Duncan Railton, 41, of Cranmer Close, Warlingham, apologised to police and the public for anxiety he had caused.

BBC: Man denies 'planned poison attack on bus' in Surrey

The martyrdom of Archbishop Cranmer, said the don at last, grimacing with embarrassment.

ECONOMIST: Bagehot

Duncan Railton, 41, of Cranmer Close, Warlingham, had denied possessing dangerous or noxious things with intent to commit an offence.

BBC: Man cleared of planning Surrey bus poison plot

In the new novel, Thomas Cranmer is tediously devout, a flinty bore.

NEWYORKER: Invitation to a Beheading

Yet Cranmer appears a timid provincial alongside Cromwell, who spent years in France and Italy, and who often longs for a southern sun.

NEWYORKER: Invitation to a Beheading

More and Cranmer would probably drown you in Scripture.

NEWYORKER: Invitation to a Beheading

Cromwell is the robust, working-class son of a blacksmith, from Putney, on the Thames, now a member of Parliament enormously astute, but not schooled like Cranmer, who would seem to have the social advantage here.

NEWYORKER: Invitation to a Beheading

He has to cheat a bit to engineer this result: neither Thomas Cranmer nor Thomas Wriothesley died in the reign of Henry VIII, and Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, although condemned, was miraculously reprieved.

ECONOMIST: Tudor history