Thomas Cranmer
Archbishop of Canterbury and principal author of the Book of Common Prayer.
Thomas Cranmer was Archbishop of Canterbury under three Tudor monarchs and the principal author of the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549, revised under his hand in 1552 and used in its 1662 form across the Anglican Communion ever since. His prose, translated and adapted from medieval Latin sources, gave the English language some of its most enduring liturgical sentences: "the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit," "we have left undone those things which we ought to have done," "the gate of everlasting life." Cranmer was tried for treason and heresy under Mary I and burned at the stake at Oxford in 1556. His prayers outlived the political settlement that produced them. Most English-language Christian worship for the last four centuries carries his hand somewhere in its structure.