Protestantism in England From the Times of Henry VIII - James Aitken Wylie

and that whereas Calvin earnestly interceded that
the sword might be substituted for the stake in the
case of Servetus, we know of no interference on
the part of Cranmer to have the punishment of Joan
of Kent mitigated. Nor did the error of this poor
woman tend in the same degree to destroy the
foundations of civil order, as did the opinions so
zealously propagated by Servetus. The doctrine of
toleration had not made greater progress at London
than at Geneva. It was the error of that age that it
held the judicial law of the Jews, according to
which heresy was punishable with death, to be still
binding upon States. We find the Pilgrim Fathers
acting upon the same belief, and led by it into the
same deplorable acts, a century after the time when
Calvin had publicly taught that opinions ought not
to be punished by the sword unless promulgated to
the disturbance of civil society.
The last matter in which we find the archbishop
concerned under Edward VI was the change of the
succession to the throne from the Princess Mary,
the eldest daughter of Henry VIII, to Lady Jane,
daughter of Henry Grey, Duke of Suffolk. This
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