he would be gone until October, it was papal policy, and that was that. He went.
Henry was furious. At this stage we may imagine him incandescent with rage, crimson-faced, jowls wobbling, screaming blue murder at Wolsey as he kicked his backside around Blackfriars.
Progress
Nevertheless, on 2 August, Henry left London with Anne Boleyn, on the first stage of the summer Progress. Among the courtiers and councillors with them were Cambridge friends Stephen Gardiner, royal secretary, and Edward Foxe, leading member of the King’s Spiritual Council. With the divorce proceedings in disarray these two loyal servants sought other remedies to satisfy the will of their sovereign to marry mistress Anne.
The first stop on the Progress was Waltham Abbey.
The Abbey was of sufficient size to accommodate the immediate royal party but Gardiner and Foxe were allocated lodgings nearby at the home of Mr Cressy. Also lodged at the house was Dr Thomas Cranmer, a kinsman of Mr Cressy and Jesus College tutor of his two sons. They had travelled south from Cambridge to take refuge from the plague when it had struck the university.
Supper At Waltham
At supper in Cressy's house, on the night of Gardiner’s and Foxe's arrival, the three fell into conversation. As Cambridge men, they talked about the university then later they discussed the king’s divorce. Cranmer said that, unlike his two acquaintances, he had made no particular study of the question but he went on to suggest that perhaps they were pursuing the wrong strategy on behalf of the king.
The history books tell us that his suggestion was to canvass university theologians throughout Europe for their support of Henry’s divorce claim, and they tell us that when Foxe and Gardiner, a couple of days later, told the king about their meeting at Waltham, Henry was so impressed that he called for a personal interview with Cranmer.
But there must have been more to Cranmer’s impending meteoric rise than the proposal to canvass the universities. There was nothing new in that suggestion.
More To It Than The Universities – Red and White Oxen.
Of course there was more to it!
In Waltham, some say his name was Tovi while to others he was Tofi, but all we know is to call him Tofig. The Dane – Tofig – held large estates in Essex and Somerset, one of which, in Somerset, was at Montacute near Glastonbury. In 1035 a buried flint cross was discovered. It was believed to be part of the True Cross on which Jesus died and that had been brought to Montacute by Joseph of Arimathea.
Speculation followed that Joseph might have been buried there as well.
Tofig arranged to have the cross moved. It was loaded on to a cart that was pulled by a dozen oxen. To be true to the story, it was six red oxen and six white oxen. This was obviously no small cross. The oxen were uncertain where to take it. Tofig reeled off a number of destinations but they would not budge until he said ‘Waltham’. Then without further delay the oxen moved off (there is a spoilsport dimension to this legend in that the beasts merely responded to ‘Walk on’, which surely cannot be true) and did not stop until they reached Waltham, where the cross was erected and the great Abbey of Waltham was built.
Certainly canvassing the universities was discussed, but while sitting at the supper table in Waltham, Cranmer, now fully acquainted with the king’s problems, told Foxe and Gardener this story of Joseph of Arimathea, Tofig and the Waltham Holy Cross.
Joseph Was Here Before The Preachers From Rome
He told them that Joseph of Arimathea was the first preacher of the word of God in Britain, not the preachers from Rome who arrived hundreds of years later. He suggested they consider that the Roman preachers had usurped the authority of the first English Church, and that there were extant manuscripts to prove that the king was the only legitimate head of the Church in England.
When Gardiner and Foxe met Henry back at Waltham Abbey they told him of Cranmer’s theory. They told the king that he was head of the church and always had been. The Pope had no authority in England and never had had.
Cranmer was summoned to meet the king and Henry ‘retained him to write his mind in that cause of his divorcement’. Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s father, was also called before the king and Henry said to him, ‘I pray you, my lord, let Dr Cranmer have entertainment in your house at Durham Place for a time, to the intent that he may be there quiet to accomplish my request, and let him lack neither books nor anything requisite for his study.’
Matters moved at a pace: within weeks Wolsey was indicted for praemunire in the King’s Bench and in little over twelve months all clergy were indicted on the same charge. They were pardoned upon payment of £100,000 and a submission that Henry was the ‘sole protector and Supreme Head of the English Church and clergy’.
Answer: Edward Foxe, Stephen Gardiner and a man called Mr Cressy.
Tofig the Proud, the Dane from Montacute, unwittingly conceived it. It was born at Waltham in Hertfordshire, on 2 August 1529. Oh, and the godfather there was Thomas Cranmer.
Jesus Christ, obviously, was responsible for it all.
Joseph of Arimathea was the Virgin Mary’s uncle and thus was Jesus’s great-uncle. It was Joseph who took down Jesus’s body, and prepared it for burial in a tomb that he had donated. It was from that tomb that Christ ascended to heaven.
After the passion of Christ, Joseph, a trader in tin, left Jerusalem for Britain. He had business here and had visited several times before. Tin had been mined in the south-west of Britain for thousands of years, even before the birth of Jesus. Much of the tin was exported by sea to the Mediterranean. In Jerusalem, Joseph’s life was in danger, but in Britain he was welcomed to stay by King Arviragus who granted him the island of Tnys Avalon, now known as Glastonbury, where he founded the first Christian church in the world.
The story of Joseph of Arimathea, though obscured by the mists of time, has existed in these isles for centuries and it was Thomas Cranmer who wiped the thick layers of dust from the storybook.
Kicked Wolsey’s Backside Around Blackfriars
Cranmer retold the story and changed Christianity, because a few days before the end of July 1529 Cardinal Campeggio announced, with Cardinal Wolsey complicit, that Henry’s divorce hearing at Blackfriars would be adjourned at the end of the month. Campeggio was taking his annual holiday, he would be gone until October, it was papal policy, and that was that. He went.
Henry was furious. At this stage we may imagine him incandescent with rage, crimson-faced, jowls wobbling, screaming blue murder at Wolsey as he kicked his backside around Blackfriars.
Progress
Nevertheless, on 2 August, Henry left London with Anne Boleyn, on the first stage of the summer Progress. Among the courtiers and councillors with them were Cambridge friends Stephen Gardiner, royal secretary, and Edward Foxe, leading member of the King’s Spiritual Council. With the divorce proceedings in disarray these two loyal servants sought other remedies to satisfy the will of their sovereign to marry mistress Anne.
The first stop on the Progress was Waltham Abbey.
The Abbey was of sufficient size to accommodate the immediate royal party but Gardiner and Foxe were allocated lodgings nearby at the home of Mr Cressy. Also lodged at the house was Dr Thomas Cranmer, a kinsman of Mr Cressy and Jesus College tutor of his two sons. They had travelled south from Cambridge to take refuge from the plague when it had struck the university.
Supper At Waltham
At supper in Cressy's house, on the night of Gardiner’s and Foxe's arrival, the three fell into conversation. As Cambridge men, they talked about the university then later they discussed the king’s divorce. Cranmer said that, unlike his two acquaintances, he had made no particular study of the question but he went on to suggest that perhaps they were pursuing the wrong strategy on behalf of the king.
The history books tell us that his suggestion was to canvass university theologians throughout Europe for their support of Henry’s divorce claim, and they tell us that when Foxe and Gardiner, a couple of days later, told the king about their meeting at Waltham, Henry was so impressed that he called for a personal interview with Cranmer.
But there must have been more to Cranmer’s impending meteoric rise than the proposal to canvass the universities. There was nothing new in that suggestion.
More To It Than The Universities – Red and White Oxen.
Of course there was more to it!
In Waltham, some say his name was Tovi while to others he was Tofi, but all we know is to call him Tofig. The Dane – Tofig – held large estates in Essex and Somerset, one of which, in Somerset, was at Montacute near Glastonbury. In 1035 a buried flint cross was discovered. It was believed to be part of the True Cross on which Jesus died and that had been brought to Montacute by Joseph of Arimathea.
Speculation followed that Joseph might have been buried there as well.
Tofig arranged to have the cross moved. It was loaded on to a cart that was pulled by a dozen oxen. To be true to the story, it was six red oxen and six white oxen. This was obviously no small cross. The oxen were uncertain where to take it. Tofig reeled off a number of destinations but they would not budge until he said ‘Waltham’. Then without further delay the oxen moved off (there is a spoilsport dimension to this legend in that the beasts merely responded to ‘Walk on’, which surely cannot be true) and did not stop until they reached Waltham, where the cross was erected and the great Abbey of Waltham was built.
Certainly canvassing the universities was discussed, but while sitting at the supper table in Waltham, Cranmer, now fully acquainted with the king’s problems, told Foxe and Gardener this story of Joseph of Arimathea, Tofig and the Waltham Holy Cross.
Joseph Was Here Before The Preachers From Rome
He told them that Joseph of Arimathea was the first preacher of the word of God in Britain, not the preachers from Rome who arrived hundreds of years later. He suggested they consider that the Roman preachers had usurped the authority of the first English Church, and that there were extant manuscripts to prove that the king was the only legitimate head of the Church in England.
When Gardiner and Foxe met Henry back at Waltham Abbey they told him of Cranmer’s theory. They told the king that he was head of the church and always had been. The Pope had no authority in England and never had had.
Cranmer was summoned to meet the king and Henry ‘retained him to write his mind in that cause of his divorcement’. Thomas Boleyn, Anne’s father, was also called before the king and Henry said to him, ‘I pray you, my lord, let Dr Cranmer have entertainment in your house at Durham Place for a time, to the intent that he may be there quiet to accomplish my request, and let him lack neither books nor anything requisite for his study.’
Matters moved at a pace: within weeks Wolsey was indicted for praemunire in the King’s Bench and in little over twelve months all clergy were indicted on the same charge. They were pardoned upon payment of £100,000 and a submission that Henry was the ‘sole protector and Supreme Head of the English Church and clergy’.
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