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  ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE
  by Christopher Anderson
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Anderson's comprehensive history of the English Bible from the earliest
manuscripts and translations through the production and reception of the King
James Version, documenting the key figures and events in making Scripture
available in the English language.

  Chapters: 8

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 00 ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE
    2. 00a CONTENTS
    3. 01 BOOK 1. - REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
    4. 02 BOOK 2. - FROM EDWARD VI TO THE COMMON
    5. 03 BOOK 3. SCOTLAND. - INTRODUCTION.
    6. 04 BOOK 3. - SCOTLAND
    7. 05 ENGLISH BIBLES AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
    8. 06 FOOTNOTES

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  CHAPTER 1: 00 ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE
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THE ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE BY CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON EDITED BY HIS NEPHEW,
HUGH ANDERSON,

“I CAN fearce think any pains miffpent that bring me in folid evidences of that
great truth, that the Scripture is the word of God, which is indeed the GRAND
FUNDAMENTAL.”

PREFACE.

THE, work which is now offered to public attention has been drawn from authentic
and unpublished manuscripts, from the original printed authorities in
succession, and the editions of the Scriptures themselves. It will be found to
contain the historic Annals of the English Bible, viewed in contrast or
connexion with national affairs; including Memoirs of Tyndale, his
contemporaries and successors; the first introduction of the Sacred Volume, as
printed in the native language, into England, Scotland, and America; the
earliest triumphs of Divine Truth, and its progress down to the present day; the
imperative obligations of British Christians in such extraordinary possession of
the Word of God. In the literature of this country, although it has been so
often felt and regretted, a more observable deficiency does not exist, than that
of there being no history of the English Bible. It may have been imagined, that
such a narrative could embrace no heart-stirring incidents, or incidents laid as
the foundation of a great design, no frequent peril of life, no hair-breadth
escapes, nor, especially, any of those transactions, in which the vital
interests of this nation have been involved. No mistake could have been greater,
but whatever has been the cause, the defect is notorious. The people of every
city alike have never been informed, at what time, and in what a singular
manner, their ancestors first received the oracles of God, as printed on the
continent for their benefit. As for their subsequent prevalence and effects,
these form a vein of British history which has never been explored. The Sacred
Volume, indeed, carries internal evidence of its divine origin, and that in
abundance; but still, with reference to the Bible now being used daily, and read
so long, throughout this kingdom, no questions can be more natural than these
-When was this volume first translated from the original, and put into print?
Who was the man that laboured night and day to accomplish this? Like his Divine
Master, was he betrayed unto death? If so, who betrayed him? What became of his
betrayers? Or, was there any one man who befriended him, in his last days, or
final trial? And since all this, and much more, did take place abroad; in the
first transmission, in the secret and singular conveyance of the heavenly
treasure to our shores, what were the distinct tokens of a superintending
Providence to be observed and adored? What were the notable circumstances
connected with its earliest triumphs over the prejudice and passion of our
common nature? Or, in short, how has this Sacred Volume, revised, and rerevised,
after three hundred years, come down into our hands? And yet, up to the present
moment, should any individual throughout this country apply to his Christian
teacher, or any child to his parent, and put these and other deeply interesting
questions, no definite answer can be returned; nor is there a single
publication, which, if it lead not astray, will not leave the inquisitive
readier nearly as far from satisfaction as when he began. If a Translator, in
whose train all others have followed, must be allowed to rank far above all mere
Reformers, it is strange if, on such a subject, historians generally should have
slumbered or slept; yet the histories of Halle and Foxe, of Stowe and Strype, of
Burner and Collier, of Turner and Lingard, or Soame, as well as the history of
Translations by Lewis, Herbert, or Dibdin, with the Biblical literature of
Townley, of Cotton, or of Horne, may all be read, and they must be, when such a
period is explored; but from all these sources put together, still the reader
can form no conception of what actually took place, with regard to the
Scriptures. The incidental circumstances mentioned are not only few in number,
but scarcely one of them appears in its true light or appropriate connexion.
Many, and by far the most curious and productive incidents, have remained in
utter oblivion.

After reading, in succession, even all these works, no one can possess any
adequate or correct idea of that mighty phalanx of talent, policy, and power, so
firmly arrayed against the introduction of divine truth in our native tongue
into this Kingdom; and consequently no reader has ever had before him the most
powerful display, in comparatively modern times, of the irresistible energy of
the Divine Word. This remark applies with equal force to Scotland, of which
nothing has hitherto been known, as it does to England, of which there has been
known so little, and that so incorrectly narrated. This energy, too, in both
countries, having been exhibited at a period when the truth was unbefriended by
a single human being in office, nay, when the judges and rulers of the land were
up in arms, or raging against it; the detail, if justice could be done to it,
must form one of the most curious and impressive, if not the most valuable
chapters in British history. The times changed indeed, and have often changed
since, and yet, it is presumed, no reader will find the story begin to droop in
point of interest; much less forfeit its peculiar character, as an undertaking
of Divine Providence, down to the present hour.

Certain portentous signs, unexpectedly marking our own day, and at which not a
few have been startled, very powerfully invite the general mind to the sacred
text, in its all-sufficiency, by itself alone, or to “ the Bible without note
and comment.” But without even glancing at these here, to the Sacred Volume, in
our native tongue, considered simply in the light of a printed book, there
happily belong two peculiarities, more than sufficient to fix the mind, with
intense interest, on its origin and history. These are the number of its copies,
and the extent to which it is now in perusal, Neither the one, nor the other,
has yet been rendered so palpable, as to engage the notice they deserve, and
which they will, at last, certainly secure.

After the commencement of the present century, when attention was awakened to
the obligation imposed on this country, of giving the Sacred Volume to all
nations, or of attempting to do so; with regard to the Scriptures in our own
English, it was even then asserted, that the number of copies already in
existence was greater than that in all other languages put together. The number,
at all events, had passed beyond human calculation, while every one agreed that
other nations were comparatively but ill supplied, and that many more were
entirely destitute. The moment, however, for combined exertion had come; this
has continued ever since, even with growing energy; and it is now assuredly more
than time for the contributors to observe the result. Notwithstanding all that
had been printed and sold for more than two centuries and a half; the number of
English Bibles and New Testaments separately, which have passed through the
press, within the perfect recollection of many now living, has exceeded the
number of souls in Britain! It has been more than double the population in 1801!
Should we suppose the printing-press to have been employed incessantly every
lawful day, or three hundred and thirteen days in the year, and for ten hours
daily, throughout the four seasons of all these years; then has it been moving,
on an average, at the rate of more than three copies of the Sacred Volume,
whether of the Bible, or New Testament separately, every minute; or five hundred
and sixty-three thousand four hundred annually! But the speed at first, or for
several years, was slow, when compared with that which followed. For some time
past, it has nearly doubled, so that in the space of twelve months the press has
sent forth more than a million of copies; or say above nineteen thousand every
week, above three thousand every day, three hundred every hour, or five every
minute of working time! At this rate there has been producing equal to an entire
volume, and such a volume, in less than twelve seconds! To the minds of many in
recent years, velocity or speed, in various forms, has proved a subject of
ardent study and delight, but here is one form, which, when viewed in its
ultimate moral consequences, will not admit of any rival competitor. Yet
compared with its importance, it has been but little regarded; and never yet, as
it ought to have been, in connexion with the state of other nations. Before
thousands, or rather millions of our countrymen, the process, from day to day,
has “Moved on unheeded, as the bird That cleaves the yielding air unheard, And
yet must prove, when understood, The harbinger of endless good.” To a certainty,
however, it had never entered into the imagination of a single individual, that
more copies of the Scriptures would be demanded in the English tongue alone,
than in that of all other nations put together!

And, more especially, as the number of versions now called for, and as
contemplated by Britain, is above one hundred and fifty! At the outset, had any
individual suggested the propriety of printing twenty millions of English Bibles
and Testaments, what would every other man have thought or said? The proposal
would have been fatal to the design. The general result which so many have
concurred in producing, was foreseen by no one. Thus it is, that, by the agency
of man, the intentions of Providence are wrought out, in the guidance of a
nation, or the government of the world. In all our movements, or combinations,
His hand and power appear at last, conspicuously; and if any seek for evidence,
that, with all our supposed shrewdness, we are still a governed race, he may
find it here. Like some of those great operations in nature which proceed
unnoticed, amidst all the turmoil of this ever-shifting scene, this work has
gone on, and arrived at a height, which in the light of an event, is sufficient
to arrest the attention of every intelligent mind, exciting, as it ought, to
deeper inquiry and reflection. But if the English Bible be so distinguished for
the number of its copies, it is equally, or rather more so, by the extent to
which it is now being read. With the movement of the press, we have another
movement, not less worthy of notice, and one which renders the subject doubly
interesting, or rather momentous. It is about nineteen years ago, since it was
remarked by an acute living writer, Mr. Douglas-“ The world has not witnessed an
emigration like that taking place, from this kingdom to America, so extensive in
its range, so immeasurable in its consequences, since the dispersion of
mankind.” He compared it to the principle of attraction in the material
world-“an influence which, like that of Nature, was universal, without pause or
relaxation; and hordes of emigrants were continually swarming off, as ceaseless
in their passage, and crowded, and unreturning as the passengers to eternity.”
Since then, however, and especially with every returning spring, has come as
certainly the season of migration; and from many seaports, our countrymen have
been sailing far and wide as the winds and waves could carry them. In short,
with the exception of the most remarkable of all people, the Jews, the
English-speaking population has become the most widely diffused of any branch of
the family of man; and for years past this one kingdom has been in the act of
colonizing America, Africa, Asia, nay, and Australia, or New Holland, New
Zealand, and the bosom of the Pacific. A vast improvement also has taken place,
in the character of this emigration, rising, as it now does, to the more
reputable classes, and the higher ranks in British society, including many a
benevolent, humane, and Christian mind. Safely may we anticipate that, at no
distant day, “the wilderness and the solitary place will be glad for them;” but
so far as the Scriptures in our own English are concerned, we have not to wait
for an event which has already taken place.

Emigration from one’s native land, in almost every aspect, is a subject which,
it is granted, must awaken sombre feeling, whether in those who depart never to
return, or in those who remain behind; yet in rising above our “native nook of
earth,” held so dear, there is one point of view, perhaps only one, which can
soothe the mind into perfect acquiescence. “Not one hour of the twenty-four,” it
has been remarked, “not one round of the minute hand of the dial is allowed to
pass, in which, on some portion of the surface of the globe, the air is not
filled with accents that are ours.

They are heard in the ordinary transactions of life; or in the administration of
law; in the deliberations of the senate-house, or council-chamber; in the
offices of private devotion, or in the public observance of the rites and duties
of a common faith.” F1 Has such a reflection cheered on, in his toilsome path,
the patient lexicographer? How much more deeply ought every one, who speaks this
farspread language, to be moved, when, in our day, he casts his eye over the
Sacred Volume! Adieus and farewells at last die away in the contemplation of
this great movement. The Divine hand becomes apparent, not merely in guiding so
many thousands safely across the deep, and to the ends of the earth, but in the
numbers who carry with them the Sacred Volume, in a language common to them all.
To many, no doubt, it might seem too bold, were we at once to affirm that the
English Bible is at present in the act of being perused from the rising to the
settling sun. The assertion might appear little else than a figure of speech, or
an event to be anticipated; and yet this is no more than the half of the truth.
The fact, the singular and unprecedented fact, demands deliberate reflection
from every British Christian, whether at home or abroad. His Bible, at this
moment, is the only version in existence on which the sun never sets. We know
full well that it is actually in use on the banks of the Ottawa and St.
Lawrence, as well as at Sidney, Port Philip, and Hobart Town; but before his
evening rays have left the spires of Quebec or Montreal, his morning beams have
already shone for hours upon the shores of Australia and New Zealand. And if it
be reading by so many of our language in Canada, while the sun is sinking on
Lake Ontario; in the eastern world, where he has risen in his glory on the banks
of the Ganges, to the self-same Sacred Volume, many, who are no less our
countrymen, have already turned. Yet are all these but as branches from one
parent stock, under whose shade this version, corrected and recorrected, has
been reading by myriads for three hundred years.

People talk of sublime spectacles, but what favour conferred upon any other
nation is once to be compared to this? To an enlightened English mind, no
consideration as to this earth can rise above it. Here, unquestionably, is the
most elevated point of view in which Britain can be viewed-the only true summit
of her greatness. How extraordinary that it has never been distinctly, and with
leisure, contemplated, nor with due regard to its national importance! Have we
been so engrossed by the local, or limited and inferior, distinctions among
ourselves, as to slight the grand one? What, in ancient times, was the
preeminence of the Jews? Did it not consist in this, that to them were entrusted
the oracles of God? But were these ever committed to them as they have been to
us? Jehovah had not so dealt with any nation; but had he dealt with even that
nation, as he hath done with this? If Divine Revelation be regarded, in its
proper light, as the voice of God, to what people in existence has he ever
spoken so long, so uninterruptedly, and now, above all others, so extensively?
It was said of old, that “the mighty God, even Jehovah, hath spoken, and called
the earth, from the rising of the sun, to his going down;” and is it nothing,
that in our language, by way of eminence, this should have been first so
singularly and literally verified? Such, at all events, is the present high and
momentous position of Britain and her sons.

If, from this moral elevation, we could once look down to the valley below, and,
guided only by impartial history, observe the singular path by which the nation
has been led up to such an eminence, we should better understand what, and how
much, is involved in the history of Divine Revelation in our native tongue; to
say nothing of many reflections which could never before have occurred to any
mind. The following pages form an attempt to furnish the reader with such a
history, from the first sheets thrown off at the press, down to the millions now
dispersed and in use, whether at home or abroad.

But, even here, and before we descend-before we begin, where the Almighty, in a
manner so peculiar, began with this nation-if, from this summit, we now look
round, is there any parallel case to be discerned?-any nation upon ground so
high? No, not one, nor by many degrees: not even Germany, with all her Bibles.
Yet is there nothing on which the eye may and should rest, in the way of
comparative contrast? Assuredly there is, for there is one other European
language upon which the sun also never sets.

It is the Spanish, and the contrast may be soon expressed. The Bible in Spain!
The Bible in Britain! Two languages on which the sun shines with no
intermission, yet, in point of supply, are they wide as the poles asunder!

What a contrast is presented here, whether we look to Spain herself, or to her
offspring in those colonies once all her own! In the history of Europe at this
moment, no two facts of similar magnitude can be placed in opposition before the
human mind. One is almost reminded of the sun, in comparison with a star of the
smallest magnitude. Let the contrast, the indescribable contrast, at once humble
and inspirit a people whom God has so distinguished. To all those, therefore,
who regard the Scriptures, printed in our native tongue, to be infinitely the
highest boon ever bestowed on Britain; or to the English Christian, whether he
be at home or abroad-in Britain, Ireland, or America-in India, China, Australia,
or New Zealand-the providential origin of that Sacred Volume to which he daily
turns his eye, cannot be a subject void of interest. Its progress to completion
he will find to have involved a struggle, with which there is no other to be
compared its history since, one that bears directly and with great power on the
present day; and, once aware of circumstances, when he himself sits down to the
perusal of the sacred page, whether in the temperate, the torrid, or the frigid
zone, he will be better able to regard the favour, as one of the innumerable
happy consequences of its original triumph over all the enmity and rage
displayed of old, and the barriers which were raised in vain, against its
reception into his native country or fatherland. With respect to the
commencement of the following history, the first half of the sixteenth century,
embracing one of the most eventful periods in the annals of Europe, is
familiarly known to have produced, in this country, a number of conspicuous
characters, and the lives of almost every one of them have been given to the
world again and again. One, however, -and, in the proper sense of the term, as
it regards his influence on posterity,-by far the most eminent, has been
hitherto all but overlooked. Often confounded or linked with other men of very
inferior consequence, there has been no reader of English history who could
possibly estimate the amount of his obligations to the modest and immortal
William Tyndale. Independently of his ability as one of the most powerful
writers of the age, when his name is connected with the Sacred Volume, which he
first translated from the original text into English, which he first put to
press, and then sent into his native land, we have no other man to be compared
with him at the time; and when to this is added, his unspotted personal
Christianity, his uncompromising spirit, and genuine patriotism, it is
altogether unaccountable that every incident in his valuable life has not been
gleaned, and arranged into a distinct memoir, long before the present day. Such
a work, including his noble convert and young companion, John Fryth, ought to
have been a household book for many generations back. But in neglecting Tyndale
personally, an object infinitely above him has been neglected. In the course of
her varied and singular history, there is no favour, we must repeat, bestowed
upon Britain, that is ever to be compared with the Bible in her vulgar or
vernacular tongue; to say nothing of this being now her most distinguished and
distinguishable feature. But for its free and unfettered perusal, the eminence
to which she has attained among the European nations, or confessedly above them,
had never been reached. Her rise and progress, in all that is worthy of
possession, can never be separated from this heavenly gift or deposit. Yet, if
this be granted, and the best of her sons with one voice will do so, then, in
the introduction, or first importation, of the Sacred Scriptures in type, at
such a period, and by such means, there must have been certain paths, certain
footsteps, in divine Providence, corresponding to the greatness of the boon
bestowed. In other words, though the cause itself, in the morning of its origin,
might seem only like “smoking flax or a bruised reed,” one might expect to
witness even national affairs, or the Crown itself, and the movements of
Government, treated, in many instances, as altogether subordinate. As far, then,
as men in power and place were concerned, the reader must now be left to judge
whether he does not observe the cause, emphatically in its commencement, and
upon all necessary occasions ever after, like the star in Joseph’s dream, to
which “the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance.” These, and
other singular occurrences, it is true, ought to have been marked and recorded
long before three centuries had passed away; but though they have required to be
sought out in the pages of original manuscript, and of rare books, and to be
traced with scrupulous caution, they are not the less worthy of observation now,
and more especially in the existing state of our country. Perhaps some unknown
benefit may be involved in so many important incidents having been left for
disclosure to the present hour. The Scriptures in English manuscript, the
revival of Letters, as well as the Invention of Printing, preceded, by many
years, any application of that noble art to our English version. But the entire
period may be, or rather ought to be, regarded as containing a series of events,
preliminary to that memorable occurrence, and, therefore, though but slightly
sketched, they require to be noticed in the light of a deliberate, yet
appropriate introduction. This, accordingly, has been attempted, as due to the
history following.

It is, however, the English Scriptures in print, and their first introduction,
especially into England and Scotland, with their subsequent introduction to
North America, which are about to claim particular attention; and as the path
has never been trodden before, some explanation becomes necessary, with regard
to the sources whence materials have been derived. Having looked into the
histories already named, as well as other kindred works, and observing not only
the paucity of facts, but various discrepancies among all these authors, the
writer’s first resort was to that unrivalled store of original manuscript in the
British Museum. It was impossible to entertain any previous theory. Various
details were expected, though not the slightest hope was then indulged that any
very connected series of events could ever be drawn out. On discovering,
however, to what extent these manuscript pages had been permitted to remain ill
oblivion, he persevered.

Important original documents, both in the Chapter House of Westminster, and in
the State Paper Office, have also been consulted; and, of course, the State
Papers, or Correspondence, in five volumes quarto, relating to England,
Scotland, and Ireland, printed since 1830, by the Government Commission. After
having gone over the entire surface of Tyndale’s age, the writer was highly
obliged by the perusal and use of various extracts of correspondence, collected
by the indefatigable industry of the Rev. Thomas Russell, A.M., the editor of
the works of Tyndale and Fryth. It was no trifling corroboration when the author
found himself not only unmoved from a single position he had taken, but
confirmed in his statements by several incidental circumstances, some of which
might have escaped notice. With reference to rare printed works, as well as
scarce editions of the Scriptures, besides the British Museum; the Bodleian at
Oxford; the University Library, that of St. John’s College, and others, at
Cambridge; the Baptist Museum of Bristol; the Althorp Library of Earl Spencer;
that of his Royal Highness the Duke of Sussex, while yet entire, with those of
Lambeth and St. Paul’s, have been consulted in succession; but to no other
collection of Bibles and Testaments has the author been so much indebted as to
that of his friend Lea Wilson, Esq., of Norwood Hill. In early days an English
merchant of Antwerp will be found to occupy a conspicuous and honourable place
at the commencement of this history; and it is in perfect keeping with the
entire narrative, that a collection so rich, and in such a perfect state, should
now be in the possession of a London merchant.

Without his assistance as to various minute particulars, the list at the close
of this work could not have been so complete. It will be found to contain many
authentic editions, which, altogether unknown, have never been inserted in any
account previously published. To the polite kindness of the Right Honourable
Thomas Grenville, the author has been indebted, not only for access to that
distinguished library, but for the perusal of the first edition of Fox’s Acts
and Monuments, a folio of which it has been said the inspection “non cuivis
homini contingit.” For the very accurate sketches of Little Sodbury Manor House,
under whose roof the resolution of Tyndale was formed, and which may therefore
be regarded as the starting point in this vast enterprise, the writer has been
obliged to his friend George Joseph Bompas, M.D., of Fishponds, Bristol; and
certain particulars relating to the unique fragment of Tyndale’s first New
Testament, have been kindly furnished by Mr. Thomas Rodd, of Great Newport
Street, London. The portrait ofTYNDALE is an exact copy from a rare volume,
namely, “Holland’s Herwologia Angliea.” No. 39. This is considered to be the
best likeness. With regard to Scotland, living in Edinburgh, it need scarcely be
added, that satisfaction on certain points could not have been obtained, without
access to the invaluable Library of the Faculty of Advocates, so freely granted;
and as to books, among others, my special thanks are due to David Laing, Esq.,
for the use of several rare pieces, unknown to the English reader, by an
illustrious Scotsman, who has been all along better known in Germany than in his
own country, Alexander Ales or Aless (Aleslus) of Edinburgh. Other
acknowledgments will occur throughout these volumes, where every authority,
whether in manuscript or in print, has been distinctly noted. f2 The following
pages, it is presumed, will be found to possess one recommendation to many
readers. They are removed, as far as it is possible to be, from what have been
styled polemics. Jaded as the human mind has often been for the last three
hundred years, and especially in Britain, with controversial divinity, it may be
grateful to not a few, if they can find another walk, in past times clown to the
present, of such a character as lies at the root of all that has ever existed
under the name of Christianity within the kingdom; and so important as in vital
connexion with its progress throughout the earth. If with the changing scenes
through which the history will be found to pass, it had ever forfeited its
original cast or character, there it might have terminated, and there it ought.
But, on the contrary, as the continuation so singularly corresponds with the
commencement, there was to be found no halting-place before the present day. In
point of time, the history of our English Scriptures, from the date of their
first appearing in print, will be found to take precedence of all the
Institutions, Establishments, or local interests, within our shores. The noble
contest, so singularly commenced and conducted, was nearly decided before their
origin; at least, the first brunt of the battle was over, and Divine truth had
been so effectually sown and rooted in our native soil, that, from that early
period, all the power of the enemy has been in vain.

This, of itself, gives the story a preference, or a prior claim to
consideration, before any other narrative in the form, or under the name, of
religious history. Nor is this its only peculiarity. Ever since, the
continuation will be found maintaining a higher place, describing a larger, and
therefore a loftier circle, than that of any mere class or denomination
whatever; embracing, without any interruption, the Christian community of
Britain in its widest sense. It will continue throughout as independent of all
local interests, as it was before they had existence. That the history of the
English Bible has never before been viewed in this light, is freely granted; nor
had the author himself the slightest idea of this, its marked or distinguishing
peculiarity, before he began. It is now the more worthy of notice, and may prove
of some service, in different ways, beside that of promoting modesty of
statement by any single community in Britain. No section of Christians, it will
be seen, of whatever name, can possess any title to rank itself as having been
essential, either to the progress or to the general prevalence of the English
Scriptures, much less to their original introduction. This is an undertaking
which has been uniformly conducted above their sphere of judgment. Should this
general prevalence turn out to have been almost equally independent of the civil
power, from Henry the Eighth down to Charles the Second, or rather to the
present hour, it will form altogether by far the most singular fact, as such, in
the annals of the kingdom. It is a feature in the history of our Bible, claiming
supreme attention from the existing age.

Upon the whole, the present forms a department in past history, with which every
Minister of the truth, in English, ought to have been familiar long ago, nay,
and every Parent throughout the kingdom. As it regards instruction, as well as
ground for new reflections, it will be found to occupy a course or channel
peculiar to itself. Perhaps the fifth book in our new Testament Scriptures, may
in part explain its character. Men, indeed, have entitled that book “The Acts of
the Apostles;” but it is in reality a history of the way and manner in which
“the Word of the Lord grew and multiplied,” -the Apostles themselves, whether as
individuals or as a body, being treated in perfect subordination to the grand or
leading design. In some faint resemblance to this manner, so ought the history
of the Divine Word, in our native tongue, to have been attempted long since;
leaving men and things, whether great characters or national events, in the
subordinate places which have actually belonged to them. At the same time, such
men and such events, viewed as they have now been, sometimes in contrast, and at
other times in connexion with the progress of Divine Revelation itself, lend a
peculiar zest or life to the entire narrative. Upon the characters of Henry
VIII. and Wolsey, of Warham, Tunstal, or Sir Thomas More, of Cranmer and Lord
Crumwell, with many other men well known under all the subsequent reigns,
certainly no such additional light could have been thrown, till they were
brought into immediate contact or contrast with the printing or circulation of
the Scriptures in our native tongue.

Even from the commencement, and down to our own times, some such history has
become positively essential to a just estimate of our present peculiar condition
as a Nation, now by far the most responsible under heaven. It may, and it will
furnish motives to action, such as can be drawn from no other retrospect. It
forms a key, if not the only one, to our highest imperative obligations; and it
may well be pondered, as the path by which Jehovah led our forefathers, in a way
of His own devising, with more than “the pillar of a cloud by day, and a pillar
of fire by night.” In this view, the history, though never written before, and
therefore not understood, can never be out of date. It involves the commencement
and continuance of a Cause, which is but pursuing its course in our own day, not
only to a wider extent, but with greater energy than ever before, and yet to be
pursued with greater still. In conclusion, the Author, it will be evident, is
far from placing any reliance on the mere dispersion of Bibles, even by the
million; but although no man can measure the consequences of the immutable
standard of Divine truth having been exhibited to the eye of this nation, the
spirit of the age loudly demands, that the history of that exhibition should now
be more accurately known. Once understood, it must be left to the judgment of
every discerning reader, whether, at the present crisis, in such unparalleled
possession of the Sacred Volume, British Christians can close their eyes with
impunity on the existing state of other nations-the condition of a world.
EDINBURGH, 19th February, 1845.

PREFACE TO THIS EDITION. THE Edition of the Annals of the English Bible now
offered to the public, differs from those issued by the late Author, simply in
the omission of those sketches of the civil history of the period, which added
greatly to the size and price of the book, but were not necessarily connected
with its object, while they often interfered with the narrative instead of
illustrating it. The Author himself, anticipating the desire of many of his
readers to peruse only the story of that conflict which ended in the Bible being
given to Britain, had printed the sketches in a smaller type to be passed over
at pleasure, and thus indicated the only way in which he would have the work
abridged, without prejudice to its object, to meet the wishes of those who had
less time to devote to the larger volumes. The late venerable Jay of Bath
expressed to the Editor his opinion, that while on the whole he had not read a
more interesting book than the “Annals” for many years, its value would not be
at all diminished by the omission of the civil history, which he felt to be
rather a hindrance than a help in following the narrative, so deeply engrossing,
of Tyndale’s life and labours, and the fruits of these to his native country.

All the illustrations contained in the former issues will be found in the
present edition, together with the valuable List of early editions of the
English Bible Which Cost The Author So Much Time And Labour To Complete.

BRATTON, 2nd December, 1861.


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  CHAPTER 2: 00A CONTENTS
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CONTENTS BOOK 1. - REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH BOOK 2. - FROM EDWARD VI TO THE
REIGN OF EDWARD SCOTLAND. - INTRODUCTION BOOK 3. - SCOTLAND ENGLISH BIBLES AND
NEW TESTAMENTS

FOOTNOTES

INTRODUCTION.

Brief survey of the ages which preceded any printing of the Scriptures in the
English tongue-Including the revival and triumph of classical learning and the
arts, contrasted with the times of Wickliffe, with his version of the entire
Sacred Volume, and its effects-The invention of printing, its rapid progress to
perfection, and the point to which the European nations, but more especially
England and Scotland, had been brought, before ever this invaluable art was
applied to any version of the Sacred Scriptures in the language spoken by the
people.

BOOK I.-ENGLAND. The Reign of Henry the Eighth. 1509. -1523. From the birth of
Tyndale, the original translator, to his embarkation for the Continent, in
pursuit of his design..1 1524. -1525. The New Testament in English preparing by
Tyndale, for circulation in his native land; and in two editions from the press
by the close of 1526.

Memorable introduction of the New Testament into England-The first two
editions-The first alarm in London, Oxford, Cambridge-The first burning of
books-New Testament denounced by the King and Wolsey-Then by Tunstal and
Warham-The Third Edition-Violent contention respecting it-Burning the Sacred
Volume, abroad and at home 1527. The Translator’s progress-His earliest
compositions-Persecution in England-Opposition to tho New Testament-Warham and
the Bishops buying it up-Fresh importations-The Fourth Edition-Scriptures
singularly introduced once more 1528.

Tyndale and Fryth-Present persecution in England-Arrested by pre vailing
disease-Persecution ia Antwerp-Nobly withstood, and the Enghsh Envoy
defeated-Wolsey’s pursuit after Tyndale and others- All in vain 1529.

Tyndale’s progress in the Old Testament-Persecution in England- Thwarted once
more-Tunstal at Antwerp-Tyndale’s influence in the Palace-More, the Bishops, and
the King, in league against the Scrip tures-Coverdale sent to Hamburg-Another or
fifth edition of the New Testament 1530.

Tyndale’s progress in the Old Testaments-Practice of prelates-Persecution goes
on-King and prelates denounce the Scriptures- Latimer’s bold remonstrance-New
Testaments burnt by Tunstal-Another, the sixth edition-Vigorous
importation-Death of S. Fyshe.. 1531.

Formidable opposition-Pursuit after Tyndale by the King and Crumwell -Still in
vain-Tyndale’s answer to Sir T. More-Epistle of John ex pounded-Jonah, with a
prologue-Renewed persecution-Brother of Tyndale-Bilney-Bayfield-Many books
importing-Constantyne caught-Escapes-Persecution abroad-Powerful remonstrance
from Antwerp with Crumwell, including the King and the Lord Chancellor More
1532.

Tyndale’s progress-Exposition in Matthew-His sentiments under per secution- The
King not appeased-Renewed pursuit of Tyndale-Now by Sir Thomas Elyot-Still in
vain-Persecution goes on-Bainham- Latimer-More against Tyndale-Fryth arrives in
England-In peril -In the Tower-Writing there in defcnee of the truth, and
addressing the Christian in England. 1533.

One distinguishing feature of Tyndale’s course and character as compared with
all his contemporaries-His answer to Sir T. More-His letter to Fryth in
prison-Fryth’s voice from the Tower-Fryth’s examination before the Bishops
assembled-His triumph in argument-Martyrdom -One effect of Fryth’s death-Sir T.
More writing still-One powerful opponent at home-More, considered as a
controversialist-His prodigious exertions-Other qualities-Finally overcome...
1534.

Tyndale all alone after Fryth’s death-Genesis, second edition-Fresh issue of the
Pentateuch-Surreptitious edition of the New Testament by Joye-The improved
edition by Tyndale-Joye’s interference explained-Divine truth in
progress-Richard Harman in London-Re stored to favour by the Queen-Glance at the
past and present-The New Testament importing in several editions, in contrast
with the dreams of the Convocation 1535.

Tyndale’s apprehension at Antwerp-Imprisonment in the Castle of Vil
vorde-Distiuct information conveyed to Crumwell and Cranmer-The strenuous
exertions of Thomas Poyntz-Tyndale’s progress in prison- The Bishops applied to
for a translation of the New Testamen-A fruitless attempt-Fresh editions of
Tyndale’s translation, printed and importing this year 1536.

Last year of Tyndale-Anne Boleyn-The new or unprecedented Convo cation-Latimer
preaching before it-State of parties there-Old and new learning-Proceedings in
Convocation-The first articlcs-Crum well’s first injunctions-No Bible
mentioned-Tyndale’s latter days- Phillips once more-Indifference of England-The
Court of Brussels- Home and abroad now deeply implicated-The martyrdom of
Tyndale-Poyntz, the friend of Tyudale-Future history of the miserable
betrayers-Nine or ten editions of Tyndale’s Testament... 1537.

Memorable introduction of the entire Sacred Volume-Myles Coverdale -His
circumstances compared with Tyndale’s-Coverdale’s temporary success-The
remarkably sudden change-Tyndale’s Bible-Its arrival -Its reception-Bought and
read-The King agrees-Grafton the pro prietor-All parties most memorably
overruled-Conclusion of the first year of triumph. 1538. The second year of
triumph-Persecution resumeed-The English Bible printing in Paris-Press
interrupted-Inquisition overmatched-The Bible finished in London-First
injunctions for Tyndale’s Bible-New Testaments, fresh editions-Covcrdale’s
Testaments-The destitute state of England-Joy over the Scriptures-Retrospect.
1539.

Eventful year-State of parties-Parliament and Convocation-Royal message-New
articles-Bills of attainder-The six articles applied- Frustrated-Cranmer
safe-Latimer imprisoned-Alexander Ales escapes-Constantyne in danger-The
Scriptures printing in various editions-Crumwell’s remarkable energy in this
department-The King swayed once more-The cause in progress-Cranmer busy in
prospect of his first edition, next spring-It is distinctly sanctioned by Henry-
Singular proclamation-Henry now commanding all his subjects to use the
Scriptures in English 1540.

Crumwell-His death and character-Retrospects-Common mistake as to the Crown-The
large folio Bibles, in six editions-The first of Cran mer’s-A different
editions-The second of Cranmer’s-The third pre paring, to be issued next year,
but with a different title-One in five volumes, small size-Quarto New Testament
1541. The third large Bible, with Tunstal’s name, by command-The fourth, in May,
with Cranmer’s name-Expense of these large undertakings- The memorable
proprietor, Anthony Marler-Bonner’s feigned zeal- Earnest reading and
listening-The fifth great Bible, with Tunstal’s name-The sixth, with Cranmer’s
name-Gardiner returned, to witness the progress now made during his absence
Convocation met-The Bible introduced there for discussion at last-Singular
display-Gardiner’s grand effort in oppositions-Cranmer informs the King-They are
all discomfited, though yet sitting-Progress of the truth in England 1543.

Parliament opened-The Convocation baffled, acknowledge their inability to stay
the progress of Divine truth by applying now to Parliament-Parliament disgraces
itself by vain opposition-Bonner sent abroad. 1544.

Gardiner-Cranmer-Henry’s confession of impotence in all his injunctions to his
bishops-His inconsistency-New Testament of Tyndale’s, a foreign print.. 1545.

Undermining Cranmer-His enemies covered with shame-Henry addressing his Privy
Council-His deliberate opinion of its character- Addressing his Parliament for
the last time. 1546.

Persecution revived-Anne Askew-Her martyrdom, along with three other
individuals-Latimer still in prison-Enmity to English books- The supplication of
the poor Commons-Wriothesly, Gardiner, and Norfolk in trouble-Death of Henry
VIII.-Retrospect..

BOOK II.-ENGLAND. from Edward VIII to the Commonwealth. 1547. -1553.

REIGN OF EDWARD. A reign, however brief, distinguished in British history, with
regard to the printing and publication of the Sacred Scriptures in the language
of the people 1553.-1558.

REIGN OF QUEEN MARY. A reign, however painful in its details, which so far from
retarding the progress of Divine truth, only deepened the impression of its
value; and afforded the opportunity for the Sacred Scriptures being given afresh
to England, carefully revised-the exiles from the kingdom proving, once more,
its greatest benefactors 1558.-1603.

REIGN OF ELIZABETH. A reign, however powerful in every other department, having
no actual control over the choice or preference of the people of England, with
regard to the Sacred Scriptures in their native tongue, and thus presenting the
only exception to unlimited sway. 1603.-1650.

JAMES I.TO THE COMMONWEALTH. Accession, of James-His strange progress through
the country-His heedless profusion- Conference at Hampton Court
explained-Revision of the Scriptures-The revisors-Instructions given-Progress
made-Revision of the whole-Money paid, but not by his Majesty, nor by any
Bishop, after the King’s application, but by the patentee-The present version
published-No proclamation, no order of Privy Council, or any act of the
Legislature upon record, on the subject-Did not become the version generally
received throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland, till about forty years
afterwards-The last attempt to interfere with the English Bible by a Committee
of Parliament, representing England, Ireland, and Scotland, in vain SCOTLAND.
Introduction.

Brief notice of Scotland during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries-The
opening of the sixteenth before the Sacred Scriptures in print were first
imported BOOK III.-SCOTLAND. From James the Fifth to the Commonwealth. 1526.

REIGN OF JAMES V. State of Scotland-The first introduction of the New Testament
in the English language-Earliest arrivals at Edinburgh and St. Andrews- Singular
condition of the country, and especially of its Primate, at the moment
1527-1528. Consternation of the authorities in Scotland-The New Testament soon
followed by one living voice, that of Patrick Hamilton-His martyr-dom-Alexander
Seton, the next witness, persecuted-He escapes to England-The New Testament goes
on to be imported 1529. -1534. All-important period, hitherto
unnoticed-Alexander Ales or Aless- Cruelly persecuted by Hepburn, the Prior of
St. Andrews-At last escapes by sea, from Dundee, first to France, and then to
Germany- His epistle addressed to Janmes V.; or the commencement of the first
regular controversy in Britain respecting the Scriptures printed in the vulgar
tongue-The abusive publication of Cochlaeus in reply-The representations of Ales
confirmed by the state of the country, and the second martyrdom-Answer of Ales
to the calumnies of Cochlaeus-Ales pleads for the New Testament to be read-But
especially in families- Cochlaeus addresses James V.-And is rewarded-The
persecutions and martyrdoms of 1534 again confirm the statements of Ales-Who is
now standing by himself alone, in defence of the truth 1535. –1538. State of
Scotland-Provincial council of the prelates-Agitation-Reading of the New
Testament forbidden by proclamation-Progress of thecause 1538. -1542. State of
the country-Beaton a Cardinal, and persecution revived-The martyrdoms of
1538-Dean Forret-The cause of all the tumult in opposition traced to the New
Testament in the native tongue-Another martyrdommen escaping-The cruel progress
of Cardinal Beaton- Death of the King James V.-Gloomy state of the country as to
its Government at this moment 1543. -1650.

MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS, JAMES VI.TO THE COMMONWEALTH. The year 1543, a memorable
one-Critical state of the Government- Remarkably sudden change-The Primate of
St. Andrews in prison- Parliament assembles, and by a bill and proclamation
throughout Scot land, sanctions the general perusal of those Scriptures, which
hal been reading in secret for sixteen years-Contrast with England at this
moment-Extent to which the Scriptures had been perused in Scotland -The Earl of
Arran, the Governor, abjures, and falls under the power of Beaton, now
enlarged-More martyrdoms by hanging, drowning, and the flames-The death of
Beaton-Singular history of the Scrip tures in Scotland, during this entire
period-Not supplied from its own native press, but by importation, for more than
a hundred years-The present version of the Bible become the only one in use,
over the entire kingdom BOOK IV.-GREAT BRITAIN. from the Commonwealth to Queen
Victoria. 1650. -1778. THE COMMONWWEALTH TO GEORGE III. Brief survey-Downward
progress of the Stuart dynasty-The Revolu tion of 1688-9-Preceding opposition to
the Scriptures by James II., an adherent of the old learning- Consequences of
the Revolution- State of the Bible press in England-Canne’s Bible-Guy’s Bibles-
Baskerville’s-Blayney’s Bible-State of the Bible press in Scotland- James II.
equally busy in opposition there-The number of Bibles is now past all human
computation-The results NORTH AMERICA. 1620. -1780. THE REIGN OF JAMES I.TO
GEORGE III. New movement in reference to the English Scriptures-The Bible first
beheld by the natives in America, an English one-Copies carried away to New
England by the refugees and following settlers-Sent across the Atlantic Ocean
for above a hundred and sixty years!-The extra- ordinary results during this
long period-The restrictive and unnatural policy of Britain-In justification of
its continued independence of all human authority, the English Bible is at last
printed in America-No consultation of the mother country-The first edition only
in 1782- The first Bibles in octavo, quarto, and folio, printed there in 1791-
The second in duodecimo not till III.-OR FINAL SECTION. 1780. -1844.

REIGN OF GEORGE III.TO QUEEN VICTORIA. The last sixty-four years. The
commencement of a greater movement than ever before-The Revolutionary times in
Frances-Neither Britain nor her colonies remain unscathed-Action is called
for-But the obstacles to united action appear to be insuperable-The first feeble
movement taking its name from the Bible-The second-Its ensure failure no ground
for discourage-ment-The efforts of Carey and his associates in India impress a
few powerful minds at home-The Bible without either note or comment draws more
attention-The destitution of it in Wales-The British and Foreign Bible Society
with its auxiliaries-Their exertions up to the present day-After a distribution
and sale of so many millions of the English Scriptures, there occurs an
extraordinary and unprecedented fall in the price of the Sacred Volume-Britain
at the height of her responsibility-The present history indicates a course of
action, if not the only one, which involves her future welfare and stability-A
path of duty which cannot, with impunity, be evaded...

CONCLUSIONS drawn from the preceding history Chronological Index-List of Bibles
and Testaments

INTRODUCTION.

Brief Survey Of The Ages Which Preceded Any Printing Of The Scriptures In The
English Tongue-Including The Revival And Triumph Of Classical Learning And The
Arts, Contrasted With The Times Of Wickliffe, With His Version Of The Entire
Sacred Volume, And Its Effects-The Invention Of Printing, Its Rapid Progress To
Perfection, And The Point To Which The European Nations, But More Especially
England And Scotland, Had Been Brought, Before Ever This Invaluable Art Was
Applied To Any Version Of The Sacred Scriptures In The Language Spoken By The
People. THE darkest hour in the night of Europe, is an era respecting which
historians are not even yet agreed. It has been regarded by many as being in the
tenth century. One or two other writers consider the seventh or eighth century
to be the lowest in point of depression, or the nadir of the human mind; and
they suppose that its movement in advance began with Charlemagne, while England
can never forget her own Alfred the Great. A few moderns, too fastidious, or by
no means so affected by the gloom and barbarity of the middle ages, profess to
be tender of allowance as to the extent of this darkness, and would fondly
persuade us to adopt a more cheerful retrospect. But speaking, generally, with
reference to the people at large, the entire period, from the fifth or sixth to
the fourteenth century, presents at the best, but a tedious and dreary interval
in the history of the human mind. Individual scholars, indeed, like stars which
shed their light on the surrounding gloom, there ever were; and wherever there
existed any marked regard for Sacred writ, in the vernacular tongue, there the
lifespark of Christianity was preserved. The Albigenses, the Waldenses, and
other parties, might be adduced in proof; the persecution and dispersion of
whom, had considerable influence in diffusing the light which its enemies
laboured to extinguish.

It was not, however, till after a long and profound sleep throughout the dreams
and visions of the middle ages, that the human mind was at last effectually
roused to action; and in none of the countries throughout Europe more decidedly
than in Italy and England. But still, for some great moral purpose, worthy of
infinite wisdom, and to be afterwards disclosed, that mind, throughout all these
western kingdoms, was first to be permitted to discover what was the utmost
rigour of its native strength.

It is not to be wondered at that Italian writers should claim for their country
the precedence of all others in the revival of learning which marked the close
of the fourteenth century. “The Italians,” says Sismondi, “discovered, as it
were, anew the ancient world; they felt an affinity of thoughts, hopes, and
tastes with the best Latin writers which inspired them with the highest
admiration. Petrarch, and particularly Boccaccio, passed from this study to that
of Grecian antiquity. A passion for erudition spread from one end of Italy to
the other, with an ardour proportionable to the dark ignorance of the preceding
centuries. It was imagined that all knowledge consisted in knowing and imitating
the ancient masters. The highest glory was attached to classical learning; and
Petrarch and Boccaccio attained a degree of celebrity, credit and power,
unequalled by any other men in the middle ages-not by reason of those merits
which we feel at the present day, but as the pontiffs and interpreters of
antiquity.” “We owe to the learned of the fourteenth century, and to their
school, a deep sentiment of gratitude. They discovered and rendered intelligible
to us all the chefs d’oeuvre of antiquity, Fragments only of classic works
remained, scattered throughout Europe, and on the point of being lost.

These learned men of Italy collected, collated, and explained them; without
their antiquarian zeal, all the experience of past ages, all the models of
taste, all the great works of genius, would never have reached us, and probably,
without such guides, we should never have attained the point on which we now
stand.” In thus writing, the author, of course, had in his eye, not only the
close of the fourteenth, but the greater part of the fifteenth century, when
Italy, in truth, became the garden of literature and the arts, the wonder and
delightful resort of the learned throughout Europe. As a fact, it is of
importance, not only to concede, but observe this, and let the precedence be
fully understood as holding a place in the course of events about to transpire.
The learning and refinement of ltaly, about to assume that position in history
which the wisdom of Greece had done in the days of old, must enjoy her long
reign of a hundred and fifty years without any superior. Now that the human mind
is waking up, let the Italian “imagine that all knowledge consisted in knowing
and imitating the ancient masters,” and let “the highest glory be attached to
classical learning;” let the “chief works of antiquity be rendered
intelligible,” and the men of Italy “collect, collate, and explain them.” In
short, as Greece is coming to the assistance of Rome, and “the great masters”
must first rise to show the extent of their powers; since the former, at the
commencement of the Christian era, had stood in a peculiar relation to the
surrounding nations-so, let Italy now stand in the same relation to Europe.

Distinguished for classical learning, and first in the arts, if not the
sciences, she claims to be the well-spring of all the less civilized nations in
the west.

Minute criticism may here be dispensed with, nor does any admirer of the Sacred
Volume need to object to the fullest concession. Let Dante and Petrarch for the
moment, and Boccaccio and Poggio Bracciolini, lead the way. In all this,
however, it must now be granted in return, there was literally nothing of Divine
light, properly so called-no reverent, distinct approach to the Sacred Volume;
and this becomes the more observable, as the only country in Europe to which we
can look for this, was that which, of all others, was held in greatest contempt
by Italy; to say nothing of its being at once the most distant from Rome if not
also the most oppressed by that power. This was no other than our native land.
Bracciolini, the last of these Italian scholars, had actually visited it, and
viewed this country with chagrin, if not disdain, when compared with the
enthusiastic love of classical literature which polished and adorned his
country.

Yes, so far as the revival of learning was concerned, it is worthy of particular
notice that, in England, it was associated, even from this early period, with a
special leaning towards the Oracles of God, and that on the part of several
eminent men, all alike well known, not only at home, but as distant as Italy. Of
these, in proof, we notice three-Robert Grossteste, Richard Fitzralph, and,
above all, our own WICKLIFFE. The first of these, indeed,GROSSTESTE, died as
early as the year 1253, and, three years before that event, made no scruple,
when preaching at Lyon before Innocent IV., to arraign his clergy, in the
boldest terms, for their ignorance, and arrogance, and flagitious conduct Now
this was above a hundred years before the erection of Boccaccio’s chair for
Greek in Florence; and yet certainly Grossteste was not unacquainted with either
Greek or Hebrew. He had translated Dionysius the Areopagite and Damascenus into
Latin-had faicilitated the knowledge of Greek by a translation of Suidas’s
Lexicon-had promoted John of Basingstoke because he was a Greek scholar, and
possessed of Greek manuscripts, which he is said to have brought from Athens.
Nicholas, surnamed Graecus, resided with Grossteste, to help him in translating
from the Greek; nor should it be forgotten that, however humble might be the
claims of this eminent man to the character of a Grecian, all this happened
above a century before that Boccaccio himself had positively asserted of the
Italian scholars, that they did not know so much as the Greek alphabet. Nor was
Grossteste unacquainted with Hebrew, though we cannot assert, with Wharton, that
he was profoundly skilled in it. At this early period, however, the chief
eminence of Grossteste arose from his being a decided friend to vernacular
translations of tho Scriptures. “It is the will of God,” said he, “that the Holy
Scriptures should be translated by many translators, and that there should be
different translations in the Church, so that what is obscurely expressed by
one, may be more perspicuously rendered by auother.” Was there any other country
in Europe where as much had been expressed by any man, before the middle of the
fourteenth century? If not, then let Grossteste or Greathead be allowed to have
sounded, if not the first, one of the earliest feeble notes of preparation;
though more than a hundred years must pass away before the subject be taken up
in good earnest, and though England, confessedly, will first sink into greater
barbarism.

Richard Fitzralph , an Irishman, and the energetic precursor of Wickliffe, in
opposition to the Friars, was born, it has been said, at Dundalk, and, at all
events, certainly there interred, though he had died at Avignon. Then Primate of
Ireland, after preaching indefatigably in that country and in London, he had
gone to face Innocent VI. himself, on the subject of those exactions and abuses
which had become past all endurance. Still farther to the west than even the
“Thule” of the Ancients, at the utmost verge of the Pontiff’s authority, even in
Ireland itself, there was then a thirst after knowledge which could not be
satisfied. Fitzralph complained aloud, and told Innocent that “no book could
stir, whether in divinity, law, or physic, but thcse Friars were able and ready
to buy it up,”-“that he himself had sent four of his secular chaplains from
Armagh to Oxford, who sent him word again that they could neither find the
BIBLE, nor any other good profitable book in divinity, meet for their study, and
therefore were minded to return home to their own country.” As for the Primate
himself, by his own account, “the Lord had taught him, and brought him out of
the profound vanities of Aristotle’s philosophy, to the Scriptures of God.” “To
thee be praise,” says he, at the commencement of his Life, written by himself,
once in the possession of Foxe, and which be meant to have printed,-“ To thee be
praise, to thee be glory, to thee be thanksgiving, O Jesus most holy, Jesus most
powerful, Jesus most amiable -who hast said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the
life,’-a way without deviation, truth without a cloud, and life without end. For
thou the way hast shown me, thou the truth hast taught me, and thou the life
hast promised me. A way thou wast to me, in exile, the truth thou wast to me, in
counsel, and life thou wilt be to me, in reward.” Could the assertion which has
been often repeated, only be confirmed, that Fitzralph translated the New
Testament into the Irish language, or that such a translation existed in his
time, it would form one of the most curious facts in the history of modern
literature; pointing out Ireland as that country in Europe which had been the
first pitied, as it has been the last.

But, at all events, in the very same year, or 1360, in which Fitzralph expired
at Avignon, John Wickliffe, at the age of thirty-six, was allured from his
hitherto retired life; and when he came to write his “Trialogue,” he speaks of
Fitzralph as having preceded him, in terms of high commendation.

We have now, however, arrived at a point in history fraught with the deepest
interest, and bearing so directly on the subject of the following pages, that it
becomes necessary to pause a few moments, and look round.

Let Grecian literature, by all means, revive in Italy, for this will be drawn
upon, as soon as the proper time arrives; but, in the meanwhile, something else
must be accomplished and very far to the west. The event which took place was
not only a marked anti powerful one, in relation to England, but it formed the
first of a series in Europe, although more than an entire century passed away
before the precedent was followed by other countries.

We refer to the translation of the entire Sacred Volume into the language spoken
by the people. Fragments there had been in several languages, but the present
work being complete from Genesis to Revelation, intelligible to the common
people of that day, and intended for their express perusal, may be regarded as
the first positive instance of its kind in modern Europe, no continental nation
having anything similar to produce.

John Wickliffe , a native of Yorkshire, was born in the year 1324, and, in 1360,
at the age of thirty-six, first came into public view, where he conspicuously
remained to the day of his death, or the 31st of December, 1384. For his life
and opinions we refer to other sources, and must here confine our attention to
that work which will ever give the chief distinction to his name. Before the
commencement of such a design, the position of Wickliffe should be contemplated.
To say nothing of the Mahometan and Pagan worlds, two other communities had
extended their influence over the nations. Alike opposed to the right of private
judgment, and the rising freedom of the human mind, and now equally sunk into a
state of unutterable depravity, both had fixed a malignant eye on that very book
which Wickliffe had determined to give to his country. These two, it is well
known, were the Eastern and Western, or the Greek and Latin Churches.

Both had not only, and long since, utterly neglected and contemned the Sacred
Writings, but both had interdicted their translation into any vernacular tongue.
That it was not only unlawful, but injurious, for the people at large to read
the Scriptures, had, indeed, for ages, been regarded as an axiom, by all these
nations. Nor was this idea left to pass current merely as a received opinion.
Not to mention other proofs, more than a hundred and fifty years before
Wickliffe had finished his determined purpose, or in the year 1229, at the
Council of Toulouse, when forty-five canons were passed and issued for the
extinction of heresy and the re.establishment of peace, what were two of those
canons? One involved the first court of inquisition, and another the first
canon, which forbade the Scriptures to the laity, or the translation of any
portion of them into the vulgar tongue. The latter was expressed in very pointed
terms. “We also forbid the laity toPOSSESS any of the books of the Old or New
Testament, except, perhaps, the Psalter or Breviary for the Divine Offices, or
the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, which some, out of devotion, wish to have; but
having any of these books translated into the vulgar tongue, we strictly
forbid.’’ f3 In the face of all this, and far more than can now be explained,
must Wickliffe commence his heartfelt task; and so he did, with his eyes open to
the prejudices of a world. His translation, which was finished in the year 1380,
is supposed to have occupied him, amidst various interruptions, for many years.
Some have imagined that this great work employed the translator for ten years
only, but Mr. Baber, with far greater probability, has said,-“From an early
period of his life, he had devoted his various learning, and all the powerful
energies of his mind, to effect this, and, at length, by intense application on
his own part, and with some assistance from a few of the most learned of his
followers, he had the glory to complete a book, which, alone, would have been
sufficient (or at least ought) to have procured him the veneration of his own
age, and the commendations of posterity.” In accounting for such a movement as
this, it has been but too common to inquire after something similar which had
happened in the earth, and loosely supposing some connexion between them, as
cause and effect, thus leave the extraordinary event, without the slightest
reference to the finger of God. Any influential connexion, however, between the
Waldenses or Vaudois and Wickliffe has never been clearly proved, and probably
never will. At all events, before he could be stimulated by their example, he
seems to have taken his ground, as it is only in his latest compositions that a
few slight references to them are to be found, as to a people with whose
sufferings he sympathised. He was on the Continent, at Bruges, it is true, from
1374 to 1376, but he had commenced, and must have been far advanced in his
undertaking, long before then. In short, as far as the term can be applied to
any human being, the claims of Wickliffe to originality have now come to be
better understood, and every Christian will recognise the “secret mover;” while,
in reference to the times following, when tracing the history or influence of
Divine Truth throughout Europe, the habit of ascending no higher than Germany is
past, or passing away.

Down to the period of about two years before Wickliffe had completed his
translation, the only ideas or incidents which had any powerful influence upon
mankind generally, were such as stood connected with the Pontiff, and his
peculiar system of rule or government; but, in reference to this subject, by the
year 1378, among the European nations, there had sprung up a marked difference
of opinion. One question engrossed them all, and it was nothing less than
this-Who was Pontiff? In the year 1305, through the influence of France, the
Court of Rome had been translated into that Kingdom, and there it remained for
seventy-four years, to the great damage of Rome as a city, but without any rent
or division in the system.

Edward the Third had expired on the 21st of June, 1377, after a reign of above
half a century, and about that very moment Gregory XI. had ordered Wickliffe to
be seized and imprisoned, till farther orders. Early in the following year,
although our translator of the Scriptures had not only stood high in favour with
the late King, but still did so with many in Parliament, and was powerfully
protected by John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, he was summoned by the Bishops to
answer for himself at St. Paul’s. Thus did this body of men first come out,
appearing as a distinct interest in the, kingdom, and thus they will remain for
above five generations to come; proving ever and anon, upon all occasions of
alarm, that they were the determined opponents of Divine Truth. As a body, they
will oppose its being conveyed to the people, and at every successive step of
progress. Their malice at this time, however, was overruled, as it will so often
and conspicuously be, a century and a half later; but, in the meanwhile, nothing
must prevent Wickliffe from finishing his translation. f4 The year 1378 was in
truth an important one as it regarded our translator’s design. On the 27th of
March the reigning Pontiff had died; an event which not only put an end to the
bulls against Wickliffe, but gave rise to what was called “the qreat schism;” so
that soon after there were two Pontiffs-one beyond the mountains, as the
Italians said, and one at Rome-consigning each other to perdition. Of this state
of things Wickliffe did not fail to avail himself. “He saw the head of the body
cloven in twain, and the two parts made to fight with each other;” and he
immediately sent forth two tracts, one upon “the schism ” itself, and the other
upon “the truth of Scripture.”

Every city and state became agitated, and as the question soon divided the
nations throughout, it so happened that England and Scotland were of opposite
opinions: the former holding fast by Urban VI. of Rome, who had been first
chosen; the latter followed Clement VII. of Avignon. England and France indeed
became the most ardent supporters of the opposite parties, while such was the
extent to which the controversy had gone, that some men of the University of
Paris had begun to think of a plurality of Pontiffs, and the appointment of one
to every kingdom. The idea of one power exercising authority over all nations
had seemed to them untenable, if not injurious.

Soon after this, in the year 1379, Wickliffe, as divinity professor, had gone to
fulfil his accustomed annual duty at Oxford, but there he was seized with an
alarming illness. The friars, imagining that his course was now near an end,
contrived to visit him. Four of their ablest men had been selected, or a friar
from each of the mendicant orders, and they were admitted to a patient hearing.
After reminding him of the great injury he had done to their order-for Wickliffe
was a determined enemy to all idleness and all extortion- they exhorted him, as
one near to death, that he would now, as a true penitent, bewail and revoke in
their presence, whatever he had said to their disparagement. As soon as they had
done, Wickliffe calling for his servant, desired to be raised up on his pillow;
when collecting all his strength, with a severe and expressive countenance, and
in a tone of voice not to be misunderstood, he exclaimed, “I” shall not die, but
live, to declare the evil deeds of the friars.” Confused, if not confounded,
little expecting such a reply, they immediately left him; and Wickliffe
recovered, to finish in the year following his translation of the entire Bible.

Extraordinary, however, as the character of Wickliffe was,-a man confessedly far
above all his contemporaries,-it may still be inquired, whether he was qualified
for the task of translating the Sacred Volume? The Scriptures had been
originally given in Hebrew and Greek; but so far from the nations of the West
furnishing men sufficiently acquainted with either, England at least had sunk
into greater ignorance even since the days of Grossteste; nay, a hundred and
fifty years later, when Tyndale had translated from the original tongues, some
of the priests of the day were trying to persuade the people that Greek and
Hebrew were languages newly invented. Her e, it is true, was Wickliffe, an able
and acute, a zealous and determined man, and withal an excellent Latin scholar,
but of Greek or Hebrew he knew nothing. Nor was it at all necessary that he
should possess such erudition, since a translation from either GREEK OR HEBREW
would not have harmonized with the first, or the present, intention of Divine
Povidence. A reason there was, and one worthy of infinite wisdom, why not only
the English translation, but most of the first European versions must be made
from the Latin. These nations, including our own, had nothing in common with the
Greek community, but for ages they had been overrun with the Latin. This
language, long since dead, even in Italy, had been the refuge and stronghold of
their oppressor, from generation to generation; and upon looking back, no
spectacle presented to the eye is so remarkable, as that of so many different
nations, equally spell-bound by the same expedient. There was a Latin service,
and there was a Latin Bible, professedly received, but the possession of even
this had been forbidden to the people at large; very much in the same spirit as
the Shasters of India are forbidden by the Brahmins to be looked upon, or even
heard, by the people. It was theLATIN Bible, therefore, long buried in
cloisters, or covered with the dust of ages, which must now be brought forth to
view.

Confessedly imperfect, it was of importance first to prove thai; it had all
along contained enough for mortal man to know, in order to his eternal
salvation; and once translated into any native tongue, not only will the
language touch the heart, but the people at last know what that mysterious book
was, from which they had been debarred, so wickedly and so long.

Although, therefore, the nation was yet a hundred and fifty years distant from
the English Bible, properly so called, the present should be regarded as the
first preliminary step. An all-disposing foresight, far above that of any human
agent, is now distinctly visible in drawing first upon that very language which
had been employed for ages as the instrument of mental bondage. It shall now be
made to contribute to the emancipation of the human mind. Latin, it is true, had
been the conventional language of the priests and students of different
countries; but still, so long as this language remained untouched by a
translation of the Scriptures into any vernacular tongue, it is a historical
canon that no nation was ever greatly moved. This holds true of our own country,
in the age of manuscript, but it will become far more emphatically so, even
seventy years after the invention of printing, when the Scriptures, once
translated from the original tongues, come to be printed in the language then
spoken, and spoken still. At such a period as this the translation of Wickliffe
could only be diffused, of course, by the laborious process of transcription;
but transcribed it was diligently, both entire and in parts, and as eagerly
read. There were those who, at every hazard, sought wisdom from the Book of God,
and their number could not be few. A contemporary writer has affirmed that “a
man could not meet two people on the road, but one of them was a disciple of
Wiekliffe.” This was the testimony of an enemy, and not improbably the language
of hatred and fear combined, uttered with a wish to damage the cause; it was the
testimony of an ecclesiastic, a Canon of Leicester, in reference to an era
hailed by the people; and although the Word of Truth had not “free course,”
there can be no question that it was glorified in the reception given to it by
many. “The soldiers,” he says, “with the dukes and earls, were the chief
adherents of this sect-they were their most strenuous promoters and boldest
combatants-their most powerful defenders and their invincible protectors.” A
very remark. able admission, as it accounts for the great progress made, in
spite of opposition. All this and much more is uttered in the tone of
lamentation; and what was the occasion, as expressed by the Canon himself? “This
Master John Wickliffe,” says he, “hath translated the Gospel out of Latin into
English, which Christ had entrusted with the clergy and doctors of the Church,
that they might minister it to the laity and weaker sort, according to the state
of the times and the wants of men. So that by this means the Gospel is made
vulgar, and laid more open to the laity, and even to women who can read, than it
used to be to the most learned of the clergy and those of the best
understanding! And what was before the chief gift of the clergy and doctors of
the Church, is made for ever common to the laity!” f5 It was in the same spirit
that another contemporary writer urged that “the prelates ought not to suffer
that every one at his pleasure should read the Scripture, translated even into
Latin; because, as is plain from experience, this has been many ways the
occasion of falling into heresies and errors. It is not, therefore, politic that
any one, wheresoever and whensoever he will, should give himself to the frequent
study of the Scriptures.” f6 These men specially referred to a period which
lasted for about twenty years, or from 1380 to 1400, and it was one, though but
too short, which distinguished this country from every other in Europe. However
transient, or but like a handful of corn for all England. in any sketch of the
times it should never pass unnoticed.

While the nations generally were discussing the respective claims of two rival
Pontiffs, amidst all the confusion of the times, and although there were many
adversaries, for the last twenty years of the fourteenth century, in England, no
authoritative stop must be put to the perusal of the Divine record. The Bishops,
it is true, with the Primate of Canterbury at their head, may rage and
remonstrate, may write to Rome and receive replies, but in vain. The entire
Sacred Volume had been translated, the people were transcribing and reading, and
the translator had frequently expressed himself in the boldest terms. “The
authority of the Holy Scriptures,” said he, “infinitely surpasses any writing,
how authentic soever it may appear, because the authority of Jesus Christ is
infinitely above that of all mankind.”-“The authority of the Scriptures is
independent of any other authority, and is preferable to every other writing,
but especially to the books of the Church of Rome.”-“I am certain, indeed, from
the Scriptures, that neither Antichrist, nor all his disciples, nay, nor all
fiends, may really impugn any part of that volume as it regards the excellence
of its doctrine. But in all these things it appears to me that the believing man
should usc this rule-If he soundly understands the Sacred Scripture, let him
bless God; if he be deficient in stroh perception, let him labour for soundness
of mind.

Let him also dwell as a gram marian upon the letter, but be fully aware of
imposing a sense upon Scripture which he doubts the Holy Spirit does not
demand.” f7 Many other passages, in terms as strong, might be quoted from his
writings; and “among his latest acts,” says Vaughan, “was a defence in
Parliament of the translation of the Scriptures into English. These he declared
to be the property of the people, and one which no party should be allowed to
wrest from them.”

Now that the cause of such a man, as well as that he himself, should have been
so befriended, was one of the distinguishing features of the present period. The
Duke of Lancaster continued to be his shield for years; and although, when
Wickliffe, in addition to grievances felt, went on to Christian doctrines, the
Duke faltered in his support, yet nearly six years after the translator was in
his grave, the same voice was heard in favour of the translation. In the
thirteenth of Richard II., or 1390, a bill was proposed to be brought into the
House of Lords for suppressing it, when Lancaster, in boldly opposing this, told
them, “That he would maintain our having this law in our own tongue, whoever
they should be that brought in the bill;” and once introduced, it was
immediately thrown out. But Lancaster was not the only friend: to his brother,
the Duke of Gloucester, Wickliffe dedicated at least one of his pieces; and on
one important occasion, when the former gave way, the Queen-Mother, or widow of
the Black Prince, put a stop to persecution. Lord Percy, Earl-Marshal, was also
friendly; but perhaps, above all, much was owing to the reigning Queen, and that
for ten years after Wickliffe’s death. Ann of Luxemburg, the sister of the
Emperor Wenceslaus, and of the King of Bohemia, as consort of Richard II. had
arrived in this country in December 1381; an event of great importance in
connexion with Wickliffe’s exertions. If he had so far enlightened England, his
writings were also to electrify Bohemia, so that Ann had “ come to the kingdom
for such a time as this.” This lady, already acquainted with three languages,
Bohemian, German, and Latin, soon acquired that of this country, and for years
was distinguished for her diligent perusal of the Scriptures in English. This
much was testified of her by a very notable witness-the Lord Chancellor Arundel,
then Archbishop of York, when he came to preach at her interment. “Although she
was a stranger,” he said, “ yet she constantly studied the four Gospels in
English; and in the study of these, and reading of godly books, she was more
diligent than the prelates, though their office and business require this of
them.” The Gospels in English, he added, the Queen had sent to himself to
peruse, and he had replied that they were “good and true.” Queen Ann’s course of
reading was even well known to Wickliffe, before he expired in 1384, so that she
must have served as a powerful example to others, for at least ten years. The
translator had thus early inquired, whether “to hereticate” her on account of
her practice, “would not be Luciferian folly.” The Queen, says Rapin, was a
great fitvourer of Wickliffe’s doctrine, and had she lived longer would have
saved his followers; but the illustrious foreigner once interred, and thus so
remarkably eulogized, a different scene immediately opened to view.

After his Queen’s death, Richard II., the grandchild of Edward III., had gone to
Ireland, there to prolong the misgovernment of that country; and only four
months had elapsed, when this very man, Artmdel, who afterwards was the main
instrument in dethroning the King, and one of the bitterest enemies of Divine
Truth in the next century, was in great alarm. In deep hypocrisy, at
Westminster, he might choose to twit the prelates with their ignorance of
Scripture, in comparison with a Queen who had to acquire the language, and thus
please the ear of his Majesty, as well as seem to lament his loss; but he had no
intention that the peop1e should take the hint, or advance, and show him, as
well as his brethren, the way. The remarkable though transient period, however,
to which we now refer, was as distinguished for boldness of sentiment, as for
the protection providentially afforded to those who were searching the
Scriptures for themselves. On the 29th of January, 1395, a Parliament was held
at Westminster, and the time had come to speak out. The sentiments were not
those of a feeble band, whispered in secret. They were expressed in the shape of
a remonstrance, and presented to the House of Commons. They were posted at St.
Paul’s, and also at Westminster. This, let it be observed, was above a hundred
and twenty years before Luther’s voice was heard; and, taken all in all, the
argument throughout may be compared to an arrow, shot from a bow as strong as
the intrepid German afterwards ever bent.

Richard, still in Ireland, was preparing to take the field again, when Arundel,
our preacher at Westminster in August last, had reached him in May, and
accompanied by Braybrook, the Bishop of London. Six or seven years before this
the disciles of Wickliffe had been congregating in ditrerent places, and
actually appointing ministers among themselves to perform Divine service, after
their own sentiments: while his “poor priests,” as they were styled, had been
travelling and preaching, barefooted, through the country; but this pointed and
posted remonstrance had filled Arundel, Braybrook, and their brethren with
dread. They entreated the King, in name of the clergy, to return, intimating
that the least delay might occasion irreparable damage. The followers of
Wickliffe, they said, had made instance to set on foot a reformation -they had
many friends in the kingdom, nay, in the Parliament itself, and the clergy were
afraid they would proceed to action. Richard listened, immediately left the
management of his war to the Earl of March, and returned. He took certain
measures, it is true, to check the rising tide of sentiment, but still the
Scriptures were not suppressed, nor was there one drop of blood shed for what
“they called heresy,” till the commencement of the next century, under Henry the
Fourth. At the conclusion, therefore, of the fourteenth century, we concede to
Petrarch, or Boccaccio and his fellows, all that is demanded as to the revival
of learning in Italy; nor has England any occasion to be ashamed of the contrast
or distinction between the two countries. The pursuits of both were but in their
infancy. In the former, “imagining that all knowledge was to be found in the
ancient Masters,” they were beginning to seek after Mount Parnassus and their
old Romans; but in the latter they were in search of Mount Zion and the
fishermen of Galilee. The Italian had become eager after the wisdom of Greece,
and the nervous oratory of his forefathers; the Englishman, after the wisdom of
God, and the course pursued by the first planters of Christianity. If any of our
countrymen were looking to Greece at all, it might be only to such as had proved
to “be the first-fruits of Achaia unto God;” and if to Rome, it was only to
those in the imperial city, once so beloved, “whose faith was spoken of
throughout the whole world.” The manuscripts of Wickliffe’s version complete,
are numerous still; and perhaps not much less so than those of the New Testament
separately, not to mention different pieces, or entire hooks of the translation.
In examining some of these, whether in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, in the
British Museum, or in private collections, we have been struck with their
legibility and beauty. They have all, indiscriminately, been called Wickliffe’s
version, but variations of expression are to be found in a few; and it is not so
generally known that we possess two distinct versions, one under Wickliffe’s own
eye, and another a recension of the entire sacred text.

It is certainly a singular circumstance that this translation of Wickliffe has
never been printed! The New Testament, it is true, was published by Mr. Lewis,
in the year 1731, or three hundred and fifty years after it was finished, and
once more by Mr. Baber, in 1810; but the Bible entire, now fbur hundred and
sixty-four years old, has never yet been published. By the time that Tyndale was
born, indeed, it would not have been intelligible to the people at large;
moreover, it was from the Latin Vulgate, and the period had arrived when the
translation must be drawn from the original tongues. But still, even as a most
interesting literary production, one could never have imagined that above twenty
sovereigns would have sat on the throne of England since the invention of
printing, before such a work had issued from the press. By Fabricius, a
foreigner, as well as others, this has been often referred to as a national
disgrace; but happily, the reproach, at last, is wiped away. Both these versions
to which we have alluded are now published, printed in parallel columns, at the
Oxford University press, and under the eye of Sir Frederick Madden and the Rev.
J. Forshall, of the British Museum. f8 Thus then, whatever darkness reigned, or
enmity was shown in this country, throughout the whole of the next century,
these precious volumes were preserved, and the surviving copies remain, like so
many veritable torch-bearers for the time being. They may, and indeed must have
shoue often in secret, or at the midnight hour, and certainly not without
effects, to be disclosed another day: but at all events, here is one palpable
existing distinction between this country, and every other, at the moment. It is
one which stands in the finest keeping with all that took place in the days of
Tyndale. The favour of God, even at this early period, had already begun to
place this Island in that conspicuous position which it was afterwards to occupy
among the nations of Europe, with regard to the possession and the diffusion of
His blessed Word.

Let this ever be regarded as the grand distinction of Britain. And while the
Italian historian, down to the present hour, continues to rejoice in the triumph
of literature and the arts upon his native soil, nearly five hundred years ago;
let not the British Christian fall behind him ia joy and gratitude over that
contemporaneous triumph which at last led his country to a better hope and a
brighter day. Let him rather compare the two countries now, and observe the too
much neglected, but all-sufficient reason, for the prodigious distinction
between the two. No storm, however, arose in Italy, nor any cloud, to obscure
the rising sun of her classical literature. On the contrary, though Rome itself
may still be troubled, that sun is only about to burst upon the country in all
its splendour, and the men of Italy are to be allowed ample scope still, for
above a hundred years, to do their utmost. Very different was the reception
given by our forefathers, as a nation or as a government, to the voice of God.
Here at home, in some resemblance to the visit paid by the Almighty to Elijah,
there must, it seems, be first the wind, and then the earthquake, and then the
fire, before ever the “still small voice” is heard with effect, Nay, and when
once it comes through Tyndale’s version, and is heard by the people, we shall
find, however strange, that no official man in England will be able to divine
from whence it came, or by what mysterious conveyance it had reached their ears!

We have conceded to Italy the precedence which she claims, as the revivalist of
classical learning; and truly the first buds of promise in the fourteenth, were
as nothing to the full-blown garden of the fifteenth century. In the first years
of its commencement, individual natives of Greece were finding their way into
that country, nay, from about the year 1395, their language was taught in
Florence and Venice, in Milan and Genoa, by Emanuel Chrysoloras. The Pontiff
chosen in 1409, Alexander V., was a Grecian by birth. The whole lives of Italian
scholars, we are told, were now devoted to the recovery of ancient works, and
the revival of philology; while the discovery of an unknown manuscript was
regarded, says Tira-boschi, “almost as the conquest of a kingdom.” But “that
ardour which animated Italy in the first part of the fifteenth century, was by
no means common to the rest of Europe. Neither England, nor France, nor Germany,
seemed aware of the approaching change.” So says Mr. Hallam, in perfect harmony
with Sismondi. Learning, indeed, such as it was, had even begun to decline at
Oxford, but the Eastern empire was now hastening to its end, and in 1453 came
the fall of Constantinople. Long, therefore, before the close of the century,
the roads to Italy will be crowded with many a traveller, and among the number
we shall find that Englishmen, though the most distant, were not the last to
hasten after classical attainments. Native Italians, we are perfectly aware,
have been jealous of our ascribing too much to the event just hinted, but there
can be no question that, in its consequences, it proved the first powerful
summens to Europe to awake. On the sacking of Constantinople, we know of five
vessels at least, that were loaded with the learned men or Greece, who escaped
into Italy. Of course they brought their most valued treasure, or their books,
with them; and thus by one and another, as well as the eager Italian himself, a
stock of manuscript was accumulated on Italian ground, which was just about to
be honoured with a reception, very different, indeed, from that of being slowly
increased by the pen of the copyist! Italy thus became the point of attraction
to all Europe. But how singular that the scholars of the West, as with common
consent, should hasten to this one country for that learning, over the effects
of which, the chief authority there, though so pleased at first, was afterwards
to bewail, nay, to mourn for ages, or to the present hour!

While, however, Italian scholars were thus busy, and leaving the Pontiff to
fight his own battles, they were but little aware of what was preparing for them
elsewhere. They were in fact more ignorant of this, than the Western scholar had
been of their thirst for learning; and was there no indication here, of but one
guiding, one all-gracious power? THE INVENTION OF PRINTING. An obscure German
had been revolving in his mind, tho first principles of an art, applicable to
any language on the face of the earth, which was to prove the most important
discovery in the annals of mankind. At the moment when they were storming
Constantinople in the East, he was thus busy; spending all his substance, in
plying his new art with vigour upon a book, and upon such a BOOK ! Neither
Kings, nor Pontiffs, nor Councils had been, or were to be, consulted here; nor
was he encouraged to proceed by one smile from his own Emperor, or from any
princely patron. No mechanical invention having proved so powerful in its
effects as that of printing, it is not wonderful that so much research has been
bestowed on the history of its origin mid progress. The precise order in which
some particular cities first enjoyed its advantages, still continues to afford
room for minute criticism, but the progress of inquiry has reduced the field of
controversy to a very narrow compass. A better history of the art, indeed, and
more especially of its curious and rapid progress throughout Europe, may, and
should still, be written; but the general results already ascertained, have now
approached to such accuracy, as to suggest and justify several important and
striking reflections. These results demand our notice at the close of the
century, as they will be found to involve one important bearing on the
subsequent history of the Sacred Volume, when it came to be first printed in the
vernacular tongue.

Mentz , in the Duchy of Hesse (Mayence or Mainz), on the left bank of the Rhine,
and four hundred miles from Vienna, may be regarded as the mother city of
printing; and although three individuals shared the honour of perfecting the art
on the same spot, if not under the same roof, the invention itself is due to
only one man. Henne Gaensfleisch, commonly called John Gutenberg, (Anglice,
Goodhill,) the individual referred to, was born in Mentz, not Strasburg, as
sometimes stated, about the year 1400; but, in 1424, he had taken up his abode
in the latter city as a merchant.

About ten years after this, or in 1435, we have positive evidence that his
invention, then a profound secret, engrossed his thoughts; and here, in
conjunction with one Andrew Dritzehen and two other citizens, all bound to
secrecy, Gutenberg had made some experiments in printing with meta1 types before
the year 1439. By this time Dritzehen was dead; and in six or seven years more,
the money embarked being exhausted, not one fragment survives in proof of what
they had attempted. Gutenberg, returning to his native city in 1445-6, found it
absolutely necessary to disclose his progress.

More money was demanded, if ever he was to succeed; and having once opened his
mind fully to a citizen, a goldsmith of Mentz, John Fust, he engaged to
cooperate by affording the needful advances. At last, therefore, between the
years 1450 and 1455, tbr it has no date, their first great work was finished.
This was no other than the Bible itself!-the Latin Bible.

Altogether unknown to the rest of the world, this was what had been doing at
Mentz, in the West, when Constantinople, in the East, was storming, and the
Italian “brief men,” or copyists, were so very busy with their pens. This Latin
Bible, of 641 leaves, formed the first important specimen of printing with metal
types. The very first homage was to be paid to that SACRED VOLUME, which had
been sacrilegiously buried, nay, interdicted so long; as if it had been, with
pointing finger, to mark at once the greatest honour ever to be bestowed on the
art, and infinitely the highest purpose to which it was ever to be applied. Nor
was this all. ttad it been a single page, or even an entire sheet which was then
produced, there might have been less occasion to have noticed it; but there was
something in the whole character of the affair which, it not unprecedented,
rendered it singular in the usual current of human events. This Bible formed two
volumes in folio, which have been “justly praised for the strength and beauty of
the paper, the exactness of the register, the lustre of the ink.” It was a work
of pages, finally executed-a most laborious process, involving not only a
considerable period of time, but no small amount of mental, manual, and
mechanical labour; and yet, now that it had been finished, and now offered for
sale, not a single human being, save the artists themselves, knew how it had
been accomplished! the profound secret remained with themselves, while the
entire process was probably still confined to the bosom of only two or three! Of
this splendid work, in two volumes, at least 18 copies are known to exist, four
on vellum, and fourteen on paper. Of the former, two are in this country, one of
which is ia the Grenville collection; the other two are in the Royal Libraries
of Paris and Berlin. Of the fourteen paper copies there are ten in Britain:
three in public libraries at Oxford, London, anti Edinburgh, and seven in the
private collections of different noblemen and gentlemen. The vellum copy has
been sold as low as £260, though in 1827, as high as £501, sterling. Even the
paper Sussex copy lately brought £100. Thus, as if it had been to mark the
noblest purpose to which the art would ever be applied, the FIRST.Book printed
with moveable metal types, and so beautifully, was the BIBLE.

Like almost all original inventors, Gutenberg made nothing by the discovery, at
which he had laboured for at least twenty years, from 1435 to 1455. The expenses
had been very great; and, in the course of business, after the Bible was
finished, the inventor was in debt to the goldsmith, who, though opulent, now
exhibited a character certainly not to be admired. He insisted on Gutenberg
paying up his debt; and, having him in his power, actually instituted a suit
against him, when, in the course of law, the whole printing apparatus fell into
Fust’s possession, on the 6th of November, 1455. According to Trithemius, one of
the best authorities, poor Gutenberg had spent his whole estate in this
difficult discovery; but still, not discouraged, he contrived to print till
1465, though on a humbler scale. Having been appointed by Adolphus the Elector
of Mentz one of his gentlemen, (inter aulieos,) with an annual pension, he was
less dependent on an art which to him had been a source of trouble, if not of
vexation. He died in the city of his birth in February 1468.

Fust bad, from 1456, pursued his advantage, and with great vigour, having
adopted as his acting partner Peter Schoeffer, (Anylice, Shepherd,) a young man
of genius, already trained to the business, to whom he afterwards gave his
daughter in marriage. The types employed hitherto had been made of brass, cut by
the hand. An advance to the present mode of producing types by letterr-founding
was still wanted, and the art of cutting steel punches and casting matrices has
been ascribed to Schoeffer. The first publication of Fust and Schoeffer was a
beautiful edition of the Psalms, still in Latin, finished on the 14h of August,
1457, and there was a second in 1459; but the year 1162 arrived, and this was a
marked and decisive era in the history of this extraordinary invention; not
merely for a second edition of the Latin Bible, in two volumes folio, dated
1462, and now executed according to the improved state of the art; but on
account of what took place in Mentz at the same moment. A change had arrived,
far from being anticipated by these the inventors of printing, and one which
they, no doubt, regarded as the greatest calamity which could have befallen
them. Gutenberg had been the father of printing, and Schoeffer the main improver
of it, while Fust, not only by his ingenuity, but his wealth, had assisted both;
but all these men were bent upon keeping the art secret; and, left to
themselves, unquestionably they would have confined the printing-press to Mentz
as long as they lived. Fust and Schoeffer, however, especially eager to acquire
wealth, had resolved to proceed in a very unhallowed course, by palming off
their productions as manuscripts, that so they might obtain a larger price for
each copy. The glory of promoting or extending the art must now, therefore, be
immediately and suddenly taken from them. Invention, of whatever character, like
Nature itself, is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God. The ingenuity He
gives to whomsoever He will, but He still reigns over the invention, and directs
its future progress. At this crisis, therefore, just as if to make the reference
to Himself more striking, and upon our part more imperative, we have only to
observe what then took place, and the consequences which immediately followed.

Fust and Schoeffer had completed their first dated Bible, of 1462, but this very
year the city of Mentz must be invaded. Like Constantinople, it was taken by
storm, and by a member too of that body, who in future times so lamented over
the effects of printing. This was the Archbishop, or Adolphus, already
mentioned. The consequences were immediate, and afford an impressive
illustration of’ that ease with which Providence accomplishes its mightiest
operations. The mind of Europe was to be roused to action, and materials
sufficient to engage all its activity must not be wanting. But this demanded
nothing more than the capture of two cities, and these two, far distant from
each other! If when Constantinople fell in the East, the Greeks, with their
manuscripts and learning, rushed into Italy, to join the already awakened
Italian scholars: Mentz also is taken, and the art of printing spreads over
Europe, with a rapidity which still excites astonishment. This city, once
deprived, by the sword of the conqueror, of those laws and privileges which
belonged to it as a member of the Rhenish Commercial Confederation; all previous
ties or obligations between master and servant were loosened, and oaths of
secrecy imposed under a former regime, were at an end. Amidst the confusion that
ensued, the operative printers felt free to accept of invitations from any
quarter. But whither will they bend their steps, or in what direction will the
art proceed? Where will it meet with its warmest welcome, and in which capital
of Europe will it be first established? The reader may anticipate that the
welcome came from Italy, but it is still more observable, that the first capital
was Rome! Yes, after the capture of Mentz, Rome and its vicinity, the city of
the future Index Expurgatorius, gave most cordial welcome. The art, while in its
cradle in Italy, must be nursed under the inquisitive and much amused eye of the
Pontiff himself!

One might very naturally have presumed, that the enemies of light and learning,
or of all innovation, would have been up in arms; and it is certainly not the
least extraordinary fact connected with the memorable invention of printing,
that no alarm was expressed,-neither at its discovery, nor its first
application, even though the very first book was the Bible. The briefmen or
copyists, it is true, were angry in prospect of losing their means of
subsistence; and in Paris they had talked of necromancy, or the black art, being
the origin of all this; but there was not a whisper of the kind in Italy.

Indeed, as to an existing establishment of any kind, anywhere, no dangerous
consequences were apprehended, by a single human being as far as we know; but
most certainly none by the reigning Pontiff himself, or even by the conclave
with all its wonted foresight. On the contrary, the invention was hailed with
joy, and its first effects were received with enthusiasm. Not one man appears to
have perceived its bearing, or once dreamt of its ultimate results. No, the
German invention was to be carried to its perfection on Italian ground.
Residents and official persons in Rome itself, are to be its first prometers,
and that under the immediate eye of Paul II., a man by no means friendly, either
to learning, or to learned men. This curious incident is rendered much more so,
by one or two others in immediate connexion with it. Even while the art was yet
a secret in Germany, the very first individual of whom we read as having longed
for its being brought to Rome, was a Cardinal, Nicholas de Cusa; the first
ardent promoter of the press in that city was a Bishop, John Andreas, the Bishop
of Aleria and Secretary to the Vatican Library. He furnished the manuscripts for
the press, prepared the editions, and added the epistles dedicatory. It had been
on the summit of a hill, twenty-eight miles east of Rome, near Subiaco, and
close by the villa once occupied by the Emperor Nero, that the first
printing-press was set up. In the monastery there, by Conrad Sweynheim and
Arnold Pannartz from Germany, an edition of Lactantius’ Institutions was
finished in the year 1465; but next year, they removed, by invitation, into the
mansion house of two knights in Rome itself. They were two brothers, Peter and
Francis de Maximis. Here it was that, aided by the purse of Andreas, the first
fount of types in the Roman character, so called ever since, was prepared; and
all other materials being ready, they commenced with such spirit and vigour,
that the Secretary of the Vatican “scarcely allowed himself time to sleep.” Let
him speak once for himself, in one of his dedications prefixed to Jerome’s
Epistles. “It was,” says he to the Pontiff, “in your days, that among other
Divine favours this blessing was bestowed on the Christian world, that every
poor scholar can purchase for himself a library for a small sum-that those
volumes which heretofore could scarce be bought for a hundred crowns may now be
procured for less than twenty, very well printed, and free from those faults
with which manuscripts used to abound-for such is the art of our printers and
letter makers, that no ancient or modern discovery is comparable to it. Surely
the German nation deserves our highest esteem for the invention of the most
useful of arts. The wish of the noble and divine Cardinal Cusa is now, in year
time, accomplished, who earnestly desired that this sacred art, which then
seemed rising in Germany, might be brought to Rome. It is my chief aim in this
epistle to let posterity know that the art of printing and type-making was
brought to Rome under Paul II.

Receive, then, the first volume of St. Jerome graciously,-and take the excellent
masters of the art, Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, Germans, under your
protection.” This Pontiff, named Peter Barbo, and a Venetian by birth, had no
sooner come into office, in 1464, than he immediately suppressed the College of
abbreviators and turned out all the clerks of the breves, regardless of the sums
they had paid for their places. And although this body was composed of the most
distinguished men of learning and genius in Rome, he chose to say they were of
no use, or unlearned! Yet now, scarcely two years after, the same man was
sauntering into the printing office, nay, it is affirmed that he visited it
“frequently and examined with admiration every branch of this new art!” Would he
have done this had he foreseen the consequences? And what must future Pontiffs
have sometimes thought or said as to his idle simplicity, or his lack of
foresight?

Meanwhile, so zealous were these men, that in five years only, or from 1467 to
1472, they had printed not fewer than twelve thousand four hundred and
seventy-five volumes, in twenty, eight editions, some of them of large size, and
all beautifully executed. Among these we find the Latin Bible of 1471. It was
the second edition with a date, the first printed in Rome, and however beautiful
in execution, well known to be by no means distinguished for its accuracy; a
circum- stance which ought, in common modesty, to have infused a forbearing or
lenient temper with regard to all future first attempts. It by no means
followed, however, although Rome had taken the lead, that it was also to furnish
a ready market for the sale of books. On the contrary, the printers now laboured
under such a load of printed folio volumes, that unless relieved, they must have
sunk altogether, as no doubt they suffered. Yet still, by the year 1476, twelve
other works had issued from the press. Among these were the “Postils,” or Totes
of Nicholas de Lyra, the first printed Commentary on the Scriptures. But the
Commentary brought them down! They had better have never touched it, as it was
by this huge work, in five folio volumes, they were nearly, if not entirely,
ruined in business. Such, however, was the fruit of only one printing office,
and in less than ten years. Ulric Han, or Gallus, had commenced printing soon
after these, the first two, and at least thirteen other printers followed; so
that, before the close of the fifteenth century, the different works published
in the Imperial city alone, had amounted to nearly one thousand!

We have been thus particular as to the capital of Italy, not forgetful of the
place it then occupied in the world, and especially afterwards, in the sixteenth
century. The facts now mentioned place that power in a point of view not
unworthy of observation ever since. Befbre long, no invention was to occasion
such perplexity to Rome and her conclave as that of printing, and yet the art
enters Italy, and the Pontiff himself, as it were, cordially sanctions the
insertion of a wedge which all Italy will drive; or, in other words, he breaks
the ground, and gives the first onset in a direction which his successors have
toiled in vain to arrest. Little did PETER BARBO. the Venetian Pontiff, know
what he was about, when wandering into the printing office for his amusement.
When examining, With a mixture of wonder and delight, the difibrent movements of
the printing machine, had he only suspected the mighty and irresistible
consequences, how soon would he have reduced the whole concern to ashes, and
discharged the thunders of the Vatican in every direction! But no, and in Rome
itself, the printers, compositors, and pressmen, shall go on issuing folio after
folio, and of works which still exist and enrich the libraries of Europe.

Independently, however, of all this, what signified Rome, when compared with the
extent to which the art had now reached? Had a single city or town waited for
the concurrence or sanction of the Pontiff? So far from it, Bambcrg in
Franconia, and Cologne, had preceded Rome, and in tell years only after the
capture of Mentz, the art had reached to upwards of thirty cities and towns,
including Venice, and Strasburg, Paris, and Antwerp; in only ten years more
ninety other places had followed the example, including Basil and Brussels,
Westminster, Oxford, and London, Geneva, Leipsic, and Vienna. With regard to
Germany, the mother country of this invention, Koberger of Nuremberg was
supposed to be the most extensive printer of the fifteenth century. Having
twenty-four presses, and one hundred men, constantly at work, besides employing
the presses of Switzerland and France, he printed at least twelve editions of
the Latin Bible. And when we turn to the native capital of the reigning Pontiff,
Venice, where printing had commenced only two years after Rome, what had ensued
in the next thirty, or before 1500? Panzer has reckoned up not fewer than one
hundred and ninety-eight printers inVENICE alone, more than sixty of whom had
commenced business before the year 1480, and altogether, by the close of the
century, they had put forth at least two thousand nine hundred and eighty
distinct publications, among which are to be found more than twenty editions of
the Latin Bible. As the roman letter was first used in Rome, so the italic was
in Venice, whereALDUS had offered a piece of gold for every typographical error
which could be detected in any of his printed pages. In short, before the close
of this century, a space of only thirty-eight years from the capture of Mentz,
the press was busy, in at least two hundred and twenty different places,
throughout Europe, and the number of printingpresses was far above a thousand!
This rapidity, rendered so much the more astonishing from the art having risen
to its perfection all at once, producing works so beautiful that they have never
been excelled, has been often remarked, though it has never yet been fully
described. To mark its swift and singular career throughout Europe with accuracy
and effect, would require a volume, and, to certain readers, it would prove one
of the deepest interest.

Such an extraordinary revival of the arts and of literature could not fail to
affect and greatly improve the external appearance of our Island. Witness those
beautiful specimens of architecture in Britain peculiar to this age, and still
regarded by so many as its appropriate glory. Or, what is more to our purpose,
witness the encouragement given to literature by such men as Humphrey Duke of
Gloucester, John Earl of Worcester, and Earl Rivers, and the deep interest taken
in William Caxton, the father of printing in our native land. With the
exception, indeed, of the Sclavonian or Northern nations, all others in Europe
had contributed to the interests of science; but in Italy, by way of eminence,
the human mind had been permitted to exhaust its power. The utmost that human
ingenuity and patient perseverance could effect had been accomplished. Works
begun in one age, had been carried on and finished by the next. Man had been
allowed to expend all his energy. The models left for his posterity to admire,
can only be feebly and imperfcctly copied, for as yet they have never been
excelled. But what then, we are now bound to inquire, what had all this goodly
array accomplished for the heartfelt refinement, the best or true enlargement of
the human mind? To see such intellectual relish, such sensibility and taste
spring up amidst general ignorance and barbarity, was the wonder of the age; but
what had all this painting, and statuary, and architecture, nay, this learning
and printing, effected, and more especially for the masses, or the people as
such?

What had they done for the emancipation of the soul from bondage, or its clear
escape from tyrannizing lust? What, for its way of access unto God, or the only
way of acceptance with Him? Absolutely nothing; nay, to speak correctly, if the
uses to which all things had been converted be observed, far worse than nothing.
Those venerated and confessedly beautiful piles throughout Europe, with all that
they contained, and in many instances sow Contain, assume a very grave and
sombre aspect, whenever it is remembered that in them we behold but the
ingenious and laborious efforts of the blind, mistaking their way to “a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” They stand before us as the
professed and united homage of thousands, in their lifetime and by their dying
testaments to that Being, before whom all external display, all outward
adorning, the magnificence of building or the melody of sounds-nay the extended
hands, the beaded knee and the uplifted eye, are as nothing without the
intelligent exercise of the inward faculties.

Now, not to speak of other nations, what in Britain had yet been done with
regard to these? Were the inward faculties cultivated, or even allowed to be so?
Was there any attention yet paid to a vernacular literature which could interest
or enlarge the general mind? So far from it, for any one man to read a fragment
of Scripture in his native tongue, though yet merely in manuscript, was sure to
expose to oppression; and for the first half of this very century, whcther in
England or Scotland, the barbarity of burning to ashes, and of severe
persecution for opinions held, had bccn practised by all the authorities. Nor
were they, in England, diverted from such cruelty till engrossed by war with
France. Then came those intestine divisions and heartburnings-the wars of the
White and Red Rose-those deadly feuds between the Houses of York and Lancaster,
when, as Fuller has expressed it, in reference to any who thought for
themselves, “the storm was their shelter.” These wars, however, so far from
affecting the hold which the Pontiff had of this country, were only so many too
evident proofs of the secret but prodigious influence of his votaries, in
murdering one man and setting up another. At the close of the long conflict,
therefore, by the downfall of Richard III.-after thirteen pitched battles-at the
expense of more than a hundred thousand men-Henry the Seventh, or the first
prince of the House of Tudor, most dutifully allied himself with the paramount
power of Rome; and began to educate his second son as an ecclesiastic,
afterwards to be known as Henry the Eighth. The father had, indeed, humbled the
Barons of England while he himself remained the devoted vassal of the Pontiff;
and, at the end of the fifteenth century, the capital of Italy was still, in its
own ancient sense, the capital of the world. At the close, then, of this brief
sketch, however imperfect, it must now be evident that to have overlooked, what
have been styled by way of courtesy, the immortal trophies of painting, music,
and song, of sculpture and architecture, nay, and of printing, for the first
seventy years of its existence, would have been doing great injustice to what
was about to follow, in the sixteenth century. Of all these sources of
attraction, that singular power which held court and council at Rome, had been
permitted to take the fullest advantage; nor was she slow to perceive the power
they possessed, to charm both the eye and the ear. Printing, however, was the
most intellectual of all the arts, and yet it will now be manifest, that
Infinite Wisdom was by no means in any haste to employ it. The orators of Greece
and Rome had been allowed to try their skill once more in improving mankind. the
classics were permitted to enjoy their second, and more splendid triumph, and
appear before the world in a richer dress than they had ever done; and since the
colloquial dialect, the tongue spoken by the people, was not the language of
what was called the Church, in any nation of Europe, and Latin alone was her
language everywhere, then let that tongue, through the press, also enjoy
unprecedented scope. Let no Pontiff, ever after, have any reason to complain
that ample justice was not first done to his system. Let him first have his fill
of letters, even to overflowing. Let him richly cnjoy the first fruits, or tho
highest place, nay, the monopoly of all the arts, and even the printing-press to
boot; and bcforc the close of the fiftcenth century, let there be issued from
the press, above a hundred editions of the LATIN Bible,-for such was the fact.
and throughout Europe, let there be hourly spoken still, more than “ten thousand
words in an unknown tongue.”

After all this, and with an especial reference to our native land, we now
ask,-could there have been a more marked approach towards the importation of
Divine Truth into our Island, in the language then spoken by the people, and
spoken still? A more impressive series of events, as introductory to the
printing of the Scriptures in our vernacular tongue? The sacred boon was about
to be conferred, and, at last, by millions of copies. To the inhabitants of
Britain, by way of eminence, and for three hundred years, were about to be
committed the oracles of God; at least the translator to be employed, was now
growing up. But before Divine Revelation is permitted to assume the shape of a
printed volume, are we not now bound to look back, and do justice to the manner
of its introduction? If there be certain points in the history of every country
at which the inhabitants would do well to pause; to us, at least, and as living
apart from the Continent in the adjoining sea, this was, or rather still is, one
of the first importance, as the commencement of a new and unprecedented epoch.
The mighty movement of the sixteenth century was at hand. The outward forms of
society had undergone a great change, and this, it is freely granted, had
produced a class of less fearful thinkers. But the tide of human activity having
been first permitted to rise so high, and accomplish so little, ought never to
have been overlooked. The distinction was about to be drawn, between mere
intellectual culture and mental vigour, or, in other words, between all that man
had been able to effect, and what the Saviour of the world was about to do, by
means so simple, mid an agency soon to be so deprecated by human authority; or
rather by only one selected individual then so generally despised, and since so
unaccountably forgotten!

Thus are we imperatively bound to distinguish between the oratory of Greece and
Rome, or the feeble language of literature, and the voice of Jehovah in His
word, when it once reached the ear or the eye of our forefathers, in their
native tongue; to distinguish as carefitlly, between the power of the press, and
the power of what issued from it; between printing, however splendid to the eye,
and what is printed, when addressed by the Almighty to the heart; between all
the wisdom of this world, and that which comcth down from above; between printed
books without exception, and “the oracles of God.”

Twenty-five years of tho sixteenth century have indeed still to pass away,
before the New Testament in English, as translated and committed to the press by
Tyndale, will be given to England and Scotland, but these years will only render
the event more striking,-an event which, even in our own day, and at such a
singularly momentous period as the present, will be found to deserve and reward
far more thoughtful consideration, not in itself merely, but especially in its
consequences, than it has ever yet, for three hundred years, at any previous
point of time, received. The accuracy of the Author in charging the Greek Church
with interdicting the use of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, having
been called in question by a highly respected correspondent, Mr. Anderson made
the following reply:- “I am obliged by your directing me to the expression in
page xxxvi, of the Introduction. I at once perceived its ambiguity, nay,
strictly speaking, its incorrectness. I have said, ‘But both had interdicted its
translation,’ &c. More accurately I should have said, ‘But the Eastern for more
than a century had, to all intents and purposes, identified herself with the
Western Church, which had now interdicted,’ &c. The Greek Church cannot be
exonerated at that period as to the Sacred Scriptures. This was what was meant,
and had it been so put, would have still more enhanced the boldness of
Wickliffe, who did not quail before this dominant Mystery of Iniquity. “I am
perfectly aware that there is a distinction to be observed between the Greek
Church in its earlier stages, and the Roman; and that, nominally, the Canon of
Scripture held by the former is nearly, if not precisely, the same with our own,
though they plead for the Divine authority of the Septuagint. At the same time,
it must ever be borne in mind that, long as the Eastern Church fought for an
independent existence, the Greeks were bent upon the traditions, as well as the
authority, of their Church, no less than the Romans on theirs; the former
esteeming the acts of the Seven Greek Synods of equal authority with the sacred
volume! But more to the point. “The Greek Church, you are aware, never recovered
the blow it received from the Latins in 1204, when Constantinople was taken. I
have, in passing, specified the Council of Tholouse; But fourteen years before,
the Eastern Church had identified herself with whatever Rome determined. Many of
her members might dissent, but this by no means has any-the slightest place in
history. Hence, in the Twelfth General, or Fourth Lateran Council, 1215,
Innocent III. crowned all former invasions of the Eastern Churches by claiming
servile obedience from all by name, and in this order: 1. Constantinople; 2 .
Alexandria; 3. Antioch; 4. Jerusalem. “Then came the Council of Tholouse in
1229; and in sixteen years after, under Innocent IV., at Lyon, in the Thirteenth
General Council, he carried trimnphantly every point. The Greek Emperor himself,
nay, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, were present, while the Pope was
deposing the Emperor of the West, and releasing his subjects from their
allegiance. Constantinople and Antioch were at this period merely fiefs of the
Roman Pontiff.

Moreover, it was here also, for the first time, that the red hat was proposed
and established, the appointed token that the Cardinals were to shed their blood
in the defenee and for the dominance of the Roman Catholic faith. “Thirty years
after that, in 1274, the Eastern Emperor is swearing to the Roman Catholic
faith, recognising the supremacy of the Pope; and the Prelates of Greece swore
allegiance by their legates.

All appeals from the Greeks were to be made to Rome. Before the Moguls on the
one hand and the Latins on the other, Constantinople was nodding to her fall in
1453. Even after the invention of printing, the Greek lihtrgies for centuries
have been printed at Venice, under Papal influence. Under the same influence,
successive Greek Synods have been convoked, e.g., at Constantinople in 1642, and
at Jerusalem in 1672. Among the acts of this last is prohibited the general
reading of the Scriptures.”

EXPLANATION OF THE FAC-SIMILES.

NO. 1.-FAC-SIMILE OF HIS PROLOGUE.

If there be a peculiar charm in contemplating the veritable origin of a great
undertaking, by many readers the following page in black letter cannot fail to
be valued. It is the more worthy of inspection as being a pleasure denied to
most of our ancestors, the edition to which it is the prologue or preface having
fallen into utter oblivion for more than three hundred years. We need only refer
to its history, pp. 46, &c., in proof that this was the page immediately
following the title, with which Tyndale commenced his Testament, in quarto, at
the press of Peter Quentell in Cologne, anno 1525.

NO. 2.-FAC-SIMILE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT IN QUARTO.

Cochlseus having artfully interrupted Tyndale at Cologne in 1525, and got into
the same printing office; in the large wood-cut of the Evangelist Matthew, the
reader has now one curious proof before him. Cochlaeus having left Cologne early
in 1526, one of the first works he engaged Quentell to print was “Ruperti in
Matthaeum,” &c., a folio volume of pages. At the end of this we find him
addressing Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, as early as 20th April, and the work was
finished at press on 12th June, 1526. But at the very commence-merit of this
folio, on p. 2, we find this identical wood-cut which Quentell had formerly used
for Tyndale’s Testament; only there, it will be observed, the block has been
pared down, two-eighths at the bottom and left side, so as to deprive it of the
white ground below, and at the side to encroach upon the angel’s wing. This was
to fit it for his folio page; and it being a work on Matthew, and this a
favourite device, he inserted it again on the title-page. Consequently, the cut,
as it is now to be seen, entire, must have been the prior publication, or in
1525. Again the same block, as thus cut down, was used by Quentell in printing
the Latin Bible of Rudelius in 1527, at the beginning of Matthew; and in the
beginning of John we have his letter Y, with which this prologue commences,
which letter in fact first led to the discovery of what this fragment is, and
where it was printed. See pp. 29, 37; 69, 72.

NO. 3.-FAC-SIMILE OF THE SMALLER NEW TESTAMENT. The first two pages of the New
Testament commenced and finished at Worms, in the same year, is here exhibited.
The only perfect copy in existence, now at Bristol, it will be observed, has
manuscript notes, neatly written on the margin by a former possessor. It is
scarcely necessary to add, that the word “married” in the second page, Tyndale
altered to “betrothed,” the term which was adopted by Beck, by Whittingham, in
1557; the Genevan translators, in 1560; and Parker in 1568. Coverdale, who had
used the first term, never altered it, at least it is in his Bible of 1550,
1553, and Cranmer had followed Coverdale. Taverner adopted espoused from
Wickliffe, the term preferred by our last revisors, though in point of
perspicuity Tyndale’s corrected term has been considered the best. See the
History, pp. 40, 46; 69, 72.


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  CHAPTER 3: 01 BOOK 1. - REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.
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BOOK 1. - REIGN OF HENRY THE EIGHTH.

1500.-1523. From The Birth Of Tyndale, The Original Translator, To His
Embarkation For The Continent, In Pursuit Of His Design. THE opening of the
sixteenth century, a period so big with interest to all Europe, has been
presented in very different lights, both by British and Continental authors.
Some have very carefully brought into one focus a number of concurrent events,
and then rested in this conclusion; that if there had never existed such men as
those with whose names we have been long familiar, all that occurred must have
taken place. These are believers in what has been styled, the “force of
circumstances,” and though there be a power which governs the world
independently of man, they rise no higher; our men of circumstances can see
nothing great in individual character. Other writers, from too fond partiality
for their native land, and scarcely looking beyond it, have assigned exclusive
renown to their own great men. An Italian, on behalf of his own Italy, assumes
the undivided glory of the revival of literature, philosophy, and the fine-arts;
and then all the refinement or enlargement of the human mind which ensued, he
traces to this one source. While a German author, in regard to the revival of
Christianity, insists that his country led the van, and by that path in which
others only followed, He will perhaps admit Wickiffe, rising in England a
century and a half before, to be the morning star; but, after this, Luther is
his sun, or great planet, and other countries have been regarded as stars,
revolving in wider or narrower circles around it, like satellites drawn after it
by its movement. The figure may be considered beautiful, and please the fancy,
but it has the disadvantage of being incorrect. It not only violates the order,
but obscures the peculiar character or glory of what actually took place. “If we
regard dates, we must then confess that neither to Switzerland nor to Germany
belongs the honour of having been first in the work, although, hitherto, only
those countries have contended for it. That honour belongs to France. This is a
fact that we are the more careful to establish, because it has possibly, till
now, been overlooked.” And at this crisis, or the opening of the sixteenth
century, as far as these countries are concerned, he has proved his assertion.
But, on the other hand, if Britain be included, we must be allowed to hold fast
by the fourteenth century; the age of Wickliffe, or the translation of the
Sacred Volume, entire, into the language of the people. From that period, to say
nothing of the New Testament separately, or of various beautiful fragments;
possessing, as we do still, about thirty copies of that Bible entire, seventeen
of which are perfect, we trace the effects, from that early age down to the days
of Tyndale. The reading of the Scriptures in manuscript, however obnoxious to
the authorities, will, in the following history, link itself most distinctly
with the more eager perusal of those first imported in print. Opposition to the
latter, will bring out evidence as to both.

All questions, however, as to priority or dates, become of inferior moment when
compared with another ascertained fact. If we look at the first quarter of the
sixteenth century, Lefevre in France, and Zuinglius in Switzerland, Luther in
Germany, and Tyndale in England, appear before the world, and to the eye of man
in this order; they were contemporaries, living in their respective countries;
Lefevre being by far the oldest of the four, and Zuinglius the youngest. But
then it is no less evident, that the first impressions of these four men were
altogether independent of each other. They were individually influenced by a
power, though unseen, equally near to them all. From that moment they were
already destined to the work assigned them, but not one of them had exchanged a
single thought with another. “Germany,” says the same author, “did not
communicate the light of truth to Switzerland, nor Switzerland to France, nor
France to England: all these lands received it from God, just as no one region
transmits the light to another, but the same orb dispenses it direct to the
earth.” We now speak of the origin, or the one great though secret cause of all.
But the secret and universal Mover being once acknowledged, upon advancing only
a single step farther, we instantly discover that a marked distinction has been
drawn, between our own separate Island, and all other countries on the adjoining
Continent. In France, but more especially in Switzerland and Germany, there was
the living voice, throughout life, of the man raised up, calling upon his
countrymen to hear and obey the truth; and so God had ordered it in England, a
century and a half before, in the case of Wickliffe. But, now, his procedure is
altogether different, and out of the usual course pursued in other lands.
Tyndale had lifted up his voice, it is true, boldly, and with some effect, but
he is withdrawn from his native land, and never to return. The island is left
behind by him, and left for good. In other countries the man lives and dies at
home. Lefevre, when above a hundred years old, weeps, because he had not felt
and displayed the courage of a martyr; Zuinglius dies in battle for his country;
and Luther, after all his noble intrepidity, expires in his sick chamber: but
Tyndale is strangled and burnt to ashes, and in a foreign land. English-men, and
Scotsmen, and Germans, are gathered together against him; yes, against the man
who enjoyed the honour of having never had a Prince for his patron or protector
all his days; men of three nations at least concur to confer upon him the crown
of martyrdom, so that, among all his contemporaries, in several points of view,
but especially as a translator of the Scriptures, he stands alone.

Whether, therefore, in England or in Scotland, the consequence has been, that,
at this early period, we have no great or powerful character to present, as
warring upon his native soil, with the darkness, whether of ignorance or error,
and leading on to victory. Our man is abroad, and is pursued, but cannot be
taken, till his work is done; while the Almighty himself appears as so much the
more in immediate contact with this country. The work is, by way of eminence,
His own. Divine truth, it is granted, is but an instrument, yet as an
instrument, it was now shown to be perfect for its purpose; and the design goes
on, till men of authority, and power, and wrath, are baffled, overcome, and
overruled. Moreover, there has been ever since a providential superintendence of
this work, an uninterrupted care, lest it should be confounded with any thing
else in this Kingdom, all which we are the more bound both to mark ourselves,
and point out to other nations. That the eyes of his countrymen have never been
turned towards Tyndale, as they ought to have been long ago, but more especially
to that work which God did by him in the midst of our land, is one of those
mysteries, which, at this moment, we do not even attempt to explain; but it will
be the object of the following pages, to trace the footsteps of our Translator,
from his origin to his end; and especially the history of that Version which he
first gave to his country.

Let any one direct attention to the first quarter of the sixteenth century; let
but the state of our native land be surveyed; and so far from there being any,
even the slightest token of the Divine Word being about to be laid open to the
common people; the political state of England, and the literary, such as it was,
but, above all, her intimate and complicated connexion with Italy, decidedly
forbade the idea of such a thing. Where, then, throughout all England, was any
individual to be expected, sufficiently bold to cherish the noble design?

Now, it was such a time as this; it was in the midst of hostile circumstances,
in the very diocese of Worcester, which from 1484 to was held by four Italians
in succession, that a man according to God’s own heart had already been found!
It was in the centre of this diocese that he was born! From about the year 1484,
this district, above all others, had fallen under the power of Italy, or, like a
ripe fig, into the mouth of the eater; but it may now be added, “about which
time William Tyndale was born.”

Great characters have not unfrequently been raised from an obscurity which has
baffled all research. So it has happened emphatically in the present instance,
Not only are the statements hitherto advanced altogether erroneous; but even
after the utmost diligence, whether in searching the Parish Registers
themselves, the Visitations in the Herald’s Office, or the manuscript stores of
our British Museum, still there hangs, at least, some degree of obscurity over
the precise year of Tyndale’s birth, as well as his immediate parentage.
Without, therefore, encumbering the page, we now confine attention to what
appears to be morally certain.

Among the picturesque beauties of Gloucestershire, there is one from the top of
Stinchcomb Hill, fifteen miles south-west of the city, which commands the
Severn, from Gloucester to Bristol; having the Vale of Berkeley, with its
venerable castle, on the left bank of that river, and the Forest of Dean,
Chepstow, and the Welsh mountains, on the right. From this point more than seven
counties are visible, and about thirty parish churches; but to every admirer of
England’s best hope, her Sacred Volume, the spot acquires by far its deepest
interest, from his having immediately below his eye, the birth-place of its
original Translator. There can be no question that Tyndale was born within the
hundred of Berkeley, whether at the village of Stinchcomb itself, or more
probably at North Nibley, two miles to the left, now also full in view. His
family, however, stands long in connexion with both villages.

Before the birth of our Translator, his progenitors, for two, if not three
descents, had lived under the western brow of Stinchcomb Hill, where, for a
limited period, they had passed under the name of Hitchins. The removal of the
family into Gloucestershire, as wall as the temporary assumption of this name.
have been ascribed to the wars between the houses of York and Lancaster, and
such may have been the occasion; but the temporary adoption of the name of
Hitchins, may just as probably have arisen from a deadly local family feud which
long agitated the very spot where they now dwelt. The violence of the civil wars
had loosened the authority of government, and this part of the country afforded
one of the most striking proofs; for though, in the contentions of York and
Lancaster, the neighbouring castle of Berkeley had no share, yet it had suffered
greatly from the disputed title to its possession, between the heir of the
Barony, and Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick. Perhaps there never existed, in
the history of England, a hereditary family contention equal to this; as it
continued to smoulder on for nearly two hundred years, from 1417, and in its
earlier stages burst out with great violence. Mutual reprisals had been made
again and again, till a final period was put to such a mode of settlement, by
the fierce contest on Nibley Green in March 1470. This is indeed the only event
by which the village itself has hitherto been distinguished. Now, the Tyndales
were then living at Stincheomb; and as tho number, on both sides, amounted to
1000 men, most of whom were gathered, in one night, from the lands of Berkeley
hundred, they must have taken part in the fray. While, therefore, the quarrel
was at once local and personal between William, the seventh Lord Berkeley, and
Thomas, Lord Lisle, then living at Wotton-under-Edge, it must be observed that
the former was on the Lancastrian side of polities, and, as tenants at least, so
were the Tyndales. The consequence was, that although Berkeley was victorious,
the encounter being fatal to Lord Lisle himself and 150 more; and although
Government was prevented from taking coguizance of the result at the time, owing
to the far greater affairs of the civil war, still afterwards Lord Berkeley had
to humbly sue for forgiveness from Edward the Fourth, the royal head of the
house of York. At all events, from whatever cause, the name of Hitchin had been
assumed by this branch of the Tyndale family, for years, as will appear
presently. The family of our Translator is to bo traced to an ancient Barony, by
tenure, which, however, in his name, became extinct so early as the beginning of
the thirteenth century. From the second son of Adam, the last Baron de Tyndale
and Langeley, in Northumberland, or Robert Tyndale, who removed southward in the
reign of Edward I., who settled at Tansover, or Tansor, near Oundle in
Northamptonshire, and was living in 1288, there gradually sprung different
families; so that, by the beginning of the sixteenth century, respectable
proprietors of the name of Tyndale were living at Tansover and Deane, in
Northamptonshire; at Hockwold, in Norfolk; at Pull Court, in Worcestershire; and
at Stinchcomb and North Nibley, in the county of Gloucester; as there were soon
afterwards at Eastwood, in the same county; at Bathford and Bristol, in
Somerset; at Mapplestead, in Essex, and, still later, at Bobbing Court, in Kent.
All these families claim descent from Robert of Tansover; and even that of our
William Tyndale has been supposed, by no inferior genealogist, to have sprung
from him. This it certainly had done, though in a very remote degree, as we
shall presently meet with ground to believe that there was some affinity between
it, and that of Tyndale of Pull Court, a branch of the house of Tansover. Of the
family resident at Stinchcomb and North Nibley, we have two distinct
genealogies. The first, under the head of Hunt’s Court, Nibley, is to be found
in the account of the hundred of Berkeley, drawn up by Mr. Smythe, the factor of
Lord Berkeley, resident in the old manor house of Nibley. The second genealogy
is founded upon a deed under the reign of Henry VIII., the best of all evidence;
while, so far as the latter goes, and the authority quoting it, there is a
perfect agreement with the former as to the descents, viz.:- 1. Hugh Tyndale,
father of John, f. of Thomas, f. of Richard, f. of Richard, f. of Thomas. 2.
Thomas, f. of Richard, f. of Richard, f. of Thomas. The first individual
mentioned by Mr. Smythe, is said to be Hugh Tyndale, alias Huchens, the name
which, for a season, the family had adopted. This is confirmed by Tyndale
himself, who, in his first publication, gave both names-“William Tyndale,
otherwise called Hitchins,”-though ever after, he used only the former. Whether
John Tyndale ever resumed the name without the alias, we have no evidence; but
to a certainty Thomas did, and, after his example, so did our Translator. “Some
of his ancestors,” says Bigland, “having taken an active part in the Lancastrian
cause, migrated to Stinch-combe, in this county; and, as it appears from the
Register of North Nibley, bore, for concealment, the name of Hutchins or
Hitchins, but resumed their own in the reign of Henry the Seventh.” f12 But why
should the neighbouring parish of North Nibley be introduced? This brings us to
the deed already mentioned, or the second genealogy, and the following fact.
“Thomas Tyndale,” the first man of that name, “died sometime before the 33rd
Henry VIII., or 1541-2, as appears by a deed of that date, to which Edward
Tyndale, of Pull Court in Worcester, was a witness.” And, still using the deed,
the writer proceeds,-“By Alicia his wife, daughter and sole heir of Thomas Hunt,
(of Hunt’s Court,) he had five sons, Richard, Williams, Henry, Thomas, and John,
and one daughter, Elizabeth.” Was this Thomas Tyndale the brother or the father
of the Martyr? Now there is no positive evidence to show that this Thomas had a
brother named William; while, on the other hand, this family of Thomas happens
to be at once the first and only one throughout this genealogy where all the
children are named. However, here is the family to which the Martyr belonged,
and from it we are able to come down, without any obscurity, nearly to the
present day. The male line was not extinct in 1791. As for the female line, from
the great-granddaughter of the above Thomas Tyndale, a descendant is now living
in the City of London-John Roberts, Esq., Temple. The year of our Translator’s
birth, could it be positively ascertained, might help us to fix his parentage;
but as nearly as it can be, it seems to harmonise with the idea of Thomas being
his father. Tyndale himself, unrelentingly persecuted, was cautious of ever
saying one word respecting his relatives. Even his younger brother John became
involved, in consequence of receiving letters from him, and not delivering them
up! But the future martyr would have borne the pelting of the pitiless storm all
alone, sooner than involve his family in distress; and more especially that
father, to whom he had been indebted for the expenses of his education. His keen
and voluminous opponent, however, Sir Thomas More, provoked his triumphant
answer; and if we knew the year of the Lord Chancellor’s birth, Tyndale himself
will help us to fix, very nearly, that of his own. In the course of his writings
there may be some other references; but we shall quote only one passage in the
defence of his translation, quite to the point.

It is now generally understood, that Sir Thomas More was born in 1480, and most
probably in the spring of that year, as this harmonises with the statement of
Erasmus, who says 1479, their year running on to the 25th of March. In 1497 More
was sent to Canterbury Hall, Christ Church, Oxford, where he studied Greek, as
well as Latin, under Linaere and Groeyn, for two years, Now, what says Tyndale,
when defending his translation of the New Testament from the Greek? “He (Sir
Thomas) rageth because I turn (greek word 9) into favour and not grace; and that
I use this word knowledge (in the sense of acknowledge) and not confession, and
this word repentance and not penance. In all which he cannot prove that I give
not the right English unto the Greek word. These things to be even so, M.

More knoweth well enough; for he understandeth the Greek, and he knew them long
ere I.” Since then Tyndale was brought up to learning from his youth, and at
Oxford afterwards, there can be no question, that this is the language of a
junior scholar, at least by four or five years, and that consequently the birth
of Tyndale must have been correspondingly later.

Now, without having observed this, it is rather a curious coincidence, that the
first gentleman, well qualified, in our own day, and most solicitous to
ascertain the point, has fixed upon the year 1484. “Probably,” he says, “Tyndale
was born about 1484.” He also maintains, not merely from Bale, Atkyns, and other
authorities, but from domestic tradition in Gloucestershire, where he himself
resided, that our Translator was born at North Nibley; then, if we are to
believe the deed already quoted, and so attested, we seem to have the entire
family of Thomas Tyndale once more brought in view. A very strong probability,
therefore, is now presented, that our first and eminent Translator, was the son
of Thomas Tyndale, by Alicia Hunt of North Nibley; that his brother John was the
youngest son by the same mother, and that Tyndale himself was born in the year
1484, 5, or 6. This would make him about the age of fifty at his death; and this
exactly corresponds with the full persuasion of old John Foxe in 1573, who calls
him middle-aged. But if the obscurity of our Translator’s parentage must still
remain, there is one curious fact, of which there is now no doubt. As the
Marquis of Berkeley had conveyed his castle and estates to Henry VII.,
descending as they did to Henry VIII., Tyndale was nurtured upon ground held
immediately by the Crown, which was afterwards farmed for Italian bishops, by
Cardinal Wolsey! And before he is driven from his native county, we shall find
him brought, by persecution at least, into remote contact with the most
conspicuous characters, who were about to figure in the great drama of European
politics.

Tyndale was brought up, from his earliest years, at Oxford, and as a scholar,
where, after a lengthened residence, he proceeded in “degrees of the schools;”
or, as Foxe has said-“By long continuance, he grew up and increased as well in
the knowledge of tongues, and other liberal arts, as especially in the knowledge
of the Scriptures; insomuch, that he read privily to certain students and
fellows in Magdalen College some parcel of divinity, instructing them in the
knowledge and truth of the Scriptures.” His education “in grammar, logic, and
philosophy, he received,” says Wood, “for the most part, in St. Mary Magdalen’s
Hall,” innnediately adjoining the College of that name. At this Hall, first
called Grammar Hall, from the attention paid to classical learning, and where
Grocyn, as well as W. Latimer and Linacre, had lectured, the members stood, as
they do now, on the same footing with those of the other Colleges; their course
of study, tuition, length of residence, examination, and degrees, being
precisely the same as the rest of the University. In those early days, however,
these Halls, having no exhibitions nor endowments for scholarships, many of the
students lived at their own charge; and since no man has ever once been
mentioned as patronislng Tyndale, throughout his whole life, the presumption is,
that his expenses while at College must have been defrayed by his parents.
Tyndale’s zeal, however, had at last exceeded the endurance of his
contemporaries, and exposed him to some danger. There is no ground for supposing
that he was expelled; “but,” says Foxe, “spying his time, he removed from Oxford
to the University of Cambridge, where he likewise made his abode a certain
space,” and, it has been vaguely conjectured, took a degree. At all events, his
residence in that city had terminated by the year 1519.

Possessed of such an education as he must have then acquired, as well as of such
an ardour to improve, we cannot here disturb the narrative by any discussion as
to its merits or extent. Sufficient evidence of both will occur in the following
pages. We only remark here, that the incontrovertible proof of Tyndale’s
erudition, whether as a Greek or Hebrew scholar, is to be found in the present
version of our Bible, as read by millions. “The circumstance of its being a
revision five times derived, is an advantage altogether peculiar to itself, and
doubly valuable from that clrcumstance.’’ While, notwithstanding this five-fold
recension of the Greek and Hebrew original, large portions remained untouched,
or verbally as the Translator first gave them to his country. It is, indeed,
extraordinary that so many of Tyndale’s correct and happy renderings should have
been left to adorn our version, while the terms substituted, in other instances,
still leave to hhn the palm of scholarship. When the incorrect, not to say
injurious, sense, in which certain terms had been long employed, is duly
considered, the substitution of charity for love, as Tyndale translated, of
grace for favour, and church for congregation, certainly cannot be adduced as
proofs of superior attainment in the original Greek. In a historical point of
view, however, and independently of his merits as a translator, it would be of
some importance if we could ascertain what had been the state of his mind, even
before leaving the University, in reference to that great system of impiety and
oppression, which, single handed, he was afterwards to assail with such decisive
effect. Had he already seen through its character? Was he even already engaged
in marking it, as he never after ceased to do? If he was, this would go a great
way in proving him to have been an instrument raised up by God, as independently
of Luther, as were Lefevre and Zuinglius. His lectures at Oxford, which must
have been about 1517, if not earlier, and his being obliged to desist, certainly
say as much as that he was in advance of the age, but how far, from this source,
we have no intimation. If Tyndale himself would afterwards give us but one hint,
we could not desire better evidence. By those, however, who are familiar with
his writings, it must have been observed that he very seldom has introduced his
own personal feelings, with any precision as to dates, not caring to establish
himself, in point of priority, to any man: and yet there is one passage, with
which he casually concludes his Exposition of the Epistle of John, which seems
to glance as far back as the year 1518, if not to some time before it. He had
been exposing the policy of the hierarchy, in raising the cry of sedition or
insurrection, in the days of Wickliffe,-“And so,” he adds, “the hypocrites say
now likewise, that God’s Word causeth insurrection; but ye shall see shortly
that these hypocrites themselves, after their old wont and ensamples, in
quenching the truth that uttereth their juggling, shall cause all realms
Christian to rise one against another, and some against themselves.

Ye shall see, then, run out, before the year come about, that which they have
been in brewing, as I have marked, above this DOZEN years. This much have I
said, because of them that deceive you, to give you an occasion to judge the
spirits.”

Now, this language was published in September 1531; but “above a dozen of
years,” brings us back to 1518, if not to an earlier period. We leave the reader
to form his own conclusion; but, at all events, such a state of mind was in
perfect consonance with the course which Tyndale so immediately pursued, with
all his characteristic vigour.

Returning to his native county, Tyndale was soon actively engaged, and so
continued to be, from Stinchcomb Hill down to Bristol, to the close of 1522. As
the place where he lived, only eight miles south from that of his birth, is well
known; nay, and the house under whose roof he spent his best and zealous
exertions, in discussing and defending the Word of God, is happily still in
existence,-to all such as may take an interest in the following history, there
is not a more heart-stirring spot in all England. The Halls of our Colleges,
wherever they stand, have never given birth to a design, so vitally important in
its origin, so fraught with untold benefit to millions, and now so extensive in
its range, as that which ripened into a fixed and invincible purpose, in the
Dining Hall of Little Sodbury Manor House.

It was in this house that Tyndale resided for about two years, as a tutor; and
adjoining to it behind, there still stands, with its two ancient yew trees
before the door, the little Church of St. Adeline, where of course the family
and tenants attended. Foxe has said of Tyndale, while at Antwerp, that when he
“read the Scriptures, he proceeded so fruitfully, sweetly, and gently, much like
unto the writing of John the Evangelist,, that it was a heavenly comfort to the
audience to hear him;” and so it may have been, under some of his earliest
efforts, within the walls of this diminutive and unpretending place of worship.
At all events, let it be observed, when his voice was first heard, Luthcr had
not yet been denounced even by Leo X. at Rome, much less by Cardinal Wolsey in
England. “About A.D. 1520,” we are informed, that “William Tyndale used often to
preach in Bristol.” This he did on the great Green, sometimes called the
Sanctuary, or St. Austin’s Green. “He was at that time resident with Sir John
Walsh at Little Sodbury, as tutor to his children, and on Sundays he preached at
the towns and parishes in the neighbourhood, and frequently he had debates with
the Abbots and other clergy who frequented the house.” f15 This small parish,
with its manor house and inmates, thus become objects of no little interest; and
for the sake not of Tyndale only, but especially of the design there formed, as
well as of the circumstances that led to it, we must not refrain from giving
some farther particulars. In this part of Gloucestershire there are three
contiguous parishes of the same name-Old Sodbury, Chipping, i.e. Market Sodbury,
and the third, named Little Sodbury, by way of distinction. This last,
consisting of about 900 acres, chiefly in pasture, lies on the side of Sodbury
hill, and extends to its summit. On the edge of this hill is a strong Roman camp
of an oblong square, where first Queen Margaret, and then Edward IV. in pursuit,
had rested before the battle of Tewkesbury. Immediately below this camp, on the
side of the hill fronting south-westward, stands the Manor House, an ancient
building, from which there is a beautiful and extensive prospect over the vale,
as far as the Bristol Channel. Four clumps of large trees growing above, objects
very observable, are taken notice of through a large extent of country on that
side of the hills. In the sketch already given, one of these clumps may be seen
on the left, but a nearer view will give a better idea of the house itself.

Inhabited by different families from the thirteenth century, it was now in
possession of Sir John Walsh, Knight, as inherited from his father. I Iappening
to have been Champion to Henry VIII. on certain occasions, and to please his
royal master, the heir of Little Sodbury had been knighted, and received from
him in addition, the Manor House of Old Sodbury, then in the gift of the Crown.
Intimate as Walsh had been, both with the young king and the court, and now
given to hospitality, his table was the resort, not only of the neighbouring
gentry, but of the Abbots and other dignified ecclesiastics, swarming around
him. Thus it was, that, whether in company, or alone with the family, where he
was treated as a friend, Tyndale enjoyed one of the best opportunities for
becoming intimately acquainted with the existing state of things, whether civil,
or ecclesiastical so called. Sir John had married Anne Poyntz, (the daughter of
Sir Robert Poyntz, of Iron Acton, by Margaret, daughter of Antony, Earl Rivers,
after whom her brother was named,) a lady who took as warm an interest as her
husband in the discussions at their table. “ This gentleman,” says Foxe, “as he
kept a good ordinary commonly at his table, there resorted to him many times,
sundry Abbots, Deans, Archdeacons, with divers other doctors and great beneficed
men; who there, together with Master Tyndale sitting at the same table, did use,
many times, to enter into communication. Then Tyndale, as he was learned and
well practised in God’s matters, so he spared not to show unto them simply and
plainly his judgment; and when they at any time did vary from, his opinions, he
would show them in the book, and lay before them the manifest places of the
Scriptures, to confute their errors, and confirm his sayings.” It was not long,
however, before Sir John and his lady had been invited to a banquet given by
these great Doctors. There they talked at will and pleasure, uttering their
blindness and ignorance without any resistance or gainsaying. On returning home,
both Sir John and his lady began to reason with Tyndale respecting those
subjects of which the priests had talked at their banquet; one decided proof,
that some considerable impression had been made. Tyndale firmly maintained the
truth, and exposed their false opinions. “Well,” said Lady Walsh,” there was
such a doctor there as may dispend a hundred pounds, and another two hundred,
and another three hundred pounds: and what! were it reason, think you, that we
should believe you before them?” To this, Tyndale at the moment gave no reply,
and, for some time after, said but little on such subjects.

He was at that moment busy with a translation from Erasmus of his “Enchiridion
Militis Christiani,” or Christian Soldier’s Manual, the second edition of which,
with a long and pungent preface, had appeared at Basil, in August 1518. Once
finished, Tyndale presented the book to Sir John and his lady. “After they had
read,” says Foxe, “and well perused the same, the doctorly prelates were no more
so often invited to the house, neither had they the cheer and countenance when
they came, which before they had.” This they marked, and supposing the change to
have arisen from Tyndale’s influence, they refrained, and at last utterly
withdrew. They had grown weary of our Translator’s doctrine, and now bore a
secret grudge in their hearts against him. A crisis was evidently approaching.
The priests of the country, clustering together, began to storm at ale-houses
and other places; and alt with one consent, against one man. Fortunately the
tutor has left on record his own reflections as to this period of his life. “A
thousand books,” says he, “had they lever (rather) to be put forth against their
abominable doings and doctrine, than that the Scripture should come to light,
For as long as they may keep that down, they will so darken the right way with
the mist of their sophistry, and so tangle them that either rebuke or despise
their abominations, with arguments of philosophy, and with worldly similitudes,
and apparent reasons of natural wisdom; and with wresting the Scriptures unto
their own purpose, clean contrary unto the process, order, and meaning of the
text; and so delude them in descanting upon it with allegories; and amaze them,
expounding it in many senses before the unlearned lay people, (when it hath but
one simple literal sense, whose light the owls cannot abide,) that though thou
feel in thine heart, and art sure, how that all is false that they say, yet
couldst thou not solve their subtile riddles. “Which thing only moved me to
translate the New Testament. Because I had perceived by experience, how that it
was impossible to establish the lay people in any truth, except the Scripture
were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother tongue, that they might see
the process, order, and meaning of the text: for else, whatsoever truth is
taught them, these enemies of all truth quench it again.”

Accordingly, “not long after this,” says John Foxe, “there was a sitting of the
(Italian) Bishop’s Chancellor appointed, and warning was given to the Priests to
appear, amongst whom Master Tyndale was also warned to be there. Whether he had
any misdoubt by their threatenings, or knowledge given him that they would lay
some things to his charge, is uncertain; but certain this is, as he himself
declared, that he doubted their privy accusations; so that he, by the way, in
going thitherward, cried in his mind heartily to God, to give him strength to
stand fast in the truth of his word.” But let us hear Tyndale’s own expressions.
“When I was so turmoiled in the country where I was, that I could no longer
dwell there, the process whereof were too long here to rehearse, I this-wise
thought in myself,-this I suffer, because the priests of the country be
unlearned, as God knoweth, there are a full ignorant sort, which have seen no
more Latin than that they read ia their Portesses and Missals, which yet many of
them can scarcely read. And therefore, because they are thus unlearned, thought
I, when they come together to the ale-house, which is their preaching place,
they affirm that my sayings are heresy.

Besides they add to, of their own heads, that which I never spake, as the manner
is, and accused me secretly to the Chancellor, and other the Bishop’s Officers.
When I came before the Chancellor, he threatened me grievously, and reviled me,
and rated me as though I had been a dog; and laid to my charge whereof there
could be none accuser brought forth, as their manner is not to bring forth the
accuser; and yet, all the Priests of the country were there the same day.”

Tyndale’s future footsteps will frequently discover him to have been a man, who,
in the history of his country, stood literally alone; and here, it should seem,
this peculiar feature had already begun to discover itself. As standing before
the Chancellor of any diocese, we read of no second individual, in whose
appearance there were so many curious coincidences. the reader will now
recollect the thoroughly Italianised character of the district, and the
questions very naturally present themselves -Who was this Chancellor? Who the
Cardinal that had recently appointed him? Who was the nonresident Italian
Bishop? nay, and who the reigning Pontiff himself, the fountain of all this
oppressive authority? The Pontiff was Adrian VI., who, to appease Wolsey, had
recently made him “Legate a latere” for life; the Bishop was Julio di Medici,
the future Clement VII., and who, without even visiting England, had been made
Bishop of Worcester by Leo X. The man who had lately appointed the Chancellor to
the diocese was Wolsey himself, who farmed the whole district for his Italian
brother; and the Chancellor, who had raised himself to this unenviable notoriety
by so treating the man destined by Divine Providence to overcome all above him,
as far as Rome itself was concerned, was a creature of the English Cardinal, a
Dr. Thomas Parker, who lived to know more of Tyndale’s power and talents, than
he then could comprehend. Had such men only known who was then within the
Chancellor’s grasp, with what eager joy would they have put an end to all his
noble intentions!

Escaping, however, out of Parker’s hands, the Tutor departed homeward, and once
more entered the hospitable abode of Little Sodbury, but more than ever firmly
resolved. It is some alleviation to find that every man in the country was not
of the same opinion with the reigning Chancellor. “Not far off,” continues Foxe,
“there dwelt a certain doctor, that had been an old chancellor before to a
bishop, who had been of old familiar acquaintance with Master Tyndale, and also
favoured him well. To him Tyndale went and opened his mind on divers questions
of the Scripture, for to him he durst be bold to disclose his heart. To whom the
doctor said-‘Do you not know that the Pope is very Antichrist, whom the
Scripture speaketh of? But beware what you say; for if you shall be perceived to
be of that opinion, it will cost you your life;’ adding, ‘I have been an officer
of his; but I have given it up, and defy him and all his works.” f17 It was not
long after this that Tyndale, happening to be in the company of a reputed
learned divine, and in conversation having brought him to a point, from which
there was no escape, he broke out with this exclamation, “We were better to be
without God’s laws, than the Pope’s!” This was an ebullition in perfect harmony
with the state of the country at the moment, but it was more than the piety of
Tyndale could bear. “I defy the Pope,” said he, in reply, “and all his laws; and
if God spare my life, ere many years, I will cause a boy that driveth the
plough, to know more of the Scripture than you do!” It was one of those
significant bursts of zeal, which will sometimes escape from a great and
determined mind, and meant even more than met the ear.

After this, as might have been anticipated, the murmuring of the priests
increased more and more. Such language must have flown over the country, as on
the wings of the wind. Tyndale, they insisted, was “a heretic in sophistry, a
heretic in logic, and now also a heretic in divinity.” To this they added that
“he bare himself bold of the gentlemen there in that country, but that,
notwithstanding, he should be otherwise spoken to.”

It was now evident that Tyndale could no longer remain, with safety, in the
county of Gloucester, or within the Italian diocese of Worcester. He has
therefore been represented, by Foxe, as thus addressing his Master:-“ Sir, I
perceive that I shall not be suffered to tarry long here in this country,
neither shall you be able, though you would, to keep me out of the hands of the
spirituality; and also what displeasure might grow thereby to you by keeping me,
God knoweth; for the which I should be right sorry.”

Searching about, therefore, not so much for an avenue to escape, as for some
convenient place to accomplish the determined purpose of his heart, by
translating the Scriptures, he now actually first thought of Tunstal, Bishop of
London, one of the future burners of his New Testament! From Sir John Walsh’s
intimate knowledge of the Court, there was no difficulty in procuring the best
access to him; and so Tyndale must bid farewell for ever to his interesting
abode on Sodbury Hill. It was his first and last, or only attempt throughout
life to procure a Patron, and he will, himself, now describe his own movements.
“The Bishop of London came to my remembrance, whom Erasmus praiseth exceedingly,
among other, in his Annotations on the New Testament, for his great; learning.
Then, thought I, if I might; come to this man’s service I were happy. And so I
gat me to London, and through the acquaintance of my master came to Sir Harry
Gilford, the King’s Grace’s Comptroller, and brought him an Oration of
Isocrates, which I had translated out of Greek into English, to speak unto my
Lord of London for me. This he also did, as he showed me, and willed me to write
an epistle to my lord, and to go to him myself, which I also did, and delivered
my epistle to a servant of his own, one William Hebil-thwayte, a man of mine old
acquaintance. But God saw that I was beguiled, and that that counsel was not the
next way to my purpose. And therefore lte gat me no favour in my lord’s sight.
Whereupon my lord answered me-‘his house was full, he had more than he could
well find, and advised me to seek m London, where, he said, I could not lack a
service’” This memorable interview between these two individuals, happened about
three or four months after Tunstal’s consecration as Bishop of London; and there
was a singular propriety in Tyndale having first called upon this man, above all
others, previous to his going abroad. All parties agree as to Tunstal’s
attainments in learning-the specimen presented to him was a translation from the
Greek of Isocrates into English; and, after receiving it, the Bishop
replied,-“Seek in London, where you cannot lack a service.” If there was any
meaning in the words employed, it was this,-“You are a competent translator from
Greek into English.” Tyndale, it is true, was now evidently led, like a blind
man, by a way that he knew not; but it certainly was something, to have received
such an answer or attestation to his scholarship from such a man, before he
proceeded farther with his intended work. It was equal to the Bishop having
said, Go forward-though, if Tunstal had only divined what was the main object in
view, no such answer had been returned; nay, an authoritative stop would have
been put to all farther progress.

Meanwhile, and on the contrary, by the advice, and therefore the authority, of
the Bishop of London himself, Tyndale was now authorised to seek for some
situation throughout the metropolis. No ecclesiastic, however, afforded him any
permanent abode; but, in a little time, and for fully the last six months of
this year, namely, 1523, he was most kindly entertained under the roof of Mr.
Humphrie Munmouth, a wealthy citizen, and future Alderman of London, when he
used to preach at St. Dunstan’s in the West, Fleet Street. Although he sought in
vain for a situation, “almost a year,” yet the residence itself was not without
its value in future life. It had a similar effect upon him, which a visit to
Rome had upon some others, and tended not only to ground him more firmly in his
views of Divine truth, but to inflame his zeal for translating the Scriptures,
He had opportunity for more closely observing many things which he had never
seen before; and, in reference to the scene around him, witness his own
language, in 1530:- “And so in London I abode almost a year, and marked the
conrse of the world, and heard our preachers, and beheld the pomp of our
Prelates, and how busy they were, as they yet are, to set peace and unity in the
world; though it be not possible for them that walk in darkness to continue long
in peace; and saw things whereof I defer to speak at this time; and understood,
at the last, not only that there was no room in my Lord of London’s palace to
translate the New Testament; but also, that there was no place to do it, in all
England, as experience doth now openly declare.” f18 But before that Tyndale
embarked for the Continent, was there no other step already suggested, which
might, operate in direct hostility to such a design as that which he
contemplated? Yes, there was, and in this very year, one of the most powerful
and magnificent character. It may be regarded as the climax in the triumph of
literature, or as a phalanx in opposition. The attempt too is the more worthy of
notice, since it has often been loosely regarded as the only redeeming trait in
Wolsey’s character.

We refer to the establishment of Cardinal College, Oxford. “ He patronised
letters,” it has been said, “ and may be classed among the benefactors of the
human mind.” But even in the cultivation of letters, we must observe the end in
view; and in order effectually to secure us against all unfair or even harsh
conclusions, we shall take the explanation from the best of all authorities; or
from the devoted friend of Wolsey, the Confessor of Henry VIII. and his Almoner,
John Longland, the Bishop of Lincoln. Immediately after explaining Wolsey’s
whole intentions to the King, he wrote to the Cardinal on tho 5th of January,
1523, to say how he sped; and this letter, yet extant, divulges the secret
purpose of the proposed institution, which was no other than a systematic
attempt, under the guise of learning, to retain the human mind in bondage; to
prevent, if possible, the entrance of Divine truth into England, and thus far
retard its progress in Europe. There was first to be a sermon preached before
the King against Luther and Lutheran books, and their introduction into the
kingdom; then there was to be a “secret search in divers places, and that at one
time;” then a proclamation was to be made, giving notice to all having heretical
books to bring them in under pain of the greater excommunication, and should any
“contumaciously persist in their contumacy, then to pursue them by the law (ad
ignem) to the fire.” All this was called the “ quarrel of God;” and the
necessity of maintaining it urged on the King, “as the World is marvellously
bent against us, which only His Grace and the Cardinal can remedy.” Then
followed, as part of the scheme, the new College, and “the notable Lectures
which should be there, and the exercitations of learning, and that the Students
should be limited by the Readers to the same; likewise in the exposition of the
Bible.” All these purposes were literally fulfilled, the secret search, the
sermon, the books found and burnt; but then, it is a most remarkable fact, that
all these we shall see deferred-nay, deferred for exactly three years, or till
immediately after Tyndale’s New Testaments had arrived in the country!

Wolsey, it is true, will have quite enough to divert him all the time, but it
was just as if Providence had intended that the writings of no human being
should have the precedence, but that His own Word, being so treated, should thus
enjoy the distinction of exciting the general commotion of 1526. The burning of
the New Testament was to be the head and front of their offending.

We have now done with Tyndale upon English ground; and, disappointed of
employment, he also was done with “marking the pomp of our Prelates,” or hearing
the whole fraternity “boast of their high authority.” But certainly when he was
to be seen walking up Fleet Street, from the hospitable abode of Mr. Humphrie
Munmouth, to preach at St. Dunstan’s in the West, nothing in this world could
have been more improbable, than that in a short time he was so to agitate the
whole hierarchy of England, and the city which he was now about to leave for
ever!

Here then, and before he embarks, let us pause for a moment. The copies of the
Sacred Scriptures in the English tongue, now far exceed in number, not only that
of every other nation, but they have been supposed to surpass the number in all
other languages when put together! With us they are familiarly enumerated by
millions, and myriads of our countrymen have lived in peace, and died in joy,
full of the genuine consolation thus imparted! As far, therefore, as human
agency was employed, it becomes a sacred duty to trace this, the highest favour
of Heaven, up to its source; and certainly it is not a little singular, at the
distance of nearly three hundred and twenty years, that we should be able to
contemplate the origin of the whole, within the bosom of one disappointed and
neglected, if not despised individual! There was, indeed, one young man, his own
convert, with whom he may have communed on the subject, John Fryth, whether in
London, which is most probable, or at Cambridge, but he was not to accompany
him; no, nor even an amanuensis. Solitary and alone he went out, like the
patriarch of old, “not knowing whither he went.” By faith, it may be truly said,
he left his native country, not unmindful of it, but, on the contrary, loaded
with a sense of genuine pity for its inhabitants, from the king downward.

TYNDALE LEAVES ENGLAND 1524., 1525. The New Testament In English Preparing By
Tyndale, For Circulation In His Native Land; And In Two Editions From The Press
By The Close Of 1525.

WE are now entering upon a war of opinion, and one of paramount importance to
this kingdom, which, as far as our first translator of the Sacred Volume was
concerned, lasted, without one moment’s interruption, for twelve years. It must
appear singular, that no detail of such a contest, ending as it did, has ever
been written. Such, however, being the fact, and such the variety of character,
as well as the strange incidents involved in the struggle, without keeping
rigidly to our narrative, year by year, as the subject never has been, so it
never can be understood.

Tyndale, though strongly attached to his native country, having now fully
resolved on going abroad, Munmouth “helped him over the sea.” We know that he
sailed direct for Hamburg, and the question is, whether he did not there remain
for more than a year. At all events, a period of about fifteen months, or rather
two years, has to be accounted for, from January 1524; but so much obscurity has
rested upon it, owing to the mere affirmations, both of friends and foes, that
it becomes necessary to call for proof, and to proceed no farther than it will
carry us.

Two general assertions have been hazarded, and too long received. One is, that,
upon leaving his native land, Tyndale went directly to Luther, and completed his
translation in confederacy with him. The other is, that he dwelt at Wittenberg
while thus engaged. This idea of Tyndale’s immediate and intimate confederacy
with Luther, and his dependence upon him, originally imported from abroad,
through men who were, at the moment, under the torture of examination in
England, has been repeated from Sir Thomas More and John Cochlaeus, two
determined enemies, not to say John Foxe, a decided friend, down to Herbert
Marsh in our own day; but it is more than time that it should be exploded.
Considering that these are nothing more than assertions, it is strange that they
should have prevailed with any, after Tyndale’s own language to Sir Thomas More,
who had asserted that our Translator was with Luther in Wittenberg, where he
wrote his marginal glosses; and again that “the confederacy between Luther and
him is a thing well known.” To this, Tyndale, in his “Answer,” replies with
emphasis, “When he saith, Tyndale was confederate with Luther, that is not
truth;” but, as a man traduced, gives his adversary no farther positive
information. But even independently of this pointed denial, was he even resident
in Wittenberg, nay, in any part of Saxony, during this period? If not, then both
assertions fall to the ground. That he saw and conversed with Luther at some
period, may be supposed, though we have not a shadow of proof; but that he had
done either, or even set his foot in Saxony, before the publication of his New
Testament, will very soon appear to have been impossible, in the nature of
things. On the contrary, if we are to depend on the distinctly recorded
testimony of the generous man with whom he resided in London; delivered, too, in
very peculiar, because responsible, circumstances, and involving pecuniary
transactions with Tyndale himself, which account for his support, a different
place of residence must be assigned to him. On the 14th of May, 1528, Munmouth
being sent for by Sir T. More, was the same day committed to the Tower. His
petition for release, on the 19th, is addressed to Wolsey and the King’s
Council. Now, in this we have the following evidence, that Munmouth heard
Tyndale preach four years and a half and more before at St. Dunstan’s, London;
that on Tunstal’s refusal to employ him, he took him into his house for half a
year; that “when he made his exchange to Hamburg,” he paid him ten pounds; that
within a year after he sent from Hamburg for other ten pounds which he had left
in his hands, and that thither he had sent it to him. From this, and what
follows, it is evident, he remained in Hamburg throughout 1524, and that he had
means of support for even a longer period.

We presume it will now be admitted, that the residence of Tyndale at Wittenberg
has been nothing more than an assumption, serving powerfully, at the moment, the
purpose of Sir Thomas More, his calumniator. The evidence, as yet, is distinctly
in favour of Hamburg, and as for “confederacy with Luther,” that has been
pointedly denied. More had affirmed that Tyndale “was with Luther in
Wittenberg;” and Tyndale replies, “that is not truth.” Indeed, these words are
his emphatic answer to all that his opponent had either of malicious purpose, or
by mistake, asserted in both of his sentences, already quoted.

We, however, now know the movements of Luther better than did Sir Thomas More;
and it may be worth while to enquire how he was engaged at the moment, and
throughout the greater part of this year. Most unfortunately he had just fallen
out violently with Carlostadt, and taken that step which has so often been
lamented since, as a memorable instance of human imbecility. It only requires to
be observed, that the time of Tyndale’s sailing from London, and that of
Carlostadt leaving Wittenberg, were simultaneous, or the beginning of 1524. The
vexatious controversy respecting the Lord’s Supper had already commenced. Luther
was posting after Carlostadt, and, by the month of August, at Jena, they were
pledged antagonists, after which the latter had to seek refuge in Strasburg. The
approach of any man to Luther, at this period, who was not of his opinion, would
have been fatal to any advice or confederacy with him. How, as Tyndale was not
at present, nor indeed ever was, a Lutheran, and since, as a scholar, he needed
neither assistance nor advice, from a man with whom he could have conversed only
through the medium of Latin; to send him into Saxony for such purposes, and at
such a time, was equally absurd. On the contrary, if there were strong reasons
for seeking no such intercourse at this moment; there were stronger still,
gathered by Tyndale himself from the state of England, as already described,
whether in Gloucestershire or in London, for his immediately sitting down to his
work; and, instead of hastening away from Hamburg into Saxony, if we at once
assume that Tyndale remained in this city throughout 1524, as Munmouth has told
us, and then, in 1525, was first at Cologne, and then at Worms; we shall leave
the reader to judge, as he proceeds, whether a day was left for visiting other
places, except such as lay in his way, and more especially one so far distant as
the usual abode of Martin Luther. To return, therefore, to our history. Tyndale
had now entered, with great vigor, on two of the most important years of his
existence; and if, when his productions are once discovered in England, it shall
come out in evidence, that, in that time, he had translated and printed first an
edition of the gospel of Matthew, then another of the gospel of Mark, with two
editions of the New Testament; this will demonstrate, that neither his
residence, nor his labours, have ever yet been understood. At the moment of
Tyndale’s arrival in Hamburg, it is not unworthy of remark, that he had found
the city in a state of great excitement, but, at the same time, one by no means
unfavourable to the commencement of his design. Nor was this excitement of
recent origin. In 1523, the burghers had already agreed, in a body, to oppose
the usurpations, the taxes, and the excommunications of the Chapter, while they
were divided in their opinions respecting points of belief and ceremonies. One
party, and that supported by the Senate, were for reforming both, A Franciscan
friar, named Kempe, newly come from Rostoc, bad been requested to preach the
gospel in its purity, and was now so engaged; with better success than Henry
Zuphten, who had been burnt alive at Mehldorf, by a decree of the official at
Hamburg. But if Tyndale, in 1524, abode in this city, had he the benefit of any
assistance, or did he meet with an amanuensis there? With regard to the first
enquiry, he himself informs us, that he “had no man to counterfeit (i.e.
imitate), neither was holpen with English of any that had interpreted the same,
or such like thing in the Scripture before time.” As for an amanuensis, and one
who was also able to compare the text with him when translated; he seems to have
had first one, and then another, who remained in his service for a considerable
time. The first of these, we cannot name, though hc was highly esteemed by our
translator; the second was William Roye, a friar observant of the Franciscan
order at Greenwich, “a man,” says Tyndale, in his “Parable of the Wicked
Mammon,” “somewhat crafty, when he cometh unto new acquaintance, and before he
be thorough known. Nevertheless, I suffered all things till that was ended,
which I could not do alone without one, both to write, and to help me to compare
the texts together. When that was ended, I took my leave, and bade him farewell
for our two lives, and, as men say, a day longer. After we were departed, he
went to Argentine (Strasburg). A year after that came one Jerome, a brother of
Greenwich also, through Worms to Argentine-which Jerome, I warned of Roye’s
boldness, and exhorted him to beware of him, and to walk quietly, and with all
patience and long suffering, according as we have Christ and his apostles for an
ensample, which thing he also promised me.” With regard to the progress actually
made during this year, or how much Tyndale may, if not must, have accomplished
in Hamburg, there has never been any distinct information. This, however, may be
accounted for from the fact never having been before known, that previously to
the publication of his New Testament; whether in quarto, with glosses, or in
octavo, without them; Tyndale had printed an edition of Matthew, as well as of
Mark, by themselves, although not a single copy has ever yet been identified. In
the eager search for the Scriptures, with a view to their being destroyed, they
may have been sometimes given up, to save a Testament; but there can be no
question that we have here before us Tyndale’s earliest effort for the benefit
of his country.

After John Foxe had printed his loose statement in his Acts and Monuments, when
he came to publish Tyndale’s works, in 1573, he glances at this fact, though no
attention has ever been paid to his words. In his life of Fryth, talking no more
of Saxony, he has said-“William Tyndale first placed himself in Germany, and
there did first translate the Gospel of St. Matthew into English, and after, the
whole New Testament,” &c. His mention of Matthew, by itself, certainly appears
to imply some distinction; but the real state of the case was this-that Tyndale
not only “first translated Matthew,” but printed it, and the Gospel of Mark
also. Both of these we shall find to be most bitterly denounced in the beginning
of 1527, after having been read; and as a publication, not only separate from
the New Testament with its prologue, but as printed previously.

It is worthy of notice, that Munmouth, in his memorial to Wolsey and the
Council, who had been in possession of the earliest New Testament, distinctly
confesses that he had “received a little treatise,” which Tyndale had sent to
him, “when he sent for his money,” in 1524. This, at least, shows that he had
been busily engaged in the city where he had first landed. But if this was not
the well-known tract, which was ere long to produce such effect, entitled, the
“Supplication of Beggars,” by Mr. Fish, it may have been these gospels, or one
of them.

We do not, however, farther anticipate. The fact of both gospels having been
printed, and styled emphatically, “the first print,” is certain; and we simply
add, that the place where they were printed, we have been led to believe, must
have been Hamburg. Of this there will be farther evidence. Were it now possible
to relate, in full detail, the history of the printing of the two first editions
of our New Testament in the English language, it would unquestionably form one
of the most striking illustrations of the superintending providence of God over
his own Word; and only exceeded by its introduction into England and Scotland,
immediately after being printed. The account, however, even as far as it may be
traced, cannot fail to interest all those who desire to mark the hand of the
Supreme Being, in by far the greatest gift which He has ever bestowed on
Britain.

It has been usual to represent the first edition of Tyndale’s Blew Testament as
printed at Antwerp in the year 1526, and so dismiss the subject. We shall have
occasion to show that, though not printed under his eye, this was the third
edition; and that the history of the two first editions, printed in 1525, by
Tyndale himself, elsewhere, has never yet been properly understood.

Indeed, so defective have the statements hitherto been, that although two
editions were distinctly denounced, both by the Bishop of London and the
Archbishop of Canterbury, in 1526; no one had thought, till very lately, of
either enquiring after the missing book, or even allowing the quarto edition
with glosses, to have then existed. Every particular circumstance, therefore,
which can be properly authenticated, respecting these two first productions of
Tyndale’s own hand, the source of so many subsequent editions both abroad and at
home, ought to be recorded; and more especially, since so diligent was the
“secret search” after them, and so frequent the flames which consumed them,
that, of the octavo impression, only one copy of the sacred text remains
complete, one other imperfect, and of the quarto, nothing more than a venerable
fragment. This last, however, happily includes his original prologue entire, or
the very first sheets thrown off at the Cologne press.

We proceed, therefore, to give a general statement of the movements of Tyndale,
explaining it more fully, and confirming it afterwards. Having left the place of
his abode, which we have assumed to be Hamburg, he arrived at Cologne on the
Rhine, in the end of April or beginning of May 1525, perhaps earlier,
accompanied by his amanuensis William Roye. He commenced his labours by
committing to the press his New Testament, in the form of a quarto volume, Not
only was the entire sacred text then translated, but his prologue, extending to
fourteen pages, was composed before he began to print. This appears to be
evident, not merely from the language of the prologue itself, but from its
commencing with sign A ij, and the letters running on regularly through the
sacred text. The printers, however, had only proceeded as far as the tenth
sheet, or letter K, when an alarm was raised, the authorities of the place
informed, and the work interdicted. Tyndale and Roye contrived to secure the
sheets printed off, and sailing up the Rhine to Worms, where much greater
liberty could at this time be enjoyed, they proceeded with their undertaking.
This interruption, though felt to be most grievous at the moment, as Tyndale
afterwards obscurely hinted; far from damping, only inflamed his zeal, and the
remarkable result was, that two editions were accomplished by him, in the same
period in which very probably he had contemplated only one.

These statements, however, admit of ample confirmation, and, on account of the
confusion which has hitherto prevailed, they demand it. In the illustration of
historical truth, except attention be paid to all that the chief opponents have
written, we must occasionally be unable to recount the facts as they occurred.
Invaluable information may be drawn from an enemy, and if his statements can be
authenticated, they often fill up a chasm, and explain matters which otherwise
must have remained in oblivion. Besides, in all instances where an opponent
could have no motive to falsify, his narration of facts should be the more
respected. We have a striking illustration of these remarks now before us.

Perhaps the most virulent enemy to the Word of God being translated into any
vernacular tongue, who ever breathed, was John Cochlaeus. He at least rose above
all his contemporaries of the sixteenth century, and with an unwearied
perseverance, worthy of a better cause, he not only strove to prevent the
diffusion of the Scriptures, and longed to strangle every attempt at their
translation in the very birth, but even gloried in his enmity to all such
proceedings. We are indebted to this opponent for statements, curious and
minute, of the accuracy of which there will be no reason to doubt, before we
come to the close of this narrative.

Certainly, at the moment, nothing must have been more lamented, than that the
most inveterate living opponent on the Continent should come, nay, be driven
into Cologne, soon after Tyndale had commenced at press! How much more so, when
it turned out that Cochlaeus was shut up to the necessity of remaining there
throughout the rest of the year 1525! Such, however, was the fact; but what was
the result? Why that, whether we ascribe it to his opposition or not, there
were, as already stated, two editions of the New Testament printed, instead of
one.

According to Cochlaeus, the “two English apostates,” as he styles Tyndale and
Roye, first contemplated an edition of six thousand copies, but for prudential
reasons, they began with three thousand. He tells us, that Pomeranus had already
sent forward his letter to the saints in England, and that Luther himself had
written his conciliatory letter to Henry VIII. Now this letter, we know, was
dated the 1st of September, 1525. He then adds, that it had been anticipated,
this English New Testament in quarto would soon follow; but that the Lutherans,
overjoyed, broke the secret before the time; or in other words, he himself
ferreted out the secret, as will be seen by his own confession. We have only,
therefore, to verify the residence and occupation of this opponent during 1525
and 1526, in order to ascertain the precise period to which his account refers.
During the year 1525, Cochlaeus was actually resident in Cologne, but not in
1526. While there, he was as usual, busily occupied in writing against
Melancthon, Velenus, and Luther as well as in searching after the writings of
Rupert, an Abbot, formerly in the Monastery of Deutz, immediately opposite to
Cologne. This Abbot, who flourished four hundred years before, had written
certain commentaries on the Scriptures, besides several other pieces; and as
some of his sentiments were thought to be favourable to the cause of Divine
truth, its friends were eager to procure any of his works, and publish such of
them, with notes, as might at once serve their cause, and prove that their
doctrines were not so new as their opponents represented. One of his little
pieces, “Of the Victory of the Word of God,” had been already printed, with
annotations by Osiander of Nuremberg, and the Lutherans were actually in treaty
with the then Abbot of Deutz, expecting from him other works of Rupert,
intending to convey them for examination to Nuremberg.

Cochlaeus interposed, alarmed the Abbot, and, lest the notes and prologues of
his opponents should make Rupert appear in favour of their doctrine, contrived
himself to gain possession of the whole. He had then to engage parties willing
to publish, and though he found considerable difficulty, at last he prevailed on
Peter Quentel, and Arnold Byrckman, well known printers of the place.

Now it was while thus engaged at Cologne, in 1525, that Cochlaeus discovered
this first impression of the English New Testament, proceeding briskly, as he
says, or swiftly at the press; yet, with such caution had both Tyndale and Roye
conducted themselves, that, although Cochlaeus succeeded in stopping the press,
he was never able to meet either the one or the other; a striking proof, by the
way, of their intimate acquaintance with his character. On making the discovery,
Cochlaeus says that he was agitated by fear, as as well as wonder and surprise;
but why so? Let it be observed, that, in connexion with his proposed publication
of Rupert’s works, his situation was a very critical one. Before his arrival,
Tyndale was going on at the press; and if it shall turn out that Byrckman, as
well as his brother, and Quentel were at all concerned in his progress, though
merely in the way of business, what is Cochlaeus to do; or how is he to proceed?
As for Francis Byrckman, we know, that, as a bookseller, he had connexions with
Quentel, and also with England. Indeed, for such an early period, he had an
extensive business, having a warehouse not only in Paris but in London; his shop
was then, and for ten years before this, “in cemiterio Sancti Pauli,” in St.
Paul’s Church Yard. But, besides, we shall present the strongest presumptive, if
not positive evidence, that Quentel was the printer. If, therefore, Cochlaeus
now aimed at the interruption or suppression of a work in the English tongue, to
the printer a foreign one, and already so far advanced at press; Cochlaeus being
not even a citizen of Cologne, but only an exile, and but recently arrived, his
circumstances were embarrassing, and most probably, he had a very difficult game
to play. Be this, however, as it may, Cochlaeus succeeded dexterously. From
himself we learn that having become familiar with the Cologne printers, “He
heard that there were two Englishmen lurking there, learned, skilled in
languages, and fluent, whom, however, he never could see or converse with.
Calling, therefore, certain printers into his lodging, after they were heated
with wine, one of them, in more private discourse, discovered to him the secret
by which England was to be drawn over to the side of Luther-namely, that 3000
copies of the Lutheran New Testament, translated into the English language, were
in the press, and already were advanced as far as the letter K, in ordine
qnaternionem. That, the expenses were fully supplied by English merchants, who
were secretly to convey the work when printed, and to disperse it widely through
all England, before the King or the Cardinal could discover or prohibit it.” He
farther states that, casting in his mind by what means “he might expeditiously
obstruct these very wicked attempts, he went secretly to Herman Rinck, a
patrician of Cologne, fainiliar both with the Emperor and the King of England,
and a Counsellor, and disclosed to him the whole affair, as, by means of the
wine, he had received it. He, that he might ascertain all things more certainly,
sent another person into the house where the work was printing, according to the
discovery of Cochlaeus; and when he had understood from him that the matter;vas
even so, and that there was great abundance of paper there, he went to the
Senate, anti so brought it about that the printer was interdicted from
proceediug further in that work. the two English apostates, snatching away with
them the quarto sheets printed, fled by ship, going up the Rhine to Worms, that
there, by another printer, they might complete the work begun, Rinck and
Cochlaeus, however, immediatley advised by their letters, the King, the
Cardinal, and the Bishop of Rochester, that they might take care lest that
pernicious article of merchandise should be conveyed into all the ports of
England.” f19 Although this arch-enemy had never written another word, there can
be no question as to the period of this vexatious interruption. He has fixed it
himself, by telling us, he was then an exile at Cologne. In 1523, Cochlaeus was
at Rome, in 1524 he was at Frankfort and Mentz, and, driven from both, he fled
for refuge to Cologne in 1525. There he remained stationary till the beginning
of 1526, when, recalled to Mentz, he went in June to the Diet of Spire, and
remained till August. Returning to Mentz, he paid a transient visit to Cologne
in 1527, but not as an exile. “In 1525,” says Dupin, “Cochlseus, who had been
obliged to quit first Frankfort and then Mentz, because of the popular seditions
of the cities, was at Cologne, where Eckius going into England, had an interview
with him.” F20 Yes, and Eckius not only went, but would no doubt enforce all
that both Rincke and Cochlaeus had written.

Now, we have here a very distinct testimony as to the secrecy and prudence with
which Tyndale had conducted himself, and, moreover, a frank confession from
Cochlseus. He was bent on crushing the work, and then all methods were fair. He
intoxicates the workmen, and gains his purpose; a method in perfect keeping with
his character, and in 1549, or twenty-four years afterwards, he was not ashamed
to make the avowal!

We find, however, also from himself, that throughout the whole of this business
it was not blind zeal only by which he was actuated, He had not only notoriety,
but gain in view, and we shall see him sadly mortified in obtaining neither.
Meanwhile, no means are left untried to procure distinction, and, if possible,
some money from England; as well as to secure friends at Cologne, after what he
had done. He therefore immediately employs Quentel himself, but in very
different work. In 1526, though not at Cologne, he is writing to Rincke, and
following up his letters to England by a present to the same parties to whom he
had formerly written, and through the same medium. -“ The said Sir Herman Rynge
showed me a letter that he had received from one Doctor Johannes Cocleus,
containing only the overthrow, without any mention of the King, and those of
Vienna in Austria be greatly afraid. Also he showed me to have received three
Books from the said Doctor, the one for the King’s Highness, the other for your
Grace, and the third for my Lord of Rochester.” F22 In 1527, Cochlaeus was
publishing Luther’s letter to Henry VIII., with the King’s Reply, and his own
virulent comments, intended as a compliment to the English Monarch, and then,
also, he must flatter both Birckman and Rincke. But all was in vain. Henry VIII.
communicated only with Rincke, and never even answered Cochlaeus, or sent him
any reward; a mortification which he felt the more, as he ever afterwards
regarded his interruption of Tyndale, to be one of his most notable and
praiseworthy exploits. Again and again did he refer to it in future life, for
which we are the more obliged to him, as every fresh allusion only corroborates
or explains the movements of our Translator of the Scriptures. Whether he be
writing to Scotland, England, or even Poland, Cochlaeus cannot omit mention of
the subject.

Thus, in writing to Scotland on the 8th of June, 1533, it is his boast, that he
had eight years ago thus interrupted the printing of the Scriptures, which had
been commenced by an impression of three thousand copies, after the war of the
peasants. By this expression he intends to mark either the beginning of May
1525, when the great battle with Muncer was fought, or it may be a little
earlier, when the commotion at Cologne in particular had been suppressed. The
allusion, however, to his interruption of Tyndale, which must have been most
mortifying to the pride of Cochlaeus, was that to which he was provoked by
severe chastisement, in 1538. Cochlaeus before then had, of course, changed his
opinion of Henry VIII., and more especially since he had neglected him. Sir
Richard Morysln, one of our ambassadors, having in his “Apomaxis,” posted
Cochlaeus in his title-page, as “a petty professor of arts, bold in sarcasm, who
had attempted t,o attack the reputation of Henry tho Eighth,” Cochlaes then
published his “Broom of Cochlaeus versus the cebwebs of Morysin;” in which he
charges the King with ingratitude. “For,” says he, “in 1525, when I was poor,
and by the seditions of the people and tumult of the rustics settled an exile of
Cologne, did I discover to him, by a private epistle, the secret wicked
machinations of two Englishmen against his kingdom, by whom the New Testament
(of Luther) translated into the English language, was printed at Cologne, that
it might be transmitted secretly, in many thousands, into England. But,
notwithstanding, he still remained silent, and took no notice of me, altogether
unmindful of my poverty and exile, although at that time he was a most
determined enemy and opposer of the Lutheran sect.” The evidence thus presented
by Cochlaeus, at successive periods, has never before been submitted to the
English reader. That statements, so graphically minute, as to carry evidence of
their correctness; so pointed as to the year and place of printing, and in
perfect harmony with each other; should have been disregarded for three
centuries, only shows how little attention has been paid to the subject: but
this becomes the more observable, when the first denunciations of “the New
Testament in our English tongue,” by the official authorities next year, had
expressly affirmed, “of which translation there are many books printed, some
with glosses, and some will, out.” Instead of inquiring after these Testaments
with glosses, or at least admitting their existence, all parties have been
satisfied with having it erroneously stated, that there had been but one
edition, and that said to be printed at Antwerp in 1526, or the same year in
which it was denounced! To some persons, no doubt, this long detail must have
appeared to be altogether unnecessary, and to others tedious; though should it
now be inquired what has given birth to it, every reader will be pleased to
learn, that it is not merely the confusion that has prevailed hitherto; but
nothing less than the recovery front oblivion of Tyndale’s first pages at the
Cologne press, after the lapse of three hundred and ten year’s-a fragment of the
very book which was thus interrupted in its progress, by Cochlaeus, and the only
remnant known to be in existence of the three thousand copies of the first and
quarto New Testament, commenced at Cologne; but when once the reader comes to
witness the powerful and unceasing exertions of the public authorities to seize
these books and burn them; as well as the rage excited against this prologue and
these glosses; the wonder will be that a single leaf escaped. This precious
relic having been stitched up at the end of another book, might more easily pass
unheeded, or it may have remained abroad till long after the fires had ceased to
rage in England.

Bound up in blue morocco, with as many leaves as the book originally composed,
it adorned the library of the late Right Honourable Thomas Grenville, now in the
British Museum; but before leaving the place where it was printed, we give the
collation of all that has yet been found.

Title A i wanting, as it is in the octavo. The prologge commences with A ij, and
occupying seven leaves, ends on the reverse of B iiij. the first page of the
next sheet, or letter C, contains the table of all the books of the New
Testament, on the reverse of which is the woodcut; of Matthew, as exhibited in
our fac-simile. On the following leaf, therefore, is folio C iii, continuing
correctly to fol. xxiiii, where the fragment terminates in the 22nd chapter of
<402201> Matthew. The type is a German Gothie. Size of the frame-work, including
head-line, 5 7/8 inches; breadth, 5 inches; but the breadth of the prologue only
31/2; including the head-line, 38 lines in a page; no paper mark. N. B.-Tyndale
being on the point of placing sheet letter L in the press, he must have been
pretty far advanced in the gospel of Luke, and consequently this fragnment is
not to be confounded with the gospel of Matthew printed previously, which, at
the same time, could have had no such prologue, nor any such list of all the
books in the New Testament.

Cologne, therefore, and Cochlaeus also, we gladly leave for the present; and,
with increasing interest, now follow our Translator to his next place of abode.

Tyndale having taken up his residence in Worms, relnained there till the year
1527,-a far more favourable place for the prosecution of his design. The
commotions of the people, which at Frankfort and Mentz had ended in triumph over
the old opinions, at Cologne, on the contrary, had been subdued, and hence it
was that, Cochlaeus had made that city his refuge; for at Worms he could not
then have effected what he had done at Cologne. Worms, on the contrary,
Cochlaeus has told us, was “under the full rage of Lutheranism,” or, in the more
sober style of Seckendorff, “was already wholly Lutheran.” So much the better
for our Translator, though not a Lutheran; for his enemy will turn out to have
been only promoting, unintentionally, the very undertaking which he meant to
crush.

We have, however, now come to a period in the labours of Tyndale, which demands
some notice, of all previous accounts. The author is perfectly aware that it
may, and will be said, by those who have ever attended to the subject, or been
conversant with the octavo edition of Tyndale’s New Testament, “How are we to
receive all this account, when we find Tyndale himself, in his address ‘To the
Reader,’ at the end of the octavo volume, ‘beseeching them that are learned
christianly, that the rudeness of the work now at the first time offend them
not?’“ Nay, and we may strengthen the objector’s language, by adding-how are we
to reconcile the previous statements, with the first words of Tyndale in his
preface to the Pentateuch? “When I had translated the New Testament, I added an
Epistle unto the latter end.” For more than a hundred years has it not been
understood, that the first New Testament in English was printed most probably at
Antwerp? Have not Ames, Herbert, Panzer, and others, all assigned it to this
city? Has not Mr. Russel, more recently, in the notes to his edition of
Tyndale’s works, even specified the printer there, as being Christopher
Endhoven? Nay, did not Dr. Gifford, the former proprietor of the only perfect
copy of the octavo, now in Bristol, consider the words “now at the first time,”
as sufficient evidence that nothing had been printed before? And, finally, have
not almost all parties agreed as to the year of printing having been 1526?

All this is granted, and yet when we come to the edition actually printed at
Antwerp, in 1526, and by C. Endhoven; the peculiarly interesting account of
which has never yet been submitted to an English reader; it will be distinctly
proved to have been the next, or, as we now affirm, the third edition. Nor will
any advocate for the octavo, printed at Worms, under Tyndale’s own eye, have
much ground for hesitation, if he finds that it was printed in 1525; since it
was being read in England as early as January and February 1526. The only
mystery to be solved is, that of the octavo being “now at the first time”
perhaps scut out, though not the first begun. For although the quarto turns out
to be, as it certainly was, the commencement of Tyndale’s labours, and his long
prologue at the beginning of it, the very first language addressed by him to the
Christians of England; nay, and finished at press, before ever his epistle “To
the Reader,” at the end of the octavo, was written or even contemplated; there
did exist an all-powerful reason for our translator’s mode of procedure, as well
as for his afterwards referring to the one edition, in preference to the other.
Meanwhile, whatever of mystery there be in the matter, it has yet to be
curiously contrasted with both editions being upon English ground, nearly, if
not positively at the same period. Yet though such be the fact, and to be
abundantly proved, Tyndale’s peculiar circumstances this year, may, even now,
furnish us with some explanation.

Upon his arrival at Worms, we are not left to inquire, whether he lost a day,
as, by the event, we know full well that every hour had been improved. Nor is it
diffcult to perceive his sagacity in his mode of procedure. His quarto Testament
had been not merely interrupted, but exposed by a malignant enemy, whose very
eye he had evaded; the book had been described, and even to the highest
authorities in England, as well as marked out for seizure, if possible. Now, in
the face of all this, would it have been prudent to have proceeded with this
book alone? Changing, therefore, the size, leaving out the prologue and the
glosses, which, by the way, was a great improvement, an octavo edition must have
been immediately commenced at press, though certainly the quarto was not
consigned to oblivion. No, for the fact is, that the reader will, before long,
find it difficult, if not impossible, to say, which was actually the first that
had reached the shores of Britain, whether of England or Scotland. Suffice it
now only to state, that copies of these precious books, it will appear, were
being read in England early in 1526; nay, and we shall find the quarto had been
purchased, and” read thoroughly,” in the spring of that year; eight months
before the formal denunciation of Tunstal, or nine months before that of Warham;
when both were denounced, and said to abound, not only in the diocese of London,
but throughout the province of Canterbury. The reader will be still more
surprised to find that copies of one edition if not both, had also reached
Scotland in the same year!

Tyndale, at all events, with his amanuensis, had now found refuge within the
noted city of Worms. It was but little more than four years since Martin Luther,
attired in his friar’s frock and cowl, and seated in his vehicle, preceded by
the Emperor’s herald on horseback, had entered the same place; where the Saxon
nobles meeting him and forming in procession, two thousand persons accompanied
him through the streets to his inn. It was a larger assemblage than that which
had graced the Emperor’s own approach to the Diet. Then too, and there,
Cochlaeus, who had occasioned our English Translator’s flight from Cologne,
could hold up his head, and even force himself into Luther’s presence; now, he
dared not enter the place. With this memorable scene and its consequences,
Tyndale must have been intimately acquainted; but when discussing the subject on
Sodbury Hill, how strange must it have seemed to him, had any one added:-“ And
you too must, before long, enter Worms; not to leave it in haste as Luther had
to do, but to fulfil the desire of your heart, which you will never be able to
accomplish in all England!” Yet what a contrast have we between Luther’s
entrance, surrounded by his Electors and Princes, and the humble approach of
Tyndale, with his bale of printed sheets! This becomes still more striking, if
we recollect, that four years ago, it was from this very city that Luther,
hardly escaping, was carried off to his Patmos, or his castle on the heights of
the Wartburg, there, in quiet rcpose and solitude, to translate his New
Testament. Tyndale now entered to print his; to finish also in Worms, what he
had commenced in Cologne; and to pursue his design, even after the Testaments
were off to their destination. Of the small octavo New Testament here printed,
the fruitful parent of so many editions, only one perfect copy of the text
remains, and no place of safe deposit in all England could be more appropriate
than Bristol, the city where Tyndale himself used to preach. The unique fragment
of the quarto was discovered only, as it were, the other day; but the history of
this precious small octavo volume we can trace for more than a hundred years-and
it will be found somewhat curious. Above a century ago it formed one of the
volumes in the Harleian Library of Lord Oxford, though how long it had been
there is not known. Mr. John Murray, one of his lordship’s collectors, had
picked it up somewhere. The Earl gave ten guineas for the book, says Mr. Ames;
twenty, says Dr. Gifford; but both agree that he also settled £20 a-year for.
life on Murray, who had procured it. The Earl of Oxford died in 1741, without
male issue, and his Library of printed books was sold to Mr. Thomas Osborne for
£13,000. This book, therefore, in the Harleian Catalogue, prefaced by Dr. Samuel
Johnson, is thus described:- “No. 420. The New Testament, black letter, ruled
with red lines, and all the initial letters at the beginning of each book,
representing the subject, finely coloured, as likewise all the capital letters
to each chapter throughout the book adorned with different colours, and raised
with gold, neatly bound in red morocco.”

After such a description, Mr. Osborne, much to his own cost, had not been aware
of the rarity and value of his book, for after thus describing it, he adds:-“ In
this book no date is left, but it appears to be Tyndale’s version, and is
probably one of the editions printed in Holland, before his revisal” in 1534.
Accordingly, he marked the price at no more than fifteen shillings! At this
price Mr. Ames bought it, when he not only congratulated himself on purchasing
what he styled the Phoenix of the entire Library; but writes, on the 30th of
June, 1743, in a letter,to a friend, that the annuity of twenty pounds was yet
paid to Mr. Murray, he being still alive. One hundred pounds more, however, was
still forthcoming, for the annuity was honourably paid, until Murray’s decease
in 1748! On the 13th of May, 1760, Mr. Ames’ books came to be sold by Mr.
Langford, and the Testament was bought for fourteen guineas and a half, by Mr.
John Whyte the bookseller, lie possessed it sixteen years to a day, having sold
it on the 13th of May, 1776. On the book itself, therefore, there is the
following note ia manuscript. “N.B.-This choice book was purchased at Mr.
Langford’s sale, 13th May, 1760, by me, John Whyte; and on the 13th day of May,
1776, I sold it to the Rev. Dr. Gifford for 20 guineas, the price first paid for
it by the late Lord Oxford.”

Before proceeding farther, we now give the collation of this beautiful and
uniquee volume. The book commences, like the quarto, on sign A ij. The Gospel of
Matthew to the end of Revelation occupies eccliii folios; not leaves only, as
it; has been lately, but erroneously stated. On the reverse of the last is the
epistle “To the Reader,” occupying three pages, and then “errours committed in
the printyng.” A full page contains thirty-three lines.

N.B.-There is only one other copy in existence, in the Library of St. Paul’s,
but that is very imperfect; defective at both the beginning and end, and wanting
twenty-five leaves in various places, or forty-eight in all. When first
discovered by Dr. Cotton, it was entitled on the back, “Lant’s Testament,” for
what reason has never been divined. There was one Rich. Lant, chaplain to Queen
Anne Boleyn, but this does not resolve the mystery. It had been recommended,
that the deficient leaves should be made up in manuscript, and the book
elegantly bound; instead of which, and as it was, it has been miserably botched
in the binding!

Here, then, are two separate editions of the New Testament, both finished at
Worms by the close of the year 1525; and printed, we believe, by Peter
Schoeffer, son of the associate of Guttemberg and Fust. But on comparing one
with the other we are furnished with several important remarks, as corroborative
of all that has been already advanced. The parties in opposition, let it be
first observed, generally mark out the quarto with glosses; while the only
distinct reference of Tyndale himself, is to the octavo, without them, in his
preface to the Pentateuch. The explanation is of no little importance. The
prologue and glosses, as we shall see presently, excited great fear in the
breast of the enemy. Thus, when Sir Thomas More refers to the period of
Tyndale’s first efforts in translating, he will have it, that “at that time he
set certain glosses in the margin;” an undoubted fact, though not done, as he
affirms, “at Wittenberg.” In these glosses, as well as the text itself, there
was ample room for denunciation, if typographical errors were to he set down as
so many heresies. “There is not so much,” said Tyndale, “as one i therein, if it
lack a tittle over his head, but they have noted it, and number it unto the
ignorant people for an heresy.” Tunstal, after his return from Spain, or late in
1526, had busied himself in marking these, till he had got up to the number of
2000; although more than ten times that number have been found in one of our
Testaments, printed above a hundred years later. Now, in this view, the precious
relic lately discovered, when compared with the octavo in Bristol, affords
striking proof that the quarto sheets must have been first printed. The
spelling, indeed, even of the octavo, is irregular, as might be expected at that
early period, but still the two editions admit of pointed comparison. Witness
the following words:- 1. QUARTO. 2. OCTAVO. 1. QUARTO. 2. OCTAVO. prophettes
prophets, moore more. moththes mothes, pierles pearles. synners sinners, yooke
yoke. mooste most. burthen burden. streached stretched, sekynge seking. In every
other case, this would be at once admitted as decisive evidence, that the octavo
followed and did not precede the quarto. That Tyndale should improve, as in the
octavo, was natural; but, although it has actually been done, to suppose that he
would spell as in the quarto, afterwards, is absurd. That it was this quarto on
which Tunstal so foolishly expatiated, next year, at St. Paul’s, after having
issued his inhibition, there can be little or no doubt. For, although Le Long
merely mistakes one year, he expressly states, that “his lordship made this
reflection of no fewer than 2000 texts, on an English translation of the New
Testament, printed at Cologne and Worms, 1526, 4to.” Lewis, after quoting this,
adds as the only reason for his scepticism, “but no such edition appears.” Now,
however, a sufficient portion of it has appeared, nearly a century after Lewis,
or above three hundred years after it was printed. This, too, is the identical
book to which Roye alludes, when treating the hypercriticism of Tunstal with
ridicule; it is from this prologue that he quotes, and it is the burning of this
book entire, which Roye so graphically describes in his Satyre. “It is
reported,” said Cochlaeus at the close of his statement, “that Lord Cuthbert
Tunstal, a most eloquent man, then Bishop of London, now of Durham, when he had
obtained one of these copies, publicly affirmed, in a most ample oration to the
people of London, that he had detected above 2000 depravations and perversions
in this one work.” Tunstal, after all, was not the first who took alarm. Far
from it-he was not in England; and though we must not anticipate, there is
coming a higher denunciator of this very book, eight months before the Bishop,
when he was as far distant as Madrid.

Tyndale, on the contrary, alludes to the octavo editlon without notes, and it
was by this that he abode. This allusion, however, let it be observed, was made
in the year 1530. Now, the truth is, and it should never have passed without
special observation by posterity, that it was upon this ground, that Tyndale and
his devoted friend Fryth had then long entrenched themselves,-the Scripture
without note and comment. “I assure you,” said Tyndale, the very next year to
his Majesty’s ambassador, then hunting for him on the Continent,-“I assure you,
if it would stand with the King’s most gracious pleasure, to grant only a bare
text of the Scriptures fo be put forth among his people, I shall immediately
make faithful promise never to write more.” And so afterwards, in 1533, said
Fryth, upon English ground, to the Lord Chancellor More:-“ Grant that the Word
of God, I mean the text of Scripture, may go abroad in our English tongue; and
my brother, William Tyndale, and I have done, and will promise you to write no
more.” The burning zeal of no two men born in Britain, ever had less of self and
private interest in it, than theirs had. It was not for glosses, or comments,
that they stood and fought so nobly, all alone. To form any mere sect, they
never longed, and they died without any such consequence following; an event
deeply instructive, and one, which might be of infinite importance at the
present hour, were it properly understood. It is a singular fact, that,
throughout these manuscripts, the term Tyndalian occurs only once, in the letter
of an enemy, but it never took; and Tyndale left the world without leaving any
circle of mere partizans to hand down his name to posterity.

Here, then, let it be observed, were our two first witnesses; the two men, not
only first engaged in translating, but who led the van in pleading for the
Scriptures “going abroad” without note or comment. And is there now no tribute
imperatively due to their memory and character, for having so done? Let the mere
sectarian, of whatever name, throughout this kingdom, make of this fact what he
may; we must not, even thus early, withhold another, which is never to be
separated from it. To their bold and first appeal, therefore, we simply add, as
an historical axiom, of the deepest import, and one which, for three hundred
years, we shall have occasion to observe-that the Sacred text, without note and
comment, has proved not only the best mode of procedure for meeting the enemy;
but that which time and Providence have distinctly sanctioned, down to our own
day; when it has prospered to an extent, far, very far beyond the anticipations
of the most sanguine. Events themselves, during that long period, will often
speak, and say, or seem to say,-“He that hath my word, let him speak,” and
disperse “my word faithfully.”

If, therefore, there had been even unbroken silence on Tyndale’s part, with
respect to the quarto Testament, the circumstances we have already explained,
would sufficiently account for this. But there is a reference, we think, though
in measured language, to the vexatious interruption of the quarto book by
Cochlaeus. It is to be found in this very Epistle, “To the Reader,” at the close
of the octavo Testament. Having craved the candour of the reader, that “the
rudeness of the work offend him not,” he adds, “Moreover, even very necessity
and combraunce (God is record) above strength, which I will not rehearse, lest
we should seem to boast ourselves, caused ghat many things are lacking, which
necessarily are rcquired. Count it as a thing not having his full shape, but, as
it were, born afore his time, even as a thing begun rather than finished.”

Now, what could this perplexity or embarrassment, this vexatious toil, possibly
be, this combraunce above strength, of which God was witness, if not that which
we have detailed? And t what this full shape, if not the quarto before
commenced, and then nearly finished? And what this boasting, if not the
exultation felt, when he cherished the hope of baffling his opponents, by
sending out the octavo first, it not being the book reported, and held up to
scorn?

There is now only one concluding remark forcibly suggested by comparison of the
Epistle to the Reader in the octavo, with the Prologue prefixed to the quarto.
The former, brief in itself, and abrupt in its commencement, has all the
appearance of eager despatch; on the contrary, the opening of the quarto
Prologue wears all the formality and precision usually adopted, when introducing
to the reader a first attempt. Witness the commencement of the Epistle,- “Give
diligence, Reader, (l exhort thee,) that thou come with a pure mind, and, as the
Scripture saith, with a single eye, unto the words of health, and of eternal
life: by the which, if we repent and believe them, we are born anew, created
afresh, and enjoy the fruits of the blood of Christ.”

Contrast this with the deliberate and formal language of the Prologue, so worthy
of special notice now. It has never before been presented entire, and as it
stands, since the day on which the sheet was thrown off at Cologne. They are not
a few who will admire the modesty, the diffidence, not to say the simple beauty
of the following sentences:- TYNDALE’S FIRST LANGUAGE IN PRINT TO THE PEOPLE OF
GOD IN ENGLAND, “I have here translated, brethren and sisters, most dear and
tenderly beloved in Christ, the New Testament, for your spiritual edifying,
consolation and solace: Exhorting instantly, and beseeching those that are
better seen in the tonques than I, and that have higher gifts of grace to
intepret the sense of the Scripture, and meaning of the Spirit, than 1, to
consider and ponder my labour, and that with the spirit of meekness. And if they
perceive in any places that I have not attained the very sense of the tongue, or
meaning of the Scripture, or have not given the right English word, that they
put to their hands to amend it, remembering that so is their duty to do. For we
have not received the gifts of God for ourselves only, or for to hide them: but
for to bestow them unto the honouring of God and Christ, and edifying of the
congregation, which is the body of Christ. “The causes that moved me to
translate, I thought better that others should imagine, than that I should
rehearse them. Moreover, I supposed it superfluous; for who is so blind to ask,
why light should be showed to them that walk in darkness, where they cannot but
stumble, and where to stumble, is the danger of eternal damnation; either so
despiteful that be would envy any man (I speak not his brother) so necessary a
thing; or so bedlam mad as to affirm that good is the natural cause of evil, and
darkness to proceed out of light, and that lying should be grounded in truth and
verity; and not rather clean contrary, that light destroyeth darkness, and
verity reproveth all manner (of) lying. “After it had pleased God to put in my
mind, and also to give me grace to translate this forerehearsed (before
mentioned) New Testament into our English tongue, however we have done it, I
supposed it very necessary to put you in remembrance of certain points.” The
reader, we presume, cannot but be gratified, by a facsimile of these words, in
their original orthography. He will observe the letter Y, then generally used
for I; which first led to the discovery of what the fragment is; and here he may
contemplate not merely the first page of text, in the first sheet of a work
thrown off at press, in the year 1525, at Cologne; but the veritable origin of
all those millions of English Scriptures now reading in so many different and
distant parts of the globe-parts, utterly unknown to our immortal Translator,
when he sent the sheet to the press-parts, then untrodden by any
Englishman-parts, then undiscovered! The last sentence of our extract, however,
or that with which the next page of the prologue begins, is full of meaning. It
shows that Tyndale, with all gravity, recognised no instigator under God, and
ascribed to his grace alone, the entire glory of his work. Such had been his
language in print, before ever Cochlaeus had set his foot in Cologne. But now,
that he had been so defamed by this enemy, hear his emphatic disclaimer from
Worms. “Beseeching the learned to consider that he had no man to follow as an
example, neither was holpen with English of any that had interpreted the same,
or such like thing in the Scripture before time.” Sir Thomas More had read this,
though he did not choose, as it was not convenient, to believe it. But surely,
if any individual of that age may be regarded as an agent, walking independently
of his fellows, it will turn out to have been our English exile,-a man, whose
character and powerful talents trove been so grievously misrepresented, and so
misunderstood, up to the present hour.

We are now just upon the eve of returning into England, after spending two years
abroad, in company with our Translator; but before we do return-before the
uproar and the consternation begin-before the wrath of 1526 burst out-while
these precious volumes are only coming over that sea, which Tyndale had passed
over to send; and before either the quarto or octavo had arrived in our native
land; there is one additional event which must not be omitted even here, though
it has to be explained more distinctly three months hence, at the moment of its
occurrence.

If there was any advantage anticipated by Tyndale, from sending over the octavo
without notes “now at the first time”-if it was indeed so sent-there must have
ensued a second momentary disappointment. If there was any device or contrivance
adopted, then it certainly failed, completely failed! This quarto, with glosses,
had been the first-born of his imagination, and we have seen that his whole
heart was set upon giving the sacred text, what was strangely styled “its full
shape.” But the Divine Author will as distinctly say nay in London, as he had
already done at Cologne! For, after all, we shall find next year, that this
quarto book was first held up in warning to the people. The book “with glosses
and prefaces” was first condemned,-condemned, too, by no less authority than
that of Henry VIII. himself, with Wolsey’s full concurrence, if not his
advice,-and condemned eight months before either Tunstal or Warham held up also
the octavo, without notes, for destruction.

Tyndale certainly intended that the book with glosses should follow “in time to
come,” however short. Providence caused it to precede, and, at the same time,
over-ruled it as a decoy for several months! All that time, therefore, the
precious little volume must have been fulfilling its commission, and passing
into its hiding-place in unknown directions! Nor is the curious fact of the New
Testament “with glosses and prefaces” being first condemned, and then passing
into oblivion through all history, for above three hundred years, an event
carrying no instruction or monition. Quite the reverse. All who venerate Divine
Revelation in its purity, will remember that this was the commencement of a new
cra for Britain, more important than she had ever witnessed, or in truth has
witnessed since. Comments, therefore, or glosses, additions of man’s devising,
professedly to make the sacred language more intelligible than that of its
Divine Author, or turn it to a certain meaning, were not to be treated as of
small account. As matter of history they were not, and have not been so treated.
These glosses sunk the book into the shades; just as those notes, sometimes
styled contemptuously the Geneva spectacles, afterwards operated on that
otherwise valuable translation.

Never, then, let it pass unobserved, how soon, and how clearly, Tyndale and
Fryth saw through this; how soon our Translator put the King of England upon the
alternative of receiving, or not receiving, the sacred text alone; or how
decidedly, and upon English ground, Fryth repeated the bold appeal to the Lord
Chancellor, Sir Thomas More. The warfare was at once reduced to a single point.
Receive, or not receive, THE SACRED VOLUME, without note or comment; so that we
have now to witness the man who, by way of eminence, fought on one side, and the
men who, by way of eminence, or we might say the nation, who fought against him.
This important fact not only affords ns a notable conunencement to our history,
but it will connect itself, very powerfully, with the close of this work, or the
larger movements of the present day. 1576.

Memorable Introduction Of Tiie New Testament Into England-The Two First
Editions-Tiie First Alarm In London, Oxford, Cambridge-The First Burning Of
Books-New Testament Denounced By The King And Wolsey-Then By Tunstal And
Wariham-The Third Edition-Violent Contention Respecting It-Burning It Abroad And
At Home-But In Vain. THAT interesting period when the Word of God, printed in
our native tongue, was first found in England, had now arrived. It was in
January 1526. On the banks of the Rhine, Tyndale had finished his New Testaments
at the press, but how was it possible for them ever to be conveyed into our
country? Had not Rincke and Cochlaeus warned the Cardinal himself, the King, and
the Bishop of Rochester, that they might “with the greatest diligence take care”
lest one of them should come into any port in all England? They certainly had,
and in good time, so that it is no fault of theirs, if all opposing parties were
not now on the alert. Yet here are the dreaded books, and upon English ground,
and not only in the metropolis, but in both universities, to say nothing of the
country at large!

It is natural, however, first to inquire whether there were any circumstances,
at the moment, favourable to their introduction. Of all other men, the two most
able and most likely to have prevented their arrival, or immediately suppressed
them, were Wolsey and Tunstal, the Bishop of London. But the former was now
completely engrossed by affairs of state policy, both abroad and at home-abroad
he was urging, nay, rousing the French Cabinet to renewed war with the Emperor;
at home, he was concluding peace with Scotland, and also busily engaged in
reforming his master’s household, or framing what were called “the Statutes of
Eltham.” The Bishop of London was not in the country, having been happily
rcmoved out, of the way eight months before; he was still ambassador in Spain,
and not to return till August or September; so that his name never should have
been associated, as it has generally been, with the first reception of Tyndale’s
New Testament. More than this, the winter was peculiarly unhealthy, and such was
the alarm created by great mortality, that the courts had been adjourned-the
authorities were out of the way-the King was keeping his Christmas at Eltham, in
private, with a few friends, “for in the King’s house,” says Halle, “this was
called the still Christmas” -and Wolsey, after carousing at Richmond for a few
days, had to attend His Majesty on business at Eltham, from the 8th to the 22nd
of January.

Such a conjunction of circumstances but seldom occurred, and, without straining
a point, they may surely be regarded as providential; for they afforded certain
opportunities, which, we shall find, had been most busily improved. So easily
can the Divine Being “scatter the proud in the imagination of their hearts,”
when He is about to “exalt them of low degree.” The country had been first long
harassed by oppressive and vexatious exactions, to carry on expensive foreign
wars, and now it is assailed by disease and death! Such was the period chosen by
Infinite Wisdom to introduce the Word of Life, that “sovereign balm for every
wound!” England’s surest hope, the true secret of all her future stability, and
the only security for it still. The earliest importations of these precious
volumes would furnish a very curious subject of inquiry. The various methods
adopted for several years in order to secure their entrance into this country,
can never now, indeed, be fully detailed; but the conveyance of Tyndale’s New
Testaments into England and Scotland, with other books illustrative of the
Sacred Volume, could only the half be told, would form one of the most graphic
stories in English history. No siege, by sapping and mining, which Britain has
ever since achieved, could furnish the tenth part of the incident, or evince
half the courage, by which she was herself assailed. But the materials have
never yet been examined and compared, with that regard to accuracy as to names,
and succession as to events, which would have brought out some of the finest
specimens of faith and fortitude and persevering zeal. From what particular port
on the Continent the first copies were sent, and to what port in England thcy
came, may remain for ever a secret. The probability is, that some came from
Antwerp, while others were sent from Worms down the Rhine through Holland, and
so from different places. Be this as it may, we know for certain of two
gentlemen, who engaged in very early, if not the first, active measures as to
the importation itself; namely, Simon Fysh, of Gray’s Inn, London, and George
Herman, a citizen of Antwerp, and merchant in the English house there; while,
during this month of January 1526, we shall find that not a few of the most
learned young men in England were eagerly perusing Tyndale’s first productions.

Nothing then, however, could have been more unlikely, than that London and both
the Universities should be in a ferment the very first week after that month had
expired.

It was on the 2nd of February, that an insignificant incident gave birth to the
first great alarm. It well deserves, therefore, to be noticed. Simon Fysh,
already mentioned, a native of Kent, after receiving his education at Oxford,
had taken up his residence as a lawyer in Gray’s Inn, London. A play, or
tragedy, as Foxe calls it, composed by a Mr. Roo or Row, of the same Inn, in one
part of which Wolsey thought himself deeply impugned, was about to be acted in
private; and this part, after others through fear had declined, Fysh undertook
to perform. He did so once, but never could a second time, for “the same night
that this tragedy was played,” Fysh was compelled to leave his own house, and
finally escape to the Continent.

How often did the Cardinal, with all his sagacity, put forth his hand to his own
downfall? Though, confessedly, a deep politician, he was far from understanding
the policy of noninterference. This attempt at apprehension must have occurred
before the end of 1523, if it be correct, as Foxe affirms, that “the next year
following” he composed the tract entitled “the Supplication of Beggars.’’l Mr.
Fysh is stated to have been with Tyndale abroad, and if so, “the little
treatise” which Munmouth depones that Tyndale “sent to him from Hamburg in 1524,
when he sent for his money,” may have been this publication, if it was not the
gospel of Matthew. But, whether the one or the other, the “Supplication” must
have been in existence in 1525, from what we know of its history. In the shape
of a “Supplication” addressed “to the King our Sovereign Lord,” it conveyed the
most wholesome and astounding advice to Henry VIII., and the parties interested
were so very fortunate as to reach his ear through one of his confidential
servants or footmen, whom Foxe calls Edmund Moddis. This man had read the book
himself, and told his Majesty, that “if he would pardon him, and such men as he
would bring to his grace, he should see such a book as was marvel to hear of.”
The King fixed a time, and thus two merchants, George Eliot and George Robinson,
were favoured with a private audience. His Majesty, whose curiosity had been
excited by the representation of his confidential servant, patiently listened to
every line, as it was read to him by Eliot. This powerful tract, for it was
nothing more, written in a popular style, contained an unmeasured attack on the
whole fraternity of” Monks and Friars, Pardoners and Sumners,” into whose hands
an immense proportion of the nation’s wealth had already passed. Their growing
power, already impairing and threatening to destroy that of the Crown itself,
was denounced in the strongest terms. “This is the great scab,” said Fysh, “why
they will not let the New Testament go abroad in your mother tongue, lest men
should espy that they, by their cloaked hypocrisy, do translate, thus fast, your
kingdom into their hands.” At the close of its being read, and after a long
pause, the King is reported to have said, “if a man should pull down an old
stone wall, trod begin at the lower part, the upper part thereof might chance to
fall on his head;” then taking the book, he put it ia his desk, commanding the
men on their allegiance, that they should not disclose to any one that he had
seen it.

Copies of this tract must have been possessed by not a few, when the King’s own
servant knew its contents so thoroughly. This, however, would not suffice, and
so it had been determined that the people at large should read it for
themselves; and, also, that no doubt should remain, whether the King had seen
if. John Foxe, therefore, thus describes it-“A Libel or Book entitled, the
Supplication of Beggars, thrown and scattered at the procession in Westminster,
on Candlemas day, before King Henry the Eighth, for him to read and peruse.”
This was on Friday the 2nd of February, 1526. Many copies might be thus disposed
of, but, by another account, they had been scattered about the streets by night.
The moment of alarm had now come. This very trivial incident had excited the
greatest fear and dread! Wolsey immediately went to his Majesty, complaining of
“divers seditious persons having scattered abroad books containing manifest
errors, desiring his Grace to beware of them;” but what must have been his
mortification, when the King, putting his hand into his bosom, and taking out
one of these very books, delivered it into his hands! At this period Henry was
not a little gratified by any information which he could procure, independently
of his domineering Prime Minister.

Wolsey, once roused, became fully awake to the importance of his intentions in
the year 1523. Engrossed as he had been with political affairs, some of these
intcntions had remained unfulfilled. But now there was to be “the secret search”
and in divers places at one time, and a sermon to be preached, by Fisher, the
very man whom Henry had then named. It was resolved to strike terror into the
heart of the enemy, and give one vital stab to all that was now run down under
the nickname of Lutheranism; for Divine truth had been slowly gaining its way,
and was now to spread, as it had done, independently of Luther. The fact is,
that the crusade, under which our country long groaned and bled, was about to
begin; and as the authorities of the day were now going to treat the people of
God after the primitive fashion, when they first put them in bear skins, and
then baited them, a word of terror was wanting. Lollard had been the term for
above a hundred years, as it especially was under Longland, in 1521; but
Lutheran was now a far more effectual, because opprobrious, epithet; involving
all those who either read the Scriptures, or appealed to them as authority.

Before, however, we can rightly understand the course of events, the evidence a
afforded by original manuscripts, by Foxe and Strype, Bishop Tanncr and Anthony
Wood, as well as two or three other authorities, must be carefully compared.
After this, when we look at London, Oxford, and Cambridge, as well as the
country at, large, a scene, full of the deepest interest, opens to view. Not a
day was now to be lost. London, though far from its present size, was large
enough even then to be favourable to secrecy; but London, Cambridge, and Oxford,
must all be searched at one time, and Cardinal College, too, must not be
overlooked. Wolsey could not have been with the King sooner than next day,
Saturday the 3rd. The simultaneous orders for both Universities must have been
the same day, as the Sergeants-at- Arms had arrived at both by Monday or
Tuesday. In London they commenced immediately. Among the very first places where
the “secret search” began, was a narrow lane in Cheapside, nearly opposite to
Bow Church. In a church there, “All Hallows in Honey Lane,” Robert Forman, S. T.
P., was Rector, and Mr. Thomas Garret, Curate.

Strong suspicions rested on the latter, as being at once a receiver and
distributor of books. The first of the Articles finally objected against him
furnishes an important link in the following narrative. “First, for bringing
divers and many books, treatises, and works of Martin Luther and his sect, as
also for dispersing abroad of the said books to divers and many persons within
this realm, as well Students in the University of Oxford and Cambridge, as other
spiritual, temporal, and religious men, to the intent to have advanced the said
sects and opinions. Item, for having the said books in his custody-for reading
them secretly in privy places and suspect company, declaring and teaching here,
lies and errors contained in them.”

Such were some of the charges formally brought against Mr. Garret, and not
without reason; but among all the books imported, in Latin and in English, we
have now to inquire whether there was not one, infinitely above them all in
value, though at the first unknown to the authorities, namely, Tyndale’s New
Testament.

During part of January, Garret must have been busy in the City and Diocese of
London, but in the beginning or first week of February, when sought for at his
own abode, he could not be found. He was then “searched for through all London,”
when the Cardinal ascertained that “he had a great number of those books, and
was gone to Oxford to make sale of them there, to such as he knew to be lovers
of the Gospel.” The truth is, that this future martyr had been for some time in
the habit of conveying books to both Universities, and of visiting Oxford
personally. He was down there at the preceding Christmas, and, with regard to
the present occasion,-“About the year 1526,” says Foxe, “Master Garret, Curate
of Honey Lane in London, came unto Oxford, and brought with him sundry books in
Latin, treating of the Scripture, with the first part of ‘Unio disidentium,’ and
Tyndale’s first translation of the New Testament in English, the which books he
sold to divers scholars in Oxford.” “After he had been there a while, and
despatched those books, news came that he was searched for through all London,
to be opprehended and taken as a heretic, and to be imprisoned for selling those
heretical books, as they termed them.” Not finding him in London, “they had
determined forthwith to apprehend and imprison him, and to burn all and every
his foresaid books, and him too, if they could, so burning hot was their zeal.”
By the time, however, that the Sergeant-at-Arms had arrived, Cole of Magdalen
College, who was afterwards cross-bearer to the Cardinal, but an acquaintance of
Garret’s, gave him warning. So in the morning of “Wednesday bcforc Shrovetide,”
on the 7th of February, he left Oxford, but returning again, he charged his
dress as far as he could, and disappeared on Friday night. There is a
beautifully graphie account of this, part of which we must quote; for which we
are indebted to Anthony Delaber, one of the students, devotedly attached to Mr.
Garret. “When he was gone down the stairs from my chamber,” says he, “I
straight-ways did shut my chamber door, and went into my study, and took the New
Testament in my hands, kneeled down on my knees, and with many a deep sigh and
salt tear, I did, with much deliberation, read over the tenth chapter of Saint
Matthew his gospel: and when I had so done, with fervent prayer I did commit
unto God, that our dearly beloved brother Garret, earnestly beseeching him, in
and for Jesus Christ’s sake, his only begotten Son, our Lord, that he would
vouchsafe not only safely to conduct and keep our said dear brother from the
hands of all his enemies; but also that he would endue his tender and lately
born little flock in Oxford, with heavenly strength by his Holy Spirit, that
they might be able thereby valiantly to withstand to his glory all their fierce
enemies, and also night quietly to their own salvation, with all godly patience,
bear Christ’s heavy cross; which I now saw was presently to be laid on their
young and weak backs, unable to bear so huge a burden, without the great help of
his Holy Spirit. This done, I laid aside my book, safe.” In this first attempt
to escape, however, Garret had, most unwisely, yielded to worldly policy, in
consequence of his friends thinking it best that he should change his name, and
then engage himself as Curate to a brother of Delabor’s, Parson of Stalbridge in
Dorsetshire, (though known to be a decided enemy,) till the first opportunity
should present itself of escaping beyond seas. But he was too conscientious a
man to proceed in this way, and so, seized with fear, he returned to Oxford on
Friday evening. That night he was apprehended, but escaped again, and was
finally taken at Hinksey, about two miles distant; when he, and all besides, who
were suspected as receivers of books, were very soon in safe keeping!

We have now, then, to witness what has come over Cardinal College, as well as
others; for the future eminence of the young men now imprisoned, fills the
present story with no common interest. “Divers others, indeed,” says Foxe, “were
now constrained to forsake their colleges and seek their friends;” but still he
favours us with the names of the captured; corroborated and increased by Strype,
as well as Wood.

Thus, we find expressly mentioned, John Fryth, with the Chaplain, his
fellow-prisoner, Thomas Lawney, John Clarke, Godfrey Harman, Henry Sumner,
William Botts, Richard Taverner, Richard Coxe, Michael Drumm, and-Radley, all of
Cardinal College; Nicholas Udall and John Diet of Corpus Christi; Eeden and
others of Magdalen College; Goodman, William Bayley, John Salisbury, Robert
Ferrar, of Glo’ster, Bernard, and Mary’s Colleges; Langport, a Monk of St.
Austin’s of Canterbury, and Anthony Delaber, of St. Alban’s Hall.

Garret and Delaber, as convieted heretics, were made to carry a faggot, in open
procession, from St. Mary’s to Cardinal College; the former, as Master of Arts,
having his red hood on his shoulders. These young men, besides others not named,
followed in procession, all of whom were obliged, in passing, to cast a book
into the largo fire which had been kindled to receive them. Garrct and Delaber
were then incarcerated at Osney Isle, till further orders from London, when the
former was called up to appear before Tunstal, as we shall see towards the close
of the year. As for the other young men, along with Clarke, they were all
immured in a deep cell, under Cardinal College, the common repository of their
salt fish, a noisome dungeon, where the air and food together proved but too
fatal. Betts, no suspected books being, at least, detected in his chamber,
through entreaty and surety, got out of prison, and, as soon as he could, went
to Cambridge. Taverner, though deeply implicated, as having concealed Clarke’s
books under the floor, being skilful in music, was excused by Wolsey; but the
rest remained in this most miserable, abode; where, eating nothing but salt fish
from the beginning of March to the middle of August, four of them died in a
short time! After this, but in consequence only of a letter from Wolsey, they
were all released, on condition of not moving above ten miles from Oxford. How
many thus continued as prisoners at large does not appear; but John Fryth being
so far at liberty, and now aware of the treatment of Garret and Delaber, he
“escaped by flight over the sea to Tyndale.” He left Oxford for the Continent,
therefore, in August or September 1526.

It will now be allowed that an event such as this, so rich in incident, and so
fraught with consequences, was worthy of being fully traced; though, as far as
Tyndale’s New Testaments were concerned, of course every thing depends on the
time in which all this took place. Fortunately, however, the period can be
fixed, not only to a month, but to a day; and it is the more remarkable, as
coinciding with the same month in which it will be afterwards deponed, that New
Testaments were purchased by other people. Foxe has said that this happened
about 1526; Strype says about 1525 or 1526; and the fact is, that being in
February, when the ycar ran on to the 25th of March, it would be called either
the one or the other. The year 1526 is pointedly fixed by Wood, for to any one
who observes the early history of these eminent young men it is indubitable.
Thus, “Clarke of Cardinal College was incorporated M.A. of Oxford in 1525, but
ejected soon after for Lutheranism.” Udall had passed B.A. in 1524, and “two
years after supplicated for the degree of A.M., but in vain, as ‘tis probable,
because he was much addicted to the opinions of Luther.” Taverner escaped
imprisonment; but being in disgrace, did not pass A.M. till 21st May, 1527.
Ferrar was a canon of St. Mary’s, “where,” says Wood, “ I find him in 1526, in
which year T. Garret did supply him with prohibited books.” The season of the
year, the month and day are no less certain; as it was on “the Wednesday before
Shrovetide” that Garret first departed from Oxford.

Shrovetide, this year, fell on the 13th, so that Wednesday before was the 7th of
February. This date must be observed in connexion with what took place at
Cambridge. As for the whole transaction, there need be no surprise at so much
being made of it at the time. In the year 1525, Rincke and Cochlseus had put the
highest authorities on their guard, and these were not mistaken, in now
regarding this as no trivial affair, no inferior triumph. Students drawn away
even from other Colleges was sufficiently mortifying; but Cardinal College, a
favourite project of Wolsey’s, was one in which he had felt almost absorbed. It
was to be “the most glorious in the world.” Every other College had been made
subservient to this, and, at his command, had yielded up its most choice young
men. All these Canons had passed before his own eye, having either been selected
or approved by himself, on account of the eminence of their attainments. What,
then, must have been his disappointment, when, after all his pains, he saw the
scale turning in the opposite direction from that which he had all along
intended? And what his indignation, when such a proportion, if not a large
majority, of these fine young men were found to be infected with that new
learning, as it was termed, which, instead of yielding to the old, was
ultimately to triumph, and maintain its ground in spite of the fiercest
opposition?

Besides all this, the books distributed were a mighty grievance in addition, and
they were now gone into corners, they knew not where; but of all that had been
circulated or sold, there were none to be compared with Tyndale’s New Testament.
This was the Word of Life, and felt to be so.

We have already seen it, in the grasp of Delaber, to have been their sheet
anchor in the raging storm. It is therefore well worthy of remembrance, that one
of Tyndale’s earliest blows, dashed to the ground the insidious design of the
lofty Cardinal. It was an attack upon the lion in his own den; while as to the
young men, now branded as heretics, whether caught or escaped, Tyndale had given
them, not a book of new learning merely, but the volume of Divine Mercy-it was
not the owl of Athens, but Mount Zion’s dove.

If Oxford had been thrown into a ferment during these early days in February,
the commotion at Cambridge was, if possible, still greater; but there had been
some powerfully exciting causes, and now in full operation, which were peculiar
to this University. A very brief retrospect will explain, as well as lend
additional interest to the present burst of opposition. The publication of the
Greek Testament by Erasmus, in 1516, was one of the most important events in the
progress of letters; but Cambridge seems to have been inferior to Oxford in
their cultivation. Even the Priests, in their confessions of young scholars, had
cautioned them against the acquisition of Greek and Hebrew, on account of the
consequences they dreaded. Standish, afterwards Bishop of St. Asaph, was one
great promoter of this hostility; and, upon one occasion, on his knees before
the King and Queen, is said to have conjured them, by every thing sacred, to go
on as their ancestors had done, and put down Erasmus. When, theretbre, his
Testament appeared, at Cambridge it was absolutely proscribed by some of the
doctors of the day, and one College forbade it to be brought within the walls!
Yet the book they had thus contemned, was the very same by which God intended to
promote His own designs, and in Cambridge itself. Not long, therefore, after the
publication of this Testament, which contained the Latin and Greek in parallel
columns, the heart of one student was smitten with it; and this, in the hand of
God, was sufficient to produce a great moral change. An LL.D., and Fellow of
Trinity Hall, he had already excelled in the study of the Civil and Canon Law,
to which he had intended to devote his future life; but failing into great
distress of mind, he applied to the Priests. They appointed him fastings and
watching, with the purchase of pardons and masses; but after having spent almost
his all on these ignorant physicians of no value, it had fared with him, as with
one of old, to whose situation he compares his own; for “he was nothing the
better, but rather grew worse.” His case is the more interesting, in that no
human agent was employed to relieve him Having bought a copy of the Greek
Testament of Erasmus, he happened at the first reading to light upon the
well-known passage, 1Ti 1:15. “‘It is a true saying, and worthy of all men to be
embraced, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am
the chief.’ This one sentence,” he writes, “through God’s instruction and inward
teaching, which I did not then perceive, did so exhilarate my heart, being
before wounded with the guilt of my sins, and being almost in despair, that
immediately I felt a marvellous comfort and quietness, insomuch that my bruised
bones leapt for joy.” This was no other than Thomas Bilney, the future martyr of
1531. His preaching was followed by great and powerful effects, for, among
others, Hugh Latimer and Robert Barnes owed their conversion to him. So early,
therefore, as 1523, before Tyndale went abroad, Cambridge lay under strong
suspicion of heresy; and yet it is curious enough, that in that year, when
certain Bishops moved, that there might be a visitation appointed to go down,
for trying who were “the fautors of heresy” there, the Cardinal forbade it!
“Upon what grounds,” says Burnet, “I cannot imagine.” It seems to have been,
either because he then meditated a reform of the Church, after his own fancy, as
already disclosed in the letter of Longland, and of which his own sovereign
authority as Legate should appear to be the only fountain; or if not, to show at
the moment his authority over the clergy. His mind, we know, was then engrossed
with affairs of State, abroad as well as at home. At all events, the over-ruling
hand of God is manifest, in preventing all interference for at least three
years, or from January 1523, to February 1526. The order for Oxford we have
stated to be the third of this month; that for Cambridge must have been at the
same moment; but in this case, previous information through Dr. Tyrell,
after-mentioned, had suggested the necessity for two individuals being sent. One
Gibson, the Serjent-at-Arms, a creature of Wolsey’s, hated by the Aldermen and
Common Council of London, was therefore accompanied by Dr. Capon, one of the
Cardinal’s chaplains. They had arrived on Monday, as upon Tuesday the Sergeant
“suddenly arrested Dr. Barnes openly in the Convocation-house, to make all
others affraid;” and by Wednesday evening, (on the morning of which, Garret
first escaped from Oxford,) Dr. Barnes stood before Wolsey.

Robert Barnes, born near Lynn in Norfolk, after proceeding through the schools
at Cambridge, had entered the Monastery of Augustine Friars there, in the year
1514. Having then gone to Louvaine, where he studied, and passed as Doctor of
Theology; after his return he was made Prior and Master of his Monastery, in
1523. In conjunction with another Louvaine scholar, Mr. Thomas Parnel, whom he
had brought over with him, he became, says Strype and others, “the great
restorer of good learning at Cambridge.” He had introduced the study of the
classics, and was reading Terence, Plautus, and Cicero; but being brought to the
knowledge of the truth through Bilney, he proceeded to read openly with his
scholars, the Epistles of Paul. Sometime before this, Latimer had been also
enlightened through Bilney’s preaching, and was proclaiming the truth with great
decision and effect. Whether Latimer was actually in expectation of the New
Testament of Tyndale, does not appear, but the fact is, that he was now
powerfully preparing the way for it; as he frequently and particularly dwelt on
the great abuse of locking up the Scriptures in an unknown tongue. Prior
Buckingham, his opponent, inveighed against him, and insisted, that if that
heresy prevailed, we should soon see an end of every thing useful! This man,
Latimer put to silence, by that singular vein of humour for which he was
distinguished; while Venetus, a foreigner, with whom he reasoned in a strain
full of gravity, was obliged to leave the University. Latimer’s opponents
finding argument fail, resorted to authority; and West, the Bishop of Ely, after
hearing him, and even professing to be charmed, ultimately prohibited him from
preaching in any of the churches belonging to the University, or within his
diocese! The Monastery of Dr. Barnes, however, was happily exempt from episcopal
jurisdiction,-an exemption, indeed, peculiar to almost all the Monasteries, so
that the Prior boldly licensed him to preach there. the place was unable to
contain the crowds that assembled, and Dr. Barnes having been requested by the
parish to preach at St. Edward’s Church hard by, resolved to comply. This was a
memorable evening on account of the effects. It was in fact a crisis, though
never sufficiently marked as such. It was “Christmas eve, and on a Sunday,” says
Foxe, or as Barnes himself explains,-“ in the year of our Lord 1525, the 24th of
December.” Latimer was also officiating at the Monastery that evening; while the
present, says Foxe, was “the first sermon that ever Barnes preached of this
truth.”

Understanding now the way of truth more perfectly, and alive to the state of
things around him, he had resolved to be openly explicit. By two chaplains, Drs.
Robert Ridley and Walter Preston, fellows of King’s College, and kinsmen of
Tunstal, Bishop of London, he was immediately accused of heresy. This they did
in the Regent-House, before the Vice- Chancellor Edmund Nateres; and these two
men, assisted by three others, viz. Tyrell, Watson, and Fooke, having gathered
up certain articles against him, desired him to recant. The University as a body
immediately took up the matter, and disputed their authority. His adversaries,
however, within two or three days, having secured another meeting before the
Vice- Chancellor, by fraud and intimidation, they “so entreated and cozened
him,” that Barnes agreed to yield to their authority and their promised
clemency. They then enjoined him to read his revocation in St. Edward’s Church
next Sunday. Barnes consulted with eight or ten of his learned friends, among
whom were Stafford and Bilney, and then declined; but he had already ensnared
himself in these private interviews, and his accusers, aware of this, desisted,
only to wait their favourable moment. The learned of at least seven different
colleges now flocked together in open day to sermons, whether at the Augustine
Monastery or St. Mary’s.

Disputations were held during the whole of January, at a house called Germany by
way of derision, and “this tragedy,” says Foxe, “continued in Cambridge, one
preaching against anothcr, in trying out of God’s truth, until within six days
before Shrovetide,” or, in other words, to the very day that Dr. Barncs stood
before Wolsey.

It was not, however, to apprehend Barnes alone, that the Sergeant-at-Arms had
arrived at Cambridge. He had been charged to make secret scarch for books, and
instantly seize the whole, as well as apprehend all who possessed them. Not
fearer than thirty were suspected, and spies had given them precise information
as to every one of their rooms! But Dr. Forman of Queen’s College had happily,
at the first moment, informed all the parties of the privy search, and “God be
praised,” says Foxe, the books “were conveyed away by the time that the
Sergeant-at-Arms, the Vice- Chancellor, and the Proctors were at every man’s
chamber.” The business of Gibson was therefore soon accomplished, and Dr. Barnes
being his only prey, he was immediately carried to London.

We return, therefore, to Wolsey’s gallery at Westminster, on Wednesday evening,
Gardiner, his Secretary, and Fox, being the only parties present with Barnes.
The Cardinal soon discovered, that he was not unacquainted with what Dr. Barnes
had been delivering at Cambridge, telling that his noted sermon in December, was
“fitter to be preached on a stage than in a pulpit.” Certainly it was very
different doctrine from that with which almost every pulpit was filled; and as
for the rest, the fact is, that, whether well advised or not, Barnes, unable to
repress his indignation at this gross abuses of the times, had opened up before
the people Wolsey’s extravagance. To him belongs the distinction, of having led
the way in boldly and publicly exposing the gorgeous and tyrannical bearing of
the lofty Cardinal. This accounts for the severity with which he was now
treated, for both Bilney and Latimer were permitted to go on for some time
longer.

Wolsey, however, read the articles with patience, till he came to one personal
to himself; for the men at Cambridge, in drawing them up, knew how to touch him
at the quick. “What, Master Doctor,” exclaimed the Cardinal, “had you not a
sufficient scope in the Scriptures to teach the people, that my golden shoes, my
pole axes, my pillars, my golden cushions, my crosses did so offond you, that
you must make us rediculum caput before the people? We were jollily that day
laughed to scorn. Verily it was a sermon fitter to be preached on the stage than
in a pulpit, for at the last you said-I wear a pair of red gloves, I should say
bloody gloves, quoth you, that I should not be cold in the midst of my
ceremonies.” Whether this charge was correct, does not appear, but Barnes, as
yet unmoved, replied, “I spake nothing but the truth out of the old Doctors.” In
the end, he delivered to the Cardinal six sheets in manuscript, to confirm and
corroborate all that he had spoken. Wolsey smiling, said, “We perceive that you
mean to stand to your articles, and to show your learning.” “Yea, said Barnes,
that I do intend, by God’s grace, with your lordship’s favour.”

Wolsey enquired if he did not know that he was there for heresy, and whether he
could bring six or ten doctors of divinity to swear for him?

Barnes offered twenty honest men, as learned as himself, if not superior-but
these would not suffice. “They must be of your years according to law,” said
Wolsey. “That,” replied Barnes, “is impossible.” “Then,” said the Cardinal, “you
must be burnt!” At the close, Wolsey was about to commit him to the Tower, but
Fox and Gardiner interceded, and became sureties for his appearance. During the
whole night he was engaged in preparing for his defence before the Bishops, to
whom Wolsey had committed him. Three of his students, Coverdale, Goodwin, and
Field, having followed him up to London, were also occupied in writing to his
dictation. On Thursday morning, after calling at York Place, (Whitehall,) for
Fox and Gardiner, the Sergeant-at- Arms conveyed him down to the Chapter-House
at Westminster. He was now in the presence of John Clark, Bishop of Bath, as
principal judge, who treated him with marked severity; Henry Standish, Bishop of
St. Asaph, who was sure to be an enemy and not a judge; Islip, the Abbot of
Westminster; the Abbot of Bury; Dr. Jeffrey Wharton; Dr. Allen; and Dr.

Gardiner. After this examination he subscribed his articles, and was then
committed to Fleet Prison, but no one to speak with him. On Saturday at three
o’clock, when called to appear again, a long roll was shown to him, which he
must promise to read in public, with the assurance now, that he would not add
one word, more or less! They exacted this promise before he had read a line of
it, and put it to him solemnly three times! Barnes continuing firm, was dcsired
to retire. On being called in, they had agreed that a Notary should read it to
him, and as Barnes listened, he felt as though he would rather die than agree.
After long disputation, threatening, and scorn, it was now five o’clock; when
they called upon him to know whether he would abjure or burn. Barncs was in
great agony, inclining rathcr to the latter, when they sent him again to take
counsel from Fox and Gardiner alone; and they, “by persuasions that were mighty
in the sight of reason and foolish flesh,” brought him at last to yield and
abjure! It is easy for us now to say, that he ought to have stood firm, and if
he had, Barnes would have led the van at least, of this division of martyrs, for
the Word of God; but neither Garret nor he were yet able to brave the horrors of
the stake. With regard to Barnes, in particular, the sight on the follow ing day
was indeed most humiliating, and to his adversaries must have seemed a great
triumph. On Sabbath the 4th, in his pulpit at Cambridge, and on the next, or
11th, bearing a faggot at St. Paul’s! The church was crowded to excess, and
there sat Wolsey in all his glory, smiling, no doubt, over the pointed replies
of Thursday evening, while he saw Barnes and five others, Stillyard men, humbled
before him; and Fisher declaring to the people, how many days of pardon and
forgiveness of sins they had, for being present at that Sermon! To him, as well
as Wolsey and Longland, it was a high day, and one to which they had looked
forward for three years.

Here then, we have the first of a series, for it preceded Oxford by a few days,
in which books were committed to the flames; and among many others, upon this
day, the 11th of February, 1526, copras of Tyndale s New Testament were no doubt
for the first time cast into the fire, as they were at Oxford in the same week.
By this period we shall yet have curious and abundant evidence that they were in
the country; Garret was convicted, as we have seen, for conveying books to
Cambridge as well as Oxford, and among the stores of the Stillyard men, now
accumulated in the “great baskets,” the London stock was so far involved.

All this was evidently done by the Cardinal’s supreme and express authority, He
led the way, therefore, so that it is not correct to exonerate him, as some
authors have done, by affirming that this was an after-thought of the Bishops,
when Warham and Tunstal commenced their crusade against all books of the new
learning. Even then, Strype affirms, that they were instigated by the Cardinal;
but upon this day, Warham was not present, and Tunstal was as far distant as
Madrid. No, stung more than once, and in one week, by what had been detected at
Oxford and Cambridge, as well as in London, Wolsey must have felt exasperated in
the highest degree, and it is manifest that, by all this parade, he intended to
produce a deep and general panic. At the close of all, poor Barnes, though
received formally into the Roman Catholic Church again, was remitted to the
Fleet, till the Lord Cardinal’s pleasure should be known; but his friends were
permitted to visit him, and he there relented. As the season of conviction at
Oxford and Cambridge had been the same, so also was that of relief to both
parties. Perhaps the sad deaths at Oxford, in consequence of severe treatment,
led to this; since it was about the very same time that the young men at Oxford
were released, on condition of not moving above ten miles distant, that Barnes
was delivered from the Fleet; that is, at the end of six months. He, however,
was not permitted to go at large, even to the same extent, but was committed to
be a free prisoner at Austin Friars in London; and from evidence which will come
out in 1528, it will appear that he was here as busy as his circumstances would
permit, in actually disposing of copies of Tyndale’s Testament! His enemies,
therefore, were not incorrect in their suspicions, for, says Foxe, “they
complained again to the Lord Cardinal, whereupon he was removed to the Austin
Friars of Northampton, there to be burned.” B y a most unworthy stratagem,
however, feigning himself to have been drowned, he escaped to the Continent. His
enemies searched for him seven days, but they dragged the pond in vain.

Once abroad, and having time for reflection, Barnes must surely soon have seen
the evil of his conduct with regret; for alas, independently of its own
sinfulness, his example proved most baneful! At the moment it must have been,
“as when a standard-bearer fainteth,” or rather flies, for he first led in path
which cost many a sigh to those who followed him. His fall and escape, for fall
he did, certainly had no small influence in leading to the sad expedient of
abjuration, instead of resistance unto death-an expedicnt which produced, as we
shall find in Bilney’s case and others, mental agony to a degree, compared with
which, the tortures of the stake were transient, and far inferior. With regard
to this entire statement, such a remarkable conjunction of circumstances has
never before been traced; and though “The Supplication of Beggars” has all along
been familiar to the readers of history, they cannot have been before aware of
the mighty stir occasioned by the distribution of these few pages of
letter-press, on Candlemas-day. London, Oxford, and Cambridge, the subjects of
Wolsey’s “secret search and at one time,” were ascertained, in February 1526, to
be impregnated with the same leaven; but that the King himself, and before all
this uproar began, should have possessed and read this powerful tract, to the
Cardinal especially, must have proved not a little galling. On the whole,
however, it may have been observed, that none of the principal or leading
characters in Oxford, similar to Bames at Cambridge, had been called up before
Wolsey. Garret, indeed, had been apprehended at Oxford, but he belonged to
London, and they were young men only, who had been incarcerated, with the
exception of Clarke, and even he was not a man of authority. Still one or two of
a higher grade had been there suspected, of promoting the “new learning.” The
month of february, therefore, had not expired, when the University formally
applied to Warham of Canterbury, then their Chancellor, as he had been since
1506.

He was living retired at Knolle, but might not be so fully aware of all that had
happened, till he was officially thus informed. Accordingly, on the 8th of
March, he wrote a cautious and imploring letter to the Cardinal, full of fear
and anxiety as to Oxford and its honour, advising that only the leaders should
bo punished, and that the scholars suspected, whom he calls “a number of young
and uncircumspect fools,” should be called up to London for examination, but,
for the honour of the University, “the less bruit the better.” This letter was
little calculated to allay the irritation felt by Wolsey in the matter. Nor was
the advice offered in it taken, or the requests granted, though Garret and the
young scholars were already in durance vile. The Cardinal will take his own way
and act as it best pleased him. He will watch for his own revenge, and before
long something may occur, which will carry even the King fully along with him.
Accordingly, so it happened; tbr in less than, a fortnight after this letter,
and little more than a month after the day of terror at St. Paul’s, an
opportunity was presented, which Wolsey, with the Bishops, did not fail to
improve for the most impious of all purposes-the burning of the Sacred
Scriptures, and to be burned by authority of the King.

Henry the VIII. having written against Martin Luther’s book on the Babylonish
Captivity, and thus procured from Rome the title of “Defender of the Faith;”
Luther in 1521 had published his bold and very rough reply. In September 1525,
however, as already hinted, no matter by whose advice, or under what impression,
he made an attempt at reconciliation, by addressing a letter to his Majesty. In
this letter he actually confessed that at the instance of other persons he had
grievously offended, by a foolish and precipitate publication, yet, from the
reported clemency of the King, he hoped for his forgiveness. tie had been told
that his Majesty Was not the real author of the book edited under his name; and,
at the same time, though denouncing Wolsey as “a monster, the general odium of
God and man, and the plague of his kingdom,” he yet prayed for a gracious reply!

Luther pled afterwards, that he had been urgently pressed by Christiern King of
Denmark to write even lids letter, but the step taken no one can defend. It was
not only unworthy of his character and place, but at variance with the upright
integrity of any follower of Christ. “Who knows,” said Luther, “but in a happy
hour I may gain the King of England?” A little of human vanity, therefore, seems
to have been lurking in his mind; but at all events, he must have been quite in
the dark as to the existing state of affairs in England, when he could pen and
print such a letter.

Henry, in reply, having reproached Luther with levity and inconstancy, as well
as his marriage, and the vilest heresy, represented Wolsey as peculiarly dear to
him, and of great value in preventing the contagion of the Lutheran heresy; of
which, it might have been added, he had lately given a flaming specimen. A
remarkable fact, however, rcspecting this letter of Luther’s has been all but
overlooked. Though dated from Wittenberg, on the 1st of September, 1525, more
than six months had elapsed before it met the eye of the King.

He himself professes that he only received it on the 20th of March! Its
nonarrival may well be observed, for, had the same wrath been excited by the end
of 1525, the entrance of books at that period, and in January, must have been
still more difficult than it was. But arriving five weeks after the famous
burning at St. Paul’s, a fine opportunity was now presented for exciting the
royal indignation against the English New Testament, and covering it with all
the odium of Lutheranism, the assumed cant of the day. The name of the
translator not being yet known, for Cochlaeus had not mentioned it, no doubt it
was deemed a happy thought, boldly to assert that the production was the device
of Luther himself! Henry must have been sufficiently incensed by ibc letter of
Luther alone, and, as for any additional information, both he and Wolsey must
have remembered, too late, the letters of Rincke and Cochlaeus; but in the
preface of the King’s Answer to Luther, addressed to his “dearly beloved
people,” he denounces the New Testament in English as the “device of one or two
lewd (illiterate) persons born in this our realm,” at the instigation of Luther,
noticing “certain prefaces and other pestilent glosses in the margins,” so that
by the advice of Cardinal Wolsey he had resolved that all copies of it found
should be burned, and holders or readers of it punished. This advice, thus given
and sanctioned, as to the burning of the quarto book, the only edition yet
marked out, must have occurred immediately after the reception of Luther’s
letter, and prepares us for the more formal injunctions of Tunstal and Warham,
which, however, did not come out till towards the end of the year, so that we
have still several incidents to record before then. From March to October,
whether the friends of truth had enjoyed a breathing time or not, as it regards
the prudential importation and circulation of Tyndale’s precious volumes,
certain events show, that, though living in perilous times, they had zealously
improved them. Thus, when the “Supplication of Beggars” was scattering about in
London, at and before Candlemas, the author, Mr. Fyshe, it is presumed, was not
in England, otherwise he must have run the hazard of being amongst the first
victims, Return, however, he did, and to London, where he not only sojourned for
a season during this summer, but was useful and active in the circulation of
Tyndale’s New Testament. It seems as if he had come for the purpose. He may have
brought over copies with him; but, at all events, when we come to the
disclosures upon oath in the spring of 1528, we shall find, that, at this very
period, he was a confidential agent, importing the Testament from Mr. Harman of
Antwerp, and dealing it out for sale to such as travelled through the country
and sold them. After Tunstal’s return, he again fled abroad, not returning for
about two years and a half.

Mr. Rodolph Bradford, a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, coming to London,
by the help of Mr. Jeffrey Lome, the Usher of St. Anthony’s School, and
confidential agent of Mr. Forman of Honey Lane, the colleague of Garret, “he
met. with certain New Testaments, translated into English by Tyndale, and went
to Reading with them, out of a godly zeal to disperse them.” There he delivered
them to a certain monk, who being apprehended, made known the names of him and
others from whom he had them. Whereupon letters were sent over to Cambridge to
apprehend this Bradford, now returned, together with Dr. Smith of Trinity Hall,
Simon Smith of Gonville Hall, Hugh Latymer, and Segar Nicolson, a stationer
there. Bradford escaped to Ireland, but was taken and imprisoned two years, He
afterwards returned to Cambridge, passed as D.D. in 1534, and lived and died
Chaplain to Latimer when Bishop of Worcester. f25 As the year advanced, however,
the alarm continued to increase. The Pontiff himself seemed to be in
jeopardy-Luther’s rash letter was not forgotten-Henry was printing his Latin
reply, and translating it also into English for the press, with a preface to his
people-the Bishops were consulting-Tunstal had now come home, and something must
be done. In what particular month of this year Tunstal had arrived from Spain,
does not appear. Wolsey heard in March, says Lord Herbert, that he was on his
way homewards, so that it must have been some time after this; and then, however
annoying it certainly proved to such a man, he could not remain long in London,
before he found it necessary to look into the state of his diocese; for so
widely were both editions of the Testament now circulated, that even the
Archbishop of Canterbury must examine his province. The Bishops were assembled,
and, according to Strype, at the instigation of Wolsey. Of this consultation we
have no record, but one curious account of it may be glanced at from the famous
Satire of William Roye against the Cardinal. Being abroad, he could, of course,
only write according to the report that reached him-and this was incorrect as it
regarded Wolsey-but still it may be noticed as one proof, by the way, of the
deep interest felt in all the public proceedings of the time.

According to Roye, it was Henry Standish, once Guardian of the Franciscans, and
now Bishop of St. Asaph, already mentioned, who first informed Wolsey of the
Testament being in the country, imploring him most earnestly to prevent its
circulation. This informer, Roye designates Judas; and making Wolsey sustain the
part of Pilate, he represents him as, at the first, paying but little regard to
the fury of Standish, and even saying-“ I find no fault therein.” But when once
the Bishops had assembled as a body, and he with them, to examine and determine
what was to be done; no sooner did Tunstal, Bishop of London, (or Caiphas,)
deliver his opinion, than the Cardinal assented, and, of course, all the
rest-giving judgment that the book should be sought for, and committed to the
flames. In Roye’s estimation, however, it was now all in vain, either to “give
judgment against the Gospel,” or try to prevent its circulation. Thus, in one
place, alluding first to the Saviour, and then to the book itself, he says, in
his own uncouth, but nervous rhyme- “God, of his goodness, grudg’d not to die,
Man to deliver from deadly damnation, Whose will is, that we should know
perfectlie What he here hath done for our salvation. O cruel Caiphas! full of
crafty conspiration, How durst thou give then false judgment, To burn God’s
word-the holy Testament? “The lewdness of living is loath to bear Christ’s
gospel to come unto clear light; How be it, surely it is so spread far and near,
That for to let it, thou hast little might; God hath opened our dark dimmed
sight Truly to perceive thy tyrannous intent, To burn God’s word-the holy
Testament.”f26 Let the other particulars here given, with the exception of
Wolsey’s indifference, be as they might, we know that the Bishops did assemble
and consult: and that some prohibitory instrument was issued by Wolsey himself,
there can be no doubt, as we find Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, acting on the
strength of it, in January 1529. Whatever it was, however, this was in his own
name, not that of the King, nor does there seem to be any trace of it remaining
in existence. The first instrument generally known to have been published, was
the prohibition sent out by Cuthbert Tunstal; in which both editions of
Tyndale’s Testament, (“of which,” he says, “there are many books, some with
glosses and some without,”) already dispersed in great number, are now, at last,
denounced, and Luther’s sect falsely employed, as the convenient word of terror.

Tunstal’s orders being issued on Wednesday the 24th of October, a copy was sent
to the Archdeacons of Middlesex, Essex, and Colchester; and eleven days
afterwards, or the 3rd of November, a “Mandate,” in nearly the same terms, was
given out by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, to search his entire province.
Both instruments refer simply to the New Testament of Tyndale, of both editions,
and in wide circulation; no other book being referred to, or prohibited at the
same moment. Tyndale, therefore, though not yet expressly named, enjoyed the
honour of being thus exposed alone, and as though he had been the great offender
of the day; while it will be observed, that the work here carved out for the
Archdeacons, instead of being finished in two months, occupied official
attention for years to come. f27 After two such injunctions as these had been
issued, it was not to be supposed that these enemies of Divine truth either had
been or would remain inactive. Accordingly, whether we regard the Bishops at
home, or the King and Cardinal in their exertions abroad, they are all alive,
and equally on the alert. With respect to proceedings at home, Barnes, it must
be remembered, had not yet left the country; but he had been so far released as
to be now a free prisoner at St. Augustine’s; and Garret, though he had endured
penance sufficient at Oxford, had not been so publicly cross-examined. This
might elicit some farther information. Articles having been, therefore, vamped
up against him, he had been brought up from Osney prison, and about this time
stood before Tunstal and his fellows, as already narrated. Following the sad
example set him by Barnes, he at last abjured.

Between Oxford and Cambridge, however, there has appeared as yet one material
difference in point of the number of convictions. True, the students at
Cambridge, being forewarned, had more dexterously concealed their books, and so
escaped detection; but there were Latimer and Bilney, not to say others, as
notorious as Barnes; nay, the two named were, in every respect, far more so. It
may have seemed strange, therefore, that they at least were not ordered up to
London at the same time. It must, however, be remembered, that Barnes had
rendered himself most obnoxious at that moment, by his unceremonious exposure of
Wolsey personally: yet engrossed as he was with political affairs, after a
season, neither these men, nor some others, had been overlooked. As for Latimer,
his adroitness of reply, and vein of humour, were often of service to him, and
to these, perhaps, he was now somewhat indebted.

Various complaints had been made against him; but though they had not, it is
evident that the interdict of West, the Bishop of Ely, could not remain
unnoticed, however unsupported it might be by other authorities. Wolsey,
therefore, sent for Latimer, to appear before him at York House, where he
himself examined him. Upon his first entrance, the Cardinal seemed surprised, on
observing him to bc so far advanced in years. Finding him also to be at once
acute, learned, and ready in his replies; surpassing in accuracy of learning,
either of the Doctors, Capon and Marshall, now in Wolsey’s presence; he
requested him to give some account of that sermon which he had preached before
Dr. West, the Bishop. Latimer did so. “Then,” said the Cardinal, “if the Bishop
of Ely cannot abide such doctrine as you have here repeated, you shall have my
licence, and shall preach it unto his beard, let him say what he will.”
Accordingly, after a gentle admonition only, the Cardinal discharged Latimer,
actually giving him his licence to preach throughout England! A most singular
interposition in favour of the truth, at once raising the man above the malice
of his enemies, and the interdict of any Bishop in the land! f28 With regard to
Bilney, who had preached with such effect, not only at Cambridge, but in Suffolk
and Norfolk, and even in London, whose case at last became so affecting, he made
two appearances. The first has been generally overlooked, perhaps partly owing
to one passage in the first edition of Foxe having been omitted, and the fact
coming out incidentally only in the subsequent editions. But of the fact itself,
there can be no doubt, or that he did not escape as Latimer had done; for alas!
he then first got entangled, and first let go his integrity! At the close of
this first appearance he had been enjoined “not to preach any of Luther’s
opinions, but to impugn them everywhere;” yet afterwards, taking refuge merely
on some supposed informality in the oath administered to him, he had gone on
much as before. It was on this account that we shall find him come before them
in November 1527, or next year, charged with having relapsed. More than this, we
shall find afterwards, that, at whatever period this first appearance of Bilney
took place, there was another man along with him, Thomas Arthur, in the same
situation. As for any other Cambridge men, they seem to have been merely
admonished. The mildness hitherto shown to men, must have been most annoying to
some of these persecutors; and it was afterwards to be visited on the head of
Wolsey, when impeached, that he had been the disturber of “the due and direct
correction of heresies;” but as for zeal in the burning of books, the Cardinal
was certainly not one whit behind any of them. By the end of this year,
therefore, many copies of the New Testament must have been consumed in the
flames, for it has been altogether a mistake to confine this to one or two great
occasions. On the contrary, in the very first month of next year we shall
presently hear the ambassador of Henry, in the Low Countries, bringing it
forward as an argument for burning others there, that this had been doing in
England daily! In the midst of all this determined, though vain fury, against
the reception of the Word of God into England, it is most gratifying to find
that the friends of truth abroad had been so active. It was there that the King
and the Cardinal had been playing their part in this tragedy, and to them we
must now turn, after a few words of explanation; for we are not yet done with
this notable year, 1526. The editions of Tyndale’s Testament have been hitherto
divided into two classes, styled the genuine and spurious; meaning by the former
such as he himself edited, and by the latter such as were printed from his, by
others. The latter were not so correct, but still they nobly and effectually
served their purpose, enlightening and consoling many an immortal spirit.

We have already given the history of the first and second editions printed in
1525, and issued from Worms. We now come to the first printed at Antwerp by
Christopher of End-hoven, or the third edition. The whole history of it is
curious, giving such a display of opposition to the entrance of the Word of God
into our native land, as is nowhere else to be found, though it has never before
been even noticed in any printed publication. The two months formally specified
in Turstal’s injunction for calling in books at home, were not permitted to
expire before it becomes evident that the King and Wolsey, as well as the
Bishops, had entered fully into the subject. Finding that, somehow or other,
copies were importing, they resolved, if possible, to cut off the supplies from
abroad. Well aware that it was from the Low Countries, Brabant, that all these
hated Testaments had come, no stone must be left unturned to find them out. All
the energy of the English ambassador at the court of Lady Margaret, must be put
to the stretch, and we shall now have one striking illustration of how much in
earnest were all parties -King, Cardinal, and Bishops-to arrest the progress,
and prevent the triumphs of Divine truth. Oh how joyfully would they have
consigned the last leaf to the flames! And this, assuredly, they would have
done, but for this most annoying and hated “new invention of printing.”

While, however, they were burning at home, others were busy at the printing
press abroad, and, therefore, the frenzy of the enemy must extend from England
to Brabant.

How providential was it, that, by this time, the power and the terror of
Wolsey’s name were upon the wane! Only a few years before, the Lady Regent of
these countries, Princess Margaret, had whispered in his ear the sweet sound of
the Popedom, and her own wish to see him in the Papal Chair; nay, and proposed
to write to the Emperor, her nephew, in his favour. Now, however, she had found
good reason to suspect the man. f30 High words had passed between the parties,
and also with Count Hoogstrate, one of the Lady Margaret’s Council, to whom
application was about to be made. Wolsey, moreover, had insulted, by the
insolence of his language, Monsieur Bever, the Lord of Campvere and Admiral of
Flanders, the Emperor’s ambassador to England, now returned to the Low
Countries. Added to all this, it had been a favourite project of the Cardinal,
to withdraw the English merchants and “the mart for goods,” from Antwerp to
Calais. Alt these things were against him; and “the Lords of Antwerp,” who, at
one period, not long past, would have at once crouched before him, by the good
providence of God, will now prove neither so pliant nor obsequious.

Wolsey, however, fully aware of all these circumstances, had resolved that the
search for books upon the Continent should commence with the highest authority;
and he must, therefore, have the King on the throne called the “Defender of the
Faith,” to command the destruction of the Sacred Volume! The ink of Tunstal’s
injunction was scarcely dry, before Henry had signed his letters; one addressed
to Princess Margaret, and the other to the Governor of the English House at
Antwerp. Wolsey’s letters, also, dated the 31st of October and 3rd November,
were directed to John Hackett, the Agent for the Crown and English Envoy at that
Court, and all were conveyed by the same messenger. At a formal audience, on
Saturday the 17th of November, Hackett delivered the King’s letters to the Lady
Margaret, in presence of the Lords of her Council; and, on the 19th, the
Princess herself replied to Henry-“ She cannot sufficiently praise his Majesty’s
virtuous intentions! She had consulted with Hackett, and since the reception of
the King’s letter, she had pointedly commanded her officers to search the
country for these books, intending to proceed in all rigour against those whom
they found culpable.’’ Two days after this, Hackett informs Wolsey of his
cordial reception at Court, and that he had “delivered the King’s letter to the
Governor. of the Merchant Adventurers, who promised that on the first day at
Barrow, he would show the King’s highness and the Cardinal’s mind and pleasure
as touching these new imprinted books, and shall do his best, (and so will I,)
utterly to destroy,-and bring them to nought.” Hackett is very warm in the
cause, for if it did not succeed, he thought that “every fool would think to be
a doctor!” f33 But in negociating this business, our ambassador had no easy task
assigned to him. Books were to be sought for in the large and busy city of
Antwerp. As Envoy, he lived fifteen miles distant, at Mechlin, where the
reigning Princess held her court. In Antwerp itself, the Margrave, as
representative of the Emperor, resided; but as that city enjoyed its own laws
and privileges, of which the “Lords of Antwerp” were the guardians, their
authority was paramount to all others, Hackett eagerly desired to gratify the
Cardinal and his English Bishops, but then he was about to meddle with the
citizens of “no mean city.” On the 17th of December he wrote to the King’s
Secretary, reporting progress, and addressed another to Wolsey on the 22nd, an
instance of those double dispatches which the Cardinal uniformly required. In
the latter he states the difficulties he met with in the business; as it was
“one that touched both life and goods,” the Lords of Antwerp would give no
sentence till they had a translation of the English Testament into Latin or
German, by which to form a judgment of its heresy. In vain he urged his Master’s
authority; they must have a copy of each of the books condemned ere they could
proceed in the matter, remarking that each country had its own laws, and must
act upon them alone. He concludes by begging a copy of each book for the Council
of Lady Margaret, and for the Lords of Antwerp.

Copies of the Testaments had, however, been sent before he wrote for them, and
he soon had to report that the Lady Regent, on seeing the books and the
Cardinal’s letter, had written to the Margrave and Council of Antwerp, “to do
justice and correction upon all such books as they can find in the limits of
their jurisdiction,”-that the Lords of Antwerp had promised to “do their devoir
according to right and reason, but this required that Christopher Endhoven, the
printer of these books, should be heard in his own defence. And heard he was,
and to so good effect, that the Lords gave sentence, “that, before the
banishment of the said printer, the confiscation of his goods, or the burning of
his books, the Margrave, as officer of the Emperor, shall show and declare some
articles contained in the said books, where these errors and heresies be found.”
But the Margrave would proceed no farther in the business. Finally Hackett
proposes as the shortest way of getting quit of the books, to buy the whole
stock, send them over to England and burn them there.

How degraded was the condition of London then, compared with that of this city!
The Lords of Antwerp stand here, deservedly, on very high ground. The name of
the reigning Princess, or even that of the Emperor himself, though backed by the
orders of the” Defender of the Faith,” and his mighty Cardinal, could not
intimidate them. The establishment of those cities which, in return for their
opulence or commercial power, obtained for themselves certain invaluable
privileges, has been styled “the commercial phenomenon of the thirteenth
century.’’ It was one of those providential arrangements of human society, which
Infinite Wisdom occasionally employed afterwards, for the protection of civil
rights, or staying the vengeance of the oppressor. But, added to this, there was
yet another arrangement, and in favour of Britain,-the establishment of English
factories within those cities, known by the title of “the English House,” or
Company of “Merchant Adventurers.” These were, in one sense, Normal Schools,
where our countrymen first came to understand and value the liberty of the
subject. The English merchants resident in Antwerp became citizens, and to more
than one of them, England stood greatly indebted for the importation of the
Sacred Scriptures. In the abundance of his zeal, Hackett not only visited
Antwerp, Barrow, Zealand, and other places, but made “privy inquisitions” at
Ghent and Bruges, at Brussels, Louvaine, and elsewhere, after books, which was
all in obedience to Wolsey’s instructions; so that he thinks forty marks (£26
13s. 4d.), which he had just received, should be allowed him for “expenses
extraordinary.” Yet, in the end, notwithstanding all this toil, it is gratifying
to observe, that so far from Christopher Endhoven being banished, they could not
even touch his goods. Thanks to his residence in the free city of Antwerp! The
books, however, so far as detected there and at Barrow, were burned, though
happily they had found out only a part. Of all this Hackett did not fail
immediately to inform the King’s Secretary; and in his second dispatch to
Wolsey, dated from Mechlin the 20th of February, he informs him that “execution
and justice has been done in the towns of Antwerp and Barrow, upon all such
English books as we could find in these countries, similar to three such other
books as your Grace sent unto me with my Lord the Bishop of London’s signature.”
This, however, had been accomplished, it is evident, with no small difficulty,
and it was, in the end, only by a stretch of power; as the Envoy confesses that
till “a translation of some particular heresies contained in the said book were
got out of England,” he could not get the printers, buyers or sellers punished,
either in body or in goods. In conveying this request, Hackett did not foresee
the consequences to himself afterwards, otherwise, perhaps, he would have been
silent, for we are not done with him yet; though we have slightly trespassed on
1527, only that we might finish the account of this business, and bring to a
conclusion the important transactions of the preceding year.

All this turmoil is entirely new to the English reader, and certainly it lends
an additional and peculiar interest, not only to the two first editions of
Tyndale, but to the first imitation of his book, or the third edition. No
printer would have ventured on such a thing, without the prospect of a ready
sale, even in the face of royal indignation. For could a copy of this first
print at Antwerp now be identified, then might we say of it-Here is the volume,
printed by Endhoven, which so agitated our authorities at home and abroad; and
engrossed our ambassador as eagerly as if he had been intent on preventing the
plague from entering into England. We have, however, yet to see whether this
interference was to his honour or disgrace. Meanwhile, although we can by no
means alarm that we have found out the book, since the following collation
refers to one of the earliest editions, we give it entire- “A copy is in Bishop
Cosin’s library at Durham, which may turn out to be some one very early and
unknown. The title is in a small compartment of four parts, with top and bottom
scriptural subjects. On the top, the creation and birth of the Saviour; at the
bottom, Adam and Eve beguiled, and the crucifixion. The volume consists of 446
leaves, on the last of which is the Revelation of St. Judas, Jude. There are 26
lines in a full page. Matthew begins on folio 11; and the volmne extends to R r
in eights. The chapters are marked into portions by large letters on the margin;
and there are a few marginal notes. It has ornamented capitals; the first T, two
boys carrying on a stick a dead stag, with the head upwards.” f34 Should this,
however, prove to be one of the edition now under consideration, there is
another copy, and of a more extraordinary character, in the collection at
Norwood-hill. Not only is it in the original hog-skin binding, which would be
curiosity enough, but, to this hour, many of the leaves remain not yet cut
open!-a peculiarity not to be expected in a book nearly three hundred and twenty
years old, and one which, it may be safely presumed, will stamp the volume as
unique, amongst all these rare early editions. The following pages will throw
still farther light on this interesting period, but we have now done for the
present with the memorable year 1526.

Instead of having to be satisfied with only one edition of the New Testament,
and that of doubtful or hitherto disputed origin, we have had three distinctly
before us, besides, as will be more fully proved, a separate impression of
Matthew and Mark, circulating through the country. We have seen all the
authorities, from the King downwards, roused in opposition; and the people,
though in secret, were reading with avidity. It was the season of entrance to
Britain’s greatest earthly treasure; and one should have imagined that it would
have been marked in our calendar, with a red letter, or fully understood, long
ere now. Viewing these first printed volmnes in their ultimate effects, the year
may well be regarded by all British Christians, as by far the most important, in
the long and varied history of their native land. A fire was then kindled by the
Almighty, through the instrumentality of his servant, which, in the highest
exercise of his loving-kindness, He has never suffered to be extinguished; light
was then introduced, which He has never withdrawn; and a voice was then heard by
the people, which has sounded in the ears of their posterity to the present
hour. For whatever may be said of men, as men, it is to the word of truth in the
vulgar tongue that we owe everything in this highly-favoured country!

Many of these volumes, it is true, were consigned to the flames; and the wonder
is that any of them escaped detection. But every one knows with what avidity men
will read an interdicted book, while the call for its deliverance up would only
make certain minds grasp it harder still. Besides, though in part detected, in
such places as London and Oxford-for in Cambridge they were not-copies had gone,
far and near, into the hamlets and towns in the country, where, no doubt, they
were enjoyed by stealth, and hid with anxious care. The preceding statements are
not hypothetical; the reader has been entertained neither with mere conjectures
or probability only; and as subsequent events will both illustrate and confirm
the preceding, we presume it will now be conceded, as not a little
extraordinary, that more than three centuries should have been allowed to pass
away, before a year so full of incident, nay, of peculiar favour to Britain, has
been investigated.

We have said Britain, because it will appear, in its proper place, that, at this
very period, Scotland was mercifully visited with the same favour. The
Translator’s Progress-His Earliest Compositions-Persecution In
England-Opposition To The New Testament-Warham And The Bishops Buying It
Up-Fresh Importations-The Fourth Edition-Scriptures Singularly Introduced Once
More. IN returning to Tyndale, whom we left alone at Worms, after having
completed his New Testaments, we do so with abundant evidence, that he had not
laboured in vain. Much has vaguely been ascribed to Latin works then imported
from the Continent, and in consequence of even their effects, the “spirituality”
of the day no doubt dreaded almost every leaf; but the history already given
clearly shows, that the New Testament in the vulgar tongue was the great object
of apprehension. While yet in his native land, Tyndale “had perceived by
experience how that it was impossible to stablish the lay people in any truth,
except the Scriptures were plainly laid before their eyes in their mother
tongue, that they might see the process, order, and meaning of the text:” and so
now, as the Word of the Lord was enlightening the minds, “converting the soul,
and making wise the simple,” it had proved also “like a fire or a hammer,” and
was breaking the rocks in pieces.

Very soon, through whatever medium, Tyndale was made intimately acquainted with
the storm that raged in England, and, amidst all its tumultuous howling, he had
ample enconragement to proceed with his Old Testament from the Hebrew; but in
the year 1526, He must have been also very busy in preparing for the press, as
we shall find that the year 1527 was distinguished by the first appearance of
two publications, namely, his exposition of “The Parable of the Wicked Mammon,”
and his “Obedience of a Christian man.”

Some time, however, before the appearance of anything else in print, we may now
safely assert, that Tyndale had been favoured by the company, consolation, and
assistance of his devoted Christian friend, John Fryth, who had fled from Oxford
to the Continent about September 1526, and no doubt fully reported progress. An
affection subsisted between these two eminent men, akin to that between Paul and
Timothy of old, though in one point the parallel fails-the younger died first.
Fryth was not only Tyndale’s own son in the faith, but he had no man so dear to
him; and as all parties, even his enemies, agreed in bearing testimony to the
attainments of Fryth as a scholar, nothing could be more opportune than his
arrival; but before saying more of him, some notice must be taken of William
Roye, whom Tyndale had found it necessary to dismiss from his service in 1525.
In 1526, as already hinted, circumstances having suggested to our Translator,
the necessity of encouraging those to whom it had been sent, by some exposition
of his own views of Divine Truth, he commenced by writing out “The Parable of
the Wicked Mammon;” but before it appeared, there had come to his possession the
copy of a Dialogue, translated out of Latin into English, which had been printed
at Strasburg by his late amanuensis, with a prologue of his own composition.
This singular character, Roye, as well as another named Jerome, were two
Franciscan friars from the noted monastery at Greenwich, close by the favourite
palace of Henry VIII. The inmates of this monastery, as well as of another at
Richmond, with whom they were occasionally in league, were a great annoyance to
the King. Thus the residence of Roye and Jerome, in immediate vicinity to the
Court, and to all the gorgeous feats of Henry and his Cardinal, afforded such
opportunities as fully account for the very graphic poetical satire already
quoted, and to which we now refer. After leaving Tyndale’s service, Roye had
proceeded to Strasburg, where he published his “Dialogue between the Father and
the Son,” about the end of 1526. Soon after this came his Rede me, and be not
wrothe,” or Satire on Wolsey and the Monastic orders, frequently denounced as
“The burying of the Mass,”-one of the most extraordinary satires, it has been
said, of this or any other age. It was first published in small octavo, black
letter, with a wood-cut of the Cardinal’s coat-of-arms. Wolsey was so annoyed by
it, that he spared neither pains nor expense to procure the copies, employing
more than one emissary for the purpose. Hence its extreme rarity; a copy of this
original edition having been sold for as high a sum as sixteen or twenty
guineas! It is reprinted, however, in the Harleian Miscellany by Park. With a
modesty and prudence, highly characteristic, our Translator had put forth the
New Testament without his name, and he earnestly wished to have gone on, through
life, with anonymous publication; but the sight of Roye’s Dialogue and Prologue,
in connexion with his previous conduct, had fully convinced Tyndale that there
was an imperative necessity, not only for affixing his name to what he now
published, but for his disclaiming all connexion or even intercourse with Roye,
after a certain period. This he does in his preface to the “Parable of the
Wicked Mammon,” where he informs us when and how long and in what capacity he
had employed Roye, till he bade him “farewell for our two lives,” and afterwards
had occasion to warn Jerome of his boldness (see p. 28); that Roye, on coming to
Strasburg, found this Jerome, and “gat him to him and set him a work to make
rhymes, while he himself translated a dialogue out of Latin into English, in
whose prologue he promiseth more a great deal than, I fear me, he will ever pay
It becometh not the Lord’s servant to use railing rhymes, but God’s Word, which
is the right weapon to slay sin, vice, and all iniquity.”

It is a curious fact, that, notwithstanding the above distinct explanation, and
decided disapprobation of all such rhyme, Tyndale for a year, if not two, lay
under the imputation of being actually the author of Roye’s Satire.

He was now, by anticipation, endeavouring to prevent this, and the event fully
justifies the severity of his language.

Tyndale had already given a specimen of his scholarship. It remained now to be
discovered, whether he was to be at all distinguished as a judicious man; a
character from which a mere scholar often stands at a great distance. One is
curious to hear, what he had got to say first, and especially, if to England,
from the city of Worms. In his deliberate judgment, it becomes evident, that
most of the evils with which his native country was now infested, were to be
traced to the love of money. Hence, even the title of this, his very first
treatise-“The Wicked Mammon.” The “Spirituality” of the day, so called, appeared
to him as the “Successors of Simon Magus,” “who would have bought the gift of
God to have sold it much dearer.” Bred up as Tyndale had been in
Gloucestershire, it was quite natural that he should feel deeply for the people,
as ground down or pillaged, by exactions, and “spiritual alms,” falsely so
denominated. It was not, however, that he had now commenced, by a lecture on
covetousness.

Far from it. But the title having once attracted the reader’s eye, as it was
very likely to do, he found himself at once addressed on the only genuine origin
of all vital religion. Commencing with the great and fundamental subject of a
sinner’s acceptance before God; believing the gospel to be the ministration of
righteousness and of the Spirit, and Christ alone “the great store-house of
mercy;” he magnifies Divine revelation as the ground of all certainty in matters
so important. Selecting a great variety of passages, the interpretation of which
involve a deep and intimate acquaintance with Divine truth, though in one or two
instances he has not hit the sense; yet Tyndale shows, with no common
discrimination, how they all perfectly coalesce, and agree with the general
doctrine, that a man is justified before God by faith in Christ Jesus, and not
by the works of the law. This publication, however, in Tyndale’s estimation, was
not sufficient. He intended to be open and explicit, not only as to doctrine,
but the Divine precepts; not only as to faith, but obedience, in its full
extent. He saw, and deeply felt, that, in his native country, the whole
foundations were out of course,-that there were men reigning there, falsely
called, nay, and calling themselves “spiritual,” who not only had taken away the
very key of knowledge, and taught for doctrines the commandments of men; but who
had broken the bonds of all human society, beggared the nation by their
exactions, and sunk it into a state of pollution and depravity. This accounts
for his able exposition of duty incumbent on all parties-the obedience of
children to parents, of servants to masters, of wives to their husbands, of
subjects to their sovereign; not forgetting the obligations of all the superior
parties, including the duty of kings, of judges and officers of the land. That
false and usurped spiritual power which undermined and destroyed all other, is
then particularly examined and reprobated. This publication Tyndale entitled
“The Obedience of a Christian Man, and how Christian Rulers ought to govern:
wherein also (if thou mark diligently) thou shalt find eyes to perceive the
crafty conveyance of all Jugglers.”

Such, with his name affixed, was the manifesto of William Tyndale, published,
too, at the very season in which God was pleading with Britain by the voice of
his mouth, and had risen up in judgment on the city of Rome. After this, no man
could affirm that he did not plead emphatically for practical religion, or the
fruits of faith. Nor is it wonderful if Henry VIII. himself was, at one moment,
moved by this publication, as we shall see afterwards; for, to every impartial
mind, it must have been evident that Tyndale was not only a genuine lover of his
country, but one of the most enlightened and loyal subjects of the Crown.

Throughout the year 1527, political events rendered it next to impossible that
any moment should be left to attend to the suppression of Tyndale’s New
Testament, or the persecution of those who possessed it. But if there was, we
can more fully estimate the extent of that apprehension and anxiety which
agitated, even at such a time as this, not only the Bishops of the day, but all
the votaries of “the old learning.”

It was but one short year since the Sacred Volume had arrived in the country;
and yet see how deeply its enemies were moved. The first inveterate opponent who
excites notice, was “an ancient doctor, called, as I remember,” says Cavendish,
“Doctor (Robert) Ridley, a very small person in stature, but surely a great and
excellent clerk in divinity!” He was celebrated as a canonist, and had been
consulted by Wolsey, years before this, respecting the prevention of
Lutheranism. Related to Cuthbert Tunstal, he, in the year 1523, had made him
Rector of St. Botolph’s, Bishopsgate; in 1524, Prebend (Mora) of St. Paul’s, and
more recently Rector of St. Edmond’s, Lombard Street. Was it wonderful that this
little man should wax warm in the service of the hierarchy? The bitterness of
his zeal would exceed belief, could we not present a specimen from his own pen.
Yet was he no other than the uncle of the learned and amiable Nicholas Ridley,
the future martyr; and gave him, at his sole expense, his fine education at home
and abroad! The uncle and nephew have occasionally been confounded, though no
two men could form a stronger contrast. From a singular letter of this Robert
Ridley,1 as yet unpublished, dated 24th February, 1527, and addressed to Henry
Golde at Knolle, as chaplain to Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, we learn that
in the year 1526, Tyndale’s quarto Testament, with the prologue prefixed, was
circulating in England. We learn also that there was an edition of Matthew and
Mark separately, which he designates the first print, the former being styled
the second print, That he was correct in this, in 1528, there will be but little
doubt; to say nothing more of its giving such emphasis to the language of Foxe,
already noticed. “William Tyndale first placed himself in Germany, and there did
first translate the gospel of St, Matthew into English, and after, the whole New
Testament.” The invaluable fragment, however, of the quarto New Testament,
lately discovered, and now in the Grenville library, British Museum, is not, as
before hinted, a part of this publication.

It extends, indeed, no farther than Mat 23:1-39; but then it has the preface or
prologue prefixed, with the pages, or rather letters, running on; and, besides
this, the list of all the canonical books of the New Testament at the beginning.
There is, however, little or no necessity for pointing out this distinction,
since Ridley quotes from Corinthians and Titus -a decisive proof that he had had
the quarto Testament entire before hint. From this letter we also learn to a
certainty, that the Introduction, or Prologue to the Romans, by itself, was
already in circulation. Herbert was therefore correct in his conjecture, when he
placed this under the year 1526. What proofs were these, that Tyndale, for his
country’s best interests, must have been labouring night and day!

Notwithstanding the solemn and pointed injunctions of the Bishop of London and
the Archbishop of Canterbury, issued in the close of 1526, calling in both
editions, both Bishops had found that the possessors of the Sacred Volume were
by no means disposed to surrender it, merely for being threatened; and as for
the copies still abroad, if the influence of Wolsey over Brabant was last year
less than it had been, in this, of course, it was lower still. His political
leanings were now better known, not only to the Emperor and the Lady Margaret,
but to the Lords of Antwerp, and all the merchants, Hackett the ambassador, it
will be remembered, had implored a list of heresies, taken out of the Testament,
to be translated into German, that he might proceed at Antwerp or other places
with more rigour and despatch; but Providence intervening, Wolsey was engrossed
in far different employment; and so now, it seems, if any more Testaments are to
be obtained, they must be bought, not seized. The ambassador either dared not,
or could not, play the same game a second time. At his wits’ end, as we have
already seen, Hackett was the first who suggested the idea of purchasing and
burning, in order to prevent the circulation; and all preceding accounts
hitherto printed, without exception, hold up Tunstal as the only man who adopted
it. But this, like too many others, is a general mistake, as for two years to
come he did nothing of the kind. The purchasing began with a higher
ecclesiastical authority than that of Tunstal; nor should the step be
represented as merely foolish, even although it actually furthered the work it
was meant to crush. The fact was, that these Bishops were in a frenzy, yet none
of them were so far gone, as to purchase without a reason. Any one of them, as
we shall see presently, was not disposed to be at more expense than what was
absolutely necessary; but they were certainly in great haste, because the haste
of fear, and so the purchase became a matter of necessity, not of choice: since
the rights of the subject were, at this moment, far better understood at Antwerp
than in England.

It was Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, in the spring of 1527, had
busied himself in procuring what copies could be found out abroad of Tyndale’s
New Testament; and he succeeded in purchasing a part of Tyndale’s original
editions in quorto and octavo, though there might be some of the third Antwerp
impression among them. Wolsey and Warham were not far from being as much at
variance, as were Herod and Pontius Pilate, in the days of old; but, as
opposition to the Saviour made them friends for the moment, so, in opposition to
His Word, these modern authorities were cordially united. From a letter of Nix,
Bishop of Norwich, dated 14th June, 1527,2 we find him congratulating Warham on
his zeal and success in buying up all the English New Testaments, both those
with glosses and those without them, at a cost of £66 9s. 4d., a sum equivalent
to nearly £1000 now. Of this sum the Bishop offers to pay a tenth part, and more
if required. Poor old man! He had been literally blind for a considerable time,
and was now seventy-seven years of age. His signature has all the appearance of
a blind man’s mark. Few individuals in England were more annoyed by the
circulation of the Scriptures than he was. We shall find him persecuting and
consigning Bilney to the flames; for he lived nine years longer, and died, as he
had lived, blind in every sense, in January 1536, at the advanced age of at
least eighty-six! But we shall meet with him more than once, before his death.

If Warham was busy abroad, Tunstal was not less so at home; if the one was eager
to prevent importation, the latter had not relaxed in anxiety to obtain all
those books that were in use. He seems, however, to have been annoyed by a
double suspicion; that his Archdeacons were either remiss in obeying his
injunctions, or the people were too knowing for all their research. Both
suspicions were, in fact, not without foundation. Tunstal, therefore, instead of
waiting longer for the owners of the Testaments delivering them up, resolved
upon a strict visitation of his whole diocese this summer. But see again the
kind interposition of a gracious Providence! This man, as well as Wolsey and Sir
Thomas More, must all prepare in June to embark for France, where they are to
remain till the month of October. The consequence was, that although the
visitation was remitted to Geffrey Wharton, as his Vicar, little, or rather
nothing, was done in the way of persecution till Tunstal’s return.

After his return, however, he had received some written information against
certain individuals; and in November, as already explained, the Bishops were
summoned by Wolsey, as Vicar-General of all England, to meet him at Westminster.
He opened his court in this character, ami commenced the proceedings; “but
because,” says Foxe, “he was otherwise occupied with affairs of the realm, he
committed the hearing of the matter to the Bishop of London, and to other
Bishops there present, or to three of them, to proceed against all men, as well
spiritual as temporal, as also against writings and books-giving them full power
to determine upon them.” On this occasion Bilney and Arthur were rigidly
examined. Arthur soon abjured, and is heard of no more. Bilney stood for a
while, and endeavoured by calm and tender representations to soften his
persecutors, but in vain. They tormented and in veigled his conscience, till at
last he too abjured, and bare the faggot at St. Paul’s. Thus he fell, though
like Peter of old, after bitter repentance, to rise again.

It has never been before observed, and it may now scarcely be believed, that
these proceedings were going on in London amidst general and extreme misery,
through the very high price, and, in many instances, the absolute want of food.
Such, however, was the fact; and so burning hot, as Foxe would say, was their
zeal. What with the distress of the people for the necessaries of life, and this
formidable array of men, calling themselves Bishops, sitting in judgment under
their lately promoted Vicar-General, as if the power of Rome had now been
concentrated in England; so far as it regarded the progress and circulation of
the Divine Word, the horizon could scarcely become darker. The hand of God was
certainly not unseen in its first introduction; but then these blind and cruel
authorities were scattered by the plague; and though they had been forewarned by
the common enemy, they were not then upon their guard. Now they are” gathered
together,” and literally “taking counsel” on the very subject. But let us see
what happened; and observe also, whether the God of Nature, and the Governor
among the nations, be not also the God of the Bible.

Nothing, it is true, could be more unlikely, than that any more copies of the
Sacred Volume should arrive in this country at such a crisis; it might seem
altogether impossible. Throughout the whole year, England, under Wolsey’s
influence, was fomenting war with the Emperor, and consequently with the Low
Countries or Flanders, but courting alliance with France. In the latter, there
were, of course, no English Scriptures; in the former, copies were lying ready
for being introduced here confidentially, with secrecy and silence. But if there
should be a bar to merchandise in general, and the merchants of Flanders and
England cannot exchange goods, how was there any chance of conveying the “Book
of God” with them, or under their cover? It had come through this medium before,
but how could it by any possibility do so now? The reader may recollect, that
the year 1527 was introduced by severe disease. Immediately after this, in
consequence of “ the great rains which fell in the sowing time,” by the fall of
the year, bread advanced to such a price, that the people were in danger of
starvation. Wheat, at last, not only had risen from sixteen shillings, to one
pound six shillings and eightpence the quarter, but ere long it was not to be
obtained for money.

Commissioners were sent into every county to inquire what wheat remained in the
realm; but at the same time to enjoin, that none should be conveyed from one
celerity to another. The consequence was, London at last so felt the pressure,
that the Mayor and Aldermen came to Wolsey on his return from France, and told
him, “either the people must die from famine, or else they, with strong hand,
will fetch corn from them that have it.” He cared little for any man’s life,
when his path was crossed, and put them off with, no doubt, a daring falsehood!
-that the King of France had said to him, that “if he had but three bushels of
wheat, England should have two, so much he loveth and regardeth this realm!”
This was at least acknowledging, that while he was abroad, the scarcity was well
known to him, amidst all his gorgeous parade. The people then, from day to day,
looked for French wheat, but none came; and what is more observable, even such
as the English merchants had bought and shipped in Normandy and other places,
was there restrained, so that all relief from these parts entirely failed! But
just then, “the gentle merchants of the Stilyard,” says the old chronicler,
Halle, “brought from Dantzie, Bremen, Hamburg, and other places, great plenty;
and so did other merchants from Flanders, Holland, and Frisland, so that wheat
was better cheap in London than in all England over.” And thus it was, that a
way was opened for the introduction of more books! On board of these vessels
with grain, there must have been various importations of Tyndale’s New
Testament; but one is too remarkable to be passed over in silence, as it
included not less than five hundred copies by one man. Yes, notwithstanding all
the fury of Hackett, and the imprisonment of Endhoven, another printer in
Antwerp had already finished another edition! This was now the second in that
place, or the fourth in all. The fact comes out, incidentally, about four months
after this, in the examination of a distributor, before Tunstal. He had been
charged with going about to buy a great number of New Testaments, when he emits
the following answer:-“ That about Christmas last (Dec. 1527), there came a
Dutchman, being now in the Fleet prison, which would have sold this respondent
two or three hundred of the said New Testaments in English, which this
respondent did not buy, but sent him to Mr. Fysh.” Connect this with the
following entry in Foxe’s list of persons abjured in 1528:-“ John Raimund, a
Dutchman, for causing fifteen hundred of Tyndale’s New Testaments to be printed
at Antwerp, and for bringing five hundred into England.” There is but one
mistake here, in the name of the Dutchman, as he is called. Every one at all
acquainted with Foxe, knows how inaccurate and irregular he is in the
orthography of proper names. Hans van Roemundt is the name of the Antwerp
printer as given by Panzer and Le Long. The name in English ought to have been
John Ruremonde.

One distinguishing feature of this edition consists in certain woodcuts. It is
thus referred to by Joye, as the second Dutch edition-“They printed it again,
also, without a corrector, in a greater letter and volume, with the figures in
the Apocalypse, which were much falser than their first;” and alluding then to
the former impression, he adds, “there were of them both about five thousand
books printed.” One copy of this book, which appears to have been reprinted from
the quarto edition of Tyndale, is supposed to be in the library of Emanuel
College, Cambridge. The fact was, and it is animating to discover it even now,
that such a book was printing in Antwerp at the very time when Endhoven was
suffering; for so early as the preceding May, and just about the time that
Warham was rejoicing over his purchase of Testaments, the printer had completed
the volume! Thus, after all the toil of Master Hackett, he was then the subject
of fresh alarm. On the 23rd of May, 1527, therefore, he wrote to Wolsey that he
had found copies of the English New Testament, printed by “new printers of the
town of Antwerp,” and had seized 24 of them in one man’s hands, but could not
lay hold on the printers or vendors till he had a specific charge of heresy to
make against them. He states also that “more than two thousand such like English
books” were offered at last Frankfort market.

Under all these circumstances, it is now almost evident that part of this fourth
edition had found its way into England, by the end of 1527; for that Testaments
did arrive at this gloomy and necessitous period, there can now be no question.
Men are but too apt to overlook the footsteps of a particular providence, but
the arrival of books through such a medium, and at such a period, was too
remarkable an event to be passed over in silence. Could it fail to be observed
with gratitude at the time? After turning “a fruitful land into barrenness,” and
the people were “brought low, through oppression, affliction, and sorrow;” with
bread corn came the bread from heaven. Through these very channels, the Sacred
Volume had come before, and now, notwithstanding all the wrath and rage in high
places, it came again. The bread that perisheth must rise in price, and finally
fail, that the bread of life may come. He who appointed a way for His anger, was
at the same moment preparing a way also for the reception of His Word. In wrath
He remembered mercy. Well might the people have said-“Whoso is wise, and will
observe these things, even they shall understand the loving kindness of the
Lord.” 1528. Tyndale And Fryth-Present Persecution In England-Arrested By
Prevailing Disease-Persecution In Antwerp-Nobly Withstood And Defeated -
Wolsey’s Pursuit After Tyndale And Others - All In Vain. IN the course of the
year 1528, we have no distinct account of any thing new having issued from the
press, translated or composed by Tyndale; although some of his smaller tracts,
without date, may have been printed.

There were, however, fresh editions of his two publications, already mentioned.
Of “The Parable,” there was one if not two editions, and of “The Obedience”
certainly two, the first of which is dated in May, and the second in October of
this year. That the books had been read or purchased with avidity, and were in
growing demand,-this, especially in those early days, is proof sufficient; but
not one of these were printed at Worms.

Tyndale and Fryth had now certainly removed elsewhere. All these pieces were
printed at one place and by the same man-Hans Luft, a favourite printer “at
Malborough in the land of Hesse,” or Marburg, the capital of Upper Hesse. To our
Translator, within the last eighteen months, this place must have become
strongly attractive. There is no intimation or even hint of any visit yet paid
to Wittenberg; it was still 200 miles distant, and it becomes more than doubtFul
whether Tyndale was ever there. Nor are we at any loss to understand how Tyndale
was here engaged. It must have been a mighty addition to his comfort, for such a
man as Roye to be succeeded by John Fryth. The former once dismissed, in 1526
Fryth had reached his friend and father of the same opinions. Equally interested
in the translation of the Scriptures for their native laud, from day to day this
subject had fully engrossed their minds. But at present we refrain from saying
more till the books of the Pentateuch were printed. As Fryth, however, is the
only man who can certainly be associated with Tyndale in his present
engagements, it is necessary that he should be now more fully introduced to the
notice of the reader.

John Fryth was born in 1503, at Westerham, a market-town in Kent, near the head
of the Darent, a tributary of the Thames. His father, Richard, as an inn-holder,
lived afterwards at Sevenoaks, near the same stream. It was allowed, even by his
enemies, that Fryth was an excellent scholar, after the advantages he had
enjoyed, first at Cambridge, and then at Oxford, thus reversing the order of
Tyndale’s education. As Fryth, however, received his University education at
King’s College, Cambridge, he must, of course, also have been a scholar at Eton.
It was while proceeding in his studies, that Tyndale was at Cambridge, and
through his instrumentality, as Foxe expresses it, Fryth “first received into
his heart the seed of the gospel, and sincere godliness.” Such being the case,
it is a circumstance not to be forgotten in our future history, that Fryth had
for his tutor no other than Stephen Gardiner, the future Bishop of Winchester.
Some time in 1523, when Tyndale was in London, it is next to certain his
much-loved friend must have been with him, since before they were separated, and
Fryth remained behind, it has been stated, that they used to converse respecting
the neccssity for the Scriptures being “turned into the vulgar speech, that the
poor people might also read and see the simple plain Word of God.” In this case,
Fryth must have looked and longed for success to attend the enterprise of the
man he most loved upon earth.

Tyndale, however, sailing for Hamburg, Fryth was, ere long, selected, for his
acquirements, as a Cambridge scholar; and called away to Oxford by Wolsey,
became a canon in Cardinal College. Having already proceeded as B.A. at
Cambridge, he was admitted to the same degree at Oxford in December 1525. Fryth
could not have been idle in advancing his opinions, for those young men from
Cambridge, already mentioned, were much of his mind. But in two months, even to
a day, after he had taken his degree, not only he, but they, had incurred high
displeasure. These men might have been styled “the hope of the nation,” though
we have heard old Warham rate them, in his letter to Wolsey, as nothing more
than “ a number of young uncircumspect fools.” Fools they might be called by the
Primate of England, but uncircumspect was not the right word. Generally
speaking, they were looking in one direction, and, at the moment, saw farther
than their calumniator, Here at least was Fryth; but little did Wolsey imagine,
that in selecting him, and most probably by his tutor Gardiner’s recommendation,
he had laid his hand on the ardent admirer of that man whom he was afterwards so
eager to apprehend on the Continent. Left behind in England, Fryth had proved,
among his fellows, an expectant of whatever Tyndale should be able to
accomplish; and one can more easily conceive than express how he must have
hailed the arrival, and the very first sight of the New Testament at Oxford. It
certainly had been longed for, and it came at last.

Fryth was then twenty-three years of age, and not only a lover of learning, but
acute and eminent in talent. Yet, once aware of the cruelties practised on
Delaber and Garret, as already detailed, and being so far at liberty, he
effected his escape, and landed, like his forerunner, on a foreign shore. This
could not possibly be before the autumn of 1526, so that the undivided credit of
translating the New Testament, and forwarding it to his country, remains with
Tyndale alone. The flight of Fryth has been placed much later, even in 1528, but
it is evident that he durst not have remained so long. That he ever revisited
England before he came to die at the stake, we have no certain evidence; but we
now see him as the able coadjutor of his elder brother for years. At the
commencement of 1528, according to the preceding history, the New Testament of
Tyndale had now been introduced into England for the space of two years, a fact
which will be abundantly confirmed by the disclosures of the present period.
Speaking generally of these times, Strype has said,-‘‘ The New Testament
translated by Hitchen, that is Tyndale, was in many hands, and read with great
application and joy; and they had secret meetings, in which they instructed each
other out of God’s Word;” but after carefully examining the minute, though
scattered details, a far more interesting and graphical account now comes out,
not only of these two years, but of the years preceding. From the days of John
Wickliffe, if not Richard Fitzralph, the disciples of Christ were much in the
same situation with those Israelites in the days of Elijah, whom God “reserved
to himself.” Hidden and unknown, their number can never be ascertained,
otherwise it probably would surprise us, as much as the “seven thousand” did the
desponding prophet of old. But there can be no doubt that portions of the
Scriptures in manuscript were read in secret, and by many with great profit,
notwithstanding all the virulent opposition. Our only key to the extent of this,
is to be found in the opposition displayed. Mere gleams of light obtained from
the Sacred Word, were sufficient to bring down the wrath of the oppressor.
During the fifteenth century, various cases of abjuration and burning for heresy
had occurred, but from the commencement of the sixteenth, as light increased,
the opposition became more determined and systematic. Particular periods are
then to be marked as seasons of persecution. To say nothing of the first ten
years, though disgraced by not a few instances of great cruelty,-the years 1511
under Warham of Canterbury and Smith of lincoln; 1509 to 1517, under Fitzjames
of London; and, above all, 1521, under Longland of Lincoln,-were so many seasons
of the most determined opposition to the Word of God. Nor should it be
unobserved that all these persecutions, including even the last, were on account
of opinions, not gathered or received from any foreign land or Continental
Christian. Whatever those opinions were, they were indigenous to this country,
and are mainly to be ascribed to certain portions of the Sacred Writings in
English manuscript.

Before, and even long before the name of Luther was heard of by the people,
these opinions were sifted, debated, and maintained; nay, as late as 1521,
though the writings of the German Reformer were then publicly denounced, they
were as yet locked up in Latin, so that, amidst all the barbarities of that
year, under Longland, we hear of no punishment inflicted for Lutheranism so
called. It is certainly, therefore, to bc regretted, that even British
historians, in too many instances, should have so hastily looked over to
Germany, as accounting for the commencement and progress of all that occurred in
their own country in the first quarter of the sixteenth century. After an
examination of the official records of the day, and other original manuscripts,
more patient and laborious titan that in which any man has ever since engaged,
it is not surprising that John Foxe should dwell on the retrospect with delight,
and confess his inability to do it justice; while he as distinctly ascribes this
work of God, to his own Word in the vernacular tongue, and to this alone, though
not yet in print.

We have glanced at all this as justly due to what may be styled the age of
manuscript. But as the invention of printing was itself an era, so assuredly was
that of the reception of the Sacred Scriptures in print into Great Britain. This
might be fairly inferred from the history already given; but it is now worthy of
special notice, that for three or four years before the arrival of Tyndale’s
first editions, a people seem to have been signally prepared for their
reception. We could not with propriety notice them at an earlier period, as it
is chiefly by the severities of the present year, that they come out to view.
From the examinations upon oath, about to be noticed, we could now enumerate
above a hundred of these people by name, and state their places of abode, but
these were merely the persons detected, exposed, or punished. Many, many more
there must have been, whose record is on high. They met together, chiefly in
London, but also at different places in the counties of Essex, Suffolk, Norfolk,
and Buckingham. They called each other Brother, and said that they were Brothers
in Christ. They had the four Gospels separately and in one volume; some of
Paul’s Epistles in another; the Epistles of Peter and that of James; ail in
English manuscript, however inferior the translation, or inaccurate, through
frequent transcription. In regard to the Epistle of James, in some parts it was
a great favourite, and far from startling at it, as the German Reformer himself
did at first, and for some time, they could repeat it from memory; even one
young woman was detected who could say the whole. Their high esteem for the
Oracles of God, was to bc seen in the price paid for them in whole or in part.

These friends in London seem to have held their meetings, from about 1523, very
frequently in the house of one William Russel in Coleman Street, at the gate of
Bird’s Alley, over against St. Stephen’s Church; when Father John Hacker, as
they called him, and sometimes others, read and explained the Scriptures. We
have already pointed out the spot to which the authorities first sent go seize
books; and it is now not unworthy of notice that very near, and even round it,
notwithstanding “the secret search,” the Word of God continued to be read and
prized-it even “grew and multiplied.” The great fire in London of 1666, it is
true, consumed all those parts, but of the eighty-nine churches burnt down, at
least fifty-four were rebuilt, and on the same ground. Bird’s Alley is gone, but
the church remains where it was; and if any one wish to stand on the same spot
where, amidst all the wrath and blasphemy of the day, the Sacred Volume was then
perused with the keenest interest, he has only to walk along that part of King’s
Arms Yard which yet remains, till he come “over against” St. Stephen’s Church,
Coleman Street. f37 Similar meetings were held in Essex. the largest was in
Colchester itself, but there were friends at Witham, Braintree, Saffron Walden,
and Birdbrook, as well as at the Friary of Clare, or Stokeclare, in Suffolk. In
the north of Essex the parish of Bumstead was, as the persecutors would have
said, a hot-bed of heresy. So early as September 1526, two plain country men
from thence came to London, in search of the new printed Testaments, and going
to Austin Friars, there met with Dr. Barnes, who, it may be remembered, was then
a prisoner at large. One of these men had been in possession of Tyndale’s New
Testament, which he procured from Colchester about the month of April before.
These men reported the curate of this parish, Richard Foxe, as favourable to
inquiry, and begged a letter from Barnes to him. He gave them one, sold a
Testament to each, and after their return, the curate, and even two friars,
Topley and Gardiner, seemed to be making progress; but besides them there were a
number of persons, male and female, scattered throughout these parts, still
farther advanced. It will be remembered that Myles Coverdale, one of Barnes’
students, came up to London after him, at the time of his melancholy abjuration
in February 1526. We shall trace him now preaching in this part of Essex, in
company with Richard Foxe.

Thus, on the 29th of March, 1528, one of these friars, Thomas Topley, heard him
preach at Bumstead Church, and such doctrine as, in connexion with subsequent
conversation, shook his mind with regard to various superstitions. But the
persecutions we are now about to notice must have scattered, for a season, all
these groups in this county, as well as the meetings in London; more especially
as Wharton, the Vicar-General of Tunstal, moved down into Essex in July this
year, searching after his prey.

It is then that we shall hear more of Coverdale.

Many of those, however, throughout the land, who had either purchased or perused
the Testament of Tyndale, were now about to find that it was “through much
tribulation they must enter into the kingdom of God;” and it would have been
well if then the brother had not betrayed his brethren, the husband his wife,
and the father his child! Not three months before, the country had been in the
greatest extremity, through scarcity amounting to famine, and not a few had
pined away in disease. London, also, as we have seen, had more especially felt
the pressure, but no sooner had plenty returned by the importation of foreign
grain, and bread had fallen in price, than the same city became the seat of
bitter and sifting persecution. The country at large had just suffered severely,
through the crooked and ambitious policy of Wolsey; and now the best of his
Majesty’s subjects, simple hearted and unoffending people, are to be molested
through the cool malignity of Tunstal. He had before this preached his sermon,
in which he boasted that he had found more than 2000 errors in the printed New
Testament. Tunstal’s infamous injunction also, of October 1526, had hung over
the people for fourteen months, without being rigorously followed up, but we
have accounted for this forbearance. It was unavoidable, as ho had been so
engrossed by foreign political affairs. It was, therefore, in the opening of
1528, that one feature of his character began to be more fully developed, of
which in general a very strange, not to say erroneous, estimate has been given.
Sir T. More and he were united, as men familiarly say, like hand and glove; and,
therefore, it was to be expected, that he should pronounce him to be inferior to
none “in the integrity of his principles, and the sweetness of his disposition,”
Godwin says that “he was a very rare and admirable man, with nothing wrong but
his religion, and yet he was a profound divine, as many of his works yet do
testify.” “He had,” says even Gilpin ia his Life of Ridley, “true notions of the
genius of Christianity! He considered a good life as the end, and faith as the
means; and never branded as an heretic that person, however erroneous his
opinions might be, in points less fundamental, who had such a belief in Christ
as made him live like a Christian. He was just, therefore, the reverse of his
early patron Warham;” and he concludes by affirming, “that Tunstal thought
persecution one of the things most foreign to his function!” We allow that the
reverse of this, in some points, was the character of Warham; but was it less so
of Tunstal? Both were men of learning and talent, and Tunstal’s taste in letters
was superior to most of his contemporaries; hut let any one hold fast opinions
which they conceived would, even ultimately, affect the hierarchy, and neither
of them scrupled for a moment in proceeding to the greatest extremity. Ttmstal,
it is true, was still, and of quiet behaviour, cautious, and had great command
over his passions; a worldly-wise man, who contrived to thread his way through
those difficult times, so that he died in his bed, at the advanced age of 85.

But, on the other hand, if works bear witness, by these he must be judged.

What signifies learning, however eminent, except it be applied to some laudable
and beneficial purpose? And though it should be accompanied with apparent
sedateness, and much sagacity in worldly affairs; all these in union, so far
from concealing great and radical defects in moral character, only render them
the more atrocious. To say nothing of the violence of Tunstal’s language when
writing to Erasmus, in earlier life, or of the incontinence with which he has
been charged; certainly no man who was so frequently employed by Wolsey, and
served his purpose so well, could by any possibility hold fast his integrity, or
walk uprightly; and Tunstal being most celebrated as a courtier, and at such a
time, the reader may be left to judge of his veracity. As for humanity, what
though he might have an aversion from shedding blood, or rather a dread of
shedding it? What shall we say as to his cool barbarity in sifting and
cross-examining, then threatening and reexamining, till the poor creature
quivered, and became perplexed, trembled, and abjured? Not satisfied, see him
seize on the abjured parties, and, through his sophistry, compel them at last to
expose and even accuse their nearest and dearest relatives and friends! No, he
was an ingenious tormentor, distinguished for his patient dexterity in producing
mental misery; and we may rely on it, that Tyndale, who knew his doings well,
though he did not charge him with shedding so much blood, had good reason for
designating him as he did,-“ that still Satan, the imaginer of all mischief.”
“Cursed,” said Jortin, when speaking of him, “cursed are those theological
principles, which produce such sad effects even in goodtempered men, and eat up
so much of their honour and humanity!” The only mistake in this exclamation, is
that of styling such principles theological. The truth was, that none of those
men, even the mildest, understood the sacred rights of conscience, because their
own was “seared with a hot iron.” They were, for the time, the “rulers of the
darkness of this world;” while the praiseworthy people whom they tried to devour
or exterminate, were, in fact, however poor and despised, a chosen band of
wrestlers “against spiritual wickedness in high places.” At all events, whatever
Warham had been in days that were past, we shall find that Tunstal was “the
grand Inquisitor” in 1528. In January his underlings were busily preparing for
his sitting in judgment; and then followed those numerous cases, from February
to May inclusive, which are upon record, in his Register. The shrewd and
systematic method adopted by Tunstal seems to have been, to find out the most
intelligent or influential men, among these people who were to be
cross-examined, and by effectually threatening them, so detect many of the rest.
In January or the beginning of February one man was found, and before long other
two if not three. In the midst of these harassing times, it was not to have been
expected, that all would prove faithful; but surely these early readers of the
printed New Testament upon English ground, had not anticipated that any of their
leaders would fail and betray them! Yet so it was, for poor Hacker, the first
man referred to, being, as Strype says, “hard set upon, made a discovery, by
interrogatories put to him upon oath, of a great many of his friends and
followers both in Essex and London.” Following out this clue, at least three
other men followed the sad example; John Pykas of Colchester, with John Tyball
and Thomas Hempsted of the parish of Bumstead. These poor men now stood in the
character of “Per securer’s evidence,” and were to be called upon, whenever it
was found necessary! Hacker, to save himself, had betrayed at least forty of his
friends, with whom he had often read the Scriptures, the majority of whom
resided in London, and the others as many more, in the county of Essex alone, as
amounted to above a hundred in all! Happily, these were but a part of the whole;
but here was a field, quite sufficient for the Bishop and his Vicar-General. The
former required only to assemble his deeply prejudiced assistants, and the
reader may be curious to know who were those men who first sat in judgment upon
Tyndale’s translation, and the earliest possessors of the precious volume.

Tunstal had taken care to secure round him more than a dozen of men to preside,
either all together, or by turns, and they are styled in the Register “all
learned men,” of course. Besides Geffrey Wharton, D.D., his Vicar- Gencral, and
John Darel, B.D., Wharton’s official, Matthew Grafton and Henry Bonsfel,
Notaries; there were Robert Ridley, D.D., and John Rosiston, Professor of
Theology, Richard Sparchforde, M.A., Thomas Forman, S.T.P., John Tunstal and
Thomas Chambre, Chaplains, Nicholas Tunstal, Thomas Dowman, Thomas Pilkington,
and James Multon. Wharton, to do him justice, would seem to have been not so
bitter as some others; he died next year. Royston had been far more indebted to
Humphrie Munmouth, than even Tyndale. Yet Munmouth is about to be molested and
imprisoned, and Royston is here! Sparchforde had been promoted in to the living
at Hackney; but the most conspicuous of these assistant persecutors was Robert
Ridley, already noticed. The Tunstals, as well as Ridley, were related to the
Bishop. In the disclosures made by persecution in the early part of this year,
we find important evidence on one point, namely, the period in which the New
Testaments of Tyndale were first introduced into England. Independently of the
abundnnt proof already given, they show that Tyndale’s quarto and octavo
editions were purchased and perused throughout the year 1526; and that Tunstal’s
injunction, in October of that year, was not groundless, when it affirmed that
they were spread throughout “all his diocese, in great number.” From the
Register we select the following cases:-Sebastian Herris, Curate of the parish
Church of Kensington, confessed “that he had two books; viz. the New Testament
in the vulgar tongue, and ‘Unto Dissidentium,’ containing in it the Lutheran
heresy.” For this he is banished from the City of London, being “so dangerous a
place to be infected with heresy,” for two years.

John Pykas of Colchester confessed, among other things, that “about a two years
last past (March 1526) he bought in Colchester of a Lumbard of London, a New
Testament in English, and paid for it four shillings (about £3 present value),
which New Testament he kept, and read it through many times.” Having abjured,
this poor man was enjoined penance and sworn to confess all the known men and
women, friends, brethren, relatives, and those whom he had brought into these
opinions.

John Tyball of Bumstead confessed, that “about t:wo years agone (Apr. 1526) he
companied with Sir Richard Fox, Curate of Bumstead, and shewed him all his books
that he had; that is to say, the New Testament in English; the Gospel of Matthew
and Mark in English, which he had of John Pykas of Colchester; a book expounding
the Paternoster, the Ave Maria, and the Credo; certain of Paul’s Epistles after
the old translation.” That he and Thomas Hilles had bought New Testaments in
English of Friar Barnes, who enjoined secrecy of the sale: this was in Sept.
1526; and that he was wont with some others to resort to Bower Hall, the seat of
the Bendish family, where the New Testament was read in presence of “them and of
their household.” By the beginning of May, Tunstal had removed from the chapel
in his palace, to one near Charing Cross, in the manor of Nix, the Bishop of
Norwich, of whose temper and spirit we have had such ample evidence. On the
11th, he was still sitting in judgment on the poor people from Essex; but the
spirit of persecution was now gathering strength, and, on the 14th, Sir Thomas
More comes in view. On that day, he and Sir William Kingston, Constable of the
Tower, as members of the Privy Council, sent for Humfrie Munmouthe, as he
subscribes his name. He was far too important a character to be passed over; and
his being so, is a proof that there had not been, till this year, any severe
search after supposed offenders. Not satisfied, they went with him to his house,
and examined all his letters and books. This generous man, with whom Tyndale had
lived, who corresponded with him afterwards, and aided him all the time he
remained in Hamburg, was now committed to the Tower, “on suspicion of heresy,
for some books fonnd in his house.” Five days after this, on Tuesday the 19th of
May, he addressed a petition to the King’s Council. It is entitled-“Unto the
most honourable Lord Legate and Chancellor of England, and to the honourable
Council unto your Sovereign Lord, King Henry VIII., the 19th of May, and in the
20th year of his reign; beseeching your Grace, and all my Lords and Masters, to
have pity on me, poor prisoner in the Tower of London, at your pleasure.” In
this petition, he confesses, among other books- “Also I delivered a book of the
New Testament, the which book my Lord of London had. Also I had a little
treatise that the priest, Tyndale, sent me, when he sent for his money. And all
those books, save the books of the New Testament, lay openly in my house, for
the space of two years, or more, that every man might read on them that would at
their pleasure.”

Munmouth’s testimony brings us to the same period with that of Pykas; but as for
the Testament no doubt Tyndale would take care that, if possible, his generous
patron should have one, at least, as soon as Garret was carrying them from
London to Oxford, in January 1526. It may here be added, that in earlier llfe
Munmouth had visited Rome itself, which may have had a similar effect on him as
it had on some others. When the times improved, he was an Alderman of London,
and served as Sheriff there in 1535. His will is dated 16th November, 1537, by
which he leaves a silver cup, and gilt, equal in value to £120 sterling, to
Crumwell, that he might be kind to three preachers there mentioned, among whom
was Dr. Barnes. Soon after this, Munmouth died, having commended his soul unto
Christ Jesus, “my Maker and Redeemer, in whom, and by the merits of whose
blessed passion, is all my whole trust of clean remission and forgiveness of my
sins.” But of the confessions now made, that of Robert Necton is not the least
important. It includes the disclosures of a man who had been very active before
this, and, notwithstanding, as much so as he could, even afterwards. By him we
learn that Mr. Fyshe, whose tract, “the Supplication of Beggars,” had created
such commotion in February 1526 had actually returned to London, and was living
there, long before that year had expired. We now find also Mr. Richard Harman,
an English merchant at Antwerp, had acted in concert with Fyshe, and had
contrived modes of secretly conveying the Sacred Volume into England. The
account which Necton gives of his first engaging in the business of sale and
circulation, is no less curious, from its being at the instigation of such a man
as George Constantyne, who, though originally bred a surgeon, by this time had
entered the Church, and hence is styled Vicar. Of course, therefore, he had to
proceed with the greatest caution. He would not go direct to Fyshe himself, but
informs Necton, and then from him he bought whatever copies he wished.
Constantyne, one of the most singular characters of the day, survived the
present period, at least, thirty-two years. At certain periods, doing all that
in him lay to promote the circulation of the Word of God; at another, betraying
the whole cause; he is here introduced incidentally, for the first time, but he
will come before us again and again, and some notice must be taken of his
singular and varied life. The reader now only requires to be reminded, that such
a man as this Robert Necton is not to be regarded as poor and dependent,
perambulating the country to obtain his bread by selling books-far from it; the
occupation was too hazardous then for any mere hireling. Thus, Necton speaks of
living at his brother’s house in Norwich, and this was no other than the Sheriff
of the city, as will appear in 1581. From his confessions, as well as those of
Munmouth, Pybal, and others already mentioned, before this tribunal, the
following facts may be considered as established:- That in January 1526, Thomas
Garret, at least, received from abroad copies of the New Testament, printed in
the English language-that he immediatcly had given them out in London, sent them
down to Cambridge, and carried them himself to Oxford, in that very month-that
notwithstanding the grand burning of books at St. Paul’s, on the 11th of
February, 1526, and the anathemas of Fisher on that day, nay, and the burning at
Oxford soon after, when the Testament, amongst other books, was involved in the
flames, still the work went on-that even Fyshe himself was soon after in London,
and remained in it,, receiving from abroad, and dispersing the precious volumes
for a considerable time. Then come up these men from Essex, and, along with
Munmouth, all agree in their testimony, Put upon their oath, not one among them
could have any motive to falsify in regard to the length of the time in which
these Testaments had been in their possession. On the contrary, could such an
idea have occurred to any one of them, the temptation must have been to shorten,
not extend the period; for the longer it was, so much the more guilty must they
have appeared in the eye of their judges. But in receiving their united
testimony, how far does it carry us? That as early as February, and downwards to
October 1526, Tyndale’s Testaments, both quarto and octavo, as well as the first
separate edition of Matthew and Mark, were upon English ground, and reading with
eagerness, not only in the metropolis, but the surrounding counties,-that,
notwithstanding the fulminations from London and Canterbury, and “the secret
search, at one time,” the precious books were retained and read in secret still.
Nay, we have seen one man, Necton, immediately afterwards commence his cautious
operations-mentioning very distinctly, first, the quarto of Tyndale, or the
large volume, then the octavo edition, and finally another edition, printed at
Antwerp, as already described. Doubtless there had been other men before him so
employed, as there were others afterwards, including himself again. But the
purposes of Infinite Wisdom in thus trying the faithful, and purifying His
cause, were, for the present at least, accomplished. Tunstal, it may have been
observed, had shifted his seat, from his own palace, near the old bridge of
London, up to Charing Cross, and, for aught we know, this might bo from fear;
but such cool and deliberate cruelty must, not continue either in London or
Westminster, and so the persecution seems to have been cut short by a Sovereign
hand, or the immediate visitation of God. That fearful disease, styled by
foreigners, the Sudor Anglicus, on account of the violence with which it seized
this nation, or, as the English themselves called it, the “sweating sickness,”
broke out in the end of May. The patient expired in a few hours, and often in
two or three. By the 7th of June, above two thousand had died in London; and by
the 30th, forty thousand had been affected, of whom died at least two thousand
more.

Early in June, the King himself became alarmed; the disease entered the Royal
household, and proved fatal in at least three cases; and before the month ended,
it had entered Wolsey’s establishment. Henry kept himself shut up, had his
household reduced to the smallest number permitted by the statutes of Eltham,
and his fear increased. In July, on the 5th, still more apprehensive, he directs
Wolsey “to cause general processions to be made, universally through the realm,
as well for good weather to the increase of corn and fruit, as also for the
plague that now reigneth. By the 9th, he had made his will, advises Wolsey to
follow his example, and desires to hear from him every second day. “He confessed
himself every day,” say Le Grand and Burner; “the Queen did the same, and so did
Wolsey.” This was the fourth visitation of that singular disease, of which the
English only died; and which has been described so accurately by Armstrong, both
in its operation and its effects- “O’er the mournful land The infected city
pour’d her hurrying swarms— Others, with hopes more specious, cross’d the main,
To seek protection in far distant skies; But none they found. It seem’d the
general air From pole to pole, from Atlas to the East, Was then at enmity with
English blood; For, but the race of England, all were safe In foreign climes;
nor did this fury taste The foreign blood that England then contain’d.”

During the prevalence of this malady, however, it does not appear that the
Cardinal was so much afraid of it, as of forfeiting the entire confidence of his
Master. He had appointed an Abbess to the Abbey of Wilton, which had ruffled
Henry’s temper; for ever since the disclosures of Clarencieux as to Spanish
affairs, he was more suspicious and apt to take offence. But Wolsey once more
mollified him; by August the disease had passed away, and all went on as before.
The King was hunting in September, and inviting Wolsey to take part with him in
the sport. All was bustle and preparation for the arrival of Cardinal Campeggio,
and Henry wished to have the use of Hampton Court for three or four days to
receive him there. But we now return to more important affairs.

Though the cruel proceedings of Tunstal and his coadjutors seem to have been cut
short by frightful disease, in the course of the examinations held, the
persecutors had obtained several pieces of information, far too important in
their eyes, to be either forgotten or neglected. Tyndale and Roye (erroneously
supposed to be still with him) were now conspicuously before them. One gentleman
in particular, Mr. Harman, had been mentioned as actively engaged in importing
English Testaments, and neither George Constantyne nor Mr. Fyshe could pass
unnoticed.

Meanwhile, since Tyndale’s writings had obtained such circulation in our
country, it seemed necessary that an attempt should be made to answer them; and
so by way of adding greater horror to the heresies said to be contained in them,
as we have already seen, it was during the very period when Tunstal was busy
with his cross-examinations, that, with all due solemnity, he had issued his
official licence to Sir Thomas More, that he might retain and read those
troublesome publications, and, with all his skill in sophistry, write them down.
As for Cardinal Wolsey, after these examinations in London, he was bent on
seizing the Men abroad, and three persons in particular, though other two were
also specified. In June, therefore, he had written to Hackett, requesting that
the Lady Margaret would sanction the delivery of these three, with a view to
their being immediately sent into England. But on the 28th of that month, the
envoy informed him, that after many arguments “debated pro et contra, they to me
and I to them,” the Privy Council had concluded, that even the Emperor himself
might not send any heretic out of his dominions as a prisoner, except his first
examination was held abroad, where he was; and even after that, the transmission
of the party must be by the advice of the Inquisitors of the Faith there. They
had, however, resolved that all the foresaid three heretics, when they could be
found, should be taken prisoners, they and their books with them; but the
Council requested one or two learned men to be sent abroad to confront them. If
they should be “con founded or found guilty,” they would either be sent over to
Wolsey, or punished there, according to their deeds. f40 The names of these
obnoxious men were not, as yet, mentioned by Hackett, but, as the reader
proceeds, he will have no doubt that Tyndale, Roye, and Harman were the three
parties. George Constantyne and Mr. Fyshe may appear to have been the other two,
if Jerome Barlow, soon to be noticed, was not the fifth individual. Fourteen
days they busily searched, but Mr. Harman alone could be found, when Hackett
once more writes to Wolsey that one of the three persons he had been able to get
apprehended, Richard Harman, and had also caused his wife to be taken with him;
but as he feared, there would be some difficulty in getting them punished for
heresy in the free city of Antwerp, he proposes a plan by which, under charge of
treason, they might be sent to England, and there dealt with as the Cardinal
thought fit.

Hackett, however, is now somewhat afraid. He had found considerable difficulty,
when dealing with Christopher Endhoven, the German printer, in the end of 1526;
but now that an English merchant and a gentleman has been seized, should the
“Lords of Antwerp” still remain firm to their purpose, as then expressed; in the
end, at least, our officious ambassador may find his interference to be followed
by greater trouble and disgrace.

Antwerp was still the staple, and, for commerce sake, their English merchants
must, if possible, be protected; but to England for protection it was in vain to
look. She was not then, what she has often been since,-and thanks to the Sacred
Volume alone!-“ the refuge of the oppressed;” so that the Emperor himself must
be applied to. He was, accordingly, and by two petitions, in the Flemish
language, on behalf of the English prisoners. Both are now in the British
Museum. f41 Wolsey, however, was not slow to act upon the vile suggestion of his
correspondent, and, accordingly, in the month of August, Hackett had actually
obtained letters from Henry the Eighth, to seize Mr. Harman as a traiter; but
the reigning Princess wished to be informed what were the particular acts of
treason. Great interest was then made for Harman, who had, for many years, been
a burgess of Antwerp. Hackett implores Commissioners to be sent from England;
and, little knowing the secret politics of our Cardinal at the moment, which had
destroyed his influence in the Imperial Cabinet, he is eager that the Emperor
should be requested to write to Lady Margaret; otherwise, he fears that “the
great purse of Antwerp” would prove the deliverance of Harman, his victim. And,
by the 10th of September, he is obliged to confess, that “notwithstanding the
King’s patent letters, the Lady Margaret and her Council would not deliver up
the heretics.” f42 Our poor ambassador was now, certainly, in no very enviable
plight. A pause of more than four months took place in his correspondence. Month
after month passed away, and no fresh instructions nor assistance arrived, for
both Wolsey and his Master were completely engrossed in a very different
subject-the royal divorce. At last, in despair, Hackett having written to the
King himself, on the 17th of November he wrote also an earnest letter to Friar
West of Greenwich, of whom we shall hear more presently, dated from Mechlin,
complaining bitterly of receiving instructions neither written or verbal from
the King, in answer to his communication; so that Harman is likely to be
discharged for want of proof of his treason, if this is not adduced before the
end of the following February; nay, that Harman was threatening to recover
damages for loss sustained by false imprisonment, to the amount of two thousand
guilders. On the 2nd of January, he addresses Mr. Brian Tuke as Treasurer of the
King’s Chambers, and one of his Council, informing him of his having written, by
duplicate, letters to West; but complains, whether “I write east or West, I can
have no manner of answer-yet for the reputation of the King’s patent letters, we
ought to take the better regard.” On the 20th he writes again, imploring that
Friar West may be sent to his aid, but all in vain. The fact was, that at such a
time, neither Henry nor the Cardinal could expect to have the smallest influence
with the Emperor or the Princess Margaret. No proofs or probations, therefore,
having arrived, the term finally granted to Hackett expired on the 26th of
February, and consequently Mr. Harman and his wife, after an imprisonment of
above seven months, were released! This interference, however, on the part of
our English Envoy, was one which “the Lords of Antwerp” could by no means brook.
The twain of the three men named to him he could not find, but he was to have
perplexity all-sufficient, in consequence of touching with only one of the
three; and though we trespass a little on the year 1529, we must not here lose
sight of Mr. Harman and his lady. Hackett must now abide the consequences, and
Harman waited his proper time for redress. Though the ambassador was resident at
Mechlin, it was not long before an opportunity presented itself; he was arrested
at Harman’s instance for the costs and charges he had suffered in prison, but
standing on his privilege as Ambassador to the King of England, the Lords of
Antwerp declared him “free and quit of the said arrest, with condition that he
or his procurator should appear again, when the said Lords by their letters
would advertise him.” The transaction cost him a change of residence, if not
more, for he had to leave Antwerp, where he had made himself so unpopular. His
letters in future are dated from Brussels. His meddling with the man who had
taken a benevolent interest in sending the Word of God into his native country,
eventually removed this ambassador to a distance; and if Antwerp is to have a
British resident in or near it, some other than John Hackett must now be found.
The overruling providence of God will, before long, be here also very manifest.
Had such a man as this remained, when Tyndale himself came to reside in Antwerp,
never had he spoken of him, as his successor will be found to have done. As for
Mr. Harman, we shall hear of him again, but it will not be till five years after
this, or in 1534; in which year his persecutor, Hackett, died at Douay, and in
debt. But, before then, Mr. Harman, it will appear, had returned to England-was
commended for his zeal-was restored to favour, as well as all his privileges
connected with “the English House” at Antwerp, and at the express request of the
Queen of England. This gentleman had been a devoted friend of Tyndale’s object
and design, as well as of Tyndale himself, in which his wife had cordially
joined with him. The printers of Antwerp managed their own business, and, by
various means, imported their editions into England, which, of course, had
affected the sale of Tyndale’s books; but the Testaments with which Mr. Harman
was charged, were said to be sent to him out of Germany. Warham, the Archbishop
of Canterbury, must therefore, to his great mortification, have very soon
perceived, that he had not, as he at first supposed, purchased all; and,
therefore, even in Antwerp, where Hackett had so raged, we shall actually find
Tyndale himself; and when his finances were at the lowest ebb, selling the
remainder, with great advantage, next year. Nay, selling them to Tunstal, who,
in 1524, had thought that, as a Greek scholar, Tyndale “could not fail” to find
some situation! In the midst of all this turmoil at Antwerp, however, the truth
was, that Wolsey had been far from inattentive to the information received from
Hackett, although he had seemed to be remiss in not answering his letters. On
the contrary, as soon as he understood by his letter of the 14th of July, that
“the twain of the three,” or Tyndale and Roye, were not to be found in Antwerp,
or its vicinity, the Cardinal had bethought himself, and resolved to apply
elsewhere in pursuit of them. But, at such a time, how striking was the display
of Wolsey’s enmity to the Sacred Volume! How great his fear of himself, and of
the hierarchy! His alarm is more worthy of notice, as this was, perhaps, his
final official effort in this warfare. Let it only be remembered, that sickness
had been raging in the land throughout June and July, nor had it entirely ceased
at the moment of which we speak-that disease of which the poet said— -“‘Twas all
the business then, To trend the sick, and in their turns to die. In heaps they
fell, and oft one bed, they say, The sick’ning, dying, and the dead contain’d.”
Besides this, Wolsey had scarcely recovered the favour of his Master, after
having ruffled his temper, by one false step, already noticed; nor had they yet
met. Notwithstanding, so important was the capture of these two men, that not a
day was to be lost. The New Testament, and the two pointed publications of
Tyndale, were, it is true, not the only thing’s rankling in his mind; the bitter
Satyre of Roye nnd Jerome had, by this time, begun to annoy him, as it greatly
did, and no expense must be spared in buying it up.

Tyndale, wishing it to be known that he had no connexion with Roye, had said, in
print, that these two men (Jerome and Roye) were “Friars from Greenwich;” and
who then so fit to ferret them out, as a shrewd Friar Observant, from the same
monastery? And to whom could the Cardinal now apply on the Continent more likely
to be of service, than the man whom Cochlaeus had at first roused in
1525-Counsellor Herman Rincke of Cologne? Accordingly, as early as the 5th of
August, Wolsey sat down in Hampton Court palace, and addressed him. In Rincke,
he had a determined enemy to the “new learning,” and a man, in some respects,
quite to his own heart. His letter finished, a suitable agent was found in the
person of Friar John West of Greenwich, already mentioned. He had been
instructed to proceed by way of Antwerp, and consult with Hackett, who furnished
him with the necessary means and some instructions. On West’s arrival at
Cologne, Rincke was absent from home, at the autumn fair in Frankfort; but the
letter was immediately conveyed to him by a swift messenger; and, by the 4th of
October, we have his reply, sent by the same Friar. After acknowledging the
Cardinal’s letters respecting the apprehension of Roye and Tyndale, and the
buying up of their books, he informs his correspondent that these persons had
not been seen in Cologne since the 1st of March, nor could their present
residence be traced, He then states that he had been at Frankfort “with ready
money, labouring himself personally to the utmost -but John Scott, the printer,
besides a pledge to be given to theJEWS, demanded also the reward of his own
labour, and the expense of the paper; and said that he would sell them to him
who would offer him most money.” That he had, therefore, by gifts and presents,
attached to him the Frankfort Consuls, and so “had gathered and packed up the
whole stock of books, which otherwise would have been enclosed in packages,
artfully covered over with flax, and transmitted by sea to England and
Scotland.” That he had also used all diligence to trace out and apprehend Roye
and Hutchyn, though hitherto in vain. He then proposes that a licence should be
granted to him of the largest extent, that, by its force and legality, “William
Roye, William Tyndale, Jerome Barlow, Alexander Barkley, and their adherents
might be taken, punished, and exposed.” He finally states that he had forced
Scott of Strasburg, the printer of the books, to state upon oath the number, he
had thrown off, and to deliver the whole to him upon payment; “wherefore I have
purchased them almost all, and now have them in my house at Cologne.”

After this, no one will question the anxiety or eager desire of Cardinal Wolsey
to seize Tyndale, and especially this Friar Roye. How deeply he was stung by the
stanzas of “Rede me, and be not wrothe,” is now apparent. But this letter, in
connexion with the past, suggests several curious considerations. We are now at
Frankfort great fair, and the reader may recollect of Hackett the ambassador
informing Wolsey, that he heard of New Testaments, to the number of two
thousand, having been for sale at the spring fair of last year; but now, when
Scott is apprehended and examined, he demands a pledge to be given to the JEWS,
in security for their concern in such traffic, “to Scotland and England as to
the same place.” No doubt the Jews were there last year, as well as this; and it
certainly would be a very singular and memorable coincidence, if the Jews, for
hire or gain, had assisted in such importations! And yet, what else can be
inferred, from Scott’s exaction or demand? But if so, the descendants of
Abraham, to whom were committed “the Oracles of God,” as recorded in the Old
Testament, may have been unconsciously conveying to this Island, as an article
of merchandise, “the living oracles,” as recorded in the New: and doing this too
at a period when the nation, as such, was up in arms against the undertaking! To
this people, under God, we stand indebted for a Saviour, and the Bible, but we
know not that it has ever been conjectured of any other nation, that the Jews
had any concern, however remote, in giving or conveying to it the New Testament.

We are not, indeed, to suppose, that our Translator either had been at
Frankfort, or that any of his publications are here referred to as printed at
Strasburg; much less that any connexion whatever now existed between him and
Roye. With regard to Tyndale at this moment, or Fryth, of whom no notice is
taken, happily Mr. Counsellor Rincke was altogether off the scent. Forty-five
miles to the north, at Marburg, they were busily engaged, both with the pen and
the press; yet is it quite possible that some of Tyndale’s productions may have
passed through this Frankfort fair. Rincke, however, had certainly laid hold of
the printer employed by Roye, and these as certainly were his publications to
which reference is made. Perhaps no great dependence can be placed on the
accuracy of Scott’s disclosure, even upon oath; but still there can now be
little or no doubt that we have found in him the printer of the celebrated
Satyre on Cardinal Wolsey, a point hitherto unknown. Rincke expressly states of
some of the books, that they were “against the magnificence and honour of his
Grace.”

Most providentially, however, by the time that West and his companions arrived
in England with this letter, Wolsey, so far from prospering “many happy years,”
as Rincke had prayed, probably never had one day of unmingled enjoyment. The
confidence of his own Royal Master had begun to decline, and Rincke but little
knew the game that Wolsey was playing at that moment with the Emperor;
otherwise, neither he nor Hackett could have expected him to have any influence,
upon any subject, with Charles.

Thus the remainder of the Cardinal’s wrath was restrained, and happily Rincke
never obtained the licence or Commission for which he panted; besides, his
politics must have soon changed with the times. His son had been in England
before, and now that he came a second time, he has been supposed to have
remained for some time, though of this we have found no positive evidence. As
for Friar West, he entirely failed in apprehending any of the men pointed out.
It must have been still more mortifying to him that, while he was wandering on
the Continent, in his disguised habit, Roye, the very man whom Wolsey wished to
have, above all others, had actually paid a visit to England; and to crown all,
West, upon returning to his monastery, not only received no thanks for all his
toil, but very soon found it a great deal too hot for him. The “new learning”
had begun to spread even there! He might, as we have found, write to Hackett in
November, telling him how the King and the Cardinal were engrossed, and could
not answer his letters; but by the next month, he himself could not gain access
even to Wolsey, and was at his wits’ end. He had, no doubt, many weighty reasons
for wishing once more to go abroad, but they ,1520.] were all in vain. Wolsey,
by this time, had his hands full. Henry was absorbed in his own affair. Our
Envoy, indeed, wrote in January, imploring that the Friar might be sent to his
aid, but we hear nothing more of Father West, and Hackett will never obtain any
farther orders. The chase was now over till Henry himself began, for thus ended,
at least, the Cardinl’s hunt after heretics so called!

After this, he will have quite enough to do, in taking care of himself. It was
Providence ruling and over-ruling all things, for the sake of His own Word.
1529.

Tyndale’s Progress In The Old Testament-Persecution In England-Thwarted Once
More-Tunstal At Antwerp-Tyndale’s Influence 1n The Palace-More, The Bishops, And
The King, In League Against The Scriptures-Coverdale Sent To Hamburg-Another Or
Fifth Edition Of The Testament. IN the denunciation of the English New Testament
by Tunstal and Warham, in 1526, we then noticed one curious omission, that of
Tyndale’s name; at that time they appear not to have known it, but we have
already seen, that very soon after the names of Tyndale and Roye were distinctly
kown to one of Tunstal’s chaplains, Dr. Robert Ridley, prebend of St. Paul’s;
and he may have been the first individual, who, in writing at least, denounced
the Translator by name as well as his invaluable work.

Tyndale’s frank acknowledgment of his authorship in 1527, made this more
generally known; and the confirmation was completed, by the examinations held
before the Bishop of London during the last spring. It was then, too, that one
of the ablest scholars, said to be the greatest genius, if not the only wit in
all England, obtained licence from his friend, the bishop, first to read
Tyndale, and then to write in reply. Ever since his licence in March last, More,
as he tells us afterwards, had been busy “night and day,” and this year we find
him bringing out his first controversial publication, consisting of above one
hundred and twenty folios, or 250 pages, printed by John Rastell, his
brother-in-law.

If, therefore, Tyndale wished to go on with his labours, it had now become more
than ever necessary that he should use precautions for the safety of his person:
and removal from place to place seems to have been one of these. Before,
however, adverting to these places, let us first return and mark the course of
his engagements. With regard to the translation of the Old Testament in which
Tyndale had for some time been employed, with all the aid which young Fryth was
so well fitted to lend, we have now some tangible proof of his progress.

It has been customary to speak of Tyndale’s Pentateuch as published in 1530, but
this is incorrect. The five books might be afterwards bound up, but originally
they were neither printed at the same press, nor published together, but
separately. In the order of importation, at least, the account of the Creation
and the early history of mankind in Genesis, seems to have been followed by
Deuteronomy, that compendious repetition or summary of the law, with explanatory
additions. At all events before the end of their year 1529, or the 25th of
March, 1530, these two books are among those publicly denounced; and those alone
under the following titles:-“ The Chapters of Moses, called Genesis-the Chapters
of Moses, called Deuteronomos.” When we come to the spring of 1530, the five
books of Moses will be more fully noticed.

During this year, the state of his native land had continued to oppress the mind
of Tyndale. However modest and unpretending in his character, as he could not be
unacquainted with the great effects produced by what he had already done, so he
must have felt that he was raised up for a certain purpose; and that with the
progress of events or the condition of his country he must endeavour to keep
pace with his pen. The correctness and celerity, as well as power, with which he
did so, will appear alike remarkable.

One distinguishing feature of our Translator’s character, was loyalty to his
King, blended with love to his country. The latter he had discovered by
commencing with “The Parable of the unrighteous Mammon,” and the former, or
rather both, by his next publication, “the Obedience of a Christian man.” Deeply
interested as he was, however, in the best interests of the reigning monarch, he
would not stoop to flatter him, much less wink at the course he now pursued.
Hence this year his small publication on the subject of matrimony, and his
exposition of 1Co 7:1-40. The former, a warning as to its abuse; the latter,
illustrative of the sin attending its gross violation-an abounding evil of the
age.

Marriage was then a question of vital importance to the virtue and happiness of
his country; dreadfully trampled on and invaded by the priesthood of the day,
and now, by the highest authority of the land, in his own person, threatened to
be dissolved. It became, therefore, such a man as Tyndale to take up the
subject. His voice was solitary indeed, but it had now a power, which, probably,
he had never anticipated; it went also through the land, for whatever he now
published was sought for and read; and not the less so, that every thing he put
forth was so denounced.

Fryth was engaged about this time in translating from the German a small work,
entitled “The Revelation of AntiChrist,” one of the first books printed in
English against the Roman Pontiff. He published it, with a long prefatory
epistle and an antithesis at the end, under the assumed name of Richard
Brightwell. It was printed “at Malborow, in the land of Hesse, the 12th day of
July, 1529, by me Hans Luft.”

About this period both Tyndale and Fryth had removed from Marburg; and by the
month of August, in Antwerp itself, a negociation with Tunstal, respecting
books, there took place, which will be narrated presently, after we have noticed
other contemporary movements in England. With regard to the progress of that
noble cause in England, for which Tyndale only lived and at last died, it must
be read, as before, in the opposition displayed. Wolsey may be removed, but
enemies, in reality more bitter and determined, will remain, nay still flourish
and rise in royal favour.

It will be remembered that abroad, Hackett, the British ambassador, had been
affronted at Antwerp, and resenting the indignity, had, in April, conveyed the
intelligence to England. In the same month, at home; Tunstal was again busy at
his last year’s employment, and firmly pushing his victims to abjure. He seems
as though he had resolved that the spring of the year should be so
distinguished, and happy would he have been to have rooted up the seed sown by
other hands; but this season the number of persons caught was comparatively few.
Last year, Hacker, and Pykas, and Tyball had sadly fallen, by exposing so many
of their friends, but happily no one now followed their example. Among those who
were examined, the most eminent was a respectable citizen and leather-merchant
of London, John Tewksbury. His case was the more interesting from his having
possessed a manuscript copy of the Bible, and his openly deporting that he had
been studying in the holy Scriptures from the year 1512. He professed, however,
that he had been brought to the knowledge of the truth by the reading of
“Tyndale’s New Testament,” and his subsequent publication or exposition of the
Parable of the Wicked Mammon. “In the doctrine of justification,” says John
Foxe, “and all other articles of his faith, he was very expert and prompt in his
answers, in such sort as Tunstal and all his learned men were ashamed, that a
leather-seller should so dispute with them, with such power of the Scriptures,
and heavenly wisdom, that they were not able to resist him,” The number of
Bishops presiding at the examination of this good man, proves at once the
importance of his case, and the extent to which their alarm and hatred had now
gone. Besides Tunstal himself, there was West of Ely, and Clark of Bath, with
Standish of St. Asaph, and Longland of Lincoln. These men had the truth told
them on this occasion, and were even warned. Amongst other things, Tewksbury had
the boldness to say,-“ I pray God that the condemnation of the Gospel and
translation of the Testament, be not to your shame, and that ye be not in peril
for it.” They continued disputing with him day after day, for more than eight or
ten days together; his first appearance being on the 13th of April. At last he
abjured, though, like Bilney, only for the present. As old Thomas Fuller
said-“It takes more to make a valiant man, than being able to call another
coward,” though in reporting such abjurations, one cannot but revert to the
first grand and public recantation of Barnes, at St. Paul’s. He might, before
that year ended, be selling New Testaments confidentially, and in private, but
this could never compensate for the mischief he had done, by his great and sad
failure. Its influence must have been yet felt, in preventing that bold decision
which would have been followed by the crown of martyrdom. Thus, this worthy man
Tewksbury only required another to precede him, in the year 1531, when we shall
find him gather courage, deeply repent, and follow with great and determined
courage to the stake.

How criminal was that man, who, with cool deliberation, thus spent his days in
laying a snare, or in weaving a net for the feet of these saints! By him,
indeed, they were not put to death; they were left by him for Stokesly to
butcher, though the guilt of this righteous blood must ever rest upon Tunstal,
as well as his successor. But again, and that a third, if not the fourth time, a
gracious Providence interposed. This, too, was about the very same month as in
the two preceding years; not by disease, indeed, as last year, but by a method
as effectual, the occupation of Tunstal abroad. In 1526 the authorities were
scattered by prevailing sickness. In 1527 they were so again by political
affairs. In 1528 they were scared, as we have seen, by the “Sudor Angicus, and
this year they are again diverted from their prey by pressing affairs of state.
These men could discern some of the signs of the times, but they could not, or
rather would not, observe the finger of God.

Tunstal, cool and fresh, was ready to engage whenever state policy demanded his
services; and the proof of his being as yet the leading persecutor of the truth,
is plainly seen in this, that when once he departed, the storm in a great degree
subsided. In a very short time, however, far from forgetting Tyndale’s
operations, we shall find him fully as busy, in another way, abroad, as he had
been at home. On the 30th of June, he and Sir Thomas More, with Dr. Knight, the
King’s Secretary, received their commissions, and left England for Cambray,
where the treaty of Madrid was to be finally settled, and there Hackett met
them. Altogether they watched over their own King’s interest, so far as it was
involved in the treaty of Cambray; remaining in attendance till the 5th of
August, when, what was called “the Women’s or the Ladies’ peace,” was finally
concluded. It has, however, been but seldom observed, that at the same time and
place, another treaty was signed, betwixt our King and the Lady Margaret, in the
name of the Emperor; Tunstal, More, and Hackett, being the commissioners. It
embraced “the continuation of traffic for merchants between the two countries,
and the forbidding to print or sell any Lutheran books on either side.”f43 Thus
it is that we are introduced, very naturally, to the period when Tunstal’s zeal
for the burning of the Scriptures emphatically began to display itself. No doubt
he, as well as the Bishop of Norwich, had cheerfully borne his share of the
first purchase by Warham in 1527; but he was eager to seize this fine and
favourable opportunity of proving his own zeal. He was now in the north of
France, and could easily take Antwerp on his way home. With three such men, all
equally hostile, the subject of heretical books must have been fully canvassed,
involved as they were in a formal treaty. The first was bent on burning them; he
had licensed the second to read them, only that he might write them down, and
his first production, written in 1528, had just come out as he left London; and
as for the third, John Hackett, he had first suggested both burning and
persecution, and not as yet succeeded to the extent of his wishes; though it was
only four months since he had been affronted at Antwerp, and so deeply felt the
indignity. The high privileges of Antwerp, however, remained inviolate, for they
had been fully and expressly recognised in the recent treaty, as well as those
of all the other Hanse Towns under the Emperor’s sway. No choice being thus
left, as to the mode of procedure, the policy of purchasing books in order to
burn them, and thus prevent progress, was discussed. This, indeed, might
ultimately promote the cause they desired to damage, and More shrewdly suspected
it certainly would. “So much,” said he to George Constantyne, afterwards, “so
much I told the Bishop, before he went about it.” Tunstal’s zeal, however, could
not thus be quenched. Knight proceeded to Italy on the King’s business; More
returned home; Tunstal went by way of Antwerp, and there meeting one Packington,
a merchant of London, expressed to him his desire to obtain all the English New
Testaments. Packington assured him he could buy up for him every copy that
remained unsold. Tunstal agreeing to pay the necessary cost, the merchant, who
was a secret friend of Tyndale, went direct to him and purchased the whole stock
on his hands, “and so,” says the old chronicler Halle, “the Bishop had the
books-Packington had the thanks-and Tyndale had the money.” Thus provided, our
Translator was enabled to correct his version and print a larger edition, which
soon after, continues Halle, “came thick and threefold over into England.” The
books purchased by Tunstal were sent home, but they were not committed to the
flames till it could be done with the greatest effect.

Tunstal and More having both returned to London, the proceedings at Cambray were
reported and highly approved. Before Sir Thomas was sent into France, the King
had sounded him as to the divorce. He was then opposed to it, and as much so
now; but as he had succeeded to admiration in procuring more money from the
Emperor than had been expected, and Henry might anticipate that, llke most men,
he only had his price, and would come round, he was about to elevate him to the
Chancellorship.

Cardinal Wolsey and Sir Thomas More had never cordially agreed, for in many
points they were perfect contrasts. Under the auspices of the latter, amiable in
domestic life, having no thirst for pomp or display, and superior to the love of
money, some great change was at hand. A new order of things, whatever that might
be, was inevitable.

Throughout this last year of his declining influence, vexations in quick
succession awaited the Cardinal. About May he had wished to proceed once more
into France, upon a mission to Cambray, (on which we have found that Tunstal and
More were sent in June,) but the King pointedly refused, as he could no longer
confide in him. Again, Sir T. Cheney, for having in some way offended the
Cardinal, had been excluded from the Court, when Lady Anne Boleyn interposed and
secured his return, whether Wolsey would or not. But finally, and as if to crown
all, and after we have witnessed how eager he had been to apprehend Tyndale, he
must be brought in contact with one of his publications. The story, in full, is
to be found in Foxe’s manuscripts, now in the Museum, and it has been quoted by
Strype. Lady Anne Boleyn had been in possession of a copy of Tyndale’s
“Obedience of a Christian man,” for though the time drew nigh, it had not then
been pointedly condemned by Royal authority. She had lent this book to one of
her female attendants, named Gainsford; but one day as she was reading it, a
young gentleman, also in the service of Lady Anne, Mr. Zouch, father to the
knight afterwards of that name, snatched the book away, and was very unwilling
to restore it. He had been induced to read it, and was so affected, that, as the
story goes, “he was never well but when he was reading of that book.” Wolsey had
ordered all about the Court to take special care, and prevent such writings from
being circulated there, lest they should chance to come into the hands of the
King; but this very caution proved the means of bringing to pass what he most
dreaded! The Dean of the Chapel Royal, Dr. Sampson, saw this publication in the
young man’s hands, who was reading it in the chapel, not improbably tired of the
unmeaning service. Calling Zouch, he took the publication from him, and
delivered it to the Cardinal. In the meantime, Lady Anne, inquiring for her
book, the attendant, fearful lest her Mistress, as well as herself, should come
into trouble, fell on her knees, and told her all the circumstances. Her
Mistress expressed no displeasure with the parties in her service, but replied
with emotion,-“W ell, it shall be the dearest book that ever the Dean or the
Cardinal took away.” Lady Anne forthwith applied to Henry, and upon her knees,
“desired the King’s help for her book.” Upon the King’s token it was delivered
up, and Lady Anne carrying the volume or tract to his Majesty, requested that he
would read it. The King did so, and professing to be pleased with the contents,
added, “This book is for me, and all kings, to read.” This story is fully
confirmed by Wyatt, with some slight variation. Lady Anne “was but newly come
from the King, when the Cardinal came in with the book in his hands, to make
complaints of certain points in it, that he knew the King would not like, and
withal to take occasion with him, against those that countenanced such books in
general, and especially women; and as might be thought, with mind to go farther
against Lady Anne more directly, if he had perceived the King agreeable to his
meaning. But the King, that somewhat before distasted the Cardinal, finding the
notes Lady Anne had made, all turned the more to hasten his ruin, which was also
furthered on all sides.” This incident therefore must, in substance, have
occurred; although Foxe goes on to build by far too much upon it. The words, in
Henry’s mouth, were probably nothing more than a compliment to the lady; or at
best, they expressed only a transient feeling, similar to one of old, in the
mind of King Herod towards John the Baptist. But be this as it might, Campeggio
was off to Italy, and the sun of royal favour had set upon Wolsey for ever.

There had been no Parliament held since 1523! These were troublesome assemblies,
and had by no means suited the speed of Wolsey’s chariot wheels; so that now,
when such an assembly as had not been convened for six years, was about to
deliberate, very much will depend upon the general spirit and temper of the new
Lord Chancellor. All things had been regulated by that strange
anomaly,-Legantine authority: they were now to be discussed professedly by a
legislative Assembly of Lords and Commons, so that some change, for better or
worse, must await the country. On Wednesday the 3rd of November, at the Chamber
in Black-friars, Parliament met; when Lord Chancellor More, in his eloquent
oration, gave the first overtures of the King’s intentions. The Cardinal’s
fall,-the state of the Church,-and the “new learning,” formed the pith of this
opening speech. The King was present when the Cardinal was glanced at, and in no
courteous terms. It was only sixteen days since he had been sent to Esher, and
the orator had only been chosen in his room ten days before; yet, along with a
fulsome compliment to Henry, as having “seen through him, both within and
without,” though Wolsey had so often led him as a child; Sir Thomas having
compared Henry VIII. to a shepherd , and his people to flock, then referred to
“the great wether which is of late fallen, as ye all know,”-“ who so craftily,
yea, and so untruly juggled with the King!”

There was truth here, unquestionably; but though such language from a judge,
from a Lord Chancellor, referring to his predecessor, might pass in those days,
in later times it would, of course, have been regarded as the height of
indecency. It was much worse, when it is remembered, that though the great seal
had been taken from Wolsey, still he had been summoned to attend this
Parliament, and actually sat in the House after this among his peers, when the
Bills were discussing during November. But it becomes a great deal more
difficult to characterise this false and fulsome compliment to Henry’s sagacity,
when it is observed, that only on the Monday week before this, or the 25th of
October, when first brought into Chancery, where the King was not present, More,
though alluding to Wolsey’s fall, had spoken in a far different style. “And
now,” said he, “when I look on this seat, and recollect how great persons have
filled it before me,-when I contemplate who sat in it last,-a man of such
singular wisdom, such skill in business, blest with such long and prosperous
fortune, and visited at last with so high and inglorious a fall, I cannot but
see the difficulty of my situation. For it is difficult to succeed with
approbation, to one of such genius, wisdom, authority, ann splendour, or to
trace his footsteps with an equal pace. It seems as if we should light a taper,
after gazing on the setting sun!” More might say that he eulogised only Wolsey’s
talents, and blamed his want of integrity; but his whole procedure was unworthy
of himself, nor can it ever be justified, much less admired. As for the various
subjects then styled ecclesiastical, they were incorporated or interwoven with
civil affairs. The abuses, says Herbert, having now come at last to the King’s
knowledge, he remitted their redress to the Lower House of Parliament. The
Mortuaries, or the exactions from the children of deceased parents,-the enormous
expense of Probates, or proofs, or wills, -Pluralities to the extent of eight or
ten livings, engrossed by one man,-abounding nonresidence,-Priests being
Surveyors, Stewards of estates, Farmers, and Graziers in every county,-Priors,
and other ecclesiastics, being the buyers and sellers of Wool, of Cloth, and all
kinds of merchandise. Such were the grievances then to be redressed.

Three bills were therefore drawn up, by the appointment of the Burgesses of
Parliament,-the first relating to Mortuaries, the second to Probates, and the
third embracing all the other evils. The first, when seat up to the Lords, was
rather courteously received; the second, concerning Probates, followed in two
days; but on this, Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and all the other
bishops, frowned. Fisher, the Bishop of Rochester, spoke with greatest violence
and warmth. In the parliament chamber, says the contemporary chronicler, he said
openly these words,-‘‘ My Lords, you see daily what bills come hither from the
Common house, and all is to the destruction of the Church; see what a realm the
kingdom of Bohemia was, and when the Church went down, then fell the glory of
the kingdom,-now with the Commons is nothing but down with the Church,-and alt
this, me seemeth, is for lack of faith only.”

These last expressions once reported to the Commons, they sent their Speaker,
Sir Thomas Audtey, with thirty members, to the King. Henry, also dissatisfied,
promised to call for the Bishop, and send them reply.

Accordingly, Warham and six of his brethren, besides Fisher, had to appear, when
the latter apologised, saying, he meant “the doings of the Bohemians were for
lack of faith.” The King received his representation, but the Commons were still
by no means satisfied with this “blind excuse.”

After this, the Commons referred to the laws and constitutions of the Church, as
enforcing these bills, but the “Spiritu ality” defended the existing state of
things by “presumption and usage.” One commoner, a gentleman of Gray’s Inn, had
the courage to reply,-“ The usage hath ever been of thieves, to rob on Shooter’s
hill, ergo-is it lawful?” Of course very great offence was taken at the
comparison, as if the fees for Probates were to be considered robbery. The
Commons stood firm, and the temporal Lords began to lean to their side, but the
bills could not yet pass.

Meanwhile the Lords assented to a bill of their own, and sent it down to the
Commons, which will remind the reader of years gone by, as it referred to
measures introduced by Wolsey, and ultimately supported by the present
Chancellor, then Speaker of the House of Commons. This was a bill releasing the
King of all such sums as he had borrowed from his subjects, in the fifteenth
year of his reign. The measure, of course, was felt severely by the Commons, and
the more so, as it would render them unpopular with their constituents; but as
the majority of members were the King’s servants, and others were gained over,
the bill passed. By way of gratitude in return, the King granted, with certain
exceptions, a general pardon of offences, and aiding the Commons for the redress
of their grievances, he caused two new bills to be presented afresh to the
Lords, to which they at last assented, although that in reference to the probate
of wills was peculiarly offensive to the Bishops. The Commons then sent up their
third bill, in reference to pluralities, nonresidence, farming, &c. At this the
Priests not only railed on the Commons as heretics, but the Bishops, in the
Upper Rouse, says Hall,” would in no ways consent.” At last the King interposed.
Causing eight members from each House to meet and confer in the Star Chamber,
the Temporal Lords present united with the Commons, and next day the bill,
somewhat qualified, passed into a law.

Before this Parliament was prorogued, on the 17th of December, there was one
other measure respecting which there was no dissension among the Bishops, nor
any division between the two Houses, and this was how to deal with the new
learning come into the land. “It had been,” says Lord Herbert, “secretly
admitted into many places of this kingdom with much approbation, so that even
the most ignorant began to examine whether the errors then ordinarily
controverted, did belong to the doctrine or the government of the Church.” This
subject, it should be remembered, had been noticed among the “overtures of the
King’s intentions,” in this short session, and whether suggested by the new
Chancellor, must appear by what followed. Sir Thomas More might smile at
Tunstal’s simplicity, in having purchased books at Antwerp to burn them in
London, by and by; but at the same time, whatever his pen or his power could do,
was now to be employed against the authors and the possessors of all such
publications. With his pen he had been busy ever since he was licensed, in March
last year; and now, as Lord Chancellor, he will enjoy the gratification of
employing his power, and immediately upon his entrance into office.

Sir Thomas More has certainly been fortunate, even to a proverb, in his
biographers. At once the pride and the pet of the literary world, they have
drawn his character on this principle-that “what offends the eye in a good
picture, the painter casts discreetly into shades;” so that any writer laid
under the necessity of bringing to light the generally concealed features of the
man, must run the risk of being charged with a sin against taste. It is,
however, chiefly with his official character, and as the opponent of Tyndale and
Fryth, that we have here to do. His official movements against them are matter
of history, and as for his sentiments and feelings, there is no necessity for
calling witnesses to prove what they were. Plentifully were they expressed by
himself, through many folio pages.

Wolsey being degraded, had the spirit of persecution rested only in his breast
as Prime Minister, of course it must now have abated under his successor,
Notwithstanding, therefore, the prodigious faults of the fallen Cardinal, let us
inquire, and render him impartial justice.

It must have been observed, that the criminal charges preferred against Wolsey
by the Lords, were presented to the King, with More at their head; and that the
43rd article included these words,-“Besides all his other heinous offences, the
said Lord Cardinal hath been the impeacher and disturber of due and direct
correction of heresies, being highly to the danger and peril of the whole body
and good Christian people of this realm.” The neglect of Warham’s letter was now
no doubt remembered; but they specially referred to Wolsey’s inhibiting the
Bishops who desired to repair to Cambridge, in 1523, for the correction of such
errors as were said to reign among the students and scholars there; in
consequence of which, they now affirmed, these errors had “crept more abroad,
and took greater place.” This was a charge which, when the whole article is
read, evidently came warm from the heart of all the prelates who were present;
and Wolsey, in various instances, certainly had not allowed them to run riot, to
the extent they demanded; his own interests, at the moment, forbidding the
gratification of their malice. The loftier flight of his own personal ambition
had so engrossed his mind, that the fiery and unmitigable zeal of these men must
have frequently been felt by him as an annoyance, retarding his progress; and
now, that he is to be crushed, they were rejoicing in hope of other days under
his successor-better in their estimation, but bitter days and nights to those
who either stood in their, way, or dared to oppose them. As it regarded,
therefore, what the Bishops longed so much to enjoy-“the direct correction of
heresies,” the reader will bear in mind the embassy on which More with Tunstal
had been lately sent; but more especially the closing treaty at Cambray, which
they had arranged and signed. It was the first amicable arrangement of any kind,
between the Emperor and Henry, for a considerable time past. Charles, before
this period, had twice issued what were styled “ Placards” throughout his
dominions, and, in fulfilment, it seems, of this treaty, on the 14th of October
he had issued a third. By this, all those who had relapsed after abjuration,
were to be burnt-as for others, men were to die by the sword-women to be buried
alive! All were warned against receiving any heretic to their houses, on pain of
death and confiscation of goods! Suspected persons were to receive no honourable
employment; and, in order to find out heretics, one-half of their estates was
promised to informers! Was there then no echo in England to this ferocious
placard? or did More and Tunstal pay no regard to the treaty they had signed? So
far from this, the subject was one to which both immediately bent all their
energies. For months past, indeed, the pen of More, dipped in gall, had been
busy on the subject of suppressing heresy; arguing for persecution unto death,
in his strange and characteristic “Dialogue;” and the first time he opens his
mouth in Parliament as Chancellor, he has it among the overtures of the King’s
intentions, His appearance in print, since the month of June, as the determined
opponent of Tyndale, had fully shown the man, for five months before his
elevation to the Great Seal; and the spirit now displayed by him, afforded no
comfortable prospect for those who had espoused the truth, and were promoting
its diffusion at great hazard and expense. “As soon,” says Burnet, “as More came
into favour, he pressed the King much, to put the laws against heretics in
execution, and suggested that the Court of Rome would be more wrought upon by
the King’s supporting the Church, and defending the faith vigorously, than by
threatenings: and, therefore, a long proclamation was issued out against the
heretics, many of their books were prohibited, and all the laws against them
were appointed to be put in execution, and great care was taken to seize them as
they came into England.” f46 The facts of the case may be more distinctly
stated. Tunstal, as well as More, must perform his part; and Warham also, now
that Wolsey is out of the way, has no objections to go all lengths with his
fellows. Accordingly, before the opening of this Parliament, the Convocation had
been summoned to meet. They did so on the 5th of November, when at their first
meeting a reformation of abuses was proposed; and with that an inquiry was made
concerning heretical books. A Committee of Bishops was appointed with relation
to heretics. On the 19th of December, two days after Parliament had risen,
secrecy was enjoined, and again a second time, on pain of excommunication, so
eager were they to catch the prey. They closed their Convocation on the 24th, or
a week after Parliament, and then came out that proclamation which, as Foxe
says, was made throughout all England, the year of our Lord 1529, and the 21st
year of Henry VIII.; commencing, “The King our Sovereign Lord,” &c.-“The
Bishops,” he tells us, “were the procurers of this fierce and terrible
proclamation, devised and set out in the King’s name;” but there can be no
question that the Chancellor’s influence was united with theirs in this matter.
Indeed, the style in several places will show, that it must have been their
joint production. More and Tunstal, no doubt, drew it up; and as the
Chancellor’s hand is so visible throughout, this consequently may be regarded as
about the first of his official papers. Having first forbidden all preaching,
teaching, or writing any thing contrary to the doctrine of Holy Church,
inflicting fines for the first offence, and death for relapse after abjuration,
it proceeds to prohibit under high penalties the “selling, receiving, taking or
detaining any book or work printed or written against the faith Catholic,-the
decrees, laws, and ordinances of Holy Church.” That no man might plead
ignorance, a list of the books restrained or forbidden was also published. Of
the twenty-four in English, eight were by Tyndale and one by Fryth. “The
Bishops,” says Foxe, “had that now which they would have; neither did there
lack, on their part, any study unapplied, any stone unremoved, any corner
unsearched, for the diligent execution of the same.”

Here, then, we have the first Royal proclamation interdicting printed books, and
pursuing the importers, the possessors, or authors of them, to death by fire.
This was one of the first fruits of the new administration, and it marks the
present period as an era in the history of persecution for conscience’ sake;
since the government of the country, that is, the King and his Council, were now
fully committed. The only formal public instruments hitherto issued, were the
injunctions of Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Tunstal, Bishop of London,
in the close of 1526; and up to December 1529, this persecution had been an
affair of the “Spirituality” alone. The King, it is true, had approved of what
they did in 1526, and, before then, was himself writing to the Netherlands, and
eager about the burning of books. But his name as Sovereign had never, till this
period, been employed to strike terror into the hearts of his own subjects, to
make heresy and treason convertible terms, and lay the entire civil power at the
feet of the Bishops.

Wolsey, unquestionably, had great influence over his Majesty, but he had never
employed it in persuading him thus publicly and personally to embrue his hands
in the blood of his subjects on English ground; this was reserved to distinguish
the administration of Sir Thomas More; so that the chief redeeming point in the
character of the lofty and overbearing Cardinal, must stand in contrast with the
greatest blot in that of his unostentatious and learned successor.

Oh, when writing his Utopia, in earlier life, or, as Sir James Mackintosh has
described it, “his admirable discussions on criminal law, his forcible
objections to capital punishment for offences against property, his remarks on
the tendency of the practice of inflicting needless suffering on animals, in
weakening compassion and affection towards our fellow-men,” and his
extraordinary latitude of toleration as to the mind; had any one said to him-“I
know the evil and the cruelty thou wilt yet inflict on the people around
you,”-would he not have replied, “What! is thy servant a dog that he should do
this thing?” But now, it seems the only answer might have been, “Thou shalt, one
day, be Lord Chancellor of England,” and then-! But before then, and only just
before, he had himself already given a fearful omen to his country, of what
might have been anticipated from his administration. His appearance this year as
a controversialist must have been hailed by the entire hierarchy, licensed or
hired as he had been by high prelatical authority; and certainly the English
language had never been so prostituted before he took up his pen. Even in the
eulogised “Utopia” of his early days, it should never be forgotten that he there
stood forth, more than insinuating the lawfulness of suicide; and now, alas, he
must appear as regarding with equal indifference the blood of others. The
proclamation already quoted, which was to be read throughout all the land, was
in him but the natural result of the sentiments he had already expressed in
print; and now the civil authority, from the Lord Chancellor of England down to
the lowest Bailiff of a burgh town, bound, by oath, must make official inquiry
after “heretics.” “The prelates,” he had already said, in print, “ought
temporally to destroy those ravenous wolves; they were by grievous punishment to
be repressed in the beginning, and the sparkle well quenched, ere it was
suffered to grow to over great a fire!” But once in possession of power, the
mace as well as the pen must be employed to prevent the progress of the “new
learning;” so that if Wolsey had chastised the people with whips, More, as led
by these Bishops, seems determined to do so with scorpions. And what was the
existing condition of this prelatical cause, which the new Lord Chancellor was
so eager to defend and maintain? It consisted mainly of priests, and according
to his own admission in his “ Dialogue,”-“ he wot well that many were very lewd
and naught,”-but “let the priest be never so vicious, and so impenitent, and so
far from all purpose of amendment, that his prayers are rejected and abhorred;
yet the profit of his mass was to every one else, just as good as if he were the
most virtuous man!” And again,-“If the Church say one thing, and the Holy
Scriptures another thing, the faith of the Church is to be taken as the word of
God, as well as the Scripture, and therefore to be believed.” These are a few of
his own express words; but no solitary selected expressions can convey an
adequate idea of the virulence, not to say the verbosity and fallacidus
reasoning of this writer. It certainly would exhaust the patience of most
readers, in the present day, to wade through his folio “Dialogue.” Such was, in
part, the state of things in England at the close of this year and commencement
of the next. It was purely with a view to enlighten and bless his country and to
deliver it from thraldom, that Tyndale had hitherto laboured, assailing only
what was positively sinful, and worthy of destruction. No English writer had
drawn his pen against him till this summer, when Sir Thomas More put forth his
laborious “Dialogue.”

Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament he had severely condemned, artfully
approving of a NEW translation, to meet the pressure from without,-a translation
of course by the Bishops; one of which Crammer said about eight years after
this, that he had no idea of its being accomplished “till one day after
Doomsday.” No choice therefore was now left to Tyndale, but to encounter this
“ornament of the Pontifical chair,”-“ one of the greatest prodigies of wit and
learning,” according to Anthony Wood, “that this nation ever before his time had
produced.” Tyndale, however, entertained no fear of him, and he will not long
remain without a sufficient answer. On the whole, it is now evident that this
had been a most busy season, nor is it difficult to perceive the occasion or
cause of all the turmoil. For while the “nether house of parliament,” as Foxe
calls it, had been “communing of their griefs wherewith the spirituality had
before time grievously oppressed them;” the Convocation had been communing also,
with mingled grief and indignation, over the “new learning” come into the land.
Some might say that the hand of Tyndale was in all this, and in one sense it
was, but then he was not in the country. Properly speaking, the commotion is to
be ascribed to the Word of God, however denounced, which he had translated, and
sent home, to fight its own way.

Before the close of this year, however, if we look abroad once more, we are
cheered by observing that the great cause went on. The Government at home had
been absorbed in human legislation, and confounded by its perplexities. All the
while, Tyndale had been diligent in preparing more of the Divine law for his
countrymen, and it will be home presently. He had been employing the press at
Marburg, but had left it himself, for Antwerp, as already explained, it is in
reference to this period that we find a statement by John Foxe, that minding to
print his translation of Deuteronomy at Hamburg, Tyndale went thither this year
and met Miles Coverdale by appointment, who helped him to translate the whole
Pentateuch. Now Coverdale might have gone to Hamburg by appointment of some one,
but that he met our Translator there cannot be proved, nor is there any evidence
to show that Tyndale ever was at Hamburg after 1524.

Certain it is that Coverdale afforded no assistance in translating from the
Hebrew, as two years after this, he confesses his own incompetence for such a
task. Whatever aid Tyndale had in preparing the Pentateuch was derived from
Fryth. Of any meeting with Coverdale, Tyndale gives not the slightest hint; nor
in the whole of his writings, or those of Fryth, is there a shadow of reference
to Coverdale, more than if he had never existed. In conclusion of this year, we
have been, and will continue to be, cautious of admitting into these pages any
loose conjecture. But after all that we have read, it would be difficult to
believe that the Antwerp press had stood still, either last year or the present.
An edition of Tyndale’s Testament has been long assigned to about this period,
though we are not able to fix it, by adducing such curious evidence as in
preceding cases. Hackett, however, as carly as May 1527, has hinted at as many
as 2000 having been for sale at Frankfort; and Joye affirms that the Dutch, as
he calls them, had printed if, a third time. We may, therefore, with all safety,
put down another, or the fifth edition, to 1529. It is quite possible that there
might have been one last year, as well as this; but, at all events, Tyndale
himself will reprint his Testament next year. 1530.

Tyndale’s Progress In The Old Testament-Practice Of Prelates-Persecution Goes
On-King And Prelates Denounce The Scriptures-Latimer’s Bold Remonsteance-New
Testaments Burnt-Another, The Sixth Edition-Vigorous Importation-Death Of S.
Fyshe.

WE have come to a more noted period in our Translator’s eventful life. From the
variety and importance of his publications which had now appeared in print, it
is evident that the past and the present had been years of great and incessant
activity on his part; nor were his opponents less active. The bench of Bishops,
now headed by the civil power, were firmly leagued together, and arrayed against
him. Considering all that Tyndale already knew, it is quite apparent from his
writings, that he had, long before this time, been prepared in spirit for
martyrdom. Resolved to tell the whole truth, and, as far as he knew, nothing but
the truth, his path lay right before him. When pressed out of measure, he might
and did seek for quiet and safety, that he might pursue his work; but he was of
one mind-and no peril, no prospect of danger, could turn him. Depending on the
sword of the Spirit for success, and feeling, as he had translated, that “the
wrath of the God of heaven appeareth against all ungodliness and unrighteousness
of men, who withhold the truth in unrighteousness,” he must have resolved to
suppress nothing, or sooner “die upon his shield,”-a better than that of the
ancient warrior, because the shield of faith.

Tyndale’s translations of the five books of Moses were soon in circulation
through his native country. His treatise entitled “The Practice of Prelates,”
was also this year in England; and his “Answer to the Dialogue of Sir Thomas
More,” will follow. After disposing of Wolsey and the prelates in general, he
had taken up the production of Wolsey’s successor in office.

Two Lords Chancellor against one poor expatriated Exile, might seem to be
fearful odds, but time will show who gained the victory. That portion of the
Sacred Volume now sent into England, has frequently been referred to by previous
authors, as being “the first edition of Tyndale’s Pentateuch;” but that this is
incorrect, will at once appear from the following collation.

Genesis, in black letter, 76 leaves, with this colophon at the end, “Emprented
at Marlborow, in the land of Hesse, by me, Hans Luft, the yere of onr Lorde,
M.D. XXX., the xvii dayes of Januarii.” Exodus, in roman letter, 76 leaves;
Leviticus, roman letter, 52 leaves; Numbers, in black letter, 67 leaves;
Deuteronomy, in roman letter, 63 leaves. There is a separate title and a
prologue to each book; at the end of Genesis, Exodus, and Deuteronomy, and at
the beginning of Numbers, are tables expounding certain words. There are a few
notes in the margins, and throughout the whole, ten wooden cuts. There is no
colophon or date, except that already given, attached to Genesis. From all this,
but especially from inspection, it is evident that these five books were printed
at separate presses; Genesis for certain, and probably Numbers, at Marburg.
Deuteronomy, and for aught we know, Exodus and Leviticus, at Hamburg. That they
were circulated at first, separately, in England, is evident, because they were
thus distinctly denounced; first. Genesis and Deuteronomy, and then the whole
five books, but still distinctly noted. At the same time, when the whole were
finished, Tyndale meant them to be bound together, as he then printed a general
preface, which may have led to the popular description of “the Pentateuch, first
edition.” The rarity of these five books, entire, is almost equal to that of the
first octavo New Testament of 1525. Only one pefect copy is known to exist which
once belonged to Mr. Wilkinson, and is now in the Grenville Library, British
Museum. The next best copy, as it has been completed, in the finest fac-simile,
from the preceding, once belonged to Mr. Tutet. It was purchased at the sale of
his books, by the late Mr. Heber, and from his collection by Mr. Grenville; who
only seems to have parted with it, on obtaining his present unique perfect book.
We know not what the perfect copy cost, but this second was advertised for sale
in 1836, by Thorpe of London, at fifty guineas. Little did Tyndale imagine that,
at the distance of more than three centuries, the labour of his hands would be
so highly estimated.

Besides these two, all the other copies known to exist, are incomplete. That in
the Museum at Bristol, wants the book of Genesis; that iu Sion College,
presented by Mr. Lewis, the book of Deuteronomy, and besides, the marginal notes
are cut off, as directed by Act of Parliament in January 1543! The copy in the
British Museum wants the first and last and two other leaves; the one at
Cambridge is also imperfect. In the Bodleiau library at Oxford, there is a
beautiful copy of Genesis alone.

Tyndale’s next publication was “The Practice of Prelates;” and, as far as it
regards the subjects introduced, as well as the manner in which they are
handled, it is, in some respects, the most remarkable of all his controversial
writings. More than ever bent upon the emancipation of his country from mental
bondage, he longed to see the throne established in righteousness; but he could
entertain no hope of this until the power behind it, which had risen above the
throne itself, was laid prostrate. “If that King of the grasshoppers,” said he,
“which devoureth all that is green, were destroyed; then were the kingdom of our
caterpillars at an end.” But it was when, in the same publication, he came down
to what he styled “the practice of our time,” and “the cause of all that we have
suffered these twenty years,” that Tyndale’s powerful sentences were so deeply
felt. Other men, before this year was done, might sing a requiem over the grave
of Wolsey; but before he died, this despised and unpatronised exile had already
exposed to public view his entire policy; and withal, so ably, that it is still
quoted by the best of our historians. By Burnet and Strype in former times; by
Turner and Tytler in our own day.

Wolsey, it is true, was descending to the tomb, but what did that signify?

Sir Thomas More had just come into power. He had opened the first Parliament
which had been held for years, and with what was said to be, an eloquent
oration. What then must have been his surprise and regret, if not his
indignation, to find the man whom he had laboured to overwhelm by his sophistry,
and all the quip and merry turns in his “Dialogue,” reviewing this very session
of Parliament, and the first bills that were passed under his administration?
Exposing the proceedings as only so many strokes of policy, Tyndale showed that
they had been merely clearing away the brushwood, or lopping the branches of a
tree, which would grow again, while it ought to have been uprooted from the soil
of England. “The root yet left behind, whence all that they have for a time
weeded out, will spring again, by little and little, as before; if they, as
their hope is, may stop this light of God’s word that is now abroad.” These few
last words show the soul of our Translator. The authority of the Divine word
was, in his mind, paramount to every other consideration, and this was the cause
of his now speaking out so boldly; but it certainly was no common proof of
talent and of an enlarged mind, that so early after Parliament rose, Tyndale
should be able to send such a publication into England; embracing, as it did,
not merely the corruption of past ages traced to its source, but the national
doings of the day, down to the end of March in the present year, if not later.

One of the latest eulogists of Sir Thomas More is Sir James Mackintosh, and a
more able and fascinating pen could not have been employed; but in his just
indignation at the brutality of Henry in putting More to death, and his warm
admiration of the Chancellor, he is not the first who has shot rather beyond the
mark. “He was,” says he, “the first Englishman who signalised himself as an
orator, the first writer of a prose which is still intelligible, and probably
the first layman since the beginning of authentic history, who was Chancellor of
England.”

It is not improbable that Sir James had never thought of looking into the pages
of More’s opponent in controversy. Tyndale’s prose, however, in one sense, it
must never be forgotten, has been read in Britain ever since, and that too
“every Sabbath day;” for notwithstanding all the confessed improvements made on
our translation of the Bible, large portions in almost every chapter still
remain verbally the same as he first gave them to his country. In this, it is
true, he was merely a translator, but then the style of his translation has
stood the test of nearly ten generations. It has been their admiration all
along, and it will continue to be admired while the language endures,. But
independently of his translation, the purity of his native language was
maintained by Tyndale in as high a degree as by any of his contemporaries. And
even as to his opponent it may safely be questioned, if in the wide compass of
More’s controversial writings there is one passage to be compared for pathos and
simple beauty with the solemn appeal of Tyndale to his King and country, after
Parliament and the Bishops had drawn the sword of persecution from its sheath,
and placed it, naked, in the hands of their Sovereign. It will be found at the
close of the “Practice of Prelates.” By this tract did Tyndale prove, that he
was intimately acquainted with all that was going on in England, up to the
moment of his publication, as well as able to give sound advice; an evidence of
such talent that Sir T. More could not but recognise it, two years afterwards,
though he affects to despise the writer. “Then,” says he, “have we ‘the Practice
of Prelates,’ wherein Tyndale had wente to have made a special show of his high
worldly wit; and that men should have seen therein that there was nothing done
among princes, but that he was fully advertised of all the secrets; and that so
far forth, that he knew the privy practice made between the King’s highness, and
the late Lord Cardinal, and the reverend father, Cuthbert, then Bishop of
London, and me.” A facetious vein of style continued to be the favourite mode of
Sir Thomas. Perhaps he preferred it for effect, or saw no necessity for any
other; but Tyndale was ever in earnest, to the end. As far as intelligent and
skilful, though pungent, warning could go, Tyndale had nobly done his duty. He
had fully exposed the once aspiring Cardinal, now sinking into ruin, and the
enormous expense entailed on the country by his tortuous administration; he had
faithfully warned his Sovereign, and put the country on its guard, as to the
state persecution, which we have seen that the new Chancellor as well as the
prelates had advised. Few men, if indeed any one of that age, could have written
such an exposition of the times, as Tyndale had just given; and yet his labour
for this year was not at an end. He had commenced his reply to Sir Thomas More’s
“Dialogue,” and in the printed edition of his works it is said to have been made
in 1530; but as it certainly did not appear in print till next year, we defer
till then saying more of a production which Henry the VIII. was so eager to see,
that a part of it at least was actually written out, by his Envoy in Brabant,
and sent him for perusal before its publication. This, too, as we shall find,
was done without Tyndale’s knowledge, and it is mentioned now simply as a proof
of his powerful influence, as well as the interest attached to any thing which
might come from his pen. The virulent opposition now manifested to his
translation of the Scriptures, and his other writings, could only refer to his
publications before this year; so that what we are now going to relate, may be
regarded as no slender testimony to their powerful effects upon his native
country. As for the “Practice of Prelates,’’ as soon as it begins to be known
and felt, we shall find other measures resorted to, besides that of denunciation
in England. The first person who excites notice in 1530, was that poor old and
blind, literally blind man, the Bishop of Norwich once more. He felt sorely
annoyed by the circulation and effects of these English books. Three years ago,
he had contributed, with great good will, towards the purchase made by Warham,
of Tyndale’s New Testaments,-a vain expedient, as might have been anticipated,
to prevent their getting into the hands of the people. But he was as warm in the
cause as ever, and in a letter to his friend the Archbishop, dated 14th May,
1530, he complains that it passeth his power to suppress the reading and
believing of the New Testament;-that there are who say, “that the King’s
pleasure is, the New Testament in English shall go forth, and men shall have it
and read it; and from that opinion I can by no means turn them.” He therefore
desires to know the King’s pleasure on the subject, “that a remedy may be had;”
adding with respect to the readers, “If they continue any time, I think they
shall undo us all.” f47 But there was no occasion for this miserable old man
being so urgent.

Little did he know how deeply Warham and his brethren were impressed with the
impending danger, if these books were not seized and burnt. The highest
authorities were now all alive to the perils of the hierarchy. For some time,
the united strength of the most able opponents in the ldngdom -Lord Chancellor
More, Warham, Tunstal, and Gardiner,-had been employed in framing an
authoritative list, of all the heresies detected in Tyndale’s writings, with a
denunciation of them all. Tyndale’s name, too, in connexion with his New
Testament and Pentateuch, was now still more distinctly branded, even by royal
authority. These prelates and their assistants had contrived to find out about
two hundred heretical sentences in only six publications, of which one hundred
and seven were charged upon “Tyndale and Fryth.” A document enumerating these
heresies, and condemning by name the various works in which they were found, was
drawn up, and authorized at a Council held in the Palace of Westminster, 24th
May, 1530, the King himself being present. In this paper “the Scriptures
corrupted by William Tyndale, as well in the Old Testament as in the New,” is
especially mentioned. There is added a “Bill in English to be published by the
preachers,” urging the immediate delivery of these books “to the Superiors, such
as call for them.” It is signed by three Notaries alone. The original document,
closely written on eight skins of parchment, may still be seen in the Library at
Lambeth Palace. At the end there is an array of twenty names, pointing out the
most noted persons present on this occasion, to which they add, “with many more
learned men of the said Universities, in a great number assembled, then and
there together witness to the premises required and adhibited.” But although the
language employed was no doubt intended to convey the idea, it by no means
follows, that they individually assented; far from it. A minority there was, we
know from other sources, though we cannot give their names. More and Warham,
Tunstal and Gardiner, the framers of the whole, besides others, of course
cordially approved of every word; but Hugh Latimer was among the number present,
and this has perplexed or misled more critics than one. Perhaps he had no
business to be there, however anxious to know what was going on; but the
occasion of his being in such bad company admits of explanation, after which he
will appear in his noblest character.

Latimer had been preaching, ever since he saw Wolsey at Whitehall, and before
then he had argued for the Scriptures being given to all. For some time, also,
before the present period, it had been in his favour, that his old opponent,
West, the Bishop of Ely, took part with Queen Catherine, and was one of her
Advocates. Henry, eager to have the assent of the University of Cambridge to his
divorce, had sent down Dr. Butts, the physician, to promote this object.
Latimer, whatever may be said, approved of the divorce, and, therefore, so
pleased if not aided the Doctor, that he invited him to accompany him to London.
Introducing him to the King, he had been officiating before him at Windsor in
the month of March. In the afternoon of Sunday the 27th, while Latimer was
preaching, the Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge, Dr. William Buckmaster, arrived
with the University’s letters for his Majesty. The King was not altogether
satisfied with their decisions, but Latimer was already high in favour. “At
afternoon,” says Buckmaster to himself, “I came to Windsor, and also to part of
Mr. Latimer’s sermon, and after the end of the same, I spake with Mr.
Secretary-and so after evensong I delivered our letters in the chamber of
presence, all the Lords beholding. His Highness gave me there great thanks, and
talked with me a good while. But by and by, he greatly praised Mr. Latimer’s
sermon, and, in so praising, said on this wise:-‘This displeaseth greatly Mr.
Vice-Chancellor yonder. Yon same,’ said he unto the Duke of Norfolk, ‘is Mr.
Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge,’ and so pointed to me.’’ The next day, after
another conversation with Henry, the King having told him that he would have
their final and a better decision, Buckmaster was dismissed home after Easter;
but Latimer still remained, and continued preaching.

Meanwhile Warham’s party were already sitting in council at Westminster, and
Latimer, not having left London, was present among others, on the 24th of May,
but his account of the meeting afterwards was this. Referring his Majesty to
that very day, he tells him, “As concerning your last proclamation, prohibiting
such books, the very true cause of it, and chief counsellors were they, whose
evil living and cloaked hypocrisy these books uttered and disclosed. And howbeit
that (although) there were three or four that would have had the Scripture to go
forth in English, yet it happened there, as it is evermore seen, that the most
part overcometh the better; and so it might be that these men did not take this
proclamation as yours, but as theirs, set forth in your name; as they have done
many times more, which hath put this your realm in great hindrance and trouble,
and brought it in great penury.”

These proceedings, says Burner, were printed in June, but when once they were
sent forth through the country, so far from having assented to them, they proved
the urgent motive to one of the noblest acts of Latimer’s varied life-his well
known letter to Henry the VIII., of this year. In this letter, from which the
words already quoted are taken, he pleads powerfully for liberty to “read the
Holy Scripture in our mother tongue,” and spares neither Bishops or Chancellor,
closing with an earnest prayer for, and solemn charge to, the King. “Wherefore I
pray to God that your Grace may be found acceptable in His sight, and one of the
members of His Church; and according to the office that He hath called your
Grace unto, that you may be found a faithful minister of His gifts, and not a
defender of His faith; for He will not have it defended by MAN, or man’s POWER,
but by His Word only, by the which He hath evermore defended it; and that by a
way far above man’s power or reason, as all the stories of the Bible make
mention. “Wherefore, gracious King, remember yourself. Have pity upon your soul,
and think that the day is even at hand when you shall give account of your
office, and of the blood that hath been shed by your sword. In the which day,
that your Grace may stand stedfastly, and be not ashamed, but be clear and ready
in your reckoning, and to have, as they say, your quietus est sealed with the
blood of our Saviour Christ, which only serveth at that day, is my daily prayer
to Him that suffered death for our sins, which also prayeth to His Father for
grace for us continually. To whom be all honour and praise for ever, Amen. The
Spirit of God preserve your Grace. Anne Domini 1530, 1mo. die Decembris.”

Certainly no monarch was ever more pointedly addressed, or more seasonably and
faithfully warned. It seems, therefore, unaccountable that Latimer should have
ever been supposed to assent to such proceedings, merely because his name was
mentioned as being present. The calumny, however, no doubt unwittingly, has been
bound up, even with the reprint of Tyndale’s Blew Testament, in our own day. At
that moment, indeed, the Bishops might think it fortunate to have such a name
appended, but had they foreseen the result, it had never been there. Meanwhile,
Latimer had done what he could to damage this Royal and prelatical Bull. To
return, however, to these Bishops as a body; having in May secured their object,
in so far as a Royal proclamation could go, it seems to have been with a view to
greater effect, that a second grand and more public book-fire was then
determined. The first had been the result of Wolsey’s “secret search” in 1526;
the present was the consequence of the negociation at Antwerp last year.
Warham’s purchase in 1527 was disposed of, or consumed, without show; but
Tunstal had reserved his books till now. Tyndale by name, and his translation,
had both been branded by royal authority, and the Bishop, no doubt, thought it a
fortunate moment for fulfilling his purpose. “I intend, surely,” said he at
Antwerp, “to destroy them all, and to burn them at Paul’s Cross.”

Accordingly, says Halle, “this year in May, the Bishop of London” (formerly, now
of Durham) “caused all his New Testaments which he had bought, with many other
books, to be brought into Paul’s Church Yard, in London, and there were openly
burned.” That Tunstal was acting for Stokesly, till his return from the
Continent, and recording what was doing in the diocese till then, is evident
from several documents at the close of his Register.

There was, however, a great difference between the effects of this burning, and
that in the year 1526. Then the people, generally, were not aware of the value
of what they saw consumed; but it was far otherwise now, and this alone is a
proof that the cause of Divine Truth, which the Bishops would fain have crushed,
was making decided progress. This burning “had such an hateful appearance in it,
being generally called a burning of the Word of God, that people from thence
concluded, there must be a visible contrariety between that book, and the
doctrines of those who handled it; by which both their prejudice against the
clergy, and their desire of reading the New Testament, was increased.”f49 In
corroboration of this statement, it is certain that neither the purchase at
Antwerp, nor the burning at Paul’s Cross, had any effect on the importations
into this country, except the reverse of what was intended and desired by the
enemy; and before long Tunstal himself was fully sensible of this. “Afterwards
,” says Halle, “when more New Testaments were imprinted, they came thick and
threefold into England, the Bishop of London,” (now of Durham,) “hearing that
still there were so many, sent for Augustine Packington, and said to him-‘Sir,
how cometh this, that there are so many New Testaments abroad, and you promised
and assured me that you had bought all!’ Then, said Packington-‘I promise you, I
bought all that then was to be had; but I perceive they have made more since,
and it will never be better, as long as they have the letters and stamps;
therefore, it were best for your Lordship to buy the stamps too! and then you
are sure.’ The Bishop smiled at aim, and said-‘ Well, Packington, well;’ and so
ended the matter.” And so, perhaps, ended the devloe of purchasing books in
order to burn them; but it will not be long before we find these enemies proceed
to men themselves, and, with a bitter zeal, still more inflamed, consign them to
the fire; for very soon after this, seizing and burning men instead of their
productions, or the books in their possession, became the order of the day. But
it is with books we have now to do, and there is no doubt that while Wolsey was
descending to the devouring grave, and the Bishops, with the King at their head,
were imagining a vain thing, the printing press was as busy as ever. Another
edition of Tyndale’s New Testament was executed this year, and it is the more
worthy of notice, that there appears to have been a positive connexion between
him and it. The author is perfectly aware that the edition of 1534 has been
styled the second genuine edition of Tyndale, but so many mistakes have been
detected already, that one need not feel any surprise if this should prove
another.

It has, indeed, been often stated, that with the money received from Tunstal,
Tyndale reprinted the New Testament, and Hamburg has also been mentioned as the
place where one edition was printed. But whether it was executed there or
elsewhere, of his having now printed an edition, though he had no time as yet to
revise the version, there can be little or no doubt, Foxe, and Strype, and
Tanner expressly assign this edition to Tyndale, the last stating Marburg as the
place of printing. But there are corroborating circumstances as to the book
itself. It is not till the close of this year, or rather the following spring,
that we hear of Tyndale having a brother, and resident in London; and if the
records of the Star Chamber are to be received as evidence, it is there
distinctly stated, that he “sent the Testaments, and divers other books, to his
brother, John Tyndale, a merchant in London.” This impression, too, has been
pronounced to be more correct than the Antwerp editions, at least so said the
late Bishop Tomline: and when we come to John’s apprehension and appearance
before Sir Thomas More, as well as the importations by Richard Bayfield, little
doubt will remain as to this reprint coming from the original translator,
although he had not found leisure as yet to improve the translation.

About the end of this year an incident occurred, which may seem unaccountable,
as out of keeping with the usual current of events; were it not that the
capricious temper of the monarch admitted both of words and actions, directly at
variance with each other. Mr. Fyshe, the author of “The Supplication of
Beggars,” we found had been in London in the summer of 1526, as well as in 1528;
and, according to his wife’s representation, in Foxe, “he had been absent now
the space of two years and a half.” His tract, as we have seen, had interested
Henry, when first he saw it in 1526; and this excellent woman having gained
access to the King, he engaged that her husband should “come and go safe,
without peril, and that no man should do him harm,” if she brought him to the
royal presence.

Emboldened by the King’s words, she went and brought him. His Majesty conversed
with him, it is said, for above three hours, and, in the end, desired him to
take his wife home, for she had taken great pains for him.

Fyshe had fled formerly for fear of the Cardinal, and now he replied-“ He durst
not so do, for fear of Sir Thomas More the Chancellor, and Stokesly the Bishop
of London.” The King, taking the signet from his finger, recommended him to the
Lord Chancellor, charging him not to molest him.

More received the signet as a sufficient safe-guard, of course, but inquired if
he had any discharge for his wife? She had displeased the friars, by not
allowing them to say their Gospels in Latin in her house, as they did in others,
and insisted that they should say them in English. Ne xt morning, More actually
sent his man for her, but her young daughter being sick of the plague, prevented
his approach, as well as any farther molestation.

Within six months after this, Mr. Fyshe himself died of the same disease, and
was interred in St. Dunstan’s, the very same church where Tyndale had been
accustomed to preach in 1523. The Chancellor, in his loose and mendacious style,
represented hint as recanting before he died, of which there is not the
slightest evidence. His widow was afterwards married to a gentleman of the same
profession as her first husband, Mr. Baynham, of whom we shall hear before long
f50 1531.

Formidable Opposition-Pursuit After Tyndale By The King And Crumwell-Still In
Vain-Tyndale’s Answer To Sir T. More-Epistle Of John Expounded-Jonah, With A
Prologue-Renewed Persecution- Brother Of Tyndale-Bilney-Bayfield-Many Books
Importing-Constantyne Caught- Escapes- Persecutionabroad- Powerful Remonstrance
From Antwerp With Crumwell, Including The King And The Lord Chancellor. THE
principal feature of the present year was that of determined opposition to
Divine truth, abroad as well as at home; for although one man had been raised up
by God to lead on the faithful, unquestionably it was truth alone which
occasioned all the uproar, not the opinions of men. And as to our native land
especially, if we should still farther discriminate, it was through the Book of
God, in our native language, that Divine truth now penetrated into the heart of
this country.

Last year had witnessed the Royal denunciation of our Translator by name, as
well as all that he had then published; but since then, by his “Practice of
Prelates,” he had advanced one step farther, in combating the darkness and
superstition which covered the land. That tract had been read by men of every
grade, from the palace itself, down to the hamlet; by citizens of London, and
husbandmen in Essex, in Suffolk, and elsewhere. Here he had not only implored,
but warned the King to beware of persecution, and faithfully gave his judicious
opinion with regard to the divorce; that miserable question still in discussion
throughout Europe. By this year, however, Henry had nearly got this question
framed, according to his own liking; and as he was soon to bring it before
Parliament, he must have felt incensed by Tyndale’s reference to its
proceedings, not to say that the next would He open to a second review. Besides,
Sir Thomas More had but lately come into office, and he, with the Bishops, had
cordially concurred in advising persecution, having secured the royal name to
sanction and enforce their measures. The safety of Tyndale, therefore, was now
in far greater hazard, than it ever had been in the days of the Cardinal. Wolsey
had been roused from his lair, chiefly by the Satyre of Roye, and his chase of
the prey had ended with his own downfall; but the truth and good sense contained
in Tyndale’s last production, was like a spur by far too sharp for the passions
and the pride of such a man as Henry the Eighth. His anxiety to seize the man,
or allure him into the kingdom, will be found to harmonise with the growing
ferocity of his character. Tyndale’s escapes, during this year, must have
illustrated the tender care of a gracious Providence; but the mystery now is,
how he had contrived to make such progress at the press. Yet once engaged he had
determined not only to maintain his ground, but advance in the prosecution of
his great enterprise. This year was, therefore, distinguished by the appearance
of not fewer than three distinct pieces. His Answer to Sir Thomas More’s
Dialogue; his Exposition of the First Epistle of John; and his translation of
the Prophet Jonah, with a long preface or prologue. The annoyance and
persecution of Tyndale personally, however, preceded the appearance of any of
these pieces, and it is due to their contents that this should first be noticed.
Denunciation of the Scriptures, and of all that he had published, would now no
longer suffice. The King was incensed, and before the summer of this year, would
have dealt with anything of Tyndale’s, as Jehoialdm did of old with Jeremiah’s
roll. The Priests of the day also, as in the case of another ancient Prophet,
had thought of the man, if not said,-“ the land is not able to bear all his
words.” The strong arm of power must be stretched out to reach him if possible,
and, no doubt, there were not a few who imagined, that his days were now
numbered. Amidst all other affairs, the apprehension of Tyndale at this period
held a place in point of importance, which has never before been fully
explained. It would certainly be too severe, to ascribe all the measures adopted
to Henry alone, even though he should appear most conspicuous, and engaged in
eager pursuit, through the instrumentality of three, if not four, individuals;
for still the head and hand of Sir Thomas More, and the hearts of the Bishops,
sanctioned all; but it will be far more melancholy, if Crumwell, so lately come
into power, should appear to be a most willing agent, and even Cranmer, for many
a day, nay, throughout the whole of Tyndale’s lifetime, evince no sympathy
whatever! The Government persecution of our Translator, which had now commenced,
lends a peculiar emphasis to every page he had already emitted, but more
especially to the publications of the present year. In December last, the aunt
of Charles, Lady Margaret, or Regent of the Low Countries, had died, and the
Emperor had nominated his sister, Mary, Queen of Hungary, to succeed. She,
however, did not assume the reins of government till October of this year.
Whether this interregnum was deemed favourable to the apprehension of Tyndale,
is not distinctly expressed; but certainly no time was lost in taking advantage
of it; and it was during this season that he was next so keenly pursued.
Hackett, who is already well known to the reader, returned to England after Lady
Margaret’s decease, bearing a letter, dated 3rd January, 1531, from the Emperor
to Henry; f51 but he was sent abroad again that same year, and had an audience
in June, at Ghent, with Mary, the new Regent. Most gladly would he have
apprehended the Translator of the books he had so repeatedly burned; but,
independently of him, or immediately after the death of Margaret, if not before,
it had been resolved to send two accredited Envoys to the Low Countries, one of
whom, if not both, were charged with special instructions in reference to
Tyndale. The first, Mr. Stephen Vaughan, was much employed in commercial and
pecuniary negociations, down to as late a period as 1546. The second was Thomas
Wriothsley, uncle to the first Earl of Southampton, afterwards Lord Chancellor,
and the second Earl. The first, by far the most candid of the two, was stationed
at Barrow and Antwerp, and the second, a uniform enemy of the truth, repaired to
Brussels. The draft of their credentials afterwards, upon Lady Mary’s
appearance, and as corrected by lIenry’s own hand, is now in the Museum. f53 So
early as the 22nd of January, Vaughan writes to Crumwell; and, on the 26th, to
the King himself,-a letter which shows how much in earnest his Majesty had been,
to lay hold on this eminent man, or get him within his grasp. It appears from
this letter that Vaughan had sought an interview with Tyndale, and had opened a
correspondence with him, endeavouring to persuade him to return to England. In
accordance with the earnest wish of Henry, he sought, but in vain, to get a copy
of the yet unpublished answer of Tyndale to Sir Thomas More, but sent the
letters he had received in answer from the Translator. In a communication to
Crumwell, his patron, which accompanied the former, he owns,- “It is unlikely to
get Tyndall into England, when he daily heareth so many things from thence which
feareth him. After his book, answering my Lord Chancellor’s book, be put forth,
I think he will write no more! The man is of a greater knowledge than the King’s
Highness doth take him for, which well appeareth by his works. Would God HE WERE
IN ENGLAND!” This envoy of Henry alludes to some other person who had also
written to Tyndale, and to whom he had replied. This could not be Wriothsley,
otherwise he would have named him; but Vaughan’s impression was, that various
individuals were now out in pursuit, mid had been commissioned to seize the same
man, or entice him into England. Tyndale also had replied,to Vaughan, though
still he could not find him out. In the meanwhile, chancing to meet with a part
of the intended answer to Sir Thomas More, in manuscript, he immediately informs
Crumwell, mid actually sits down to copy it out for the King. February and March
had passed away, when at last, and most unexpectedly, Tyndale himself gave him
the benefit of a personal interview. Still more deeply interested, without loss
of time, on the next day, or 18th of April, Vaughan writes to his royal Master,
from Antwerp, where Tyndale then was, from which we extract the following:- “The
day before the date hereof, (17th of April,) I spake with Tyndale without the
town of Antwerp; and by this means. He sent a certain person to seek me, whom he
had advised to say, that a certain friend of mine, unknown to the messenger, was
very desirous to speak with me; praying me to take pains to go unto him, to such
place as he, should bring me. Then I(said) to the messenger, -‘What is your
friend, and where is he?’ His name I know not,’ said he, ‘but if it be your
pleasure to go where he is, I will be glad thither to bring you.’ Thus doubtful
what this matter meant, I concluded to go with him, and followed him till he
brought me without the gates of Antwerp, into field lying nigh unto the same,
where was abiding me this said Tyndale. “At our meeting- ‘Do you not know me?’
said this Tyndale. ‘I do not well remember you,’ said I to him. ‘My name,’ said
he, ‘is Tyndale.’ ‘But, Tyndale,’ said I, ‘forunate be our meeting!’ Then
Tyndale-‘Sir, I have been exceeding desirous to speak with you.’ ‘And I with
you; what is your mind?’ ‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I am informed that the King’s Grace
taketh great displeasure with me, for putting forth of certain books, which I
lately made in these parts; but specially for the book named “The Practice of
Prelates,” whereof I have no little marvel,-considering that in it, I did but
warn his Grace, of the subtle demeanour of the Clergy of his realm, towards his
person; and of the shameful abusions by them practised, not a little threatening
the displeasure of his Grace, and weal of his realm: in which doing, I showed
and declared the heart of a true subject, which sought the safe-guard of his
royal person, and weal of his Commons: to the intent, that his Grace thereof
warned, might, in due time, prepare his remedies against their subtle dreams.
If, for my pains therein taken,-if for my poverty,-if for mine exile out of mine
natural country, and bitter absence from my friends,-if for my hunger, my
thirst, my cold, the great danger wherewith I am everywhere compassed;-and
finally, if for inmunerable other hard and sharp rightings which I endure, not
yet feeling of their asperity, by reason (that) I hoped with my labours, to do
honour to God, true service to my Prince, and pleasure to his Commons;-how is it
that his Grace, this considering, may either by himself think, or by the
persuasions of others, be brought to think, that in this doing, I should not
show a pure mind, a true and incorrupt zeal, and affection to his Grace? Was
there in me any such mind, when I warned his Grace to beware of his Cardinal,
whose iniquity he shortly after proved, according to my writing? Doth this
deserve hatred? “‘Again, may his Grace, being a Christian prince, be so unkind
to God, which hath commanded His Word to be spread throughout the world, to give
more faith to wicked persuasions of men, which presuming above God’s wisdom, and
contrary to that which Christ expressly commandeth in His Testa ment, dare say,
that it is not lawful for the people to have the same, in a tongue that they
understand; because the purity thereof should open men’s eyes to see their
wickedness? Is there more danger in the King’s subjects, than in the subjects of
all other Princes, which, in every of their tongues, have the same, under
privilege of their sufferance? As I now AM, very death were more pleasant to me
than life, considering man’s nature to be such as can bear no truth.’ “Thus,
after a long communication had between us, for my part, making answer as my poor
wit would serve me, which was too long to write, I assayed him with gentle
persuasions, to know whether he would come into England; ascertaining him that
means should be made, if he (only) thereto were minded, without his peril or
danger, that he might so do: And that what surety he would devise for the same
purpose, should, by labour of friends, be obtained of your Majesty. But to this
he answered-that he neither would, nor durst, come into England, albeit your
Grace would promise him never so much surety; fearing lest, as he hath before
written, your promise made, should shortly be broken, by the persuasion of the
Clergy; which would affirm, that promise made with heretics ought not to be
kept. “After these words, he then, being something fearful of me lest I would
have pursued him, and drawing also towards night, he took his leave of me, and
departed from the town, and I towards the town-saying, ‘I should shortly,
peradventure, see him again, or if not, hear from him.’ Howbeit, I suppose, he
afterwward returned to the town by another way, for there is no likelihood that
he should lodge without the town. Hasty to pursue him I was not, because I had
some likelihood to speak shortly again with him; and in pursuing him, I might
perchance have failed of my purpose, and put MYSELF in danger. “To declare to
your Majesty, what, in my poor judgment, I think of the man, I ascertain your
Grace, I have not communed with a man - f54 But, thus abruptly, does the
manuscript break off. The character about to be given, no doubt, from what we
have read, a favourable one, was most probably more than Henry could bear; and
it would only have been in perfect conformity with his passionate manner, if he
tore it off, and burnt it; for the conclusion is nowhere else to be found.
Sufficient, however, remains, to render the reception of such a letter, at this
time, and from his own envoy, rather remarkable. Vaughan, it is evident, was
above all things anxious to please his royal Master, but he must have been sadly
out of his reckoning, if he imagined that such a communication as this would
prove at all acceptable. His copying, with his own hand, a part of Tyndale’s
answer to More, may be excused, as explaining the impatience of Henry to see it;
but that he should send to the King, Tyndale’s remonstrance, even in such terms
as he had now penned it, was certainly one false step, as it regarded his own
advancement in royal favour; and the character given at the close, must have
been a second. However, since the letter was sent and received, it is obvious to
remark, that, after Latimer’s sterling counsel, not four months ago, and that of
Tyndale himself now, if Henry goes on to sin, it must be with his eyes open.

Tyndale’s having sent for Vaughan, is also worthy of notice. His predecessor,
Hackett, would have apprehended Tyndale immediately, nay, and from what we have
read, would have consigned him to his native land, without a sigh, not as a
heretic only, but as a traitor. Hackett, however, had been providentially
removed from Antwerp, and Vaughan will turn out to be a man of a very different
stamp; though certainly he does not seem to have been aware that he was acting
with too much temper and candour, to secure the approbation of his fiery and
impetuous sovereign, But be this as it may, in his next letter, very soon after
this, Vaughan had made mention of John Fryth also, wishing to know from his
Majesty what was his pleasure in regard to him, if he should happen to meet with
him.

Vaughan was an eleve of Crumwell, and it will now be very apparent. The envoy
was acting in a manner too mild or straightforward, ever to rise in the royal
favour; and, therefore, this letter of the 18th of April, as well as that which
followed, demanded immediate notice, lest he should go farther wrong. He is
therefore tutored in a letter from Crumwell to be more circumspect in reporting
his interview with, and commendation of, Tyndale, whom the King regarded as a
dangerous heretic, and had no wish to bring into the realm. As for Fryth, the
King respected his learning and parts, and desired that he should return to his
native country on promise of his leaving his wilful opinions.

Crumwell then closes his letter by enforcing on Vaughan a vigilant attention to
certain shipments of grain,-to the Emperor’s affairs,- the advance of the Turk
into Germany,-the abiding of the Emperor in the Low Countries,-his agreement
with the Princes of Germany; and if in all these things Vaughan can only make
his allegiance and service apparent unto his Majesty, then Crumwell doubts not
that it will be to his “singular profit and advancement.” After the letter is
finished, he adds a postscript or saving clause, apparently softening his stern
commands as to Tyndale; but in fact only suggesting another snare, by which, if
possible, to entrap him. Of this last passage Vaughan immediately availed
himself; and writes on the 20th May, that he will do his endeavour to persuade
Fryth to leave his errors and return to England, though his recent marriage in
Holland might hinder this; that he had obtained another interview with Tyndale,
and had shown him the postscript of Crumwell’s letter, which had touched him
exceedingly, and drawn from him the remarkable and characteristic words:- “‘I
assure you,’ said he, ‘if it would stand with the King’s most gracious pleasure
to grant only a bare text of the Scripture to be put forth among his people like
as is put forth among the subjects of the Emperor in these parts, and of other
Christian Princes,-be it of the translation of what person soever shall please
his Majesty, I shall immediately make faithful promise never to write more, nor
abide two days in these parts, after the same; but; immediately repair into his
realm, and there most humbly submit myself at the feet of his Royal Majesty,
offering my body, to suffer what pain or torture, yea, what; death his Grace
will, so that this be obtained. And till that time, I will abide the asperity of
all chances, whatsoever shall come, and endure my life in as much pains as it is
able to bear and suffer.’” f56 Here, however, and perhaps unexpectedly by the
reader, the subject drops for months; but, for the best of all reasons. Tyndale
had something else to do, than to continue in conversation with this man. He
retires from public view, and proceeds with vigour in his work. His letters,
here mentioned, as sent to England, we have been unable to find. They must have
added greatly to our interest, as well as enabled us to correct some of the
expressions which Vaughan has evidently put into the mouth of Tyndale, to please
the King, since Crumwell had so enjoined. His offer to Henry of “a bare text of
the Sacred Volume,” as a “sine qua non,” was all-important; only that text must
be a genuine and intelligible one, otherwise Tyndale was to pursue his own path.
But although we cannot follow our Translator to the exact place of his retreat,
we now come with far greater advantage, to whatever he may publish. He had a
character to maintain, which was still most shamefully traduced, and traduced
alike by his opponent in controversy, by Master Crumwell, and the King. The
Scriptures he had translated, besides the cause of God and His truth, which he
had so promoted in England, alike required him to speak out; while the account
now given, must not only set the courage and energy of the man in a stronger
light, but lend additional emphasis to every page.

We have witnessed Henry’s apprehension and anxiety respecting Tyndale’s answer
to Sir Thomas More. He would have rejoiced in its suppression; but the fact was,
it had been much farther advanced at press, than the author himself supposed. It
was actually in England before Tyndale himself was aware, or, as will appear
afterwards, by the month of April this year, and therefore, it now demands some
notice. This new Lord Chancellor, the admiration of foreign countries as well as
his own, had employed sarcasm and sophistry throughout three hundred folio
pages, chiefly against Tyndale and his translation. But why such a laborious and
wordy production, if manifest error, and only one solitary heretic, were all the
host to be devoured? Yet thus unwisely did Sir Thomas proclaim the power of his
opponent; while one page after another only proved, that he was contending for
victory, and not for truth. He evidently placed great reliance on the power of
his wit or drollery, his ribaldry, and downright abuse; supposing, in the
employment of all these in turn, that every man would be affected by repartee,
as powerfully as he was himself. But he knew not the man whom he had now thus
assailed.

Tyndale, it is true, was no cynic, and he had no objection to an occasional
sally of wit, but since the antagonist had chosen to be playful and profane, as
well as low and foul by turns, Tyndale would by no means descend to his level.
On the contrary, he seems, in his reply, as though he had resolved that his
short and pithy sentences should stand out in bold contrast to the wire-drawn
and verbose sophisms of his opponent; and in a few lines often demolishes an
entire folio page of “the first Englishman who signalised himself as an orator.”
The translation of the New Testament into the vernacular tongue was, however,
the great eye-sore to Sir Thomas, though what he styled the wickedness of
Tyndale’s other productions, was plentifully denounced.

Tunstal had boasted of his having found two thousand errata, and More had spoken
of a thousand texts by tale, as being erroneous, but now they are all reduced to
the general rendering of about six words. Tyndale had translated ecclesia into
congregation, and not church,-he used elder, and not priest,-knowledge or
acknowledge, and not confession,-repentance, and not penance,-favour, and not
grace, -love, and not charity. These were his mighty offences, and no wonder
that More at least professed to be shocked and offended, for certainly these
simple and faithfull renderings, once read in their connexion, shook to its very
foundations that fabric which the Chancellor had strained all his powers to
defend. We have said professed, as there is so much evidence that Sir Thomas was
still a freethinker to his dying hour. In reply, Tyndale appealed to the Greek
original, and to More’s acquaintance with the language, before himself, and
completely triumphed. At the commencement, when referring to the very first
controverted word, “congregation,” he lent his opponent a blow, which he
afterwards showed that he felt exceedingly, but could not parry. Erasmus and
More were bosom friends; and as the former had published the Greek and Latin New
Testament in parallel columns, eight years before this, Tyndale inquires why
More had not censured “his darling Erasmus this long while? Doth he not change
this word ecclesia into congregation, and that not seldom in the New Testament?”
With respect to the word metanoia, he appeals to More’s knowledge of the Greek,
“which he knew,” says he, “long ere I. But so our prelates thus rage, and that
which moveth them to call M. More to help, not that they find just causes in the
translation, but because they have lost their juggling and feigned terms
wherewith they make merchandize of the people.”

Before leaving this controversy for the present-one which interested and
agitated so deeply at the time, and the effects of which remain to the present
hour-it may be remarked, that, independently of his sound reasoning, there was
in Tyndale’s style and manner, a solemnity, of which the Lord Chancellor was
more than half afraid, and which he knew neither how to manage or evade. This
grave style of writing sometimes referred to himself, sometimes to the
translation, and at others, to the parties in opposition. More having said,
“When Tyndale was apposed of his doctrine, ere he went over sea, he said and
sware he meant no harm,” Tyndale replies- “He sware not, neither was there any
man that required an oath of him; but he now sweareth by Him, whom he trusteth
to be saved by, that he never meant, or yet meaneth any other harm, than to
suffer all that God hath prepared to be laid on his back, for to bring his
brethren unto the light of our Saviour Jesus; which the Pope, through falsehood,
aud corrupting such poets as ye are, leadecth in the darkness of death.”

He regarded Sir Thomas as the official attorney in the Bishops’ spiritual court;
and as he had put forth, after this Dialogue, another thing in folio, entitled
“The Supplication of Souls,” &c., by way of reply to the notable tract of Fyshe,
“The Supplication of Beggars,” it must not be allowed to pass, although Tyndale
did not choose to name Sir Thomas. It was this piece which led him to designate
More as “the Proctor of Purgatory,” elsewhere; and as he had resolved to print
an exposition of the first Epistle of John, he there, without any controversial
form, met, most judiciously, even more than had been advanced by the Lord
Chancellor, in relation to purgatory and the worship of saints, image worship,
and other evils; explaining to the people how they might detect false teachers.
In this last publication he warns the people of the old and hackneyed device of
the Prelates “to call the light that rebuked them, seditious. They laid to
Wiclif’s charge, and do yet, that his doctrine caused sedition,-and so they say
now likewise, that God’s Word causeth insurrection; but ye shall see shortly,
that these hypocrites themselves shall rise up one against another, and some
against themselves. Ye shall see them run out before the year come about, that
which they have been brewing, as I have marked above this dozen years.” Hackett
had first lent such base counsel to Wolsey, and Henry readily followed it. The
idea, or device of constructive treason, had been fully sanctioned by the
Bishops and Sir Thomas More, and now also Crumwell had joined in the cry. The
words of Tyndale were intended for all these parties, as well as to arm the
people with that fortitude which must be added to faith. The concluding
expression, however, as formerly hinted, is an important one, in relation to
Tyndale himself, He kept himself much in the background, and it is only by such
incidental hints, that any one can ascertain how early his mind had been
enlightened, as to the corruptions reigning around him; and so enlightened, as
to be engaged in “marking” them. The expression seems to go a great way towards
establishing the character of Tyndale, as that of a man whose heart God himself
had moved, independently of all influence from his contemporaries, whether at
home or abroad. But to crown all in the year 1531, nothing could possibly have
been more seasonable or a appropriate than “Jonah;” that book of sacred writ,
which Tyndale now printed for his country. The critical position of England, and
the situation of the Translator himself, sufficiently account for its
appearance, at this moment. Tyndale was now getting fast into the heat of the
battle. The Bishops of England, as a body, with Tunstal the ablest of them all,
were against him; the Lord Chancellor, as a man and as a licensed writer, was
against him, nay, the wrath of the King, as “the roaring of a lion,” was against
him. On high principle, for the sake of Divine truth alone, he had to encounter
an entire people in the persons of its rulers; nor was he slow to advance. The
Book of Jonah spoke alike to the peasant and the prince. It contained the
memorable example of a great King bowing before the majesty of the Voice of God.
“The people of Nineveh believed God-from the greatest of them, even to the least
of them;” and this was precisely what Tyndale longed for the people of England
to do; and would their haughty and licentious monarch have now only risen from
his throne, and laid aside his robes, like the King of Nineveh, and urged his
subjects “to cry mightily to God,” saying, “Let them turn every one from his
evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands,”-nothing could have
filled the Translator with higher delight. The Ninevites “repented at the
preaching of Jonas,” but for more than five years the New Testament had been in
England, and even Scotland, and “a greater than Jonas was there.”

Tyndale besides, to evince the ardour of his mind, had prefixed a long prologue
to the book,-an admirable production, and peculiarly adapted for the moment, in
which he once more boldly cried to his country. But neither Henry nor his
advisers were to be moved from their course. It was a year of most savage
cruelty, though Tyndale was now “pure from the blood of all men, having not
shunned to declare to them the whole counsel of God.”

After this brief and very imperfect survey of the present year’s exertions, let
the reader only contemplate the state of his native land. He remembers the
restless ambition, and but recent death, of her fallen Prime Minister. Let him
now mark the one subject which engrossed her monarch’s mind; the furious
counsels and blind infatuation which occupied the united strength of her
government, and then say, whether the value of such a man as our Translator has
ever been fairly appreciated, But was there no one at home, not one man in all
England to lift the warning voice? None to guide her among all the sons she had
brought forth? There was Hugh Latimer, it is true, but if his voice was now
drowned, then was there not even one, save and except this exiled Christian
patriot! Yet he, as we have seen, had been already denounced by name, and in the
foulest terms, by the highest authority, under the desecrated name of
Christianity, as doing God service!

Nay, and he had been so harassed by emissaries, that, as he himself expressed
it, “very death would have been more pleasant to him than life.”

Such was his reward from man, but his work was not finished; and that God whom
he so served, though He did not as yet put to silence “the lying lips, which
spake grievous things, proudly and contemptuously, against the righteous;” yet
did He, in a most wonderful manner, “hide the object of their hatred, in the
secret of his presence,” from the pride and the power of man. Tyndale had yet
five years to live.

If we were to believe Crumwell, when writing to the Continent, in April, soon
after the Convocation of this year had adjourned, as far as the King was
concerned, he could not now appear, except as clothed in the white robes of
innocence and peace. When trying to entice Tyndale into England, as into a
sanctuary, he had talked of “the most gracious benignity”-“the piteous regard
natural”-“ the mercy and grace” of that “most virtuous and benign Prince and
Governor,”Henry the Eighth! Let the events immediately preceding and following
such language, now be observed. The Convocation having not only yielded so far
to Henry’s ambition, but given him the promise of a sum equal to above £350,000
annually, for five years to come, perhaps he thought that, by way of courtesy in
return, he must comply with the wishes of this body; but be this as it may, we
shall presently find the Clergy and the Star Chamber in perfect harmony. It was
the triumphant reign of Sir Thomas More, for the one party, and of Stokesly,
Bishop of London, for the other.

Immediately after agreeing to the preamble of the Bill of Subsidy, or in the
50th Session of the Convocation, inquiry had commenced, at Stokesly’s motion,
into the opinions of Latimer, Bilney, and Croome; and by the 69th Session Warham
was examining John Lambert before two notaries. In the intermediate space,
finding no living victim, the very bones of the dead did not escape them; but
emulating the example of 1428, when they dug up the bones of Wickliffe, they
pronounced judgment on the deceased William Tracy, Esq. of Todington, because in
his last will he had committed his departing spirit to God, through Jesus Christ
alone, and left no part of his property to the priests, to pray for his soul!

It was while these transactions were going on, Sir Thomas More and Mr. Brian
Tuke introduced the business of Henry’s divorce before Parliament, by laying
before it the sentence of certain Universities, and the opinions of individuals,
amounting to a hundred, in its favour, soon after which the House was prorogued,
and the Convocation also dissolved, to the month of October. But before then,
two of the earliest victims of the present year had been apprehended and
punished; and just as if the entire honour of this arduous contest must redound
to the praise of our first Translator, these were no othcr than his own younger
brother, John, and a devoted friend, Thomas Patmore, both merchants in London.
They appear to have enjoyed the double honour of passing through the hands of
Sir Thomas More and Stokesly, or the Star Chamber, and the Bishop’s Court. At
this period it was not unusual for More, when he suspected his victims might be
condemned for any thing else, to deliver them over, by an indenture, into the
paw of the Bishop of London, but at all events, both these worthy men now fell
into Stokesly’s hands. Tyndale was punished by him “for sending five marks to
his brother William Tyndale beyond the sea, and for receiving and keeping with
him, certain letters from his brother!” As for Patmore, who was charged with
saying “that the truth of Scripture hath been kept from us a long time, and hath
not appeared till now,” &c.-“he had long hold with the Bishop. First, he would
not sware-then he would appeal to the King; but all would not serve. He was so
wrapt in the Bishop’s nets, that he could not get out; but at last he was forced
to abjure, and was fined to the King, an hundred pounds.” In the month of May, a
second edition of Sir Thomas More’s “Dialogue” was published; and now, during
the rest of the year, persecution became general. Stokesly and the Lord
Chancellor, in London; Warham, and Fisher, and Longland, elsewhere, were all
busy; and by the month of August, it seemed as if Henry and his advisers had
stepped into blood, and would have struck down any man who presumed to question
or oppose their measures. We might repeat the sad tale of many, but select only
a few cases, as being peculiarly characteristic of the times. The particulars
are at once humiliating and painful. We have to read them also amidst the fires
that were now kindled in England; though, amidst all the lurid glare, it is easy
to perceive the rapid and decided progress of truth, or the glorious extent of
that cause, for which Tyndale only lived, and at last died. The first victim to
the flames was Bilney. For though he had fallen, and, in his own apprehension,
past redemption, to him was given the honour of leading the way in England at
this period, of resistance “unto blood, striving against sin.” If we except the
case of John Hitton, of which we know little, he was the first burnt, after the
burning of the Scriptures, for more than five years past. How long he had
remained in prison after his abjuration, cannot distinctly be ascertained; but
after his release and return to Cambridge, he was in the deepest distress of
mind for a long season. His agony of mind was so great, that Latimer affirms,
“his friends dared not suffer him to be alone, day or night. They comforted him
as they could, but no comforts would serve! And as for the comfortable places of
Scripture, to bring them to him, was as though a man should run him through the
heart with a sword!” It was Tunstal who had been the tempter, and the
instrumental cause of all this mental anguish. At last, however, his conscience
was quieted only by the same blood of atonement, which at first had given him
such peace and joy. And ere long, determined no more to dissemble or conceal the
truth, he took farewell of his friends at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, saying that
he must now go up to Jerusalem. He then went into Norfolk, preaching first, from
house to house, and then in the open fields. Making no secret of his former
abjuration, he warned all to beware of following his example. He appears then to
have gone down through Essex, and not improbably visited London itself, as the
“Jerusalem” he had referred to; for at one period, six weeks before his
apprehension, we find him as near to it as Greenwich. There he committed four of
Tyndale’s New Testaments, with a budget of books, to a faithful friend, Laurence
Staple, who conveyed them to Cambridge, and was afterwards called to sharp
account for so doing. But at last Bilney proceeded to Norwich itself; and having
given a New Testament of Tyndale’s, and his book on “Obedience,” to a convert
residing there, he was soon apprehended by authority of the old Bishop. He
immediately sent up to Sir Thomas More for a writ; and if it be correct, as
generally stated, it must have been with his wonted hilarity that he replied-“
Go your ways, and burn him first, and then afterwards come to me for a bill at
my hand.” At all events, Bilney was soon condemned to die at the stake, and
delivered to the sheriffs; one of whom was no other than Thomas Necton, the
brother of Robert, already mentioned as a great distributor of books. From dread
of the Chancellor and the Friars, Necton officially was obliged to receive him;
when he implored Bilney’s forgiveness, and was not present at his death. The
night before his execution, the dying martyr, quite composed, resigned, and even
cheerful, among other passages of Scripture, dwelt much on this one-“ Fear not;
for I have redeemed thee, l have called thee by thy name, thou art mine. When
thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee: and through the rivers,
they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not
be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” It was not that Bilney
expected any other than mental support, or that he superstitiously anticipated
exemption from pain; but “a pain for the time,” said he, “whereon,
notwithstanding, followeth joy unspeakable.” At the stake, he closed his
devotions with the beginning of the 143rd Psaln; and the second verse-‘‘ Enter
not into judgment with thy servant, for in thy sight shall no flesh living be
justified”-he repeated, in deep meditation, three times. He had been led through
the Bishop’s gate to this spot, called the Lollards’ Pit, and thore expired in
the flames, on Saturday morning, the 19th of August, amidst the most cruel
enemies, and not a few decided friends.

Thus, although Bilney’s progress in Divine knowledge may have scarcely
surmounted the superstition of the mass, his views of Divine truth, on the
points of the sinner’s acceptance before God through the righteousness of Christ
alone, were clear and most decided, so that he died a martyr for the truth of
God. All Sir Thomas More’s sad, if not unprincipled, attempts to blacken his
memory, as though he had recanted at the stake, only recoiled in ultimate
disgrace upon himself. It was a favourite, though weak device of the
Chancellor’s, when he vainly attempted to answer Tyndale next year, to represent
the martyrs as recanting before death.

If the reader is not aware of the fact, he will be gratified in knowing that the
identical copy of the Latin Bible once belonging to Thomas Bilney is still in
existence. At least it is said to be in one of the libraries at Cambridge. Many
annotations are inscribed upon its pages with his own hand; and it is certainly
an interesting circumstance that the passage in Isaiah, already quoted, which
consoled the owner of the book when in prospect of the flames, is particularly
distinguished with a pen, in the margin. The words, if not so marked with his
own hand, must have been by others at the time, for they received the words as
the legacy of a martyr; they had them fairly written on tables or in books, and
derived comfort from them till their dying day.

Among the persecutions under Stokesly of this year, there is one which deserves
notice, as one more illustration of the connexion between Antwerp and London.
“Christopher,” says Foxe, “a Dutchman of Antwerp, for selling certain New
Testaments in English to John Row, bookbinder, a Frenchman, was put in prison at
Westminster, and there died.” This could not have been Christopher Ruremund,
already mentioned, as he continued in business to 1541; nor is it at all likely
to have been Endhoven, of whom we heard so much. Christopher was a common name,
but it was quite in character with the times thus to treat a forcig’ncr, for
simply importing the Word of Life in the language of the people.

We have no design merely to harrow up the feelings, by the recital of brutal
treatment, having a more important and profitable object in view; which is to
ascertain, as nearly as may be, the precise state of things, the rate of
progress, and the extent to which the cause of truth had by this time arrived.
We have one valuable illustration in the exertions of Mr. Richard Bayfield,
whose history cannot fail to gratify the reader; as, among the very hazardous,
yet innumerable instances of the importation of books, he occupied a conspicuous
place.

Blest himself, at a very early period, with a copy of Tyndale’s New Testament,
he laboured for a considerable time to bring them into the country, along with
other valuable books; and now, when examined by Stokesly, with what view he had
done all this, he at once replied-“ To the intent that the Gospel of Christ
might be set forward, and God the more glorified in this realm among Christian
people.” The year and place of Bayfield’s birth cannot be ascertained, but by
his own confession he entered the monastery of St. Edmondsbury as a monk in
1514, and took orders as a priest in 1518. After the return of Dr. Barnes from
Louvain to Cambridge in 1523 he used to visit a Dr. Ruffam, then in that
monastery, who had been one of his fellow students abroad, and Bayfield, being
chamberlain of the house, became interested with the conversation of the
visitor. From him he ere long received a copy of the New Testament in Latin, but
two citizens of London, Maxwell and Stacy, who were zealous for the circulation
of the Scriptures, and went round the country with this in view, presented him
with Tyndale’s English New Testament. From the subsequent history of his life,
it is evident that this must have been one of the earliest copies given away in
the country parts.

After being at Cambridge with Barnes, he seems to have not rcturned to his
abbey, but proceeding to his friends, Maxwell and Stacy, in London, he remained
there in concealment for a short time in the close of 1526. At this early
period, as appears by Foxe, he was a suspected person. It is true he talks, in a
vague way, of Bayfield suffering imprisonment and cruel treatment for two years
and nine months; but this was merely an anticipation, or rather loose summing up
of all his trials. At all events, he fixes the period of his first escape beyond
sea; Dr. Barnes being then in the Fleet for God’s Word, which continued till
August 1526; though Bayfield remained, in fact, two months longer. On his first
going abroad, Foxe says, “this Bayfield mightily prospered in the knowledge of
God, and was beneficial to Master Tyndale and Mr. Frythe, for he brought
substance with him, and was their own hand, and sold all their works, both in
France and England.” This is a general description of Bayfield’s life and
services, during at least four different voyages to the Continent, within the
last five years. His first return to England was some time in the year 1527. It
had so happened that in October 1526, just before leaving England, he met, in
Lombard Street, with three parsons of his own standing -Edmund Pierson, James
Smith, and Miles Garnet,-when some conversation ensued, by no means pleasant to
their ears, but sufficiently explicit as to Bayfield’s sentiments, Having
therefore now returned, it must have been but a very short, time before Pierson
detected him, as by the 13th of September, 1527, we find his accusation against
Bayfield recorded at full length in Foxe’s history.

Once brought before Tunstal, in 1528 he was enjoined for penance “to go before
the cross in procession, in the Parish Church of St. Botolph’s, Billingsgate,
and to appear before the Bishop again on the 25th of April,” 1529. The first
part he fulfilled, but not the latter. He had gone to the Continent, but what
may seem strange, he did appear, and presented himself before Tunstal on the
20th of June: and it was still more so, if he then had brought over with him any
books of the “new learning.”

However, there being no fresh witnesses against him, the Bishop merely
pronounced upon him sentence of banishment from the city and diocese of London.
But in the face of this, as Bayfield now entertained no reverence for their
ecclesiastical authority, he went on more determined than before. In May or June
1530, he arrived at Colchester, with a cargo of books, which were all
successfully sold or circulated; an importation specially to be noted, as it was
immediately after the “burning” at St. Paul’s, if not at the moment; immediately
after the Royal proclamation had been framed, which Latimer so reprobated; and
it is one among other proofs of books then coming thick and threefold into
England, to the annoyance of Tunstal.

Abroad once more, Bayfield returned with a second importation in November, but
landing at St. Catherine’s, the whole parcel fell, as a coveted morsel, into the
hands of Sir Thomas More. Nothing daunted, and at the very season when Vaugham
and Crumwell were trying to inveigle Tyndale into England, Bayfield had another
cargo upon English ground.

These he landed safely in Norfolk, about the beginning of April, and, not being
detected, they were of course circulated far and wide, to the farther vexation
of the poor, infirm, and literally blind Bishop of Norwich, as well as his
brethren. But at last, in the fall of this year, coming to his old friend Mr.
Smith in Bucklersbury, the frequent receiver of his books, he was betrayed; and
being traced to his bookbinder’s in Mark Lane, he was first committed to the
Lollards’ Tower, where, and afterwards in the Bishop’s coal-house, he was most
barbarously treated. Being now, however, stedfast in faith, he had made up his
mind to die; and though tortured to accuse others who had bought his books, and
three times in the Consistory of St. Paul’s put to his trial, as to whether he
would abjure, he remained unmoveable. From such men as now bore sway, he could
expect no mercy, and he received none; indeed, Stokesly displayed all the
ferocity of his character, and behaved in the most brutal manner. Being
condemned, actually upon a Lord’s-day, the 19th of November; on Monday, when he
came to be degraded, as they phrased it, not satisfied with the mere ceremony,
Stokesly with a blow of his crosier struck with such violence on the breast of
Bayfield, that, falling backward, his skull was almost fractured, and he swooned
away! When once he recovered himself, the good man “thanked God that he was (not
degraded but) delivered from the malignant Church of Antichrist, and that he was
come into the sincere Church of Jesus Christ militant here on earth ;” and “I
trust anon,” said he, “to be in heaven with Jesus Christ, and the Church
triumphant for ever.” Nor was he mistaken, for that day he was in paradise.
After this outrageous conduct, he was led forth to Newgate, and in about an hour
afterwards committed to the flames. He remained alive for so long as half an
hour, but continued in prayer to the end without moving!

How many persons, in a greater or less degree, had been or were now engaged in
the importation of books, it is impossible to say; but if we take this one
valuble agent as an index, and refer merely to his last successful adventure,
it, will be evident, that amidst all the fury of opponents, a tide had set in,
which it was beyond the power of man to stem. On the 3rd of December, only a
fortnight after having tortured and murdered this excellent man, Stokesly
proceeded to the denunciation of books which “were openly at Paul’s Cross, by
the authority of my Lord of London, under authentical seal, by the Doctor that
day preached, prohibited and straitly commanded of no manner of men to be used
under pain of suspension, and a greater pain, as more largely appeareth in
foresaid authority.” All Tynddale’s works are included in this prohibition. In
the course of only eight or ten days after this interdict, both Stokesly and
More were busy with another martyr. The reader may remember John Tewksbury, who,
in 1529, on being examined before Tunstal, answered so well, but getting
entangled by his sophistry, abjured. Moved now by the noble example of Bayfield,
he resolved to confess the truth at all hazards. On Saturday the 16th of
December, Stokesly being at Chelsea, condemned him on the spot, in the house of
the Chancellor, and they delivered him to the sheriffs. Stokesly had been
consecrated or installed Lord Bishop of London on the 20th of December last; and
so whether it was to give the anniversary some farther celebrity, or as an
appropriate memorial of the day-yet so it was-the sheriffs delivered this worthy
man to the stake, and he perished in the flames at Smithfield, on St. Thomas’
Eve, the 20th of December!

Before concluding this first year of Henry’s supremacy, among the men
apprehended, we must on no account omit George Constantyne, were it only on
account of the consequences. We first heard of him in 1528, when the examination
of Robert Necton occasioned his flight. Since that time he had been in Brabant,
and, having been originally bred a surgeon, he had there, by his own account,
practised as such. At the same time, he evidently had taken a deep interest in
the importation of books, and, coming over himself this year, had, as well as
Bayfield, brought books with him; but he was not possessed of similar fortitude,
nor was he ever, like him, to wear the crown of martyrdom.

Falling into the hands of Sir Thomas More, he appears evidently (by More’s own
expressions in the preface to his next folio against Tyndale) to have been, in
some degree, smitten with the man and his shrewdness. He must have conversed
with him frequently, and at great length; and his communications at this moment,
there is now no doubt, had excited great attention. Crumwell will be seen,
presently, to ground his foreign correspondence upon them; and by the man’s own
account in 1539, the King himself had conversed particularly with him. “His
Majesty reasoned with me himself almost nine years ago,”-and Constantyne then
presumed to form his own opinion of the depth of the King’s learning. But More
was the chief cross-examinator, and Constantyne, very harshly treated, was now
at the lowest point of degradation throughout his varied life: Very strange
indeed were the changes that took place in these times. How astonished would the
Chancellor have been, could he have been informed of the future path of the
person he then held in irons! But Sir Thomas was not aware that he was now
conversing with a man who should return to England after his death; who should
get into the service of Sir Henry Norris, and thus become intimately acquainted
with the Court; who should be present at the death of Henry’s now intended
Queen; and, moreover, whose son-in-law, should rise to be Archbishop of York,
(the very place that Wolsey himself once occupied,) nay, and become President of
Queen Elizabeth’s Council for the North of England! The Chancellor is
represented by one manuscript, as having put Constantyne in the stocks; but by a
subsequent letter it will appear, that this was another way of expressing that
he was in irons. Sir Thomas, by his official severity, at last constrained the
man, through four, to affirm much more than he could have substantiated,
respecting people abroad, including even Mr. Vaughan, the English Envoy,
himself; and as these forced confessions came out, they soon found their way
across the sea. The Chancellor had an evil eye fixed upon Vaughan, as having
been far from that rigour which would have gratified him; while, on the other
hand, the Envoy, displeased with the freedom now used with his character,
immediately wrote to Crumwell on hearing the first rumours, desiring to know
what Constantync had said of him.s Crumwell himself, however, now writes to
Antwerp, once and again counselling the Envoy; as men of violent spirit abroad
alone could satisfy the violent at home. But in the meanwhile, to the no small
mortification of our Lord Chancellor, Constantyne contrived to escape from his
iron chain, and, sailing for the Continent, he arrived in safety at Antwerp, on
the 6th of December!

Vaughan, by this time, was effectually roused; and in an interesting and noble
letter, dated 9th December, 1531, only three days after Constantyne had reached
his home, he remonstrates with Crumwell, his patron, for allowing any suspicion
of heresy to rest on his conduct. In order to compass the ends of the commission
with which he was charged, his policy had been various; among the Jews, a Jew;
among Lutherans, a Lutheran. “What can I do here,” says he, “without such
policy? Shall such policy hurt me because I used it to compass other things?” He
therefore prays to be removed from such a service, where the only possible way
of prosecuting it successfully involved the Agent in so much danger. He was well
aware of the personal dislike with which he and his proceedings were viewed by
Sir Thomas More, who, by leading questions in examining his victims, showed whom
he wished them to implicate. It was thus his good name had fared in in the hand
of Constantyne, who, in the hope of liberty, would be willing to accuse one to
whom he was under no obligation. He adds some nobler sentiments on the subject
of persecution for conscience’ sake, which he shows only tended to spread the
doctrines so obnoxious to those in power, and to raise the character of those
persecuted for them. “Let His Majesty be farther assured,” says he, “that he
will with no policy, nor with no threatenings of tortures and punishments, take
away the opinions of his people, till His Grace shall, fatherly and lovingly,
reform the Clergy of his realm. For there springeth the opinion. From thence
riseth the grudge of his people. If I say truth, let it be for such received.”

It may here be called to mind that we have already seen one English envoy in no
small perplexity, and forced to move from his ground, in consequence of his zeal
in opposing this great cause; but here we have the second, and in greater
perplexity still. Eager to gratify his impetuous Sovereign, and his no less
temporising superior, Master Crumwell, the man had, in truth, been only doing
his utmost. But being at once no favourite of Sir Thomas More (nor he assuredly
of Vaughan), and, at the same time, the pupil of Crumwell, by whom he had been
recommended to Henry; between the two, this ambassador was now in a maze. After
such sound advice as he had tendered to his King, and all around him; after such
fine sentiments as he had now so well expressed; one cannot but regret to find,
in the end, that through his “divers policies” he had been only one of those of
whom the Scriptures speak-“ they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth
therein, shall not know peace.”

It may only be stated here that Constantyne again went on, importing books: but
it will be remembered that we have given these instances, merely as a
characteristic specimen of this sad year. “For why stand I here,” says Foxe in
one place, “num bering the sand?” And again, “So great was the trouble of those
times, that it would overcharge any story to recite the names of all them, which
during those bitter days, before the coming in of Queen Anne, either were driven
out of the realm, or were cast out from their goods and houses, or brought to
open shame by abjuration. Yet, nevertheless, so mightily the power of God’s
gospel did work in the hearts of good men, that the number of them did nothing
lessen for all this violence and policy of the adversaries; but rather increased
in such sort, as our story almost suffereth not to recite the particular names
of all and singular such as then groaned under the persecution of those days.”B
ut still besides those whose names are given, there must have been many who were
never detected. By these furious proceedings, the deep interest abroad, not one
whit diminished, was increased, and in more places than one, for of course the
parties molested fled to different ports. But on the 30th of December, Vaughan
concludes the year, by giving us the result, so far as his own residence and
neighbour-hood were concerned. In a letter, as before addressed, to Crumwell, he
reports that “divers, as well men as women, whose persons or names I know not,
nor will know, be fled out of England, for fear of punishment; bringing with
them all that ever they can make. So that by this means, it is likely that new
Tyndales shall spring, or worse than he. But I am utterly determined,
henceforth, never to intermeddle, or to have any communication, with any one of
them; but shall rather give place to some other man, which, peradventure, shall
have better luck than I hitherto have had; whom they go about thus unkindly to
threaten, beat, rend, and tear for my service.” f59 Vaughan, it is evident, was
now thoroughly frightened, yet he need not have greatly “marvelled.” The reports
respecting him, must, of necessity, have been very contradictory, and the
miserable plight, of which he complained so loudly, was nothing more than the
natural result of those “divers policies,” which he had dreamt to be the fruit
of wisdom, or the evidence of his superior talent. He never wrote again on this
subject. The truth was, he was at once alarmed for himself, and disgusted with
the proceedings at home; yet he retained his station, long survived Sir Thomas
More, and remained on the Continent for years. But if Henry the Eighth be still
resolved to have agents out tn pursuit of Tyndale, he must find some other man
than Mr. Vaughan. Already we have seen a Friar, and two Ambassadors, completely
foiled, and disappointed of their prey; though still the long pursuit is not
even yet at an end! In the persons of her rulers at this period, no nation upon
earth had surpassed Britain, in her opposition to Divine truth. 1532.

Tyndale’s Progress-Exposition In Matthew-His Sentiments Under Persecution-The
King Not Appeased-Renewed Pursuit Of Tyndale-Now By Sir Thomas Elyot-Still In
Vain-Persecution Goes On-Bainham-Latimer-More Against Tyndale-Fryth Arrives In
England-In Peril -In The Tower-Writing There In Defence Of The Truth And
Addressing The Christians In England. HAD Tyndale been only left unmolested, or
left to proceed with the Scriptures, he would, unquestionably, have had some
additional portion finished at press; but since the year 1528 the reader may now
judge of his situation. Already he had given the New Testament, the Pentateuch,
and the Prophet Jonah, to his native land. The work of translation, or the joy
of his heart, he still pursued, but without due deliberation he would not employ
the press. Our English exile fled for protection to no foreign prince; nor had
he the aid of eminent literary assistants, like his contemporary Martin Luther.
If he had hitherto enjoyed the assistanee and fellowship of only John Fryth,
this was soon to be withdrawn, by his journey to the martyr’s stake in England;
and though labouring under the frown of his own monarch, as well as that of all
his counsellors and bishops, on he went.

Meanwhile, he had one solitary encouragement. He well knew that whatever he put
forth from the press, excited immediate notice; for, in fact, every thing he had
yet published, had enjoyed the honour of being denounced in England, and
interdicted both by royal and priestly authority. The only piece unnoticed as
not being so, his “Exposition of the Epistle of John,” was this year added to
the catalogue, and reprobated in print, by the Lord Chancellor. Our Lord’s
Sermon on the Mount, in the gospel by Matthew, now engaged Tyndale’s attention,
as demanding to be expounded, owing to the errors which still reigned
triumphant; and his exposition first came out some time this year. In this
fundamental portion of the Sacred Volume, he represents the Saviour as “opening
the kingdom of heaven,” which the enemies “had shut up, that other men should
not enter.”

Before this, we have had occasion to observe that Tyndale was almost immediately
in possession of whatever was transacted in England; more especially by the
King, and his obsequious or subdued Parliament; and, of course, he must have
been fully aware of their doings in the spring of last year. His opinion of the
change for which Henry and Crumwell had been so eager, may be inferred from
various passages now put forth. Already he had shown himself a most loyal
subject, and an ardent admirer of good government; in desiring, above all
things, that his King and country should be rescued from spiritual thraldom: but
in desiring this, he was no less ardent in drawing the line of distinction
between the world and the Church. As to the latter, he longed for its
restoration to its original spirituality, and simple grandeur; and as to his
nmch loved native land, that the throne should be established on a safe and
righteous basis. But the truth was, the King was yet to be born whom Tyndale
wished to see. “No King, Lord or Master, or whatever ruler he be, hath absolute
power in this world, nor is the very thing which he is called, for then they
cease to be brethren, neither could they sin whatsoever they commanded. But now
their authority is but a limited power.” Thus writes he in advance of his age on
a subject which perhaps not one of his contemporaries understood. Nor could one
of them have drawn the line between civil and spiritual government so clearly as
Tyndale does in this very treatise. If his views on this subject, which at that
time agitated all England, have been partly the occasion of his memory being
permitted to sleep in oblivion; if he measured out “meat too strong” for the
time in which he lived; we commend his sentiments to the consideration of his
countrymen now living, after more than three hundred years have passed over the
land. The power of Tyndale’s writing lay in his drawing from the life, and his
discerning, with superior judgment, the precise moment when certain truths
required to be pressed upon the notice of his country. His views, whether of
civil government, or the Church of God, were far above his age, and few there
must have been who could then understand him; but apart from these subjects,
many passages, besides that last quoted, were peculiarly well timed. The
preceding page, and several others, were evidently intended to nerve the minds
of the martyrs and confessors in England; to raise them above all the fury of
the Chancellor, or Stokesly, or any other Bishop. Hitherto it seem as if all who
had been apprehended and examined, from Barnes down to the present hour, had
abjured. And though the fire had been now prepared for the bodies of men, as
well as the books they read, still the methods of Tunstal and More, for
perplexing the mind or tormenting the conscience, were preferred in the first
instance. The stake was the last resort, merely on this account, that abjuration
and recanting not only saved appearances, but served, in some degree, to bolster
up the reigning superstition.

If, then, England herself could furnish the enemy with no man of eminence, who
had courage sufficient to act fully up to his principles on the first call;-a
man, in whom there should be no wavering, no subterfuge, no compromise or
concession, not one faltering word;-one who should first triumph in argument
before the Bishops assembled, and abide firm by every syllable of his noble
confession;-then such a man must come to London from abroad. The time is drawing
near for his arrival in the kingdom, though little did Tyndale imagine, when
thus addressing the faithful in England, that the example which he now enforced,
was to be first given by his own bosom friend-FRYTH! But it is with Tyndale
himself we have to do at present. It was now six years since his translation of
the New Testament had been denounced and committed to the flames; and not less
than four, since his person had been in danger. By the authorities in England,
from the year 1528, he had been a man sought for, but never yet seized. His
pursuers, too, seem to rise in point of rank, as we proceed. The first was Friar
West, who, but for his commission from Wolsey, had remained in oblivion.
Hackett, most gladly, would have sent Tyndale to England, even by the foulest
means, and, according to his own logic, as a traitor; but he could never find
him.

Vaughan was incapable of so base an action, though Tyndale favoured him with, at
least, two interviews; and from what we have read, it may safely be inferred,
that he would never more engage in hunting after heretics,-having, according to
his own confession, been “so beaten with his own labours.”

He well deserves, however, to be remembered as the only man of the age who
lifted up his voice against the extreme folly of persecution for opinion. Henry
had no man near him so enlightened at the moment, or if he had, not one who
dared to speak out, not even Crumwell himself; for though so pointedly charged
by Vaughan, it may be presumed that he never had shown that envoy’s letter, or
reported its contents, to the King. But be this as it may, Henry was not
appeased. Tyndale had gone on to publish, it is true, and besides his Answer to
Sir Thomas More, his translation of Jonah was now in England; but his Majesty
was no admirer of the King of Nineveh, nor were his ministers like the nobles of
that great city. The person now put in commission, and by the King himself, to
pursue the best of his subjects, was no other than the well-known Sir Thomas
Elyot, a literary man, author of “The Governor,” and other publications. Vaughan
had been patronised by Crumwell, yet thought for himself; but Elyot was the very
intimate, if not bosom friend of Sir Thomas More, as well as a favourite of the
King, so that no zeal can be lacking now, even if Tyndale should not be
apprehended. In all the histories yet published, Elyot is first mentioned as
sent by Henry VIII. to Rome, about his divorce in 1532; but he was on the
Continent last year. He was with the Emperor in November at Tournay, from whence
he writes, complaining of being so long without answers to his letters. The
Emperor, leaving the Low Countries in the beginning of January this year,
directed his journey towards Ratisbon, in order to hold a diet there.

Taking Mentz on his way, he had not arrived till February or the beginning of
March, but to this city Elyot followed him. Whether his correspondence had been
still neglected, as both Henry and Crumwell were absorbed in Parliamentary
affairs at home, does not appear, but the ambassador had been anxious to revisit
England. This desire, however, could not be gratified, and on the 14th of March
he writes from Ratisbon to the Duke of Norfolk, the successor of Wolsey, as
Prime Minister of England, and as determined an enemy as the Cardinal ever was:-
“Albeit the King willeth me, by his Grace’s letters, to remain at Brussels, some
space of time, for the apprehension of Tyndale, which somewhat minisheth my hope
of soon return; considering that like as he is in wit moveable, semblably so is
his person uncertain to come by. And, as far as I can perceive, hearing of the
King’s diligence in the apprehension of him, he withdraweth him into such places
where he thinketh to be farthest out of danger. In me there shall lack none
endeavour. “Pleaseth it your Grace, according as I have written to the King’s
Highness, the Emperor being yet sore grieved with a fall from his horse, keepeth
himself so close, that Mr. Cranmer and I can have none access to his Majesty,
which almost grieveth me as much as the Emperor’s fall grieveth him.” f61 Every
one who has paid any attention to these times, cannot fail to be excited by the
mention of Elyot’s companion and associate, and more especially as this is the
earliest distinct notice of Cranmer when abroad, which appears on the face of
these manuscripts. He had been at Rome for some time in 1580, but returned to
England in 1531, where we find him at Hampton Court in June, and in close
attendance upon his Majesty there. As busy as ever in Henry’s one affair, from
thence, on the 18th of that month, he dates a long letter to Lady Anne’s father,
the Earl of Wiltshire, criticising the book of Cardinal Pole, on this business;
and as he remained at home till January, he could not fail to be intimately
acquainted with all the sad occurrences of last year. In that very period the
fatal fires had been kindled, and were blazing in England. Then the martyrdoms
of Bilney, of Bayfield, and of Tewksbury, had taken place; there were the
grievous cross-examinations and cruelties of More and of Stokesly; and the
public denunciation, by the latter, of Tyndale’s writings, in December; and yet
here is Cranmer, associated as ambassador and fellow-traveller with the man who
has been charged, by their King, to seize the Author! But still it were nothing
short of an injury done to posterity, to represent any man, whoever he may have
been, as interested in a cause before he really was, even so far as to evince
sympathy for the cruelty and death endured in it; and the truth of history does
not furnish us with even a vestige of such interest or feeling in Cranmer, for
some time to come. One eminent service in relation to the Scriptures he will
perform for his country, which will come before us, in its proper place, five
years hence; but at this momentous period, let the men who bore the brunt of
this never-to-be-forgotten contest-the men who died with their face to the foe-
“Who neither fear’d the darkest hour, Nor trembled at the tempter’s power;” let
them enjoy the place to which they alone are entitled; an eminence unapproached
by others, whether from shame or fear, from worldly policy or criminal
ignorance. No unbiassed writer can now wittingly confound Tyndale and Fryth with
any other men who in the days of peril, persecution, and universal obloquy,
either dared not, or could not, speak one word; nor will he allow their
characters to be obscured by any, who never came forth till after the battle of
eleven years’ duration was fought and won. Since the year 1526, Divine truth,
like concealed leaven, had been in vigorous operation, enlightening, saving, and
sanctifying the souls of men; but the Translator, after his long unaided
warfare, had washed his robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb,
before that Cranmer had ever once expressed his approbation of the translation.
It will not be till in a moment of surprise, and after finding himself in a
dilemma, that he will speak out. But even this will not occur till five years
more have passed away.

It was on the 24th of January this year that Cranmer had received his
credentials as ambassador to the Court of the Emperor, when he immediately left
England, and must have overtaken Elyot somewhere on the Rhine. The letter, from
which we have already quoted, narrates their progress towards Ratisbon, where
Elyot continued chiefly to reside, as Cranmer did at Nuremberg. In prospect of
the Turkish invasion, Charles was now in treaty with the German Protestant
Princes to secure their cooperation against the common enemy of Europe, who
proudly insisted that no man should be called Emperor except himself. These
negociations commencing in April terminated on the 23rd of July at Ratisbon, on
which day Elyot wrote again to the Duke of Norfolk. This letter, however,
conveyed no very welcome news to Henry at least; though the Princes (seven in
number, and twenty-four cities) regarded it as the first religious peace in
Germany. None were now to be molested on account of opinions till the meeting of
a General Council; all judicial processes relating to religion were to be
suspended, and all lawsuits for the restoration of Church property were null and
void; concessions which were published throughout Germany, by imperial
proclamation. These were measures, too, in perfect accordance with those which
Vaughan had urged upon Henry the Eighth, through Crumwell; yet so bent was our
English Monarch upon his favourlte project, and the gratification of his own
will, that even the prospect of such relief to thousands of the best minds in
Europe, had no charms for him; and Cranmer had been engaged to employ all his
skill in preventing such enjoyment! He had been “instructed to make a secret
visit to the court of Saxony, to deliver letters both to the Elector and the
other Princes who had joined the Protestant league, and to assure them, by
conversation also, of his Sovereign’s friendship. Henry was disposed, like the
French King, to foment some bad feeling between these confederates and the
Emperor. It was his project of revenge for the Imperial opposition to the
divorce; but it had no important result. The pacification of Nuremberg indeed
was effected within a few days after this effort to impede it, and Cranmer had
to relate to his Sovereign, instead of dissension, the principal terms of that
memorable treaty.” f62 How long before the 14th of March, Elyot had been charged
with his commission from the King to seize Tyndale, does not appear; but as he
chose to say, that he was “all the King’s except his soul,” from the first
moment he must have been on the look out; and as he had been moving from place
to place for about two months before he arrived at Ratisbon, he could then speak
from some experience of Tyndale “withdrawing” himself, “as far as he could
perceive.” Now, however, he was far distant from Brussels, and there he must
remain. Providentially, for Tyndale at least, he was detained month after month;
and if Cranmer failed in his “secret visit,” so did Elyot as to his
“commission,” from the King. A storm was gathering in the East which occasioned
every monarch in Europe to pause and think; it was the invasion of Solyman, the
grand Turk, with an army of three hundred thousand men. Elyot’s letters,
therefore, were now full of little or nothing else, if we may judge by his very
long epistle to Norfolk on the llth of August. f63 And thus was he diverted from
a pursuit which must have for ever disgraced his memory, if it had ended in the
apprehension of England’s greatest benefactor. Tyndale has yet four years to
live.

Sir Thomas More and Stokesly still went on as the most eminent and busy
persecutors of the Truth. In December last, a gentleman of his own profession
had fallen into the hands of the Chancellor;-Mr. James Bainham, the son of Sir
Alexander Bainham, a knight of Gloucestershire, who had married the widow of Mr.
Fyshe, already noticed. He had been seized by the Serjeant-at-arms, and carried
out of the Middle Temple to More’s own house at Chelsea. This was another victim
to console him for the recent escape of George Constantyne. Imagining that there
must have been others of the profession who had imbibed the same opinions, the
Chancellor particularly degraded himself, by his cruelty to this excellent man;
for after being shamefully handled under his own roof, if not also in his own
garden, he was afterwards conveyed to the Tower, and there, in his presence,
tortured by the rack till he was lamed. He would, however, neither accuse any
gentlemen of his acquaintance in the Temple, nor disclose where his books lay
concealed. His worthy partner in life also, no more able to see the face of
Henry, and who might have been repulsed though she had, now fell into trouble.
Denying the books to be at her husband’s house, she was thrown into Fleet
Prison, and their goods confiscated. After all this torment, Bainham was handed
over to Stokesly; and his examination before him, at Chelsea, is at once
honourable to the confessor, illustrative of the times, and of the positive
enmity now reigning against the truths of Divine revelation. But at length even
he began to waver in a state of doubtful perplexity, between llfe and death; so
that, after two months’ confinement, he read his abjuration, was fined twenty
pounds (equal to £300 now) to the King, and being released on the 17th of
February, was dismissed home. He was, however, scarcely a month at large before
he lamented his conduct most bitterly; and the terms in which his penitence are
recorded, deserve special notice. “He was,” says Foxe, “never quiet in mind and
conscience, until the time he had uttered his fall to all his acquaintance, and
asked God and all the world forgiveness, before THE Congregation in those days,
in a warehouse in BowLane. He wrote a letter also to the Bishop of London, so
that shortly after he was apprehended, and again committed to the Tower. On the
19th of April he was examined, and again on the 20th, in the Church of All
Saints, Barking, Tower Street, after which he was condemned. On being brought to
the stake on the 1st of May, he addressed all present, in the following words:-
“‘I come hither, good people! accused and condemned for an heretic; Sir Thomas
More being my accuser and my judge. And these be the articles that I die for,
which be a very truth, and grounded on God’s Word, and no heresy. They be these:
First, I say it is lawful for every man and woman, to have God’s book in their
mother tongue. The second article is,-that the Bishop of Rome is Antichrist, and
that I know no other keys of heaven-gates but only the preaching of the Law and
the Gospel.’ He died, and according to his own statement, even when half
consumed in the flames, without any pain.” In this account, there is one
expression which should not escape notice:-“THE Congregation, in those days,
meeting in Bow Lane.” What was this? That it was the assembly to which Bainham
first resorted to bewail his conduct, and ask forgiveness, is evident; but why
did he there resort first, except it was that against that Congregation he
thought he had more especially offended? It may never have been observed, or if
so, accounted worthy of notice before; and yet, if the proper definition of a
Church is allowed to be-“a Congregation of faithful men,”-in such a connexion as
the present, there seems to be no slight evidence, that upon this spot there
assembled, “in those days,” perhaps the earliest resemblance of a Christian
Church, upon English ground, in the sixteenth century. That there was such a
congregated body of people, in London, by this time, will be rendered more
interesting, if, before the close of this year, we find its character for
Christianity described, by the man, who, of all then in England, was best
qualified to judge. In the early part of this year, however, there was another
instance of cruelty, too notable to pass unnoticed, although it did not
terminate fatally. This referred to no other than Hugh Latimer, and Stokesly was
the prime mover. He had summoned Latimer to appear before him, but he contemned
the message, referring to the Bishop of Salisbury as his ordinary. Stokesly then
applied to Warham, and Latimer was summoned to appear before him on the 29th of
January. According to Latimer’s own statement, the case was remitted to five or
six Bishops, and he appeared before them thrice every week. Firm and resolute
for some time, he refused to subscribe the articles they presented. For this he
was declared contumacious, and afterwards excommunicated. In order, however, to
bring him to some submission, it was resolved, to take off the sentence, if he
would sign two of the articles, namely, one respecting the observation of Lent,
and another concerning the crucifix and the lawfulness and profit of images in
Churches, for the worship of Jesus Christ and His Saints! Foxe is in doubt
whether Latimer submitted; and Gilpin in his Memoir roundly asserts that he did
not recant; but the fact is put beyond all question, by the minutes of the
Convocation in March and April 1532. His words were-“ My Lords, I do confess,
that I have misordered myself very far, in that I have so presumptuously and
boldly preached, reproving certain things, by which the people that were infirm
have taken occasion of ill. Wherefore I ask forgiveness of my misbehaviour. I
will be glad to make amends. And I have spoken indiscreetly in vehemence of
speaking, and have erred in some things, and in manner have been in a wrong way,
lacking discretion in many things.”

After this confession, which, it may be said, did not amount to a retractation
of opinions, he desired absolution. This, however, was deferred to the 10th of
April, when he subscribed the two articles already mentioned, and a further
hearing was appointed. Unwilling to let him go, when the day arrived a new
complaint was produced, respecting a letter he had written to one Greenwood of
Cambridge, upon which Latimer appealed to the King as head of the Church of
England, and was ultimately restored to his functions.

Alas! that Latimer should have so far identified himself with the train of those
who had gone before him, from Barnes to the present hour,-for there was none
like him in all England! It was at the last Convocation that Warham had
attended, before his death in August; and Latimer, it is true, will not forget
all this; but another day, in St. Paul’s itself, Stokesly will have to sit
still, and listen to certain awful truths, by way of reminiscence, to which his
ears had never been accustomed. John Foxe, in his narrative, tries to palliate
this whole affair by saying-“whether he subscribed, no great matter or marvel,
considering the iniquity of the times: “but this is far from the manner of
sacred writ, in the biography of its highest characters. No, however painful,
besides too many others, we have seen Barnes, and Bilney, and now even Latimer,
at the first onset, blench and falter through fear of death; so that at this
special period, to the impartial writer, there seems to be nothing left for him,
but to look out for John Fryth. He will revive the spirit of any reader, and
give a new tone to the cause of God and His truth. He was just about arriving in
England, but, as a controversialist, Sir Thomas More first stands in our way.

If the laborious Lord Chancellor had been busy in persecuting his fellowsubjects
at home, he had been no less so with his pen, in opposition to Tyndale abroad.
His friend, Sir Thomas Elyot, might be “doing his best endeavour” to seize the
man, but More was determined to overwhelm and expose him as a writer and
translator, His huge publication being now, in part, ready, must be put forth.
The first three books of it, with a long preface, printed by the son of his
brother-in-law, Rastell, appeared with this title, “The Confutation of Tyndale’s
answer, made by Sir Thomas More, knight, Lord Chancellor of England,-cum
privilegio.” He had six books more to come, although the present folio extended
to 363 pages, thirtyseven of which filled his preface! This, it will be
observed, was printed before he had resigned the seals, in May; so that between
crossexaminations of worthy men, on the one hand, and proof sheets against
Tyndale on the other, he must have been engrossed indeed.

Even in this first part, Sir Thomas thought it was time to admit the talents of
his opponent; and, therefore, though jesting, ¢ as usual, he affirms, that he
had “an eagle’s eye,” that he was “cunning enough, and can, I assure you, make
as much poetry upon any part of Scripture, as any poet can in England, upon any
part of Virgil.” But then Tyndale’s views and wishes were the subject of his
professed apprehension. This Confutation, falsely so called, as well as More’s
Apology, will come before us next year, so that we refrain from farther remark
till he has done. In the meanwhile, another opponent had started up, and fretted
him not a little. Fryth’s publication had arrived, and was now greedily read in
England, and the Chancellor must tell us, beforehand also, how he meant to
dispose of him. Like Goliath of old, he looked round, and disdained him, for he
was but a young man, of fine person, and of a fair countenance; but certainly it
was rather mortifying if, in meeting three such seniors, (as Fisher, More, and
Rastell,) Fryth was to overthrow them all, and convert one of them, and that one
the brother-in-law of the Lord Chancellor. He speaks of him, however, with an
air of affected pity, and would fain have weaned him from his spiritual father;
only they were bound together by a tie of which the unhappy Chancellor had no
conception. In the preface, the old gentleman expectorates all his vanity, of
which it seems to be too evident, his breast was full. Covetousness and vanity
are sins, which, in some men, are eminently conspicuous in old age. Of the
former, every one will cheerfully exonerate the Chancellor; as for the latter,
and more especially when contrasted with the close of the combat, we need say
nothing more at present. In early life, the stream of human depravity has
several channels, but in its later stages, those channels are in a manner dried
up, by the decay of the natural powers, when the whole current flows in one
direction; and then, as ambition is often associated with blood, so is vanity
with venom. The bitterness and contempt which distinguished Sir Thomas on these
subjects, can only be imagined by those who have the patience to wade through
his folio pages, while he goes on consigning every one to perdition, for
opinions which have long distinguished the British population. Utopia was the
blossom of his youth, but there had been little congenial moisture within him,
and so it dropped off. His tedious controversial writings were the fruit of his
mature age, and they remain, to any who look upon them, the saddest memorial of
his failing into the yellow leaf. In the meanwhile, it may here be remarked,
that it would have been prudent in Sir Thomas, to have left Fryth alone, as the
interference only exposed him, in the end, to a double defeat. Even Tyndale was
younger than himself, and he was more than his match; but John Fryth was only
twenty-eight years of age, when his book was published, last year.

Besides, the Chancellor had crowed by far too soon, as he had then no idea that
in a few months after, Fryth himself would come over, and not only confront him
upon English ground, though writing from a dungeon; but overcome in argument the
Bishops assembled, with Cranmer at their head.

It is not possible to ascertain in what month of this year Fryth had arrived in
England, but it may have been as early as July or August. Having been absent
from his native country for six years, he was first heard of at Reading in
Berkshire, a place into which the Divine Word had found an entrance, at least
four or five years before this. In 1528, we have read of Rodolph Bradford
carrying New Testaments there from London, and by the next year even the Prior
of that abbey was a suspected man, and had been placed in confinement.

We notice this man, as one purpose for which it is said Fryth came over, was to
obtain some pecuniary aid from him, or rather induce the Prior to accompany him,
on his return to the Continent; a movement to which he might be more disposed,
after such usage. In one place, indeed, Foxe states that Fryth came over at the
Prior’s request; but be this as it may, his account is as follows:- “Being at
Reading, it happened that he was there taken for a vagabond, and brought to
examination, where the simple man, loath to utter himself what he was, and
unacquainted with their manner of examination, and they greatly offended with
him, committed him to the stocks, where, when he had sitten a long time, and was
almost pined with hunger, and would not for all that declare what he was; at
last, he desired that the schoolmaster of the town might be brought unto him,
which, at that time, was one Leonard Coxe, a man very well learned. As soon as
he came to him, Fryth by and by, in the Latin tongue, began to bewail his
captivity. The schoolmaster, being overcome with his eloquence, did not only
take pity and compassion upon him, but went, with all speed, unto the
Magistrates, grievously complaining of the injury which they did shew to so
excellent and innocent a young man. And so, through the help of the said
schoolmaster, the said Fryth was freely set at liberty without punishment.” The
“stocks” in England had certainly never before been so honoured, whatever they
were afterwards; nor should the worthy and learned schoolmaster be forgotten?
Thus enlarged, we hear nothing of the Prior, and he might have removed after
this outrage; but Fryth proceeded to London itself, and there saw those friends
of truth, to whom Bainham had first made his confession, a few months before.
The danger, however, was extreme; but there was to be no more any thing
bordering upon abjuration-no more halting between two opinions, or between life
and death-in Fryth’s case. He had come to read a lesson to the Martyrs of
England, and he read it nobly, by his tongue, nay, by his pen, and finally by
the flames. It was altogether a sight which had never been seen in England since
the days in which he himself had been reading the first imported Testament, or
was immured in the dungeon at Oxford. Yet though of so decided a character, that
he afterwards astonished both friends and foes, Fryth still accounted it his
imperative duty to avoid apprehension if he could; and, according to the Divine
commandment, first fled from place to place, rather than his enemies should be
involved in the guilt of blood. He changed his raiment and place of abode again
and again, but could not remain long anywhere, even among friends. Sir Thomas
More had now heard of his being in England, and “beset,” says Foxe, “all the
ways and havens, yea, and promised great rewards, if any man could bring any
tidings of him.”

While, however, he was yet at large, there was a Christian brother, of whom
Fryth says, “for his commendable conversation, and sober behaviour, he might
better be a bishop, than many that wear mitres, if the rule of St. Paul were
regarded in their election.” He had applied to Fryth for his opinions respecting
the Lord’s Supper, and after complying with his earnest request, “he desired
me,” he adds, “to entitle the sum of my words, and write them for him, because
they seemed over long to be well retained in memory.” This was done with no
intention of its being read, except by select or choice friends, who had already
received the truth; “for they knew the spiritual and necessary eating and
drinking of his body and blood, which is received but with the ears and faith,
and only needed instruction in the outward caring; which thing,” adds Fryth, “I
only declared.” By this time, More especially, if not Stokesly, had various
spies on the look-out in London; base men, who insinuated themselves among the
best of the city.

Two of these are named-one Withers, and William Holt, the foreman of Mr. Malte,
tailor to the King. The latter was the guilty man, who betrayed confidence.
Having seen the manuscript of Fryth, he begged a perusal of it; and once
obtained, he carried it forthwith to the Chancellor.

Sir Thomas More, however, as if conscious of his incompetence to answer “the
young man,” for so he generally called him, had now become more cautious, though
it was only a few months since his vaunting preface was abroad. This must have
been the more mortifying, when Fryth let out the secret; for referring to his
manuscript, he tells us, that More suppressed the work after it was printed, and
though he saw a printed copy in the Bishop of Winchester’s, on the 26th of
December, neither he or his friends could obtain one, but got hold of a written
copy, which had been made in great haste. From this it is evident that Fryth was
not only in safe keeping, and under examination by this month of December, but
that More had replied to his manuscript, and in print, and therefore he must
have been in England for some months. He had been apprehended, says Foxe, at a
place called Milton Shore, in Essex, where he had gone with a view to embark for
the Continent, and after that had been committed to the Tower. The last six
months of his valuable life will come before us in due time. But with regard to
that great cause, for which Fryth was now in prison, and Tyndale had been
pursued for years, there was no possibility of stopping its onward progress. The
importation of the Scriptures, as well as other books, went on. A tide had set
in, which no vigilance, no power upon earth, could either stop or turn aside.
Though it be in vulgar, and even profane language, by far the finest eulogium,
on this department of exertion, was pronounced by Sir Thomas More himself, and
in this very year. He would not, it is true, open His eyes to the fact, that
there was a thirst for the Word of Truth, and that a market or demand had been
created in England, in spite of all opposition; and, therefore, he is incorrect
as to the way in which money was raised, or rather capital embarked, but, in
other respects, his denunciation involves the very highest praise which could
have been elicited. “Which books, albeit that they neither can be there printed
without great cost, nor here sold without great adventure and peril: yet cease
they not with money sent from hence, to print them there, and send them hither,
by the whole vatts-full at once. And, in some places, looking for no lucre, cast
them abroad by night; so great a pestilent pleasure have some devilish people
caught, with the labour, travel, cost, charge, peril, harm, and hurt of
themselves, to seek the destruction of other.” f65 Such was the language of Sir
Thomas More, and the same spirit reigns throughout his pages. It was the
testimony of an enemy, addressed to enemies, which is the strongest of all, and
therefore includes the higher commendation of unwearied zeal in the cause of God
and His truth. And certainly it was a marvellous thing, that one of those
“fellows,” as he calls them, with his junior companion, “who nought had here,
and therefore nought carried hence,” should be able to kindle such a fire in
England.

They were but “earthen vessels,” it is true; persecuted, but not forsaken; as
unknown, and yet well known; as poor, yet making many rich; for their friends,
by this time described as “evil-disposed persons within this realm,” had already
become more than two bands. But now, since our only controversialist thought so
badly of them, we must hear the opinion of a better judge.

We have alluded to a Congregation of these people, meeting in London, but there
were groups, in secret, throughout different counties. John Fryth had seen those
in London, and then proceeded from place to place, before he was to address them
all from his prison. He had worshipped God along with them, and expounded the
Sacred Volume they held so dear; and what was his deliberate opinion of those
people, whom the Chancellor and the Bishops so defamed? In a letter addressed to
them from “the Tower of London, a prisoner for the Word of God,” he rejoices
that he found no small number of them walking in the ways of the Lord, as He
gave commandment, willing that they should love one another as He loved us; that
he had had experience of their faith without simulation, of their love to the
poor oppressed, to whom they communicated “both bodily sustenance and ghostly
comfort, notwithstandnig the strait inhibition and terrible menacing of these
worldly rulers.” He prophetically adds:- “I ever thought, and yet do think, that
to walk after God’s Word would cost me my life, at one time or another. And
albeit that the King’s Grace should take me into his favour, and not to suffer
the bloody Edomites to have their pleasures upon me; yet will I not think that I
am escaped: but that God hath only deferred it for a season, to the intent that
I should work somewhat that He hath appointed me to do, and so to use me unto
His glory. “He shall send a Joseph before you against ye shall come into Egypt;
yea, He shall so provide for you, that ye shall have an hundred fathers for one;
an hundred mothers for one; an hundred houses for one; and that in this life, As
IHAVE PROVED BY EXPERIENCE; and after this life, everlasting joy with Christ our
Savior.”

Such were the fruits of the Sacred Word, printed in the vulgar tongue! In the
outset, it was but like an handful of corn, sown in a most unpromising soil, on
the top of a mountain; yet now that one of the sowers has come, “it cannot be
expressed, what joy and comfort it was to his heart, to perceive” far more than
the green blade above the ground. That a Christian should receive an
hundred-fold of temporal good, with persecutions, has often seemed to be a
mystery, and the passage has so perplexed the expositors of more peaceful times,
that they have felt obliged to escape to the supposition of celestial
gratifications. How a man should leave one house and find an hundred, in the
days when mere professors are loth to leave any thing for Christ, has appeared
to be impossible; although the Saviour expressly confines the hundred-fold to
this life. But the exuberant love and hospitality of the primitive Christians
untie the knot, and explain the promise. On the part of, our Redeemer, it was
indeed a most extraordinary intimation; informing the earliest age, not only
that Christianity should gain ground, but prevail in such power over its
believers, and all that they possessed; and it remained for John Fryth
especially to come over, and draw out the proof that primitive Christianity had
effectually taken root in England. All the believers’ houses had been open to
entertain him, and there was he treated with all a father’s, or a mother’s, a
brother’s, or a sister’s kindness. Now that he was in bonds, he was overcome
with joy, by finding that such was their concern for him, and that they felt his
private or personal suffering as a general calamity, or a public wrong. And now
that the year is ended, what can be said as to the Old man and the Young?-the
Chancellor and his prisoner? What else than that “wisdom excelleth folly, and as
far as light excelleth darkness;” or that “the wise man’s eyes are in his head,
and that it is the infatuated only, who walk on in darkness?” By the mercy of
God, however, Sir Thomas More must now withdraw. He had resigned the Great Seal
in May, but still had acted officially till towards the close of the year; in a
few weeks hence he will be entirely dismissed, and left free, and at leisure to
go on with his voluminous controversy, though this should only be to his final
overthrow.

We have not been able to ascertain the precise object of Fryth’s journey into
England, at a period so fraught with danger. It must /have been something of
importance in his own apprehension, as well as in that of Tyndale. The latter
had no other man like-minded, no other companion, properly so called, upon
earth. For years together, he himself had been pursued on the Continent, but
Fryth was now in England itself. One can, therefore, easily conceive what
trembling anxiety must have been felt by our Translator, in his absence; and we
have one fine letter of judicious counsel, before he knew the worst-that Fryth
was apprehended, and in the Tower of London. From this we extract the following
sentences:- “Cleave fast to the rock of the help of God, and commit the end of
all things to Him; and if God shall call you, that you may then use the wisdom
of the world, as far as yon perceive the glory of God may come thereof, refuse
it not; and ever among thrust in, that the Scripture may be in the MOTHER
tongue, and learning set up in the Universities. But and if aught be required
contrary to the glory of God and His Christ, then stand fast, and commit
yourself to God, and be not overcome of men’s persuasions, which haply shall
say, we see no other way to bring in the truth. “Beloved of my heart, there
liveth not, in whom I have so good hope and trust, and in whom my heart
rejoiceth, and my soul comforteth herself, as in you,: not the thousandth part
so much for your learning, and what other gifts else you have, as that you will
creep slow by the ground, and walk in those things that the conscience may feel,
and not in the imaginations of the brain; in fear, and not in boldness; in open
necessary things, and not to pronounce or define of hid secrets, or things that
neither help nor hinder, whether they be so or no; in unity, and not in
seditious opinions: insomuch, that if you be sure you know; yet in things that
may abide leisure, you will defer, or say, methinks the text requireth this
sense or understanding; yea, and if you be sure that your part be good, and
another hold the contrary, yet if it be a thing that maketh no matter, you will
laugh and let it pass, and refer the thing to other men, and stick you stiffly
and stubbornly, in earnest and necessary things. “And I trust you be persuaded
even so of me. For I call God to record, against the day we shall appear before
our Lord Jesus, to give a reckoning of our doings, that I never altered one
syllable of God’s Word against my conscience, (as Sir Thomas More had
insinuated,) nor would this day, if all that is in the earth, whether it be
pleasure, honour, or riches, might be given me. Moreover, I take God to record
to my conscience, that I desire of God to myself in this world, no more than
that (liberty?) without which I cannot keep His laws. “The mighty God of Jacob
be with you, to supplant His enemies, and give you the favour of Joseph; and the
wisdom and the spirit of Stephen be with your heart and with your mouth, and
teach your lips what they shall say, and how to answer to all things. He is our
God, if we despair in ourselves and trust in Him; and His is the glory, Amen.
William Tyndale. I hope our redemption is nigh.” But whatever Tyndale might
intend by his last expression to Fryth, it was not long before he heard of his
being in the hands of Sir Thomas, and also in the Tower; for, however impossible
it had ever been to find Tyndale’s abode, it is remarkable that no circumstances
could ever impede his immediate communication with England. Though Fryth had
found it difficult to procure a copy of More’s reply to himself, either that, or
some other copy, was soon in Tyndale’s possession, when he immediately
discovered all that deep interest which he had already expressed so warmly in
his letter. Before this, too, he had also received the Chancellor’s vaunted
Confutation, so that, according to More’s own concession, he could now “pry
upon” them both, “narrowly, and with such eagle’s eyen as he hath.” By a single
passage, at the outset, which will be noticed presently, he effectually damaged
the fame of the knight’s “Confutation ;” but the perilous situation of Fryth
demanded haste, and Tyndale immediately did his “uttermost” for him, as he had
promised. Whether he left Antwerp to superintend the press, is not certain, but
it is more than probable, for it is curious enough that his pointed production
was printed at Nuremberg by Nicolas Townson, and was finished by the beginning
of April. It is entitled “The Supper of the Lord “-after the meaning of John
6:1-71 and 1Co 11:1-34.-“wherein, incidentally, Master More’s letter against
John Fryth is confuted.” For fresh events we must now, therefore, look forward
to the next year. 1533.

One Distinguishing Feature Of Tyndale’s Course And Character As Compared With
His Contemporaries-His Answer To Sir T. More-His Letter To Fryth In
Prison-Fryth’s Voice From The Tower-Fryth’s Examination Before The Bishops
Assembled-His Triumph In Argument -Martyrdom-One Effect Of Fryth’s Death-Sir T.
More Writing Still-One Powerful Opponent At Home-More As A Controversialist -His
Prodigious Exertions-Other Qualities-Finally Overcome.

BEFORE recurring to Tyndale’s last publication, we are constrained to pause for
a few moments, and observe more distinctly one marked or distinguishing feature
in his character. His one object in life, was to gain over his native land to
the faith of the Mediator. The foundation of all his hope of success, rested on
the Word of God itself. With its translation into English he began, and laboured
in it to his dying day. And having once conveyed the New Testament to England,
as containing truth without any mixture of error, he might, indeed, because
banished from the soil, assail the love of the world or covetousness, in those
who had arrogated to themselves the title of “the Spirituality,” in his parable
of “the Wicked Mammon;” he might lay down the law of “Christian Obedience,” but
built on that faith which he had already explained; might expose the
hypocritical “Practice of Prelates,” who had sunk his country into immorality,
licentiousness, and debt; or warn the whole nation by Jonah and his prologue.
These were great subjects, and worthy of his pen; but when once he found a
Preacher upon English ground, in whom, and in whose doctrine, he reposed
unlimited confidence, and came to explain the course which he thought that
Preacher should pursue, his ideas are worthy of observation in any, or rather in
every age. He himself had been “about a great work, and would not come down,”
and so he would have Fryth to act. His weapons were to be only two,-the Law and
the Gospel; subjects to which the conscience would respond; and hence his
fervent anxiety that he would commend himself to every man’s conscience, as in
the sight of God; or only “walk in those things that the conscience might feel.”
He thought that matters of essential belief should first be received in England,
and first settled in all cases, before those of obedience should be enforced;
that the souls of men should first have ih possession that rest which Christ
gives, before His gentle yoke could be assumed; that men should first be
disciples, and then taught all things whatsover Christ has commanded. During his
entire residence on the Continent, from this fixed judgment he had never
swerved, though amidst many temptations so to do; and this it is which should
procure for him, in the eye of posterity, one distinguishing eminence among all
his contemporaries. There is actually not a second man to be placed by his side,
except the prisoner respecting whom he is now so concerned. In consequence of
pursuing a course all his own, at no Conference, Diet, or Assembly can we ever
hear of him, nor do we find any references to these, in his writings. There was
in 1524, the Diet at Nuremberg, the Assembly at Ratisbon in July, and another
afterwards at Spire. In 1526 the Conference at Baden against Zuingle in May, and
the Diet at Spire in June. In 1527 the Conference of Berne, not to say the
provincial Councils at Bruges and Paris. In 1529 the Diet in March held at
Spire, then the Protestation, and then the Conference in October, at Marburg,
between the Lutherans and Zuinglians. In 1530 there was the Diet of Augsburg; to
deliberate on the Augsburg Confession, or the articles of Torgau, including what
they called “Sacraments,” and “religious ceremonies;” and then the league at
Smalkald. In 1531 the Assembly again at Smalkald, and afterwards at Frankfort.
But at not one of these do we hear of Tyndale being present; an absence or
retirement so uniform, that it could only have sprung from some fixed
determination, more especially as his talents would have secured a chair for
him, on any such occasions. And as he frequented no public conferences or
disputations, so he courted the patronage of no German circle, of no Duke or
Elector, no Landgrave or Counsellor, but, to use his own expression, “kept alow
by the ground.” His rejection, at first, by the Lord Bishop of London, actually
seems to have made an impression which never left him, and six years afterwards
he refers to it, as though it had governed him ever since,-“ God saw,” says he,
“that I was beguiled, and that their counsel was not the next way unto my
purpose; and therefore He gat me no favour in my Lord’s sight.” After that
period he seems to have felt, as Johnson did in modern times, that a Patron
would only have “encumbered him with help;” or he was not willing that posterity
should consider him as owing that to any earthly protector, which Providence
enabled him to accomplish, without one smile of court-favour from his country.
In short, Tyndale’s lack of protection from princes and assistance from learned
men, taken in connexion with the course which he had so steadily pursued, forms
a forcible contrast to the path and circumstances of all his contemporaries. If
these statements be observed, they may so far account for the fact, that during
the last nine years, with a sound and discriminating judgment, Tymdale had
sted-fastly deprecated the Bellum Sacramentariurn, and never more so than at
this period, as he himself has explained. It had commenced about the very time
of his arrival at Hamburg, in 1524, and, upon fixed principles, he had kept out
of it, from year to year. This of itself alone, was quite sufficient to have
preserved him from personally combining with Luther; a confederacy, which he
himself denied after six years’ residence on the Continent; and one, which,
owing to the violence of the Saxons, could not possibly have taken place since.
But, now that Tyndale’s dearest friend upon earth, his “own son” in the faith,
is incarcerated, and in danger of his life,-now that he has fallen into the
hands of these English Philistines,-now that both Providence and Christian
friendship call him to speak out, having no choice, he will not be slow, or
rather was not, so to do. And never was triumph more complete, than that of
Tyndale and Fryth over Sir Thomas More on the subject of the Lord’s Supper,
though on their part it was entirely unprovoked. Fryth, it must be observed, was
precisely of Tyndale’s opinion; that Repentance and Faith, or matters of
essential belief, should be first propounded and settled, previously to
discussing any Christian ordinances; that the former were to be testified to the
world at large; the latter, settled within the Church itself: that the messenger
of God to guilty men, was to preach and might print on the former; but as to the
latter, beware of the printing-press. The latter were to be “reasoned in peace
and at leisure,” among believers alone, or within the Church. Oh, had the
counsel of the “first two” been taken, what a different aspect had the Church of
God exhibited by this time! And why may not some invaluable instruction, even
now, be drawn from this, the very springhead of religious controversy?

It must be remembered, therefore, that believing, as he did, in the plainness
and all-sufficiency of the Sacred Oracles, Fryth had been exceedingly averse
from putting pen to paper, and that when he did so, it was only in compliance
with the urgency of a beloved Christian brother. But this was only a manuscript,
and one sacredly intended only for the eye of believers, in whose faith Fryth
had already found such reason to rejoice. In these circumstances, the Chancellor
stepped out of his way, to his own discomfiture; and so infatuated was he, that
he must print in reply, though he afterwards laboured to suppress it. Copies,
however, having gone out, Fryth must not shrink from confuting him; and Tyndale
having received it also, neither does he. Throughout this piece, Sir Thomas
having contemptuously styled Fryth “the young man,” this it was which led
Tyndale frequently to place the Lord Chancellor in contrast as “the old man;”
and he will now require to put on his spectacles once more. In the outset of his
attack on Fryth, the Chancellor had insisted that in the sixth chapter of John
the Saviour had referred literally to the Lord’s Supper. But in order to prove
John’s Gospel imperfect and insufficient, he had said in the third book of his
“Confutation,” that “John spake nothing at all of this Sacrament,” thus palpably
contradicting himself, and, adds Tyndale, “the young man here causing him to put
on his spectacles and pore better and more wisely with his old eyes, upon St.
John’s Gospel, to find that thing there written, which before he would have made
one of his unwritten verities.”

It is unnecessary to notice every corner out of which he dragged his opponent,
or the chain of argument by which he bound him; but at the close, Tyndale gives
intimation that he was quite prepared to meet, not merely the Chancellor, but
all who either believed or dissembled with him; and expresses his longing for
the day when this ordinance of Christ shall be “restored unto the pure use,” as
the Apostles used it in their time; giving a particular account of the manner in
which he wished it to be observed. But now, whether Tyndale had been to
Nuremberg, where this was printed, or not, he had heard in May of Fryth’s
dangerous condition in the Tower, and was in Antwerp again at that time.
Certainly he had not sojourned in this city since January, where he must have
heard much sooner; or if there was an earlier communication from him to England,
it is irrecoverable. His whole soul, however, was now moved with intense
feeling, and he poured it forth in the following final epistle:- “Dearly
beloved, however the matter be, commit yourself wholly and only unto your most
loving Father, and most kind Lord, and fear not men that threat, nor trust men
that speak fair; but trust Him that is true of promise, and able to make His
word good. Your cause is Christ’s gospel, a light that must be fed with the
blood of faith. The lamp must be dressed daily, and that oil poured in every
evening and morning, that the light go not out. “Be of good courage, and comfort
your soul with the hope of this high reward, and bear the image of Christ in
your mortal body, that it may, at His coming, be made like to His immortal; and
follow the example of all your other dear brethren, which chose to suffer in
hope of a better resurrection. Keep your conscience pure and undefiled, and say
against that, nothing. Stick at necessary things, and remember the blasphemies
of the enemies of Christ, saying, they.find NONE but that will ABJURE, rather
than suffer the extremity. Moreover, the death of them that come again, after
they have once denied, though it be accepted with God, and all that believe, yet
it is not glorious, for the hypocrites say, ‘he must needs die;’ denying (then)
helpeth not. “If you give yourself, cast yourself, yield yourself, commit
yourself, wholly and only to your loving Father, then shall His power be in you,
and make you strong, and that so strong, that you shall feel no pain, which
should be to another present death; and His Spirit shall speak in you, and teach
you what to answer, according to His promise. He shall set out His truth by you,
wonderfully, and work for you, above all that your heart can imagine: yea, and
you are not yet dead, though the hypocrites all, with all that they can make,
have sworn your death. “Fear not the threatening, therefore, neither be overcome
of sweet words: with which twain, the hypocrites shall assail you. Neither let
the persuasions of worldly wisdom bear rule in your heart: No, though they be
your friends that counsel you. Let Bilney be a warning to you. Let not their
visor beguile your eyes. Let not your body faint. He that endureth to the end
shall be saved. If the pain be above your streugth, remember-whatsoever ye shall
ask in my Name, I will give it you’-and pray to your Father, in that Name, and
He shall ease your pain or shorten it. The Lord of peace of hope, and of faith,
be with you, Amen. William Tyndale. “P.S. Your wife is well content with the
will of God, and would not, for her sake, have the glory of God hindered.
William Tyndale.” In both these letters the reader has beheld the ardent
affection of Tyndale for his friend; but see, in the last, how strong his
supreme regard for the truth of God! The young man was dear to him as his own
soul, yet had he prepared his mind for the severe trial, and given him up,
though now, evidently, in a state of great agitation; but it was one of
breathless anxiety for the glory of God, and the subordinate glory of his
friend’s character, rather than his life. Tyndale was in that frame of mind,
which no man, without a martyr’s heart, such as he truly possessed, can fully
appreciate; nor is the wife of the prisoner, to whom he had been but recently
united, less to be admired. This letter, which was “delivered to Fryth in the
Tower,” must have proved most welcome; although, ere long, we shall find that,
strengthened by the power and grace of his Redeemer, he had needed no human
counsel to die with all the heroism of Stephen, the first martyr to
Christianity.

We cannot affirm that there was any positive connexion between the marriage of
Henry to Lady Anne Boleyn, which took place on the 25th January, and the
resignation of the Chancellorship by More; but still it is very observable, that
the next day, Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, delivered it to
the King; when his Majesty, retaining it only a quarter of an hour, redelivered
it to him, with the title of Lord Chancellor.

Thus, though Sir Thomas More had resigned the Seals in May, he had been acting
as an officer of the Crown till about this period. We have seen him, long after
May, active in the pursuit and persecution of Fryth; but the mace being gone, he
must now wield only the pen. It was the solitary instrument left him to carry on
his warfare; and with this he continued more busy than ever, throughout the
whole of this year. This new appointment is worthy of notice, chiefly on one
account. An immediate relaxation took place as to Fryth, in his imprisonment. In
the earlier stage of his confinement here was his situation-“ I am, in a manner,
as a man bound to a post, and cannot so well bestow me in my play, as if I were
at liberty; for I may not have such books as are necessary for me; neither yet
pen, ink, nor paper, but only secretly, so that I am in continual fear both of
the Lieutenant and of my keeper, lest they should espy any such thing by me.
And, therefore, it is little marvel though the work be imperfect; for whensoever
I hear the keys ring at the doors, straight all must be conveyed out of the
way-and then, if any notable thing had been in my mind, it was clean lost.” But
now, though Sir Thomas Audley was as much disposed to please Henry as any of the
time-servers round his person, he felt and acted very differently from his
predecessor, as to the “new learning;” and Crumwell, who perhaps had profited by
the sound advice of Vaughan, is stated to have been disposed to show favour to
the prisoner. In short, had there been no deep and too successful intrigue
afterwards employed, Fryth might have been permitted to depart from England. But
still, in the meanwhile, there was a pause-a suspension of that violence and
severity, which had run on during the reign of the last Chancellor. The very
keeper of Fryth in the Tower greatly relaxed; and, “upon condition of his own
word and promise, let him go at liberty during the night, to consult with good
men.” One happy result of all this was, that Fryth was enabled to write his full
refutation of Sir Thomas More, from the very Tower to which he had committed
him, besides several other things, afterwards printed in his works.

Under these circumstances, Fryth was not idle, nor did Sir Thomas escape with
impunity. “For though More wrote with as much wit and eloquence as any man in
that age did, and Fryth wrote plainly without any art; yet there is so great a
difference between their books, that whoever compares them, will clearly
perceive the one to be the ingenious defender of an ill cause, and the other a
simple assertor of truth.” The palm for “wit and eloquence” has been at once
assigned to Sir Thomas, upon all occasions; but if any one desires to see the
“eloquent orator” and the “simple assertor of truth” in contrast, he has only to
consult Fryth, who certainly does him justice, by quoting the eloquence,
verbatim, such as it was, before he confutes it- “Fryth, the young man,
‘teacheth in a few leaves shortly, all the poison that Wickliffe, CEcolampadius,
Huskyn, Tyndale, and Zuinglius have taught in all their books before, concerning
the blessed sacrament of the altar; not only affirming it to be very bread
still, as Luther doth, but also, as these other beasts do, saith it is nothing
else.’-These dregs hath he drunken of Wickliffe, Cecolampadius, Tyndale, and
Zuinglius, and so hath all that he argueth here before; which four, what manner
folk they be, is meetly well perceived and known, and God hath in part, with His
open vengeance, declared.”

Fryth, after vindicating the other three individually, adds, as to his dearest
friend upon earth:- “And TYNDALE, I trust, liveth, well content with such a poor
Apostle’s life, as God gave His Son Christ, and His faithful ministers in this
world, which is not sure of so many mites as ye be yearly of pounds; although I
am sure that, for his learning and judgment in Scripture, he were more worthy to
be promoted than all the Bishops in England. I received a letter from him, which
was written since Christmas, wherein, among other matters, he writeth thus-‘ I
call God to record, etc.’

Judge, Christian reader, whether these words be not spoken of a faithful, clear,
innocent heart. And as for his behaviour, it is such, that I am sure no man can
reprove him of any sin; howbeit, no man is innocent before God, which beholdeth
the heart.”

Sir Thomas More having adjured them, if they would write, to “keep their
writings so secretly that never man should see them,” Fryth gives him this
challenge:- “But this hath been offered you, is offered, and shall be offered.

Grant that the Word of God, I mean the text of Scripture, may go abroad in, our
English tongue, as other nations have it in their tongues, and my brother
William Tyndale and I have done, and will promise you to writeNO MORE: If you
will not grant this condition, then will we be doing,WHILE WE HAVE BREATH, and
show in few words that the Scripture doth in many; and so, at the least, save
some.” In his progress, Fryth not only defended his opinions by express
quotations of Scripture, with a clear interpretation of their meaning; but he
went on by quoting Tertullian and Augustine, Origen and Ambrose, Jerome and
Chrysostom, Fulgentius and Eusebius, &c. These he gives in Latin, with a
translation in English; bringing forward “all these old doctors, that his
opponents might be ashamed” from henceforth to call it “new learning.” All the
Prelates, therefore, with “Mr. More, which taketh upon him to be their proctor,”
were called upon now to speak out and answer, if it was a question to be settled
by fair reasoning; and they were specially bound to have done so by the manner
in which Fryth summed up his arguments at the close. Besides, the pointed
strictures of Tyndale had also arrived in England: but there could be no answer,
properly so called, though More will not refrain from some reply.

Ten days had not elapsed after Queen Anne’s coronation, which took place on the
1st of June, before Cranmer, in servile obedience to his royal Master, must
proceed with a widely different scene. The martyrdom of Fryth has never been
sufficiently marked in English history, as there are several points of
distinction between it and any preceding act of cruelty, in Henry’s reign. In
1530, it is true, he had fully authorized a fiery persecution, but to this
measure he had been strongly advised by the last Lord Chancellor; and the
cruelties ensuing had never commenced with him, nor had he yet personally
sanctioned the last sentence of the law. Bilney and Bayfield, Tewksbury and
Bennet, had been first seized and examined by the Bishops, and then put to death
without any writ from his Majesty. The statute of Henry IV., and the warrant of
Sir Thomas More, had been regarded as sufficient, and Henry only did not
interpose. But Sir Thomas had now retired, and Chancellor Audley was not a
persecutor. The examination of Fryth was Henry’s own deed, and though the blood
of the innocent was already upon him, so far as explained, he now first degraded
himself personally to the rank of a Murderer. The importance attached to this
reckless proceeding may be seen, in the eminence of the parties expressly
appointed by the King to examine Fryth.

These were Cranmer, Gardiner, and Stokesly, the Lord Chancellor, the Duke of
Suffolk, or Henry’s own brother-in-law, and the Earl of Wiltshire, The story
altogether, is one of the most affecting in the history of the times.

Fearing a concourse of citizens, the scene of the examination was removed to
Croydon, to which place Fryth was conveyed under charge of one of the
Archbishop’s gentlemen, and one of his porters. On the way, the gentleman
pitying his prisoner’s youth and parts, besought him for the sake of his wife
and children, and the world which he might benefit by his gifts, to be somewhat
advised by the counsel of Cranmer and Crumwell, who were willing to save his
life. To this he replied, that his cause and conscience were such, that he could
not on any consideration fly from the true knowledge and doctrine which he had
conceived of the Supper of the Lord,-that he was well prepared for his defence,
which could not be condemned without involving Augustine and the Fathers in the
same condemnation,-that as for life, he had made up his mind to lay it down
rather than “qualify” his cause, for death would be better to him and all his,
than life in bondage and penury, adding:-“ God Almighty knoweth what He hath to
do with His poor servant, whose cause I now defend, and not my own; from the
which, I assuredly do intend, God willing, never to start or otherwise give
place, so long as God will give me life.”

While travelling on foot between Lambeth and Croydon, the gentleman and porter
devised a scheme for liberating their prisoner, and securing their own credit;
this they could hardly have done without some understanding with those above
them. But he, whom some in power wished well out of the way, was one who could
be no party to the falsehood involved in this scheme, or flinch from the defence
of the truth for which he was set. He therefore refused to take advantage of
their intended kindness, assuring them that if left by them he would deliver up
himself at Croydon. There, on the following day, he was examined, and replied so
readily in his cause, that “there was no man willing to prefer him to answer in
open disputation.”

Here, therefore, a pause, of several days, ensued; which Cranmer himself helps
us to explain. What we have already narrated had taken place between the 10th
and 15th of June, and before the 17th, Fryth had been sent back to London. After
his examinations were over, and before his return to London, Cranmer had called
for him repeatedly, and tried to turn him, but in vain, and the Archbishop must
now speak for himself. On the 17th he writes a long letter to Archdeacon
Hawkins, his successor, as ambassador, at the Emperor’s court; in which it must
be confessed that he seems far more elated by “the gorgeous and sumptuous”
display at the Queen’s coronation, than depressed by the tragedy, in which,
immediately afterwards, he had also played his part. Of the former he gives a
long and minute account; descending to the guns fired-the dresses worn-the order
of cavalcade. “Now, then, on Sunday, (lst June,) was the coronation,” when he,
with six Bishops and twelve Abbots, “all revestred in their pontificalibus, with
their crosses and crosiers, walked in procession into the church of
Westminster,” where “I did put the crown upon her head, and then was sung Te
Deum.” It is in this very letter, after finishing his account, that Fryth is
introduced, and in the following terms:- “Other news have we none notable, but
that one Fryth, which was in the Tower in prison, was appointed by the King’s
Grace to be examined before me, my Lord of London, my Lord of Winchester, my
Lord of Suffolk, my Lord Chancellor, and my Lord of Wiltshire-whose opinion was
so notably erroneous, that we could not despatch him, but was fain to leave him
to the determination of his ordinary, the Bishop of London. I myself sent for
him three or four times to persuade him to leave that his imagination, but for
all that we could do therein, he would not apply to any counsel. Not
withstanding now he is at a final end with all examinations, for my Lord of
London hath given sentence and delivered him to the secular power, where he
looketh every day to go unto the fire.” Surely Cranmer could scarcely intend to
speak contemptuously; but a new made Archbishop, who had just been crowning a
Queen, when writing to an Ambassador and telling the story, might imagine that
“one Fryth” was only in good keeping with such high affairs; though in the lips
of Cranmer, to say the least, it was an unfortunate slip of the pen; as if he
had never heard of him before, and his friend as little! “One Fryth,”-the Eton
scholar of King’s College, Cambridge; the Canon selected for Cardinal College,
Oxford, when Cranmer declined; the man known to Wolsey, whom the King himself
and Crumwell, and foreign agents, had been so eager to decoy into England; the
same man whom the late Lord Chancellor pursued with such eagerness till he
caught him; who had just overthrown his lordship in argument, and now silenced
the Bishops, including Cranmer himself; in short, the bosom friend and associate
of Tyndale, who had agitated the councils of England, before Thomas Cranmer was
known: but enough. Only it had been well for “one Cranmer” had he ever exhibited
the same undaunted fortitude, and died a death so glorious and unsullied as that
of “one Fryth.”

Notwithstanding what the primate had here said, it was not till three days
after, or Friday the 20th of June, that Fryth came to his final appearance
before the Bishops of London, (Stokesly,) Lincoln, (Longland,) and Winchester,
(Gardiner,) in St. Paul’s. His constancy, self-possession, and Christian
fortitude never forsook him for one moment; and when the question was finally
put, whether he would subscribe his answers, he took up the pen, and with his
own hand wrote these words-“Ego Frithus ita sentio, et quemadmodum sentio, ita
dixi, scripsi, asservi et affirmavi,” &c.-“I, Fryth, thus do think, and as I
think, so have I said, written, defended, and avowed, and in my books have
published.” Sentence being passed, and read against him, by Stokesly, he was
handed over to the Mayor and Sheriffs. By them he was committed to Newgate, and
put into a dark dungeon under the gate. There, laden with irons, as many as he
could bear, and his neck made fast to a post, with a collar of iron, he could
neither stand upright, nor stoop down! Yet even here, by candle-light, for no
other came into the place, was he continually engaged in writing; the letter to
his friends, concerning his troubles, which was afterwards printed in his works,
being his first effort.

Such was the power of Fryth’s example, that another individual, Andrew Hewer,
(also betrayed by Holt, the miscreant already mentioned,) who had been first
examined in April, and was now brought up again, resolved to follow his steps.
The Bishops used many persuasions to allure him from the truth, but in vain. His
heart was one with Fryth’s, and he told them firmly, that he would do as he had
done. He was therefore condemned. And now at the last, that Henry might have his
full share of the guilt and shame of such a martyrdom, on the 3rd of July it was
noted to him, officially, by Stokesly, sealed with his own seal, how the matter
stood,-but there was no reply, and therefore full consent! Next morning Fryth
and his companion were led forth to Smithfield. Being both bound to the stake,
“there was present,” says Foxe, “one Dr.

Cooke, that was parson of the Church called All-hallows, in Honey-lane, situate
in the midst of Cheapside. The said Cooke made open exclamation, and admonished
the people, that they should in no wise pray for them, any more than they would
for a dog.” At these words, Fryth, smiling, prayed the Lord to forgive him! The
Doctor’s words, however, “did not a little move the people to anger, and not
without cause. The wind made his death somewhat longer, as it bore away the
flame from him to his fellow; but Fryth’s mind was established with such
patience, that, as though he had felt no pain, he seemed rather to rejoice for
his fellow than to be careful for himself!” This painful event was felt and
lamented far and near; and in fact it marks an era, which will be noticed
afterwards more particularly. With regard to that war of opinion, now
effectually kindled in England, which we have seen burst forth so decidedly in
February 1526, and continue without intermission, it was more than ever on the
advance; but it has now become more necessary to discriminate, if we are to keep
pace with the actual state of the country. The positive progress of Divine truth
must on no account be confounded with certain opinions debated, and movements
settled, whether in Parliament or the Convocation. In England were two distinct
parties, with views and intentions as distinct as heaven and earth, or as Divine
truth is from mere political expediency. The former was, properly speaking, the
cause of God; the latter party, though overruled by Him, involved chiefly the
passions and feelings of but one man, or the Monarch, with his obsequious
advisers. The former cause, apparently without one powerful friend on earth, was
certainly, as yet, without a visible leader in England. Notwithstanding both
tire and fury, the rage of Henry, and the vain imaginations of his prelates,
that cause had been feeling its way, silently but effectually, in a thousand
directions; and the parties benefited were scattered among the people, as “a dew
from Jehovah, which tarrieth not for man, nor waiteth for the sons of men.” With
regard to other men, in all the discussions between the Pontiff and Henry, on
the one hand, and between the latter with his Parliaments or Convocations, on
the other, though religion was verbally connected with them, all hated, and all
as yet had equally persecuted, the Truth. Yet feeble and unprotected as the
cause of God might seem, it was essentially the cause of all that happened. All
the other movements were but the ground swell; so that while human passions and
worldly interests were in agitation, the Almighty looked down from heaven, and
in the things wherein they dealt proudly or cruelly, He was above them. In
short, if the names of men are to be mentioned, the cause of Tyndale and Fryth
was that of England’s best hope, and the most untoward events were overruled to
advance it.

One illustration must not here be omitted, as it is connected with the martyrdom
of Fryth. To the outward eye, this was nothing more than the death of an
interesting young man, burnt to ashes in Smithfield, but it proved a decisive
event. Burner has said, indeed, that “this was the last act of the clergy’s
cruelty against men’s lives,” - but from the account already given, this has
appeared to be not quite correct. No doubt the Bishops concerned were guilty to
a man, and especially Gardiner, who intrigued and hunted for the life of his
finest pupil, and who, with Stokesly and Longland, consigned him to the flames.
But the King was as deeply implicated as any one man-nay, most of all, as with
him lay the power of mercy, which, with his pen, or his ring, he could have
extended in a moment. But he commanded the final examinations, and when the
victim was on the borders of destruction, though distinctly informed of this, he
made no reply! No, the martyrdom of Fryth stands by itself in history, not only
as the first perpetrated directly by the King and the Clergy in union; but as
distinguished from those of preceding years, and from all the violent deaths
which were inflicted in England, for five years to come. The preceding
marfyrdoms had certainly been for the truth, and were accomplished by the
Bishops and the Lord Chancellor, without any King’s writ, or direct orders from
the throne, although Henry winked at them all: the deaths that ensued, for years
to come, were state murders by Henry himself. The preceding cruelties and death,
however, it must be observed, were inflicted on men who had abjured, and who
knew they must die; but Fryth had called, at once, both the King and his
prelates to the mark, and they slew him. The former, no doubt, had their
effects, in gradually inspiriting the cause, and advancing its moral courage;
but Fryth’s calm and unflinching intrepidity, his clear and pointed rcplies, his
refitsing either to flee or yield, astonished even his bitterest enemies. As for
the people, they had never excited to any of these deeds of blood: over them
all, many had deeply lamented, but with the death of Fryth they were shocked.
They had seen him embrace the stake, and suffer with mildness and patience, full
of faith, and hope, and joy; and not a few afterwards burned with indignation
against his persecutors. This, in short, was the climax of these early
martyrdoms on English ground, and it was the more deeply lamented as involving
the death of the dearest friend and assistant of Tyndale himself.

Yet was it fit that he should occupy such a place in this noble warfare. The
effect was felt in Parliament, and at its first sitting, on the simple petition
of a poor prisoner, the subject was taken up; not, indeed, by the Lords or
Bishops; not by the King, but by that instrument of national good, corrupt and
servile though it was-the House of Commons. It was then, as we shall see, that
heretics were taken out of the hands of the Bishops, and then that no man was to
be, as many had been, immured in a dungeon, on suspicion of heresy. Even now the
Scriptures were let alone, at least not burnt; nor was any one confined or
burnt, for reading or believing them. It was not a little remarkable, nor should
it now be forgotten, that such a season succeeded the martyrdom of Fryth. In
conjunction with this event, however, we do not forget the favourable
consequences of the marriage of the King; for whatever may be said of that step,
the results being matter of history, of these the reader will be able to judge
for himself, as he proceeds. We only remark here, that the enemies of the new
learning, or of mental freedom, need not have been so incensed with Henry for
the step he had taken, since no English monarch ever gave such proofs of devoted
attachment to their cause, as the “Defender of the Faith;” nor was he now weaned
from discovering that attachment, nay, nor yet will be, to his dying hour. As
for the new Queen, it should also be observed, that of the three ladies which
had been laid out for the King, whichever he had married, the same consequences
would have ensued. The Princess Margaret, the sister of Francis I., and Princess
Renee, the sister of his deceased Queen, had been thought of, in succession, and
by Wolsey himself. Either of these would have had his full concurrence, if it
had so pleased the King, and the matter might then, in all probability, have
been much earlier settled; but it. is remarkable that all the three were of
similar sentiments! In any one of these three, the Monarch would have found a
check-mate, in the bloody game which he had begun to play against the new
learning.

Although, however, from June 1533 the storm was beginning to subside, opposition
to the truth was by no means at an end. On the contrary, so far as the pen and
the press were concerned, the present year stands most of all conspicuous. We
have noticed the slight inaccuracy of supposing that Sir Thomas More retired to
a life of study and retirement, when he resigned the Great Seal in May last, as
for seven months afterwards he continued active as a persecutor. Even then, he
had been writing; but it was during this year especially, that he put forth all
his strength, and must have been busy, night and day, with little or nothing
else than his great controversy. Had “abundance of words” been only reckoned a
mark of greatness, Sir Thomas must have seemed a giant in literature; but now,
the amount of his exertions in this warfare can only be placed among its most
melancholy curiosities.

We have already noticed the first part of his “Confutation of Tyndale,” so
called, consisting of 363 folio pages; and now came the remainder, or five
books, of 573 pages more, or 936 in all! ‘Of these ponderous volumes, pages were
against Barnes, and 786 in opposition to Tyndale!

Sir Thomas was partial to bold assumptions, and must have one, even in his
title, as the word “Confutation” was nothing else; for now, if any man has the
perseverance to wade through his folio, he will find the old Latin proverb fully
apply to many a page-Gratis anhclans, multa agendo nihil agens. It may be truly
said, that the Lord Chancellor, whether in or out of office, was out of breath
to no purpose, and very busy about nothing of any value whatever. To reply to
Tyndale had certainly cost him prodigious labour; but the Chancellor, however
witty, was not the man to answer him, much less overcome; and as for the spirit
and tendency of his writings, we must yet have a little patience, for he is far
from being done! An important diversion from Tyndale personally, now, however,
ensued: his cause was gathering strength. Of these two huge publications, the
last had scarcely come from the press, when there sprung up another writer, and
upon English ground, who disturbed the self-complacency of Sir Thomas not a
little. He was of the Chancellor’s own profession, though, in other respects, a
very different man. An Oxford scholar, he had entered the Inner Temple; had long
been eminent as a counsellor; and, as a man, highly esteemed. A Christian, too,
he was a great admirer of the Sacred Volume, as appeared by his habitual use of
it. “Every night, after his business was past, he read a chapter of the Bible to
those that belonged to his house, and the substance thereof he expounded to
them.” It was natural for such a man to take a deep interest in the times. This
year, therefore, he published anonymously “The Pacifier, or the Division between
the Spirituality and the Temporality,” printed by Berthelet. It was
distinguished for its temperate language, and formed a perfect contrast to the
controversial style of Sir Thomas. He was, therefore, the more censured for the
violence of his writing, as well as his tedious verbosity. The anonymous writer
was held up to him as a pattern. Excited once more, he must commence again; but
he ran on to 580 pages duodecimo, entitled “The Apology of Sir Thomas More,
after he had given over the office of Lord Chancellor of England.”

He very candidly gives us the popular feeling against himself, for, after all
his toil, his Confutation was not read! So far from the high-sounding term
“Confutation,” the author has now come down to an Apology. But even when
vanquished, More could argue still; though certainly a more candid statement of
faults found, has never been given by any author, from that day to this. It is
valuable, as descriptive of the taste and feeling of many; it is honourable to
his opponent, but it proves that the Bishops had better never have employed Sir
Thomas More as their English Demosthenes. After all, our author’s self esteem
was not exhausted; he proceeds to boast that some men had read his book three
times, and then goes on with his Apology. The retired Chancellor’s tone,
however, was now, for a short season, more subdued; though whenever he touched
on the Spirituality, so called, his irritability returns. Referring to Tyndale
and others, he says-“ As for wit and learning, I nowhere say that any of them
have none;” but now this new writer, by his matter and manner combined, greatly
puzzled him. He could not believe so good a man could be an enemy to the
Spirituality, and yet “he says nothing good of them.” Faults, and these alone,
are specified, so that he must be surrounded by some “wily shrews, who have
filled his ear with such statements.” Still, to the manner of this writer, he
must concede the superiority, though he could not imitate it. “The pacifier can
yet use his words in fair manner, and speak to each man gently. I cannot say but
that is very true. Howbeit, every one hath not like wit, nor like invention in
writing; for he findeth many ways of calling evil matter in good words, which I
never thought upon, but am a simple plain body, much like the Macedonians.” As
soon as this Apology came out, which was chiefly against the Pacifier, he
published an octavo pamphlet of 200 pages, entitled, “Salem and Bizance”-a
dialogue between two Englishmen, in reply. Sir Thomas, still fond of an assuming
title, then printed his “Debellation of Salem and Bizance,” extending to above
280 pages in folio! This was followed by the “Apology against Sir Thomas,” who
said no more. This anonymous writer was Christopher Saintgerman. More could
scarcely fail to know the name; but the times were rapidly changing-Saintgerman
was twenty years older than himself, and so highly respected, that when Sir
Thomas referred to him, he had thought it prudent to do so under the appellation
of the Pacifier, or Sir John Some. This gentleman, who lived to the age of 80,
and died in 1540, is better known as the author of “Two Dialogues on the Laws of
England, and the grounds of those Laws”-or of “The Doctor and Student: Dialogues
between a Doctor of Divinity and a Student of Law.” The first had been published
in Latin ten years before this, and both together in English in 1528. His
observations on Law-on “the law of natural reason-of heavenly revelation-and of
man, that is of a Prince or any secondary governor that hath power to bind his
subjects,”-discover a mind far above his age; while, as a lawyer, he was sapping
the foundations of the reigning superstition.

We have noticed him the more particularly on one account. It is by no means
improbable that he came forward this year, not only from principle, but from
feelings of friendship, if not of kindred. His mother’s name originally was Anne
Tyndale; he being the son of Sir Henry Saintgerman, a knight of Warwickshire, by
Anne, the daughter of Thomas Tyndale, Esq.

We have not been able to trace the relationship, but his mother may have been,
in some remote degree, related to our Translator.

Sir Thomas, we have remarked, said no more to Mr. Saintgerman. The reason may
have been that, not knowing when he was beat, he felt as if called away to
battle, once more, with his first and able antagonist. By the month of August,
at the latest, Tyndale’s defence of Fryth against More, and Fryth’s letter to
him, which he had penned in the Tower, had arrived in print, from abroad. The
retired Chancellor then put forth his reply to Fryth, such as it was; which,
though in print since December last, he had kept back, he says, “more than a
year;” and then he fell upon Tyndale, but for the last time. The brief and
unexceptionable treatise of Tyndale, entitled, “The Supper of the Lord,” etc.,
from which we have already quoted, was an octavo tract of about 60 pages. Sir
Thomas, in his usual style, replied, in the same size, to the tune of 282 pages,
besides his preface! It was printed, he tells us, “and many of them gone, before
Christmas.” This was a final effort, and every way worthy of the close of such a
stormy tempest. It is painful to quote his language; but, without noticing it,
no just or adequate idea can be formed of the battle which was fought for the
truth of God, and the emancipation of the human mind; nor, consequently, of the
obligations of this country to the man who, for England’s lasting benefit,
triumphed, and then went on with his work.

Through the whole of this interminable controversy, vindictive as it was from
the beginning, a climax is observable in the violence of the writer. When only
Speaker of the House of Commons, and having no judicial authority, an expression
would drop from him, very different from those that soon followed, though still
it was given in his own wild, not to say profane, manner. “By my soul,” said he
in his “Dialogue,” “I would all the world were all agreed to take all violence
and compulsion away, upon all sides, Christian and heathen; and that no man were
constrained to believe, but as he could be, by grace, wisdom, and good works,
induced; and then he that would go to God, go on, in God’s name, and he that
will go to the Devil, the Devil go with him! There be many more to be won to
Christ on that side, than to be lost from him on this side.” But once he is a
little older, and in possession of power, what a change for the worse is
visible! “There should have been,” says he, “more burned, by a great many, than
there have been within this seven year last passed: the lack whereof, I fear me,
will make more burned, within this seven year next coming, than else should have
needed to have been-in seven score!” The next year he is more outrageous; going
so far as to assure his readers, that the Saviour will pronounce Tyndale to be
accursed, at the last day, because he had derived all his heresies from the
father of lies; while this is expressed in terms by far too Coarse for
repetition. And now that he is come to the last tract, which he so defamed, but
could not answer, we have the last dregs of his gall of bitterness. For want of
active exertion no man could now blame Sir Thomas, although all his biographers
seem to have been cautious of pointing to the amount of his herculean labours
this year. This, however, being descriptive of character, should not be
withheld. Some part he may have composed in the few preceding months, but at all
events, in this year alone, there issued from the press, of his composition,
more than 850 pages in folio, 580 in duodecimo, and 282 in octavo; or above 1700
pages in all! So gigantic were the last year’s exertions of this
controversialist. It must seem strange that all he had said was reprinted in his
English works; but then this was in the days of Queen Mary. Though in a smaller
type, the folio volume amounts to 1458 pages, of which his controversy occupies
above a thousand! It was now nearly five years since More had begun. He had been
writing for the King and the priesthood entire; but the crowning vexation must
have been, that all this mighty stir had been occasioned by only one of those
unpatronised exiles, who, he said, “nought had here, and nought carried hence;”
and one, too, whom neither Wolsey nor the King, neither More nor Crumwell, or
their agents, had been able, as yet, to apprehend.

Such, however, was the great and voluminous advocate for “the old learning;”
though it now becomes due to his memory to observe, that it was only after he
became such, or while so engaged, that he displayed such a temper, and seemed to
labour under a sort of black inspiration. For oh, what a change had come over
the spirit of this man, within the last ten years! It was but a little before
then that Erasmus drew his character, with graphic minuteness, and so
beautifully. If only the half had been true, and there is no reason for
questioning the general portrait, one can scarcely believe that it was the same
individual who lived on, under the same name. But when writing his Utopia, or
rather when lecturing, in earlier days, to a crowded audience, on Augustine’s
work, “De Civitate Dei,” More was one man; and when, approaching to 50, after
that he attacked “the new learning,” he was another. The course on which he
entered in 1528, is also the more deeply to be lamented from the fact, that
there still continued to be redeeming points in his character, standing out in
bold contrast. The rights of persons and property he well understood; to the
human mind only, would he allow none whatever. More’s superiority to the love of
money, and his sterling integrity as Chancellor, in all civil causes, were alike
remarkable; nor was his despatch of business less conspicuous.

Coming into Chancery, which was clogged with suits, some of which had been there
nearly twenty years, at the end of his second year not one was depending. Sir
Thomas Audley, his successor, was far, very far, from being a man of such
despatch. In these causes, too, More would not have known his mother’s children;
for, on various occasions, he nobly shook his hand from receiving of bribes, or
presents in money or plate, to any amount, or of whatever description. When he
retired from the Chancellorship, he did so most honourably poor. Nay, when the
Bishops came to offer him a sum of four or five thousand pounds, as their
grateful return for these wordy exertions in their favour, he not only declined
its acceptance, but, on the hint of their wish to present the money to his
family, he replied, “I had rather see it all cast into the Thames, than that I,
or any of my family, should have a penny of it.” Had the unsuccessful
controversialist only not suffered his vanity to be flattered by Tunstal, when
he called on him, with mock solemnity, by his prelatic licence, to “play the
Demosthenes in English,” as he had done in Latin, and write down Tyndale and his
translation; had he only kept to his Bench, and judged between parties in civil
causes, he had retired with such honour, that there had been not one individual
among the King’s servants who would have stood so high in the eye of posterity.
But it is a dangerous thing for any man to set himself in opposition to Divine
Revelation, or attempt to mingle with it the chaff of human tradition. Sir
Thomas, however, had taken his ground, and the consequence was, that he wrought
himself into such a fury, that even the violent death of his antagonist would
not have allayed it. Too like one of old, who “thought it scorn to lay hands on
Mordecai alone, for they showed him the people of Mordecai;” so the Chancellor
must not only write himself into obloquy, but wash his hands in the blood of
those who believed as his opponent did; that is, in the blood of any man who saw
farther than himself, or went not with him into the depths of superstition. For
him it was truly an evil hour when he delivered himself up to the blind rage of
an infatuated priesthood; for now, in the end, what did it all avail?
Independently of his interference proving an entire failure as to argument, the
same want of brevity having distinguished his writings to the very close, the
same consequences followed, with those which he has himself detailed, after his
Confutation was finished. He was not read! Some curious peculiarities of the
times may, indeed, be picked out of these writings here and there, but it may be
safely affirmed that few men have ever read his controversy through. Perhaps not
one man ever will.

It is, however, now not unworthy of enquiry, whether Sir Thomas More was not
writing throughout the whole of this tedious warfare, under the influence of
apprehension, as well as professed hot displeasure; and that from his
penetrating more deeply than others into the signs of the times. If we are to
depend upon a remarkable conversation with his own son-in-law, Roper, there
seems to be some good ground for the supposition. “It fortuned,” says Roper,
“before the matter of the said matrimony was brought in question, when I, in
talk with Sir Thomas More, commended unto him the happy estate of this realm,
that had so catholic a prince that no heretic durst show his face; so learned a
clergy, so grave and sound a nobility, and so loving obedient subjects, all in
one faith agreeing together!” - “Troth it is indeed, son Roper,” quoth he, “and
yet I pray God,” said he, “that some of us, as high as we seem to sit upon the
mountains, treading heretics under our feet like ants, live not the day that we
would gladly wish to be at league and composition with them; to let them have
their churches quietly to themselves, so that they would be contented to let us
have ours, quietly to ourselves.” In conclusion, the peroration was worthy of
the entire controversy. To compensate for his extreme prolixity, Sir Thomas
intended to print a ninth book to his Confutation, as a summary of the whole. He
commenced and went on so far, but at last he grew weary, or faltered, and never
finished it! The fragment, more than twenty years after his death, was inserted
in his Works. And so ended all his efforts against the man whom he had now
confessed to be “the Captain of our English heretics.” Tyndale’s advantage lay
in his being the advocate of truth; but it was no mean proof of his power as a
writer, that, from motives of the purest patriotism, he had so successfully
exposed one Lord Chancellor, and, from his zeal for the diffusion of the Word of
God, now so effectually opposed a second.

Whether there had been another edition of Tyndale’s New Testament, since his
reprint of 1530, we have not been able to ascertain. Owing to his residence in
Antwerp itself, and the promise of His revising the translation, the printers
were probably restrained. By this time, however, there were the tokens of
increasing demand, perhaps not altogether unconnected with the reigning Queen of
England; but, from whatever cause, the prospect of a large and ready sale will
prove by far too strong for these Antwerp printers to remain still. Let the
market be never so inviting, among all the English printers, of course, not one
dared to move; but to these foreign workmen George Joye represents himself as
saying,-“ If Tyndale amend it (the translation) with so great diligence as he
promiseth, yours will never be sold.”-“ Yes,” they replied, “for if he print two
thousand, and we as many, what is so little a number for all England? And we
will sell ours better cheap, and therefore we doubt not of the sale.”

Thus, notwithstanding the martyrdom of Fryth in June, nay, all that the Bishops
had yet done to terrify the people at home, or the King and his ministers to
prevent importation of books from abroad; notwithstanding all that Sir Thomas
More had written and published; and though there was yet no symptom of any
favourable regard, on the part of even one official man in all England; it
becomes evident that there was to be no wisdom, nor counsel, nor might, which
should be able to resist a tide which had now set in with greater power than
ever. 1534.

Tyndale All Alone After Fryth’s Death-Genesis, Second Edition-Fresh Issue Of The
Pentateuch-Surreptitious Edition Of The New Testament By Joye-The Improved
Edition By Tyndale-Joyecs Interference Explained-Divine Truth In Progress-Harman
In London-Restored To Favour By The Queen-Glance At The Past And Present-The New
Testament Importing In Several Editions, In Contrast With The Dreams Of The
Convocation. IN returning to Tyndale at the commencement of this year, it is
impossible to do so without feelings of sympathy. By a cruel death, and in the
prime of life, on the 4th of July, he had been bereft of that companion who was
dearer to him than any man living. That stroke must have been deeply felt still,
and long would the feeling of bereavement return upon him, more especially when
he sat down to his beloved employment, He had, indeed, toiled in this hazardous
undertaking before Fryth came to him from England; but having for years enjoyed
his company and aid, as well as so highly prized them both, it must have
demanded no inferior degree of Christian submission and fortitude now to plough
through the deep all alone. Tyndale actually had no man like-minded, and the
place of Fryth was never to be supplied. We by no means forget another valuable
agent, John Roger, into whose hands came all that Tyndale had translated; and
who proved so admirable a posthumous friend. But still, in the death of Fryth,
there were alleviating circumstances, as there always have been in the
afflictions of the faithful. Such a glorious exit was well fitted to prepare
Tyndale for his own, and to render it so much the easier, nay, welcome, when it
arrived. We have seen how intensely anxious he was for the character of his
friend, and in this he might now well exult. That young man had fought a good
fight, had finished his appointed course; and, above all, had preserved his
fidelity. He had come home from beyond sea, and shown to all England how a
martyr for the truth of God ought to die, if he must. Nothing remained for him
but the Christian’s great metropolis, the heavenly Jerusalem, the palace of the
Great King; into which he had entered, no doubt, with joy upon every side. In
him there had been no misgiving, not a single word of hesitation, no shift or
evasion, no halting between two opinions, no love of life, no fear of death. His
crown of martyrdom was, unquestionably, by far the brightest which had yet been
won upon English ground, ever since this war of opinion had commenced. As
Stephen of old had fallen asleep amidst the shower of stones at Jerusalem; so
Fryth, also praying for his enemies, had done the same, in the midst of the
flames at London. But, besides all this, there were the noted effects, the
impression his Christian heroism had produced, and the season that almost
immediately ensued. The sky had begun to clear over England for a little season,
and this was quite sufficient to convey fresh vigour to our Translator. It was
this year, therefore, that there appeared a second impression of Genesis, and an
improved, because a revised edition of the New Testament, both of which now
deserve notice. That it was the fixed and unalterable intention of Tyndale to
print an edition of the entire sacred text, there can be no question. He had
already commenced with “the first book of Moses called Genesis, newly corrected
and amended by W.T. MDXXXIIII.” His initials were now, of course, perfectly
sufficient to point out the author; and thus, in the very teeth of a tempest of
more than eight years’ standing, he modestly intimated his firm determination to
proceed as he had begun. Of the four other books of the Pentateuch, copies being
still on hand, these five being frequently bound up together, form what has
frequently been styled the second edition of the Pentateuch. By other local
circumstances in Antwerp itself, however, Tyndale was now imperatively called
away to the revision and improvement of his New Testament; and these
circumstances, hitherto but very imperfectly understood, deserve as well as
demand some explanation. Although Tyndale himself was somewhat annoyed by them,
an ardent and growing desire in England for his translation of the Scriptures
formed the sole cause of all that took place. We have already alluded to the
printers and George Joye communing on this subject. This they had done very
cautiously, unknown to Tyndale; and as Joye was now in Antwerp, it is necessary
to glance at his previous history.

George Joye, alias Gee, alias Clarke, a native of Bedfordshire, a Scholar and
Fellow of Peter-House, Cambridge, had fled from persecution in 1527, and resided
at Strasburg, till he came to Barrow, early in 1532. By his then printing two
specimen leaves, in folio, he is supposed to have beem aiming after an edition
of the Bible for the English market. Before this he had been translating from
the Latin, as he was competent for nothing more, and since 1530 he had put forth
three such translations. Tyndale having been necessarily engrossed elsewhere,
with his tract in reply to Sir Thomas More, and on behalf of Fryth in prison,
relating to the Lord’s Supper, Joye came into closer conference with the
printers at Antwerp. He then engaged in correcting, after his own opinion, from
the Vulgate, an edition of Tyndale’s New Testament, now passing through the
press. Christopher Endhoven, of whom we heard so much seven years ago, being now
dead, the business was carried on by his widow. This, it will be remembered, was
the press at which the first surreptitious edition had been executed; and the
progress of the present one had been very carefully kept secret from Tyndale,
even after his return to Antwerp. This volume, in 16mo, with a title in rubrics,
which was finished at press in August 1534, is now exceedingly rare. Collation.
“The New Testament as it was written and caused to be written by them which
herde yt, whom also our Saueoure Christ Jesus commaunded that they shulde preach
it unto al creatures.”-Title, at the back o[ which is an “almanacke for xviii,
yeres.” The signatures run a to z. A to H. Then the Epistles of the Apostle St.
Paul, on sign Aai, and extend to Ccc. At the end of the Revelation is this
colophons” Here endeth the Newe Testament, diligently ouersene and corrected,
and printed now agayn at Antwerpe by me Widowe of Chrystoffel of Endhoue, in the
yere of oure Lorde MCCCCC. and xxxiiii in August.” A copy of this book, in fine
condition, was once in the possession of George Paton, Esq., of the Custom
House, Edinburgh. When his books were sold, the present writer well remembers
seeing it fetch thirty guineas at public sale. The late bookseller, Mr.
Constable, gave for it double the money, and at last it found its way into the
Grenville collection, where it now is. We are unable to mention another copy.

Meanwhile, Tyndale was very busily occupied in revising and improving the
translation of his New Testament, and in three months only after this, it was
ready for circulation. Out of England itself, too, ere his first sheet had gone
to press, there had come to him a species of encouragement, altogether
unprecedented. This arose from his tried friend Mr. Harman having gone to
London, and the consequences will meet us as soon as we return home from
Antwerp. But before saying more of the book, or of Joye’s interference, we first
present a brief collation,- “The Newe Testament dylygently corrected and
compared with the Greek by Willyam Tindale, and fyneshed in the yere of our
Lorde God a MD and xxxiiij. in the moneth of November.” This title is within a
wood border, at the bottom of which is a blank shield. “W. T. to the Christen
reader,” pages. “A prologe into the iiii Evangelystes,” 4 pages. “Willyam
Tyndale, yet once more, to the Christen reader,” 9 pages. Then a second title-“
The Newe Testament, imprinted at Antwerp by Marten Emperowr, Anno MDXXXiiij.”
Matthew begins on folio ii.; Revelation on ccclv.; and afterwards follow “the
Epistles taken out of the Old Testament,” running on to folio cccc. A table of
the Epistles and Gospels for Sundays, pages-with “‘some things added to fill up
the leffe with all,” 5 pages. The signatures run in eights, and a full page has
33 lines. It has wood-cuts in the Revelations, and some small ones at the
beginning of the Gospels, and several of the Epistles. The second address of
Tyndale to the Christian Reader forms a caveat with reference to Joye’s
interference; and there can be little doubt that the first title with his name
inserted in full, and as having compared the Sacred Text once more with the
Greek, was owing to the same cause. The occurrence, which could not fail to be
felt at the moment, is to be valued now thus far, that it gave occasion for
Tyndale to speak out, and discover whether he had not all along translated from
the original, and was laudably jealous over the precise terms of his
translation. When he alludes to Joye, it is in the language of a scholar, who
could not but regard him as rash and incompetent; and in point of fact, he soon
discovered himself to be a man of very inferior calibre, whether in regard to
learning or sound judgment.

Placed in such critical circumstances as Tyndale had been for years, while every
word of his translation had been so carefully scanned, and a controversy was
actually in dependence at the moment with the Lord Chancellor of England, with
regard to certain terms, there was certainly no trivial occasion both for alarm
and offence. The important word “Resurrection,” Joye had very strangely altered
to “the life after this;” and, in reference to the book generally, “I wot not,”
says Tyndale, “what other changes, for I have not yet read it over.” This word,
an all-important one, was especially so at that season, and occasioned Tyndale
solemnly to profess his faith in the resurrection from the dead; having observed
that the word was not so rendered as Joye had done, “neither by him, nor by any
other translator in any language.” But the alterations were far from being
confined to a single word. In one place, indeed, Joye speaks as if he had mended
only “a few certain doubtful and dark places,” but the truth comes out when he
adds, “I say I have made many changes.” This becomes manifest, from his very
simple explanation of what had been his procedure. When I came to some dark
sentence, that no reason could be gathered of them, whether it was by the
ignorance of the first translator, or of the printer, I had the Latin text by me
and made it plain! And gave many words their pure and native signification! Of
some of these changes he was not a little vain, and, through “Tyndale’s Scribe,”
recommended them to his adoption; but the corrections were worse than the
Vulgate from which they were taken, and his officious intermeddling with a
living Author’s work, put forth as they were after Tyndale’s apprehension, was
deeply offensive to many. The fact was, that Joye, in his ignorance, was
contributing to the corruption of the Sacred Text; and, in one sense, to a
greater degree than the Antwerp printers, who, though they had erred
occasionally, as foreigners to the language, still rose quite above the
specimens which Joye had before furnished From Strasburg. Not a little conceited
of his powers, he had been dabbling with the translation, and with the Vulgate
only before him, as he said, to make it plain! Now, the whole public life of
Tyndale has been not unfitly described, as “a series of hostilities against the
defenders of the Latin Vulgate.” But it became much worse when Joye was taking
liberties with the Vulgate itself, and was quite nettled because our Translator
would not imitate him in his rash folly. In frowning, therefore, upon such
interference, Tyndale only showed his discernment; though, after all, poor
George Joye may now be cordially forgiven for a petulance even tinged with
malignity, owing to a few terms in which he expressed himself. He it is who
contributed his mite to establish the scholarship of our original Translator,
and to an extent but little known to some of our moderns. “I am not afraid,”
said he, in one place, “I am not afraid to answer Master Tyndale in this matter,
for all his high learning in HEBREW,GREEK,AND LATIN, &c.” What other tongues he
referred to, we cannot say; but after this testimony, though uttered in a
miserable spirit, we have no occasion to draw upon the high-flown compliment
paid to Tyndale, but by no mean judge, after he had communed with him at Worms.
We refer to Herman Buschius, the friend of Spalatinus. He mentions other
languages, though not German, as Herbert Marsh imagined; but Hebrew, Greek, and
Latin, with which he begins, are quite sufficient.

Tyndale has been accused of expressing himself too warmly against Joye, but his
words appear to have been dictated by zeal for the purity of the Word of God,
and such as became any man with whose language such freedoms had been taken.
After this, the “Apology” of Joye made matters worse. It involved little else
than an unfair, not to say intemperate and unfeeling attack on the original
translator. Thus, for example, he talks of Tyndale’s long sleeping since his
last edition. Sleeping! So thought not Henry the Eighth; so felt not Sir Thomas
More, whom he had kept thoroughly awake for years; although both the King and
the Chancellor would have been most happy had Tyndale then only drawn the
curtains and retired to rest. Of Tyndale’s eminently laborious life, Joye could
not be altogether ignorant, though it may have been above his comprehension; but
there could be no excuse for the absence of gratitude, much less for the
presence of any evil feeling; and if this Apology, so called, did not come out
till after Tyndale was in prison, as there is reason to apprehend, then no
wonder that the writer was very soon made to feel the consequences. The public
feeling at the moment clearly proves that he must have been blameworthy both in
temper and conduct; for the fact was, though never known before, that for some
months Joye lay under the imputation, both in England and Antwerp, of having
been concerned in the apprehension of Tyndale! This turned out to be a gross
aspersion, as we shall hear next year; but still, as “the merchants of Antwerp,
and many others that were his friends, did greatly blame him,” there must have
been something very reprehensible. “At this juncture,” says one author, “he does
not appear to have possessed that conscientious integrity which would have added
Christian dignity to his character; and it is to be regretted, that whilst he
(at other times) defended the Truth, the Truth does not seem to have made him
free from guile and deception.’’ It was the sin of the age, when almost every
man was taught equivocation from his youth. We have only to add, that Joye could
not remain in Antwerp; but removing as far distant as Emden, he there published
a small duodecimo-“ The subversion of More’s false foundation.” But we shall
hear of him again, after Tyndale’s apprehension.

Few things, however, happened to our Translator which did not bring out the
character of the man more fully,.and to great advantage. But for what had taken
place, we should never have had his noble protestation with regard to his secret
motives, as well as the grand object he had kept in view, ever since he began to
translate. The words may be regarded in the light of a peroration, for they mark
the close of his labours, while still at liberty. Not that he is about to die,
but they were among the last words he had printed before his apprehension, and,
as such, become the more memorable- “Moreover, I take God, which alone seeth the
heart, to record to my conscience, beseeching Him that my part be not in the
blood of Christ, if I wrote of all that I have written, throughout all my books,
aught of an evil purpose, of envy or malice to any man, or to stir up any false
doctrine or opinion in the Church of Christ; or to be author of any sect; or to
draw disciples after me; or that I would be esteemed, or had in price, above the
least child that is born; save only of pity and compassion I had, and yet have,
on the blindness of my brethren, and to bring them into the knowledge of Christ;
and to make every one of them, if it were possible, as perfect as an angel of
heaven; and to weed out all that is not planted of our heavenly Father; and to
bring down all that lifteth up itself against the knowledge of the salvation
that is in the blood of Christ. “Also, my part be not in Christ, if mine heart
be not to follow and live according as I teach; and also, if mine heart weep not
night and day for mine own sin, and other men’s-beseeching God to convert us
all, and to take His wrath from us, and to be merciful as well to all other men,
as to mine own soul -caring for the wealth of the realm I was born in, for the
King, and all that are thereof, as a tender-hearted mother would do for her only
son. “As concerning all I have translated, or otherwise written, I beseech all
men to read it for that purpose I wrote it: even to bring them to the knowledge
of the Scripture. And as far as the Scripture approveth it, so far to allow it;
and if in any place the Word of God disallow it, then to refuse it, as I do
before our Saviour Christ and His congregation. And where they find faults, let
them shew it me, if they be nigh, or write to me, if they be far off; or write
openly against it and improve it; and I promise them, if I shall perceive that
their reasons conclude, I will confess mine ignorance openly.”

Such, while yet at liberty, was nearly the impressive conclusion of Tyndale’s
labours. His enemies were now thirsting, more than ever, for his blood; though
still he has yet nearly two years before him. But the base and artful traitors
have already embarked from England-they are almost in sight! With them, and the
long eagerly pursued victim, very soon, we must repair to the castle of
Vilvorde!

Parliament being now prorogued, one feature of the time is worthy of notice. It
was the exchange of the fear of heresy for the fear of treasons. That bill in
mitigation of the treatment of any who were suspected of the former, is worthy
of remark, as its success has been partly ascribed to feelings excited by the
death of Fryth. One Thomas Philip, who had been delivered by Sir Thomas More to
Stokesly, of London, by indenture, in 1530, had been cruelly detained in prison
by him ever since! Of Philip, who had appealed to the King, but could not gain
access to him, an account is given by Foxe, with an interesting letter of
exhortation to firmness, from “the Congregation,” or those followers of Christ
who met in Bow Lane, Cheapside; but Foxe concludes by saying, that he knew not
what became of him. The truth is, that, at last, he complained to the House of
Commons against Stokesly, and as the Bishop would not appear at their bar to
answer for his conduct, the Commons’ House framed their bill, which had now
passed.

It repealed the statute of Henry IV., by which Bishops might commit to prison on
suspicion of heresy; heretics were only to be proceeded against, by two
witnesses, and to answer in open court; if guilty, the King’s writ must be
obtained, before any sentence could be executed; but it was declared that none
should be troubled upon any of the PONTIFF’S canons or laws, or for speaking or
acting against him. This act was generally regarded by the people as an especial
blessing, since it not only delivered them in a great degree from the paw of
ecclesiastical tyranny, but immediately brought some of the most worthy
characters from their dungeons. Not only did Philip, who had been there for
years, escape, but Thomas Patmore, who had been confined as long, obtained a
commission from Audley, Crumwell, and Cranmer, to enquire into “the injurious
and unjust dealings” of both More and Stokesly. Patmore, who was most probably a
relation of that gentleman who had been so shamefully treated for importing and
dispersing Tyndale’s New Testaments in 1531, seems to have been restored to his
former living. Thus, after a long season of most reckless cruelty, here now was
the dawning of a day of retribution. This year, amidst all the policy, and even
the wrath of statesmen, still absorbed in their own affairs, concurring events,
in which the overruling hand of God had been conspicuous, were favourable to the
progress of Divine Truth in Britain. That cause continued to be one by itself,
and still certainly without any visible Head in England. There had been frowns,
and proclamations, and denunciations; there had been solemn warnings, and
martyrdoms; but never one smile from the Throne, no sanction from the Privy
Council, not one voice in Parliament. But what did all this signify?

We observe edition upon edition of the New Testament, as well as the Law of God,
prepared at a distance, for English eyes. The cause was God’s; by way of
emphasis, His. IIe alone had carried it on, in defiance of all the power and
policy of the nation; and He will continue to do so, after the same marked and
peculiar manner, until the Sacred Volume He was now giving to this favoured
country, shall be completed.

After such efforts made in printing the Scriptures in Antwerp and to the extent
which we have already witnessed, it may naturally be expected that we shall
discover in England itself at least some of the grounds of encouragement. The
intelligence of all that was transacted in Parliament, of course, went to
Antwerp immediately, for there was no city on the Continent where every thing
passing in London was better known, or so soon. The bill introduced by the
Commons, which would have the effect of taking any who were suspected of heresy
out of the hands of the Bishops, was of itself ominous of better days.
Originating in a complaint against the late Lord Chancellor and the present
Bishop of London, and this complaint terminating in such a cure, was better
still. There must have been various other encouraging circumstances, of which we
have no account; but there was one party now in England of whom, till now, we
have heard nothing so tangible and distinct. The reader is fully aware that five
years ago a gentleman of Antwerp, Mr. Harman, was grievously molested by Hackett
the English envoy; that he, and his wife, equally zealous with himself, were
confined in prison for months, and had been seriously injured through the
furious enmity of both Hackett and Wolsey. Such a change had taken place, that
he was now arrived in London, and to seek redress! It is worthy of remark, that
he did not apply to Audley, the Lord Chancellor of the day, though certainly a
very different man from either of his predecessors; nor to Crammer; nor to
Crumwell; but to the Queen herself. The writings of Tyndale had been for years
well known to her; and that she had stolen a march upon his Majesty, with one of
his publications, cannot be forgotten. Unhappy man! It apparently interested him
for the moment, but it was only as the voice of John did the ear of Herod or
that of Paul the ear of Agrippa; since all such impressions, for Henry was not
without them, like the morning cloud or the early dew, passed away. The Queen,
however, though she had been in no favourable situation, had been interested,
and now, it is quite evident, more than ever. At all events, Mr. Harman, or
Herman, fully succeeded in his application, and, fortunately, the very letter
written on his behalf by Anne Boleyn herself has been preserved. The following
is a copy:- BY THE QUEEN. “ANNE THE QUEEN. “Trusty and right well beloved, we
greet you well. And whereas we be credibly informed that the bearer
hereof,RICHARD HERMAN, merchant and citizen ofANTWERP, in Brabant, was, in the
time of the late Lord Cardinal, put and expelled from his freedom and
fellowship, of and in the English house there, for nothing else (as he
affirmeth,) but only for that he, still like a good Christian man, did both with
his goods and policy, to his great hurt and hinderance in this world, help to
the setting forth of theNEW TESTAMENT IN ENGLISH: We therefore desire and
instantly pray you, that, with all speed and favour convenient, ye will cause
this good and honest merchant, being my Lord’s true, faithful, and loving
subject, to be restored to his pristine freedom, liberty, and fellowship,
aforesaid, and the sooner at this our request, and at your good leisure to hear
him in such things, as he hath to make further relation unto you in this behalf.
Given under our signet, at my Lord’s manor of Greenwich, the xiiii day of May.
To our trust and right well beloved, Thomas Crumwell, Squire, Chief Secretary
unto my Lord the King’s Highness.’’f69 Whatever may be said, whether to the
praise or disparagement of Anne Boleyn, it should not now pass unnoticed that no
man, either of influence or office in all England, ever so expressed himself
while Tyndale lived. Nor is this merely a letter of authority; the sentiments of
the writer appear throughout, and it also conveys some information. From one
expression it is evident that Mr. Harman had done much more than coolly import
the volumes. “With his goods and policy, to his great hinderance in this world,”
he had done this. Every one acquainted with the history of the Hanse Towns,
knows how much had been involved in the forfeiture of his privileges as a
merchant adventurer. The “English house,” like all these towns, exercised a
judicial superintendence over its members, and punished them by a species of
commercial excommunication. Mr. Harman had evidently been suffering under this
for years. He had been a friend of the cause, and therefore the friend of
Tyndale. As Crumwell had been appointed “chief Secretary of State” only one week
before the date of the preceding letter, this must have been one of his earliest
acts in that capacity. But the tide is turning for a short season, and so does
the “chief Secretary” with it. On the whole, what singular recollections does
such an incident as this suggest! What a striking difference between even the
letter of Crammer, only eleven months ago, and the present! That involved the
death of “one Fryth going to the fire,” Tyndale’s friend and assistant; this is
in vindication of all that Tyndale had done! We glance at the contrast, only in
justice to the change which had, for this year, taken place; but there is one
other reflection which seems to be forced upon us.

Tunstal, that early opponent, once of great power, was yet alive; and what would
he have said, in 1526, to such a document, from the Queen of England? He is now
professedly approving of the Pontiff’s entire exclusion from this country, nay,
and preaching this to the people; while there is no word now of “the crafty
translation of the New Testament in the English tongue, containing that
pestiferous and most pernicious poison, dispersed throughout all our diocese of
London, in great numbers.” But this is the book itself, and this is one of the
very men who, to his damage and loss, had so heartily imported it. The writer
had these days in her eye when she took up her pen; and yet, says the Queen,
Harman was only acting in character, and doing only what he ought to have done,
“as a good Christian man.” Wolsey and Warham were in their graves. Sir Thomas
More and Bishop Fisher were in the Tower. Tunstal and Gardiner and Stokesly are
muzzled. Norfolk, the Prime Minister, must wink hard. The Secretary of State is
requested to proceed forthwith, “the sooner at this our request;” while Henry
himself, wilful, wayward, and reckless as he was, is, at the least, occasionally
now kept in check by the writer of this letter.

It was fit that the very book which had been so vilified, so trampled on and
burnt, by the King, Wolsey, Warham, and Tunstal; which had been fastened in
derision, by Sir Thomas More, to the garments of Tyndale’s brother, or the men
who were then marched to the spot where they must cast it into the flames;-nay,
the book which had been denounced from the Star Chamber by the King himself,
should at last meet with some such notice as this; and that it should proceed
from the pen of one, who, at this moment, could turn the heart of even such a
Monarch. The Translator himself should never be forgotten, but he never set his
foot on English ground again; the change was the work of no human hand, and more
than the finger of Providence was here. Is it too much to say, that for the sake
of His Blessed Word-first its entrance into this country, and then its
effects-God had shown strength with His arm, and scattered the proud in the
imagination of their hearts? -had put down the mighty from their seats, and
honoured a man of low degree? Nor had the Word, so singularly introduced,
returned to Him void. Think of the many whom Fryth had met with in England
before his death, and of the high character he gave them.

God had filled His own, however poor, with gladness, though of the rich there
was only one at this moment to justify the whole proceeding, and thus far
espouse the hated though uninjured cause. This token of regard on the part of
Queen Anne was not unfelt by Tyndale.

He must have known her sentiments as well as most men, and been fully apprised
of her influence-an influence which had been at once deprecated and dreaded by
the old school. He had learnt also of this incident in sufficient time for him
to lay down at the press one copy of his corrected New Testament, on vellum.
Beautifully printed, with illuminations, it was bound in blue morocco, and the
Queen’s name, in large red letters, equally divided, was placed on the
fore-edges of the top, side, and bottom margins: thus, on the top,ANNA; on the
right margin fore-edge,REGINA; and on the bottom,ANGLIAE-Anne Queen of England.
The Translator, when he put forth his first edition, in that spirit which
Christianity alone inspires, sunk his own name; and would have done so
afterwards, but for the character and writings of his amanuensis, Roye; and this
year the interference of Joye; but here he does so once more. Even his name is
withdrawn, and with great propriety all prefatory matter is omitted. Tyndale was
no sycophant. There is no dedication,- no compliment paid, as there never ought
to be, to any human being, along with God’s most holy Word. The history of this
beautiful book, since it was handled by Anne Bolcyn, above three hundred years
ago, would have interested any reader; but all that can here be stated is, that
the last private individual into whose possession it had come, was the late Rev.
Clayton Mordaunt Cracherode. After his death, in April 1799, the volume came
into its proper place, when, with his large and valuable library, it was
bequeathed to the British Museum. The Scriptures, as translated by Tyndale, were
now coming more freely into England, and were reading in various places with all
eagerness. No man was now molested abroad as Mr. Harman had been, nor was any
man to be tormented at home, for selling or buying, possessing or reading them,
as had been the fashion too long. For the moment at least, the storm was changed
into a comparative calm, and it is curious to contrast all this with the doings
of the Convocation, which sat in November and December. By their own journal, it
appears that they addressed the King before rising, f70 This was on the 19th of
December, and exhibited a striking proof of a house divided against itself.
Their resolution passed both Houses of Convocation, in which they all agreed
that Cranmer should make instance, in their names, to the King, that his Majesty
would vouchsafe, for the increase of the faith of his subjects, to command that
all his subjects in whose possession any books of suspected doctrine were,
especially in the vulgar language, imprinted beyond or on this side the sea,
should be warned, within three months, to bring them in, under a certain pain,
to be limited by him! And that, moreover, his Majesty would vouchsafe to decree,
that the Scriptures should be translated into the vulgar tongue by some honest
and learned men, to be nominated by the King, and to be delivered to the people
according to their learning! The first request exhibits the influence of
Gardiner and Stokesly in the Convocation, the latter that of Cranmer; and it
seems to be evident that the two parties must have come to a compromise, for the
sake of each party securing, if possible, its favourite request; or this might
be a feeler, put forth to ascertain more precisely the existing state of their
master’s mind. At all events, the two requests exhibit glaring inconsistency,
since the books of suspected doctrine might be made to include all the
Scriptures ever yet printed. How Cranmer acquitted himself with the King, is not
upon record. There was, however, no interdict, no collecting of books; but the
reader must not fail to observe next year, when Cranmer comes to attempt a
translation of the New Testament, by actually employing these Bishops, what was
the result, and how they wrangled.

Meanwhile, dreaming, as some of these men in this Convocation were, about the
Scriptures being translated-for it was but a dream-what a singular contrast is
presented in the editions of Tyndale printed this year, and the vindication of
Harman, by the Queen herself, for importing them eight years ago! And now, if at
last, after such long and vigilant pursuit, Tyndale himself was about to be
betrayed into the snare so basely laid for him, his seizure will only add
renewed vigour to the press. Besides the Testament by Joye, we have already
mentioned Tyndale’s own corrected edition finished only in November; but their
year ran on to the 25th of March, and before that day we have not fewer than
three impressions all dated in 1534. The books being nearly of one size, rather
less than Tyndale’s own, may be mistaken for the same edition, but there are
various points of distinction:- I. “The Newe Testament, Anno MDXXXIIII.” printed
within an ornamented compartment; at the top, Jesus preaching on the Mount; on
the right side, the brazen serpent; on the left, Moses with the two tables; and
at the bottom G.H. on a shield, perhaps the initials of the printer; the name,
if found out, will appear in our list. II. “The Newe Testament, Anno MDXXXIIII.”
also in black letter, but not in a compartment, nor having any such initials
affixed. These two books have been compared. The first is in the collection of
Earl Pembroke at Wilton House, the second is in that of Lea Wilson, Esq. They
are in the same type, but the folios of the first are paged throughout, the
second is not paged at all; and there are various characteristic differences,
both in the orthography and the disposition of the pages. III. “The New
Testament, Anno MDXXXIIII” also in a compartment with G. H. &c. This edition,
imperfect, is in the Bodleian, and, as described by Herbert, p. 1543, and Dr.
Cotton, p. 131, might be mistaken for the first mentioned. But this book, though
the numbering of the folios be often incorrect, runs from Matt. fol. i.-ccclx,
falsely numbered ccclxii.; whereas the Testament at Wilton House runs only from
Matt. fol. i.-cccxlvii. This third book, however, owing to what Dr. Cotton has
said, we have ranked under 1535, (see p. 242,) though perhaps the above might
have been also placed there.

Besides these, there is in the Bristol Musemn a New Testament in quarto, dated
on the back 1534-certainly ancient, but the tithe-page is gone,. Dr. Gifford
thought it might have been printed in Scotland, as Lewis did, of one in 1536;
but an acquaintance with the interesting state of Scotland, as about to be
given, precludes every such conjecture. In justification of the anxiety felt by
Tyndale respecting the reprints of his translation by others, it deserves
notice, that in both the Testaments first mentioned, there is an omission which
unfortunately became parent of the same mistake in not a few subsequent
editions. It is in 1Co 11:1-34. The words’’ This cup is the New Testament in my
blood” are left out! The omission, though significant at such a time, could
scarcely be intentional, as it could answer no end; but it occasioned the leaf
to be reprinted in various instances afterwards.

Thus the contrast between the Convocation held in England and these busy men
abroad, furnishes one of the most observable features of the time. It was like a
flag of defiance hoisted in Antwerp, to signalize the moment, or the
consequences, of Tyndale’s apprehension. 1535.

Tyndale’s Apprehension At Antwerp-Imprisonment In The Castle Of
Vilvorde-Distinct Information Conveyed To Crumwell And Cranmer -The Strenuous
Exertions Of Thomas Poyntz, But In Vain-Tyndale’s Progress In Pris0n-The Bishops
Applied To For A Translation Of The New Testament-A Fruitless Attempt-Fresh
Editions Of Tyndale’s Translation, Printed And Importing This Year. THE last
year turned out to be nothing more than a brief respite, or a transient gleam of
sunshine. The present was distinguished throughout, by the imprisonment of
Tyndale abroad, by cruelty and bloodshed at home. The former was an exhibition
of enmity to the truth on the part of its opponents; the latter gave decided
proof of fear for the safety of the throne. But before adverting to the peculiar
state of affairs in England, we first proceed, as in previous years, to enquire
respecting the Translator of the Scriptures.

After a thorough investigation of this period, there can remain no hesitation in
ascribing the apprehension of Tyndale, to the influence and authority of the old
party in England, in alarm at the steady progress of the “new learning.” “A
iolan was laid,” says Foxe, “for Tyndale being seized in name of the Emperor.”
By the ~ame of the Emperor, as now mentioned, could be meant nothing more than
the authority of the persecuring decrees he had sanctioned; but from any share
in this plan, Henry, in the first instance, must be entirely exonerated; as the
chief agents employed will turn out to have been as great enemies to the King of
England, and his royal progress, as they were to Tyndale and his providential
one. For years, it is true, Tyndale had been deemed a man of such importance,
that he had enjoyed the distinction of having been pursued by the agents of
Wolsey the Cardinal, and of the King himself-of Sir Thomas More the Lord
Chancellor, and even Crumwell the future vicegerent; but in the final seizure,
his Majesty had no concern whatever; though at last he will certainly come in
for his full share in the guilt of Tyndale’s death. In the concealment of this
plot from Henry before it commenced or succeeded, we descry, not improbably, the
existing powerful influence of the Queen, Anne Boleyn. Had she been apprised of
it, and moved the King, this might have proved fatal to the scheme.

Up to this hour, it has all along been generally supposed that there was only
one man hired to apprehend our Translator; but there was a second, of far
greater note as to character, joined with him, both in counsel and action; and
so, says Halle, “he was betrayed and taken, as many said, not without the help
and procurement of some Bishops of this realm.” The help, partly consisting in
money, of which we shall find, presently, there was no lack, is to be traced,
therefore, to this source. The Bishops, in 1527, had leagued together under
Warham, and contributed to the strange and fruitless project of buying up the
New Testaments to burn them; and now, though Warham be gone, several survivors
of the same temper were still more eager to consign the Translator himself to
the flames. That Stephen Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester, who had succeeded
against Fryth, was in the secret, and deeply concerned in the intrigue, there
will be little or no doubt presently; but if so, he may have been the chief, for
such was the well-known temper of the man. “Unless,” says Bonner, who knew him
well, “unless he was the only and chief inventor of any matter, he would have
thwarted it.” Tutored and bred up under Wolsey, though the King and the
Cardinal, Sir Thomas More and Crumwell, had not succeeded, and though abroad
neither Hackett nor West, Sir Thomas Elyot nor any other agent, had been able to
apprehend Tyndale; yet intimately acquainted with all circumstances, with
persons and places, and of great address, there was no man now alive who
excelled Gardiner in gaining his end by secret and circuitous methods. As his
strength and skill lay in fetching a compass, like the gyrations of a hawk
before pouncing on its prey, so was he much more likely to succeed in ensnaring
Tyndale than any one who had previously attempted it. At least, no other
individual knew so well how to take advantage of the rising discontent of monks
and friars. The men in England selected on this occasion, were Henry Phillips,
belonging to Poole in Dorset, on the borders of Gardiner’s diocese; and the
other individual, in counsel with him, hitherto unknown, was Gabriel Donne or
Dunne, a monk from Stratford Abbey, who had proceeded to Louvain. The former, a
good-looking young man, acted as the gentleman, and the latter, in disguise, as
his counsellor and servant.

Tyndale had been living for nearly a year in the house of Thomas Poyntz, an
English resident at Antwerp, when Phillips, who had lately arrived from England
as a gentleman, having a servant with him, met him at the tables of several of
the merchants, with whom he was a frequent guest. Having acquired the confidence
of Tyndale, he was invited more than once to the house of Poyntz, who, though he
had some suspicion of him, received and showed him courtesy for Tyndale’s sake.
He thus acquired an intimacy with our Translator’s habits and haunts which he
soon treacherously used for his apprehension. Proceeding to Brussels, he
obtained there the necessary authority from the Emperor’s court, together with
the Emperor’s Attorney and other officers; and in a few days after, having
waited till Poyntz was unavoidably absent from home, he called at his house and
asked for Tyndale, from whom he first borrowed forty shillings, (value, about
£30 of the present day,) and then invited him to dine with him. This was
declined by Tyndale, who in turn invited him to dine with him at a friend’s
house where he was engaged, Phillips, feigning acceptance of his invitation,
went out with him at the hour appointed, but had two officers set in a narrow
entry through which they had to pass. These on a signal from Phillips seized
Tyndale, whom they secured in prison. The Emperor’s Attorney afterwards secured
his books and effects in Poyntz’s house.

Tyndale was soon after sent to the castle of Vilvorde, twenty-four miles from
Antwerp. The friends of Poyntz, who was from home, made immediate application to
Brussels, but without effect. The English merchants did the same through their
governor, but, as he was cool in the cause, their suit was equally vain. The
generous host of Tyndale made every exertion, with a zeal and perseverance far
from common, but ultimately with no success. Intervening events, however, first
demand our notice, as they are connected ultimately with Tyndale’s apprehension.
The state of the Continent at this period having become exceedingly critical
with regard to Henry’s personal security as King of England, it became necessary
for that division of his Privy Council who favoured his movements, to have a
watchful eye over the secret intrigues of the adverse party, and their
correspondents in foreign parts. For ten long years, it is now very observable,
Tyndale had been working abroad, and only for good-to whom the Monarch and his
ministers had been ever opposed; but now, another man is becoming active and
formidable, who, for more than twenty years, and abroad too, shall work only for
evil; his baneful influence extending not only until the death of the reigning
King, but to that of two of his children. This was Reginald Pole, the future
Cardinal, whom Henry had cherished, and educated with a princely munificence,
and even kindness, such as he had never shown to any other human being. The
cousin of the King, and now abroad; of polished manners, possessed of the best
education, having easy access to the highest circles wherever he travelled; the
vivacity of his genius and his playful affability endeared him to all. His
Majesty, having literally made him the man he was, became eager to have his
opinions in writing, as to himself and his movements; expecting, of course, that
they would be entirely in his favour. Pole assented, and, all the time living on
Henry’s bounty, carried on the delusion, His opinions grew into a volume, which
he began in January of this year; and so late as June he had the profound
hypocrisy to give assurances, in writing, that he meant to serve the King in the
cause desired. His book, however, such as it was, had been completed in March,
but it was retained for more than twelve months after that, and shown to select
enemies, just as if intended to produce the more astounding effect on the day of
its presentation, next year.

Now, comparing the last ten years with all those that followed, it is not
difficult to perceive the finger of retributive justice pointing out the
contrast. But it is rendered far more striking from a singular coincidence at
the present period, and never before observed. It was this. Henry’s mind
continued in great kindness and respect for Pole, down to the end of April, or
the beginning of May, this year. It then became necessary to watch him. But the
same man who was now engaged to examine and report as to the state of the
Continent, and the movements ofPOLE; in his very first despatches, brings the
imprisonment ofTYNDALE before the eye of both Crumwell and Cranmer. He writes,
however, merely as though he would invite their sympathy; for it is evident,
from his style, that he had received no instructions to enquire with kindness
after him. The writer, Thomas Tebold, (Theobald,) was a man of no notoriety; but
being well qualified, by shrewdness and address, to answer Crumwell’s purpose,
he was to travel from city to city, and report. He had left England about the
end of June, proceeding first to Antwerp, and by the middle of July commerited
his first letters, despatching them at the end of the month. From these we learn
that he met Phillips at Louvain, who boasted of his treacherous act, and
threatened to bring others into the same net, railing at same time against the
King of England as a tyrant and robber of the Commonwealth. He evidently stood
in dread of the merchants of Antwerp. In another letter addressed to Cranmer, he
shows no scruple at informing the Archbishop, that by dissimulation he had
obtained long and familiar conversations with Buckingham, one of the Black
Friars of Cambridge, who was evidently in the pay of “him that hath taken
Tyndale, called Harry Phillips.” This Buckingham was the man, whom Latimer so
successfully exposed, at Cambridge, in 1526. By this letter it appears that he
must have lived for some time among his brethren, in the Black Friars’ monastery
at Edinburgh, on the high ground opposite the wynd of that name, or nearly in
the site of the present Royal Infirmary. Having received intelligence from
Louvain, Buckingham, in company with some other friar, had left that city about
the 28th of March. There was evidently a bond of union between the parties, and
Phillips paid all charges, possessing, as we have learned, money at command.
Tebold further proceeds to inform Cranmer, that it was evident Tyndale was
doomed to die; that Phillips had said, “that there was no man of his counsel but
a monk of Stratford Abbey, beside London, calledGABRIEL DONNE, who at that time
was student in Louvain and in house with this aforesaid Harry Phillips,” but now
in England where, “by the help of Mr. Secretary, he had obtained an abbey of a
thousand marks by the year.”

Thus, then, whatever is to become of our immortal Translator, by the month of
August, 1535, it plainly appears that both Cranmer and Crumwell were very
distinctly informed of the circumstances connected with his apprehension. The
former, especially, is warned of Tyndale being in imminent danger of death, as
well as of a certain Monk by name, deeply implicated. Was it possible that, in
future life, he could ever forget the name of this man? But whether the
Archbishop or Mr. Secretary then moved one step; or whether Tyndale, to say the
least, was ultimately neglected and forgotten, and this very monk was left at
large to be promoted; it must be left for the sequel to explain. At all events,
Tyndale has still fourteen months to live. Here was ample time to interpose.

Previously to these letters, however, some application had been made to England;
for the report in Antwerp was, that his Majesty had interfered, requesting
Tyndale to be sent back to that city. It was but a groundless rumour! But August
had now come, when Mr. Poyntz, like a soundhearted Englishman, and impatient of
delay, could no longer refrain. At such a crisis, it is refreshing to find that
there was one man true to his crest, throughout; whether Crumwell or Cranmer
move or not. His first step was to send an earnest letter to his brother,
imploring his immediate and most zealous exertion. The presumption is, that this
letter, dated 25th August, at last took effect; for we have now the proof that
Tyndale’s situation must have been explained to his Majesty. Mr. John Poyntz had
been, for twenty years, in familiar intercourse, not only with the Court, but
the King; he had been long about the King’s person, and in the household, though
now at his estate in Essex. Hence the style of his brother’s letter. It was to
be a direct appeal. At all events, Crumwell was roused at last. lie had indeed
spoken with great bitterness of Tyndale, when writing to Vaughan; and we have
seen Cranmer, too, in company with Sir T. Elyot, then charged to seize him; but
the times had now materially changed, and they alike wavered with them. Before,
there was no such Queen upon the throne; and Crumwell could not have forgotten
her letter to himself, last year, respecting Mr. Harman. He, therefore, now acts
very differently, at least for a little moment. Since Marshe, the Governor of
the Merchant- Adventurers, had been complained of as so remiss, the messenger
despatched had been directed to wait upon another person, Mr. Robert Flegge; who
replied 22nd September, that he had with all diligence got the letters
delivered,-that the Marquis of Barrow, to whom one of them was directed, had
left for Germany, but he had sent Mr. Poyntz after him,-that the Marquis had
replied to the application by writing to several of his friends at Court that
they might use their influence in obtaining the King’s request. The other letter
to the Archbishop of Palermo, who had consulted the Queen and Council, was
answered by a letter direct to Crumwell. By Foxe’s narrative, in his first
edition, we learn that Flegge had consulted with the chief English
merchants-that Mr. Poyntz had to proceed sixty miles to the eastward, However,
he overtook the Marquis at Achon, (Alkhen,) fifteen miles from Maestricht. On
reading the letter addressed to him, the Marquis, at first, retorted, that
“there were of their countrymen burned in England not long before “-alluding to
the Dutchmen burnt in Smithfield. Poyntz acknowledged the fact; “howbeit,” said
he, “whatsoever the crime was, if his lordship, or any other nobleman, had
written, requiring him to have had them, he thought they should not have been
denied.”-“ Well,” said he, “I have no leisure to write, for the Princess is
ready to ride.” Then said Poyntz, “If it shall please your lordship, I will
attend upon you to the next baiting place.” The Marquis assented, adding, “If
you so do, I will advise myself by the way, what to write.” At Maestricht,
accordingly, Mr. Poyntz obtained the letters referred to by Mr. Flegge; one to
the Brabant Council, one to the Merchant-Adventurers, and a third to Crumwell.
Mr. Poyntz proceeded direct for London, but there he had to wait during the
greater part of the month of October. “At length,” says Foxe, “the letters (in
reply) being delivered him, he returned and delivered them to the Council at
Brussels, and there tarried for answer of the same.” This was on or before the
first of November. But Phillips being there, following his suit against Tyndale,
and fearing lest he should lose his purpose, he accused Poyntz, who, in his
turn, was apprehended and delivered to the keeping of two sergeants-at-arms, and
a charge of twentythree or twenty-four articles brought against him by the
Procurer-general.

Eight days after, he was ordered to have his answer ready. Meanwhile, he must
send no message to Antwerp, or any other place, but by the Brussels post: he
must send no letters except in German, and these to be examined first by the
Procurer-general: he must speak only in that language, that his keepers might
know every word he said. To this last rule there was but one exception, when an
English N oviciate of the White Friars was allowed by their Provincial to
converse with Mr. Poyntz. It was only a politic step, to ascertain his
principles, before receiving his written answer. Among other topics, Sir Thomas
More and the Bishop of Rochester, and their executions in England this summer,
were introduced, as one key to their purpose. On the eighth day, when the
Commissioners came for the answer in writing, Mr. Poyntz had not his excuse
ready, when they gave him another week.

He then presented a general reply, but they insisted upon a specific answer to
each of the articles, separately. Thus he “ trifled them off” from the first of
November to the twenty-fourth of December. On the morning of that day, they
informed him, that if his reply were not brought in before night, he should be
condemned without it: it was eight in the evening before the Procurer-general
received the document. This led to a tedious altercation in writing, during
which process Mr. Poyntz demanded bail, on security being offered. They at first
assented, but afterwards declined to take any security whatever. He had applied
to the English Merchants in Antwerp, for surety, and had they come forward, it
would have altered the case from a criminal to a civil one; but, strange to say,
if they actually had received the application, it was in vain. In the meantime,
the expenses of this process were accumulating to a considerable amount. During
the whole time, Poyntz was not in a common prison, but in the keeping of the two
Sergeants-at-arms: besides his own expenses, he had to maintain them, so that
the daily charge was not less than five shillings; an enormous sum in those
times. Altogether he had now been detained about thirteen weeks, from the first
of November to Candlemas, which, at five shillings daily, had cost about £23, or
equal to above £300 of the present time. For part of these charges they now
demanded payment or surety, and gave him eight days to settle the matter. Poyntz
sent a messenger to the English Merchants who were then at Barrow (Bergen)
Market, resolving, however, not to wait his return. If taken, he knew it would
be but death, and so during the night he contrived to escape, and at the opening
of the city gates, in the morning, got off. As soon as it was perceived that he
was gone, men on horseback were sent out in pursuit; but he knew the country
well, and at last arrived safely in England.

Here is a man, hitherto unknown, though certainly he now demands our most
grateful remembrance. For his friend he could not possibly do more than he had
done. It was the most memorable exploit in his whole life; and, what is
remarkable, we shall, by and by, find it to have been engraven on his
tomb-stone, which, we are gratified to add, is still distinctly visible, and not
far from London. With respect to Tyndale himself, now in close confinement at
Vilvorde, we are not altogether without information. The fact of his
imprisonment was now well known in England, Scotland, and Germany; and the zeal
against him was “burn ing hot,” especially at Louvain, a place long celebrated
for its ardent attachment to the old learning. This may easily be conjectured
from the men now arrayed, and apparently gathered f together against him. Dunne,
having fulfilled his commission, and for six months done his best, had left for
England; but Phillips and Buckenam, with others, were still at Louvain, only
twelve miles from Vilvorde; and they, in conjunction with the doctors there, had
led Tyndale into discussion. He, having been permitted to reply in writing, was
not slow to answer. “There was,” says Foxe, “much writing, and great disputation
to and fro, between him and them of the University of Louvain; in such sort,
that they all had enough to do, and more than they could well wield, to answer
the authorities and testimonies of the Scripture, whereupon he, most pithily,
grounded his doctrine.”

They had, indeed, now laid Tyndale in prison, but even this could by no means
prevent the progress of his work. It must not pass unobserved, that there came
out this year another, or the third edition, of his “Obedience of a Christian
Man,” and it may very safely be presumed not without his approbation, if not
concurrence, as it was printed at Marburg, where he and Fryth had dwelt. Wolsey
had been five years in His grave, whose policy it so effectually exposed; but
Tyndale had there said, even after the Parliament of November 1529, that, as
they had not uprooted the tree, it would grow again. By the reprint, therefore,
he seemed to repeat, that, in his estimation, much still remained to be done in
England; and he himself was now suffering under the very system he had there
exposed. The republication at this period, however, would certainly not
contribute to his enlargement, nor would it now help to raise him in the
estimation of Henry VIII. Once on a time, it is true, he is reported to have
said-“ this is a book for me and all kings to read,”-but then, to such a man,
there were “hard sayings” in it, and that emotion had died away.

Another piece also now appeared, and appropriate to the war then raging with the
Doctors of Louvain. This was Wicliffe’s Wicket, or an exposition of the words,
“This is my body,” accompanied by Tyndale’s judgment respecting the Testament of
William Tracy.

It was now precisely five years since “the translation of Scripture,” said to be
“corrupted by William Tyndale, as well in the Old Testament as in the New,” had
been denounced by the King of England and his Bishops, “as utterly to be
repelled, rejected, and put away out of the hands of the people, and not to be
suffered to get abroad among his Majesty’s subjects.” But the cause of Tyndale
was that of a higher power, and as evidently for the people. Nothing, however,
had been done, in the meanwhile, to furnish any other translation; nay, at that
time, these men had the daring impiety to say to the people at large -“ You
cannot require or demand Scripture to be divulged in the English tongue,
otherwise than upon the discretion of your superiors; so as whensoever they
think in their conscience it may do you good, they may and do well to give it
unto you: and whensoever it shall seem otherwise unto them, they do amiss in
suffering you to have it!!” They then said also, that this King of theirs “did
openly say and protest, that he would cause the New Testament. to be, by learned
men, faithfully and purely translated into the English tongue; to the intent he
might have it in his hands ready to be given to his people, as he might see
their manners and behaviour meet, apt, and convenient to receive the same!! ” At
the same time, they took care to inform the people that the King “thinketh in
his conscience,” and that by their “deliberation and advice, that in not
suffering the Scripture to be then divulged in English, he did well!!” By the
good providence of God, however, we have seen that, seven years before 1530,
Tyndale had resolved that his countrymen should actually possess the Divine
Word, and thus come to know more of the Scripture than such men as these; and as
both husbandmen and artizans had been brought before Tunstal, Bishop of London,
so early as 1528, Tyndale, confessedly, had laboured with great effect. For nine
years past we have seen one edition after another coming into the country. But
now, at the last, it seemed as if something were actually going to be done, and
by Henry’s learned men. Even the Bishop of Winchester himself told Crumwell,
that by the month of June he “had been spending a great labour in translating
Luke and John!” This was an incident by far too remarkable to pass now without
farther notice; and the more so, as it admits of an explanation, fully as
curious as the fact itself. In the Convocation last December, it will be
remembered that the necessity for a translation of the Scriptures had been
urged, while all other books of suspected heretical doctrine were to be called
in within three months; and though nothing was done as to the latter design, the
King seems to have been addressed as to the former. This was, in fact, a second
implication of all that Tyndale had translated or written. One is curious,
therefore, to observe the first attempt of these men, standing as it does, in
contrast with the hitherto unaided, nay, despised exertions of the persecuted
and now imprisoned Translator and patriot. In proceeding with the plan, Cranmer
took an existing translation,-Tyndale’s, of course, for as yet there was no
other, and having divided it into eight or ten parts, he got them transcribed.
These he transmitted to so many Bishops, the best learned, accompanied by a
request, that each part should be returned to him; with their corrections, by a
certain day. The time appointed having arrived, every portion, including
Gardiner’s, no doubt, is said to have been returned to Lambeth, with one
exception-the Acts of the Apostles, which had been assigned to Stokesly.

Cranmer then sent to Fulham, for the corrected manuscript; but Stokesly, far
less compliant than Gardiner, not being then in such fear of court favour, or of
his neck, only made the following reply:-“I marvel what my Lord of Canterbury
meaneth, that he thus abuseth the people, in giving them liberty to read the
Scriptures; which cloth nothing else but infect them with heresy. I have
bestowed never an hour upon my portion, and never will. And therefore my Lord
shall have his book back again; for I never will be guilty of bringing the
simple people into error.” When the Archbishop was informed of this uncourteous
speech, he merely observed-“ I marvel that my Lord of London is so froward, that
he will not do as other men do.”-“ Why, as for that,” said Lawney, one of the
Duke of Norfolk’s chaplains, who stood by,-“Your Grace must consider that the
Acts of the Apostles are a portion of the New Testament. Peradventure, my Lord
of London knows that Christ has left him no legacy, and therefore he prudently
resolves to waste no time upon that which will bring him no profit! Or it may
be, as the Apostles were a company of poor illiterate men, my Lord of London
disdaineth to concern himself about their Aets!” That such an attempt as this
should have entirely failed, can excite no surprise; and it not only did so, but
Cranmer ever afterwards, from this moment, despaired of obtaining a translation
of the Scriptures by any such means; and of this he will himself inform us, two
years hence. These men of name and pretension must stand aside, for never shall
even a single book of the Sacred Volume be conveyed to their country by one of
them. In contrast therefore, once more, to these prelates, whether in
Convocation, as in 1534, or out of it, as in 1535, in the printing press of
Antwerp we can discover no pause or hesitation; no sympathy whatever with the
scruples of the blind in England, or any fear of the enemy in Antwerp itself.
During last year and the present, not fewer than seven if not eight editions of
Tyndale’s New Testament had issued from the press! Nor was any printer ever
prosecuted, save the first in 1526, or Christopher of Endhoven. Thus, if the
Translator himself throughout the whole of even this year continued to war with
the enemies of Divine Truth on the Continent, it was as if “the stars in their
courses” were fighting with England; nor was there to be any truce in this
contest till the enemy was overcome, nay overruled, and constrained to accept of
the long proffered boon. The editions of the New Testament to be ascribed to
1535 were at least three. Of the first, which has hitherto been ascribed to last
year, Dr. Cotton has said, -“This book was doubtless printed at Antwerp, but
from the great variations observable in it, I cannot believe the date 1534 to be
the true one; especially when it is considered that Tyndale’s own (corrected
copy), from which it is principally copied, did not appear till November in that
year.” But still by their computation, as the year continued to the 25th of
March, till that day 1534 would be their date. Owing to the circumstances now
stated, however, we rank it under 1535. Collation.-Title, within four wood-cuts,
“The Newe Testament, Anno MDXXXIIII.” On the reverse of the title, “The bokes
conteyned in the Newe Testament.” The cut of the Apostle Pard prefixed to the
Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, Colossians, Thessalonians and Hebrews, ia
Tyndale’s edition of 1534, is small; in this it occupies the breadth of the
page. Such is a brief notice of the book described by Herbert, p. 1543, and by
Dr. Cotton, now in the Bodleian Library. That copy, however, is but very
imperfect. Of the second edition, distinguished by its being in folio, one copy
is mentioned by Dr. Cotton to be ascribed to this, if not the following year.
The third edition, in small 8vo, or 12mo, may be easily distinguished by its
orthography, which is very peculiar, having the colophon in large
letters,-“fynesshed 1535.” There is one copy in Exeter College, Oxford, wanting
the first title and preface; and in which the prologue to the Romans seems to be
transposed, but there is a beautiful one, quite perfect, in the University
Library of Cambridge. Collation.-After the first title and Tyndale’s preface,
tables for the Evangelists and the Acts, and “The bokes conteyned in the Newe
Testament,” we find a second title,-“ The newe Testament, dylgdently corected
and compared with the Greke by Willyam Tyndale: and fynesshed in the yere of our
Lorde God A. MD and xxxv.”

There are small wood-cuts at the beginning of each gospel, and larger ones in
the Revelations, with heads of Chapters, supposed to be for the first time. A
full page contains 38 lines. While we at present regret our inability to give an
explanatory account of this book, it remains a great curiosity of its kind.
Witness its orthography, so different from all the other editions:- faether,
moether, broether, maester, stoene, oones, thoese, sayede, whorsse, behoelde.
father, mother, brother, master, stone, once, those, said, worse, behold. But is
it possible that this could have been part of Tyndale’s occupation within the
walls of the castle of Vilvorde? While warring with these Doctors of Louvain, on
the one hand, was he, on the other, at the same time engaged in earnest pity for
the ploughboy and husbandmen of Gloucestershire? This orthography, being
regarded as provincial, so it has been supposed. If the conjecture be well
founded, and Tyndale himself had to do with this edition, it is but seldom that,
in the history of any man, such an instance of the true sublime can be produced.
The book has never been assigned to any Antwerp printer; but if Tyndale only
furnished a list of words, to be employed whenever they occurred in the
translation, the volume could have been printed in Holland or any other place in
Brabant. At all events, the book comes before us in the light of a step in
advance, or additional triumph. The Translator was “suffer ing trouble as an
evil doer, even unto bonds; but the Word of God was not bound,” nor to be bound.
To those who have not before been acquainted with the history of the English
Bible, and in conclusion of the year 1535, one fact remains to be stated, which
must occasion some surprise. For some time past, there had been another
translation of the Scriptures into English in progress, which was now completed.
From the degree of mystery which still hangs over it, the undertaking must have
been conducted with great privacy; but it is a curious and not unimportant
circumstance, scarcely before observed, if indeed at all known, in connexion
with the late Lord Chancellor, so barbarously put to death by Henry, in July;
that, though not a party concerned in the cost, while yet alive, nay, long
before his death, and at the very time he was writing against Tyndale, with this
proceeding he may, if not must, have been acquainted all along, even from its
origin! From a single line throughout his many pages, no one could have imagined
this; but the evidence will come before us in due time.

Meanwhile, it was on the 11th of October that the last sheet was put to press,
under the eye of Miles Coverdale. Printed, as it had been, abroad, copies could
not have been ready for importation to England, till about the opening of next
year, at the soonest; but if any had reached this country, at whatever time, the
book, owing to very peculiar circumstances, to be explained, could not have been
shown to Henry the Eighth before the month of June. This, indeed, was the
earliest moment; for, most probably, it was not presented to the King till much
later in that year. But the origin and history of this translation we must
reserve for the year following, or 1537. Then, only, can we view with advantage
and effect, the whole case at once, and in comparison with that translation, on
which our eye has been fixed from the beginning. In other words, Coverdale’s
will then be compared with that Bible which became the prototype, or basis, of
all that have since followed, to the present day. No such digression is
admissible here, as the reader must be impatient to follow the history of that
memorable enterprise, which has engrossed his attention throughout all the war,
as well as that of the man who had been raised up to carry it on to victory.
1536.

Last Year Of Tyndale-Anne Boleyn-The New Or Unprecedented Convocation-Latimer
Preaching Before It-State Of Parties There-Old And New Learning-Proceedings In
Convocation-The First Articles-Crumwell’s First Injunctions-No Bible
Mentioned-Tyndale’s Latter Days-Phillips Once More-Indifference Of England-The
Court Of Brussels-Home And Abroad Now Deeply Implicated-The Martyrdom Of
Tyndale-Poyntz, The Friend Of Tyndale-Future History Of The Miserable
Betrayers-The Only Prosperous Cause, Or The Year Which Excelled All The
Preceding.

WE are now within nine months only of the martyrdom of Tyndale, but it is
necessary that the reader should have before him some of the leading events that
transpired in England during that period, as they have a direct bearing on his
character, and life-long exertions to give the Word of God to his country. On
the 5th of January, Queen Catherine died, and before the month closed, Queen
Anne was delivered of a son, stillborn; but, before this she might have
perceived that Henry’s affections had begun to waver. He manifested this more
openly them, and his passions having already strayed in search of another
object, all her endeavours to recall them to herself were vain.

Indeed, before the sorrowful mother was fully recovered from her languor and
distress, her death had been resolved on, and steps taken and deliberately
pursued for this purpose with the most dexterous secrecy. The mock trial and
judicial murder of the Queen, the marriage of the King next day to Jane Seymour,
are scenes with which every reader of English history is familiar; but the part
which the votaries of the “old learning” took in the plot, and their exultation
in its success, have been less observed. In their feeble apprehension, the great
obstacle to the revival of their influence was now removed, Rome itself was
seeking to regain the ear of Henry through her messengers, who seem to have been
well aware of his wavering affections long before the unhappy victim herself,
and sought to divert them into a channel favourable to their purpose, But all in
vain; partly by the marriage into which he had plunged so barbarously, and
partly by the policy of Crumwell. Queen Jane was favourable to the “new
learning,” and King Henry wanted more money, which only the suppression of
monasteries could yield. Not all the subserviency of the clergy, or the Jesuitry
of the Court of Rome, could bend him from a course which gave him so pleasing a
prospect of augmented revenue, while he was overruled to allow a greater measure
of liberty to the circulation of the Scriptures than had hitherto been enjoyed.

Henry, having called a new Parliament, on the 8th of June, had resolved also to
have a new Convocation, and one differing in its character from all that had
preceded it on English ground, or, indeed, anywhere else. Of the Parliament we
can already judge. “Henry’s two divorces having created an uncertainty as to the
line of succession, Parliament had endeavoured to remove this, not by such
constitutional provisions in concurrence with the Crown, as might define the
course of inheritance, but by enabling the King, on failure of issue by Jane
Seymour, or any other lawful wife, to make over and bequeath the kingdom to any
person at his pleasure, not even reserving a preference to the descendants of
former sovereigns!’’ But we have now to look into the Convocation. The confusion
and misrepresentation which reigns throughout almost all our general histories,
respecting this Convocation and its results, more especially with regard to the
English Bible, render it imperatively necessary for the reader to observe what
actually took place. Having already witnessed the failure of these Prelates in
1534 and 1535, their procedure in 1536 only invites the more careful inspection,
if not the deeper interest. A universal mistake has consisted in the supposition
that Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, then ambassador at Paris, was here present;
but there are many others, especially in relation to the Scriptures in
English.f75 The friends of the “old learning” round the King, included two
distinct parties-the nobility and the clergy. the present prospects of these
two, were direct contrasts to each other. The former were looking forward, with
eagerness, to the acquisition of property; the latter were trembling in the
apprehension of losing it. The nobility were happy to aid the King in his late
affair, and had borne him through it; but certainly not without full expectation
of his recollecting their services, for they had laid the King under a debt of
gratitude; the clergy had also rejoiced in the death of the Queen, and will
immediately give their official sanction. But then, it was not to follow as a
matter of course, that because this latter party had gone along with Henry in
his bloody progress, that he was to aid them, or even spare them, as a body, in
theirs. By no means. On the contrary, the clergy, at all events, must prepare
for farther inroads and fresh humiliation.

Crumwell had, last year, been, very conveniently, made “Vicegerent,
Vicar-General, and Commissary Special and Principal,” involving vast powers;
placing him, in fact, next to the royal family, for specific and prospective
purposes; and we have now to see the height to which he thought himself entitled
to act. The Convocation had met on the day after Parliament, or the 9th of June.

Cranmer had resolved to try what a sermon could effect at the opening. We have
seen how eager he was respecting Latimer preaching before the Court, and he
appointed him now to preach before the Convocation. His text was appropriate
enough. “The children of this world are wiser in their generation, than the
children of light,” -and he did not fail to speak as he thought. He delivered
two sermons, on the same day, from this text, and in the afternoon, especially,
came to the point. Perhaps nothing of the kind ever equalled the keen and
searching power of these discourses, in which he bore testimony to the piety
prevailing among the people of England, and inveighed against the clergy, not
only for the little they had done to promote that piety, but for the opposition
they had offered to the cause of truth. He details at length the evils to be
removed, and urges them all to “do something whereby they might be known to be
the children of light,”-as “all men know that we be here gathered, and, with
most fervent desire, breathe and gape for the fruit of our Convocation;” and “as
our acts shall be, so shall they name us.” After warning them by that wicked
professor who “beat his fellow-servants, and did eat and drink with the
drunken,” he closes all by saying:- “Come, go to, my brothers; go to, I say
again, and once again go to, leave the love of your profit; study for the glory
and profit of Christ; seek in your consultations such things as pertain to
Christ, and bring forth, at the last, something that may please Christ.-Preach
trhly the Word of God. Love the light, walk in the light, and so be ye the
children of light, while ye are in this world, that ye may shine in the world
that is to come, bright as the sun, with. the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Spirit, to whom be all honour, praise, and glory. -Amen.” This stringent and
intrepid discourse must have been as gall and wormwood to many who were present;
but it certainly was meet, that some such address should salute their ears, and
at such a time as this. It was fit that they should be told, when thus all
assembled to hear, that already there were among the PEOPLE “many children of
light;” while they had not yet done one thing, whereby the inhabitants of
England had profited “one hair.” It was fit that Tunstal should be reminded,
thus publicly, of his miserable injunction in 1526, and his torturing
examinations in 1528, and his burning of the Sacred Volume in 1530: nay, that in
that very St. Paul’s, where, after his return from Spain, he had denounced the
New Testament, of which now so many editions had been sold and circulated, he
should have to sit still and listen to such harrowing interrogations as these.
And although some may question the delicacy of Latimer introducing himself, more
especially as he was reverting to the most humiliating scene in his past life,
perhaps the solitary speck in his public character; still it was fit that the
cars of Stokesly and his fellows should be made to tingle, in remembrance of
their past cruelties. Stokesly had actually officiated, before the sermons
began! In short, taking the discourse all in all, a more perfect disclaimer of
any thing having, as yet, been done, by these men in England, could not have
been given; nor a higher attestation to the powerful, though denounced,
exertions of Tyndale, as well as to their positive and extensive effects. It was
only in perfect keeping with all that has been recorded, that such an eminent
and distinct testimony should have been delivered before an assembly of foes and
friends, at St. Paul’s in London, three months before Tyndale received the crown
of martyrdom, -and that by Latimer, the man, among all present, best qualified
to judge.

It becomes of no little curious importance to observe who were actually
assembled to hear all this; and the more so, that the statements frequently
given have been both defective and erroneous. Of the twenty-one Bishops, sixteen
were present at the Convocation, and two voted by proxy. As for the other three,
not present; Gardiner of Winchester was still in France, where indeed he
remained for above two years. Athaqua or Attien, Bishop of Llandaff, if yet
alive, being a Spaniard, could not now vote; and Kite of Carlisle, once
Archbishop of Armagh, an appointment which he had received from Leo X. in 1513,
and resigned for Carlisle in 1521, was now in extreme old age, and died next
year. But besides the sixteen Bishops present, there were forty mitred Abbots
and Priors, or fifty-six in all. In the lower house fifty members attended,
namely, twenty-five Archdeacons, seven Deans, seventeen Proctors, and one Master
of a College. Of the eighteen who voted from the Bench, those who were with and
against Cranmer will show how equally they were divided when discussion began.
We give them, with the dates of their appointment:- 1531 . Lee of York. 1533 .
Cranmer of Canterbury. 1530 . Stokesly of London. 1534 . Goodrich of Ely. 1530 .
Tunstal of Durham. 1535 . Shaxton of Salisbury. 1520 . Longland of Lincoln. 1535
. Fox of Hereford. 1519 . Vesey of Exeter. 1535 . Latimer of Worcester. 1533 .
Clerk of Bath. 1535 . Hilsey of Rochester. 1534 . Lee of Lichfield. 1536 .
Barlow of St. David’s. 1534 . Salcot of Bangor. 1536 . Warton of St. Asaph. 1536
. Rugge of Norwich. 1536 . Sampson of Chichester.

Thus, although the reader will still recognise well-known enemies to the
progress of Divine Truth, and to Tyndale personally, he will observe that the
coast is clear of the aged and literally blind Nix of Norwich-of West of Ely,
the crafty foe of Latimer-of Standish, the slanderer of Colet and Erasmus-of
Fisher, the ablest opponent of the new learning-and of Cardinal Campeggio of
Salisbury, as well as Ghinucci of Worcester, two Italians, ever ready to support
the old-besides five others. If death had not thinned the ranks of these men, it
is evident that Cranmer had been left in a small minority; but it now appears,
that, since his appointment, only three years ago, as many as eleven vacancies
had occurred, and of these not fewer than eight voted with him. So late as the
31st of May, the other party had been strengthened by Rugge alias Repps, being
elected for Norwich; but it shows the keenness of Crumwell and Cranmer, that on
the very day before the Convocation, they got Warton into St. Asaph, nay, on the
day of opening, having procured Sherburne’s resignation, they put Richard
Sampson, the King’s great champion, in his place. Even then, however, they
divided, it appears, nine to nine. Fortunately for Cranmer’s peace, Gardiner was
not there, and two disciples of the old learning voted only by proxy, viz.
Exeter and Lichfield, for whom Longland of Lincoln acted.

Preliminaries being adjusted by Friday the 16th of June, the old party in the
lower house had prevailed in securing one of their number to be Prolocutor in
the Convocation. This was Richard Gwent, an Archdeacon of Stokesly’s, now
presented and confirmed by the upper house. But by way of keeping the balance
even, or rather of discovering how strong was the rod of royal authority over
them, there entered, on the same day, not even Crumwell himself, for he was as
yet too busy with Parliamentary affairs, but Dr. William Petre, as his deputy!
He claimed the precedency due to his immediate master, and the commission he
brought with him being read, Cranmer assigned him his place, next to himself.
Some might well question, and probably did, as Fuller supposes, whether “a
deputy’s deputy” might properly claim his place who was principally represented.
It has been said that it was with difficulty that the clergy suppressed their
murmurs at Crumwell’s appointment to his office -a man who had never taken
orders, nor graduated in any University; but their indignation increased, when
they found that the same preeminence was claimed by any of his clerks, whom he
might commission as his deputy at their meetings. On Wednesday next, however,
the 21st, Crumwell entered, and as VICEGERENT AND VICAR-GENERAL seated himself
judicially above all. He then presented them an instrument, annulling the King’s
marriage with the late Queen. They all signed it, and one party most willingly,
though, as already noticed, the measure did not pass the House of Lords till the
30th. On Friday, the 23rd of June, Gwent brought up from the lower house, a long
list of what they styled mala dogmata, or erroneous doctrines. The number
amounted to not fewer than sixty-seven; and it now remained for Cranmer,
Latimer, and others, to say, what was to be done with them; for this was no
other than “The protestation of the Clergy of the lower house, within the
province of Canterbury.” As a picture of the men within these doors, and of the
opinions that were now travelling the country, the document is of value. The
puerility and the absurdity of most of the items, strikingly evince the degraded
state of the human mind, in those who sanctioned the list; while, on the other
hand, some of those very items prove, that, in the face of their most furious
opposition, Divine Truth had already found its way into a thousand channels.

Independently of Latimer’s testimony, this was a second, and from many
individuals. If it be said that their alarm may have led them to exaggerate the
good that had been done, it must be remembered that God had been carrying
forward His work with secret energy, and that they were not the men to know all:
but still they come forward in proof that the Sacred Volume, so far from having
been read in vain, had already produced some of its finest effects, and, it may
safely be presumed, to a considerable extent, since they affirmed that these
truths were “commonly taught and spoken.” It is true, that all this had been
accomplished in the face of opposition, and certainly without the bold and
public sanction of any present; but, though it has been too little observed, the
moment was a crisis in the history of England, more important than any one that
has since occurred in her eventful history. As far as the vital interests of
Christianity itself are concerned, who is there now, understanding these
interests, who can forbear to exclaim -“Oh! had they but let ‘well’ alone! and
left those cardinal principles, which the majority of these men now branded as
evil, to have found their way into every city and hamlet, till they had leavened
the community!” But no; the perfection, the all-sufficiency of the Sacred Volume
to accomplish all the purposes of the Divine will, was a tenet held by no one
there. And now the war grew warm, the strife interminate, for what else could be
expected from an assemblage such as this? Cranmer alone, as yet possessed of no
fixed principles, nor any distinct conception of where he was going, though even
backed by Latimer, with all his wit and shrewdness, could have done nothing.
Even in the absence of Gardiner, they would have been crushed or overruled.
Queen Anne was gone, and the old party had determined to try their strength.
“Oh!” exclaims old Fuller, “what tugging was here, betwixt those opposite sides,
(for I dare not take Bishop Latimer’s phrase, as he took it out of his
text-betwixt the children of this generation, and the children of light,)
whilst, with all earnestness, they thought to advance their several designs.”
The truth is, that the House of Lords itself was often interrupted in their
business by these men; and in their “Journal,” the reason recorded for many
adjournments was this, that the Lord Bishops “were busy in the Convocation.”

It was while these discussions were proceeding, or rather about their
commencement, that a notable scene occurred, in which Alexander Ales, a native
of Edinburgh, made a conspicuous appearance. One day, as Lord Crumwell was
proceeding to the house, he met Ales “by chance on the street,” and, as if
determined on still farther humiliation of the Bench, “he called him, and took
him with him to the Parliament house, to Westminster.” Upon entering, all the
Bishops “rose and did obeisance to their Vicar-General, and after he had saluted
them, he sat him down in the highest place.” “Right against him sat Cranmer and
Lee as Archbishops; and then Stokesly and Longland, Shaxton and Clerk, Goodrich
and Fox, Sampson and Rugge, Latimer and certain others,” adds Ales, “whose names
I have forgotten.” “All these did sit at a table covered with a carpet, with
certain Priests standing about them.” The Vicar-General of the Realm commenced
by stating the object for which they had been convened, to “determine certain
controversies concerning the Christian faith in this realm;” that the “King
studied night and day to set a quietness in the Church;”-that such controversies
“must be now fully debated and ended through their determination;”-that he
desired that they would conclude all things by the Word of God, for his Majesty
would not “suffer the Scriptures to be wrested or defaced by any glosses, or by
any authority of Doctors or Councils, much less would he admit any articles or
doctrines NOT contained in the Scripture;”-finally, that His Majesty would give
them high thanks if they would “determine ALL things by theSCRIPTURE, as God
commandeth in Deuteronomy.”

However strange the former part of this address must appear to every enlightened
Christian now, toward the close the trumpet gave a certain sound; and, so far as
words could convey meaning, no man present could misunderstand the message. But
what followed? “After this,” says Ales, “they began to dispute of the
sacraments.” First of all, the Bishop of London, Stokesly, (whom, a little
before, Crumwell had rebuked by name, for defending of unwritten verities,) went
about to defend that there were seven sacraments of our Christian religion,
which he would prove by certain glosses and writers; and he lind upon his side
the Archbishop of York, the Bishops of Lincoln, Bath, Chichester, and Norwich.
The Bishops of Salisbury, Ely, Hereford, and Worcester, and certain others, with
the Archbishop of Canterbury, were against him. After they had made much strite
and contention about the sayings of the doctors, Cranmer rose and reminded the
Convocation that the very subjects they had met to discuss, as well as their own
character and office forbade brawling about mere words;-that “the controversies
now moved were not of ceremonies or light things, but of the true understanding
and of the right difference of the Law and the Gospel-of the manner and way how
sins may be forgiven-of comforting doubtful and wavering consciences, by what
means they may be certified that they please God, seeing they feel the strength
of the Law accusing them of sin-of the true use of the sacraments, whether the
outward work of them doth justify a man, or whether we receive our justification
through faith-what constituted good works-what were the traditions which bound
men’s consciences; and finally, whether the ceremonies which were not instituted
by Christ, ought to be called sacraments or no.” This assembly, to a man, had
already acknowledged Henry to be the Supreme Head of their Church, and now also
had made obeisance to his Vicegerent, their Vicar-General; but such was the
catalogue of affairs brought forward, and as explained by Cranmer himself. He
did not stop to inquire whether the men whom he urged to engage in discussion
were peace-makers, were the sons of God, were Bishops indeed,-but, waiving this,
here was a field for strife and debate, confessedly wide enough, if not
boundless, and as now spread out, it certainly exhibited a strange mixture of
truth and error; where the mere acts of outward conformity were mingled with the
inward feelings of mental obedience; and comparative trifles were enumerated in
company with matter of divine authority. But still, should Cranmer commence with
faith and not with obedience, or with what he styled “the principal points of
our Christian religion,” or “high and earnest matters,” and NOT with ceremonies,
an effectual turn may yet be given to discussion. Two steps were before him, the
right and the wrong; and as he had precedence, and was about to state the order
of debate, and now had this in his own hands, one naturally waits with anxiety
to hear his decision,-and here it was. “W’herefore, in this disputation we
mustFIRST AGREE of the number of the SACRAMENTS, and what; a Sacrament doth
signify in the holy Scripture; and when we call Baptism and the Supper of the
Lord. sacraments of the Gospel, what; we mean thereby!”

How much of mental misery, nay of bloodshed, has sometimes depended upon only a
few words, uttered by one man, when in possession of what is called
power-official power! To such a momentous instant, Cranmer had now come. By his
ingenuous confession afterwards, he came to the knowledge of divine things “but
by slow degrees, or by little and little;” but had he only known how much of his
own future misery, as well as that of many others, now hung as on a hair,
depending on his course of debate, or his decision as to the order to be
pursued, he must have paused, if not shrunk back. That the example which he now
first set and sanctioned, both as to “Articles” and the order of discussion, was
to form a precedent down to the Act of Uniformity, and farther still, was far
beyond his foresight: though had he taken only one leaf out of the masterly
writings of the man, so denounced both by his royal Master and his singular
Vicar- General, he had never so decided. For twelve long years Tyndale had been
warning with the darkness which brooded over his native country; and although
perambulating the very field of battle on the Continent, with a judgment and
prudence peculiar to himself, he would on no account first engage in the Bellum
Sacramentarium; but Cranmer here plunges into it at once, and that too in
discussion with men who discerned not the things of the Spirit of God; but who,
to this hour, had been the notorious persecutors of the truth, as well as of
every man who had imbibed the love of it. Cranmer, however, was emphatically
now, a man under authority. But to proceed,-Lord Crumwell observing, by his
countenance, that Ales was pleased with Cranmer’s address, thought it the proper
moment to call upon him; and having introduced him to all present, under the
high appellation of “the King’s Scholar,” he desired him now to say, what he
thought of this disputation. The exiled Scotsman complied, maintaining
throughout, and for the first time upon English ground, for many centuries,
before any such audience, that there were only two Sacraments,-easy to be kept,
and very excellent in signification,-and that these were “ Baptism and the
Supper of the Lord.” Stokesly sat with impatience, and at last fired,-saying of
what Ales had [affirmed-“ It is all fake.” To this he answered, “I will prove
all that I have said to be true, not only by the Scripture, but by the old
doctors, and by the School writers also.”

Upon this Edward Fox, Bishop of Hereford, interposed, and, in a noble address,
warned his brethren that they could not “by sophistical subtilties steal out of
the world again, the light which every man doth see.” “The people,” said he, “do
now know the Holy Scripture better than many of us.

Now many things be better understood without any glosses at all, than by all the
commentaries of the Doctors.” He then warned them not to make themselves a
laughing stock to all the world, or to give the people the opinion “that ye have
not one spark of learning, nor yet of gentleness in you.” He concluded with the
noble sentiment:- ‘‘Truth is the daughter of time, and time is the mother of
truth. And whatsoever is besieged of truth, cannot long continue; and upon whose
side truth doth stand, that ought not to be thought transitory, or that it will
ever fall. All things consist not in painted eloquence, and strength, or
authority. For the truth is of so great power, strength, and efficacity, that it
can neither be defended with words, nor be overcome with any strength: but after
she hath hidden herself long, at length she putteth up her head, and appeareth.”

Encouraged by this oration, and confining himself to the Sacred Volume, Ales
proceeded to ply the Bishop of London with this argument-“Sacraments be signs or
ceremonies, which make us certain and sure of the will of God-but no man’s heart
can be certain and sure of the will of God, without the Word of God. Wherefore,
it followeth, that there be no sacraments without the Word of God. And such as
cannot be proved out of the Holy Scripture, ought not to be called sacraments.”

Stokesly, however, again interrupted him and said-“ Let us grant that the
sacraments may be gathered out of the Word of God, yet are ye far deceived, if
ye think that there is none other Word of God, but that which EVERY souter and
cobbler DOTH read in this mother tongue!” The Vicar- General and others smiled
when he had done; but it was now twelve o’clock, and time to disperse. The next
day, however, when the Bishops were again met, this dangerous man of Edinburgh
must not be admitted. He was punctually present with Lord Crumwell, and ready to
accompany him; but poor Cranmer, ever in character, timid and time-serving,
became alarmed as to consequences, and sent to Ales to inform him that the
Bishops had taken offence at the admission of a stranger into the Convocation;
and Crumwell himself thought it best for the present to give way to the Bishops,
lest they should find worse means of getting the intruder out of the way. So he
kept Ales back, making use of his papers only during the remaining discussion.
The obvious purport of this dispute respecting the ordinances of Christ, here
styled sacraments, was, whether there were seven, or only two; and Ales firmly
maintained his ground, but his arguments had no effect whatever in swaying such
men. In these circumstances, what was to be done? To one of the parties it
seemed at last, that some expedient must be devised, to enforce obedience or
conformity, silent or quiet submission. But where did the power reside?

Only in the breast of a man, who had been washing his hands in blood, and
“following the sport” on the day of his Queen’s execution! In the language of
sacred writ, that he was also “proud, knowing nothing, but doting about
questions and strifes of words,”-“ vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind,” we
have already had but too much evidence; only he was now about to proceed one
step farther, and should he only fix on more sacraments than two, all must
yield, and at least bow assent. Of course, neither Henry, nor any of his
advisers, understood that Christianity, as revealed in the New Testament,
repudiated all constraint of receiving and holding opinions by human authority;
or, to use a word often employed since, all “imposition; ” that the nature of
faith did not admit of this-that God himself had appointed no such means to
enforce belief, nor nominated any Vicegerent to attempt this-that dominion over
conscience is God’s exclusive province, within which, especially, His name is
“Jealous”-that any man, therefore, presuming to enter here, must needs be an
usurper, demanding blind submission,-so that whatever means be adopted, they
must be nefarious. But, apart from all these vital considerations, so far as the
present uproar was concerned, both Crumwell and Cranmer well knew, that they had
only to repair to the royal presence, and describe this scene of strife,-“the
perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, who
supposed that gain was godliness.”

They did so at last, when a message arrived from Henry. He soon stilled the
tumult, very much in the manner of Sardanapalus of old-“Sic volo, sic jubeo, and
let my will for reason stand.” These men had been convoked, in fact, not to
discuss, but to “do the King’s business.” The form in which this settler came,
was in that of certain “Articles,” which all must subscribe. They were strangely
enough entitled-“Articles devised by the King’s Highness’ Majesty, to stablish
Christian quietness and unity among us, and to avoid contentious opinions!”

These, the first articles propounded in England, though not originally composed
by Henry, were carefully revised by him; at least, in the preface, he speaks of
having, in his own person, many times, bestowed on them “great pain, study,
labour and travail!” No doubt, Cranmer and his coadjutors had done their best
before then; and if, after passing through such an ordeal, these articles are to
be regarded as the amount of their united wisdom, they only discover what
darkness and confusion still reigned in the minds of all men in power. It is not
only the substance, but the order in which they are stated, which, at once,
betrays this confusion. At the same time, we now discover that Cranmer must have
had his secret reason for passing over every Christian doctrine, or matter of
belief, and giving it out as imperative, that they must begin with the
sacraments! So it was with the Articles: for after simply allowing the
particulars of the Christian faith to be contained in the Scriptures, but
joining with them the Nicene and Athanasian creeds; we have 1. Baptism. 2.
Penance. 3. The Sacrament of the Altar, or the Mass. 4. Justification. 5.
Images. 6. Honouring of Saints. 7. Praying to Saints. 8. Rites and Ceremonies.
9. Purgatory.

They, in fact, allowed the use of images, sanctioned prayers to the Saints,
defended purgatory, and recommended prayers for the dead. Far from following the
sentiments of Ales, not only spoken, but more fully delivered in writing to
Crumwell, and meant to have been read before them-they assert three sacraments;
1. Penance, 2. Baptism,3. the Lord’s Suppermaintaining that infants, dying
before the second, perish everlastingly! and that the real body and blood of
Christ are present in the third! No wonder that Cranmer trembled for his
Articles, or was afraid of the set speech of Ales, next day; for if it had been
listened to by any, not to say all, it might have at least retarded the attempt
to “stablish Christian quietness,” after this fashion. Nor had these miserable
articles any such effect. On the contrary, when once published, they occasioned,
says Burnet, “great variety of censures.”

Beyond the walls of their assembly, “quietness,” of any kind, was not to be the
order of the day; although, at this moment, all the men within must acquiesce in
the unbending will of their acknowledged Head. At least one hundred and nine
individuals subscribed; including Crumwell and the two Archbishops, sixteen
Bishops, forty Abbots and Priors, and fifty Archdeacons and Proctors.

Nothing can more forcibly illustrate the absurdity of this blind consent to
certain propositions, professedly religious, than that this assembly had never
yet been able to agree upon any translation of the Sacred Volume itself; nor,
upon this subject, according to Cranmer’s strongly expressed opinion next year,
if left to themselves, would they ever have agreed, to the end of their days.
But after thus subscribing, it would have been more inconsistent still, had they
now departed, without any reference to the subject. They had, to a man,
professedly recognised the Scriptures as containing the essentials of the
Christian faith, but could not agree on a traslation into their own language;
neither could they, as a body, approve of that translation, through which many
of the people were already so far before them in acquaintance with Divine Truth.
They agreed, however, upon the form of a petition, to be presented to the King,
that he would graciously indulge unto his subjects of the laity, the reading of
the Bible in the English tongue, (which so many had already read without his
indulgence,) and that a new translation of it might be forthwith made for that
end and purpose. This was a convenient method for postponing the subject; but,
providentially, their dissension or agreement was of no carthly moment, since
neither the petitioners, nor the King they addressed, were to be allowed to
furnish that translation of the Bible for England, which was, ultimately, to
become her own. With regard to the other doings of this Convocation, his Majesty
had determined to reduce the prodigious number of holidays. All feasts or
holidays during harvest time, or from the 1st of July to the 29th of September,
were therefore at once abolished, as well as those which fell during term time
at Westminster; the number throughout the year being greatly curtailed. And as a
General Council had been summoned by the Pontiff, to assemble at Mantua, Fox of
Hereford submitted to both houses the King’s reasons for declining to take any
part in its proceedings, he being resolved to hold no intercourse with that man;
for such was the phrase. To this document all persent subscribed. This was on
the 20th of July, or the last day of that Convocation, to which Latimer, at the
beginning, had preached in vain.

Thus, Parliament having risen, and the Convocation being dissolved, after having
shown nothing save profound subserviency to the wishes and the vices of the
Sovereign, both Crumwell and Cranmer will contrive to save themselves the
trouble of consulting either of these bodies, for some time to come; for it must
be borne in mind that there was neither Parliament nor Convocation held till the
year 1539.

Immediately after this, the first act of Crumwell, as Vicegerent, was to issue
certain injunctions, and, upon one account at least, they demand notice. Since
the days of John Foxe to the present, they have been generally misunderstood,
and, with respect to the Scriptures especially, have led all subsequent
historians wrong. These injunctions of 1536 differ materially from those to be
issued in 1538. The latter, in 1538, were addressed to the Bishops, but not the
former; the latter embraced the Scriptures, which these now issued did not, and
could not. With regard to these now put forth, they wcre merely following up the
doings of the Convocation just dissolved. The act abolishing the holidays in
harvest, though intended to help it forward, rather inflamed than satisfied
many; and Crumwell’s present injunctions, therefore, embraced the holidays, and
the articles recently subscribed, but nothing more. the remarks of Burnet and
Collier are, on this account, equally inapplicable. The former describes these
injunctions as “the first act of pure supremacy done by the King; for in all
that went before, he had the concurrence of the two Convocations.” But in these,
the King and Vicegerent had such concurrence. The holidays, it is expressly
stated, were abolished “with the common assent and consent of the prelates and
clergy, in Convocation lawfully assembled:” and as for the articles, all present
had subscribed them, in conjunction with Crumwell himself. “These injunctions,’’
says Collier, “we may observe, were only directed to the Deans and downwards.
Thus the Lord Crumwell had something of modesty in his wonderful office, and
forbore the brandishing his vicegerency over the Bishops.” But the fact was,
that the “brandishing,” as we have seen already, had taken place before many
witnesses, anterior to this, in the Convocation; when the King, through
Crumwell, had awed them into silence and unanimous acquiescence. Hence his
injunctions were addressed only to the Deans, and all below them.

Turning away, therefore, from the Convocation of 1536, which, with reference to
the Sacred Volume, was equally fruitless of any benefit to the kingdom with that
of 1534, no sooner do we come to the actual history of the English Bible, than
it turns out to have been by far the most remarkable year of all that had
preceded it! Nay, to those who have never looked narrowly into the subject, it
may seem next to incredible, that there should have been of Tyndale’s New
Testament, as many editions as in most of the preceding years when put together!
Such, however, was the fact, and of this state of things our Translator could
not have been kept altogether in ignorance, more especially as the jailer and
his tinnily were won to his principles. So far as he did know, after such a
passage through life, this must have cheered him in his entrance to the haven of
eternal rest, as a finer sun, which was to shine for ages upon his native land.
He had corrected his New Testament in 1534, and these were reprints of that
edition; but we must refrain from any farther account at this moment, reserving
this for the close, as the appropriate and the only refreshing intelligence
throughout the whole year. Besides, the absorbing question, at present, must
be-“ What has become of those guilty men who had ensnared our Translator? and,
above all, of Tyndale himself?”

Upon once more looking abroad, and before we approach the castle of Vilvorde, or
the martyr’s stake, it is of importance to record whatever can be certainly
ascertained, not only respecting the betrayers of Tyndale, after that Mr. Poyntz
had so providentially escaped; but the agitation of Henry VIII. himself in
connexion with one of them, in his assumed character of the gentleman. Since not
only Halle and Foxe, but all other historians fail us here, these particulars,
now read for the first time, will, it is presumed, prove the more interesting.

It will be remembered that Theobald, the man whom Crumwell and Cranmer had sent
to the Continent last year, felt no scruple whatever in imposing upon Phillips,
in order to extract from him the precise circumstances respecting Tyndale’s
apprehension; and these he had duly communicated both to the Primate, and the
Vicegerent. He told Phillips that he had come to remain, and had seemed to
comply with the entreaty, that he would abide in the same house. The natural
consequence of this dissimulation soon followed. Theobald departed, and Phillips
then saw that he had been deceived. He soon learned that he belonged to the
Archbishop of Canterbury, and immediately reported him to be, what he really
was, a spy; though evidently not commissioned by either of his employers to
resort to Louvain, or there interest himself on behalf of the illustrious exile
and prisoner at Vilvorde. Phillips himself, however, as we have seen, remained
about Brussels and Louvain, all the time that Mr. Poyntz was held in prison; but
after his escape into England, the abandoned youth fled, leaving Tyndale to the
tender mercies of the wicked. The probability is, that Mr. Poyntz, immediately
after his arrival in London, had succeeded so far as to excite alarm respecting
this man; and this he could easily do, by communicating, through his brother,
with the King direct. But probability approaches to certainty, when it is
observed, that by the month of March, soon after Mr. Poyntz had got to England,
the conduct of Phillips had effectually roused the indignation of the English
Monarch. This young man had not only been pursuing Mr. Poyntz and Tyndale
himself, unto death, but “raging against Henry,” as Theobald had stated long
ago; though no notice had been taken of the warning. For eight months, from July
last year, to March in this, there is no evidence to be found that either
Crumwell or Cranmer had moved one step, and even now the apparent apathy of both
seems to force itself on our notice. The Vicar-General was busy in chiming in
with the King’s odious purposes and plan against his Queen: the Primate was
looking after the worldly interests of a brother-inlaw. But it will be
abundantly more awkward, or rather humiliating, for both, if, after the letters
from Theobald, one of the betrayers of Tyndale had actually been permitted to
sit down in theCONVOCATION in June, and there listen to Latimer, when he
lectured so roundly the whole fraternity!

We shall see.

Already we have had sufficient evidence that the mind of Henry, at this
juncture, was like “the troubled sea,” as it continued to be, throughout the
whole of this year. His “secret commission” upon Anne Boleyn was already at
work, and it was while they were so engaged, that we find two letters of tho
incensed monarch, dated from his palace near London. Both manuscripts (in Latin,
and bearing the same date) are very imperfect; but there is enough remaining to
answer our inquiry. The King, it will be evident, was enraged at least, if not
alarmed; but it was only because of the language and conduct of Phillips, with
reference to his own beloved self. For Tyndale, or in regard to his seizure and
imprisonment, we look in vain for one word of sympathy; though his condition, by
this time, could not fail to have been fully known to his Majesty. The first of
these letters was addressed to the Consuls and Senators of Nuremberg, and the
second to an old correspondent of Henry, Lawrence Stayber, in the same city, in
both of which he entreats, that, if either of his two subjects, James Gryffith
Apwell (ap-Howell), or Henry Phillips, both guilty of the most heinous crime,
should pass through their territory, or that of their allies, they take care to
apprehend and send them over to England at his charge. He advises Stayber to
endeavour by spies, “on both public and private roads,” to trace these men, and
so get them into his power.

These letters furnish one proof, among others, of that widespread discontent
which now prevailed against the King. Gryffith and Phillips were not precisely
of the same party before this; but there was an evident sympathy between all
these male-contents, wherever they dwelt, and whenever they met; and they were
all, more or less, acting in concert, either against his Majesty’s proceedings,
or “the new learning.” As for this man, with whom Phillips is now classed, James
Gryffith or James Greffeth ap-Howell, as he is sometimes called, he was not a
common individual, or, like Phillips, of low parentage, but the son of a
gentleman in Wales, and a nephew of Sir Rice ap-Thomas, the well-known military
commander, under both Henry VIII. and his father. Gryffith had been imprisoned
in London; but, according to this letter, pardoned. This was in 1533, on which
he fled, in June of that year, into Scotland; where Lord Dacre and T. Wharton,
the ambassadors, were ordered to watch him.

He went not alone; on the 2nd of July, Dacre informs Henry direct, that he had
come to St. Ninian’s, near Stirling, having his wife and eight persons with him,
and that he named himself uncle to (Sir Griffith) Rice of Wales, the son of Sir
Rice already mentioned. From thence he soon proceeded to Edinburgh, with his
train, “well favoured and appointed;” where, though not received by the King, he
frequently “resorted to the Lords of the Council.” So long as Scotland was at
war with England, he wished to remain, and was permitted to do so for some time;
but by the month of December we find him in Antwerp, where he had been evidently
desirous of stirring up war with England, and proffering aid from Wales, if
Queen Nary and the Emperor’s Council would only send ships across the sea.

Carondelet, the Archbishop of Palermo, declined, saying that the King of
England, the Emperor, and that country were friends. In May 1534, Gryffith was
at Lubcck, and had gone front place to place, as he was doing still. The truth
is, that both of these men, whether separately or in company, were now on their
way towards Cardinal Pole. He became the nucleus of all the disaffected. Every
one that was discontented, in distress, or in debt, gathered round him, or at
least applied to him; and although neither Phillips nor Gryffith received
encouragement, in two years after this, we shall find the former, unwittingly,
excite in Pole the utmost fear and apprehension.

It cannot be forgotten, that Phillips had, within the Court of Queen Mary,
denounced Henry as “a tyrant and a robber of the commonwealth.” The
“first-fruits,” no doubt, had already been consigned to the King, and he was, at
the moment, in the act of receiving the spoils of the monasteries; but this man
had been permitted to remain unreproved by the Court of Brussels; while
Gryffith, for a longer period, had been allowed to harbour in Flanders. This,
for political reasons, had been hitherto endured; but, as the Emperor and
Francis were, though known to few, actually preparing for war, and Henry had
resolved to remain neutral, hence we account for the English envoy, Mr. Vaughan,
being now withdrawn. But to the disgrace of the King of England, this envoy, the
only one who had ever spoken favourably of Tyndale, is recalled without a
commission to say, one word to save his life.

Nine months ago, or in August last year, both Crumwell and Cranmer had been very
pointedly informed, by their common agent, of Tyndale’s situation, as well as of
the myrmidons who had betrayed him; the first generous visit of Mr. Poyntz, post
haste, after this, had confirmed the whole; when at last, in October, Crumwell
sent one solitary letter. Since then, here was Mr. Poyntz, escaped to England
only with his life, and now comes Stephen Vaughan, who once pled so powerfully
against persecution for opinions. But no; nothing was done!

It has now, therefore, become but too apparent, that neither Henry, nor his
Ministers, were free from the blood of William Tyndale. Had he, or they, exerted
their official power to the last, the guilt might have fallen not so heavy upon
them; but instead of this, they had all, as we have seen, only ten days before
Vaughan’s letter, stepped into blood at home; and what sympathy or generous
feeling could be expected from them?f78 His own country having thus left him to
perish, the only remaining quarter to which we can turn, is to the Government of
Flanders itself. Curiosity must be awake to know the character of the parties
into whose hands Tyndale had fallen. The reigning princess, Mary, was merely a
vassal of the priests. With the chief man, still in power, Carondelet, the
Archbishop of Palermo, we have been long familiar, and to him the character of
Tyndale must have been well known for nine years past, at least; but he was a
mere courtier, without heart; and from the days in which Cornelius Grapheus, the
learned Secretary of Antwerp, had, under his eye, suffered so severely, for
publishing a book on “the liberty of the Christian Religion,” he had been
familiar with cruelty. No mercy was therefore to be expected from him. Erardus a
Marchia, the Cardinal and Bishop of Liege, the man to whom Reginald Pole fled
next year for protection, was, of course, a determined opponent of the
Scriptures; and Montigni lived under the sovereign power of the monks. Such were
the men of influence and authority. It was only three years since Erasmus
himself, that eminent reviver of literature, was invited to this Court. But he
was then, and ever afterwards, afraid to venture near it, even though the
Emperor himself had invited him, and money had been remitted to defray his
travelling charges.

Some time after this invitation, his picture of the Government was sufficiently
graphical, and it serves our present purpose. Having referred to the monks, in a
letter to Cholerus, in 1534, he says-“These animals are omnipotent at the
Emperor’s Court,” in the Low Countries. “Mary is a mere puppet, maintained by
our nation; Montigni, a man of authority, is a tool of the Franciscans; the
Cardinal of Liege is an ambitious friend, and when he takes offence, a violent
enemy; the Archbishop of Palermo is a giver of good words, and nothing else.”
And thus it is, at last, that the history of the times, and of the men of the
times, whether in England or Brabant, but too well prepares us for anticipating
the martyrdom at Vilvorde.

After the escape of Mr, Poyntz, “Tyndale,” we are informed by Foxe, “was
proffered an advocate and a procuror; for in any crime there, it shall be
permitted to counsel to make answer in the law; but he refused to have any,
saying, that he would make answer for himself; and so he did.” But at last,
after much reasoning, when no reason would serve, although he deserved no death,
he was condemned, by virtue of the Emperor’s decree at Augsburg. Such had been
“the power of his doctrine, and the sincerity of his life, that during the time
of his imprisonment, which endured about one whole year and a-half, (or rather a
year and three-quarters,) it is said he converted his keeper, the keeper’s
daughter, and others of his household. The rest that were in the Castle, and
conversant with Tyndale, reported of him, that if he were not a good Christian
man, they could not tell whom to trust: and the Procurator-General, the
Emperor’s attorney, being there, left this testimony of him, that he was ‘Homo
doctus, pius, et bonus’-a learned, pious, and good man.” The decree issued at
Augsburg, on the 19th of November, 1530, was still in full force, after which,
no man was admitted into the judicature of the Imperial Chamber, unless he
approved of it; and the Privy Council of Brussels, of which Carondelet was
President, enjoyed ample authority in all matters, religious as well as
political. The persecutors of Tyndale, therefore, knew full well, since his own
King and Council had left him to perish, how they could, at any time, close the
controversy, and slay him. That detestable decree had not only enjoined the
continuance of all the former ceremonies, rites, and superstitions, -but
particularly rejected the doctrine of justification by faith alone. The doctors
of Louvain must have discussed many subjects with their prisoner. His
translation of the Scriptures, of course, he would defend to the last; but here
was one point, on which Tyndale would remain firm as a rock. There was no man in
Germany, to say nothing of England, who had written with greater distinctness on
the subject of justification; no man who had discovered a more profound esteem
for this sacred and precious truth. This was one of those “high matters,” on
which he had so warmly pressed his dearest earthly friend, Fryth, to remain
immovable in London; and it is not a little remarkable, that, at this moment,
besides his New Testament in folio, Tyndale’s first publication was either
printing or finished, and in London, too, under this very title-“A treatise of
justification by faith only, otherwise called, The Parable of the Wicked
Mammon.” From the past history frequently showing how early, and with what
accuracy, Tyndale was in possession of intelligence from England, we have
already supposed it to be quite possible, that, though in prison, he may have
heard of many things that had occurred there, during the last nine months; and,
more especially, that his New Testament, as corrected in 1534, was so pouring
into his native land, by repeated editions, from Antwerp. This is the more
probable, from his having been made useful to the keeper of the Castle and his
family, having thus gained their favour.

But, besides this, all that he had translated, was now actually proceeding to
the press, in folio, and under the eye of a competent friend and great admirer,
John Rogers. This was more than Crumwell, or Cranmer, or the King, yet knew;
although the volume was to prove absolutely the first Bible, the reading of
which throughout England they were to enjoin! But now, and after such years of
persecution, the end was come!!

It appears to have been at some hour on Friday, the 6th of October, 1536, that
Tyndale was led forth to be put to death. Before leaving the Castle, he
delivered a letter to the keeper, addressed either to Mr. or Mrs. Poyntz of
Antwerp; but no copy of it remains. Having reached the fatal spot, the noble
martyr was fastened to the stake-upon which, crying with a fervent zeal, and a
loud voice-“LORD!OPEN THE EYES orTHE KING OF ENGLAND”-he was first strangled,
and then his body was consumed to ashes! Though, strange to say, even up to this
hour, “no marble tells us where!” For surely, if ever the lines of England’s
choicest Christian poet were strictly applicable to any single man, every word,
by way of eminence, belongs to the Memory of William Tyndale,- “His blood was
shed In confirmation of the noblest claim, Our claim to feed upon immortal
truth, To walk with God, to be divinely free, To soar, and to anticipate the
skies.

Yet few remember him. He lived unknown Till persecution dragg’d him into fame,
And chased him up to Heaven. His ashes flew- No marble tells us whither. With
his name No bard embalms and sanctifies his song; And history, so warm on meaner
themes, Is cold on this.”

Tyndale’s dying invocation most emphatically expressed his opinion of Henry
VIII.; and uttered, as it was, with a loud voice, though in a foreign land, was
meant to be heard, if not also carried to England. The precise meaning of the
speaker, in these dying words, it may be difficult to divine; but if Cranmer
could go so far as to grossly flatter his Majesty, even on the third of May,
Tyndale told him the truth with his last breath, from the stake, on the sixth of
October. He regarded all that Henry had yet done, as the work of a blind man,
and certainly this was the most charitable of all constructions. Though to to
now, who view the royal progress entire, and such as it was, that blindness,
even by this time, was no longer a mere misfortune, but his crime. The King had
already, and but too manifestly, closed his eyes, and hardened his heart, of
which his future life will afford the saddest evidence. As for the Martyr
himself, since no good man was ever cut off in the midst of his usefulness, so
neither was Tyndale. His work was done, and by an invincible providence, he had
been singularly preserved to the last. In the councils of heaven, he had
accomplished, as a faithful servant, his day, and evening’s welcome hour had
come. Occupying a place ia the history of his country, which no other man could
ever occupy after him, he was now called off from his labour, and with a
character unspotted. That character has been drawn long ago, and with so much of
simple beauty, that we must give it entire. Oh, what a contrast does it exhibit
to almost all those men around him, whether at home or abroad, to whom his life
and labours have constrained us to allude! “First, he was a man very frugal, and
spare of body, a great student, and earnest labourer in the setting forth of the
Scriptures of God.

He reserved or hallowed to himself two days in the week, which he named his
pastime, Monday and Saturday. On Monday he visited all such poor men and women
as were fled out of England, by reason of persecution, into Antwerp, and these,
once well understanding their good exercises and qualities, he did very
liberally comfort and relieve; and in like manner provided for the sick and
diseased persons. On the Saturday, he walked round about the town, seeking every
corner and hole, where he suspected any poor person to dwell; and where he found
any to be well occupied, and yet overburdened with children, or else were aged
and weak, those also he plentifully relieved. And thus he spent his two days of
pastime, as he called them. And truly his alms were very large, and so they
might well be; for his exhibition that he had yearly, of the English merchants
at Antwerp, when living there, was considerable, and that for the most part he
bestowed upon the poor. The rest of the days of the week, he gave wholly to his
book, wherein he most diligently travailed. When the Sunday came, then went he
to some one merchant’s chamber, or other, whither came many other merchants, and
unto them would he read some one parcel of Scripture; the which proceeded so
fruitfully, sweetly and gently from him, much like to the writing of John the
Evangelist, that it was a heavenly comfort and joy to the audience, to hear him
read the Scriptures: likewise, after dinner, he spent an hour in the same
manner. He was a man without any spot or blemish of rancour or malice, full of
mercy and compassion, so that no man living was able to reprove him of any sin
or crime; although his righteousness and justification depended not thereupon
before God; but only upon the blood of Christ and his faith upon the same. In
this faith he died, with constancy, at Vilvorde, and now resteth with the
glorious company of Christ’s martyrs, blessedly in the Lord.-And thus much of
the life and story of the true servant and martyr of God,WILLIAM TYNDALE, who,
for his notable pains and travail, may well be called the Apostle of England, in
this our latter age.”

Such was the estimate of old John Foxe in his day; and though, in various
instances, he stands chargeable with indiscriminate praise, in the present he
has not exceeded; nay, living so early, he could not be expected to distinguish
the relative greatness, and peculiar distinction of Tyndale’s character.
Standing above all his contemporaries, with only one man by his side, his
companion Fryth, he had never temporised, never courted human favour, never
compromised or sacrificed one iota of Divine truth; but with his face to the
foe, and dying on the shield of faith, he was called to quit the well-fought
field, for his mansion near the throne; to refresh himself, after the dust and
turmoil and heat of the day, in the paradise of God, to exchange contention with
the votaries of darkness and superstition, for the harmony and the light of
heaven; the solitude of his dungeon, for the presence of his Redeemer, in the
city of the living God. But the influence and usefulness of such a man, could
not possibly die with him. If he had now rested from all his labour, we shall
find his works following him. The light he had kindled, was to prove “the joy of
many generations.” Hence the force of individual consistent Christian
character-the importance of individual exertion. At the place of honour, or as
it were close by the martyr’s stake, we must not omit to notice his kind and
generous friend, Thomas Poyntz; and the more so, since it has never been before
observed who he was. It is well that we have one Englishman, who boldly stood by
our illustrious countryman to the last, and only left him at the risk of his own
life, when he could do no more. He is entitled to the grateful remembrance of
posterity. The Poyntz family, descended from Drago FitzPons, who accompanied
William the Conqueror into England, is well known to have been one of the most
ancient in England. One branch settling in Gloucestershire, and another in
Essex; it is singular enough, that Tyndale commenced his career with the one,
and closed it with the other. The Lady of Sir John Walsh, where he had been
tutor, was the daughter of Sir Robert Poyntz of Iron Acton, Gloucestershire; and
Mr. Poyntz, with whom he last lived at Antwerp, was the second son, and finally
the heir of the Essex family. When Tyndale was seized, it lends additional
interest to the zeal of this gentleman at the moment, when it is observed that
he had been but recently married, and to a German lady, Ann, the daughter of
John Calva, Esq. To her, after the confusion had subsided, and notwithstanding
the state of the Continent, or the risk he had run, he returned; and became the
father of three sons, Gabriel, Ferdinand, and Robert, and of one daughter,
Susanna. The Manor-house of North Okendon, in Essex, eighteen miles from London,
to which he addressed his letters, and to which, of course, he fled from
Brussels, had been in possession of his ancestors from the days of Edward III.;
and his elder brother, John, to whom he wrote with such generous warmth and so
earnestly, having, by the death of his father, come to the estate in the year
1500, died in the first of King Edward’s reign, without issue. Thomas, who
survived him fifteen years, but remained some time abroad, of course succeeded;
and dying also at North Okendon, in 1562, lies there interred. His eldest son,
born about two years after Tyndale’s death, in 1538, Sir Gabriel Poyntz, High
Sheriff of Essex, was interred by his father’s side in 1607; and the only
daughter, Susanna, married to the Mayor of London, Sir Richard Saltonstall, lies
by a mural monument in the adjoining parish of South Okendon.

Although acquainted with the history of this ancient and retired parish church,
the writer could not be satisfied without visiting the burial-place of Mr.
Poyntz, and examining for himself the memorials of his family, He was chiefly
desirous of ascertaining, not only what vestiges remained, but whether there was
any expression still legible, in regard to by far the most memorable event in
the life of Tyndale’s friend; and more especially because the interpretation
intended to be conveyed by the lines on his tomb, had never been adverted to by
any author. Most probably they have never before been understood, except by
relatives at the time of his decease.

It was in the month of September 1837, or precisely three hundred years after
the English Bible at which Tyndale laboured, the basis of all following
editions, had reached this country, He found the little church, with its flint
stone embattled tower covered with ivy, in a condition distinguished for its
cleanliness; and the monuments of different families, some of them in elegant
marble, in perfect preservation; but the humbler tablets excited the deepest
interest. In a horizontal line, in the wall of the Chancel, are the monuments of
the Poyntz family, in regular succession from about the middle of the fourteenth
century; while that of Tyndale’s devoted friend remains, easily to be
distinguished from the others, by its still conveying to the reader, what had
been his own impressions, in reference to the scene through which he had passed
at Brussels. “This gentleman, for his most faithful service to his Prince, and
his most ardent profession of the truth of the gospel, was in bonds, and
suffered imprisonment in countries beyond seas, so that he was, at this time,
evidently destined to death; but forecasting with himself, relying on Divine
Providence, he wonderfully escaped out of prison. In this little chapel, he now
peacefully sleeps in the Lord.

Anno 1562, or the 5th of Queen Elizabeth.” The following is the epitaph, as
copied from the tablet in the wall:- ‘“Thomas Poyntz Armiger [filius Gulielmi]
Pointz, ad quem post mortem fratris, Joannis, Dominu[m hujus villae] et
patronatus Ecclesiae pervenit; qui duxit in matrimoniun Annam van Calva, Filiam
et unam cohaeredam Joannis Calvae Armigeri nationeq.

Germani, ex qva genvit Gabrielem, Ferdinandum ac Robertum filios, filiamq, unam
Susanam. “Hic pro fidelissimo Principis svi servitio, ac ardentissimo
euangelicae veritatis professione uincvla, et incarcerationes in transmarinis
regionibvs passus est, adeo ut Caedi jam plane destinatus esset, nisi divina
fretus providentia euasione carcere mirifice sibi prospexisset: in hoc sacello
jam placide obdormit in Domino anno 1562. R. Reg. Eliz. quinto.” At that early
period, there may have been some prudential reason for the immortal name of
Tyndale not being mentioned. But now, after the lapse of three centuries,
without this expressive key to the inscription being known to many generations,
to the audience assembling there every week, or, perhaps, to any other persons;
till this be hinted, the lines themselves convey but feeble meaning. To this
name alone, the epitaph owes all its emphasis; and to it, the humble tablet may,
perhaps, now owe a more frequent inspection. Passed over hitherto, without
marked observation, if we once except the Manor-house of Little Sodbury, it is
the solitary relic left upon English ground, pointing to perhaps the greatest
benefactor that our native country ever enjoyed. As for the excellent man
himself, this unpretending memorial has, all along, conveyed his own testimony
to survivors; but a far more conspicuous token of respect for his memory may now
well be erected; and the people should know how much they stand indebted to a
man “sleeping peacefully in the Lord,” in the vault below.

Let us now turn to a very different subject, and present a melancholy, though
instructive view, in the dark side of this entire picture. The two unhappy men,
agents of their party, Henry Phillips, the reputed gentleman, and Gabriel Donne,
the servant in disguise, who had been hired to apprehend Tyndale, and who
entered so heartily into the design, now present a contrast of the blackest hue.
No particulars respecting them have ever been recorded; but because of their sad
connexion with Tyndale, they must not now be consigned to oblivion. As to
PHILLIPS, we still stand mainly indebted to Theobald, in his official
correspondence, as a spy, employed alike by Crumwell and Cranmer. In the year
1535, Phillips, as we have seen, had been watching Theobald for months after his
departure from Louvain; but the latter had proceeded on his way, stopping only
for a short time at Cologne, Frankfort, and Heidelberg. He then visited
Nuremberg, Wittenberg, Augsburg, Ulm, and Tubingen. From Augsburg, in March
1538, he writes to Cranmer about Gryffith, whom he might have apprehended if he
had had a commission, but says nothing of Phillips. However, from Padua, in
October of the year following, he writes to Crumwell, that Harry Phillips,
lately student in Louvain, “at what time he betrayed good Tyndale,” had come
from Flanders to Italy to beg succours of Cardinal Pole, but that some
suspicious circumstances in his appearance induced the Cardinal’s friends to
fancy he was a spy, or even a traitor sent by the party in power in England to
assassinate him; and hence, instead of affording him any assistance, they had
closely watched him, and prevented him from entering the territory of Venice,
where the Cardinal was. Reduced to extremities, Phillips begged for money from
all parties to assist him to return to Flanders, but, suspected and avoided by
all, none would afford him the least aid, till, driven by necessity, he sold his
clothes, and is supposed to have entered the army of some one of the powers that
were then at war in the south of Europe. No more is heard of him.

Thus sunk into oblivion one of the betrayers of our Translator. He might descend
into battle and perish, or die in misery before long; but not so the other man,
the Monk, the elder, and probably by far the more guilty, of the two.

GABRIEL DONNE or DUNNE, the Monk of Stratford Abbey, has hitherto remained
unobserved or unknown, at least as the crafty assistant of Phillips; and for
three hundred years his name has escaped that disgrace, which, it is to be
feared, must now ever rest upon it. In extenuation of himself, Phillips not only
pled his youth, but complained of his having been the victim of “evil counsel;”
and a shrewd Cistercian monk, so much older than himself, would not be slow to
tender it, on such an occasion; while the money, with which Phillips was so
plentifully furnished, and of which he boasted, proves that there were other
powerful prompters to the heinous deed.

Donne was originally a Student of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and afterwards
entered the Abbey of Stratford near London, of which he became a conspicuous
inmate. A suit arising in 1514 between the Abbot and Convent, who were patrons
of the living of Westham on the one side, and the Vicar of Westham on the other,
“the provident and religious man Gabriel Donne, Monk of the blessed Mary of
Stratford of the order of Cistercians,” appeared and stood Proctor for the
Convent in the cause, which was carried by appeal to Rome. He next appears, as
we have seen, in 1535, in the degraded character of a spy and tool of the “old
learning” party, hired to seize the long-persecuted Translator of the
Scriptures.

Returning to England from Louvain, his friends, or perhaps those who employed
him in that infamous service, had influence enough with Crumwell to get him
appointed Abbot of Buckfastleigh, in Devonshire, and he was actually present in
that character at the Convocation held at St. Paul’s in June 1536 (see p. 249),
and his signature appears subscribed to the Articles then issued, He surrendered
his Abbey in 1539 and received a pension of £120 per annum, equal in value to
£1,800 at present. He afterwards became a Prebendary of St. Paul’s and Rector of
Stepney, sine cura; and was actually appointed by Cranmer, who can hardly have
known his character or history, his Official and Keeper of the Spiritualities in
the City and Diocese, and was so till the appointment of Nicolas Ridley, in
April 1550. He died in 1558, and was buried in St. Paul’s, having kept his
preferments through all the changes of political and religious opinion of these
chequered years. Such was the end of Phillips’ “man of counsel” in the
apprehension of Tyndale. Permitted by the long suffering of God to exist for
twenty-three years after his sad exploit at Antwerp, he seems to hare died
without any remorse. Living as he did, and for some time under such favourable
circumstances, under Ridley, nay till above thirty editions of the entire
Scriptures, and about seventy of the New Testament, had issued from the press;
all was in vain!

Such were the two men who had been richly hired to ensnare and seize Tyndale. In
the one accomplice, there is to be seen nothing but a fugitive and a vagabond to
his dying day; in the other, a man who had time given him for reflection, and
space for repentance; but we search in vain for either the one or the other. So
true it is, in many instances, that though “favour be shown to the wicked, yet
will he not learn righteous. ness; he will not behold the majesty of the Lord.”
It is not for us to draw rash conclusions as to the state of the dead, and far
from our province, to pronounce judgment; while no man can say, with impunity,
that the ways of Jehovah are not equal. The awful consequences of cruelty and
sin are certain, though not immediate; and “though a sinner do evil an hundred
times,” said the wisest of men, “and his days be prolonged; yet surely I know
that it shall be well with them that fear God,” with them only “who fear before
him.” To those who have never before been aware of the fact, it must appear
extraordinary, that the Martyrdom of Tyndale, the first translator of our Bible
into English, should stand so emphatically by itself. There was no other, with
which the Councils of England, and of a Continental kingdom, were both
concerned; no other, in the guilt of which, both our own country, and a foreign
power, were alike involved. The eyes of Henry the Eighth, and those of his
Ministers, were wide open, when the martyr fell under a decree of the Emperor
Charles V. Considered as an event, amidst all the wide-spread and long-continued
violence of the times, his martyrdom rises up to view, and appears like a
conspicuous solitary column. If there be any memento inscribed, it is a double
one-German on one side, but English on the other. In this, the year of the
Translator’s martyrdom, was there to be no demand for the work of his hands? Was
truth to be silent or suppressed, because folly frowned? So far from this,
though the two last years had been more highly distinguished than ever, for the
number of editions, the present year exceeded them both put together. Or, to
speak more generally and from the beginning: from the year 1525 to 1530 there
had been at feast six impressions, which, on an average, was more than one
edition annually; since then there had been seven if not eight editions, which
was equal to two every year; but in this one year, or the last of the
Translator’s life, there were nine if not ten editions from the press. One
gentleman, deeply conversant with the subject, does not despair of his being
able to make out the round dozen.

Once more, therefore, and for the third time, the members of the Convocation had
met again, as if resolved to force themselves upon the notice of every future
historian, and we have already seen them striving to settle matters of high
behest; but to the highest of all, or the Sacred Volume itself, we are here
confined; and, now that Tyndale is gone, it seems to be due to his proceedings,
to glance at what these men had as yet said; for there had been nothing done, as
Latimer, with such pungent ,or galling frequency, had thundered in their ear.

They pray “that the King would graciously indulge unto his subjects of the laity
the reading of the Bible in the Enghsh tongue,” though as yet, by their own
showing, there was not a Bible to read; they therefore go on to petition, “That
a new translation be forthwith made for that end and purpose.” By this
expression new did they mean to frown on the translation of the New Testament
already in the hands of thousands? or, to cast contempt on that part of the Old
Testament translation already published? or, to slight Coverdale’s new-born
attempt to complete it?

All this, however, only lends additional interest to the volumes, which,
throughout the whole year, had been issuing from the press, and coming into
England “thick and threefold,” without the “gracious indulgence” of his Majesty
being either asked or granted. Of these New Testaments three separate and
entirely distinct editions were in quarto. Of the duodecimo or small octavo size
we know of five editions; and though in these pages we adhere to those books
only which have been verified, we may add that another edition, if not two, may
yet be ascertained to exist. All these editions, with the exception of one, had
been printed abroad in Antwerp; but that one, in several respects, may be
considered as equal in importance to all the others. The size of the book, in
folio; the season of its publication, the present year; but above all, the
printer and the place, his Majesty’s own patent printer in London; all conspire
to render the volume even still a mystery. It comes before us, unaccountably, as
the top stone of this hazardous but successful enterprise; brought into view,
also, about the very time when our Translator was breathing his last, or
consuming to ashes at Vilvorde. Some account of it, in particular, must not be
withheld. “The Newe testament yet ones agayne corrected by W. Tyndale: And in
many places ameded, where it scaped before by neglygence of the printer.

Also a Kalender, and a necessary table, wherein easely and lightly may be founde
any story coteyned in ye route Euangelystes, and in the Acres of ye apostels.
Also before every pystel of S. Paud, is a prologue, very frutefull to ye reder.
And after ye newe testament, foloweth the Epistels of ye old testament. Newly
printed (by Tho. Berthelet) in the yere of our lorde MDXXXVI”-in the compartment
of the boys in triumph, and with a small medallion of a head laureated,
supported by sphynxes; pecidiar to this printing press. Collation.-Prefixes,
viz. Almanake 23 years-Kalender-W. T. to the Christen Reder-a prologue into the
four Euangelystes- the Offyce of all Estates, and the Bokes conteyned in the
Newe Testament: 14 leaves. The Newe Testament contains folio cxcvii., but the
folios run on to ccv.; then the table of the Epistles and the Gospels, in double
columns, &c. But at the end we have the following distinguishing mark-“GOD save
theKYNGE, AND ALL HIS WELL-WYLLERS.” Words which may have been actually
printing, and in London too, not far from the hour when the Translator himself,
the most eminent well-willer the King ever had, was praying for him, and passing
into heaven. Of this rare volume, a copy now lies before the writer. Very
correctly printed, it is, perhaps, the first to be distinguished throughout for
one peculiarity in its orthography, viz. the Anglo-Saxon particle of negation,
nat for not, and natwithstanding; which was occasionally adopted after this, as
in the Latin and English edition of Redman, 1538, and of Powell, in 1547 and
1549. In all other respects, the book is an exact reprint of Tyndale’s corrected
edition in 1534, having his name on the title-page, and his long prologue to the
Romans, which, by itself, had been so often and so long condemned! The name of
Thomas Berthelet as printer, it is true, is not mentioned, whether out of
delicacy to the Bishops and their adherents, we cannot tell; but Ames, Herbert,
and Dibdin, agree in ascribing the book to his press. It is known, indeed, by
the type, and the ornamental title of the boys in triumph. In the Harleian
Library there were two copies of this edition, one of them bound in red morocco,
finely ornamented with gold. It is probably one of these which is now in the
Bodleian at Oxford. But at such a season as this, in this style, and by the
King’s printer, the book, we repeat, is a mystery still. Must it not have been
got up under favour of the late Queen?

Such a supposition is only in harmony with her letter to Crumwell, on behalf of
Mr. Harman, and with Henry’s printer being the man employed.

But, at all events, such was the first Sacred Volume printed on English ground.

We, of course, cannot be supposed to have attached any essential influence to
the late Queen. But, in conclusion of this year, it ought to be remembered, that
as she was now gone, and her influence at Court, whatever was its amount, had
died with her; this will now render the future overruling of the King and his
adherents, or of all surviving parties, only the more obvious and distinct. In
Bunyan’s immortal story of the “Holy War,” when ear-gate was once broken up, and
its bolts and bars shivered into a thousand pieces, Emmanuel himself came
forward, and set his throne in it; the weapons of war were then carried within
the walls, to be employed on the citadel of the heart. So, in this long and
arduous contest, Wolsey and Warham, Fisher and More, with many other opponents,
were now gone; but if printers within the shores of England, and near to Henry’s
own person, have begun thus to act, what will signify all his proclamations, or
the wrath of all his official men? In truth, the day was nearly won. The
printing press abroad was now busy, in a style quite unprecedented; and next
year, though quite unforeseen by the King, or Crumwell, or Cranmer, the victory
will be complete! They had no idea whatever, of what was awaiting them, only
eight months hence. 1537.

MEMORABLE INTRODUCTION OF THE ENTIRE SACRED VOLUME-MYLES COVERDALE-HIS
CIRCUMSTANCES COMPARED WITH TYNDALE’S-COVERDALE’S TEMPORARY SUCCESS-THE
REMARKABLY SUDDEN CHANGE-TYNDALE’S BIBLE-ITS ARRIVAL-ITS RECEPTION-BOUGHT AND
READ-THE KING AGREES-GRAFTON THE PROPRIETOR-ALL PARTIES OYERRULED-CONCLUSION OF
THE FLRST YEAR OF TRIUMPH. WITH regard to the highest favour ever bestowed upon
this kingdom, there are no years so marked and memorable as those of 1526 and
1537. The former, distinguished by the arrival and introduction of the New
Testament Scriptures, printed in the native tongue; the latter, by that of the
entire Sacred Volume. The former, in defiance of all the authorities; the
latter, with the immediate concurrence of the King and his best advisers. The
former came as Tyndale’s first effort; the latter arrived as the distinct and
appropriate tribute to his memory; both alike being foreign printed books.

It was now above fourteen years since the design had been first formed. Up to
this period, there had been more than ten years of hard fighting, in single
combat, with the nation entire, from its monarch downwards; but more than twenty
editions of Tyndale’s translation of the New Testament had passed through the
press. They had gone into a thousand unknown channels; deep, nay, indelible was
the impression already made upon many minds. Latimer has informed the
Convocation of his brethren, that among the people there were “many children of
light;” and Fox has told them, that “the lay people knew the Holy Scriptures
better than many of themselves;” but it was time that the King and all around
him should be overruled. The day drew near, though they knew not of it. The
Translator was gone, it is true, but his translations were safe; and not only in
safe keeping, but in the press. The volume must have been preparing before he
was consumed to ashes. But, at all events, the Scriptures entire, from Genesis
to Revelation, will now be introduced; and his Majesty, however incensed before,
or armed with power and pride still, must at once bow in assent, and all other
men proceed, as it had been appointed they should. The opposition hitherto had
been both loud and long; but when once the day for the arrival of the Scriptures
comes, not a man must move his tongue against them.

We have heard already of one translation of the Bible by Coverdale; but the
death of Queen Anne had retarded its appearance in England. Henry had married
Jane Seymour, after which the name of her predecessor here inserted was no
passport to royal favour. Some time, however, having once elapsed, although
there be no positive proof of this book having ever been laid before the King,
what is curious enough, a reprint of it had obtained favour in his eye; so that
we are now prepared for a comparison of Coverdale’s Bible, with that of Tyndale,
edited by his surviving devoted friend John Rogers, under the name of Thomas
Matthew, and imported this year.

It is remarkable that such obscurity should have rested on the origin of our two
first Translators of the Scriptures; though that which still prevails over the
very name and parentage of Coverdale, be by far the greatest, No such surname
being certainly known to exist, in the person of any other man, it has been
supposed to have been taken or given, as in foreign countries, from the district
in Yorkshire where he was born. The parish or township of Coverham, near
Middleham, in the North Riding of that county, claims him for a native. Burnet
strangely imagined him to be a foreigner, and native of Denmark. Into this
mistake he may have been led, from Coverdale having afterwards married abroad,
though this was to a lady of Scotch extraction, Elizabeth Macheson; a
circumstance which we shall find proved of great value to him, in the reign of
Queen Mary. The surname itself being so unknown, if Lewis be correct in saying
that one of this name took the degree of Bachelor of Canon Law at Cambridge,
A.D. 1531, it could scarcely apply to any other than the future Translator; and
it seems no unsuitable introduction to his engagements from that very time.

According to Godwin, he received a doctor’s degree from Tubingen, and, though
late in life, was admitted ad eundem at Cambridge, but no dates are mentioned.
The origin and progress of Coverdale’s translation have remained in equal
obscurity; and hence the extremely different opinions which have been hazarded
as to the length of time he occupied in preparing for the press, or in printing
it after it was ready. If he had overtaken a translation of the entire Sacred
Volume in the space of two years, or even three, and employed nearly another in
printing it, when the time in which he lived is considered, it will be allowed
by all who are competent to judge, that he must have been very busily occupied.
And if it shall turn out that he was not only unmolested, but fostered in his
undertaking, this he may have accomplished. Extreme opinions, so wild or wide of
the truth, whether on marble or in print, need not be refuted; though they show
the necessity for some more feasible and distinct account, if any evidence can
be found.

We have heard of Coverdale before, again and again; though to those who have
ever paid any attention to the subject, by this time it may have appeared
extraordinary, that we should seem to have either forgotten him, or omitted
frequent mention of his name. But the truth is, that we have searched for him
all along, and yet, upon the broad surface of all these manuscripts, with the
exception of one significant letter, we have not found a single intelligible
allusion, since after meeting with him in Hamburg, according to Foxe. We
supposed that he had then returned again into England. This he certainly did,
granting our old historian to be correct in thus sending him abroad; for the
whole story rests upon his sole authority. But this was above six years ago.
Amidst this unbroken silence, however, we have this epistle from Coverdale
himself, and but one, which has effectually prevented him from being forgotten.
It would scarcely have been intelligible much before the present year, when,
wherever he had been, we find him, for the first time, and then certainly upon
English ground.

There is one notable circumstance, connected with Coverdale’s name, which has
never been pointed out, not the least curious in the history of these stormy
times. The reader need not here be told, that a searching controversial war had
been going on in England for years, or that the man who enjoyed the melancholy
eminence of being the grand opponent to the new learning, was Sir Thomas More.
But it so happened, that in opposing the translation of the Scriptures, and
their introduction into his native land, it was a main point with the Lord
Chancellor to report names; and this he did, not only with accuracy, but
emphasis. Hence, not only is Tyndale named, times out of number, and Fryth very
frequently; but we have “Friar Barnes, sometime doctor in Cambridge;” “Friar
Roye, the apostate;” “George Constantyne;” “George Joye, otherwise called
Clarke;” “Richard Bayfield, both a priest and a monk;” “Thomas Bilney;” “John
Tewksbury;” “Thomas Hytton;” “John Byrie, otherwise calling himself Adrian,
otherwise John Bookbinder, and yet otherwise I cannot tell what.” In short,
names were, in the Chancellor’s esteem, of first-rate importance in the
controversy; and, therefore, not only the Translator himself, by way of
eminence, but all the subordinate agents, who, in the humblest manner, aided in
the importation of his translation, or even read it, were held up to
reprobation, or to the terror of all England. What, then, had become of
Coverdale? Why was he not treated with derision as well as Tyndale? How is it,
that in the wide compass of More’s voluminous controversy, the name of Coverdale
is not exposed as that of a delinquent, nay, never once mentioned? Was he not
engaged? Must he not have been busily at work somewhere, at the same time that
Sir Thomas More was so busy in ferreting out, and naming, every suspected
individual? We have seen Coverdale make one narrow escape. His name, in 1528,
when so many men were punished, had been very distinctly held up before Tunstal,
as a noted delinquent. He had been preaching; he, as well as Barnes, had
approved of Tyndale’s New Testament, and of its dispersion; but we then quoted
his own letter to Crumwell, in August 1527, as accounting fully for his safety,
and his being then passed over in silence. But if since that period, and more
especially at the very season when Sir Thomas was continuing to write so
furiously against Tyndale’s version, and all who dared to read it, Coverdale has
been engaged in translating; and if by the close of 1535, he has finished at
press an impression of the English Bible, he must have been employed upon it for
a considerable time. There can be now no doubt that he was, and as little that
Sir Thomas More had been perfectly aware of his occupation; though his singular
silence, maintained throughout, must have always remained a riddle, not to be
solved, but for this one solitary letter from Coverdale’s own pen, which has
never been printed till within these few years. It is addressed to Crumwellf81
-“From the Augustine’s this May-day.” After good wishes in the style of those
times, he begs,- “For the tender love of God, and for the fervent zeal that you
have to virtue and godly study, cordis genibus provolutus, I humbly desire and
beseech your goodness, of your gracious help. Now I begin to taste of Holy
Scriptures; now, honour be to God, I am set to the most sweet smell of holy
letters, with the godly savour of holy and ancient doctors, unto whose knowledge
I cannot attain, without diversity of books, as is not unknown to your most
excellent wisdom. Nothing in the world I desire, but books as concerning my
learning. They once had, l do not doubt but Almighty God shall perform that in
me, which He, of ilis most plentiful favour and grace, hath begun. Moreover, as
touching my behaviour, your Mastership’s mind once known, with all lowliness I
offer myself, not only to be ordered in all things, as shall please your wisdom,
but also as concerning the education and instruction of others, alonly to ensue
your prudent counsel.” This document is important in several respects; and
though the year in which it was written be not marked, the style proves that
Crumwell had already much in his power, and that, therefore, he must have been
engaged officially near the King. His Majesty’s Commissioners in our day, who
first printed the letter, in 1830, have said-“From the superscription it was
clearly before Crumwell became Secretary of State, probably before he was of the
Privy Council,” and they have dated it 1st May, 1582. But the “superscription”
is literally the same which Vaughan and others employed, when addressing
Grumwell in 1531; and as time must be allowed for Coverdale to complete his
translation, we are inclined to think that the letter may have been written on
May-day 1531. In May 1530, the Bishops and Sir Thomas More were mad to fury
against Tyndale; but by the next year, his influence being more powerful than
ever, Crumwell may have felt that something must be attempted.

After such a letter, and “books once had,” it is natural to suppose that
Coverdale lost no time. He had been set to “the smell of holy letters” by no
common Patron-a man rising into great power; though the spot to which this
second translator retired has never yet been ascertained, But wherever it was,
there he sat down, and amidst all the war’s tumultuous noise, as well as
shielded from the keen arrows of the Lord Chancellor of England, he was left,
like Luther on his mountain ground at Wartburg, to pursue the even tenor of his
way. How striking is the contrast, when we turn for a moment to the situation of
Tyndale, whether in 1531 or 1532? Having had no fixed abode, no certain
dwelling-place, but under the pelting of a pitiless storm, by May 1531, for more
than seven long years, he had already been doing his best for England. As far as
reproach, denunciation, and persecution, could go, it might be said, “with many
an arrow, deep infixed his panting side was charged.”-“As I now am,” said he fo
Vaughan, in April of that year, “very death were more pleasant to me than life.”
Let the date given in the Government State Papers turn out to be the correct
one: then, at that moment, Sir Thomas Elyot had been charged by Henry VIII. to
seize Tyndale, if he could; at home, the Bishops were tormenting Latimer, and
burning Mr. Bainham; and as Coverdale dates his letter from St. Augustine’s, he
could scarcely miss hearing that gentleman, with Tyndale’s Testament in his
hand, address the Congregation there, as he did, with tears! At all events, if
that letter was written on May-day 1532, Bainham had been consumed to ashes in
Smithfield, that very morning.

If, however, we now assume the latest date, or that of the Government
Commissioners, to be the true time, it is evident Coverdale had quite enough to
do for fully two years to come, ia bringing his manuscript of the entire
Scriptures into such a state, as that he could please his employers, with regard
to any word or any rendering contained in it.

According to his own expression, he was then ready to set forth this special
translation. In other words, he was then ready for the press. Nor is the time
unworthy of notice. It will be remembered that by May in that year, Crumwell had
been appointed Secretary of State, and that his influence was rising rapidly to
its great height. He had, therefore, much more in his power, while Coverdale, as
we have seen for years past, was at his disposal, or entirely subservient to his
will. Now, it was the New Testament, all along, of which the authorities had
been most afraid; the systematic alteration of certain words in it might be
regarded as likely to allay their apprehensions, and could be very easily done,
before the manuscript was committed to the press. At all events, Coverdale was
then ready to “set forth” his translation, “according as he was desired;” and
the letter just quoted, indeed, is chiefly valuable as a key to certain
expressions to be found in the preliminary matter affixed to the Bible of 1535.
No fault can ever be found with Coverdale’s amiable temper as a man, while his
expressed humility as a scholar shines preeminent. Among his contemporaries he
must ever be ranked very high. As a translator he did well; and had he not been
encumbered with patronage, he would have done far better. We must, however, take
the work as it came from his hands, and can now judge of it only by its merits.
But if the situation of the two men has furnished one contrast, the origin of
the two translations presents another, not less worthy of remembrance. The
origin of Tyndale’s must ever be traced to his own bosom and conscience alone.
Before leaving England, he might have said,-“The word of the Lord was in mine
heart, as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing,
and I could not stay;” nay, and with the prophet of old, he might have
added-“All my familiars watched for my halting; saying, Peradventure he will be
enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take revenge upon him.”
With Coverdale, it was far otherwise. It was an undertaking, no doubt, congenial
with his taste; but, left to himself, if we are to believe his own words, he
never would have attempted it. In his prologue “to the Christian reader,” he
styles his work a “special translation,” because he proceeded as he was desired
under authority. “But, to say the truth before God, it was neither my labour,
nor my desire to have this work put into my hands; nevertheless, when I was
instantly required, though I could not do so well as I would, I thought it yet
my duty to do my best, and that with a good will.”

Then, again, as to the expense of this undertaking, Coverdale was patronised. In
Tyndale’s case, under the influence of the power of Christianity and the noblest
patriotism, the whole commenced at his own risk; and purely for his country’s
benefit, we have seen him, again and again, embarrassed in more ways than one.
But Coverdale had no risk whatever to run. He was employed, and, whether he was
to succeed or not, the work was to involve him in no expense whatever. He spake
as he felt at the moment, and it was intended, no doubt, as a hint to the King;
but certainly it was by far too bold to say, that “he trusted, that God would
bring his simple and rude labour to good effect, seeing that others had been
moved by the Holy Ghost to undertake the cost of it.” The glaring truth was,
that the community at large had been even by that time happily brought into such
a state, by manifold editions of Tyndale’s translation, that the patrons of
Coverdale were moved by no higher feeling than that of imperative expediency;
and this feeling forms decidedly one of the strongest testimonies to the effect
and power of Tyndale’s exertions.

Having proceeded however to the close, Coverdale had now to approach his
Majesty, no doubt under direction, that nothing might be wanting to secure
acceptance; and therefore he came with the first of those dedications, which, to
say the least, ought never to have been bound up with the word of the living
God. In the course of his dedication, he compares Henry VIII. to Moses, to
David, to Jehoshaphat, to Hezekiah, “yea, a very Josias;” and as if all this had
not been too much, he says-“I thought it my duty, and to belong unto my
allegiance, when I had translated this Bible, not only to dedicate this
translation unto your Highness, but wholly to commit it unto the same: to the
intent that if any thing therein be translated amiss, it may stand in your
Grace’s hands, to correct it, to amend it, to improve, yea, and CLEAN TO REJECT
IT, if your godly wisdom shall think it necessary!” In the volume which
Coverdale thus presented, were these words, of his own translating,-“He that
rebuketh a man, shall find more favour at the last, than he that flattereth
him;” though, certainly, at the moment, it might seem, that under such high
patronage, and after incense so dense and abundant as had been offered to his
Majesty, he must succeed. And not only succeed, but overshadow the man who had
been so signally raised up by God, and who, for twelve years, had been God’s own
sanctioned instrument, for conveying into Britain His blessed Word. Often have
we marked his labours, as forming a distinct and independent undertaking, with
which Divine Providence would not permit mere time-serving men, whoever they
were, or worldly politicians, to interfere; but how will it be possible to draw
this distinction now? And, more especially, as this is only the first of several
distinct attempts, to bestow on this country, a translation different from that
of the first-the unpatronised Tyndale’s?

Yet in serving man only, and in seeking to please him, there are many critical
moments; while in serving God, there is not one: and, therefore, with regard to
this attempt, it so happened that Coverdale had overshot the mark at a most
critical period. This might have well warned any future individual, of the
danger connected with such dedications. The last sheet of this Bible having been
put to press on the 4th of October, 1535, Coverdale had closed the heading, or
title, of his dedication to Henry, by imploring the Divine blessing on himself,
and his “dearest just wife and most virtuous Princess, Queen Anne.” Any copy of
this book, bound, could not have reached this country before the beginning of
1536, at the soonest. But by February, if not earlier, the very name of Queen
Anne, so far from being a passport to royal favour, was fatal to anything, to
which it was affixed!

Crumwell, too, as we have already seen, had fallen in with the King’s barbarous
intentions, so that till another Queen arose, in the person of Jane Seymour, the
book must have remained unpresented. After that, it is true, the Convocation
assembled in June; but, as a body, they appear to have entertained no favour for
the translation,-no, nor even sympathy for those who, as Coverdale has told us,
had been “moved to pay the cost!” So far from this, “the Convocation agreed upon
the form of a petition to be presented to the King,” as already noticed, “That
he would graciously indulge unto his subjects of the laity, the reading of the
Bible in the English tongue, and that a new translation of it might be forthwith
made, for that end and purpose.” And, therefore, said Lewis, it appears that the
Clergy did not approve of the translations already made by Tyndale and
Coverdale, and their own attempt to have the royal permission to make a new one
had not succeeded.

Here, however, was a Bible, completely finished by Coverdale, dated in 1535; and
before any remarks respecting it, we give the Title and Collation. “BIBLIA.THE
BIBLE, that is the holy Scripture of the Olde and New Testament, faithfully and
truly translated out of Douche and Latyn in to Englishe, 1535.” The book is in
black letter, printed in double colunms, in a foreign secretary-gothic type,
with wood-cuts; but the dedication, prologue, and contents of Genesis, are in a
different letter. Collation-Wood-cut title; dedication to K.HENRY VIII.
including his “dearest just wife, and most vertuous pryncesse, QUEEN
ANNE”-indicating the powerful influence she possessed in that year, 5 pages. “A
prologue to the reader,” 6 pages. “The Bokes of the hole Byble,” 2 pages. “The
contentes of the boke of Genesis,” 1 page. “The first book of Moses,” fol.
1-90.; then a map of the Holy Land. “The second parte of the Olde Testament,”
Josua to Hester, fol. 2-120. “Job to Solomon’s Balettes,” fol. 1-52 “All the
Prophetes in Englishe,” fol. 2-120. “Apo-cripha,” fol. 2-83, falsely numbered
81., a blank leaf. “The Newe Testamente,” fol. 2- 113, and on the reverse of the
last is, “Prynted in the yeare of oure Lorde 1535. and fynished the fourth daye
of October.” The death of Queen Anne in May 1536, having proved fatal to the
appearance of this book till after the event, various expedients were then tried
to ensure success. “The interval,” says Professor Walter, “between the date on
the title-page and the actual publication, is clearly marked by a curious
alteration in the dedicatory letter to Henry VIII. which contains these
words,-your dearest just wife and most vertuous pryncessc Qu.

JAne.’ This is not as it was printed; for Anne has been altered into JAne by the
pen.” Thus, indeed, it stands in the British Muscum copy, but there is great
variety as to this appellation. Lambeth Library has one copy with Anne, another
with Jane. The Bodleian has Anne. Sion College has Jane, and in some copies the
name of the Queen had been expunged. None of these expedients, it must be
obvious, could possibly meet the case. The preceding phrase was now as
inauspicious as that of the Queen’s name. The epithet just, as intended to mark
both Coverdale’s and Crumwell’s approbation of Henry’s second Queen, had come
too late; and it was more than awkward when applied to the third marriage, as it
seemed to say that the question of legitimacy would never be laid to rest. Only
one other device remained to be tried, which was that of a new title, as if it
were a different book; changing the year to the next, or 1536, and leaving out
the words “translated out of Douche and Latyn,” as follow, “BIBLIA.THE BYBLE:
that is, the Holy Scrypture of the Olde and New Testament, faythfully translated
in Englyshe, 1536” But all was yet in vain, and that year expired without
leaving one shadow of proof that the book had obtained the royal approbation. In
June, the Prelates virtually expressed their dissatisfaction with all that had
yet been done; and we have already seen that there were no injunctions on the
subject in 1536. From all this, it becomes evident, that wherever Coverdale had
superintended the press, whether at Zurich, Frankfort, or Cologne, for they have
all been mentioned, in 1536 he must have been in London; and in 1537 we have
evidence not only of his occupation and place of abode, but of his
long-continued confidential communication with Crumwell. We have never seen him
but as his obedient servant for ten years past, or since August 1527. His return
to England therefore, and his continued residence in it till next year, being
thus ascertained, all such assert, ions as that “COVERDALE, assisted by Rogers,
who corrected the press, revised the whole of Tyndale’s work before they
reprinted it, not only the published but the unpublished part of it,” as Mr.
Whittaker had imagined, are now at an end. Coverdale was at home in England, all
the time that Rogers was so busy abroad; and from the superior manner in which
he executed his task, it is evident that he required no such assistant. The
alliance of Coverdale with Tyndale, at any time, is a historical fiction, which
must now be discarded. No two undertakings could well be more distinct; though
Rogers, it will be evident, had sat in judgment on whatever Coverdale had
translated. With reference, however, to the Bible brought into England in 1536,
of Coverdale’s qualifications as a Translator from the original, there can be
little or rather no question, after what Mr. Whittaker has so ably written
respecting his acquaintance with Hebrew; though, at the same time, his leaning
to the Vulgate and German versions has been made equally apparent by Professor
Walter; who goes so far as to insist that the version cannot be ranked so high
as that of a primary one. The truth seems to be, that between Coverdale and
Crumwell, expediency had been far too much consulted in the undertaking
throughout. Hence even the first title-page, bearing these words, “translated
out of Douche and Latyn.” These terms, as Whittaker had not seen them, he could
scarcely believe; adding, “if this be the ease, the title-page contains a very
great misrepresentation.” Hence the withdrawment of the words in 1536 by
Coverdale, and this year by Nycolson; to say nothing of the awkward substitute,
“translated in Englyshe.” At the same time, Coverdale himself informs us that he
had five different translations, both Latin and Dutch, that is German, before
him, and “to help him herein;” and though he certainly does not appear to have
venerated these “interpreters” as authority, ho regarded their translations with
“gladness,” and therefore could not upon all occasions be free from some degree
of bias. But we are now advancing into the year 1537; and yet, if there has been
any application to the King respecting this Bible, there is no reply. Not a
single petition from Crumwell in its favour is to be found. A printer however,
and in London itself, now appeared in furtherance of Coverdale’s design-James
Nycolson in St. Thomas’ Hospital, Southwark. By this time he had reprinted
Coverdale’s Bible, with his dedication to the King; and it deserves notice that
there were other copies with a different title, without the dedication. From the
spelling, we presume the latter to have been the first expedient for royal
favour; but this is immaterial, for the fact is, that they both succeeded. Both
titles bear at the foot of the page these words, “Set forth with the Kynge’s
most gracious licence.” But when, or in what month of 1537, could this have been
obtained? There was, as already hinted, no Convocation; but were the Bishops not
consulted? It should seem not. Their Vicar-General had thought it unnecessary;
for he it was who had applied to Henry and obtained his licence. Coverdale
himself was now in London; and though there be not a word yet found in favour of
the first Bible printed in 1535, he now applied earnestly to his old patron, for
farther favour to Nycolson, whom he was employing as a printer of several
smaller things. The King’s “gracious licence” speaks for itself; and if Crumwell
and Cranmer, nay, and his Majesty be gained over, what hope remained of the
smallest notice being ever taken of Tyndale’s labours? What hope of any just
estimate being now formed of his merits as a Translator, however superior? He
had not only left the world, but left not one solitary friend at that court,
where his name had been branded with infamy, from the days of Wolsey until now;
and, therefore, long before Coverdale had even sat down to his work. Besides
this, the King and Crumwell, and Cranmer, had, for years, fully committed
themselves against Tyndale; the two former by the most violent language, and
Cranmer, all these years, by at least bowing to the storm, and winking hard at
his martyrdom. Nor must it be forgotten, that the Primate, in his official
capacity, in company with his brethren, had been striving hard after some
translation by their own authority.

Such was the actual state of matters, down to the beginning of August this year;
when, as far as it is yet known, not one man in all England, from the King
downwards, said, or even imagined, that any change was at hand! But such are the
ways of Him who is the Governor among the nations. That which He most highly
favours-that which, by way of eminence, is His own cause, He may allow for a
moment to sink into forgetfulness, or in oblivion die, only that His own hand
may be the more conspicuous.

Waiving therefore all implication of Coverdale, in any sense whatever, whether
as an individual, a translator, or a Christian, the favour now bestowed upon him
by man becomes a pare of English history, by no means the least observable. It
was permitted to take its course. It was permitted to do so, till it had reached
its utmost height. But what if all this were only to render the interlposition
of Divine Providence more apparent and striking? Capricious the King of England
might be, to a proverb; but Henry the Eighth was God’s servant, as entirely as
Nebuchadnezzar was of old; and though all things, at present, seem to run one
way, in a few days only we shall see them all at once take another direction.

We shall see the translation set aside, which the King had licensed, and of
which even Crumwelt, and perhaps some others, had paid the cost! No other man
than Cranmer shah be the moving cause. Nycolson the printer shall, next year, be
out of favour with Coverdale; nay, Coverdale himself be engaged in correcting
the press of another translation under the sanction of both Henry and Crumwell;
while the Bible, which we have just reported, shah be not only passed by, but
ere long interdicted by authority! But why, it may be inquired, why make such
distinction between the two translations? To this, at present, we only reply,
that supposing they had been precisely of equal merit, surely something was due
to the memory of him who had ploughed, and sowed, and toiled so long; who had
first cast up the high way, and lifted up a standard for the people; without one
word of encouragement, or one smile of Court favour, from any of these men. The
important distinction, however, between the two translations, will be pointed
out, when once we have recorded the historical facts.

We must, therefore, as we have often done before, look abroad, but only for a
few moments, as we shall soon have occasion to return to England again. In
England itself, by this time, there were many admirers of Tyndale, who now
revered his memory; many who had read and believed the truths of Scripture,
which he had been importing into his native land since the year 1526; but they
were like the seven thousand in Israel, in the days of Elijah. the printing
press at home was fettered in the hands of but a very few individuals, and there
was no man of sufficient nerve in this country to take up the cause. Tyndale
himself, too, has been also withdrawn; but all this will only render that
Providence, with whom the work had begun, still more conspicuous, when lending
the finishing stroke to all that His chosen servant had translated. This then
appears to have been, and not till then, the proper moment for overruling the
men in England: that is, after all the three influential individuals, the King,
Crumwell, and Cranmer, had fully committed themselves, again and again; and
before any “injunctions” were issued, which might have misled the people. As
there was one man to whom Tyndale had been useful, John Fryth, who had first
stood by him as an assistant, and then preceded him to a better world; so now,
there had been a second raised up, to do justice to his memory, as a translator.
This was John Rogers, alias Matthew, a native of Warwickshire, born, it is most
probable, about the year 1500. He had been educated at Cambridge, and having
come to Antwerp while Tyndale resided there, he became a Chaplain to the English
merchant adventurers. By his intimate conversation with our Translator, he was
induced to examine the Scriptures for himself, and the result was that he
embraced, in a great degree, the same views with this eminent man. Where Rogers
sat down to superintend the press, remains still only a matter of conjecture:
but it must have been soon, if not immediately after Tyndale was imprisoned at
Vilvorde, that his friend set about his edition of the Bible, in large folio; as
the work was finished, and ready for importation to England by the month of July
1537. That this tribute to Tyndale’s memory originated in the individual zeal of
his friends, there can be little or rather no doubt; as Rogers had printed more
than the half of the entire volume, before we have any evidence of the men
coming forward, who then took up the work, as a matter of business or trade.
These 4’, were Richard Grafton, and Edward Whitchurch, so well known afterwards,
as printers in London. The former enjoyed the high honour of embarking almost
his all in the undertaking; for neither Cranmer nor Crumwell, nor the King, ever
contributed one farthing of the expense. By the time, therefore, that Rogers had
got to the beginning of Isaiah, these two individuals having embraced the
design, on that page the numbers begin again, with a title, “The prophetes in
Englishe,” in black and red letters, surrounded by sixteen wood-cuts; and on the
next page there is printed in flourished text capitals R.G. at the top, and E.W.
at the bottom, with a large wood-cut between. The name of Tyndale affixed would
have been fatal to its acceptance with Henry. That of Thomas Matthew, at whose
instance perhaps the undertaking may have commenced, was therefore printed in
the title-page, and T.M. at the end of the dedication; but to mark Rogers’
connexion with the book, we have at the beginning, “An exhortation to the study
of the Holy Scripture gathered out of the Bible,” which is subscribed J.R.: and
what is singular, at the end of the Old Testament, we find W. T. in very large
flourished text capitals, evidently intended for William Tyndale. Not that he
had finished the whole, the remainder being completed, as we shall presently
describe. The object that Rogers had in view was to forward the work, and do
justice to the labours of the man he admired. Accordingly, the whole of the New
Testament, and of the Old as far as the end of 2nd Chronicles, or exactly
two-thirds of the entire Scriptures, are Tyndale’s verbally, with an occasional
variation only in the orthography; and as for the other third, while Rogers may
have taken advantage of Coverdale’s printed sheets, he evidently had sat in
judgment on every page, and his method is not implicitly followed. When
referring to this book, Bale has said that “Rogers translated the Bible into
English, from Genesis to the end of Revelation, making use of the Hebrew, Greek,
Latin, German, and English (that is, Tyndale’s) copies.” But this is merely a
specimen of those loose and inaccurate statements which have been made by him,
and Johnson, and various other writers. There is now no question that Tyndale
translated his New Testament from the Greek; and the Old, as far as he had gone,
from that Hebrew which he so admired. What Rogers did therefore, was, that he
adopted Tyndale as far as he had procceded in translating; and as a variety of
passages from the Old Testament had been not only translated, but published
before Coverdale’s Bible saw the light, so it must be presumed that there were
other chapters in manuscript. In short, Rogers had the whole of Tyndale, whether
in print or manuscript, as well as Coverdale’s sheets, for the remainder, before
him: and having now arrived at the close we find these words: “To the honoure
and prayse of GOD was this Byble prynted, and fynesshed in the yere of oure
Lorde God, a. 1537” No month is mentioned, but it must have left the press by
the middle of July, if not in the end of June.

Richard Grafton, therefore, was now ready; but before any application is made to
England, in favour of that Bible which was providentially to form the prototype
of so many millions, it becomes of importance, first to ascertain the precise
circumstances under which it came into our native land. The occupation of
Cranmer and his coadjutors-the position of other men-the actual state of the
country, and especially of the capital, where the plague had again appeared,
will explain these.

After long and frequent discussions, Cranmer, Fox, and Latimer, with “other
Bishops and certain learned men,” had brought their labours to a close, and
agreed on the terms of their book, “The Institution of a Christian man;” more
frequently styled the Bishops’ Book, in the July of this year. In the preface
they thank the Almighty for sending such a King to reign over them, which “so
earnestly mindeth to set forth among his subjects the light of Holy Scripture,
which alone sheweth the right path to come to God to see Him, to know Him, to
love Him, and so to serve Him, as He most desireth.”

Coverdale, as well as Crumwell his patron, could, at this moment, desire little
more. Henry had treated the Bishops’ book with caution; he would not commit
himself by any formal gracious reply; yet has he permitted these words to pass,
which could refer to no other than Coverdale’s Bible, if to any Bible already
printed at all; but they will acquire double emphasis, when the course that
Cranmer and Crumwell, and even Henry, pursued in a few days hence, comes to be
observed.

There is, in short, another translation of the English Bible coming from abroad;
and, it is true, that as far as any connexion with the Continent was concerned,
the reader may be still haunted by the recollection, that he has found both
Cranmer and Crumwell in busy confidential communication with such an
unprincipled spy as Theobald; and not only this year, but throughout the next.
This, however, we can neither help nor soften. Gross inconsistencies of
character must stand as matter of history; but, in the present instance, they
will only render it the more apparent, who it was that gave the Bible to
Britain. To the people of this country, it is of infinite moment now, that they
should see more fully into the Divine character, with regard to an event never
to be forgotten.

We repeat, however, there is at this hour, another Bible, in folio, coming over
the sea to old England, one page of which neither Cranmer the Primate, Crumwell
the Vicar-General, or Heffry the King, had ever beheld, and respecting which not
one of them had ever been consulted. Such appears to have been the exact state
of matters, immediately before all that Tyndale had accomplished in translating
the Sacred Volume was laid before his Majesty.

Grafton therefore having arrived in England, from what has now been narrated, we
can scarcely make any mistake with regard to Cranmer’s state of mind. He had, in
truth, been made as sick of discussion, as he had been afraid of the plague, and
had only made his escape from both; though had his fellow commissioners but once
suspected at the moment, what effect this sickness would have upon him,
certainly they had argued less. Like the Jews at Rome, of old, they must have
had “great reasoning among themselves” over this “Bishops’ Book;” and, as the
Primate hints to Crumwell, in his apprehension, there would be no end to it.

It may be regretted that there had not been some solitary expression of sympathy
or admiration in the Translator’s lifetime; but such was the preparation of
Thomas Cranmer for the sight of Tyndale’s labours-such the moment when his
translation was brought before him! Grafton had resolved to apply first to the
Archbishop, perhaps as not having been the patron of Coverdale; but whatever was
the motive, he must have immediately followed him into Kent. We give the title
and collation of the Book which Grafton had brought home with him.

Title.-“ THE BYBLE, which is the Holy Scripture; in which are contayned the Olde
and Newt Testament, truely and purely translated into Euglysh-by Thomas
Matthew.-MDXXXVII” Collation.-This title is in red and black letters, within a
wood engraving, filling the page; and, at the bottom, in large letters, “SET
FORTH WITH THE KINGE’ S MOST GRACYOUS LICENCE.” A Calendar and Almanac for 18
years, beginning 1538, 4 pages. An Exhortation to the Study of the Holy
Scriptures, 1 page; having, in large flourished capitals at the bottom, the
initials of the editor, I. R. The Summe and content of all the Holy Scripture, 2
pages. Dedication to Henry VIII., pages, with flourished capitals at the
beginning and end. “To the Christen Readers,” and a table of principal matters
in the Bible, pages. “The names of all the bokes of the Bible, and a brief
rehearsal of the years passed since the begynnynge of the worlde, unto this
yeare of our Lord, 1535,” 1 page. “Genesis to Salomon’s Ballet,” fol. 1-247.
“The Prophetes in English.” On the reverse of this title is a large woodcut,
between R.G. and E.W., in flourishing capitals “Esay to Malachi,” fol. 1-93.;
and, at the end of Malachi, W. T. forWILLIAM TYNDALE, in large flourished text
capitals. The Apocripha, put in from Coverdale’s Bible. “The Newe Testament,
&c., printed in the yere of our Lorde God, 1537,” in red and black, as in the
first title. “Matthew to Revelation,” fol. 2-109. Tables, &c., fol. 110-111. On
the last leaf, is “The ende of the Newe Testament, and of the whole Byble.”-“ To
the honoure and prayse of GOD was this Byble prynted and fynesshed, in the yere
of our Lorde God, a. 1537” A full page contains 60 lines. NO sooner had Cranmer
received the volume and inspected it, than he sent it off to Crumwell with a
letter, which indicates his approbation very strongly. He “liked it better than
any other translation heretofore made,” and prays him to show the book to the
King, and “obtain of his grace, if you can, a licence that the same may be sold
and read of every person, without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance
heretofore granted to the contrary, until such time that we, the Bishops, shall
set forth a better translation, which I think will not be till a day after
doomsday!” The letter is dated 4th August (1537). So far then, from Cranmer
having the slightest connexion with this undertaking, or “exerting himself” for
this book, as Mr. Todd has imagined, this letter, in its proper connexion,
clearly shows that it came upon the writer in the way of delightful surprise. No
doubt he had wished for a Bible; but, after vainly toiling with his coadjutors
as to the New Testament only, he now very candidly acknowledges that the present
production was literally beyond their power, as a body of men.

Here then, and at last, is that one transaction in Cranmer’s life, which those
who must ever disapprove of many other things in his conduct, should therefore
never forget. Considered in itself and in its consequences, every other good
thing he ever did shrinks into comparative insignificance. For this, all who
have prized the Word of God, or now do so, stand indebted to him as an
instrument. It would have been gratifying could we have fallen upon some
distinct testimony from his pen, at an earlier season; for it is passing
strange, if he had never, till this late period, expressed his admiration of
Tyndale’s translation; but such, alas! may have been one effect of that timidity
which annoyed him all his days. The conjunction of circumstances, already
described, seems to have emboldened him, and better late than never. But be this
as it may, and after allowing to this first agent at home all the good he did,
the reader, as he goes on, will lose sight of man; and, it is presumed, will not
be slow to recognise, above all, that unseen hand, so conspicuously displayed
throughout the whole affair, of which this is nothing more than the first
movement.

Grafton, let it be observed, was not kept long in suspense; the entire request
of Cranmer was immediately granted; for, though all who could avoid London were
gone, Crumwell had remained at his post-went to the King, and succeeded. Cranmer
had heard of this in less than eight days, and expresses his gratitude in the
strongest manner, too strongly to admit of the belief that the general use of
the English Scriptures was already allowed. There was, no doubt, something in
the translation itself, that at once caught the eye and the approbation of
Cranmer; but it was this step in advance, this “general use,” over which he also
exulted. His Majesty had, it is true, acceded, and at Crumwell’s request, to
Coverdale’s Bible, of Nycolson’s printing, having these words upon it-“ Set
forth by the King’s gracious licence;” and Coverdale had requested, that this
printer might have the monopoly for “certain years,” -but there was no reply to
that application. Whereas now, the tide has not only changed, but it has begun
to flow in another direction: for this Bible is not only to be stamped-Set
forth, &c., but it is to be sold and read of every person without danger of any
Act, Proclamation, or Ordinance heretofore granted to the contrary!

All this Cranmer asked, and to all this Henry at once agreed! Cranmer, in short,
felt like a man when every hindrance has been removed: and escaped, for the
present, out of the paw of his brethren on the Bench, in a way that seemed quite
marvellous to himself; so moved was he, that fifteen days after this, in his
very next letter to Crumwell, he writes absolutely as if he had not yet written
at all. Other subjects, indeed, demanded his attention, but, in the fulness of
his heart, this has the first place.

Grafton seems to have brought only one Bible with him, as a specimen, and had
left his servant to follow him with other copies. The first he had presented to
Cranmer, who sent him with it to Crumwell, and he requested six copies to be
brought to him, on their arrival. The very day on which Cranmer was writing his
last letter, the servant had arrived; and in the midst of the plague, still
raging, Grafton sent the volumes to Crumwell, with a letter in which he begs his
Lordship’s acceptance of the Bibles as a gift, for his pains in getting them
licensed, and proceeds in a strain of the grossest flattery, amounting to
profanity, while his language shows that some great and unprecedented thing had
taken place, so much so as to seem to many incredible: hence he goes on to ask
that the licence might be under the Privy Seal, as a defence against all enemies
and adversaries of the same.

Crumwell thought the Privy Seal unnecessary, but Grafton, having embarked his
whole fortune in the undertaking, again pleads for it as a protection against
the foreign printers, who might undersell him with an inferior article from the
German press, and so ruin him, as well as introduce a corrupt text to save the
expense of correction. From this earnest appeal of Grafton, it is evident, that
as the volume had come upon Cranmer by surprise, so he had no concern whatever
with the cost incurred; nay, that no man in England shared in the expense. It
was a gift from abroad, and the burden lay chiefly on the shoulders of this
individual, as a man in business.

We have no written reply to this letter, which, however, does not signify, as it
is well known that Grafton succeeded: but as to the present sudden and most
memorable interposition in favour of Tyndale’s exertions, it was an occurrence,
the effects of which reach down to the present hour. The event itself is only
more extraordinary than the fact, that it should never have been even marked as
it ought to have been, and much less dwelt upon, by any previous writer. But
though hitherto buried among other casual incidents, it would be unpardonable
now to pass on without contemplating an occurrence, in which, without either
presumption or enthusiasm, the overruling hand of God may be so distinctly
traced. There is here no interference with the free agency of man, but one of
the most complete specimens of the mode in which an allwise Providence governs
the world. Grafton, indeed, and his co-partner Whitchurch, may be easily
disposed of, or regarded throughout the whole affair as resembling only the
hewers of wood and drawers of water, in ancient time; but in looking back to the
spring of 1526, when Tyndale’s first efforts were so very keenly felt, as to
awaken the wrath of all in power; and following the track, as we have done, down
to the month of August 1537, what a varied scene has passed before us! The hand
of the Most High has been visible all along; but it was most of all conspicuous
now, for the day was won! In the course of the long conflict, not a few of the
enemy have perished. Two Lords Chancellor, an Archbishop of Canterbury, besides,
at least, four noted Bishops, have fallen; to say nothing of other two, sent
adrift into Italy.

Wolsey and Warham, West of Ely and Nix of Norwich, Standish of St. Asaph and
Fisher of Rochester, as well as Dr. Robert Ridley and Sir Thomas More, are gone.
But what, it may still be said, does all this signify? There are, at least,
eight or ten men yet alive; and, except it be the King himself transiently, when
in some unwonted mood, not one of them has spoken a word in favour of Tyndale or
his exertions, up to this month of August; nay, with two or three cxceptions,
all the rest have even raged against him. These men, too, occupy the Privy
Council, the Senate, and the Bench; so that before such an event as the present
could possibly have taken place, every one of them must have been overruled. And
accordingly now, within the compass of ten days, each day for a year, anti
whether pacified or not, they have all been overruled.

Yes, the King himself, and his Prime Minister the Duke of Norfolk; Crumwell his
Vicegerent, and Cranmer his Archbishop; Tunstal of Durham and Stokesly of
London; Longland of Lincoln and Gardiner of Winchester; nay, Coverdale and his
friend Nycolson, have all alike, or every one of them, been disposed of. For
where is the individual who can now look so low, as to trace this change to
Cranmer, and simply say, that he was the cause? He was the superintended agent,
and let it only be the more observed, the willing instrument, for certainly he
did all, at this moment, not by constraint, but of hearty good will; and yet it
must be clear as day, that of all others, he was most under the influence of
predominant power. The step he took was a bold and decided one, and had Crumwell
been the man, it would have been in perfect character: but Cranmer, though
withal an amiable character, was by constitution timid, and according to his own
repeated confession, had lost beyond recovery, in his youth, every spice of
audacity or daring. Yes, and he was therefore only the more fit to be employed
as an instrument, to overrule or take by surprise, all the rest. After a long
and tedious war, the bitter though fruitless opposition of eleven years, the
opportunity for dealing with crafty opponents, with stiff-necked and rebellious
enemies to the truth, had arrived’ the time for showing “the weakness of God to
be stronger than men.” It was a select hour for choosing a cautious and a timid
man to sway the mighty and the wayward, lie himself, indeed, might be doubtful
of success; for he said to Crumwell, “Obtain all I ask-if you can;” but what was
the result? Take up the men individually, and see. In so sanctioning this
prototype, which contained the translations of Tyndale, the King himself was
overruled. Witness his violent language for years, employed in public
documents-his interdict of Tyndale’s version, and all his other writings-his
commissioning men to apprehend him, though in vain-and his cold indifference at
the end, only last year, respecting his very life. On the same ground stands
Crumwell; after having vilified our Translator, and warned the English Envoy,
Vaughan, if he dared to speak favourably of him; after having long patronised
Coverdale, contributed to his support, nay, and there can be no doubt, to the
cost of his translation, as well as obtained the temporary assent of Henry to
the reprint of that book. As for the others, who had been sworn enemies all
along: Tunstal, notwithstanding his raving in 1526, about the “pestiferous
poison” that had infected his diocese of London, he is now in alarm as to other
infection He is now absolutely terrified to approach the capital, for fear of
the plague; and besides, he is under marching orders for Newcastle, as President
of the Council of the North. Stokesly of London, after all his bloody deeds,
must now be quiet, although Grafton be proposing, for his diocese, such a
plentiful supply of that very translation, for the reading of which, he was wont
to doom the party to the flames. Old Longland of Lincoln, who so exulted over
Wolsey’s “secret search, and at one time” in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, for
books to be burnt, must, for the present, also ponder over the change, but
remain neutral! Gardiner, when at home, of all other men, wonderfully contrived
to retain the King’s ear; but that shrewd and far-seeing man, the ablest foe of
all, had been removed to a distance. As Tunstal was out of the way, in Spain,
when the New Testament first came, so was Gardiner in France, when the Bible
arrived. After displeasing the King in 1535, it had been convenient to send him
into honourable exile, as Ambassador to Paris, out of Crumwell’s way, and he was
not to be recalled for a year to come. The Duke of Norfolk too, Gardiner’s dear
friend, is down in the North; and though panting to return, and pestering
Crumwell with letters for this end, he cannot wend his way to London till
relieved by Tunstal, who, however, is slow to move. But, above all the rest, no
one was more signally overruled than Cranmer, the agent first employed. No
individual in England had striven so hard for some certain translation, to be
sanctioned by his fellows. He had got them to petition his Majesty, in 1534, for
such a one. In 1535, he had attempted the New Testament only, but failed; and
last year, in Convocation again, he had not only petitioned once more for the
same thing, but acquiesced, with all the rest, in the King’s Sacrament of
penance; which the Bible of this year, over which he now so rejoiced, will not
sanction! And, finally, as for Myles Coverdale himself, he is shortly to be
employed in correcting the press of a second edition of this very Bible, which
Grafton had thus brought into England. In short, as this year no Parliament was
asscmbled-no Convocation held, so neither the one nor the other was, or could
be, consulted on the subject! The Bishops, as a body, were now scattered by the
plague, “every one to his own;” while Cranmer, who has just fled from it, and in
total despair of all deliverance arising from that quarter, boldly affirms, that
a better translation of the Sacred Scriptures they either could not, or would
not, “set forth, till a day after doomsday!” To this, no doubt, the best men in
all England then fully responded; and, in concert, they might all have said or
sung, in the language of their own Bible - “O I sing unto the Lord a new song,
For He hath done marvellous things! With His own right hand, and with His holy
arm, Hath He gotten the victory! The Lord is King, be the people never so
unpatient:

He sitteth upon the Cherubims, be the earth never so unquiet.” At such a crisis,
when the country was in danger of being deluged with corrupt versions of His own
blessed Word, it was thus shown, in the most striking manner, to every devout
and careful observer, that the God of Providence is the God of the Sacred
Scriptures; and as He intended the version now given, to remain in this
highly-favoured land for generations then unborn, it was fit that this
interference should take place at the beginning. In the wide compass of English
history, a more signal interposition of Divine Providence on behalf of His own
Word never occurred since, and that simply for this reason, it was never
demanded; the present sufficed for all time to come. This same Monarch, indeed,
and some of his wilfully blind Prelates, may yet rage and strive, but the
version shall never be banished from the land. It may be corrected and improved,
nay, and be burnt again; and seventy years after this, upwards of fifty learned
men may be engaged for three years, in order to make it, as they said, “more
smooth and easy, and agreeable to the text;” but the translation now received,
shall be the basis of all future editions. And well it might; for after all this
labour, and after all due praise to our present version, to say nothing of
particular words, there are still happy turns of expression which had better
have been retained. “In point of perspicuity, and noble simplicity, propriety of
idiom, and purity of style,” it has been said, “no English version has yet
surpassed it;” and if any one suspect that this is saying too much, let him
first peruse Tyndale for himself, and then observe the innumerable passages
which, after so many revisions, are verbally the same as in our present version.
In the detail thus presented to the reader, he cannot fail to have observed more
reasons than one for the distinction drawn between the translation of Tyndale
and that of Coverdale. He has seen that the powerful effects of the former had
roused Crumwell, and led, him to employ Coverdale “instantly,” or in all haste,
to sit down to his task; and the task performed, before it could have made any
impression on England, he has heard Fox of Hereford, in Convocation last year,
allow or rather describe the glorious result of Tyndale’s primary version-“ The
lay people,” said he, “do now know the Holy Scripture better than many of us.”
In one word, the times themselves were the effect of Tyndale’s translation;
Coverdale’s translation was only one effect of the times. In conclusion of this
present year, all other events sink into insignificance when compared with the
introduction of Tyndale’s Bible to his countrymen; so peacefully, easily, and
effectually accomplished, after all the blood and turmoil of the past. The
plague was raging furiously all the time; yet the prototype, the first edition
of our English Bible, must be then and so introduced. Come it did, at a season
so rousing, and fraught with solemn warning. Not to increase alarm, even
Grafton, who brought it, was cautious of approach. Official men had fled for
safety from the Metropolis. Not so Crumwell. He stood firm in the midst of the
dying and the dead. It was chiefly to do what he did in this matter; while all
other men of power and pretension have appeared before us, only as “clay in the
hand of the potter.” To exempt any individual, would be historically incorrect:
they have been overruled to a man.

If, therefore, there be any importance in setting an example; in exhibiting a
pattern after which others may work, or in laying the foundation-stone of a
great enterprise; if it be easy to follow, where one has broken up the way, and
smoothed it; and if the first individual who strikes out a new and untried path
(in which his country, after having showed great resistance, at last follows),
be allowed to discover a mind above the common order,-then, so far as human
agency was concerned, all this must be traced to one man; and one whom now we
need not name. 1538. The Second Year Of Triumph-Persecution Resumed-Tiie English
Bible Printing In Paris-Press Interrupted-Inquisition Overmatched-The Bible
Finished In London-First Injunctions For Tyndale’s Bible -New Testaments, Fresh
Editions-Coverdale’s Testaments-The Destitute State Of England-Joy Over The
Scriptures-Retrospect.

NOTWITHSTANDING what occurred last year, it would be a great mistake to imagine,
because Henry the Eighth and all around him had been overruled, that any visible
change of character had taken place, either in him, or in them. On the contrary,
they will go on in such a manner, and to such an extent, as to render the
interposition already described, only the more striking. It must ever stand out
in bold relief, among the current events of the time. Men overruled, in any
rank, occupy very humble ground; but the higher their station, or the greater
their influence, the ground is lower still; and the King himself will
immediately satisfy us that there was no change upon him. Nor will this be less
apparent in the servants of the Crown. The Sacred Scriptures, however, in the
English tongue, had now been introduced, and in a manner so remarkable as to
excite curiosity with regard to the sequel. The victory already recorded, great
as it was, would not yet suffice. If there was any spot on the Continent, where
opposition to Divine Truth had been most of all virulent, that will be the
proper place in which to complete the triumph of the English Bible. Before the
printing of the Sacred Oracles is to become by far the most conspicuous or
distinguishing feature of our own country, another conquest had been determined.
Tyndale had toiled and died on the Continent, and that must be the seat of this
second achievement. It comes like a double testimony to the work of his hands;
but the story will appear in its proper colours, after we have glanced over some
subordinate affairs at home. The present year, deriving all its importance from
being that which immediately followed the public sanction of the Sacred Volume
in England, the policy of Crumwell and Crammer, met and checked by that of
Tunstal and Gardiner, first demands our notice. At that Convocation in 1536, or
the first of an unprecedented character, where Crumwell had presided as
Vicegerent, and with a high hand over the Bishops, Cranmer had introduced
certain articles, informing all present that the Sacraments must be first
settled; and as the creed, whether framed by himself or the King, or by both in
union, was guarded by sanguinary penalties, it formed a most convenient
instrument for any persecutor. After this, it is true, by his zeal for the Bible
of 1537, Cranmer would seem as though he had either questioned or undervalued
the articles passed and subscribed: but be this as it may, he had been evidently
eager to receive the Germans to a conference, and as much so to have retained
them in discussion. Probably he thought, that as they could defend their own
faith, under safe-conduct, and so boldly question or oppose some of the royal
dogmas, thus some impression might be made on his obstinate and selfwilled
master. In this, however, he had now been deeply disappointed, when lo! Stephen
Gardiner arrived in London.

Gardiner had been uniformly opposed to all this courting of the German
Confederated States. Even when abroad, and two years ago, he had strongly
advised the King against it; but he had now an opportunity of renewing his
former arguments, and the crisis was particularly favourable to his adding “many
like words.” He had been living for three years on the Continent; and as his
royal Master, in all his movements, was governed solely by political motives, no
man was more able than Gardiner to turn his intimate acquaintance with foreign
affairs to some positive account, in favour of his own views. These, of course,
were diametrically opposed to the policy of Crumwell and Cranmer. Henry, he had
insinuated formerly, was a Sovereign, but these Germans, very inferior princes,
the mere subjects of the Emperor; and it was below the King’s dignity to form
any league with them, except as lord of them all. He was “Head of the Church” in
his own kingdom; and in all matters of faith they, of course, ought to bow to
him. Besides, he was an author of high renown; and having, by his book against
Luther, gained the title of “Defender of the Faith,” it was now of more
importance than ever, that he should appear the lord and master of all
sentiments and opinions within his own dominions, and give distinct intimation
to all what his own opinions were. Pole had charged his Majesty with the crime
of changing his religion; whereas now, through Tunstal, not only private masses,
involving auricular confession, had been maintained, but all the wonders of the
mass. One of the points in discussion with the Envoys from Germany had related
to the Lord’s Supper, and the denial of the cup to the people at large; but in
the final reply by Tunstal and Henry, the corporal presence and concomitance had
been affirmed to the last degree of incom-prehensibility. Should any man in
England, therefore, at this moment, presume to question that point, a fine
opportunity was presented to Gardiner and Tunstal for using all their address
and sophistry. The King, it has been said, “valued Gardiner’s abilities for
business, saw his meanness, and was not aware that he himself was sometimes
influenced by the fawning subtilty which he despised.” In one word, no moment
could be more favourable for bloody purposes. Henry was chafed by the policy of
the European Sovereigns, enraged at Pole as well as at his pointed charges, if
not also irritated by the obstinate adherence of the Germans to their Augsburg
Confession. The creed of 1536, therefore, (forming the first articles imposed
upon England,) as if framed for the occasion, was now to be put in operation.
The King had entitled it-“Articles devised to establish Christian quietness
among us;” and Cranmer, in bringing it before the Convocation, had insisted that
the sacraments must be first settled; but in doing this, he probably little
dreamed that two of those very articles would prove the first occasion of his
embruing his own hands in blood. The first article was baptism, and with it the
King began. Henry had decreed that all his people “ought, and must of necessity,
believe certainly, that baptism was instituted as a thing necessary for the
attaining of everlasting life”-“ that by this they shall have remission of sins,
and the grace and farour of God”-“ that this promise of grace and life, which is
adjoined unto baptism, pertaineth not only to such as have the use of reason,
but also to infants, who, by this sacrament, be made thereby the very sons and
children of God-that infants must needs be christened, because they be born in
original sin, which sin cannot be remitted, but by the sacrament of baptism.”

It has been affirmed that there were many in England who denied the gross errors
here propounded; and the list of “dogmata” presented to the Convocation in 1536,
as prevailing throughout the country, might be referred to as proving this; but
the parties seized, at this moment, were not Henry’s people -not his own
subjects. They were foreigners, Germans, who had fled from their own country to
avoid persecution there. They might therefore have at least been first warned to
leave the kingdom. But no-the King must speak out, in no unequivocal terms, as
to his orthodoxy; and both Cranmer and Crumwell, as well as others, now fall in
with the stream of blood. On the first of October, a commission, in the King’s
name, was given out to Cranmer, Stokesly, and Samson, as Bishops, including
Heath, Skip, Thirlby, Gwent, Robert Barnes, and Edward Creme, to try these
people “lately come into this realm, where they lurk secretly in divers corners
and places.” There is no evidence of any crime whatever, save the denial of this
article, or the doctrine contained in it; and we have no record of their trial.
Nor is this surprising; it was not to be expected; as by the commission itself,
the commissioners had authority to execrate tire premises, notwithstanding part
of them might be contrary to lite customary course and forms of law! This most
humiliating document for Cranmer, was subscribed by Crumwell. The result was,
that three men and one woman bore fagots at Paul’s Cross, and two others, a man
and a woman, were consigned to the flames in Smithfield. But another article of
the creed imposed, furnished ground for a far more conspicuous triumph to the
Bishop of Winchester; when a more miserable spectacle of a royal tyrant taunting
and worrying his victim, Westminster Hall probably never witnessed, before nor
since. John Lambert, a convert of Bilney’s, who is said to have associated with
Tyndale and Fryth when abroad, had, in the reign of Sir Thomas More, been
brought to England; and before Warham, in 1532, had answered to not fewer than
forty-five articles laid against him. Warham, however, died that year, and
Lambert was discharged. To avoid the fury of persecution, ho then changed his
name to Nicholson; and being a man of learning, he had, since that period,
earned an honourable subsistence, by teaching Latin and Greek. This year, Dr.
John Tailour, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, had been preaching at St. Peter’s,
Cornhill, on “transubstantiation.” Lambert or Nicholson, after hearing him, had
offered civilly to argue the point, but Tailour required him to commit his
thoughts to writing; a very dangerous thing in those times, and that which had
proved fatal to the immortal Fryth. On showing the paper to Robert Barnes, of
whom we have just heard, as a member in commission with Cranmer, he advised
Tailour to lay it before the Archbishop, now so rigidly observed by all his
brethren of “the old learning.” Lambert, once brought into Court, appealed from
the Bishops to the King; when Gardiner suggested that a fine opportunity was now
presented to his Majesty, for putting an end to all insinuations, foreign or
domestic, and of vindicating himself before the world, from the charge of
favouring heretics. The King, in perfect character, taking up the appeal with a
high hand, convoked his Nobles and Prelates immediately to repair to London, and
assist at the triumph. Upon the day fixed Henry arrived, with a numerous guard,
all clothed in white, and a cushion of white cloth of tissue was laid before his
Majesty. On his right sat the Bishops, and behind them the lawyers, in purple.
On his left the Peers, in their order, with the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber
behind. The King, once seated on his throne, Samson, Bishop of Chichester, by
command, declared to the people the cause of this assembly:- “The King,” he
said, “was resolved to keep constant to the Catholic faith and customs. That he
was very desirous the prisoner would retract his errors, and return to the
Catholic communion: That for this purpose, and to prevent the extremities which
would otherwise follow, he had ordered the appearance of these grave and learned
men, the Bishops; hoping that by the advantage of their character, and force of
their reasoning, they would recover him to the Church, and wrest his unfortunate
opinion from him. But in case he was not to be removed from his obstinacy, he
(the King) was resolved to make him an example; and by a precedent, of his own
setting, acquaint his judges and the Magistracy, how they ought to manage
heresy, and behave themselves upon such occasions!”

Henry then commenced, and with “brows bent unto severity;” but Lambert at once
denying the corporal presence, he commanded Cranmer to answer him. With his
characteristic mildness the Archbishop began; but very soon it appeared as if
Lambert would triumph in argument. “The King,” says Foxe, “seemed greatly
moved-the Bishop himself that disputed to be entangled, and all the people
amazed;” when Gardiner, whose cause it truly was, before Cranmer had finished,
and who, according to previous arrangement, ought not to have spoken one word,
till four others had finished, kneeled down for permission to break silence.
Henry assenting, he began-Tunstal, Stokesly, and two others, followed, occupying
the solitary prisoner for five hours, or from twelve to five o’clock, when
torches were lighted. Lambert maintained his opinions in answer to them all; but
observing that there was no hope of being fairly heard, towards the close had
become silent. At last, Henry inquired, whether he would live or die?

Lambert threw himself upon the King’s mercy-that King who, in his anger, never
spared any man. He replied, that he would be no patron of heretics; and then
commanded Crumwell, as Vicar-General, to read the sentence of death! Such was
the pitiful display on Friday the 16th of November; and on Tuesday following,
the 20th, Lambert was burnt to ashes, with circumstances of peculiar barbarity.
His last words were-“None but Christ-none but Christ!” On Saturday following,
the foreigners suffered; and by Wednesday the 28th we have melancholy proof of
the basest sycophancy on the part of Crumwell, now striving in vain to retain
his influence and power, in the face of Gardiner, the Duke of Norfolk, and
others. Writing to Sir Thomas Wyatt, then ambassador in Spain, he describes the
scenes in which he took the sad part of reading the burning sentence, justifies
the execution, and in flattering words culogizes the royal murderer; so that his
having been said to have asked forgiveness of Lambert before death, if not a
mere gratuitous assumption, or embellishment of Foxe, was adding insult to
injury. And as for Crumwell’s motive in so writing to the Continent, at this
juncture, if it was the pitiful time-serving idea, that he might thus raise his
cruel master in the estimation of the Spanish Court, and so, in some degree,
retain his own popularity or power, he entirely failed. With regard to the mock
trial itself; such an array, to browbeat and overawe a poor solitary
schoolmaster, was sufficiently contemptible. The thing was evidently got up to
serve some purpose at the moment, while, like many other bloody steps, it proved
an entire failure; though, after all, in the page of history, the event is not
without its value. Henry had assembled all his authorities round him, and thus
fully displayed what was actually their existing spirit or character, as well as
his own. The firm faith and fortitude of Lambert cleared the moral atmosphere,
and served to show the entire assembly in its true colours. The right of private
judgment, and the unfettered freedom of religious worship, were not understood,
of course, by a single individual there present; but, on the other hand, if the
Sacred Scriptures be actually now printing, and at the instance of Crumwell, one
of these very courtiers, then their introduction into England, or diffusion
there, is a cause just as distinct from these men, except as mere instruments,
as it had ever been. And should another edition of the Sacred Volume, and that a
larger impression, be thus advancing at press, it becomes doubly interesting to
inquire, how such a thing could be accomplished. The Most High is ever ruling,
not in the armies of heaven alone, but “in the midst of his enemies;” only at
such a time as this, His overruling power becomes evident to demonstration, and
demands special praise. We turn therefore to what, in one sense, is the only
important view of the present year. The two cities in the west of Europe, or
indeed anywhere else, which, as cities, had discovered the fiercest opposition
to Divine Truth, were London and Paris. The former, after a siege of eleven
years’ duration, had now been taken. A succession of sappers and miners, by
means of the New Testament, had fully prepared the way. The same gracious
Providence, which had been so conspicuous from the beginning, at last, and most
unexpectedly, brought the Bible entire, when, through the straitness of the
siege, and the force of overruling local circumstances, all at once, Henry, and
the men around him, without one breath of hostility, struck their flag of
defiance, and received the vilified and long-rejected version. The latter city,
Paris, though assailed as long as London had been, was, alas! never so to yield.
Francis, though the attached brother of a pious sister, would never bow, as
Henry had been obliged to do. Of the two cities it might be said-“one was taken,
the other left.” By the favour of God, Britain was to become the land of Bibles;
and yet the next edition, after the imported one, was not to be commenced in her
metropolis. A tribute higher still must be paid to the disinterested patriotism
and Christian pity of our first Translator. London did not then afford such
excellent materials for printing as Paris. It would therefore be a higher
display of Almighty power, amidst the burning hatred of the Parisians, of the
King himself, and even in the face of that Inquisition, which had obtained no
footing in England, if the next English folio Bible should be printed by
Frenchmen, and in Paris itself! It will not only be so, but under the eye of the
same man who had embarked his all in printing the first edition!

Such, in truth, turns out to be the peculiar feature of the year 1538. There the
work must now proceed; and not only so, but this shall lead to consequences,
very memorable, down to the close of 1541. The Bible commenced at Paris in 1538,
and finished in London by April 1539, is a curiosity equally remarkable in its
way with that of 1537, if not more so. It was like going forth “from conquering,
to conquer.”

Such an event indeed might seem impossible, look where we may, at home or
abroad, Henry himself, in eager correspondence with both Spain and France, is
observed to have been engrossed with Continental politics, and not only in keen
pursuit after a fourth Queen, bat busy in proposing matrimonial alliances for
his children, or, as after this, in sanctioning bitter persecution. Cranmer, in
communication with Germany, is employed in discussion for months with Envoys
from that country; while Crumwell, between them both, though he might seem to
have had enough to do, is also pursuing vigorously his own course, in the
visitation of Monasteries and Abbeys, Images, Crosses and Shrines, with a view
to their common overthrow. The harvest months are marked by cruel preparations,
and those of winter, by the shedding of blood, both foreign and domestic. Where
then was any room left? Where any time for attention to subjects so widely
different, or far apart, as that of the printing of the Scriptures, and their
diffusion throughout England? Still, both time and attention must bo given to
both. Last year Crumwell had been overruled, Gardiner’s return was well fitted
to quicken his pace, and this year he has become a determined and energetic
agent. His eye had been directed to Paris, where for the last five years
especially, the greatest hostility to the Scriptures had been most cruelly
displayed; but this will only lend greater singularity to the next edition of
the English Bible. The hand of Britain’s God will once again be pressed upon our
notice, as if to show, that all places, as well as persons, or that Francis I.
and Henry VIII., the highest regal opponents, were alike before Him.

Grafton’s edition, so singularly introduced last year, was soon found to be but
a poor supply, and a second, of 2,500 copies, was now intended.

Grafton may have suggested Paris as the best place for printing it, as well as
for superior paper; and here now stood Coverdale, at Crumwell’s command, ready
to accompany him, as correcter of the press; but how was it possible for the
work to be executed there? In the commencement of the year, owing to the feeling
then existing between Henry and Francis, such a proposal was out of the
question. The latter had given great offence, by refusing Mary of Guise to the
English monarch, and by not bowing to his request as to her sisters. Both the
Emperor and Francis, however, in order to gain time, were alike deceiving the
King of England; and by the end of February, one of the French King’s strokes of
policy was, to assent to Henry becoming the mediator between the Emperor and
himself; nay, before the end of April, he had offered his son, the Duke of
Orleans, to Mary of England. Crumwell’s policy, it has been affirmed, was to
cultivate friendship with France, and, through that power, link Henry with the
German States: but be that as it may, here was now an opening with Paris. At
this moment, therefore, Crumwell must have succeeded in getting his royal Master
to communicate with Francis; as it was expressly in consequence of this that a
licence was then actually granted by the King of France to Richard Grafton and
George Whitchurch, to print the Scriptures.

Now, as Francis left his capital about the 1st of June, and considerable
progress had been made by the 23rd of that month, it may be safely presumed that
both Grafton and Coverdale had arrived in Paris some time in May. It is worthy
of remark, that the first step taken was by a direct communication between these
two monarchs, Henry and Francis; for Crumwell would not stoop to any intercourse
through Gardiner, though the English ambassador there, who was a noted opponent.
Granting the request, too, might, and probably did, serve the purpose of Francis
in prolonging delusion, who was just then setting off for Nice, where, at last,
the mask of friendship was to be thrown off. The French King, therefore, after
issuing the licence, leaves Paris, and Gardiner officially follows him; but it
was three months before either the one or the other returned; and thus the
printing of this Bible for England rapidly proceeded during their absence! When
the English Scriptures were to be introduced into our native land, the Bishop of
Winchester was taken out of the way; and so it happened when they were to be
printed in Paris. He may return for a few days in September, but not as
ambassador: his influence was gone; it was merely to make certain arrangements
before taking his departure for England.

Less than two years ago, when the Doctors of Louvain were wrangling with
Tyndade, and thirsting for his blood, certainly there was nothing within the
range of possibility so improbable, as that his translation of the Scriptures
should be reprinting at a Parisian press, by the request of his own Sovereign,
and with the sanction of the persecuting French King himself; but so it was! For
while the common enemies of such a measure were all assembled at Nice, only to
make bad worse; Grafton and Coverdale were busily at work! In their letters to
Crumwell they speak of the undertaking as “your work of the Bible,” and send him
specimens of it as they proceed, craving “help at this present,” and some means
of “defence from the Papists, by your Lordship’s favourable letters.” They
report progress from time to time, informing him of the marks and marginal notes
they were adding for the elucidation of the text. A person attached to
Crumwell’s household was with them and occasionally conveyed portions of the
impression over to England with letters for his master. The Bishop elect of
Hereford, the well-known Bonner of London, of the following reign, but now
paying court to Crumwell, was also partially engaged in this business, and was,
say they, “so good unto us as to convey this much of the Bible to your good
Lordship, to the intent that if these men proceed in their cruelness against us,
and confiscate the rest, yet this at the least may be safe, by the means of your
Lordship, whom God, the Almighty, evermore preserve to His good pleasure.”f85
The Bible itself, however, was to be its own interpreter; and of annotations
there were to be none; a circumstance far too remarkable to pass unnoticed, for
they were never added. But there stand the pointing hands, both in the text and
in the margin, by which the edition may be easily distinguished.

It was only four days after this letter, that the press was arrested in its
progress. An order from the Inquisition, dated the 17th of December, 1538, and
subscribed “Le Tellier,” was the instrument; citing “Regnault, and all other
that it might concern,” to appear and answer-inhibiting at once the printing of
the Bible, and concealment of the sheets already finished. As this body acted
under royal authority, as well as that of the Pontiff, some change must have
taken place in the mind of Francis, before such a proceeding could have been
winked at; and for this change it is not difficult to account. Bonner’s
appointment was far from an acceptable one to the French King. Coming as he did,
it was impossible to regard him in any other light than that of a spy, and as a
spy he had been acting most vigilantly. In October he was at St. Quentin, near
Cambray, watching and reporting a suspicious interview of Francis with the
reigning Princess of the Netherlands, the sister of Charles; and at Paris, so
recently as the last day of November, he writes to Crumwell-“ I shall, by God’s
grace, give vigilant eye to their doings here, and advertise you. Hitherto I
have been strangely and very unkindly used in my lodging, having no kind of
friendship showed me in manner that was worthy-how it will be hereafter I cannot
tell.”f87 Among other points which Bonner had in charge, there was an annual
pension by Francis to Henry, in terms of a treaty between them, which was now in
arrear for four years; and the zealous Envoy had begun to press payment in a
style which finally occasioned his recall, next year. But happily, after all,
the Inquisitor seems to have been more than a day too late. The entire
impression of the Bible, amounting to 2,500 copies, could not have fallen into
his hands. We have read Coverdale’s information of the 13th of December, and as
the present citation was the second, and is dated the 17th, there can be no
doubt, that, impelled by the first, he was then conveying away “so much of the
Bible” as had been ready for removal. Even with regard to the sheets seized,
there was considerable recovery; for having been condemned to be burnt in
Maubert Place, “four great dry-fats of them” were regained by purchase. This was
owing to the cupidity of the Lieutenant Criminal of the Inquisition, who,
instead of obeying orders, had sold them to a haberdasher.

Old John Foxe, therefore, though others have followed him, was mistaken in
supposing that these books were lost, and so was Lewis. The evidence now
presented looks quite the other way, and the copies even still remaining in
existence confirm it. “I am inclined to think,” says Todd, “that the proprietors
lost few copies of the impression.” And who were these proprietors? For the
affair was by no means to end here. Henry VIII. himself, by Crumwell’s request,
end Crumwell much more deeply, were parties concerned. Whether, therefore, the
alarm soon subsided or not, or any means were taken to appease the Inquisitors,
it must have been dangerous and impolitic at the moment to thwart even the
Vicegerent, still in possession of great power, to say nothing of his imperious
master.

Crumwell had been assisting the undertaking by pecuniary supplies; the King
himself had written to Francis, and he had filly committed himself before
leaving Paris for Nice. Since then the Inquisitors had chosen to interfere in
his absence-the King of France, nay, and the Inquisition to boot, must now be
overruled to help, instead of hindering the work.

Persons commissioned by Crumwell soon returned to Paris, and they brought away
with them the printing presses, the types, and even the workmen. In short,
scarcely six weeks could have been lost, and scarcely a sheet could have been
missing, as in two months more the Bible entire was completed in London. On the
last leaf they printed, “The ende of the New Testament, and of the whole Byble,
fynished in Apryll anno 1589. A Dno factu est istud”-emphatically acknowledging
Him, whose cause it was; they did well to add, A Domino factum est istud.

It will certainly be very observable, if this interruption actually promoted the
design, and to afar greater extent than if there had been none whatever. Had
there been none, Coverdale and Grafton had finished their task in Paris, leaving
the types and workmen on the spot. Meanwhile, a hint had thus been given that
they had better let all annotations alone, for they were never printed; leaving
the Sacred text to speak for itself. But above all, it will appear that the
Parisian types had come in far larger quantity, and even the French workmen in
greater number, than has ever been before observed. In the editions of the Bible
from this time to the close of 1541, we wait to discover the proof of this. At
this crisis, certainly no gift, or God-send, to old England, could have been of
more value than these types and printers. Very different employment must have
awaited both, had they remained in Paris. Tunstal had been jocularly advised to
buy the press and types out of Tyndale’s way, to prevent the New Testament from
coming into England! Now, the authorities are importing both men and types, to
print the version: and by and by, Henry himself will command Tunstal, to
sanction the translation he had so denounced. This too will be after Crumwell is
dead, and the influence of Cranmer was on the decline.

Grafton, as we have seen, had laid down at the press two copies of this Bible in
vellum, one for the King and another for Crumwell. The sheets of both had been
saved, as both are understood to be in preservation. The copy once belonging to
Crumwell is in St. John’s College, Cambridge, and has been described long ago,
as “printed on vellum, and embellished with cuts, illuminated, the leaves gilt,
and the cover embossed with brass, fynished in Apryll, anno 1539.” The
frontispiece has Crumwell’s arms in colours. The second vellum copy of 1539 is
still understood to be in existence, in the possession of a private individual.
Of the copies printed on paper, there are not fewer than twelve to be found in
different collections.

Such is the edition, which, on the authority of Coverdale’s and Grafton’s own
words, ought to have been all along associated with the name of CRUMWELL, and
never with that of Cranmer, as it has too frequently been.

It was Crumwell’s undertaking from beginning to end; and without HIS importation
of types and men, Cranmer afterwards had never been able to have proceeded as he
did. Throughout 1538, Cranmer was otherwise engrossed with the German
commissioners, besides other business; in the whole of his correspondence with
Crumwell, throughout 1538, there is not one allusion to the Bible; and although
Cranmer’s future prologue or preface has been bound up with some copies of this
Bible, it does not belong to the book. The first Bible in which Cranmer took an
interest personally, was the next which will come before us; but still, the
materials and men now imported, and the impetus now given by Crumwell, will be
found to prevail throughout the Bibles of 1540, and extend to those of 1541,
after his death. To the Vicegerent must be conceded his own place in history,
whatever afterwards may become of his general character. But for Crumwell’s
exertions at this period, it is next to certain that no such Bibles could have
appeared in 1540 and 1541.

We have now returned to England, and ever after this decisive triumph, shall
have much less occasion to look abroad. Ever since Tyndale left London the
undertaking has been a foreign one; but after a noble and uninterrupted struggle
of fifteen years’ duration, the English Bible may be considered as having now
taken up its settled abode in our native land. The cause indeed will be thwarted
still, even at home, and by Henry himself as well as his eldest daughter;
though, ultimately, even she will be found to have advanced it. At subsequent
periods too, thousands of Bibles will be printed on the Continent for English
use, but all this will only serve to keep us in remembrance, that, as from the
beginning, so ever afterwards, this undertaking had been conducted, not by human
authority, but by the gracious hand of the Almighty.

Meanwhile, we have had one Bible, wholly imported in 1537, and a second,
redeemed from destruction, finished in London; and notwithstanding the political
frenzy, as well as all the cruelties perpetrating at home, the cause of Truth
throughout the year had been steadily advancing. Grafton, on proceeding to
Paris, had left his first impression of 1537 to be disposed of, without any risk
of loss or delay; and Crumwell in September put forth his first injunctions, in
immediate reference to that Bible. This he did, as “Vicegerent unto the King’s
Highness,” -“ for the discharge of the King’s Majesty,” and most providentially,
he had issued his orders before the arrival of Gardiner from France. What a
mighty advance had been made, since he left for Paris in October 1535! Or, more
properly speaking, since he had been sent out of the way, as Tunstal had been
before, and Bonner will be, after him. Gardiner might depart, rejoicing that
Tyndale was at last in prison, and then, as perhaps he anticipated, to be put to
death. But now, Gardiner had been removed once more out of the way, even from
Paris; the Bible had been there printed before Bonner’s own eye, and it was no
other than Tyndale’s longtraduced version of the Sacred Volume, which was held
up to public view, by injunctions, to be “observed and kept, upon pain of
deprivation.” “Item-That ye shall provide, on this side of the feast of N.
(Natalis, Nativity of our Lord, 25th December,) next coming, one book of the
whole Bible, of the largest volume in English, and the same set up in some
convenient place within the said church, that ye have cure of, where your
parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it; the charges
of which book shall be rateably borne between you, the parson and parishioners
aforesaid, that is to say, the one half by you, and the other half by them. “
Item -That ye shall discourarge no man, privily or apertly, from the reading or
the hearing of the said Bible, but shall expressly provoke, stir, and exhort
every person to read the same, as that which is the very lively word of God,
that every Christian person is bound to embrace, believe, and follow, if they
look to be saved; admonishing them, nevertheless, to avoid all contention and
altercation therein, but to use an honest sobriety in their inquisition of the
true sense of the same, and to refer the explication of the obscure places to
men of higher judgment in Scripture.”f88 These poinfed injunctions to the
country at large bore solely upon the Bible of the largest volume, the very
first time this phrase was employed, and as yet there was but one such edition,
so that there could be no mistake. They may have bcen rendered more imperative
from the rumour of which Grafton had forewarned Crumwell, viz. that they would
reprint Matthew’s Bible of 1537 in the Low Countries, so early as 1538. But this
was only a rumour; they never did; as the Bible marked 1538 in our lists, from
Lewis down to Cotton and Lowndes, is a mistake. At home however, now, Tyndale
was not forgotten. There were two editions of his New Testament in quarto; one
printed in Southwark by Peter Treveres; the other, which seems to have been
finished by the beginning of summer, was printed by Robert Redman, next door to
St. Dunstan’s, where Tyndale used to preach, “set forth under the King’s most
gracious licence,-cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum.” It is in parallel
columns of Latin and English; the former, be it observed, not the Vulgate, but
the Latin of Erasmus, and the latter that of Tyndale or of the English Bible,
now enforced. These books appear to be a set off in contrast to the Testaments
of Coverdale, and they explain the injunctions of Cranmer, preceding those of
Crumwell, already mentioned. This year an edition of Coverdale’s New Testament
appeared, printed at Antwerp, in small black letter, by Matthew Cromer, with
numerous woodcuts, marginal references and glosses. Tyndale’s prologues were
prefixed.

Next year, another edition in larger type came out, but, like the former,
abounding in typographical errors. This was unfortunate for Coverdale, who does
not seem to have been aware of Cromer’s intention till the volume appeared. But
he was aware of his friend Nycolson’s design to print his New Testament in
parallel columns with the Vulgate. He was then in Paris. This work was executed
so badly, that Coverdale had to disown it as his, and free himself from the
responsibility of it, though it bore his name. In his letters to Crumwell,
Coverdale submits his translation so entirely to the “disposal” of his patron,
that one cannot but observe the contrast his obsequiousness presents to the
firmness and consistency of the first noble and independent Translator, who
would not yield the conscientious rendering of a word to the highest earthly
authority. Coverdale’s reprobation of Nycolson’s Testament did not prevent that
publisher from putting forth another impression, to which he affixed the name of
Johan Hollybushe. The copies which bore Coverdale’s name were called in, which
accounts for their rarity. In conclusion of this year, as a striking
illustration of the times, and as one proof that we have not been magnifying the
importance of the labours of our first Translator of the Sacred Volume, the
miserably destitute state of England, with regard to oral instruction by
preaching, so far as men nominally called to it were concerned, now deserves to
be specially observed. The “ministry of the Word of God,” so clearly enjoined in
Scripture, was a subject not comprehended by men in official power; and though
it had, the men who were in charge of what were termed benefices, or cures,
glaringly did not understand it; nay, they were the determined adherents of a
system, diametrically at variance with that imperative commission which the
Saviour at His ascension left to be obeyed. Instead of taking up Christianity,
therefore, as a system of belief, to be drawn fresh from the Oracles of God
alone, and received into the heart of man-instead of recognising the absolute
necessity of heartfelt repentance towards God, and faith towards our Lord Jesus
Christ, in the first instance, and in all cases, but above all, in men
denominated Ministers of Christ: to enforce the reading of what was not beloved,
and the preaching (if they could preach) what was not believed, the Vicegerent
of Henry had conceived to be the only expedient. It was not the public sanction
of the Scriptures last year, that would ever have induced these of[icial
underlings throughout the Counties of England, even to have looked into the
Sacred Volume. To pray with the spirit and with the understanding also, was
beyond their power; and to preach that Gospel which they did not themselves
believe or comprehend, might have seemed a hopeless task to enjoin. Such,
however, was the actual condition of the country, with regard to the governors
and the governed, generally speaking; and had there not been now, as we have
traced all along, a sacred cause independent altogether of both parties, nay, in
spite of them, there would have been no reason whatever, in the year 1538, for
any exultation over the progress of events.

Meanwhile, the injunctions of Crumwell, already quoted, as to the Bible itself,
(p. 320,) had been thought necessary, on account of the indifference of these
official men to the sanction of the Sacred Volume; but how many there were who
were qualitled to obey them, it is impossible to say. Few they must have been,
and far between. But supposing that the orders had been literally fulfilled, how
far did the injunction itself reach? Only to the minimum of having “for every
cure, one sermon every quarter of the year, at least, wherein ye shah purely and
sincerely declare the very gospel of Christ!”

Such was the deplorable state of the people at large, and such the miserable
provision proposed for their instruction, when addressing those Bishops; among
whom we have seen the deadliest enemies of a cause, which they could not
destroy, nor even retard in its progress.

Happily, however, there had long been certain other men in the country, and
readers not a few, besides these slumberers whom Crumwell was now striving to
rouse; nay, and other listeners too, who, far from looking to official men, who
could not teach, and would not learn, had tarried not for Henry the Eighth, nor
waited for his Vicegerent. No sooner do we turn to them, though long despised,
than a very different prospect rises to view; the vivid contrast to four sermons
in the course of a year! The free permission of the Scriptures now rendered this
scene more visible and striking. It is from a contemporary document that Strype
has drawn it. “It was wonderful to see with what joy this book of God was
received, not only among the learneder sort, but generally all England over,
among all the vulgar and common people; and with what greediness God’s Word was
read, and what resort to places where the reading of it was! Every body that
could, bought the book, or busily read it, or got others to read it to them, if
they could not themselves. Divers more elderly people learned to read on
purpose; and even little boys flocked, among the rest, to hear portions of the
Holy Scripture read.” The modern reader may now once more very naturally
exclaim-“Oh, could these men in power then have only been persuaded to have let
such people alone! Could they have only understood the doctrine of
noninterference!” Yes, and instead of encumbering a willing people with help, or
tormenting them by interposition, have stood aloof in silence, and permitted
these groups or gatherings to have hot,rd the unambiguous voice of their God,
and to have gazed upon the majesty and the meaning of Divine Truth! The Sacred
Scriptures, however, were now to be printed in England; nor was there to be
another foreign edition of the volume entire for more than twenty years, or till
the year 1560. We have come, therefore, to a memorable epoch or point of time.
The time when the line of distinction is to be drawn between foreign books and
those printed at home; between the Scriptures printed beyond seas for
importation, and those to be prepared within our own shores; and in that
metropolis, which, fifteen years ago, Tyndale had left in a state of general and
burning hostility to any thing of the kind. But in glancing over all that we
have witnessed, and before entering upon a new era, with regard to the Bible
itself, who can forbear looking back, for a moment, to the dining-hall in the
mansion-house of Little Sodbury, in Gloucestershire? To the eager conversation
or discussions there held, below a roof still standing? And to the deep-seated
feeling of one man at the table, when the mitred Abbots of Winchcombe and
Tewks-bury were near at hand? And the Chancellor of Worcester “reviled him, as
though he had been a dog?” And the hierarchy reigned triumphant, and Wolsey was
in all his glory? And not one such printed page of inspiration was to be found
in all England over? The unbending resolution, however, had been formed, and the
memorable words in which, on one occasion, it was expressed, will bear to be
repeated at such a time as this-“If God spare my life, ere many years, I will
cause a boy that drives the plough to know more of the Scriptures than you do.”
Thus, before ever this Sacred Volume entire came to be printed upon English
ground, Tyndale’s energetic efforts had been signally crowned with success. His”
labour in the Lord” had not been in vain. That labour, indeed, once involved
nothing more than the solitary purpose of a single Christian; and viewed only in
its bud, or budding, it has had little else than a bitter taste; but whether the
flower has been sweet, millions can testify.

It becomes, therefore, not unworthy of remark, that without straining, this
cause actually admits of a survey on the widest scale. The three great monarchs
of the day were Henry VIII., Francis I., and Charles V.; never forgetting the
Pontiff at Rome; but certainly they have not played their several parts, beyond
the verge of God’s providence, in His determined purpose towards this favoured
Island. The licentious and indomitable monarch, for whom Tyndale prayed with his
dying breath, though still wilfully blind, has been overruled. His Vicegerent or
Vicar-General, guided only by expediency, and clothed with more power than
Wolsey ever possessed, must lend all his constitutional energy, and go along
with the stream of the Divine purpose. Cranmer, however timid and cautious,
though too long silent, must speak out at last. On the other hand, we have
Cuthbert Tunstal, after denouncing the translation at Paul’s Cross, and
tormenting all who possessed it, as far as he could reach them, who being
constitutionally silent, must be silent now. As for Stokesly, the Bishop of
London, the lion was bearded in his own den; for they have finished one Bible,
and are preparing to print many more in London itself, nay, in London alone. And
last, though not least, we have Stephen Gardiner, perhaps the ablest politician
of the age, completely outwitted, but now come home, and just in time to see the
final triumph; though, as Foxe says, he “mightily did stomach and malign the
printing of this Bible.” But then Scotland, as well as England, had been
invaded, and from the beginning; nor was the triumph confined to the shores of
Britain. Even Charles V., by the way, had met with his greatest personal
humiliation; and as for the King of France, that inveterate enemy, and ally of
Rome, he has been overruled in his own capital, and the Inquisition itself is
thwarted; for now, when the Bible is about to be printed in the English
metropolis, we have printing presses from Paris, besides types in store from the
same city, nay, and Frenchmen, who “became printers in London, which before,”
says John Foxe truly, “they never intended.” In England, indeed, they may tamper
injuriously, to a limited degree, with the first translation imported; and there
are battles still, which remain to be fought upon English ground; though after
Henry VIII. has left the stage, the version will be reprinted again and again,
many times, and precisely as Tyndale gave it to his country. But at present,
that is to say, in 1538, if the Emperor Charles, and the French King, and the
Pontiff himself, with Cardinal Pole in his train, were all grouped together at
Nice, intending, among other business, to alarm or overreach the King of
England; then it was fit, that all the while, certain men from London should be
busy in printing the English Bible in the capital of France; and after bringing
over the materials and Parisian workmen to England, proceed on their way, and in
far better style, than they could otherwise have done. Such was the crowning
achievement, in a series of conquests, in favour of all that Tyndale had
accomplished! A man, in regard to whose character and exertions, the British
Christian especially may now well exclaim-

Thine is a fragrance which can never waste, Though left for ages to the
charter’d wind. 1539. Eventful Year-State Of Parties-Parliament And
Convocation-Royal Message-New Articles-Bills Of Attainder-The Six Articles
Applied -Frustrated-Cranmer Safe-Latimer Imprisoned-Ales Escapes-Constantyne In
Danger-The Scriptures Printing In Various Editions -Crumwell’s Remarkable Energy
In This Department- The King Swayed Once More-The Cause In Progress-Cranmer Busy
In Prospect Of His First Edition, Next Spring-Distinctly Sanctioned By Henry-
Singular Proclamation-Henry Now Commanding All His Subjects To Use The
Scriptures In English. AS if it had been to render the triumph of last year
still more conspicuous, the present stands distinguished in , Henry’s reign, for
the number of editions of the Sacred Volume entire. Not fewer than four editions
of the Bible issued from the press, and a fifth was almost ready; besides three
editions of the New Testament separately. The compositors and printers in London
had never before been so engaged, nor so hard at work in any department, since
the invention of printing had been introduced into England.

All this too is the more worthy of notice, as Cranmer, however busy with his
first edition, did not make his appearance before the public till next spring,
or April 1540. Before proceeding, however, to any detail, the state of England,
and in its connexion with foreign parts, must first be understood, as the
account will then be read with that interest which belongs to it. Of this
eventful year, we can scarcely fall to have one luminous view, however painful;
if we now place Crumwell, Cranmer, and Latimer, on the one side; the Duke of
Norfolk, Gardiner, and Tunstal, on the other; with Henry standing between them,
to hold the balance. Troubled about many things, the wayward monarch was but in
at ease, and we shall see him make either scale preponderate, just as his fear
or his fancy suggested at the moment. Crumwell, it has been affirmed, had some
presentiment of his downfall, for nearly two years before his death, and made
provision for his dependants, which Wolsey had not. If this be correct, the time
harmonises with the return of Gardiner from France. But, at all events, the last
and deadly struggle for preeminence and power, on the part ofCRUMWELL, has now
commenced, though he had still a year and a half to live. We shall see him
trembling for the ground on which he stood, as well as for all his honours. At
his outset, he had said to Cavendish, his neighbour servant in Wolsey’s
household, that, in going to Henry, he would either make or mar all; and the
truth is, that, in one sense, he did both; first the one, and then the other. In
many points, Wolsey and Crumwell were extremely different characters, but in
both may be seen, as a warning to posterity, the rise and fall of political
expediency. With regard to Hugh Latimer, the only man who ever dared to speak
out before the King and his courtiers, he is about to retire from the
tempestuous scene; and to say nothing of cruelty, Henry, acting in the meanest
style imaginable, to the very end of his reign, will accommodate him-with a
prison! Like Festus of old, willing to show his courtiers a pleasure, he will
leave Latimer bound. Cranmer will this year, in one instance, discover more
fortitude than perhaps he ever did in the course of his whole life. And as for
the able triumvirate in opposition, dexterously they wrought to each other’s
hands against their three opponents.

After not less than three years of prorogation, Henry had now resolved to hold a
meeting of Parliament and Convocation. The subserviency of both to his will was
notorious, and in this it appears that Crumwell cordially sympathised with him.
“Amongst other for your Grace’s Parliament,” says he on the 17th of March, “I
have appointed your Majesty’s servant, Mr. Morisson, to be one of them. No doubt
he shall be ready to answer, and take up such as would crack, or face with
literature of learning, or by undirected ways, if any such shall be, as I think
there will be few or none; forasmuch as I, and other your dedicate counsellors,
be about to bring all things so to pass, that your Majesty had never more
tractable Parliament I” As for the Convocation, since it had been summoned on
the 12th of March, it is evident that whatever articles shall be issued, by that
time they had been contemplated; and Crumwell, at least, is either preparing to
swallow them, or, what is very improbable, must have been profoundly ignorant of
what was before him. At all events, for these three years past, as there had
been no such assemblies under our despotic monarch, they were always ominous of
some strong measures. On the 30th of March, Tunstal, usually calm and still,
preached his flaming sermon before the King; Gardiner was preparing for
Parliament and the Convocation; Norfolk was returning from the north; and to
announce his approach, by way of firing the first gun, only about one fortnight
after his strange letter of the 29th of March, he had quarrelled with Crumwell
on a subject of inferior moment. But by this time Crumwell had been taken
unwell, and had become so seriously. It was an attack of the ague. On the 23rd
of April, or the Wednesday before Parliament was to sit, he had made himself
ready to wait on the King, when a fit came on, “and held him in great heat about
ten hours.” “The pain of the disease,” said he, “grieveth me nothing so much as
that doth, that I cannot be as I should there present, and employ my power to
your Grate’s affairs and service, as my heart desireth to do.”f89 On the eve of
such a battle, it was a great and bitter disappointment, and, no doubt, his
enemies were improving every hour of his absence. Next day, however, he strove
to do all he could, by addressing a long letter to his Majesty; and still
lamenting over his state of health. In this communication it is observable, that
while he goes over all the points respecting foreign policy, he says not one
word now of what is projected to be done in Parliament. Poor man! It is true
that he will rally again as to health; the King, to serve his own selfish ends,
will assume a kindly aspect, and he has yet fourteen months to live; but his
frequent and direct, or familiar correspondence with Henry is now near a close.

Meanwhile, and at the moment when Crumwell was writing, Mount and Paynell
arrived from Germany, accompanied by Burghart, who had been dismissed in
September last. The Emperor, it was said, had now deprecated, above all things,
the German Confederates receiving any others into their league; when Crumwell
did not fail to suggest, that “if his Majesty would only join them, the other
party, in his judgment, would be half in despair.” But what was Henry to do? He
was now falling in with the counsels of Norfolk, Gardiner, and Tunstal;
Parliament must sit in five days hence, and Crumwell, in poor health, is but in
able to attend!

Accordingly, on Monday, the 28th of April, Parliament sat down, and the
Convocation opened on the 2nd of May. The Duke of Norfolk, as Prime Minister,
had been commissioned to conduct the business in the House of Peers; and
Crumwell’s precedency as Vicar-General was recognised, but he could no longer
brandish his rod of authority over the Bishops, as he had done at their last
sitting, three years ago; and much less send a deputy to claim his seat, above
them all. Not only were the majority his opponents, but the Head of their Church
had changed his mind. For three years had Crumwell and Cranmer enjoyed ample
sway; but Gardiner and Tunstal’s day had now come. They must aim at retaliation
for all the past, and no time was lost before the strength of parties was
ascertained. On Monday the 5th of May, a royal message to the House was
announced by Audley as Lord Chancellor. His Majesty, being greatly desirous of
putting an end to all controversies in religion, ordered a committee to examine
the diversities of opinion-to draw up articles for an agreement, and report!
Nine individuals were appointed, viz. Crumwell as Vicar- General, and Archbishop
Cranmer, with Latimer of Worcester, and Goodrich of Ely, on the one side; and
Archbishop Lee, with Tunstal of Durham, Aldrich of Carlisle, Clerk of Bath, and
Salcot of Bangor on the other. But however bent his Majesty now was, upon what
he chose to style unanimity of opinion, it was soon manifest that this committee
of Bishops could never agree. In a similar perplexity, just three years ago, his
Majesty and Cranmer in union had, for the first time, framed certain articles
for the people of England to believe, enforcing them on all men by the
Soverelgn’s authority; so that consistently, the Archbishop cannot now object,
should a similar course be followed. In 1536 it was no doubt deemed a fortunate
circumstance, that Gardiner was out of the way; but he has now returned, and if
he and his party can follow the precedent set them, and Henry should condescend
to be on that side, then he will still be equally flattered, as the Lord of all
opinions upon English ground. His Majesty’s subjects were not to think for
themselves before, and the right to do so was not to be conceded now. At this
moment, he imagined that his personal circumstances demanded a very different
class of opinions, and they were now to be enforced on pain of death. The
former, that is, the FIRST articles, were to insure peace and contentation; but
those about to be proposed, though directly in the teeth of the former, were,
according to the precious royal announcement, to “establish unanimity and
terminate all religious controversies among his people!” This, it must be
conceded, was giving to both parties a fair opportunity of testing the effect of
“articles” as bearing upon public opinion; and as Cranmer had first led the way,
he must now abide the consequences, whether they should first lead to the
destruction of his own domestic happiness, or, seventeen years afterwards, to
his death. In other words, the artillery which had been first framed by Cranmer,
was about to be seized, and planted against himself.

It was, as we have stated, on the 5th of May that this Committee of nine had
been appointed. On every point, they divided regularly, as five to four, Cranmer
and Crumwell being in the minority. Henry’s patience was very soon exhausted,
and by Friday the 16th, Norfolk was ready with the intended remedy for diversity
of opinions. The King, and Winchester no doubt, had been preparing it, for the
mouth of that Premier; who, on the 30th of March last, had told Crumwell that he
had been “praying to God, that He would give the King of Scotland grace to do,
as Henry had already done!” The Duke having therefore informed the House that no
progress had been made, or could be, by the Committee, proposed six questions
for their consideration. They referred to 1. The Mass. 2. Communion under one
kind, or the bread without the cup. 3. Private masses. 4. The celibacy of the
Clergy. 5. Auricular confession, and, 6. Vows of chastity.

Neither Audley nor Crumwell now took any part in the debate, nor indeed any
layman; but Cranmer did, and with all his powers: for it is certainly going much
too far, for any historian, upon a single loose anonymous authority, to deny him
the credit of as much heroism as he then displayed. For three days the
discussion continued, and though Henry himself had the effrontery to come down
unconstitutlonally, and join in the debate, and afterwards requested Cranmer not
to appear and vote, he appears to have resisted to the utmost limits of his
personal safety, and never gave his formal consent. True, he did not act, as
Latimer did afterwards, for that was not in the man; but the only wonder has
been that, going as far as he did, the King was not mightily offended. This,
however, will be accounted for presently.

It has been remarked that six questions were tabled, and they ended in one act:
frequently denominated afterwards “the bloody statute,” and at other times, “the
whip with six cords.” Such was the remedy of Henry VIII. for diversity of
opinions; for now, as he allowed his subjects no title to any opinion of their
own, they must all believe, or profess to believe in- 1. Transubstantiation. 2.
That communion under both kinds is not necessary to salvation. 3. That Priests
may not marry by the law of God. 4. That vows of chastity are binding. 5. That
private masses ought to be retained; and 6. That the use of auricular confession
is expedient and necessary: while the penalties annexed illustrated the growing
brutality of theSovereign.

Denial of the first profane absurdity subjected the individual to death by the
flames, for an authoritative stop was now put to abjuration. That could now save
no man’s life; and as for the other five points, for the denial of any one of
them, the party was to die as a felon, or be imprisoned during his Majesty’s
pleasure. After the Parliament resumed on the 30th of May, this bill was
introduced, though it was not read for the first time till the 7th of June, the
second time on Monday the 9th, and passed next day. On the following Saturday it
passed the Lower House, and receiving the royal assent on the 28th, its pains
and penalties were to be inflicted from and after the 12th of July.

This, however, is not the full amount of the baseness of this Parliament. At its
opening, instructions had been given to pass bills of attainder against
Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the mother of Cardinal Pole, now years of age;
Gertrude, widow of the Marquis of Exeter; and a young boy, son of Lord
Montacute; Sir Adrian Fortescue, and Sir Thomas Dingley.

Exeter and Montacute had already suffered; but great difficulty was felt in
proceeding with these two ladies, and especially the old Countess. After others
had tried, Crumwell, who evidently thought himself skilful at crossexamination,
“assayed the uttermost of his power.” But he was still baffled by the Countess,
who is said to have been “more like a strong and constant man, than a woman;”
after which, so eager was the sinking courtier to please his Master, that he
actually called up the judges and inquired-“Whether Parliament might condemn
persons accused of treason, without any previous trial or confession!” These
servile and unprincipled men replied, “that it was a nice question, and one that
no inferior tribunal could entertain, but there was no doubt that the Court of
Parliament was supreme; and that any attainder by Parliament, (and of course by
the present,) would be good in law!” Such a bill, therefore, they immediately
passed, condemning to death all the parties, without any trial whatever!

What became of the child no one knows. Fortescue and Dingley were executed on
the 10th of July; the Marchioness was pardoned about six months hence, but the
aged Countess was retained in prison nearly two years, till another frenzy
having seized the monarch, she was dragged from her dungeon; but pleading
innocence, and boldly resisting her very executioner to the last, till her grey
hairs were covered with blood, the head was severed from the body on the 27th of
May, 154l.

Crumwell, in ambitious pursuit of his own standing, had now, with a witness,
entered into the field of temptation, and it becomes difficult to hold the pen;
but impartiality forbids that he should, at such a moment, be the only man in
view. Among those significant “Remembrances,” so strangely left behind for the
verdict of posterity, and to which we have before referred, there is one item of
awful import, suggesting the idea that Henry, far from unconnected with this
tragedy, had been the director behind the scenes. “Item,” says Crumwell, in his
own handwriting, “to remember specially the Lady of Satum”- Salisbury: but then
a little afterwards, “Item-what THE KING WILL HAVE DONE with the Lady of Satum.”
This, it may be presumed, must have been written before the judges were called;
and such a Minister! such a Monarch! it may well be exclaimed. But we forbear
all comment, and more especially as, before the year concludes, the reader has
to witness other, if not greater, abominations. It should, however, be observed
that the step thus taken by Crumwell very strongly reminds one of the gallows
prepared by Haman for Mordecai; as next year, and therefore before his victim,
the aged Countess, he himself was the first who fell under the axe, in strict
accordance with the precedent he had now introduced! In conclusion of these
miserable proceedings, the Lower as well as the Upper House seem to have been
willing to comply with any thing which might occur to the caprice or passion of
the reigning King. His Majesty had taken offence at the manner in which some of
his proceedings, and particularly his proclamations, had been treated, since the
last Parliament in 1536. An Act was, therefore, now passed, which sets forth in
the preamble, “the contempt and disobedience of the King’s proclamations by
some, who did not consider what a King by his royal power might do; which if it
continued would lead to the disobedience of the laws of God! and the dishonour
of the King’s Majesty, who may full in bear it. Considering also that many
occasions might require speedy remedies, and that delaying these might occasion
great prejudices to the realm-therefore it is enacted, that the King for the
time being, with advice of his Council, might set forth proclamations with pains
and penalties in them, which were to be obeyed, as if they were made by an Act
of Parliament!” If any now so offended, and in further contempt went out of the
kingdom, they were to be adjudged as traitors. To this bill, indeed, some
opposition was evinced, but it passed as well as all the others.

After doings so notable as these, and affecting so many parties, Parliament rose
on the 28th of June, amidst feelings of exultation on one side, and indignation
on the other; but, as far as “the six articles” were concerned, the pet measure
of the Premier and his friends, backed as they were by the bloody statute, they
were not slow in proceeding to action. This statute was not to remain a dead
letter. Commissioners were instantly appointed to act upon it; that is, to seek
out victims; and in the various jurisdictions, a Bishop was invariably to be one
of the commissioners. To witness the commencement of operations, we require to
proceed no farther than the metropolis. The inquisitors, selected with satanic
discrimination, ignorant, headlong, and bloodthirsty, were “such as had read no
part of Scripture in English, or in anywise favoured such as had, or loved the
preachers of it.” The commissioners sat in Mercer’s Chapel, close by the Old
Jewry, Cheapside; and in fourteen days, there was not a preacher or noted
individual in London, known or suspected to have spoken in any way derogatory to
one of the six articles, who had not been harassed; nay, overstepping their
commission, they inquired not only who came seldom to the church, but who read
the Bible in it; so that more than five hundred persons had been indicted, and
it became evident that the prisons of the city could not contain all those whom
they thought must be brought to trial.

Thus, if the character of Henry, of his Bishops, and his nobility had been
evolved in Westminster Hall, last November, at the trial of Lambert; so we have
now at least five hundred witnesses to the tenets for which Lambert died. But,
besides these, it must be remembered that many a man who could do so, had found
it convenient at least to leave the city; though as the facts stand, we have
here one of the clearest testimonies to the strength of that cause, to which the
reigning authorities had been at heart opposed from the beginning. The Bishop of
the diocese, Stokesly, was here setting an example to the country at large,
worthy of his character in past years.

He was now indeed actually descending to his grave, for he died on the 8th of
September; but the busy scene, and the prospect of the moment, must have proved
like a reviving cordial to his drooping spirits. Beside the Bishops, we know
that the Premier, Norfolk, who had introduced the questions, was in the highest
spirits, because the Act had passed. In short, the preparations were finished,
and could have left not the shadow of a doubt that England was about to become a
field of woe, if not of blood. The whole scene is worthy of record and
particular notice, were it for no other purpose than to show how remarkably a
gracious Providence interposed, and, overruling as before, “made the storm a
calm, so that the waves thereof were stilled.”

Blind zeal has been compared to the haste of a man in the dark, who knows not
when or where to stop; and shrewd as were the leaders of the old learning, they
had gone at least one step too far. Both Tunstal and Gardiner had distinctly
overshot themselves; for pride of understanding, and abundance of caprice, had
rendered the monarch one of the most ticklish of all leaders. In the course of
the discussions in Parliament, it so happened that on one single point the King
agreed with Cranmer. It was in reference to “auricular confession,”-that notable
device, for not only enslaving the human mind, but preventing all sense of
direct responsibility to God alone. Cranmer had maintained that it was
unnecessary, by any Divine precept, and ia this Henry chose to support him.
Nettled at only one point out of six being controverted, Tunstal, Gardiner, and
Lee, urged, that the resolution of the House should declare auricular confession
to be “a command of Christ, and part of the Sacrament of penance;” but the
monarch would not allow one jot more than the simple declaration, that such
confession was expedient, and necessary to be retained. With this, they might
well have rested satisfied; but no. Tunstal lind the temerity to write to the
King afterwards, when he received a thorough set down for his presumption. In
reply, Henry expressed no little astonishment at his writing now, after having
been overthrown in the House by Cranmer and himself, and here simply sending to
him a few texts, which “make smally or nothing to your intended purpose.” His
Majesty closed with the following sentence-‘‘ I think that I have more cause to
think you obstinate, than you me, seeing your authors and allegations make so
little to your purpose-And thus fare you well.” The same parties must have been
guilty of still greater precipitation in proposing their “Book of Ceremonies to
be used in the Church of England.” They had pressed this strange and
superstitious farrago to be received and passed as the act of Convocation; but
the project completely failed, and the book was afterwards replied to by
Cranmer. But even though neither Tunstal or Gardiner had ruffled his Majesty’s
temper in the slightest degree, perhaps neither of them foresaw that there was
one point still, where their whole procedure might be arrested, and prove a
failure. Nor let it pass unobserved that if relief be obtained, it must, in part
at least, be traced to the noble stand made by the immortal Fryth.

Hence the benefits which may ensue, long after, from only one faithful martyr
“resisting unto blood, striving against sin.” As he was the first man certainly
known to have died upon English ground, without abjuration, (which was not now
to be admitted,) so he was the last that had fallen under the sovereign power of
the Bishops; and it may be remembered that in the very next session of
Parliament after his death, that bill was passed, which took all reputed
heretics, ever after, out of the hands of these merciless men. That Act had
passed in Gardiner’s absence, and was now in force. All the parties now
apprehended, therefore, must be proceeded against forthwith, by two witnesses,
and in open court. A Bishop, indeed, must be one of the Commissioners; but then
every man accused is entitled to a trial by jury, and even if found guilty, the
King’s writ must be obtained, before any sentence can be executed. The case, in
short, was so far a civil one; and since these London Commissioners have run
after the prey, as if the Act passed had been positively a retrospective one, in
the midst of their dilemma application must be made to the Lord Chancellor.

Audley, in the House of Lords, and before the royal disputant, had been silent;
but now that it came to his turn to speak, perhaps viewing any selection as
difficult, if not unjust, and the punishment of. all to be inhuman if not
hazardous, so it was that he advised the reputed criminals should be pardoned.
Cranmer and Crumwell and the Duke of Suffolk (Norfolk’s opponent) concurred, and
not one man was brought up to trial! Though, therefore, these six articles
remained as a source of great misery, and were employed afterwards, by stretch
of law, as the occasion of much bloodshed, at this momentous crisis “the wise
were taken in their own craftiness, and the counsel of the froward was carried
headlong.” The five hundred indictments fell to the ground, and there was
nothing more left for Stokesly, just before going to render his account, than to
reflect on his past cruelties, He was to be far exceeded by Bonner, his
successor; and yet, if Foxe be correct, “at the point of death, he rejoiced,
boasting that in the course of his lifetime he had burned fifty heretics.”

Hugh Latimer in his day had the honour to stand alone. Though not a faultless
character, at this period there was none like him in all England, more
especially on the bench of Bishops; and he seems to have been literally the only
man who ever had the courage to face Henry VIII.

Cranmer had found it very convenient to employ him in 1536, to speak out before
that Convocation, as he had boldly done; but he could not, or dared not, follow
him in 1589. Latimer, it is to be observed, had not by any argumentation opposed
the King, as Cranmer had; but after the bloody Act was passed, he resigned his
bishopric, on the first of July. Laying aside his robes, he leaped for joy, and
said-“ I am now rid of a great burden, and never felt my shoulders so light
before.” Soon after, a bishop, supposed to be Gardiner, sent for him, and
expressed his surprise that Latimer should object to the traditions then
enjoined by the Council, as matters of belief; when he nobly answered-‘‘ I will
be guided by God’s book; and rather than dissent one jot from it, I would be
torn by wild horses.” He then retired to the country, intending to lead a quiet
life; but soon after, by the falling of a tree, he was bruised so severely, that
he was under the necessity of returning to London for surgical assistance. It
was not difficult to vamp up a case against Latimer; for certainly he had said
many things, which to all that party must have been like gall and wormwood.
There is no record of his examination extant, but there is reason to think that
it took place in the royal presence. However, whether it did or not, the King
well knew, and ultimately sanctioned, nay, directed all that followed: for
Latimer was committed to the Tower thus unceremoniously, and there he lay till
the accession of Edward VI. The conscience of Henry had constrained him, on
different occasions, to mark, if not revere the fidelity of this man, whom he
now unwittingly promoted to be a prisoner of Jesus Christ; but he could manage
to get on well enough without a Bishop Latimer, though not without his own
Archbishop of Canterbury.

It was now the month of August, when a lurid gloom rested on the minds of many.
In London itself, there was a pause: the commissions under the persecuting act
had not been issued for the country at large, and they never were; but at
present their issue was eagerly anticipated by some, and dreaded by others; but
still the needle of the beam, in Henry’s hands, oscillated in suspense, and no
man could tell which scale would rise.

Various individuals had been escaping, some to the Continent, and others out
into the country. We notice two of such already known to the reader,-Alexander
Ales and George Constantyne.

ALES, it will be remembered, had excited the wrath of Stokesly to the highest
degree, three years ago; when no man foresaw, or perhaps imagined, that the very
next Convocation would be of an opposite character. Since 1536, having studied
physic under an eminent physician well known, Dr. Nicholas, Ales had begun to
practise in London for himself, and not without success; but for him, above all
men, it was no longer safe to remain within Stokesly’s jurisdiction.
Anticipating what followed, he embarked for Germany once more. Soon after his
arrival, he wrote to Crumwell a letter of thanks for all his kindness, and from
which we learn, that the recent doings in England were well known to all abroad.
Of George Constantyne, we know that he was in London at the time of Queen Anne’s
execution. Shortly after this he had entered the Church of England, having
obtained the vicarage of Lawhaden, or Llanhuadaine, three miles north-west of
Narberth, in Pembrokeshire, under William Barlow, Bishop of St: David’s. His
character, to the end, was at best ambiguous. He returned and held his
preferments till 1555, when Ferrar, Bishop of St. David’s, being burnt at
Carmarthen, he escaped to the Continent, where he is supposed to have died soon
after. His son-in-law Thomas Young was afterwards Archbishop of York, and
President of the Council of the North, under Elizabeth. Tie died in 1568. With
regard to the express history of the English Bible, the year 1539 is now to be
added to all the past. But let the movements of the time; the tyrannical
procedure of the reigning Monarch; the obsequious deeds of both Houses of
Parliament, lying prostrate at his feet; the notorious complexion of his
Council, in hostile array against the progress of Divine Truth; the tottering
influence of Crumwell, once so resolute, with his sad and bloody footsteps as a
Privy Councillor,-let all these bo surveyed in succession, and then the general
aspect of the year, with regard to the printing and circulation of the Sacred
Volume, must appear so extraordinary, as to be almost unaccountable. The months
seem to have been so crowded with agitating occurrences, that one might have
imagined there had been not a day left for another, and much less for a separate
design-a design, too, however unnoticed by some, or hated by others, which had
been proceeding, step by step, to successive triumphs. Still, amidst all other
national affairs, time must be found for this. But at such a season, who shall,
or who can, nay dare to press forward, the printing of the Scriptures? Above all
other men, Crumwell is the last, on which any one would fix, as the urgent mover
in such a course. He seems to have had not one moment in reserve; and had he not
been truly denominated “an iron man,” in regard to business transactions,
certainly he had not found one. Instead of this, however, the sequel will show,
that though he had been but in poor health, and though he had winked hard,
bowing assent to the six articles, and stood ready to execute the King’s
pleasure even unto death, nay arid could order men to be “tried and executed” in
the same breath; yes, even amidst all this, it comes out, that he had been
resolutely bent on multiplying copies of the Bible! Strange conjunction of
pursuits, as probably ever met in the person of the same human being! For
however many were the subordinate agents, not one of them dared to have so
proceeded, at least in London, without his fullest sanction.

It must now then be first observed, that in 1539 both Crumwell and Cranmer stand
before us, in the character of thwarted and disappointed men; severely
disappointed, for above six months of the year. Three years before, in
conjunction with the momentary humour of the King, Oardiner being abroad, they
had introduced what were denominated “Articles of Religion” to the notice of the
English people; but now they found, to their bitter mortification, that this was
assuredly not the road to either “peace or contentation,” or “unity of opinion.”
On the contrary, the mode which they had introduced in 1536, furnished the
precedent which their opponents now followed; or the ground on which they stood,
and tried to overawe the human mind. In the first Convocation, with Crumwell as
Vicar-General, so far as the King and Cranmer had professedly meddled with
Christianity at all, they had made it technical and disputative. It was not the
voice of God, as contained in His Word, with which they began, for neither
Cranmer nor Crumwell could get those Bishops to assent to any translation of the
Scriptures. Thus before the authority of Divine. Truth in the language of the
people was recognised, by these first articles a certain vocabulary had been
introduced; and in the prospect of the present Convocation, Gardiner and his
party were by far too shrewd, not to take advantage of the precedent set. They
fought and baffled the Archbishop with his own weapons, while my Lord Privy
Seal, Crumwell, like a perfect politician, had bowed to the storm. So now when
the tug of battle came, and Crumwell found that, as an expedient in his hands,
“articles of religion” must be given to the winds; then it was that the Bible,
and the Bible alone, afforded him the only prospect of turning the tide upon his
political opponents. Thus singularly shut up to this one object, he was not slow
to improve his powers; for though he could no longer shake his rod over the
Bench of Bishops, his authority and precedence or rank as Vicar-General had been
distinctly recognised; and this he could exercise still, very powerfully,
without the doors of the Convocation, though not within them; while the
dissolution and consequent dispersion of that body, was analogous to the
breaking up of a combination against him. The operation of the bloody statute
being now also stayed, and no commissions issued for the country at large; Henry
too having been fully apprised of how odious that statute was to his intended
matrimonial connexious, here was a favourable crisis. To the printing of the
Bible, therefore, amidst his multifarious engagements, Crumwell lent all his
energy, so that not fewer than four editions of the entire Scriptures, with
which his personal influence was connected, now issued from the press.

There is no concealing it now; for by a comparison of dates, it will be
manifest, that the character of Crumwell, when sinking, and so near his end,
presents to the reflective mind one of the most painful contemplation, and, in
truth, one of a far more melancholy hue than even that of Wolsey himself.
Wolsey, the “man of pleasure,” not to say boundless ambition, sinking under
disgrace into his grave, yet breathing out persecution against the Lutherans,
and leaving this as his dying advice to the King, was a spectacle sad enough:
yet is it scarcely to be compared to that of Crumwell, the energetic “man of
business,” himself stepping into blood, to please his Master, or retain his
favour; and at the same moment pushing forward editions of the Scriptures, nay
enforcing on his countrymen the perusal of the sacred page! Who can deny after
this, that the heart is “deceitful above all things,” and reckless beyond
expression? To proceed, however, with the proof. The Bible, described last year
as commenced in Paris, and snatched from the flames of the Inquisition, was
finished in London by the month of April, and ready for circulation under the
following title, before the meetings of Parliament and Convocation:- “The Byble
in Englyshe, that is to saye, the content of all the Holy Scripture, bothe of
the olde and Newe Testament, truly translated after the veryte of the Hebrue and
Greke textes, by the dylygeut shudye of diuersc excellent learned men, expert in
the forsayde tonges. ¶ Printed by Rychard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch. Cum
Priuilegio ad imprimendum solum.” The Colophon is-“The ende of the new Testamett
and of the whole Byble, Fynisshed ia Apryll, Anno MCCCCCXXXIX. A dno factum est
istud.” This title, as well as the representation round it, ascribed to the
pencil of Hans Holbein, it is now abundantly evident, were alike in the teeth of
history; to say nothing of the profanity involved, in which the Almighty is
represented as saying of the King-“I have found a man according to my own heart,
which shall fulfil all my will I” But this served to answer the purpose of
Crumwell at the moment, in his gross flattery of the reigning monarch. Crumwell
himself, as well as the King and Cranmer, at full length, are here distinguished
also by their respective shields, or coats of arms; and this same engraving,
finely cut in wood, will be employed in subsequent editions, though the arms of
Crumwell, after his fall, will then be found erased. This Bible, it is true,
exhibits all the marks of a signal triumph, as already described; but let the
men in Parliament or the Convocation be busy with what they might, this one
edition or reprint will not suffice to meet the zeal of the Vicar-General. In
chronological order, the next Bibles that were ready for circulation, were two,
if not three editions of the entire Bible, by other printers, as well as a new
superintendent of the press. And here it is not a little remarkable, that
immediately before entering upon those editions of the Scriptures, afterwards
set forth by Cranmer, we are summoned to look back; and back to the very
commencement of this long and tedious warfare. Just as though it had been
intended to lend unity to the entire procedure since the year 1526, we are to be
reminded forcibly, of the deep and noisome dungeon under Cardinal College,
Oxford, and of the interesting young men there immured, at the first burst of
opposition, after the arrival of Tyndale’s Testaments in England. One of those
youths, it may be remembered, was named Richard Taverner. The son of an ancient
family, born at North Elmham, in the parish of Brlsley, Norfolk; he was one of
those canons chosen by Wolsey, whom he had intended to employ in opposing the
new learning.” He had been selected from Benet College, Cambridge, and brought
to Oxford. Though deeply implicated in 1526, as already mentioned, he was mere
gently dealt with by the Cardinal on account of his voice, or skill in music, He
was then a layman, studying law, and abode by his profession through life; which
renders his superintendence of the Scriptures, and his subsequently being,
licensed by Edward the Sixth to preach throughout England, the more remarkable.
Having taken his degree of A.B. at Oxford in 1527, and that of A.M. at Cambridge
in 1530, he removed to the metropolis; and after passing through an Inn of
Chancery, then said to be near London, (or on the site of the present Somerset
House in the Strand,) he entered the Inner Temple. To the Greek language he had
paid great attention, it being “his humour to quote the law in Greek, when he
read anything thereof.” He had become known to Crumwell, and in 1534, after he
was chosen principal Secretary of State, and Chancellor of Cambridge University,
Taverner came into attendance upon him. In 1537, Crumwell had recommended him to
the King, when he was advanced to be one of the clerks of the signet in
ordinary; and the clerk had now, in 1539, turned his learning to the best of all
accounts. For a considerable time past, he must have been working under orders,
and very busily engaged, as the proof sheets of two, if not three editions, had
been passing through his hands. Taverner prefixed a dedication to the King,
telling him, that “he never did anything more acceptable to God, more profitable
to the advancement of true Christianity, more displeasant to the enemies of the
same, and also to his Grace’s enemies, than when his Majesty licensed and willed
the most sacred Bible, containing the unspotted and lively Word of God, to be in
the English tongue set forth to his Highness’ subjects.” But to all this he had
been encouraged by his master, Lord Crumwell, as it will appear presently, that
no man could publish the Bible at this period, without his approving sanction.
His first edition, in folio, and entitled-“The most Sacred Bible,” &c., was
“printed at London in Fleet Street, at the sign of the Sun, by John Byddell, for
Thomas Barthlett,” or Berthelet, the King’s printer; “Cum privilegio ad
impri-mendum solum.” The next edition, in quarto, was executed by the same
printer; but there seems to have been a third, printed by Nycolson, also in
quarto. These Bibles were a correction of Matthew’s, in which Taverner adopted a
large proportion of the marginal notes, and inserted others of his own; yet so
eager was Crumwell, that they were “allowed to be publicly read in churches.” In
addition to these, that the effort now made was a bold and determined one,
appears from another printer still having his hands filled, by two editions of
the New Testament by Taverner. This was Thomas Petit, who also printed for
Berthelet, one in quarto, the other in octavo.

Now in the earlier part of this year, though the political atmosphere seemed to
portend nothing whatever save tempestuous opposition to measures such as these;
preparatory work, it is evident, had been proceeding with great vigour within
doors; and by the autumn, that same Monarch, who had hurried the “bloody
Statute” through Parliament, professed to be all zeal for the printing of the
Scriptures, and even their perusal! The prospect of connexion with Germany had
wrought wondrously, and a change had come over the spirit of the man. And as for
Crumwell, though he still stood upon slippery ground, he could scarcely now
think so, when, so far from frowning upon him, the King, on the 20th of
September, had expressed himself as so solicitous about the state of his health.
At all events, while he was in the act of carrying through the negociation
respecting Lady Anne of Cleves, almost anything he might request would then be
granted. Apply to his Majesty therefore he did, and successfully; although still
it is no hypothesis to say that both the one and the other, as it regarded the
Scriptures, were nothing more than overruled men. The King, by his conduct in
Parliament, had appeared in his real character; while Crumwell, by his conduct
elsewhere, has positively forced us to place him on the very lowest ground of
political expediency. The following document, however, will show that there was
no hazard, at present, of any of these Bibles not getting into circulation:-
“Henry the Eighth, &c.-To all and singular, Printers and sellers of books,
within this our realm, and all other Officers, Ministers, and Subjects, these
oar letters, hearing or seeing, greeting: We let you to wit, that being desirous
to have our people at times convenient, give themselves to the attaining the
knowledge of God’s Word, whereby they will the better honour Him, and observe
and keep His commandments; and also do their duty better to us, being their
Prince and Sovereign Lord: And considering, that as this our zeal and desire
cannot, by any mean, take so good effect, as by the granting to them the free
and liberal use of the Bible in our own maternal English tongue: so unless it be
foreseen, that the same pass at the beginning by one translation to be perused
ami considered; the frailty of man is such, that the diversity thereof may breed
and bring forth manifold inconveniences; as when wilful and heady folks shall
confer upon the diversity of the said translations.

We have therefore appointed our right trusty and well-beloved Counsellor, the
Lord Crumwell, Keeper of our Privy Seal, to take for us, and in our name,
special care and charge, that no manner of person, or persons, within this our
realm, shall enterprise, attempt, or set in hand, to print any Bible in the
English tongue, of any manner of volume, during the space of five years next
ensuing after the date hereof, but only all such as shall be deputed, assigned,
and admitted by the said Lord Crumwell. Willing and commanding all Mayors,
Sheriffs, Bailiffs, Constables, and all other our officers, ministers, and
subjects, to be aiding to our said Counsellor, in the execution of this our
pleasure, and to be conformable in the accomplishment of the same, as shall
appertain. In witness whereof-Witness ourself at Westminster, the fourteenth day
of November, 1539.-Per ipsum Regem.” f92 The style of this public document, and
at such a time, is pointed and very observable. The reader cannot fail to be
struck with the absence of all reference to Henry’s Church or Convocation. The
Sacred Volume, first printed abroad, it will be remembered, had been sanctioned
without any consultation of that body; and even now, after a flaming
Convocation, they are to be passed over once more. Above two years ago, the King
had been overruled to bow to the translation, and last year, Crumwell as
Vicegerent had enjoined the Bishops, on pain of deprivation, to see to its
circulation; but after the miserable display they had recently given of their
characters, they are to be addressed by him no more. No notice whatever is
therefore now taken of Bishop or Archbishop, Priest or Parson; unless the
ambiguous term “minister” at the very end, be allowed, by courtesy, to include
them all. But it was the civil authorities on whom Crumwell now called; it was
the Mayors, the Sheriffs, the Bailiffs, the Constables, who were so pointedly
enjoined, and by the KING himself, to aid him! After having been so treated by
the Bench, of which he was the Vicar-General; as long as he remains Lord Privy
Seal, he was not to be insulted with impunity: the hour for retaliation lind
come; and as he had given up “Articles of Religion” in despair, so it is now
evident, that he had also, as a body, given up the Bishops. Nor was such a
document, “per ipsum Regem,” now to be treated with impunity. Little had they
dreamt in Parliament, which would be the very first statute brought to bear upon
his Majesty’s subjects; for “the bloody statute” lind been stayed in its
operation; but they had gone so far as to pass a bill, showing “what a King by
his royal power might do;” and “considering that many occasions might require
speedy remedies,” they enacted that the King’s proclamation, writ, or
letters-patent, were to be obeyed “as if they were made by an Act of
Parliament;” nay, and if any after that offended, they were to be judged as
traitors. If, therefore, the men of the new learning had been terror-struck in
April, the men of the old might now well stare with amazement, but there was no
remedy; they must all stand aghast for the time being, and make way for the Lord
Privy Seal It is curious also to observe the efforts now made to place Henry, if
it had been possible, in a fair way, once more, or to face him out, as the same
man-notwithstanding his recent aberration, or natural leaning to his beloved
associates of the old school. At this period, a long and strange justification
of his proceedings was written out. It is to be found in the State Paper Office,
and has been printed entire by Collier. There it is asserted perhaps too
strongly that “Englishmen have now in every church and place, almost every man,
the Holy Bible and Testament, in their mother tongue;” that they stick fast to
the doctrine of God in the New Testament, and esteem it as “Fons aquae salientis
in vitam eternam.” In short, the same ardour which had been displayed in
printing, seems to have been followed by a kindred zeal for distribution and
perusal; and after such doings in Parliament, the opposite party, and all who
loved the truth, had notable reasons for improving their time. Crumwell had yet
eight months to live before his arrestment, so that here was a fine opportunity
presented for vigorous exertion, to every man who estimated the value of the
Scriptures. How very unlikely was such a season to have arrived, only a few
months ago!

Here, then, terminated that class of sacred volumes, which, with considerable
propriety, may be denominated the first series: reaching from Wolsey’s “secret
search at one time,” in London, Oxford, and Cambridge; or from the dungeon of
Cardinal College, down to one of its inmates publishing three editions of the
Bible, and two of the New Testament, in one year; when the long hostile Monarch
had been made to declare, that the free and liberal use of the Bible in our own
maternal English tongue was the only mean by which his subjects could comprehend
their duty lo God or man; and when his counsellor, the successor of Wolsey, to
save his popularity and retain his place, was so evidently urging the printers
to speed! The series referred to now included above thirty editions of the New
Testament, and five of the entire Bible, which for fourteen years had formed the
spiritual nourishment of all those in this kingdom who had been convinced by
their own experience, that “man liveth not by bread only, but by every word that
proceedeth out of the mouth of God.”

What a contrast, therefore, is now presented between William Tyndale and all his
contemporaries, who have generally figured in the page of history, and so filled
it, as to prevent posterity from duly estimating, nay, almost seeing, by far the
most eminent benefactor of his country!

It is not here, however, that the year 1539 terminates. Tyndale’s translation,
or the Bible of 1537, had now been taken up, personally, by another individual,
who has perhaps been expected to appear before this time; and certainly for some
months before Henry’s letters-patent (of the 14th of November) this year, he had
been engaged in his sphere, behind the curtain, perhaps as busily as any of
Crumwell’s printers had been. This, it may be anticipated, was Thomas Cranmer;
but, although it has been often done, with no previous edition can his name,
with historical propriety, be associated. The joy expressed by him, at the
reception of the Bible in 1537, may have prepared the reader; but when he first
met with Cranmer on the Continent, seven years ago, in company with Sir Thomas
Elyot, then charged by his Sovereign to seize Tyndale, and next year beheld him
with pain, when sitting in judgment on the Translator’s bosom friend, Fryth; He
certainly could not have imagined that, six years afterwards, the Primate
himself would have been so busily employed, in superintending an edition of
Tyndale’s translation. But so it was. Cranmer, as well as Crumwell, had now
given up the Bishops in despair, though his chief opponent, Gardiner, will not
fail to cross his path presently, and try to sway the King.

It is singular enough that it should have been on this same Thursday, the 14th
of November, to which we have repeatedly alluded, that Cranmer first certainly
appears to have been thus engaged. The edition he had been bringing forward was
a very fine one, and now nearly, if not entirely finished; but he had resolved,
at this peculiar crisis, after being foiled by the Bench, to prefix a preface to
the reader, of his own composition. This he had submitted for his Majesty’s
approbation, and was now anxiously waiting its return: and no wonder. Preferring
the words of Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen to his own, he not only pled, in
this preface, through these Fathers, for the most unrestrained liberty to all to
read the Scriptures, but also asserted the sufficiency of the Word to instruct
every class of men. “Here may all manner of persons: men, women; young, old;
learned, unlearned; rich, poor; priests, laymen; lords, ladies; officers,
tenants, and mean men; virgins, wives, widows; lawyers, merchants, artificers,
husbandmen, and all manner of persons, of what estate or condition soever they
be; may in THIS Book learn all things, what they ought to believe, what they
ought to do, and what they should not do, as well concerning Almighty God, as
also concerning themselves, and all others.” “This one place of John
Chrysostom,” said Cranmer, “is enough, and sufficient to persuade all them that
be not frowardly, and perversely, set in their own wilful opinion.”

These were sentiments certainly by far too strong to pass in high places, in
those days, without murmuring and disputation; nor in all probability would they
have been allowed to pass, but for the conjunction of circumstances, already so
far explained. Henry, as we have seen, had softened even towards Crumwell, and
he was more likely to have done so towards Cranmer. He had thwarted him in the
Convocation, but then his official situation, as Primate, was not to be trampled
on; and the King had therefore set him up again, by commanding his highest
counsellors afterwards to go and dine with him. The wind, in short, had changed
in the fall of the year. Henry is now on the tip-toe of expectation as to his
intended Queen, and the Archbishop, of course, must perform the intended
marriage ceremony. No moment could be more favourable for Cranmer asking any
favour. But then it so happened, that not only this preface, but the Bible
itself, had been brought before his Majesty, and hence still farther delay; for
though Cranmer be almost ready, and is now, in November, pressing the return of
the preface for the press, the volume did not appear till April following. The
fact was, that Henry had consulted certain Bishops, not forgetting Mr. Stephen
Gardiner; but as they confessed they could find no heresies maintained in the
volume, “Then if there be no heresies,” said the King in his own profane and
impatient manner, “in God’s name, let it go abroad among our people.”

Only six months ago the gentlemen of “the old learning,” with the Duke of
Norfolk at their head, had been in high glee; but of late it had come to their
turn, to feel no small disappoint-merit, if not alarm: and Gardiner is
understood to have exerted all his powers to influence the King, by persuading
him that it must be his duty not to allow the people to read the Bible by their
own firesides, or, as Cranmer expressed it, at home. One day these two men met
in the presence of his Majesty, when he engaged them in discussion. After
descanting on the danger of allowing the people at large to read the Scriptures,
Gardiner chose to affirm that what were called the Apostolic Canons were of
equal authority with the Sacred Scriptures, and challenged Cranmer to disprove
this. Cranmer did so, and to Henry’s satisfaction. The disputation is said to
have lasted for some time, when the King abruptly addressed Gardiner,-“Such a
novice as you had better not meddle with an old experienced Captain, like my
Lord of Canterbury;” and then remarked, that “Cranmer was too experienced a
leader, to be defeated by a novice.” The translation had been sanctioned, as we
have seen, above two years ago, in Gardiner’s absence, but it was a double
mortification, and one which he richly deserved, to hear it thus defended and
approved, while he was standing by, and rated ibr a novice. As for Cranmer’s
first edition therefore, since it did not appear till April next year, it will
come before us in duc time. But in the meanwhile, and independently of all such
skirmishing before the King, the other editions which had been sanctioned by
Crumwell, without any formal reference to his Majesty, must not be forgotten,
nor the New Testaments which had been printed at home, nor the numerous foreign
editions. This is a period noted by Strype, as one in which “the people greedily
bought up and read the Holy Scriptures.” The truth is that, however other
matters might proceed, whether in Court or Parliament, the people had been all
along reading, without asking his Majesty’s leave. He little thought that he was
led on by a current far too strong for his resistance. Yet in the course of such
a year as the present, in which the King was so surrounded by hostile parties
ever whispering in his ear; who would have imagined that he should have so
sanctioned the reading of the Scriptures? This, however, he had actually done,
and done more emphatically than ever before! Some complaints having reached him
through the enemy, that the reading of the Bible or New Testament in public, was
often in a voice so loud that it threatened to drown if not expel the mass;
Henry by proclamation ordered a lower tone, and that, while mass was going on,
reading should be suspended; as well as that no man should “teach or preach the
Bible,” except such as were admitted by himself, or Crumwell, or a Bishop. But
then he added, what was of far greater moment, though it must have been like an
additional dose of wormwood to the gentlemen of “the old learning”-
“Notwithstanding his Highness is pleased and contented, that such as can and
will in the English tongue, shall and may quietly and reverently read the Bible
and New Testament by themselves secretly at all times and places convenient, for
their own instruction and edification, to increase thereby godliness and
virtuous learning.” f93 The hand of Crumwell is very visible in all this; and if
the proclamation “came out about May, being now equal with the law,” as Strype
has told us, it shows what confusion had been shed into the Council of his
Majesty; but followed as it was, in the close of the year, by the decided
approval of Cranmer’s preface, we have only one proof more of the truth of
Solomon’s proverb-“The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord as the rivers of
water; He turneth it whithersoever He will.” In conclusion, therefore, as
already stated, we come to the end of what may be styled the FIRST SERIES of
Bibles and Testaments. Last year, indeed, we looked at them as divided into
books printed abroad, and then begun to be printed at home. But at present we
allude to all that had issued from the press before the first edition by Cranmer
was put forth. Of the whole array the reader may form a distinct idea, on
consulting our list of Bibles and Testaments at the end of this volume.

Now, if it be observed that even by this early period, such a number of editions
of the New Testament, of all descriptions, as well as of the Sacred Volume
entire, had passed through the press; and that Divine Truth had obtained a
footing in our land, from the moment of its entrance in 1526; he will allow that
in these fourteen years, a great work had been accomplished; and greater still,
when he comes to see all that had been going on in Scotland, as well as in
England. The full effects, though no historian can ever detail them, must have
been far greater than has hitherto been supposed. Yet is it but little more than
two years since the adversary lowered his colours, and gave in. Up to August
1537 in England, we have witnessed only one uninterrupted battle, without a
solitary truce; and since then, as far as Crumwell was concerned, we have seen
him, in his ardour, officially pushing on the work. When once on a time, writing
so bitterly against Tyndale, he little thought that, in the very height of his
career, though loaded with the affairs of the nation, he would tax himself, and
strain every nerve, in the very direction which the Translator had so long
pointed out; no object appearing to himself, even as a politician, of greater
importance. He is now, however, soon to be called away from the field of action,
leaving the cause to that unseen hand which had guided it from the beginning,
and which will employ or overrule others, as it had done himself. Crumwell’s
energetic influence is not, however, yet paralysed, He has six months to live,
and the Bible, printed still more magnificently, will be in circulation before
then. In common justice, therefore, to the only Vicegerent that Henry ever had,
and with regard to any of those volumes already published on English ground,
including the Bible which was nearly finished in Paris, it should be observed,
that when Cranmer’s name has been associated with them, in any degree, whether
as to preparation or printing, this appears to have been historically incorrect.
We have seen him, for the first time, engrossed with one book, but the
publication of it belongs to next year. 1540.

Crumwell-His Death And Character-Retrospect-Common Mistake As To The Crown-The
Large Folio Bibles, In Six Editions-The First Of Cranmer’s-A Different
Edition-The Second Of Cranmer’s-The Third Preparing, To Be Issued Next Year But
With A Different Title-One In Five Volumes, Small Size-Quarto New Testament. THE
second series of Bibles and Testaments, commencing with the first of Cranmer’s
editions, will reach to the end of the reign of Edward the Sixth, embracing the
next twelve years and a half, to July 1553. At the best, it will be a strange
and varied scene; but at present our attention must be confined to the first of
those eventful years. It was the year of the downfall and death of Crumwell, who
fell a victim to the hatred of the old learning party, to the insatiable avarice
of his Royal Master, and, in a measure, to his own ambition. He was beheaded in
the Tower, and buried within its walls in the Chapel of St. Peter ad Vincula,
where so many victims had preceded him, and to which so many followed.

Upon a survey of his extraordinary course, it must be evident that he was a man
possessed of very superior natural parts, and that they were employed with
extraordinary diligence and industry. As to worldly affairs, his judgment is
said to have been methodical and solid, his memory strong and retentive, and
that no one was more dexterous in finding out the designs of men and courts, nor
any man more reserved in keeping a secret. He has been represented as mindful of
favours bestowed upon him in earlier life, as considerate of the poor in their
suits, and bountiful to those who were in greater need; but if all this be
granted, it only lends additional regret to the positive transactions which have
been here recorded. With regard to his state of mind, or whether he had any
fixed sentiments at the moment of death, we are shut up to the necessity of
simply saying-to his own just and unerring Judge, he then stood or fell. To draw
any rash or positive conclusion respecting the dead, in such a case as the
present, from what was uttered in the last moments of existence, is not merely
presumptuous; it may injure the living, and damage the improvement to be drawn
by survivors, from the contemplation of the entire character.

Historians have differed in opinion, it is true, respecting Crumwell’s exit, but
they had not sufticienfiy investigated his previous character, which can be
understood only by the leading transactions of his administration, and his own
letters. In tracing the one, and perusing the other, though predisposed in his
favour on the whole, we have been compelled at an early period of his public
career, to rank him as a man but very low: and since he has been so frequently
held up as favourable to the cause of Truth, we have anxiously watched, and
waited for a change to the better, but have waited for this in vain. His
progress, even unto death, must ever be painful to every reflecting mind, and
his fall, as before observed, when duly considered, is far more affecting than
even that of Wolsey. A man’s ambition, indeed, is generally in proportion to his
capacity, and that of both men was confessedly very great; but then Crumwell
knew much more of the theory of Christianity than his predecessor, and had
enjoyed far better opportunities of witnessing its influence. Unhappy man! at
the close of his transient career, and because ambitious, at last infatuated, it
almost seems as though he had determined to wade through contempt, into
posthumous disgrace, and confound the judgment of posterity as to his real
character.

Hence the different views which have been given of the same individual; yet the
course pursued by him admits of explanation, though it be one awfully
illustrative of poor human nature. For the first five months of this year, the
most powerful subject in the kingdom had been rising to the top of his ambition.
It was Crumwell, with all his houours thick upon him, and crowned with an
Earldom-an Earldom of a hundred days, or by far the most miserable period of his
existence. He is now dead, and buried in that Tower, to which he had often sent
others. But as he had finally shown himself ardent in favour of the Scriptures
being printed, we are now furnished with one of the strongest proofs as to
whether the progress of this cause depended on the life of any such man, or was
at all affected by the death of the Vicegerent and last Vicar-General. The cause
of Divine Truth, properly so called, it has been our imperative duty to preserve
from being injured or mistaken, by identifying it with any doubtful or
disputable human character, however conspicuous on the page of English history.
Let every man occupy the place belonging to him, but that cause, correctly
speaking, can be associated only with the consistent and sincere. In no other in
this country has the Almighty so reigned, and so conspicuously, as an Overruler.
Even historically, therefore, to drag in any man, as though it depended at all
upon him, simply because he, at some moment, happened to be in office or in
power as a political agent, is only betraying the cause to the common enemy of
Divine Revelation. This is an error which has been committed too long, and by
too many historians. In reference to Crumwell, the noble warfare which has been
already detailed, had not only commenced long before he was even heard of, but
it had proceeded in spite of him, after he was known and in power. Indeed, after
the year 1537, he, or any such man, be he who he may, cannot appear in any
higher character, than that of “one who had tarried at home, and now divided the
spoil.” Crumwell’s warmth in sanctioning, at the decline of his career, or even
pressing forward the printing of the Scriptures, has been sufficiently accounted
for, as resulting from political expediency. Acting, as he has been proved to
have done in other respects, it could proceed from no higher motive; and when
John Foxe, in his first edition, compares his zeal to that of Jehu, in the days
of old, he is far more accurate than in many expressions which he substituted
afterwards, in his long and confused eulogy or defence, He lived too near the
time indeed, to know as much as we do; but it would have been wiser had he, and
others after him, said little more than he did at first. This zeal, too, does
not appear to have involved Crumwell in any personal expense, except in the case
of Coverdale’s Bible, which, as we have seen, did not succeed. If there was any
in the affair at Paris, which is not likely, as he was acting under Henry’s
application to the French King, it could be but trifling; since the books were
afterwards sold, the parson paying one-half, and the people the other. The truth
is, that the events of the day, if fairly reported, disentangle this glorious
cause, and place it altogether out of the way of being confounded, either with
the state of England in other respects, or the men who governed the country. On
the part of man, assuredly, it was neither by might or power that Divine
Revelation, in the language of the people, found its way into our native land,
or afterwards spread; for his might and power were leagued against it. Of this,
from year to year, we have already had proof all-sufficient. Yet so egregiously
inaccurate have been the representations of subsequent historians, that mere
official characters have been brought forward, so as to overshadow those of
humbler name. The latter sustained the brunt of the battle; they bore all the
burden and heat of the day; they sustained the entire expense; they ran all the
risk, and they must no longer stand concealed behind any man. The former, and
not until they could no longer resist the tide, tardily lent official sanction
at one time, and then capriciously, or rather wickedly, withdrew it at another,
although that sanction, when offered, literally cost them nothing, or nothing
worthy of any notice. But not only have historians erred egregiously, and led
their readers astray: men who ought to have searched more deeply, and been fully
informed, have, very boldly, founded arguments, in our highest courts of law,
upon assertions which were grossly incorrect in point of fact; and this, too,
when pleading on behalf of the Crown. Let one instance suffice for the present,
as the subject must afterwards be more fully explained. Two hundred years
certainly had afforded time sufficient to have known and established the truth;
yet more than two hundred years after this period, in 1758, when the
Solicitor-General of England was pleading before Lord Mansfield and other
judges, and talking wildly of the King having by prerogative several copyrights,
he actually stated in open Court, as his third ground for so pleading, that “the
translation of the Great English Bible under Grafton was performed at the KING’S
expence!” Although this was too bad, there was no person present who was able
historically to confront him.

Henry’s character, no doubt, involved the most singular contradictions. He was
avaricious and prodigal, at different moments, in nearly equal extremes. He has
been said to have diced away the bells of suppressed houses, and to have lost
thousands of the spoil at play, but he certainly never spent his money in
printing Bibles. From all we have seen already, of course it was impossible that
the King could possess any heartfelt interest in the Word of God. As far as he
was concerned, upon every hand sin abounded, and thus the high favour of God to
this country became the more conspicuous; but so distant was Mr.
Solicitor-General Yorke from the truth, that no evidence whatever has yet been
adduced of Henry the Eighth having ever been at any expense whatever, in
printing one solitary copy of the Sacred Volume. Hitherto, we may aver, we have
made this sufficiently plain; and as for the future, we shall see presently who
was at the expense, when even the editions with Cranmer’s or Tunstal’s name on
the title-page came to be issued. But with regard to poor Grafton, so
unceremoniously robbed of all due credit and honour, after having, at the very
beginning, personally embarked so large a sum in the undertaking, it may here be
observed, that he had received as yet no more than a fair remuneration for his
outlay of capital; and that, ere long, he found himself safely lodged in the
Fleet prison; from whence the zealous Bishops, ever true to their character, and
under this self-same Henry VIII., would by no means relieve him till he had
given his bond for £100 (equal to £1500 now), that he would print no more
Bibles, nor sell any more, until a certain period-and when was that? Not until
the King and the clergy should agree upon a translation, which, as we have seen,
and shall see, they never did.

Here, however, we have at least one proof that as far as Grafton and Whitchurch
had been concerned in printing, these were undertakings in which no part of the
royal money, or that of the Exchequer, had ever been involved. Had this been the
case, had one farthing of Henry’s property been embarked, it would have been at
the peril of these Bishops to have so proceeded, and they never would.

We turn, therefore, to the real state of things, and take up the second series
of Bibles, or the result of Tyndale’s exertions, as still more visible in his
native land, and in the Scriptures which were printed and published before the
face of the notorious Bonner. It should not be forgotten that we now, in fact,
see the Bible of 1537, as already described, with nothing more than certain
verbal alterations here and there; some of which were not improvements, and
others, though now attempted, in the end did not prevail; while, at the same
time, the first introduced Bible, and verbally, as first imported, is to be
reprinted again and again.

But, first, and with regard to those large Bibles of different dates, to which
the name of Cranmer was affixed in the title-page, or four in number, and other
two editions, with the names of Tunstal and Heath, and not Cranmer’s, or six
distinct editions in all; such has been the confusion, that they have hitherto
baffled the research of all our bibliographers. Preceding authors having failed,
Dibdin happens to be the last who attempted an explanation, and he fairly gives
up the subject in despair. “After all,” says he in conclusion, “there seems to
be some puzzle, or unaccountable variety, in the editions of the Bible in 1540
and 1541. The confusion itself, indeed, may be accounted for. All those largest
black-letter Bibles are most interesting relics, for such was the ordeal through
which they passed, first in Henry’s reign, and then under his daughter Mary:
such the havoc to which they were exposed from the enemy, or, in other words,
such the enmity evinced by official men, that the only wonder is, that any of
them remain. Yet, upon the whole, the number left, or surviving, is by no means
the least remarkable feature in their history. The consequence, however, has
been, that, before an experienced eye, many of them are found to be copies made
up.” This remark applies generally to all collections, whether in our
universities, our public libraries, or in the hands of private gentlemen. Such,
therefore, is the value of a perfect copy throughout, of these Bibles, or so
highly have they been estimated by posterity, above those who first read them,
that they have been sold for above forty, if not fifty pounds sterling. The
original price was ten shillings in sheets, or twelve, when bound with bullions,
clasps, or ornaments; that is, about seven pounds ten shillings, or nine pounds,
of the present day. In this state of things, the first step which required to be
taken, was to obtain perfect copies of all these six large black-letter Bibles,
with their genuine titles and last leaves; as all the editions to which we now
refer happen to be very distinctly dated, first on the title-page, and then more
fully in the colophon. Even after this, at first sight, it might be presumed,
and it has been, when the books were viewed separately, that there were here
probably not more than two or three editions, with different titles, and another
date in conclusion. Such a thing, however dishonest, though it has often been
done with certain books since, seems to have been then unknown; for upon farther
examination, all the editions are distinct. On observing, however, that the
catchword at the bottom of the page, and at the top of the next, are in so many
instances the same, the next supposition may be, that as there might not be
types in sufficient quantity, after the first impression was thrown off, the
forms, in succession, may have been transferred to another press; and thus, like
the ploughman overtaking the reaper, copies might follow each other at the
distance of only three or four months. But even this supposition will not solve
the phenomena; for upon examining the body of the page, so numerous, or rather
innumerable, are the differences in point of spelling, contractions, and even
pointing, that no alternative is left but that of comparing the six volumes page
by page. The reason for our being thus particular will appear presently; but
who, it may be asked, will ever be at the pains to do all this? He must possess
the perfect copies, or have the genuine leaves of all the six Bibles before him,
and these were not to be found in any public collection in the kingdom; nor was
this sufficient, for the very pages of each and all must be patiently examined
to mark their curious and minute distinctions. But the fact is that, at last,
all this has been accomplished, through the indefatigable perseverance of one
gentleman, though we must not say at what expense.

Yet he himself, thus carefully collating them, the result is, that of these
large Bibles, specially intended for public worship or public reading, there
were six distinct editions, three dated in 1540 and three in 1541; two of which
were issued this year, and four in the next. In all such labour, however, there
is profit, though it may not appear at first; for, even at this stage, there was
still some degree of mystery in every one of these Bibles being dated from
London.

One day, in the metropolis, a gentleman, no inferior judge, remarked to the
present writer-“I cannot believe that these Bibles were actually printed in
London.” “Where then,” it was asked, “do you suppose?” He replied, “I think most
probably in Paris.” “But why so?” “Because of the type; for at that time the
London types, as used in all other books, were inferior to that fine bold
letter.” Certainly they were, it may now be added, and these, there can be
little or no doubt, were Parisian types. But as for their being so employed in
that city, after the violent interruption in the end of 1538; when once the
wrath of the Sorbonne against Robert Estienne, that is Stephens the printer, is
observed, and still more, the state of feeling between the French and English
Kings, throughout 1540 and 1541; such employment of these types, and to such
extent in Paris, must appear to have been altogether impossible. Thus then, in
the end, are we brought back to admire the energy of poorCRUMWELL’ S character,
in a step hitherto but very slightly noticed in history. In bringing over the
very presses, the Parisian types and even French workmen, he had done his
business thoroughly, after his own manner. Types to a greater extent certainly,
if not workmen more numerous, had arrived, than has ever been before imagined.
He had seen that the Bible being speedily multiplied, and generally read, was
his best, his only mainstay, against the insidious and powerfid opposition of
“the old learning” party. So that but for what he had done, we are now led to
infer, that Cranmer would never have had it in his power, to have put forth at
least such and so many Bibles as these. It was something for Crumwell to have
drawn such spoil, if not from the “Fonderie du Roy,” yet from its immediate
vicinity, for it certainly appears now to be far more than probable, that an
English folio Bible printing ia Paris, once interrupted, had ended in six others
being printed in London! The history of the books themselves will afford some
farther curious information, and the more so when taken in the order of their
dates. The first of these Bibles, which was finished in April with Cranmer’s
name, we have referred to under 1539, as preparing. We have seen that it had
been subjected by Henry to the inspection of certain Bishops, though merely as
individuals, but belonging to that body, which had all along shown such
hostility to any translation whatever. The determined aspect and imperative
tones of the Monarch had very soon made these enemies yield their feigned
obedience; and his heart, however capricious, being in the hand of God, here is
the book entire, and with Cranmer’s preface attached, enforcing “high and low,
male and female, rich and poor, master and servant,” to read it, at home in
their own houses, and ponder over it!

This, the first Bible, ia entitled- “The Byble in English, that is to saye the
contet of al the holy Scripture, both of the Olde and New Testamet, with a
prologe thereinto made by the reverende father in God, Thomas, archbishop of
Canterbury. ¶ This is, the Byble apoynted. to the use of the Churches. ¶ Printed
by Edward whytchurche. Cum privi-legio ad imprimendum solum MDXL.” The Colophon
is-“ The ende of the new Testamet: and of the whole Bible fynisshed in Apryll,
Anno MCCCCCXL. A dno factu est istud.” Of this first edition printed on English
ground, there is a splendid copy on Vellum, with the cuts and blooming letters,
curiously illuminated, in the British Museum. It has, for some reason, recently
been rebound, in three volumes; but splendidly in morocco. This fine book, once
actually possessed by Henry VIII., is valuable as one key to the party concerned
in the expense of the impression; for so far from this being the King himself,
this copy was given to him as a present. The first leaf bears the following
inscription in legible characters:-“This book is presented unto your most
excellent Highness, by your loving faithful and obedient subject and dayly
oratour, Anthony Marler of London haberdasher.” “Who this haberdasher was,” said
Baker, “I wish to know. He must have been a considerable man that could make
such a present to a prince, and seems to have been a sharer in the charge of the
impression.” Respecting this London gentleman, nothing more has been ascertained
except that ho was a member of this Livery Company, whose records were almost
wholly destroyed in the great fire of 1666; but that he was more than a sharer
in the expense of this, and other impressions, will appear presently, and before
the Privy Council. No sooner were copies of this large volume ready, than the
King’s brief for setting up the Bible of the greater volume was issued, ordering
now that the decree should not only be “solemnly published and read,” but “set
up upon every church door-that it may more largely appear unto our subjects.

Witness myself, at Westminster, the seventh day of May, in the thirtysecond year
of our reign,” i.e. Friday, 7th of May, 1540.

It is curious enough, however, that there was another Bible in folio, also dated
in April of this year. It has been frequently mis-stated as being Cranmer’s, as
if it were the same as the last. There are various distinctions.

It is not only without Cranmer’s prologue, and differs from his translation in
the psalms and elsewhere, but the New Testament is said to be after the last
recognition of Erasmus: that is, it is the same version as that which
accompanied the Latin and English Testament printed by Redman in 1538. The book,
therefore, is to be classed with Matthew’s or Tyndale’s translation. It is on a
smaller type and paper than the last, and seems to have been intended for the
use of families,-Entitled, “The Byble in Englishe, that is to saye the content
of all the holye scripture, both of the old and -Newe Testament, truely
translated after the veryte of the Hebrew and Greke textes. Printed at London by
Thomas Petyt and Robert Redman for Thomas Berthelet, printer unto the Kynge’s
grace, 1540.” The Colophon is-“The end of the New Testament, and of the whole
Byble, finisshed in Apryll, Anno MCCCCCXL.” This book had been submitted neither
to the King, nor any Bishop, even though it was executed for His Majesty’s
printer. It was warranted by Crumwell, according to the privilege given to him
on the 14th of November last. By the month of July, however, another of the
great Bibles was ready. “The Byble in Englyshe, that is to saye the contet of al
the holy Scripture. both of the olde and newe Testamet, with a prologe,
thereinto made by the reverende father in God, Thomas Archbishop of Catorbury. ¶
This is the Byble apoynted to the use of the churches. ¶ Printed by Richard
Grafton, cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum, MDXL.” The Colophon is-“The ende
of the newe Testament and of the whole Byble, fynished in July, Anno MCCCCCXL.”

Trembling for his life, and imploring mercy from his inhuman master for a month
past, this Bible is remarkable for its being finished at the very time of
Crumwell’s execution, and the more so from its having still on the engraved
frontispiece, his shield or coat of arms! This had first appeared last year, or
1539, and now a third time in this book; but Crumwell is dead, nay, was put to
death on the 28th of this very month, and any other undertaking must have
suffered, in which he, or any other disgraced minister, had taken such a
prominent interest. It has been asserted, indeed, that after his fall, the Bible
was complained of, as being heretical and erroneous; nay, that means were taken
to persuade the King that the free use of the Scriptures, which Cranmer had so
strongly urged in his preface, was injurious to the peace of the country. But a
crisis had come, for here, by the month of November, a third folio Bible is
ready for publication.

Two editions with Cranmer’s name on the title, and marked as appointed for
public worship, were already out, and what was now to be done?

Crumwell is gone, and Cranmer had not power sufficient to command the Bishops;
but there is one alive who in a moment can command them all, or any one whom he
is pleased to select. This book, then, must not be lost, nor even suppressed,
though the Vicar-General be no more. Nay, an expedient must be adopted not only
to silence all calumny, but push the sale of the work, to which, it will appear
in due time, neither the King nor the Bishops had contributed any pecuniary aid.
Here, then, was Tunstal standing by, who of all the rest had been so conspicuous
as an opponent since 1526, and it was fit that the unbending heterodoxy of this
original enemy should now be put to the test; and here was Heath, who had
recently gone over to Tunstal’s party. Henry, therefore, did what seemed to him
the best thing that could have been thought of in these circumstances. He
commaned these two men to sit down, and say what they thought of the Bible now
ready. The book was printed by November: meanwhile Gardiner is sent out of the
way to the Emperor’s court, and Tunstal and Heath must apply to their task. As
Gardiner and others had delayed Cranmer’s first edition, and then declared in
the end that there were “no heresies in it,” why examine the translation again?
We may reply, because of Crumwell’s execution, and because it was much better,
by way of confounding the enemy, to make these opponents speak out. They took
time, till the year to which the book belongs was ended, or the 25th of March,
and then out it came with a title still more pompous, declaring the fact as now
stated. “The Byble in Englishe of the largest and greatest volume, auctoryed and
apoynted by the commandemente of our moost redoubted Prynce and soueraygne Lorde
Kynge Henry the VIII., supreme heade of this his churche and realme of Englande:
to be frequented and used in every churche in this his sayd realme, accordynge
to the tenour of his former Injunctions giuen in that behalfe. ¶ Oversene and
perused at the commaundmet of the Kyoge’s Hyghnes, by the ryghte reverende
fathers in God Cuthbert Bysshop of Duresme, and Nicolas Bisshop of Rochester.
Printed by Edward Whitchurch. Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. 1541.” The
Colophon-“The end of the New Testament and of the whole Byble Fynisshed in
November 1540,” though not published till 1541. This was in truth another
triumph over the enemy, one of most grievous annoyance to Master Gardiner; and
this he will not fail to discover on the first occasion in which he can find his
brethren assembled, after his return from abroad. Some poor petty spite was
indeed already discoverable. The reader will recollect of the homage falsely
imputed to Henry, by an engraved frontispiece to the three last Bibles; in which
Crumwell and Cranmer are represented at full length, above, as receiving the
Bible from the King, and below, as giving it to the people. At the feet of each
figure, it will be remembered, was his shield or coat of arms. The frontispiece,
esteemed a treasure of its kind, must not be thrown away. But the arms of
Crumwell were now erased! Still there stands the figure intended for him, and so
it continued to do, throughout seven editions! That is, three of them with his
shield and four without, But if this was the first with the shield erased, it
was the first also with Tunstal’s name, and the figure of Crumwell, now so well
known, standing by. And is Saul also among the Prophets? might not the people
have exclaimed, and perhaps did; though we have yet to hear again of Tunstal and
Heath’s feigned obedience. There had been no time left for them to alter the
translation. The book was laid before them, no doubt, as it had come from the
press. A title was wanting to suit the moment, and Henry now, his own
Vicar-General, commanded the present one. It will make way for two other
editions from Cranmer. In addition to these four Bibles, it is said that there
was a fifth, and in five volumes as small as sexto-decimo, printed by Redman;
but, at all events, there was a New Testament in quarto, with Erasmus and
Tyndale in parallel columns. Thus amidst all the turmoil, and in spite of foes,
the cause went forward, and still from conquering to conquer. 1541. The Third
Large Bible, With Tunstal’s Name, By Command-The Fourth, In May, With Cranmer’s
Name-Expense Of These Large Undertaking8 -The Memorable Proprietor, Anthony
Marler-Bonner’s Feigned Zeal -Earnest Reading And Listening-The Fifth Great
Bible, With Tunstal’s Name-The Sixth, With Cranmer’s Name-Gardiner Returned, To
Witness The Progress Now Made During His Absence.

AFTER the fall of Crumwell, after the royal marriage of last year, and some
degree of amicable intercourse commenced between the Emperor and Henry, the
Norfolk, Gardiner, and Tunstal party may be considered as at the height of their
power; so that whatever shall take place with regard to the printing or
publication of the Sacred Volume, becomes the more remarkable. This year is the
last in which Bibles were printed under the present reign, even though Henry had
still five years to live. By his “commandment” we have seen both Tunstal and
Heath giving in their adherence to the translation, and in an edition certainly
finished in November last. It may therefore be presumed that the order to look
over it, had come after the book was finished at press, since it did not appear
before the 25th of March this year. But this would not suffice for 1541. By the
end of May another edition was ready by Cranmer, thus proving that, for all
practical purposes, the version was precisely the same throughout, whether his
name, or that of its ancient foe, Tunstal, was affixed. This edition, as if
marked out for observation, is particularly dated in red on the title page, as
well as in black at the end. “The Byble in Englysh, that is to saye the content
of all the holy Scrypture, both of the olde and newe Testament, with a prologe
thereinto, made by the reuerende father in God, Thomas archebyshop of
Cantorbury. ¶ This is the Byble appoynted to the use of the Churches. Printed by
Edwarde Whitehurch. Cum priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. Finished the xxviii
daye of Maye, Anno domini MDXLI” The Colophon is-“The ende of the newe
Testament: and of the whole Byble, Fynysshed in May MCCCCCXLI. a dno factu est
istud.”

Here then was not less than the fifth folio Bible completed, in the short space
of less than two years. Nay, four have been completed in thirteen months! We
have before us, therefore, unquestionably, a magnificent undertaking. Means must
be taken for the disposal of these volumes, and provision for this end may well
be made by those who had been at no expense, should they possess any influence.
We dismiss, at present, the expense of all other editions, and taking up those
only in which we find the names of Grafton or Whitchurch, partners in business
as the printers; from that first edition which was imported by them in 1537 down
to only the present moment, we have six editions. The impressions thrown off
have been rated at from 1500 to 2,500 copies; so that if we take the medium,
here were twelve thousand volumes. We now know, from Grafton himself, that £500
had been embarked by him in the first edition, given to Britain; but those that
followed after were still finer books. Granting therefore that there had been
here a sum of no more than £3000 incurred, though there must have been more,
this, according to the value of money in our day, was equal to forty, if not
forty-five thousand pounds! “History, though warm on meaner themes,” has
hitherto “been cold on this;” and the reader of the present hour, except the
transactions be explained, may pass without notice, the most memorable feature
of the times. In the midst of the preceding still nobler struggle, respecting
the New Testament only, Sir Thomas More had expressed his astonishment, on
account of the expense incurred, and so much the more that he could never fathom
from whence the money came. But what would he have said to this cause now, not
seven years after his death? Ah, and what would he have said to his friend
Tunstal, who so led him on the ice, by granting him licence to “play the
Demosthenes,” in opposition to Tyndale; and who now, by the command of their
common Sovereign, is openly mixed up in the whole concern, though not in one
farthing of the expense? The memorable edition of 1537, and that chiefly printed
in Paris and finished in London in 1539, are not to be forgotten; but we now
only look to those volumes to which the brief of the King on the 7th of May last
year, and the names of Cranmer and Tunstal on the title-page, direct us, or four
editions. These, according to our very moderate calculation, involved £2000 in
advance, or equal to thirty thousand pounds now.

Here, then, was a work of magnitude, to which it would have been quite worthy of
any king, or of any government, to have contributed. But if neither the one, nor
the other, bore the burden; if neither had even advanced any funds in the
meanwhile; then from this time forth, and ever after, “let honour be given to
whom honour is due,”-and posterity venerate the memory of the man, or the men,
who so befriended their countrymen and our forefathers. The sale, therefore, of
these large volumes, so long loosely styled “Cranmer’s Bibles,” must now no
longer be neglected, lest the noble proprietor, though to us hitherto little
more than an unknown private gentleman, should be, as he said himself, undone
for ever. It was a crisis, in the finest keeping with our entire history. There
was no application about to be made by him to Government, for any pecuniary aid,
and far less to Henry VIII. personally; but it was at least proper that his
Privy Council should be reminded of their royal Master’s imperative injunctions
of May 1540; and so they were in prospect of Cranmer’s last impression.

After the death of Crumwell, Henry’s Council was divided into two separate
sections; of which one sat in London, the other was with the King; and, what is
curious enough, then, for the first time, we have regular minutes of his Privy
Council. It is from this source, the most authentic of all others, that we hear
more particularly of that worthy citizen, Anthony Marler. Strange! that for
three hundred years he should have been overshadowed, by the King on the one
hand, and the Primate on the other; but they are now both certainly here
present, to witness for themselves, and to be overshadowed in their turn. Thus
it is that “time unveils truth.” Minutes of the Privy Council: at Greenwich 25
April, 33 of Henry VIII., that is 1541, “It was agreed that Anthony Marler of
London, merchant, might sell the bibles of the Great Bible unbound for x s.
sterling (equal to £7 10s.), and bound, being trimmed with bullyons, for xii. s.
sterling” (or equal to £9). And on a complaint of the same Anthony Marler to the
fore said Council, that the parish churches throughout the kingdom had not
generally complied with the royal injunction, that each should be provided with
a copy of the Bible of the largest volume, in dependence on which the last
edition had been printed, the King in Council issued annother injunction to the
same effect as the former, but affixing a definite penalty to the neglect of the
order, beyond a certain time, viz. 1st Nov., the date of the proclamation being
6th May, 1541. The King presided, and Cranmer was present at both of these
meetings of Council.f94 This must have so far brightened the prospect of our
patriotic proprietor, as we shall find another edition of the Great Bible soon
ready for publication, proceeding from the same quarter, nay, and another still,
before the year is done! But in the meanwhile it is now evident, that so far
from Henry VIII. being at any expense for the Bibles already printed by Grafton
and Whitchurch, as our Solicitor-General told Lord Mansfield, and as others,
both before and after him, have unwarrantably affirmed, the King was now rather
in the way of making a little money, by publications in which he had no
pecuniary concern! At least every fine would bring him £1, for a book which
would have cost no more than 10s.; or in other words, the value of £15, for an
article at £7 10s. But if the purchase had been neglected two months, then his
Majesty would have £30; if three, £45! While, on the other hand, for every
overcharge he was to receive two shillings, or equal to thirty. But besides this
proclamation, in five days more, or Wednesday, 11th May, came a letter from no
other than Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, (still obsequiously so far playing
the hypocrite,) for the execution of the King’s orders, addressed to his
Archdeacon; and so eager must he appear to secure the royal favour, that in
September he also put forth an “Admonition to all readers of this Bible in the
English tongue” -“Evermore forseeing that no exposition be made thereupon,
otherwise than it is declared in the book itself-that no reading be used in the
time of Divine service-or, finally, that no man justly may reckon himself to be
offended thereby, or take occasion to grudge or malign thereat.” The reading of
the Sacred Scriptures, however, it must ever be borne in mind, had now been a
practice, not in London merely, but throughout England, and for fifteen years;
to what extent, indeed, it is impossible to say. But as we have long seen, many
of Henry’s subjects had truly not waited for his poor permission, whether to
read or to hear: and in many a corner, far and near, there were those who knew
far more of Christianity, and to better purpose, than did any of the members of
Government. Even five years ago, the late Edward Fox of Hereford, a rara avis
among the Bishops, had boldly told his brethren as much, and it was certainly no
more than the truth. On the return of Bonnet from Paris, where he had pretended
great zeal for the Scriptures, to please Crumwell; and immediately after the
King’s brief in 1540, to please both, this consummate hypocrite had set up six
Bibles in St. Paul’s for public reading. The result at once proved, how far the
people were ahead of these official men. They came instantly and generally to
hear the Scriptures read. Such as could read with a clear voice often had great
numbers round them. Many sent their children to school, and carried them to St.
Paul’s to hear. It was, however, not long before the language of our Saviour
himself-‘‘Drink ye all of it,” struck them, and very naturally led to
discussion. The complaints of some, in lack of argument, of which the adverse
party took care to avail themselves, were dexterously conveyed to the King. In
their eyes, this reading of the Scriptures by the people, and hearing them read
in public, was a sore evil; and an opportunity must be sought and seized for
putting it down.

Crumwell, the terror of the Bishops, was gone; and Gardiner is out of the
country; but Bonner, though always false at heart, must still dissemble; nay,
moreover, here actually come Tunstal and Heath once more, and with another
edition of the great Bible, in November! “The Byble in Englyshe of the largest
and greatest volume, auctorysed and apoynted by the commandemente of our moost
redoubted Prynce and soueraygne Lorde, Kynge Henrye the VIII., supreme heade of
this his Church and realme of Englande: to be frequented and used in every
Churche win this his sayd realme, accordyng to the tenour of his former
Injunctions giuen in that behalfe. ¶ Oversene and perused at the commaundmet of
the Kynges Highnes, by the ryghte reverende fathers in God, Cuthbert bysshop of
Duresme, and Nicolas bysshop of Rochester. Printed by Rychard Grafton, 1541.”
The Colophon is “ The ende of the newe Testament and of the whole Byble.
Fynyshed in November, Anno MCCCCCXLJ.” Nor would even this suffice. Anthony
Marler, the only paymaster as yet named, or to be named, is still ready to
proceed; and a final edition was completed before this year was done. It had
been going on at press with other editions; and, it is curious enough, from last
year, but it was not finished till the close of the present; at the same time,
it may have been only nine months in the press, as their year extended to the
25th of March.

Cranmer was not to be outdone by these two Bishops, and, therefore, as in May
last, so he now follows them up immediately with his usual title, and an
emphatic colophon, as if he had been in wonder at the compliance of Tunstal and
Heath. “The Byble in Englishe, that is to saye, the content of all the holy
scripture both of the olde and newe testament, with a prologe thereinto, made by
the reverende father in God, Thomas archebisshop of Cantorbury. ¶ This is the
Byble appoynted to the use of the Churches. ¶ Printed by Rycharde Grafton. Cum
priuilegio ad imprimendum solum. An. do. MDXL.” The Colophon is-“The ende of the
Newe Testament, and of the whole Bible, Finysshed in December MCCCCCXLI.† A
Domino factum est istud. This is the Lordes doynge.” And thus ended the year: so
that we have four of these large folios dated in 1541. It was certainly a
strange movement on the part of Henry VIII., and one which must have taken many
by surprise, for him first to send Gardiner off to Germany, and then, as soon as
he was gone, command his friends, Tunstal and Heath, to give in their adhesion
to the Bible, to which Cranmer had bowed; and then also to place their names in
the title-page, in token of their full approbation -a translation almost
verbally the same in the New Testament, which the King himself and Wolsey had
first denounced, and Tanstal after them, consigned again and again to the
flames! Such, however, was the fact. The undertaking was not to be denounced,
even though Crumwell, now rated as a heretic and a traitor, had imported the
types, and pushed forward the printing, not only of these, but of other
editions. But lo! here is Stephen Gardiner, returned in October, and gone direct
to the King from Charles V. With what surprise must he have beheld the progress
made! On going abroad, his party reigned triumphant; it was now in disgrace, and
the Queen, whose marriage he had fostered, is about to ascend the scaffold! But,
especially, if he had not been informed, with what feelings must he have gazed
on the names of Tunstal and Heath in the very title-page of these Bibles!

Tunstal was now in his sixty-eighth year, and appears to have been in some
degree softened with his years; Gardiner never was; and now, though of these
volumes there were eight editions in regular series, to say nothing of others,
which had received Henry’s approval, and two of these carried the obsequious,
but well-known attestation of Tunstal and Heath; still this Bishop of Winchester
stood resolved to put forth all his strength, in the way of cunning sophistry,
against the translation thus acknowledged, and now reading in public, in so many
places. Certainly he had owned to the King before, that there were “no heresies
in it.” But another Parliament is summoned, and another Convocation, where
Gardiner anticipated that he might even yet work wondrously. Let him try; that
he himself and his brethren may come to their greatest humiliation, and to their
final discomfiture as a Convocation. 1542.

Convocation Met-The Bible Introduced There For Discussion At Last- Singular
Display-Gardiner’s Grand Effort In Opposition-Cranmer Informs The King-They Are
All Discomfited, Though Yet Sitting- Progress Of The Truth In England. BY this
year, such had been the progress made in the cause of Divine Truth, that the
imaginations of its enemies were literally put to the rack.

Oppose they must; but how to proceed, was a problem not of easy solution. Upon
his second return from the Continent, in October last, Gardiner had found far
greater occasion for regret, than he had done even before, in September 1538.
Then, he could step into his fiery chariot, and bring Lambert to the stake; he
and Norfolk had been worming themselves into royal favour ever after; and upon
setting off for the imperial Court, in November 1540, whether he should there
fully succeed or not, everything at home seemed to promise other, and, as he
thought, better days; now that Crumwell was gone, and his Majesty so delighted
with the Queen which had been furnished to him by the old learning party. She
was their first and only choice, on whose sway depended anticipations not a few.
But now, that mainstay had fallen; Gardiner’s friend, the Duke of Norfolk, had
been trembling for his personal honours, if not his life; while, to crown all,
that pillar of strength, Cuthbert Tunstal, had not merely given way, but his
name had been employed, by royal authority, as though he had personally gone
over to the other side. Still, the party must rally once more. By this time, it
might have been supposed that their arrows would have been expended and their
quiver empty; but, subtle and ingenious in the extreme, their sophistry
prevailed once more. If the peculiar situation of the King be taken into
account, it must appear surprising that they should have been successful in
swaying his mind now; though, in the end, we shall leave it to the judgment of
the reader, whether the whole proceeding, on the part of Henry, does not carry
very much of the appearance of a snare, in which, when caught, the Bishop of
Winchester, from being the most conspicuous character, became the most
ridiculous. Be this as it may, these men will not stop till they have exposed
themselves to the derision of posterity. A new Parliament having assembled, on
the following Friday, or the 20th, the Convocation also met; and as it sat till
the 29th of March, of course it proved, as usual, though only apparently, a
critical period for the Sacred Scriptures. After so many storms, as all along
there had been no real danger, so there will not be any now. At the opening,
Richard Cox, Archdeacon of Ely, had preached to the House, of course in Latin;
and if he had intended his text to be satirical, he could not have been more
severe. It was” Vos estis sal terrae,”-“ ye are the salt of the earth!!”-and no
doubt a very different sermon from that of Latimer six years ago.

After being detained for some time by the King’s personal unhappy affairs in
Parliament, these men proceeded to business in the Convocation; and at their
third session, on Friday the 17th of February, the Translation of the
Scriptures, so often discussed there without any result, must once more come
before them. The reader cannot have forgotten their former abortive attempts,
and may be the more curious to observe what happened now.

They appear ever to have been afraid to look any farther than the New Testament,
and it was of this they felt most apprehension. Upon this day, therefore,
Cranmer required the bishops and clergy to revise the translation of the New
Testament; and so successful had been the votaries of the “old learning,” that
this was done in the King’s name. It must have been no welcome proposal to the
Archbishop, after he had so fully committed himself. However, as usual, he must
obey; and therefore, having divided the volume into fourteen parts, he allotted
them to fifteen Bishops, as follow:

Matthew to himself, Cranmer of Canterbury.

Mark to Longland of Lincoln.

Luke to Gardiner of Winchester.

John to Goodrich of Ely. The Acts to Heath of Rochester.

Romans to Sampson of Chichester.

Corinthians , 1 and 2 to Capon of Salisbury.

Galatians to Ephesians to Barlow of St. David’s.

Thessalonians , 1 and 2 to Bell of Worcester.

Timothy to Philemon to Parfew of St. Asaph.

Peter , 1 and 2.. to Holgate of Llandaff.

Hebrews ... to Skip of Hereford.

James to Jude .. to Thirlby of Westminster.

Revelation . to Wakeman of Gloster and Chamber of Peterboro’.

Here, let it be observed, were two notable and curious omissions. What had
become of Tunstal and Bonner-the former once so outrageously zealous against the
Scriptures in London; the latter as much so for them while in Paris? Tunstal
having but recently committed himself to two editions of the Bible, by express
commandment from the King, must have either declined; or with his characteristic
“stillness,” perhaps expected to “oversee” once more the wished-for revisal.
Bonner, though a canonist and wily politician, was very probably no scholar; or,
like his predecessor, John Stokesly, would have no connexion with the affair. At
their sixth meeting Gardiner came forward, therefore, with the fruit of his own
counsel, and made a proposal perfectly characteristic, which he was sure to
carry triumphantly within the Convocation. It was at best a puerile design, and
to us now, a most contemptible one, with a view to keep the people of England in
their ancient ignorance. He then read a list of not fewer than one hundred and
two Latin words, that “for their genuine and native meaning, and for the majesty
of the matter in them contained,” might be retained in the English translation,
or be fitly Englished with the least alteration. For the sake of illustration,
only a slight specimen will be sufficient. Ecclesia, poenitentia, pontifex,
olacausta (so in the record), idiota, baptizare, sacramentum, simulacrum,
confiteor tibi Pater, panis, praepositionis, benedictio, satisfactio, peccator,
episcopus, cisera, zizania, confessio, pascha, hostia. The bearing of the entire
list is very apparent. Gardiner, indeed, had talked of “majesty” in the words,
but there was something else than majesty in view. “Witness,” says old Fuller,
“the word ‘penance,’ which, according to the vulgar sound, contrary to the
original sense thereof, was a magazine of will worship, and brought in much gain
to the priests, who were desirous to keep that word, because that word kept
them.” Cranmer, however, being now at his post, and retaining influence with his
Majesty, although he had once more dealt out the books of the New Testament
among his fellows, soon observed from their discussions, what would be the
result; and therefore determined to wait upon Henry, and inform him how matters
went. The Bishops, therefore, were now relieved from their several tasks, and
they were, moreover, no more to be consulted on the subject! They must be
overruled, to a man, though in Convocation assembled. After entering the House,
on Friday the 10th of March, Cranmer informed his brethren “that it was the
King’s will and pleasure, that the translation both of the Old and the New
Testament should be examined by both Universities!” In vain did the House
oppose, and in vain protest; for all the Bishops present did so, with only two
exceptions, viz.

Goodrich of Ely, and Barlow of St, David’s. Cranmer, who saw that his brethren
only desired to get rid of the translation altogether, then finally told them
that he “would stick close to the will and pleasure of the King his Master, and
that the Universities should examine the translation.” This, however, after all
turned out as though it had been simply an expedient adopted for putting an end
to the foolish proposal of submitting the Word of God to the revision of any
such men; for even the Universities never were consulted!! To have ruined
Marler, the worthy member of the Haberdashers’ Company, in the eyes of the
Convocation, would have been quite an achievement; but Anthony’s precious
property was now safe, and it seems that something more must instantly be said
respecting it. It is singular that forty-eight hours were not allowed to pass
away! Cranmer must have immediately informed the King of his final reply; and
now, so far from looking to any University, out came the following authoritative
communication, dated on (Sunday) the 12th of March, 1542; thus verifying the old
proverb-“the better day, the better deed.” “Henry the Eighth, &c.-To all
Printers of books within this realm, to all our Officers, Ministers, and
Subjects, these our Letters, hearing or seeing, greeting. We let you wit, that
we, for certain causes convenient, of our Grace special, have given and granted
to our well-beloved subject, Anthony Marler, citizen and Haberdasher of our city
of London, only to print the Bible in our English tongue, authorized by us,
himself or his assigns. And we command that no manner of persons within these
our dominions shall print the said Bible, or any part thereof, within the space
of four years next ensuing the printing of the said book, by our said subject or
his assigns. And further, we will and command our true subjects, and all
strangers, that none presume to print the said work, or break this our
commandment and privilege as they intend eschewe our punishment and high
displeasure. Witness ourself at Westminster the xii day of March. Per breve de
privato sigillo. 1542.” But why could not his Majesty have shown a little more
delicacy? Why could he not wait, but a little while, till the Convocation was
dissolved, and the Bishops had left the capital?

They were still sitting, and continued to do so for more than a fortnight, or
till the 29th of the month! Did his Majesty intend to pour contempt upon them,
and hold them up to derision even while thus assembled? Whatever was his motive,
certainly no mortification could be greater-no humiliation more complete. Their
indignation, however, they must suppress for the present; though it will not be
surprising should it burst out with great violence, as soon as they meet again.
But let them do what they please, the sacred text will never again be submitted
to their consideration. They may rave about Tyndale, execrate his name, wreak
their vengeance upon his writings, and thus unwittingly, once more hold up to
posterity the man to whom the nation stood most of all indebted; but his work
will abide and prosper, and long after they have gone down to the grave. As
there were no more folio Bibles printed in Henry’s reign, it has often been
supposed that this was owing to the strength of the opposing party; but the fact
has now been accounted for in a manner more satisfactory. Let it only be
observed that by the end of last year, or only four years and four months from
August 1537, of Tyndale’s translation, and based on Tyndale’s, there had issued
from the press, not fewer than twelve editions of the entire Bible, ten in
folio, and two in quarto. And it was well they had; they were laid up in store,
like Joseph’s corn in Egypt, for the next four years. The impression of each of
those Bibles has been calculated as ranging from 1,500 to 2,500 copies: but say
that there were 2000 copies on an average, here were more than twenty thousand
Bibles, a most memorable fact, under all the circumstances. Many of the copies
which had been printed since 1539 may have been yet for sale; and Marker, it is
evident, was so overstocked, that he was afraid of ruin by his outlay. The
King’s letters in his favour now extended his privilege to December 1545,
immediately after which we shall find that Grafton was at work again, with an
edition of the New Testament. But independently of this ample supply in folio
and quarto, it must ever be remembered that there were many thousands of the New
Testament long circulated, and reading far and wide throughout the country. We
shall take the proof from one of the best of witnesses, and as it came from the
press in London, this very year. An admirer of Latimer, who, in 1526, when only
sixteen years of age, used to hear him preach, and George Stafford read
lectures, at Cambridge, had then received certain impressions which were never
to be erased from his mind. After mentioning Latimer’s discourses, both in
English and Latin, he then adds-“at all of which, for the most part, I was
present; and although at the time I was but a child of sixteen years old, (anne
1526,) yet I noted his doctrine as well as I could, partly reposing it in my
memory, and partly committing it to writing. I was present, when with manifest
authorities of God’s Word, and invincible arguments, he proved in his sermons
that the Holy Scriptures ought to be read in the English tongue by all Christian
people, whether priests or laymen, as they are called.” “Neither was I absent
when he inveighed against empty works.” “He so laboured earnestly, both in word
and deed, to win and allure others into the love of Christ’s doctrine, and His
holy religion, that there is a common saying, which remains unto this day: when
Master Stafford read and Master Latimer preached, then was Cambridge blessed.”
Stafford, of whom we heard before in 1526, had died soon after; but Latimer was
still in the Tower, where he will remain till after the death of his ungrateful
Monarch. This youth was Thomas Becon. Born about 1510, he was now thirty-two,
and proved, throughout life, one of the most laborious and useful men of his
time. Last year, as well as this, he had been busy at the press, even in London,
and had published three small pieces, two of which had, next year, already
reached a second edition. In one of these he says,- “I think there is no realm
thronghout Christendom, that hath so many urgent and necessary causes to give
thanks to God, as we Englishmen have at this present. What ignorance and
blindness was in this realm concerning the true and Christian knowledge! But
now-Christ’s death is believed to be a sufficient sacrifice for them that are
sanctified.THE MOST SACRED BIBLE IS FREELY PERMITTED TO BE READ OF EVERY MAN IN
THE ENGLISH TONGUE. Many savour Christ aright, and daily the number increaseth,
thanks be to God. Christ is believed to be the alone Saviour. Christ is believed
to be our sufficient Mediator and Advocate. The true and Christian faith, which
worketh by charity, and is plenteous in good works, is now received to justify.”

Notwithstanding this attestation, however, let there be no surprise, though the
clouds should still be gathering, and another storm await us soon. 1543.
Parliament Opened-The Convocation Baffled, Acknowledge Their Inability To Stay
The Progress Of Divine Truth By Applying Now To Parliament-Parliament Disgraces
Itself By Vain Opposition-Bonner Sent Abroad· PARLIAMENT was assembled this year
on the 22nd of January, and sat till the 12th of May. The long-suffering of
Heaven with such a Government, was, by this time, eminently conspicuous; but as
the King on the throne had been overruled, and the cause of Divine Truth had
hitherto not only baffled the Convocation, but laid it prostrate; so if there
were any remaining branch of authority about to prove so infatuated as to
interfere, it was fit that it should be left to expose both its folly and
weakness to posterity, by so doing· Its interference, however, may be traced to
the infatuation and enmity of the Convocation; for these being once infused into
Parliament, there was nothing so foolish and contemptible which they might not
entertain and even enact. The Convocation as such could not, of course, cross
the threshold of the Senate; but its leading members the Bishops might, being
members also of the Upper House, or Lords of Parliament.

Hence the consequences. In opposing the Sacred Scriptures in the vernacular
tongue, the Convocation having so repeatedly discovered itself to be a powerless
body, and more especially since the scene, or unceremonious treatment of last
year; it had now seemed to the Bishops that only one mode of attack remained. It
was their forlorn hope. They must admit, and now in effect acknowledged, their
own inefficiency, as a body, by introducing the subject into Parliament; but
they will try what could be accomplished there.

Providentially, however, by this time Tyndale’s translation had been printed
under other names, such as Matthew, Taverner, Cranmer, Tunstal and Heath; for
this translation having been retained in all the English Bibles, with very
little variation, it was now impossible to reach it. It so happened, too, that
there were, by this time, various editions of the Bible, printed without note or
comment. Marler’s editions, as well as others, were of this character, and,
backed by the stern authority of the King, there was no possibility of touching
any of them. To show, however, to what a low pitch the miserable spite of the
enemy was now reduced, as well as to display the servility of Parliament, now
become proverbial, an Act was introduced which was actually entitled-“An Act for
the advancement of true Religion!”-and what were its provisions, nearly ten
years after Henry had declared himself Head of the Church of England, and
seventeen years after the New Testament had been introduced into our native
land? The name of Tyndale was the rallying-point, and, in effect, the English
Parliament must now furnish their tribute to his memory and talents. Upon
setting off, by this Act his translation was branded and condemned as “crafty,
false, and untrue;” although the translation actually reading in the churches!
though the translation which Tunstal had been constrained to sanction! though
the translation which had been read with avidity since 1526, and that to which
the people had discovered such attachment as to perish at the stake sooner than
abandon it! Parliament durst not condemn the Bibles to which the names of
Taverner or Cranmer or Tunstal had been affixed, nor even that of Matthew by
name: because this last had been so pointedly sanctioned by his Majesty, and it
had prepared the way for all that followed! But, once more roused by the name of
Tyndale, it was then enacted,- “That all manner of books of the Old and New
Testament in English, of this translation, should, by authority of this Act,
clearly and utterly be abolished and extinguished, and forbidden to be kept and
used in this realm, or elsewhere, in any of the King’s dominions.” But it was
provided, “that the Bibles and New Testaments in English, not being of Tyndale’s
translations, should stand in force, and not be comprised in this abolition or
act.”

It was farther enacted,-“That the Chancellor of England! Captains of the Wars!
the King’s Justices! the Recorders of any city, borough, or town! and the
Speaker of Parliament! may use any part of the holy Scripture as they have been
wont!” And “every nobleman or gentlewoman, being a householder, may read or
cause to be read, by any of his family servants in his house, orchard, or
garden, to his own family, any text of the Bible; and also every merchantman,
being a householder, and any other persons, other than women, apprentices, &c.,
might read to themselves privately the Bible. But no women, except noblewomen
and gentlewomen, might read to themselves alone; and no artificers, apprentices,
journeymen, serving-men of the degrees of yeomen (officers in the King’s family,
between sergeants and grooms), husbandmen or labourers, were to read the Bible
or New Testament to themselves or to any other, privately or openly, on pain of
one month’s imprisonment.” The burning of the Alexandrian Library, and heating
its baths with the books, has been often reprobated as barbarous but the aim of
Parliament was impious in the extreme. -As far as they durst venture, they
intended to take the bread of life out of’ the mouths of the common people. The
Act has been described as “a net contrived, to catch or let go, whomsoever they
pleased;” but still it may well be inquired, where was “the wisdom of their wise
men, or the understanding of the prudent,” when they contrived it; as the folly
displayed was in equal proportion to the malignity. It might have been compared
to an act framed to bind the wind, or intercept the light of day; and whatever
may have been its vexatious consequences, it was by far too late in being
framed.

Observe its contents. It denounced the translation of Tyndale, and enforced it
almost in the same breath; for not only was it his translation, under another
name, which was to stand in force, but many of his New Testaments had no such
name attached to them. But the folly of the statute is still more glaring, when
both the manner and the degree of reading comes to be regulated by an Act of
Parliament. While reading in the parish chruch seems to be in part abridged, the
reading at home, in thousands of instances, is legalised if not enforced; and
reading in the house, as being more deliberate and more retired, was better than
reading in the church.

Every one knows with what avidity men read, and will read, an interdicted book;
but this was only half interdicted!-half in numerous families, and half as it
regarded the community at large. This was better still. Thus, in the former
case, as any family servant was authorized to read the Scriptures to Master or
Mistress, of course he might not only repeat what he read, but could the other
servants be effectually prevented from snatching a perusal in the morning or
evening, or at midnight? And if every nobleman and gentlewoman, every merchant.,
or any other, being a householder, were fully authorized to possess, and read
the Bible, how were the women of the household, how were the apprentices, and
journeymen, or other domestics, to be guarded and prevented from looking between
the sacred leaves? But besides these absurdities, there were certain clauses
introduced, in mitigation of severity, not unworthy of notice. Offenders, if
ecclesiastics, were not to suffer death till the third offence; and the
punishment of any others was never to extend beyond the forfeiture of goods, and
imprisonment for life. The party accused also might bring witnesses, and the
accused must be tried within a year after the indictment, while the Parliament,
as usual, had to leave the Act in the King’s power, to annul or alter it at his
pleasure! The bloody statute of six articles was in fact thus invaded and
softened.

Such a mixture of folly and contradiction demands some explanation, ltad
Gardiner and his party obtained all their wishes, the Scriptures had been
suppressed, and wholly interdicted: but it is curious enough that it was Cranmer
who had introduced this Act, with the view no doubt of legalising what he had
enforced in his prologue to the Bible-the perusal of the Sacred Volume at home,
and hence the mystery of its title is explained. But once introduced into
Parliament, and thwarted in his endeavours, it had, in passing through the
House, assumed such a grotesque appearance, as to carry in its various clauses,
the evidence of two hostile parties fighting with each other. To Cranmer,
therefore, may be ascribed the credit of obtaining as much as might be, and of
then stultifying the Act, to disappoint the devices of the crafty, or carry the
counsel of the froward headlong. In short, the passing of this Act has been
represented by Rapin, as a “mortification” to the adverse party, which “checked
their hopes.” That its vexatious operation was at least impeded, there can be
but little doubt, from what was taking place at the very moment, as well as what
soon followed. With regard to the time when Parliament was thus acting; it
cannot have escaped recollection that we have been called again and again to
observe, at certain critical periods, either formerly, when the Scriptures were
to be imported from abroad, or since then, when those who prized them were in
danger of being molested, that one or more of the bitterest persecutors were
either put in check, or sent out of the kingdom, in the character of ambassadors
to foreign parts. So it had happened with Tunstal and Gardiner, and so it
happened now. The focus of persecution had ever been in London, just as it was
in Jerusalem of old; and of all men living, Bonner at this moment was most
bloodthirsty. He had been very busy for more than a year in his favourite
employment of persecution, and would have been so now. But no sooner had they
begun to wrangle in Parliament, than he was sent off the ground by the Supreme
Ruler. Henry having been induced by the Emperor Charles to form a league with
him against Francis, Bonner was sent as Ambassador to bear it to Charles, who
swore to it in Bonner’s presence at Barcelona on the 8th of April. Thus the
absence of one who would have offered serious opposition was secured. 1544.
Gardiner-Cranmer-Henry’s Confession Of Impotence In All His Injunctions To His
Bishops-His Inconsistency-New Testament Of Tyndale, A Foreign Print. THAT cause
to which these pages have been specially devoted, had, as we have seen, been
dragged into Parliament last year, but we shall have the evidence before us
presently, that it continued to stand, as it had always stood, independently of
frown or favour. Parliament had disgraced itself, it is true, as well as earned
the contempt of posterity, by its interference; but as for any fury involved in
its proceedings, it could not this year be of much force, in either burning, or
blotting, or cutting the Sacred Volume. A variety of circumstances, involved in
the state of the country, renders this apparent, and prepares us for whatever
may have occurred in the cause itself; while a remarkable confession of
impotence, on the part of his Majesty, as far as his proclamations respecting
religion were concerned, will also come before us. So little had Royal authority
to do with the progress of Truth, and that by its own recorded confession.

Several of the movements of Government this year naturally lead to the
conclusion that there could not be much, if any time left, to attend to the
business of persecution for the Truth’s sake; although in the spring, while
Parliament was sitting, the House discovered, as usual, the discordant materials
of which it was composed. Their very first bill, involving as it did the
prospect of Princess Mary’s possible succession to the throne, seems to have
inspirited the gentlemen of “the old learning;” for although Cranmer had
triumphed over his accusers last year, it was during this Parliament that the
minion of Norfolk and Gardiner, Sir John Gostwyck, ventured to accuse the
Archbishop of heresy, openly in the House of Commons; but the knight, whom his
Majesty instantly denounced as a varlet, had to repair forthwith to Lambeth, to
humble himself there, and crave forgiveness. On the other hand, Gardiner was
about this time placed in very awkward, if not critical circumstances, by his
kinsman, some have said nephew, and secretary, Germain Gardiner.

Once the feeble opponent of John Fryth, having been apprehended for denying the
King’s supremacy, he suffered the penalty of death as a traitor on the 7th of
March. However, the Bishop contrived, as usual, to make his peace with the King,
and happily he was soon to be despatched upon foreign affairs; though still, if
Gardiner failed in any way, he sunk; while Cranmer remained or rather advanced
in royal favour. To the latter, therefore, the present moment appeared to be a
favourable one for the farther mitigation of the bloody statute, which had been
already somewhat softened last year; and Cranmer succeeded in carrying a new Act
this session, By this, in future, no individual was to be brought to trial under
that statute, till after he had been legally presented, on the oaths of twelve
men, before such commissioners as are mentioned in this Act, and referred to in
another; nor was be, till then, to be imprisoned. No reputed offence of an older
date than one year was to be actionable; nor was any preacher to be indicted, if
forty days had elapsed after any sentiment he had uttered in the pulpit. The
accused might also challenge any juryman. These provisions formed so many very
important alleviations in the fury of persecution; though two years hence, as in
the cases of Anne Askew and others, they were most scandalously disregarded. By
the time that Henry departed for France, not only were Norfolk and Gardiner
withdrawn from the country, but the new Queen, Catherine Parr, was Regent; and
with Cranmer at the head of her Council, the chief man bent upon cruelty and
mischief, or Bonner of London, must have been under certain restraint, Nor was
this all. Just before his Majesty left, it deserves notice that prayers in the
English tongue were directed to be generally used. This fact in itself was
important; but in reference to past times, and royal influence, not so much so
as another, which now comes out incidentally- “We have sent unto you,” says the
King to all the Bishops of his realm, “We have sent unto you these suffrages,
not to be for a month or two observed, and after slenderly considered, as other
our injunctions, to our no little marvel, have been used, but to the intent that
as well the same, as other our injunctions, may be earnestly set forth,” &c.

Thus it was officially acknowledged that the King’s former injunctions had
carried no powerful or prolonged infiuence. Before this we have frequently had
occasion to observe, that the cause of God and His truth had been so peculiarly
conducted, as to have no leaning or dependence on him whatever. We have seen, by
many striking proofs, that it went on in its course, first in defiance, and then
independently of royal interference, But now, towards the close of his reign,
lest posterity should mistake, or not observe it; as far as his own name and
authority had been employed, here is an artless and very frank confession of
impotence, on the part of his Majesty, if not also of Cranmer, who is supposed
to have drawn up the injunction. So far, indeed, from being a consistent friend
to the progress of Divine Truth amongst his subjects, only last year Henry had
lent his authority to the reprobation of the original translator, at whose death
he had winked so hard; and frowned upon the poor for reading the Sacred Volume.
His injunctions, like himself, staggering from side to side, must have
confounded the public mind; and considering what had passed in Parliament last
year, in reprobating the name and writings of Tyndale, it was not wonderful that
the indignity should be resented. Tyndale’s very name had become precious to
many, and his translations of Scripture were now carefully preserved or hoarded
in many a corner throughout England, far beyond the ken of Bishop, or King, or
any underling.

Meanwhile, there seems to be no account whatever upon record of the seizure or
burning of the New Testament, though there might have been, had foreign politics
and preparations for war not engrossed attention; but Lewis and some others have
gone too far when they have stated that Day and Seres printed the Pentateuch
this year. Day had not yet begun to print at all, and the volume must belong to
a subsequent impression, or that of 1549. It is, however, curious, and more to
the purpose, that a foreign press was at work even this year, and with an
edition of Tyndale’s New Testament. This must have been in the face of the
recent anathema. A copy, once in the possession of the Earl of Oxford, is
mentioned in the Harlcian Catalogue, with this remark-“It seems to be a foreign
print.”

Indeed it must have been so; and it may be put down in these troublous days, as
a serenade from Antwerp or elsewhere, in answer to the contemptible brawl in
Parliament last year. 1545. Undermining Cranmer-His Enemies Covered With
Shame-Henry Addressing His Privy Council-His Opinion Of It-Addressing His
Parliament For The Last Time. WE are now within two years of the King’s death,
and the entire period was fraught with great misery to his subjects, though,
generally speaking, not after the fashion in which they had been tormented in
past times. His Majesty and the government, with all the strength of the
kingdom, were at present fully occupied in preparing for self-defence against a
French invasion. It was a year pregnant with misery and confusion to the
country; and it might appear difficult to imagine where a moment was left for
the gentlemen of the “old learning” to display their hostility; but in the
autumn, after the King’s return from Portsmouth, such a moment was found.

Cranmer had not failed to improve the absence of Gardiner and Norfolk.

Last year, as we have seen, the former had been in Germany or Flanders, the
latter in France; and up to this period the Duke had been very busy at home,
surveying the sea-coast, and harassed by the war of defence. But now in
September or October, a select number of the Privy Council had found a little
space to breathe and look round, when an opportunity seemed to present itself,
for trying their skill once more. It was to be concentrated on the Archbishop,
and for the last time. The incidents are important, not in reference to the
accusers only, but as giving farther insight to the character of the King
himself, in connexion with his precious Council. In the afternoon of the 22nd of
August, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, died; perhaps the most powerful friend
that Cranmer now had. The companion of the King from his earliest youth, and
possessing throughout life considerable influence over him; Henry was sitting in
Council when first informed of his decease, and could not suppress his feelings.
He then declared that, during the whole course of their friendship, the Duke had
never made one attempt to injure an adversary, nor had ever whispered a word to
the disadvantage of any person. “Is there any of you, my Lords, who can say as
much?” When his Majesty had uttered these Words, he looked round in all their
faces, and saw them confused with the consciousness of secret guilt.

Thus so emphatically checked, one might have supposed that they would have been
careful not to verify the character which their Sovereign had seemed to
insinuate: but no; it was but shortly after the Duke’s remains were interred
with splendour at Windsor, that certain Privy Councillors had resolved to move.
When the King gave his significant look round the Council, there can be little
or no doubt that his Grace of Norfolk, Wriothesly the Lord Chancellor, and even
Stephen Gardiner, were present; for the latter had returned in spring, and been
ever since actively engaged. The fears of the party must have led them to
exaggerate; but from the expressions employed, the reader will at least learn
what was their estimate of the progress now made, in a cause which they
denounced as heretical, and so detested. Another mistake they made, not
unwillingly, was their ascribing so much to one man, and that one man the
Archbishop; but he was near to them, and a perpetual eye-sore; they hated him
from the heart fervently, and must play their last game, under Henry, with a
view to his ruin.

Being, as they imagined, now fully prepared to carry their purpose into effect,
the Privy Councillors waited on his Majesty, when they grievously accused
Cranmer; saying, “that he, with his learned men, had so infected the whole realm
with their unsavoury doctrines, thatTHREE PARTS of the land were become
abominable heretics; and that this might prove dangerous to the King, as likely
to produce such commotions and uproars as had sprung up in Germany.” They,
therefore, “requested that the Archbishop might be committed to the Tower, till
he might be examined.” To their mode of procedure the King at once objected,
when they told him, “that the Archbishop being one of the Privy Council, no man
dared to object matter against him, unless he were first committed to durance;
but that if this were done, men would be bold to tell the truth, and deliver
their consciences!” Yet Henry still would proceed no farther than this-that
Cranmer should appear next day before the Council, to be examined by themselves,
and should they then judge it to be advisable, so commit him to the Tower. His
Majesty, however, knowing the men well, and reflecting on what he had done,
about midnight ordered Sir Anthony Denny to cross the river to Lambeth, and
command Cranmer’s immediate attendance at Whitehall. The Archbishop was in bed,
but, of course, instantly rose, and presented himself before his royal Master,
whom he found in the gallery of the palace. Henry very frankly told him the
whole, and what he had done in granting their request; but concluded by
saying-“Whether I have done well or no, what say you, my Lord?” Cranmer, having
first thanked his Majesty for the information, went on to say, that he was well
content to be committed to the Tower for the trial of his doctrine, if he might
be fairly heard, not doubting but that his Majesty would see that he was so
treated. Upon hearing these words Henry, with a profane exclamation, in his own
characteristic manner, rallied him on his simplicity; for once in prison, every
secret enemy, now silent, would open upon him, and false witness be easily
obtained to condemn him. Determined that things should not go this length, he
advised him to attend the Council on the morrow, if summoned; but if there his
enemies should insist on his going to the Tower, before trial, with his accusers
face to face, he was to appeal from them to the King. “Take this ring,” said
Henry, “by the which they shall well understand that I have taken your cause
from them into mine own hand. This ring they well know I use for no other
purpose but to call matters from the Council into mine own hands, to be ordered
and determined.”

Cranmer having received the ring, humbly thanked his Majesty, and withdrew for
the night.

Next morning, and by eight o’clock, a message arrived from the Privy Council
requiring Cranmer’s attendance. It was immediately obeyed, but when the Primate
made his appearance in the ante-room, he was not permitted to proceed any
farther. There he was kept waiting, among servants and ushers, nearly an hour,
while other members of the Council were, in the meantime, passing both in and
out. Fortunately, Ralph Morrice, the Archbishop’s secretary, was with him; and
indignant at this treatment, he slipped off, and informed a warm friend of his
master, Dr. William Butts, the King’s physician. He first came, and, once
witness to the fact, proceeded to the royal presence. Having informed his
Majesty what a strange thing he had seen, “What is that?” said Henry. “My Lord
of Canterbury,” replied the physician, “if it please your Grace, is well
promoted; for now he has become a lackey or a serving man; for yonder he hath
stood this half hour at the Council Chamber door among them.”-“It is not so,”
said Henry; “the Council hath not so little discretion as to use the
metropolitan of the realm after that sort! But let them alone; it is well
enough-I shall talk with them by and by.” At length Cranmer was called in. Their
Lordships then informed him that great complaints were made of him, both to the
King and to them; that he, and others by his permission, had filled the land
with heresy; and, therefore, it was the royal pleasure that he should stand
committed to the Tower, there to await his trial and examination. As a Privy
Councillor, the Primate first demanded that his accusers should be immediately
called before him, using many arguments against their proceeding to such
extremity; but all was in vain-he must go to the Tower. “Then,” said Cranmer, “I
am sorry, my Lords, that you drive me to this exigent, to appeal from you to the
King’s Majesty, who by this token (holding up the ring) hath resumed this matter
into his own hand, and dischargeth you thereof.” The royal signet once
delivered, produced more than its usual effect; the Council were amazed, and the
first man who broke silence was Lord John Russell, afterwards Earl of Bedford:
-“ When you first began this matter, my Lords, I told you what would become of
it. Do you think that the King will suffer this man’s finger to ache? Much more,
I warrant you, will he defend his life against brabbling varlets! You do but
cumber yourselves to hear tales and fables against him. I know, right well, that
the King would never permit my Lord of Canterbury to have such a blemish, as to
be imprisoned, unless it were for high treason.”

This, however, was no time for confabulation. The Councillors, to a man, must
rise instantly, and carry both the ring and the cause into the royal presence.
Henry, of course, was now fully ready for them. He rated them severely for their
malice and discourtesy to the Archbishop, whom he considered most faithful to
him, and to whom he was “many ways beholden,” and as such would have him
regarded. Some poor apology must be made, but Henry was not to be befooled, but
dismissing them gave them to understand that he knew their designs, and advised
them to desist from such. His Majesty immediately departed, when all the
accusing gentlemen, so stern of late, are said to have shaken hands,
hypocritically enough, with Cranmer, who was to be troubled no more, after this
fashion, for above seven years to come.

It has been thought difficult to say whether Henry, over-persuaded by this
junto, was at first in earnest, and afterwards changed his resolution; or
whether he took this method to check the forwardness of the Archbishop’s
enemies; but let this have been as it may, who does not see, and in the King’s
own language, a hideous picture of the past? Here was the base manner in which
many precious lives had been sacrificed. The Council, stripped of its disguise
by its own Sovereign, exhibits a shocking spectacle; but above all, what can be
said, as to the character of the Monarch himself, who, in amazement at Cranmer’s
simplicity, was perfectly familiar with the unprincipled cruelty of his own
Ministers? “Do you not know,” said Henry, “that when THEY have you once in
prison, three or four false knaves will soon be procured to witness against
you?” Such, no doubt, on many a melancholy occasion, had been the tender mercies
of both King and Council.

Having thus schooled his Privy Council, by the close of the year his Majesty
felt no less disposed to lecture his Parliament. The Lord Chancellor himself had
informed the House of the miserable state of Henry’s finances; Parliament had
strained every nerve, and even exceeded its powers, in trying to improve them;
and as there was no subject which made its way so directly to the royal heart,
as that of pecuniary supplies, the King professed to be uncommonly pleased with
his most compliant House. He had, indeed, no idea of blotting out from his
style, the monosyllable “France; ” but by this time, there is not only no more
lofty pretensions to that crown, but he very frankly characterises the adverse
turn which the war had taken -“ not for our pleasure, but your defence; not for
our gain, but to our great cost.” Still the whole House had done its utmost, and
since they had laid at his feet all the Universities, as Henry had no intention
of levelling to the dust either Cambridge or Oxford; after taking full credit to
himself for being a “trusty friend,” a “charitable man,” a “lover of the public
wealth,” and “one that feared God,” he proceeds with assurances of love and
favour, and promises of the “expenditure of his treasure, and adventure of his
person,” in their defence, if necessity should require. The way being thus
smoothed, his Majesty proceeds to reprimand the whole House, and nothing will
satisfy him short of exposing to the public eye what he thought of them all, as
a body. If any benefit was to accrue to posterity, from Henry’s own opinion
before quitting the stage, he now gives it; and the pith of his address must not
be withheld.

He commences with quoting Scripture, and his text is “Charity is gentle, charity
is not envious, charity is not proud, and so forth in that chapter.” But he had
seen malice in his Privy Council, and now saw it in Parliament, whether Lords or
Commons, Clergy or Laity. “Behold, then, what love and charity there is amongst
you-I see and hear daily that you of theCLERGY preach one against another, teach
one contrary to another, inveigh one against another, without charity or
discretion-Alas! how can the poor souls live in concord when you preachers sow
among them, in your sermons, strife and discord? They look for light, and you
bring them into darkness.

Amend these crimes, I exhort you, and set forth God’s Word, both by true
preaching and good example giving; or else I, whom God hath appointed bis Vicar
and high minister here, will see these divisions extinct, and these enormities
corrected, according to my very duty! “Yet you of theTEMPORALITY be not clean
and unspotted of malice and envy -And although you be permitted to read Holy
Scripture, and to have the Word of God in your mother tongue, you must
understand it is licensed you so to do, only to inform your own consciences, and
to instruct your children and family. I am very sorry to know and hear how
unreverently that most precious jewel, the Word of God, is disputed, rhymed,
sung, and jangled, in every ale-house and tavern, contrary to the true meaning
and doctrine of the same.”

Parliament, of course, durst not reply-“Physician, heal thyself;” but such
language from such lips has seldom if ever been equalled. Some may conjecture
that Cranmer must have helped his Majesty to several of his expressions; but if
this was indeed Henry’s own unaided production, as he himself distinctly
intimates, could we obliterate from our minds all the cruelty and wrong, all the
reckless and unprincipled despotism of the past, then might we suppose that this
was merely the lust exchange of civilities on the part of a benignant monarch,
concluding the whole with his final and faithful counsel. But as the past cannot
be forgotten, and the speaker has yet another year to live, then does the
language afford a display of the superlative deceitfulness of the human heart,
equal to any in English history. There was evidently as much need as ever for
the dying prayer of Tyndale-“Lord! open the eyes of the King of England;” for
this exhorter of other men to “gentle charity,” was himself not yet done with
the shedding of blood! not yet done with breathing after the blood of the
living, nor with expressing his enmity towards the original translator of what
he now had styled “that most precious jewel, the Word of God!” Such blindness in
any man as to himself is deeply instructive, and forcibly reminds one of the
language of another King-“ His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and
he shall be holden with the cords of his sins. He shall die without instruction,
and in the greatness of his folly he shall go astray.” To all this, the last
year of Henry’s life will lend but too ample illustration. 1546.

Persecution Revived-Anne Askew-Her Martyrdom, Along With Three Other
Individuals-Latimer Still In Prison-Enmity To English Books -The Supplication Of
The Poor Commons-Wriothesly, Gardiner, And Norfolk In Trouble-Death Of The
King-Retrospect. BY this, the evening of his life, it might seem that nothing
was now wanting to complete, the character-of Henry the Eighth; a character
which, notwithstanding all the past, it was customary to culogise at the moment,
and strange to say, by far too common, to soften. down, or even eulogise, since.
Some excuse may be pled for such writers as Becon, and Udal, and Foxe, who
stood, as it were, too near the object, to be able to distinguish and define it:
but the confounding of vice and virtue in human character, which is not a venial
offence against historical narrative, should certainly be corrected as the truth
comes out, so that some fixed opinion may be at last obtained. Accordingly, the
character of this Monarch is far more correctly estimated now, than it has been
at any former period; for, notwithstanding all the verbiage, not to say
unconscious errors, which have been printed by some historians respecting him,
the stubborn facts of his reign preserve a uniform and awful consistency to his
dying hour. It is idle to listen to what men may have said, now that we have
gained access to the Monarch’s own language, and almost all that he did or
sanctioned, until he breathed his last in blood.

Before that Henry was gratified bythe death of Beaton, the assassination of whom
he was secretly compassing, there had been misery contemplated, of a darker hue;
and after it, blood was shed of far greater value, in which the Crown and
certain courtiers were immediately concerned. Wriothesly and Gardiner had sat at
the Council table, advising as to the murder of the Scottish Cardinal; but they,
with Bonner and Richard Rich, had since then been busy with several victims
nearer hand, and under their own eye.

One of these suggests the idea that there must be a climax in human depravity.
The first female martyr of rank or family, tormented and burnt to ashes, for no
alleged crime save stedfast adherence to the truth of Scripture, is here
referred to; and if justice be done to the entire narrative, she occupies a
place all her own. Among recorded martyrs in London, she had but one
predecessor, and this was John Fryth. As in his case there was to be no
abjuration, no recantation of the faith, nor any fear of the enemy; so it was
with the devout and determined Anne Askew. In noticing this unprecedented
instance of female faith and fortitude, it must be remembered that for about
twelve years past, the reputed heretic had been, by Parliament, taken out of the
hands of the Bishops as such, or the Archbishop’s Court, so that the case could
not now resemble the course pursued with Fryth. The accused party, by this time,
if any regard were to be paid to legal enactments, must be presented on the
oaths of twelve men, before any imprisonment could ensue. There was indeed an
Inquest in London, probably a standing one, for the examination of the accused;
but the last year of Henry’s reign was to carry with it the highest possible
degree of illegality, and of Satanic rage against the Truth.

Anne Askew, a young lady of high family in Lincolnshire, and of superior natural
abilities, improved by education, having perused with avidity the English
Scriptures, embraced the truth contained in them. Having come to London to seek
redress from the brutal treatment of her husband, who adhered to the “old
learning,” and to whom she had been married only in obedience to her father, one
so ardent in the faith was soon exposed to the snares of the Bloody Statute, or
Act of Six Articles. Her examinations began in March, and continued at.intervals
till her martyrdom in July. By Bonner, Bishop of London, and his Chancellor and
Archdeacon,-by the Privy Council at Greenwich, composed of Lord Chancellor
Wriothesly, the Lord Master of the King’s household; Rich, Paget, Sadler,
Bishops Gardiner and Tunstal, and six others,-were these harassing examinations
carried on, often for several hours together, but her quick replies and sound
reasoning from the Scriptures silenced them all. She was, nevertheless,
condemned on the 28th of June, without a trial by jury, to which, by law, she
was entitled. This was bad enough, but the brutality of these servants of the
Crown reached its climax when, fifteen days after her sentence to the flames,
they resumed their examinations by torture, in order to discover and ensnare
some noble ladies whom they suspected of sympathising with her doctrine and
ministering to her necessities in prison. That men sustaining the offices of
Lord Chancellor of England and Privy Councillor could personally examine by
torture, after sentence, a high-born female of twenty-four years of age, seems
incredible; but with their own hands, Wriothesly and Rich worked the rack, till
the Lieutenant of the Tower interposed. But all in vain; stedfast in the faith,
and resolute in naming no one who might be brought into trouble by her
disclosures, she endured as seeing Him who is invisible. Three days afterwards,
unable to walk, from the torturing rack, she was carried to the stake. There, on
an elevated bench, sat her ignoble tormentors, with the Duke of Norfolk, to
feast their eyes on her agonies again; while she, with three others, led out to
die for their faith, had first to hear from the lips of the wretched apostate
Shaxton, a lecture on their heresy. Then followed Wriothesly’s last act, that of
presenting the King’s pardon if she would recant. “I came not hither,” said
Anne, “to deny my Lord and Master.” Her fellow-sufferers, encouraged by her
fortitude, would not look on the paper. “Fiat justitia,” cried the ignorant and
brutal Mayor, Bowes, and the flames were kindled. A scene more disgraceful to
the persecutors of the human mind had never before occurred, nor one in which
the power of Divine Truth was more conspicuous. A weak and unprotected female,
abandoned to all the fury of the enemy, stood, like a pillar of brass, while
other men were proving traitors to the cause, and falling around her. On the day
before her trial, Crome was reading his recantation in public, and White, tried
on the same day with herself, had also failed and followed his example. As for
Shaxton, so refuted by her, only a few moments before she went to the immediate
presence of God, he lived for ten years longer, but proved a miserable character
ever after. Lascelles, who suffered with her, having before that night expressed
some anxiety respecting her constancy-“O friend,” she replied in writing, “most
dearly beloved in God-I marvel not a little what should move you to judge in me
so slender a faith as to fear death, which is the end of all misery. In the
Lord, I desire you not to believe in me such wickedness.” The fact was, that
Anne Askew was in such perfect selfpossession, as even to become poetical in the
prison, amidst all the rage of her persecutors. It has been said that she
actually sang her stanzas at her death; but be this as it might, to say nothing
of the simple beauty and sublimity of the sentiment, when compared with the
rhyme of more than a century later, even in point of euphony, they appear
extraordinary. The following specimen, in which Henry and his Council occupy no
enviable place, will speak for itself:- On Thee my care I cast, For all their
cruel spite; I set not by their haste, For Thou art my delight. I am not she
that list My anchor to let fall For every drizzling mist; My ship’s substantial.

I saw a Royal throne, Where justice should have sit, But in her stead was one Of
moody cruel wit:

Absorpt was righteousness, As by the raging flood; Satan, in his excess, Suck’d
up the guiltless blood Then thought I, Jesus Lord! When Thou shalt judge us all,
Hard is it to record, On these men what will fall— Yet Lord I thee desire, For
that they do to me, Let them not taste the hire Of their iniquity.

Before the flames of persecution for the Truth’s sake were kindled for the last
time, under this reign, the only thing now to be desired was the testimony of
some noble martyr to the all-sufficiency of the Sacred Volume. And here it is
from the pen of Anne Askew, before she suffered. “Finally, I believe all
thoseSCRIPTURES to be true, which He hath confirmed.with His most precious
blood. Yea, and as St. Paul saith, those Scriptures are sufficient for our
learning and salvation, that Christ hath left here with us; so that I believe we
needNO UNWRITTEN VERITIES to rule His Church with. Therefore, look, what He hath
said unto me with His own mouth in His Holy Gospel, that have I, with God’s
grace, closed up in my heart; and my full trust is, as David saith, that it
shall be a lantern to my footsteps.” As far as fire and fagot were employed, so
ended that war of opinion under Henry the Eighth, which, from the arrival of
Tyndale’s New Testament in England, had now lasted for twenty years. The
hardened cruelties of the monarch are, it is true, not even yet at an end; but
these were the last martyrs under his reign. The termination is very observable.
To these men it had seemed a most grievous offence, that even women, and those
of good families, had begun to have any fixed opinions gathered out of
Scripture; and it was therefore worthy of the majesty of Divine Truth, that,
before the tempest ceased, the savage fury of this final storm should be braved
by a female mind and frame. It was an eminent instance of the Almighty choosing
the feeble things of the world to confound the things that were mighty; and that
also, just before His blessed Word was on the eve of being more generally
circulated and read, than it had ever yet been.

Although these four were the principal individuals now put to death for opinions
held, those gentlemen of the Privy Council had been extremely busy with various
other examinations. Besides Creme, who recanted openly, on the 13th of May, say
they, “we look for Latimer; for the Vicar of St. Bride’s, (i.e. John Taylor,
who, eight years after, suffered at the stake,) and some others of those that
have specially comforted Crome in his folly.” hen the first, or by far the most
illustrious of these, appeared, they put him on his oath, as to his intercourse
with Crome, and presented a string of questions, which he was to answer in
writing. Latimer retired, and began to reply; but he had not proceeded beyond
two or three queries, when the Council were informed, that, without an
interview, he could not go on. Tunstal of Durham, and Sir John Gage, the
Comptroller, were then deputed to converse with him. In his own frank manner, he
told them it was dangerous to answer to such questions, and that the course
pursued was more extreme than it would have been, if he had lived under the
Turk.

Besides, “he doubted whether it were his Majesty’s pleasure, that he should be
thus called and examined.” He wished to speak with the King himself, before he
made farther answer, as he had been once deceived in that way, when he left his
bishopric. It had been intimated to him, by Crumwell, “that it was his Majesty’s
pleasure he should resign it, which his Majesty after denied, and pitied his
condition.” In fine, “he thought there were some who had procured this against
him for malice;” and then he named Master Gardiner, the Bishop of Winchester;
specifying two instances of his ill-will in former days: the first occurred in a
conversation they had held, in ttenry’s presence; and the second was evident, in
that he had written to Crumwell against his (memorable) sermon in the
Convocation! On the latter he dwelt, as a grievous proof of malice. By this time
Latimer had been again introduced before the Council, when Gardiner immediately
replied, and in a style worthy of his deep hypocrisy. “I declared plainly,” says
he, “how much I had loved, favoured, and done for his person, and that he had no
cause to be offended with me! though I were not content with his doctrine.” They
then repeated Latimer’s allusion to Turkey -said that the interrogatories were
not captious; and told him that he spoke “as though no credit or estimation
should, now-a-days, be given to his Highness’s Council or his Highness’s
Ministers.” But all was to no effect. Latimer, indeed, finished the writing he
had commenced; but they were then obliged to report-“for the purpose, we be as
wise almost, as we were before!” In the afternoon of the day, they remitted him
to Henry Holbeach, then Bishop of Worcester, (originally recommended to the King
by Latimer himself,) who, with the rest of the doctors, and in the elegant
language of the Privy Council, were “to fish out the bottom of his stomach.” But
as far as all the official records go, they had fished in vain. No more mention
is made of Latimer; and although Lingard has chosen to say that he now recanted,
it is but a groundless assumption. Once indeed, it is to be regretted, he did
subscribe certain articles, and crave forgiveness; but this was fourteen years
ago, and the days of recantation were with him long since past. Crome had fallen
a second time, but Latimer never again; on the contrary, he was left in prison
nine months longer. Like one of old, who, “to do the Jews a pleasure, left Paul
bound;” so perhaps to please others, Henry left this, the most faithful subject
of his realm, in the Tower. At least this much is certain, that to the man whom
he had so courageously warned in 1530, Latimer was not to be indebted for
deliverance from durance vile; so that everything conspired to tinge with a
darker shade the evening of that monarch’s life. On Sunday the 20th of February,
1547, or the day on which Edward was crowned, a general pardon was granted to
all prisoners, except Norfolk, Pole, and Courtney, the eldest son of the Marquis
of Exeter, at home; and Throgmorton and Pate abroad. It was then that Latimer,
released from his honourable imprisonment of more than six years, went to
Lambeth, to live for some time privately, under Cranmer’s roof. In the very
midst of all this fixed enmity to moral worth, there was still time found for
Henry to vent his final malice to the dead, as well as the living; and among
them all, special reference must be made to by far the greatest benefactor of
his reign-William Tyndale. It seems to have been for the express purpose of
lending additional terror to the night in which Anne Askew and her companions
were to illuminate Smithfield, by being consumed in the flames, that a
proclamation had been devised and issued against books. Authorised by the King’s
name, it was dated the 8th of July, just eight days before the martyrs were
burnt. By this proclamation, persons of every estate and condition were
forbidden, under the heaviest penalties, to receive, or have, or keep in
possession, after the 31st August next,” the text of the New Testament of
Tyndale’s or Coverdale’s, nor any other than is permitted by the Act of
Parliament, passed in the 34 th and 35 th year of his Majesty’s reign.” The
books “printed or written in the English tongue set forth in the names of Fryth,
Tyndale, Wicliffe, Joye, Roye, Basil (i.e. Becon), Bale, Barnes, Coverdale,
Turner, Tracy, or by any of them,” are put under the same ban, and ordered to be
delivered up to the authorities, “that they may be openly burnt.” This
proclamation is, in itself, a proof of the impotence of all former
denunciations, while its closing sentence is a confession of weakness. It
pardons those who have read or retained these books hitherto, and enjoins the
Bishops, Chancellors, Mayors, Sheriffs, and others to be “notCURIOUS to markWHO
brought forth such books, but only order and burn them openly, as in this
proclamation ordered.” With this proclamation, or immediately after it, there
was published a long list of the books interdicted. It was the last, and is only
to be found in the first edition of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments, where, with his
too frequent indifference to the order of time, he has inserted it under 1539!
From the books mentioned he might have seen that it could not have been issued
before the preceding proclamation.

Already sinking under the weight of mortal disease, such was the last public
manifestation of the monarch’s malicious folly. Not that the proclamation could
have much effect, if indeed any, beyond the precincts of London. The only
reported notice of books having been consumed at this period is confined to that
city, and this was probably to give some eclat to the vain and expiring effort.
A copy of the different publications having been obtained, “soon after this
proclamation,” says Collier, “the books of the authors mentioned were burnt at
Paul’s Cross, by the order of (Bonner) the Bishop of London.”

Thus Henry, at the very close of life, and his Council, as such, were drawing
afresh the line of demarcation between themselves and all the good that had been
effected. As much as to say, “Let no future historian confound our names with
it; or, above all, ascribe to us the commencement and progress of a cause
against which we fought to our dying day! The Bible of Tyndale had, indeed, been
sanctioned; “but in this,” might his Majesty have added, “I was little else than
a passive instrument-I was superintended-I was, to all intents and purposes,
only a man overruled.” The enmity now shown was not, however, suffered to pass
without notice, and that in a style and manner confirmatory of that marked
distinction which we have seen to prevail throughout. So far from confounding
the Government, or the King and his advisers, with the progress of Divine Truth,
that cause appears to be now, as it had ever done, an entirely separate concern.
Accordingly, by one contemporary writer, and in the name of many other
individuals, the Government, in its widest sense, of which Henry was the
determined head, was then placed in contrast or opposition to the Sacred
Scriptures, and their unfettered perusal by the people at large. The reader
cannot have forgotten what a commotion was excited in 1526, just at the moment
when the New Testament of Tyndale had been introduced into England, by a very
small publication, entitled The Supplication of Beggars, which Sir Thomas More
laboured to answer. But it is curious enough that, as the commotion at first was
thus distinguished, so its close was marked by a second supplication, entitled
“The Supplication of the poor Commons to the King.” The author of this last has
never been ascertained, but both supplications were now published in one book,
being alike distinguished for the same boldness of style. His Majesty well knew,
having read for himself the former publication-whether he ever saw the latter is
uncertain-but, in conjunction with the Government State Papers, it finishes the
picture of his times.

While from these papers it has appeared that the Lord Chancellor was “crying” to
the Lord Mayor and Aldermen for money, that the Mint was “drawn dry,” the
Exchequer shut, the other courts of revenue able to afford but little, “that the
conduits being nearly run dry, his Majesty’s servants were tarrying for the
water;” from this last Supplication it is no less evident that the “Commons,”
and especially the inhabitants of the metropolis, were groaning under certain
burdens, and greatly exasperated by one measure relating to tythes in London,
sanctioned by Henry’s final Parliament in November last. As the House had been
so liberal to his Majesty, perhaps he had winked at this bill, if he did not
intend it as a compliment in return to the Convocation, and especially to the
clergy then living in the immediate vicinity of the throne. This “Supplication,”
says the industrious Strype, “is a notable piece, and it gives such a light into
the affairs of those days, that a better history can scarce be given thereof,
being writ in those very times.” It was printed and published this year, 1546;
but in Strype’s time, hardly to be met with. After showing in a clear and
forcible style the fines and exactions to which they were subjected by the
clergy, the “poor Commons” go on to show the loss to the Crown and ruin to the
subject involved in the late “grant of enhanced tenths,” which would soon sweep
the property of the nation into the hands of the spirituality, strangely so
called,-men mostly of immoral conduct -men who would not “bury a dead corpse,
unless they had their duty, as they call it.” They close with the following
appeal:- “Help, merciful Prince, in this extremity. Suffer not the hope of so
noble a realm utterly to perish, through the insatiable desire of the
possessioners. Remember that you shall not leave this kingdom to a stranger, but
to a child of great twardness, our most natural prince EDWARD. Employ your study
to leave him a commonweal to govern, and not an island of brute beasts, among
whom the stronger devour the weaker. If you suffer Christ’s members to be thus
oppressed, look for none other than the rightful judgment of God, for your
negligence in your office and ministry. Be merciful, therefore, to yourself and
us, your most obeisant subjects.

Endanger not your soul by the suffering of us, your poor Commons, to be brought
all to the names of beggars, and most miserable wretches. Let us be unto your
Highness, as the inferior members of the body unto their head. Remember thai
your hoar hairs are a token that nature maketh haste to absolve the course of
your life.”

These pointed warnings were rendered much more so, from the petitioners having
laid before his Majesty their grievances and complaints in reference to
theSCRIPTURES. Indeed it was with this subject they had begun; and we have
reversed the order, simply to show, that these were not the mere ebullitions of
discontented or worldly men, who did not know their value; or of men who cared
nothing about the recent base attempts to take the Sacred Volume out of the
hands of the useful orders of society. This they placed in front of all their
complaints. Hear what they said to Henry on this subject- The remnant of the
sturdy beggars not yet weeded out tells us, that vice, uncharitableness, lack of
mercy, diversity of opinions, and other like enormities, have reigned ever since
men had the SCRIPTURES IN ENGLISH. And what is this other, than to cause men’s
consciences to abhor the same, as the only cause and original of all this? They
say, it sufficeth a layman to believe, as they teach; and not to meddle with the
interpretation of Scripture. And what meaneth that, but that they would have us
as blind again as we were?”-“They have procured a law, that none shall be so
hardy as to have the Scripture in his house, unless he may spend £10 by the
year,” (i.e. equal to £150 now.) “And what meaneth this, but that they would
famish the souls of the residue, withholding their food from them?-Hath God put
immortal souls in none other but such as be possessioners in this world? Did not
Christ send word to John the Baptist, that the poor received the gospel? Why do
these men disable them from reading the Scriptures, that are not endued with the
possessions of this world? Undoubtedly, most gracious Sovereign, because they
are the very same that shut the kingdom of heaven before men. They enter not in
themselves; nor suffer they them to enter that would. “When your Highness gave
commandment that the Bishops and Clergy should see that there were in every
parish one Bible, at the least, set at liberty; so that every man might freely
come to it and read therein-many of this wicked generation, as well priests as
others, their faithful adherents, would pluck it, either into the choir, or into
some pew, where poor men durst not presume to come; yea, there is no small
number of churches, that hath no Bible at all. And yet not sufficed with the
withholding it from the poor of their own parishes, they never rested till they
had a commandment from your Highness, that no man, of what degree soever, should
read the Bible in the time of God’s service, as they ,call it. As though the
hearing of their Latin lies, and conjuring of water and salt, were rather the
service of God, than the study of His most holy Word. This was their diligence
in setting forth the Bible. But when your Highness had devised a proclamation,
for the burning of certain translations of the New Testament, they were so bold
as to burn the whole Bible, because they were of those men’s, Tyndale’s or
Coverdale’s translation; and not the New Testament only.” The outrageous
advisers of Henry the Eighth, taking every advantage of his failing strength,
having run riot with the body and blood of his subjects, were now hastening to
that righteous retribution, which, even in this life, so often falls on the head
of the wicked. Too long had they walked after the lusts and devices of their own
hearts. Neither Wriothesly nor Gardiner, nor their ducal leader his Grace of
Norfolk, must be permitted to escape. The long-suffering of God was now very
nearly exhausted. These men had walked in pride, and they must be abased. As the
enemies of light and of all moral excellence, but especially of the Sacred
Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, and of all who prized them, having now
vented their malice, it was time that there should be some reaction; and what
must have rendered it peculiarly galling, was the quarter from whence that
reaction came. Instead of committing other people to the flames, they must now
look after their own personal safety; and, instead of hunting after books to
burn them, the question will be, what is to be the term of their own official,
or even actual existence. As is well known to every reader of English history,
these men, one after another, fell under the displeasure of Henry in his last
hours. Watching an opportunity favourable for their purpose, a moment of
irritation with his Queen, they pressed the propriety of some investigation into
the opinions of her Majesty, and actually obtained a warrant for her
examination. But the very promptitude of Wriothesly in laying hands on
Catherine, whom he would fain have treated as he did the noble Anne Askew,
brought him, as well as Gardiner and Norfolk, to the brink of a precipice. The
Chancellor arriving with forty guards to convey the Queen to the Tower, was
driven from the royal presence with a burst of fury, and deprived of many of his
emoluments by the establishment of the new Court of Augmentations.

Gardiner was excluded from the number of the King’s Executors, and never allowed
to approach the person of royalty again. A harder fate awaited Norfolk. He and
his son, the Earl of Surrey, now obnoxious to the rising family of the Seymours,
the relatives of young Prince Edward’s mother, were apprehended unknown to each
other, and sent to the Tower on the charge of treason. Wriothesly, Norfolk’s
best friend, was obliged to make out the indictment. It was of no avail, that
the charge was unfounded and could not be proved. The death of both father and
son had been determined on, and the impetuous and accomplished Surrey suffered
on the 21st of January,1547.

Throughout life, ttenry had been always very punctilious respecting forms of his
own devising; and Norfolk, a peer, could not be despatched after the same
fashion with his son. Parliament had met for one day on the 4th of November, and
before the close of that month the various parts of this bloody tragedy were
nearly cast. At all events, the House had been prorogued, and was now to meet,
very opportunely, on the 14th of January; or the day after Wriothesly had
pronounced sentence on Surrey. On the following Tuesday, the 18th, a bill of
attainder against the Duke was brought in, and, next day, it was read the second
time. It was on this day, or within two days after, that the fallen Minister was
writing his letter to the King; a most earnestly imploring one for mercy. This
had been preceded by one to the Privy Council, begging for alleviations in his
imprisonment, and presenting four separate confessions with an eye to mercy. As
another precaution against his vast possessions being scattered among his
rivals, he conveyed them entire to PrinceEDWARD, and this perhaps with a view to
mollify the King. But all was in vain; it was blood that was wanted, and that
once shed, every shilling must come to the Crown. On the 20th, the bill passed
the Lords. The Commons were no less expeditious: a Sabbath interrupted them, but
on Monday the 24th they returned the bill to the Upper House. Thus the very man
who had made himself so busy in hurrying through Parliament the proceedings
against Crumwell, was served by the House as he had served others. Not a moment
was now to be lost; but the custom hitherto had been to reserve all such bills
to the close of the session, and so it had been done with the Lord Privy Seal.
Yet if the King is to have his last dying wishes, and if the Seymours are to
gain their end, wonted forms must be disregarded.

Accordingly so they were. The royal assent was given on Thursday the 27th;
Norfolk was ordered for execution next morning, and left to count the hours till
break of day. Such was the last act of power on the part of Henry the Eighth!
But “there is no man,” subject or sovereign, “that hath power over the Spirit,
to retain the Spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death, and there is no
discharge in that war.” By that God, who had borne with him so long, Henry’s own
hour of call was already fixed, and “about two of the clock in the morning of
Friday,” the 28th of January, 1547, he had been summoned to a higher tribunal,
there to answer for his long and weighty catalogue of cruelty and crime. To die,
as it were, in the very act of embruing his hands in blood, was the close of the
King’s existence on earth; while no subject had been so unwelcome to himself, as
that of his own dissolution. No man dared even to hint such a prospect, till
within a few hours of his ceasing to breathe.

Even then, some degree of courage was required, and it was Sir Anthony Denny who
told the dying man, in so many words, “that the hope of human help was vain.”
These were terms which betrayed an eager clinging to life still. Henry, “visibly
disquieted,” had to be informed that the intimation was founded upon the
judgment of the physicians. He was then asked whether he wished to confer with
any one. “With no other,” said he, “but the Archbishop Cranmer, and not with him
as yet; I will first repose myself a little, and as I then find myself, will
determine accordingly.”

Determine, however, he did not for nearly two hours, when it was of little or no
moment who should come. Cranmer was sent for in all haste, but he arrived only
in time to receive one fixed look, when Henry grasped his hand and expired! He
was in the fifty-sixth year of his age, and within three months of completing
the thirty-eighth of his reign.

Thus narrowly, or by a space of about six hours, did the Duke of Norfolk escape
with his life, though he must no more preside at the public and disgraceful
execution of his fellow-men. On the contrary he, as well as Gardiner afterwards,
must remain in durance for years. To the close of this monarch’s existence, we
have toiled through the record of human depravity, certainly not on its own
account; but because of the moral lesson it now affords, as well as its bearing
on the main object of these pages. If it be one of those laws by which God
appears to govern the world, that, “men engaged in an evil cause, however
harmonious they may be in the outset, shall, sooner or later, be at variance;”
here we have an illustration of that law, well worthy of remembrance. Gardiner
and Tunstal, Norfolk and Wriothesly, had been the leading and uniform opponents
of the progress of Divine truth among the people, and often had they played into
each other’s hands; while the King, to say nothing of his habitual depravity,
having but one fixed principle, or the love of power, had died as he had lived.
Before that event, however, he scowls on these men, by whose advice he had been
so often swayed. They were, to a man, his oldest counsellors, the ablest men
around him, and the very pith of “the old learning” party. These recent events,
therefore, cannot loosely, or with propriety, be consigned to the gulf of human
passion alone, and there left. This was the breaking up of an old confederacy,
by its own leader, or, at least, the man on whom it depended, and then he
himself died. It was Providence, by degradation, and imprisonment, and death,
“putting down the mighty from their seats, scattering the proud in the
imagination of their hearts,” and preparing the way for a very different scene
in the reign of Edward, especially so far as the printing and free perusal of
the Sacred Volume was concerned. With reference to the history of the English
Bible, as far as we have come, and after such a detail as the past, with all its
imperfections, what, for example, can any reader think when he finds one writer,
in summing up the reign of Henry the Eighth, express himself in such terms as
the following? “His largest claim to our gratitude is, that he at last permitted
the great fountain of religious truth and of intellectual piety to be opened to
the people, by sanctioning the translation and circulation of the Scriptures in
the national language; thus making free to every one what millions have blessed
him for!” This is even exceeded by another modern historian. “He resolutely
maintained to the end of his life the exclusive right of God’s undoubted Word to
be the religious instructor of the rational creation. The assertion of this
fundamental principle is the brightest distinction of Henry’s reign!!”

All this, and much more to the same effect, has been actually reported of a man
who, above ten years after the Scriptures of the New Testament had been
introduced into this kingdom, in spite of all his power, and the hostility of
his associates-a man who, after he had been signally overruled to sanction the
very translation he had condemned, to say nothing of his share in the guilt of
leaving the Translator to the flames-did indeed at last inform his subjects that
“it had pleased him to permit and command the Bible, being translated into their
mother tongue, to be openly laid forth in every parish church.” But then this is
the same man who, in less than six years after, enjoined that “no women but,
noble women, no artificers, apprentices, journeymen, serving-men, husbandmen,
nor labourers, were to read the Bible or New Testament in English, to themselves
or to any other, privately or openly!” And who, in three years after this, told
all England, “It ought to be deemed certain that the reading of the Old and New
Testament is not necessary for all those folks that of duty ought to be bound to
read it,BUT as the Prince and the policy of the realm shall think convenient to
be tolerated orTAXEN FROM IT! Consonant whereto, the politic law of our realm
hath now restrained it from a great many!” This daring profanity was crowned by
Henry’s last public act, within six months of his dissolution-his endeavour, by
proclamation, to consign to the flames above thirty editions of the New
Testament by Tyndale-denouncing the translation as “crafty, false, and untrue,”
though it was the very same with that which was included in the Bible he had
sanctioned in 1537!

All this contemptible spleen and fury, it is true, had been held in derision,
and most remarkably thwarted and counter-wrought, till at last God began to deal
with the man in the way of disease and death. Now if historians, at the distance
of three hundred years, will thus write of his Majesty the reigning King, it may
abate the surprise of some at the language of his courtiers when crouching
before him; but, in the name of truth, and of all that is honest in historical
narrative, why should we, in this age, be directed to a source of gratitude such
as this? Man praises man, indeed; and if a king, however profane, or however
hostile, is to enjoy the posthumous fame or personal credit of all the good that
was done during the days of his mortal life, then, of course, no room is left
for any other individual; but, “Thus idly some men waste the breath of praise,
And dedicate a tribute, in its use And just direction sacred, to a thing Doom’d
to the dust, or lodged already there.” The worst effect of such language is, not
that of its spoiling one of the most deeply interesting and instructive chapters
in the history of our country, or its turning away the eye from her real human
benefactors.

There is a far higher consideration. For if man only is to be regarded here,
when or where, in the whole compass of English history, is God, by himself
alone, to be specially adored? After all that we have read, may it not now, with
reverence, be said of Him, that He had trodden an uncommon, nay, unprecedented
path? Other nations, it is granted, received the Scriptures, and by the kind
providence of heaven, but not after the same singular manner. There is no
passage in the history of Germany or in that of any other nation, of a similar
character; though, strange to say, this has never yet been distinctly explained,
nor at any time sufficiently observed. But enough, and more than enough, of
Henry the Eighth and his courtiers in general. The heart now cannot but
instinctively recoil from looking in that direction. Other historians, however,
have directed the gratitude of their country to other individuals. The renown of
the contest has been ascribed to certain men whom we have seen wait on the
times, till the battle was actually fought and won; and the credit of all that
followed has been given to such as, led by political motives, were overruled to
lend the cause, since it must advance, that countenance, which literally cost
them nothing. Our preceding history may be referred to in explanation; and
whether his Majesty, as far as he was a patron, did not even then “encumber them
with help,” we leave the reader to judge.

We only repeat, as not the least remarkable fact in the entire narrative, that
the able, though unpretending man, so evidently raised up by God to commence and
carry forward the war of truth and righteousness unto victory, has been hitherto
left in the background. With this never-to-beforgotten period, other names have
been associated, so as almost to overshadow him; these have been repeated a
thousand times, and become familiar as household words; while there are not
wanting those who still inquire-And who was Tyndale? But if we mean to speak of
the first personal and determined preparations for this great contest-of the man
who, by first applying the art of printing to the Sacred Volume in our native
tongue, effectually placed the “leaven” of Divine truth in the heart of this
kingdom; if we intend to refer to the first victories gained upon English
ground, to the brunt of the battle, or to the burden and heat of the day, these
were not the men. Tyndale, with Fryth by his side, occupy a place in the
foreground of the picture, from which they never can be moved by any impartial
historian. But we have not yet done with the influence of our martyred
Translator. The providence of God, under the reign of Edward, will interpret how
much more we owe to his memory, and whether the people of England did not
testify their gratitude and veneration, as soon as they were let alone to act
for themselves.


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  CHAPTER 4: 02 BOOK 2. - FROM EDWARD VI TO THE COMMON
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BOOK 2. - FROM EDWARD VI TO THE COMMONWEALTH REIGN OF EDWARD.

1547-1553 A Reign, However Brief, Distinguished In British History, With Regard
To The Printing And Publication Of The Sacred Scriptures In The Language Of The
People. THE storm has changed into a calm; so that in reviewing the Christianity
of England from the sixteenth century there have been those, as there are still,
who prefer to begin with the reign of Edward the Sixth; while others repudiate
every event before the reign of Elizabeth. But whatever may be the inducement to
either preference, such parties must not expect to be acknowledged as possessing
much, if any, energy of purpose in tracing effects to their cause; or any
measure of that disposition which cannot be satisfied without accounting fully
for circumstances, still existing before every eye. The reign of Henry the
Eighth, whatever had been his personal character, was, in many respects, not
only initial but germinant. Every day since has so testified; and the broad
surface of the kingdom still bears witness to the weight and pressure of his
sceptre. He left behind him certain marks, which are still acknowledged as
memorials of his power.

It, therefore, becomes only so much the more observable, that the genuine or
correct history of the English Bible has never allowed us, as it never allowed
him, to come down and confound the Sacred Volume, either with the ecclesiastical
arrangements, so called, of his time, or with the fallible interpretations of
erring men. No historical line could be more distinctly drawn, whether while the
King and his advisers were arrayed against the Scriptures, or after they were
overruled to admit them into England. Then, indeed, his Majesty himself became
the remarkable instrument in not permitting the English Bible to be at all
identified with the ecclesiastical body he had set up and sanctioned. Not only
did he not consult it on this subject, but frowned upon his Bishops, when once
presuming to sit in judgment upon the translation. And now that the King is
dead; now that the New Testament Scriptures have been reading for twenty years,
and the Bible entire for nearly ten, not unfrequently in the face of the flames;
now that we have escaped from what may be regarded as the grand tempest, we no
longer require to proceed only year by year, as we have done; nor is it any
longer necessary to notice the editions of the Scriptures in regular succession.
We have, it is true, all this time been only laying the foundation, and in so
doing feel perfectly conscious that we may have trespassed on the patience of
certain readers; but more especially on that of any who have never been before
aware of what a superstructure has been reared upon it. They have now before
them the groundwork of infinitely the largest undertaking which Britain has to
show, whether to her own people, or those of surrounding nations. When compared
with it, everything else without exception, throughout this kingdom, is but
local and limited. With regard to the various editions issued from the press in
the brief reign of King Edward, we have already hinted that no justice has ever
been done to the subject. To say nothing of older historians, even so recently
as the year 1792, his readers were informed by Newcome, Archbishop of
Armagh,-nay, and as a proof of “earnest endeavour that the Word of the Lord
might have free course and be glorified,”-that “during the course of this reign,
that is,” said the attthor, “in less than seven, years and six months, eleven
impressions of the whole English Bible were published, and six of the New
Testament; to which may be added, an English translation of the whole New
Testament, paraphrased by Erasmus.” This only shows how little attention has
been paid to the subject, when a period so heartstirring could be thus reported;
but that the blundering statement should have been literally repeated up to this
hour, and in our best introductions to the study, or the translations, of the
Scriptures, is more surprising still.

We need not remind the reader that, instead of seven years and a half, Edward
did not reign quite six and a half; but how stand the facts under this brief
period? Why, that so far from only six editions of the New Testament, there were
nearly thirty more; instead of eleven editions of the Bible entire, there were
at least fourteen; and all these within the space of less than six years and a
half, for Edward reigned no longer. In other words, instead of only nineteen
distinct issues of the Scriptures, including Erasmus, as often so erroneously
reported, we have ascertained about fifty; and as for the Bibles, all these
editions issued from the press in less than four years, or from August 1549 to
July 1553.

Such a period, therefore, well deserves a better survey, furnishing, as it does,
several instructive and memorable results. With regard to the printing and
circulation of the Sacred Volume in the days of Henry the Eighth, we have seen
that it was throughout, at best, but a troubled scene, and distinguished for
bitter persecution; the days of Edward the Sixth, when properly examined, stand
altogether unrivalled, even by any subsequent reign, for noninterference with
the Scriptures. Nay, the truth is, that in the history of England, it so happens
that we have not another reign of a similar character to exhibit; it stands
alone. It is, however, curious enough, that the reign of the most youthful
sovereign that has ever since reigned in Britain, should have made the nearest
approach, and promises before long to equal, and, it may be, far excel it.
Meanwhile, even the present age would do well to look back and acquire a little
wisdom from this early period; for, although a strict regard to impartiality has
left us no choice but to record other things of Cranmer, which must ever be
condemned, he will now be entitled to a meed of praise, which his most partial
admirers have either never observed, or, at least, never marked, as they might
have done. As there was none of that arrogance and impiety on the part of the
Crown, with which Henry was ever insulting his subjects; talking to them, at one
moment, as if they were children, or were to have no mind of their own; and at
another, as if they had no right to form any opinion whatever for themselves;
so, on the contrary, great liberty now prevailed in printing any one translation
already made. no change for the better could then be greater. The last act of
the father was to brand the name and memory of Tyndale: in the first Parliament
held by his son, that act was repealed, and declared to be “utterly void and of
none effect;” nay, the portrait of Edward will soon be seen and sold, in
immediate conjunction with the name and translation of Tyndale.

Possessed of such power of control as Cranmer now enjoyed, one might have
imagined that he would have pressed forward his own correction of Tyndale’s
version, and in superiority to all others. But there is no such personal leaning
to be discovered -quite the reverse. The people had been left freely to make
their choice, or declare their preference, and we shall soon see the result.
Here, then, was one trait in Cranmer’s character, and one which has never been
pointed out, even by those who have sought to justify other steps which cannot
be defended. True, it may be said that he was altogether engrossed with his Book
of Homilies and his Catechism, with King Edward’s Service Book, his Book of
Articles, and the Reformatio Legum, to say nothing of his parliamentary and
official engagements. This is granted, for such indeed was the course he chose
to pursue; but still, had Cranmer been disposed to have interfered with the
printing of the Scriptures, he certainly could have found time to have both
discovered and exerted his power. On the contrary, with his name at the head of
the Regency, and on such a subject possessing great sway, he appears to have
acted with a degree of candour and liberality which has never been surpassed,
nay, never equalled by any man in power ever since.

One important consequence has been, that we are able now to see at once what was
the popular taste. Twenty-one years after the New Testament of Tyndale had becn
sent into England, an opportunity had at last presented itself, for the people
as such to speak out, and say what they wanted. The printers were ready to
print, and the stationers, as they were called, to sell; but, of course, they
would not press any one translation except that which they knew beforehand was
most likely to remunerate them. As all the editions were individual undertakings
by men engaged in business, they, it must be evident, would print chiefly that
book which was most frequently and eagerly sought after. That zeal for the art
of printing which burst forth instantaneously after Henry’s death, will prepare
us for the numerous editions of the Scriptures which immediately followed. This
noble art had been introduced into England under Edward IV., when there were
three or four printers; under Henry VII. there were five; and four of these
survived to print under his son: but during his long reign of nearly
thirty-eight years, not fewer than forty-one printers had commenced business in
London, or forty-five in all.

Now, the first importation of Tyndale’s New Testament into England had taken
place, not till more than eighty years after the invention of printing, and
about fifty-eight after the art had been introduced into the country; but it is
worthy of notice, that from that period, of these forty-five printers not fewer
than thirty-three had started in business, and that eight of them were
ultimately connected with printing the Sacred Volume.

Let us then now observe what ensued, as soon as Henry had “ceased from
troubling,” and Gardiner, Bonner, and Tunstal were bereft of the power. Of the
forty-five printers under Henry, fourteen survived when Edward came to the
throne. While his father was sinking into the grave, and in less than twelve
months after his death, as many as eight new men had started in business as
printers, Next year, however, there were not fewer than eleven more, and in the
next two, eighteen, besides six others in 1551 and 1552, or forty-three in all;
raising the number of printers under this youthful monarch to not fewer than
fifty-seven, in the brief space of six years! Now if it be inquired, what
connexion had all this with the diffusion of the Divine Record? it was no less
than this-that out of these fifty-seven printers, more than than half, or not
fewer than thirty-one, and these the most respectable, were engaged either in
printing or publishing the Sacred Scriptures. But the editions of the Scriptures
themselves will now furnish us with another view of this memorable period. For
Bibles in folio, there may have been not so much need as yet, considering the
number which had been printed in 1540 and 1541; for although Henry had licensed
Anthony Marler to print for five years longer, he was then over-stocked, and the
sale must have flagged, as the wayward monarch only frowned on the undertaking
ever after. New Testaments, however, were in great request, and the people soon
discovered which translation they preferred.

Tyndale’s Bibles were published under the name of Matthew; but as for the New
Testament separately, the name of William Tyndale was now inserted in the front
titles of fifteen editions, if not more. At the same time it may be observed, in
farther proof of the freedom of the press, and of the absence of all jealousy or
interference on the part of Cranmer, that the impressions of Matthew’s Bible
took precedence of his own in point of time. That of the former, by Day and
Seres, was finished in August 1549, and that by Reynolde and Hill in October;
but Cranmer’s, by Grafton and Whitchurch, not till December of that year.

Thus, if a version ever received distinguished marks of public approbation, it
was that of our first Translator. There had been certain verbal alterations in
the text, whether by Cranmer, Coverdale, or Taverner-some of which were no
improvements; and so it now appears the people at large had thought throughout
the days of Edward the Sixth. They had said, in a manner not to be mistaken, “We
decidedly prefer the version of our original Translator, as he gave it to his
country.”

It is now, however, of importance to observe, that the preceding remarkable
course of events with regard to Divine Truth, so interesting in itself, becomes
still more so, as proving that, when the people were let alone, they could act
with vigour for themselves; and that they were acting well and nobly, in a
direction from which nothing but good could ensue. But our interest is greatly
increased upon observing two of its peculiar features, namely, the dissimilarity
of this course to every other, and its marked independence of the reigning
power. There was actually no other train of things of a similar character under
Edward VI., but, on the contrary, quite the reverse. In everything else, instead
of reason, argument and the exposition of Divine Truth being left with God to
their own effects, the only ultimate result was personal restraint, and even
unto death. But the Scriptures were let alone. No Act of Parliament or
Convocation was passed, for or against them; no injunction was issued; no new
translation proposed; no new false title-pages prefixed; but there was something
of far different and better effect, and more congenial with God’s own glorious
purpose and design-Edward’s own visible and marked veneration for the Sacred
Record itself. The cause, therefore, continues to stand out before us, as the
spontaneous act of individual enterprise, in reply to the voluntary and urgent
calls of the people themselves, and especially for the New Testament Scriptures.
They were anxious to proceed according to the good old French maxim, “Laissez
nous faire “-Leave us to act; and the Government was, providentially, strong
enough to comply. For many years, it is true, the votes or voice of Parliament
could have formed no index whatever to the consent or nonconsent of the people
at large. From the way in which members were summoned, or both Houses
constituted, this was impossible; but then, at the same time, both Houses were
most obsequious, and had wavered with the Crown. Now, in these circumstances, it
is only the more observable, that the Parliament of Edward should become
conspicuous for noninterference, when the King himself was a sincere and ardent
admirer of the Scriptures. Thus, though unconscionsly, the House was witnessing
to posterity the benefits which ensue from not touching with this subject. Of
these benefits, we have already given substantial evidence; and the reader will
be still more struck, when he turns to the particular statement of all these
precious volumes, in our list at the close of this work. Meanwhile, no one could
desire more evident proof, in long succession, of a “separated cause,” a sacred
undertaking; and these, too, present themselves at a period, when the
unprincipled changes perpetually occurring, whether in the Privy Council or the
Parliament, were loudly saying of every other department-“ It is but the cause
of men, of fallible and changing men.”

Here, then, was the distinguishing feature of this brief, but memorable reign;
and it certainly becomes the more worthy of notice from the facts already
stated; for in this one point of view, there has been no reign, of a similar
character, ever since. In contrast, too, with Edward’s immediate predecessor,
far from anything to repel in the young Prince, there is much to invite our love
and admiration. Whatever was objectionable during his sway-of which there were
more steps than one or two-an enlightened judgment will ever ascribe to his
Ministers; for, in the age in which he flourished and faded so soon, he stood
like an apple tree among the trees of the wood, if not as a lily among thorns.
To say nothing of the precocity of his talents, which, no doubt, has been
exaggerated, though he must have been more than usually intelligent, there was
his strong aversion to the shedding of blood, which so painfully places
Goodrich, and Cranmer, and even Ridley, before us; but, above all, his profound
and often expressed veneration for the Sacred Volume itself. It was this that
brought him so near to the character of Josiah of old, though even yet so much
younger than the Jewish monarch, when the Book of the Law was found, and read
before him.

But, lo! the clouds are gathering; the young King, to the grief of many, and
these certainly the best in the land, is seen to be slowly descending to the
grave; and all the enemies of Divine Truth in the vulgar tongue begin to rally
and look up. A lurid gloom begins to settle on the realm. A time of trouble and
vexation, of banishment and blood, is at hand. But there was no wisdom, nor
understanding, nor counsel, against Him by whom all things were foreseen. We
must enter the storm, and there, even there, delight to trace once more, the
peculiar care of the Most High, over His own Word.

It was upon the evening of Thursday, the 6th of July, 1553, that Edward died of
consumption. His favourite and inseparable friend, Sir Henry Sidney, had him in
his arms, when he suddenly exclaimed-“ I am faint; Lord, have mercy upon me, and
take my spirit!” He instantly expired, at the early age of fifteen years, eight
months, and twenty-two days. Few kings have fallen so soon; far fewer still, as
safe; and perhaps none in English history more sincerely lamented, by discerning
survivors. Under such counsellors he might have been corrupted. He was taken
away from the evil to come.

We have witnessed a very remarkable progress in the diffusion of Divine Truth;
but we have also seen that this was effected, not by the encouragement or
sanction of Parliament, nor, of course, with the consent of the nation as such
in any form;-no: the cause itself, though in the kingdom, was not of the
kingdom; since no rulers in Europe had discovered greater hostility to Divine
Revelation. The convulsion, therefore, which took place after the death of
Edward, though only the commencement of a storm, served at once to clear the
moral atmosphere, and forcibly distinguish between the passions of men and the
cause of God.

It enables us, even now, to see, with far greater precision, the actual state of
things. As there had been a separate undertaking, which we have descried all
along, so it now appeared, as the consequence, that there had existed a separate
people, not to be identified or mingled up with any intrigue of the times. So
far as the human mind was concerned, the changes which had ensued, from the
first step taken by Henry VIII. until now, were not national changes. The
nation, as such, though so long and singularly visited by Divine Truth, cared
not for it; and still clinging to its old ceremonies and habits, leaped at the
prospect of falling back into its long repose under the shade of Rome. As a
warning to the age, therefore, and especially to posterity, to distinguish
things that differ, some fearful lesson of instruction was demanded, and this
must no longer be withheld.

Meanwhile, what the Almighty had so mercifully done for England was analogous to
that which, to use the words of Scripture itself, was done by Him, “at the
first,” when He did “visit the nations, to take OUT of them, a peop1e for His
name.” Such a people, however despised and trampled on, we have beheld in
England, in the days of John Fryth, and before then.

Some of the best among them we have seen by the light of those fires which the
enemy had kindled; and they had been increasing in numbers all along. Under
Henry VIII. the war had commenced against the Sacred Volume itself, without even
knowing the translator; and it went on against all who imported, received, or
retained it. Under the reign of his son, it had been plentifully printed,
purchased, and read; and it will now become a decided proof of progress, however
heart-rending in detail, that the persecution about to commence was to be
against all who had believed its contents, and held its sacred truths to be more
precious than life itself.

This, however, in the end, will materially further the cause of Divine Truth,
not retard it.

REIGN OF QUEEN MARY. 1553.-1558. A Reign, However Painful In Its Details, Which
So Far From Retarding The Progress Of Divine Truth, Only Deepened The Impression
Of Its Value; And Afforded The Opportunity For The Sacred Scriptures Being Given
Afresh To England, Carefully Revised-The Exiles From The Kingdom Pr0ving, Once
More, Its Greatest Benefactors.

UPON the 6th of July, 1553, at the age of thirty-six, Mary, the eldest daughter
of Henry VIII., succeeded to the throne, and reigned as Sovereign alone for one,
year. Afterwards, allied by marriage to Philip of Spain, the Queen died in less
than four years and four months, on the 17th of November, 1558. This reign
throughout has been all along, and generally regarded as a portion of English
history distinguished by little else than the shedding of blood. Few, however,
have sufficiently observed, that this blood-shedding for opinions held, did not
commence till February 1555, or more than a year and a half after Mary held the
sceptre. And if this fact has been but slightly regarded, fewer still have ever
noticed its bearing on the Sacred Volume, and those who prized it. That Volume,
printed for a period of fully ten years on the Continent, had been very
strangely introduced into England; or in a manner which must ever distinguish
it, historically, among all other European versions. Yet now, as if to fix the
eye upon it still more intensely, it was about to be carried abroad, or back to
that same Continent from whence it first came, and by all such as valued the
boon, above their necessary food, Yes, now, when the first edition of the New
Testament was already twenty-seven years old, and the first Bible printed on
English ground had left the press fourteen years ago, as many copies as could be
must be carefully concealed at home, and even built up, as they actually were,
and the rest must be carried abroad! For years that were past, the people had
read those Oracles of God on English ground, which had been prepared for them on
the Continent: they must now, scattered all over that Continent itself, read the
volumes which had been printed in the metropolis of their native island!

Formerly, they perused at home, what came from abroad; they must now read beyond
seas, what had been prepared for them at home. No doubt, also, copies which had
been printed on the Continent were then carried back to it. Still, however, time
must be afforded for escape. The wind of persecution being restrained, that it
should not blow on the land for fully a year and a half, those who valued the
truth of God, carrying with them the Sacred Volume as their highest treasure,
soon departed by hundreds, as best they could. The clouds were gathering over
England: a time of trouble and rebuke to a nation which, as such, had too long
“despised the Word of the Lord,” was at hand; yet could those who fled have seen
only a fcw years before them, they might have sung in concert over the result,
as they were sailing to the different seaports to which they fled for shelter.

Upon leaving the Tower for her palace at Richmond, but a few days had elapsed
before Mary issued her “Inhibition” against preaching, reading or teaching any
Scriptures in the churches, and printing any books! The Word of God in the
vulgar tongue, and the printing-press, being the objects of special dread. But
even two days before this, there were certain men at large, who must be so no
longer. On the 16th of August, Bradford, Vernon, and Becon were committed to the
Tower; while no other than John Rogers, alias Matthew, the editor of the Bible
received by Henry in 1537, was commanded to keep himself within his own house,
and to have no communication with any persons except those of his own family.
They had already taken certain steps, if not commenced proceedings against many
persons; and by the 15th of September, Latimer and Hooper, as well as Cranmer,
were safe in the Tower. As for Ridley, having preached at Paul’s Cross in favour
of Queen Jane, he had chosen, however strangely, to proceed to Framlingham to
salute Mary, where he was instantly despoiled of his dignities, and sent back to
the Tower, by the 26th of July, or only ten days after he had preached his
sermon. But still there were as yet no tortures, no murder, nor any threatened
martyrdom.

Most providentially, the Queen, though only thirty-six years of age, was to
reign no longer than five years and four months; but those fires which never
ceased to blaze for three years and nine months, were not kindled till a year
and a half after she had come to the throne. Gardiner and Bonner, as the leading
dogs of war, had not only been let loose, but reinstated as Bishops, and there
was the most cordial feeling in harmony with Rome; but still the arm of the
oppressor was stayed, nor must one stake be prepared, or fire lighted up, for
more than sixteen months after these imprisonments.

Cardinal Pole, also, must first come from Italy to England before the kingdom
could be formally reconciled to Rome; while Gardiner, now raised to be Lord
Chancellor, was, from personal ambition, not a little anxious to retard his
return, and, in the meanwhile, seeking greater things, if possible, for himself.
Bonner, it is true, at once brutal and rash, was ready, at a moment’s warning,
to plunge into his favourite occupation with fury; but a compass must be
fetched; and Gardiner was there to guide it. Cautious, as well as vindictive, he
will steadily watch the time, and not fail to end in blood; when both he and
Bonner will be in at the death of the best men in all England.

It must, however, have very soon, and thus mercifully, appeared, that good faith
and clemency were out of the question. Conscientious men, in considerable
numbers, were bent upon escape to the Continent, and facilities shall not be
wanting. All foreigners were to be allowed to depart without hindrance. There
were not only Germans and Frenchmen, but Italians and Spaniards, Poles and
Scotsmen, harbouring not in London alone, but elsewhere, and enjoying a degree
of freedom from molestation, unknown at the moment in any other part of the
world! They must now seek safety by flight. Early in the month of September,
that interesting Polish nobleman, John A-Lasco, the uncle of the King of Poland,
embarked from London, carrying a considerable number of his congregation with
him. About the same time many French, and other foreigners, left England.

Orders were sent down to Rye and Dover, that no impediments should be placed in
their way; and to these orders, not a few of the English, the salt of the land,
were indebted for their escape. Many went under the character of servants, and
others, by what means they could, till at last it has been computed that there
were from eight hundred to a thousand learned Englishmen, beside those in other
conditions, who were now to sustain the honourable character of exiles from
their native land, on account of their attachment to Divine Truth. There can be
no question that, as far as they could, they took their most valued treasure,
their books, with them, but, above all, their copies of the Scriptures; and thus
it was that the volume which had been originally translated for England, upon
the European continent, was now to be read by more than a thousand of her sons
and daughters, and all over these countries, from Emden to Geneva!

These exiles, of whom their native land at the moment was not worthy, found
refuge at Emden in Friesland, as A-Lasco and His flock had done; at Wesel on the
Rhine in Prussia; at Duisburg, a town of Guelderland in Holland; at Strasburg in
France; at Zurich and Berue, Basle, Geneva, and Aran in Swizerland; at Frankfort
in Germany, and a few fled to Worms, the spot where the first English New
Testaments had been completed at press. Many of these people had, in the end, no
great occasion to regret the storm that had driven them from home, so far as
they themselves were personally concerned. The improvement and enlargement of
their minds was the result, in many instances; while their being all alike
sufferers from one common calamity, gave occasion to a far finer display of
Christian sympathy and bounty, both abroad and at home, than they over could
have experienced in other circumstance, or ever left for posterity to admire.

There were at least three Ladies of title, at least six Knights, besides other
persons of property, among the number who had fled, and they regarded all the
rest as brethren in adversity. Many pious individuals too, chiefly in London,
contributed freely to their relief, by sending money, clothes, and provisions.
Strype gives a list of twenty-six as the most eminent. Abroad, the King of
Denmark, Henry, Prince Palatine, the Duke of Wurtemberg, and Wolfgang, Duke of
Bipont, with all the states and free cities where the English sojourned, were
very bountiful to them. So were foreign divines, especially those of Zurich,
whose small stipends scarcely served to maintain themselves. Peter Martyr’s
house at Strasburg was filled, where the inmates, living at one common table,
paid, if anything, easy charges for their diet. Several of the learned exiles
subsisted partly by their own exertions. John Foxe had now leisure to compose
and publish the first edition of his history in Latin, and Grafton the printer
had time to write his Chronicle, to say nothing of other works; but we shall
hear of labours infinitely more valuable, for which this temporary banishment
from their native land was to prove the time appointed.

These may be regarded as an army of confessors; but there were many who could
not, while others would not, avail themselves of safety by flight, and these
formed a distinguished portion of the noble army of martyrs.

England, as we have witnessed, under Edward VI. had proved an asylum for the
oppressed among other nations: it was ere long to become an Accldama, or field
of blood. In the first Parliament under Mary at the close of 1553, the statutes
of the preceding reign, as well as some of Henry VIII., had been repealed. The
state machine was rolled back to its old position, and the kingdom in 1554 was
once more placed under the protection of Rome. Her Majesty, though not at all
times a quiescent votary of the Pontiff, was, both from principle and past
circumstances, a persecutor; while she could not have found in all England two
spirits more congenial with her intentions than those of Stephen Gardiner trod
Edmund Bonnet. If they led, others on the bench, and many unprincipled
underlings, were ready to follow. All statutes which stood in the way being
entirely removed, as there was “a clear field,” so there was to be “no favour.”
Men and women, of whatever character, office, or condition, even the lame and
the blind, and from the child to the aged man, all who had any conscientious
opinions not in harmony with the “old learning,” all were appointed unto death.
From the 4th of February, 1555, to within only seven days of the Queen’s exit,
on the 17th of November, 1558, a period of only three years, nine months and six
days, the number burnt to ashes, and who died by starvation, slow torture, and
noisome confinement in prison, can never be given with accuracy by any human
pen. In reading through the details, as the heart grows sick, so every one must
come to the same conclusion-that there is but one list, and that one accurate
and indelible-but it is one above. The highest point of human guilt is to be
found in persecution for the truth’s sake, or in violence done to conscience;
and when at last inquisition is made for blood, the Judge of all will remember
every drop that has been shed, for “the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus
Christ.” The different calculations, however, which have been made by Foxe and
Burnet, by Strype and Speed, as well as an account by Cecil Lord Burghley, have
been carefully collated: and we have thus made out a distinct list of three
hundred and eighteen individuals. Of these, two hundred and eighty-eight were
consumed in the flames, eight or ten were positively famished, and twenty more
pined and expired in their dungeons. Of almost all these we have the names, as
well as the time and place of their last triumphs; but the number of deaths,
without doubt, must have been greater, especially from imprisonment. In a
treatise often ascribed to Lord Burghley himself, but certainly sanctioned by
him, and coming from authority, in 1583, the number is estimated at “almost four
hundred;” and a testimony borne to the source from which these martyrs had
derived their faith and principles; a testimony to the power of the Sacred
Oracles as read by the youth of the kingdom; for as to preaching the truth, this
had, with a few exceptions, ever been at the lowest ebb.

If, therefore, the number who lost their lives by every species of cruelty be
stated at 375, this gives an average of one hundred deaths annually, in three
years and nine months. Of the counties in England, 21 suffered, and 2 in Wales;
but the persecution lay heaviest upon those parts where the Scriptures were best
known. In Essex and Middlesex the victims were at least 114; in Kent and Sussex,
88; in Suffolk and Norfolk, 32; in Gloucester and Warwick, 18; so that in these
eight counties alone, two hundred and fifty-two had triumphed at the stake.
Nothing could exceed the more than savage barbarity by which these, the most
valuable subjects in the kingdom, were put to torture and death. Of the entire
number, more than one hundred and fifty had been consigned, in groups, to one
common fire! Thus we find of such companies, that there were six instances of
three individuals, at different times; five of four, and four of five; six
instances of six, and four of seven! There were two dreadful cases of ten the
same day; the first at Lewis in Kent of six men and four women, including the
master and servant, the mother and her son, in one common conflagration! The
second was at Colchester of five men and five women, six of whom were martyred
in the morning, and four in the afternoon. Several of these must have been
advanced in life, as their united ages amounted to about years. But the most
horrible scene of all, in point of number, was at Bow, near London, when not
fewer than thirteen, eleven men and two women, were consumed in one pile, on
Tuesday the 27th of June, 1556. The number of persons present was estimated at
twenty thousand; “whose ends generally in coming there,” says Strype, “and to
such like executions, were to strengthen themselves in the profession of the
Gospel, and to exhort and comfort those who were to die.” Yes, and
notwithstanding all the fury of the enemy, this disposition on the part of the
people went on to increase throughout the years 1557 and 1558, till upon this
very day of the week, two years hence, we shall see what happened. When the
present martyrs appeared at the stake, a few words were all-sufficient to secure
an echo. The short expressive ejaculation on the part of only one bystander, was
replied to by an Amen, which came upon the ears of their murderers with a voice
of thunder; and such a voice had made them quail. These noble confessors indeed
actually triumphed at last, so far as to paralyse the arm of Bonner, and banish
the fire at least from Smithfield, nearly five months before Mary was called
away by her final Judge! The very last time, when seven martyrs were there
consumed, on the 28th of June, 1558, was a memorable one; and as it has never
been sufficiently pointed out by any historian, must not pass unnoticed here.

They belonged to a “Congregation” in London, that had assembled in secret for
many years; the same that had been addressed by Bainham in 1531, and by Fryth in
1533. Changing their place of meeting from time to time to avoid the vigilance
of the spies sent out by Bonner, they escaped, as a body, for some time. One of
their pastors, John Rough, a native of Scotland, and Cuthbert Symson, one of
their deacons, were taken by spies, and suffered, the former in December 1557,
and the latter, with two other members of the same body, in March following.
These all witnessed a good confession. The congregation still met and chose
another pastor, when, within a month after the last fiery trial, having met in a
field near Islington for prayer and meditation, they were discovered by the
searchers, and twenty-two of them apprehended and lodged in Newgate. Of these,
seven escaped with their lives, two died in prison, and thirteen were condemned
by Bonner to the flames. Seven of these were brought up for sentence on the 17th
of June, when one of them, Roger Holland, a person above the common rank, was
interceded for by some persons of distinction who were present. But the Martyr
stood so firmly to his confession that Bonner would show no mercy, and read the
sentence. To this Holland replied, “Even now I told you that your authority was
from God, and by His sufferance. And now I tell you God hath heard the prayer of
His servants, which hath been poured, forth with tears by His afflicted saints,
which daily you persecute, as now you do us. But this I dare be bold in God to
speak, which by His Spirit I am moved to say, that God will shorten your hand of
cruelty, that for a time YOU shall not molest His Church. And (turning to his
friends) this shall you in short time well perceive, my dear brethren, to be
most true; for after THIS DAY, inTHIS PLACE, shall there not be any by HIM put
to the trial of fire and faggot.” When he was led out to suffer with his six
companions on the 28th June, proclamation in the name of Philip and Mary was
made-That “no man should either pray for, or speak to the prisoners;” but the
multitude could not be restrained. The whole “Congregation,” with their pastor,
was there, and rushing forward they embraced their brethren before they were
made fast to the stake. When proclamation was again made enjoining profound
silence, one with a loud voice cried out, “Almighty God, for Christ’s sake,
strengthen them!” Immediately the whole multitude at once responded, “Amen!
Amen!”

Embracing the stake, Holland then blessed the Lord for his call, once to light,
and now to glory; and the whole seven died in joyful constancy with prayer and
praise.

Such a triumph well deserved to be traced, for it was a decisive one. Mary had
yet nearly five months to reign, but she must no more burn a single martyr at
the wonted place, nor at any other, within her own capital, Bonner’s occupation,
too, was gone; for, as far as we know, he never personally sentenced one
individual to the flames, in any place, after being thus addressed by Roger
Holland. Six men, indeed, out of the twenty-two seized, still remained to be
disposed of, and, a few days after Holland, they had been examined: but all this
the Bishop had prudently left to Thomas Darbyshire, his nephew, the Chancellor;
nor were they put to death till the 13th or 14th of July. But even then they
cannot be burnt in London; they must be sent down to Brentford, and the writ to
execute come from the Lord Chancellor’s office. All this is distinctly stated to
have been done in “post-haste,” and at night, either from fear or craft on the
part of Bonner; but never again must the fire blaze in Smithfield. Such was “the
Congregation of the Faithful,” assembling for worship in the days of Queen Mary;
and, with all its imperfections, there certainly never was in England a body of
Christians more highly honoured by God, in “resisting unto blood, striving
against sin.” On the whole, the reader can now easily distinguish between the
people at large, and those who had been so shockingly persecuted; nor need he
imagine that the English as a nation had all of a sudden become more
distinguished for cruelty than the neighbouring nations on the Continent.

They had indeed, at first, asked for such a Queen as Mary, and obtained their
desire; they had unwillingly submitted to such a King as Philip, and to such
Ministers; and under their united sway that salutary horror was implanted in the
nation, which was not to leave it for generations to come; but it was the
leaders of this people who destroyed them, but more especially, as a body, the
Bishops, who were now fighting with fury for “their kingdom of this world,” as
they so manifestly had done, ever since the Scriptures were introduced in 1526.
For these five years past they had been powerfully backed, and occasionally
goaded on, by both the King and Queen; nor had the diocese of Canterbury under
CardinalPOLE formed any exception to the raging cruelty. A far different
subject, or the history of the English Bible during this reign, now claims our
attention; although it is probable that not a few may be disposed to inquire,-“
And what can possibly be said at such a time as this?” That “all things went
backward,” is an expression which has been often employed, it is true, in
reference to the days of Mary the First; but it is one, strictly speaking, far
from being correct. There was, to a Certainty, one exception, and that one was
worth all other things put together; so that for every feeling excited, or
rather harrowed up, by the recital of martyrdoms, cruelty and banishment, there
is yet balm in reserve; and as that is to be found nowhere else, except in the
positive progress of Divine Truth, it only renders the history of the Sacred
Volume one of deeper interest.

It is true that all the authorities, styled civil and ecclesiastical, were up in
arms against it; and now, banded together as the soul of one man, they could
officially alter or destroy everything else of human appointment or device: but
they might as well have expected to succeed in rooting out the violet or the
rose from the soil of England, as in banishing the Word of Life from the
country, or in snatching it from all the people who had already received and
prized it, as their only and all-sufficient guide to a better world. No sooner,
indeed, had January 1555 arrived, than it seemed as if something of this kind
had been meditated, by their hasty attempt to brand certain persons with odium.
There were two individuals still remaining in England to whom the country had
stood indebted for the Scriptures-John Rogers and Miles Coverdale; and these
were among the earliest victims seized by Government. With both characters the
reader is already intimately acquainted; the first as the original editor of
Tyndale’s Bible, which, after so many editions, wus now in use; and the second,
not only as a translator, but the diligent correcter at the press of several of
these editions. When Queen Mary entered London, and had reached the Tower, on
Thursday, the 3rd of August, 1553, it is well known that on the second day
after, she released Gardiner, and Bonner, and Tunstal, from imprisonment,
styling them “her own Bishops.” The first of these she immediately appointed to
be Lord Chancellor. He had been distinguished as one of the most eminent enemies
of the vernacular Scriptures. In the year 1537, when the Bible edited by John
Rogers was introduced into England by Grafton, and with such success Gardiner
was in France; but after his return in September 1538, he did all in his power
to thwart the circulation of the Scriptures in the English tongue. Rogers, then
on the Continent, had remained for twelve years longer, ministering to a German
congregation.

During the reign of Edward, either attracted by the state of the country, or
personally invited, he had returned to England by the year 1550, and afforded
occasion for one of those singular scenes, which had not unfrequently taken
place under the roof of St. Paul’s. The reader cannot have forgotten one in
1536, while Latimer was preaching his noted sermon to “the children of light and
the children of darkness.” Both classes were congregated here still; but perhaps
no discordancy had ever exceeded the following. At the risk of a little
repetition we present the picture entire. In September 1549, Bonner had been
deprived of his office as Bishop of London, and who should be officiating in his
room for the following half year, but Gabriel Dunne, as residentiary
prebend!-the man who, with Phillips, had ensnared Tyndale at Antwerp, and at
Brussels did his best to secure his death. Dunne’s official services, as bishop
pro tempore, had ended by the appointment of Nicholas Ridley to the See of
London in April 1550, and it is the very next month that we have certain
evidence of Rogers being in London. He may have come earlier, but we are told
that “when he returned to England he was admitted Rector of St. Margaret Moyses,
and after that, Vicar of St. Sepulchre’s, London, on the 10th of May, 1550.” The
Rectory, however, he resigned next year, on the 10th of September, having been
appointed by Ridley, one of the Prebendaries of St. Paul’s, on the 24th of
August preceding, Here then, we have Dunne, as prebend, sitting in the twelfth
stall on the right side of the choir, and Rogers, as Pancras prebend, in the
sixth on the left; but this is rendered still more remarkable from its being the
very stall which had been occupied by Robert Ridley, the uncle of Nicholas, once
so furious in opposition to Tyndale and his translation!

Any person can now clearly perceive, with what good will both Gardiner and
Bonner must have welcomed the day when they should be able to triumph over both
the Bishop and his Prebend, Ridley and Rogers, and wreak their vengeance on them
both. But JOHN ROGERS had done nothing to call for any interference. He had
occasion, it is true, to preach, in his turn, at Paul’s Cross, and then he
warned the people against idolatry and superstition. This was after the Queen’s
arrival in London. He was immediately charged with preaching erroneously, but he
so defended himself before the Council, that he was freely dismissed. At this
moment, had he felt disposed, he might have escaped abroad, and he had strong
inducements so to do. He had a wife and ten children, and in Germany he must
have been secure of a living; but he would not depart. By the 18th of August,
1553, a proclamation was issued, forbidding all preaching; after which, Rogers
was ordered to remain, as a prisoner, in his own house, and communicate with no
one, save his own family, he happened to live not far from Bonner himself, who,
with the sanction of Gardiner, as Chancellor, at last got him sent to Newgate,
the worst of all the prisons; where, among thieves and murderers, he remained
throughout the whole of 1554, and there he is said to have been of use to the
prisoners. “My Lord,” said Rogers to the Chancellor, “ye have dealt with me most
cruelly; for ye have put me in prison without law, and kept me there now almost
a year and a half. For I was almost half a year in my house, where I was
obedient to you, God knoweth, and spake with no man. And now have I been a full
year in Newgate, at great cost and charges, having a wife and ten children to
find; and I had never a penny of my livings, which was against the law.”

They had, in short, left him to pine or perish in prison, and there having been
no specific charge, the whole course was illegal. At last, however, Rogers was
called up for examination. The year was to be distinguished for persecution, and
on the first of January they had commenced in good earnest, by the apprehension
of thirty individuals. On the 22nd, both Rogers and Hooper were before Gardiner,
and other members of Council, as the Queen’s Commissioners. The parties present
were perfectly characteristic. Besides Gardiner, there was Tunstal, Heath, and
Thirlby, Sir Richard Southwell, Sir John Bourne, Secretary of State, and others,
evidently eager to sit in judgment on such a man as this; and as if it had been
to point out to posterity the precise animus or spirit of the persecutors, as
well as give still greater prominence to the history of the Sacred Volume,
Rogers must die first of all. He must now lead the van in the army of martyrs,
and obtain ever after the honourable appellation of Proto-Martyr in Queen Mary’s
reign.

Towards this good man, it is evident that Lord Chancellor Gardiner had behaved
with peculiar harshness and cruelly. He had, in fact, owed him a grudge for
eighteen years, and now illegally had imprisoned him, for nearly eighteen
months, though the martyr had frequently implored his release.

Rogers had married when abroad, and presuming that a female, and a foreigner,
and she not far from the time of her confinement, might have some influence, he
had sent her to Gardiner, with certain female companions, so long ago as
Christmas 1553, and as far as Richmond, “humbly craving that he might be set at
liberty,” there being nothing laid to his charge. The only answer to this was
his being committed by Former to Newgate! From Newgate, Mr. Rogers had not only
sent two petitions to the Chancellor, but his wife many times, without any
effect. A Mr. Gosnold, and other benevolent gentlemen, had also petitioned on
his behalf, but all was in vain; and now that the prisoner is brought up for
examination, it seemed as if, in the first instance, it had been only to gratify
Gardiner’s spleen and passion.

He was called up once more, before a far more formidable array of persecutors,
on the 28th, and finally the next day, at nine o’clock, when Gardiner read his
sentence condemnatory, giving him over to the tender mercies of Former and the
Sheriff] Not one word had been said respecting his publication of the Sacred
Scriptures, but the Chancellor, in condemning him, had thought this far too fine
an opportunity not to cast a slur upon the Bible, and thus hold up Rogers to the
terror of all its readers, at the very commencement of this fiery day. In his
sentence, when naming Rogers, three times he took special care not to omit,
“otherwise called Matthew.” We have no proof that this was the intention, but it
served such a purpose for the moment. Gardiner having finished, gratuitously
told him that he was now “in the great curse,” and that no man was to speak to
him. Rogers, who throughout had spoken with great boldness as well as ability,
and, as we shall see presently, to Gardlner’s utter confusion, if not dismay,
then replied- “Well, my Lord, here I stand before God and you, and all thls
honourable audience, and take Him to witness, that I never witting]y nor
willingly taught any false doctrine; and therefore have I good conscience before
God and all good men. I am sure that you and I shall come before a Judge that is
righteous, before whom I shall be as good a man as you; and I nothing doubt but
that I shall be found there a true member of the true Catholic Church of Christ,
and everlastingly saved. And as for your false Church, ye need not to
excommunicate me forth of it. I have not been in it these twenty years-the lord
be thanked therefore! But now ye have done what ye can, my Lord, I pray you yet
grant me one thing!” “What is that?” said Gardiner. “That my poor wife, being a
stranger (a foreigner), may come and speak with me, so long as I live-for she
hath ten children, that are hers and mine, and somewhat I would counsel her,
what were best for her to do.” Will it be believed, that, at once discovering a
mind of the vilest character, the solitary request, and so touchingly put, was
with disgusting barbarity denied! And Rogers, though he had told the Chancellor
that he had been married eighteen years, saw the man no more. The amount of such
wickedness it is not for us to describe.

Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, his honourable companion, had been also condemned
the same day, and both were to be conveyed, to Newgate.

There was now, however, some cowardly fear of the people. The sentence had not
only been pronounced with closed doors, but they waited till night, before their
victims were sent off. Even then, they conducted them from the Clink Prison to
Winchester’s house, close by, and passing through it, along London bridge,
officers had been sent before them, ordering the costermongers, who sat at
stalls in the street, to put out their lights! Why all this caution, if there
was no apprehension of a rescue? Their coming, however, had been anticipated,
and pious householders appeared on both sides of the streets, with candles. On
their part, as the prisoners passed along, there was nothing but salutations of
affectionate sympathy, thanksgiving for their constancy, and earnest prayers for
its continuance. This was on Tuesday the 29th, and Rogers had only to live till
Monday following. Early that morning, the 4th of February, not aware of what
awaited him, like Peter of old, he was sound asleep. The jailer’s wife went and
had some difficulty in awaking him. She then warned him to make haste, and
prepare himself for the fire! “If it be so,” said the good man, “I need not tie
my points.” Bonner was already in waiting. Both Hooper and he were then, what
they chose to call degraded, by being bereaved of their ecclesiastical
trappings; a process which necessarily occupied some time, as they had first to
be arrayed, and then the several parts were torn from them piecemeal. Hooper was
to be sent off next day to Gloucester; but the stake was already prepared for
Rogers. Then once more, to Bonner he tendered the same solitary request he had
done to Gardiner; but it was now reduced to this-“that before going to the
stake, he might be permitted to speak a few words to his wife.” But this, like
his fellow, the inhuman monster denied! Foxe supposes that it was chiefly to
inform her of his examinations and answers, in his own handwriting, which he had
left behind him, concealed in the prison. But if it was, the Bishop’s denial
went for nothing, as they were afterwards found.

Upon being delivered up to the Sheriff, Woodroff, before they left the prison,
urged Rogers to revoke his opinions. “That,” replied the martyr, “which I have
preached, I will seal with my blood.”-“ Then,” said Woodroff, “thou art an
heretic.”-“That,” replied Rogers, “will be seen at the day of judgment.” -“ Well
then,” said the Sheriff, “I will never pray for thee.” -“But,” said Rogers,
mildly, “I will pray for thee.” Thus they proceeded to the stake.

Upon entering the street, they found an immense crowd awaiting them. In walking
towards Smithfield, Rogers was repeating a portion of that blessed book he had
given to his country-the 51st Psalm. The people were giving thanks for his
constancy; but there among the crowd, there met him the wife, whom neither
Gardiner nor Bonner would permit him to see. His wife, the foreigner, with all
her children-one of these, a youth named Daniel, if the eldest, now nearly
seventeen years of age; the youngest, or the eleventh child, an unconscious
babe, now hanging at the mother’s breast! In the midst of this overwhelming
scene, the husband and father stood firm, and having got through it, the
bitterness of death was past! At the stake they brought him a pardon, upon
condition that he would recant. This, of course, he pointedly refused to do, and
at last, washing his hands, as it were, in the flames, he cried with his final
breath, “Lord, receive my spirit.”

We have referred to his examinations and answers, as they were afterwards
printed in full, from the copies left behind; and by John Foxe, who knew the
martyr well. It so happened that Mrs. Rogers, with her son Daniel, had gained
access to the prison, and after looking in vain for these manuscripts, they were
about to depart, when the youth, looking round once more, spied his father’s
papers, deposited in a corner under the stair.

John Rogers appears to have been the son of a father of the same name, and born,
not in Lancashire, as it has sometimes been stated, but in Warwickshire, at
Deritend, in the immediate vicinity of Birmingham.

Rogers had been married in 1537, or the same year in which he had completed the
Bible, to Adriana Pratt, alias de Weyden. She now returned with her children to
Germany, and the lad who had found his father’s papers was afterwards better
known, as an Ambassador from Queen Elizabeth to different countries. With regard
to MILES COVERDALE without farther explanation it must appear almost incredible
that, only fourteen days after the death of Rogers, or on the 18th of February,
Queen Mary was writing a letter, of which he was to be the bearer, to the King
of Denmark. He also had been in trouble, as well as Rogers, since 1558, though
not confined to prison. This letter was written only on Monday week after the
scene at Smithfield, and the same day on which a splendid embassy was leaving
London for Rome; and yet the very next day Coverdale had his passport, “for
himself and two servants,” by which was most probably meant His wife and one
servant; and so he left England for Denmark. Thus, if the one man connected with
the Scriptures must lead the van of martyrdom, the other can easily be
extricated from the grasp of Government by the overruling providence of God. The
deliverance has been ascribed solely to the repeated and very earnest
interposition of his Danish Majesty; and but for this, humanly speaking, he
might not have survived: but there was a very curious concurrence of
circumstances in favour of Coverdale’s deliverance at this moment, for King
Christian’s second letter to Mary on his behalf was nearly five months old. Why,
then, should Coverdale, a married Bishop, and an old offender in their opinion,
be suffered to escape, and that immediately after the fire had been kindled for
Rogers? It will certainly prove to have been a memorable fact if the examination
and martyrdom of the one man should have contributed to the escape of the other,
and more especially as Rogers could have had nothing of the kind in view. The
circumstances, therefore, now referred to are the more worthy of notice, as they
not only stand in immediate connexion with the examination of the Proto-Martyr,
but discover not a little of the true character of these unprincipled men in
power. Taken all in all, they form the richest scene in the reign of Mary,
though scarcely, if at all, before observed. The martyrdom of John Rogers, in
February 1555, connects itself with that of the heroic female, Anne Askew, in
March 1546. There had been no fires in Smithfield since the memorable night on
which she suffered, almost nine years ago. Considering the progress which had
been made during the reign of’ Edward, through the medium of the Scriptures, the
death of Rogers must have been regarded by many in London with unmingled horror;
but, beside this, a large and promiscuous assembly had been present at his
notable examination on the 28th of January, when he caught Gardiner and his
bishops in a snare, and the people marked it. The language of Gardiner could not
fail to have been in the mouth of thousands ever since, and the excitement in a
few days was such as to frighten for a moment all these men of blood, from King
Philip downwards. The present juncture, embracing a space of less than three
weeks, will explain this.

It was on Tuesday the 32nd of January that Rogers was first examined. This was
before Gardiner, as Lord Chancellor, and other members of the Council, such as
Lords Howard and Paget, Sir Richard Southwell and Sir John Bourne, as
Commissioners from the Queen. But on Monday the 28th, to Wednesday the 30th,
Gardiner and many more sat by commission from Cardinal POLE; and yet only the
next week, when six other men were examined and condemned, they were not brought
before the same tribunal, but merely before Bonner and his Consistory, with the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London. Here were three distinct forms of proceeding,
within the short compass of eighteen days. Then, to crown all, the very next
day, or Sunday the 10th of February, we have a sermon preaching before King
Philip, and by a Spaniard; but upon what subject? The sin of persecution for
conscience’ sake! Now, why this erratic course on the part of the persecutors?
Why could they not go straight forward? And if this sermon was a base artifice,
of which there is now no doubt, why was it resorted to at the present moment?
The true character of all the parties in power is here involved.

Stephen Gardiner, who plumed himself on his sagacity or cunning, had, no doubt,
imagined that if he once proceeded against certain leading men; or, in the cant
phrase of the day, if the head deer were only brought to the ground, the common
people would shrink with terror, and succumb to their authority. It was full of
this idea that he commenced, in a high tone, with John Rogers on the 22nd of
January; but the very man with whom he thus began, proved to be more than a
match for his proud and imperious temper. On the 28th, as soon as Rogers
entered, nothing daunted, we know from himself that he remarked the change on
the Court. Gardiner was there, of course, as Chancellor and Bishop, and chief
persecutor; but “there were,” says Rogers, “a great sort of new men, his follow
bishops, of whom I knew few”-after eighteen months’ confinement. There were, in
fact, not fewer than thirteen in all, six on each side of the Chancellor,
besides three notaries, three noblemen, eleven knights, and a very great
multitude.

Gardiner perhaps never forgot himself so far as he did this day; but he could
not stand the replies or remarks of his prisoner, and found it not so easy to
examine these men as he had anticipated. In his wrath he actually called King
Edward an usurper, and then tried clumsily to recall the term; but another
expression, in reference to the reigning Queen, turned out to be vastly more
awkward for him and all his order. Rogers had intimated his persuasion that “her
Majesty would have done well enough but for his (Gardiner’s) counsel.” When, in
his haste, in reference to the persecution now commenced, he replied-“The Queen
went before Me and it was HER own motion!” Thus affording another instance of
persecutors wishing to shift the blame from themselves; though certainly, at
such a time as this, the assertion was very hazardous, whether it was true or
false. But Rogers replied-“Without fail, I neither can, nor will I ever, believe
it!” Aldrich of Carlisle, in name of himself and all his brethren, immediately
said-“They would bear Gardiner witness.” “Yea,” said Rogers, “that I believe
well.” On which the laugh went round among the crowd assembled. Upon this, even
Sir Richard Southwell, the Master-Comptroller of the Royal Household, and Sir
John Bourne, Principal Secretary of State, stood up to confirm the Chancellor’s
assertion. Never had men more fully committed themselves. Rogers then said-“It
was no great matter; but I think that they,” the Bishops, “were good helpers
thereunto themselves.” Such a dialogue was easily carried away, and every word
must have told upon the people throughout the metropolis; but the assertion
first made, in open court, and before such a crowd, for “the thousandth man
could not get in,” was felt, in the cool of the day, to have been no light
matter. If it was true, they had betrayed a state secret! Accordingly, next
morning, when Rogers and Hooper were brought up for condemnation, it was found
convenient to do so, as already hinted, with closed doors.

Gardiner, however, both this day and the next, was equally nettled in the
examinations of Tailour, Bradford, and Saunders. From Rogers, to the last man
examined, he had had his own book,-“De Vera Obedientia,” or “True
Obedience,”-quoted against himself, and his present conduct. To this book,
Bonner had affixed a preface, or high culogium; and both having been translated
into English, and printed abroad, many had it in their hands, many more in their
mouths, and it was now quoted, or referred to, before both the authors, by men
who had been long familiar with the original publication in Latin. Tunstal also
was forcibly reminded of his famous sermon before Henry VIII., printed by
Berthelet in 1539, or sixteen years ago. It, therefore, could not fail to be no
small mortification, after his furious attack on the head deer, when my Lord
Chancellor found that here were six more men waiting to be examined; one of
them, indeed, a gentleman, Mr. Hawkes, but the other live precisely of that
humbler class on whose boldness and principle poor Gardiner had not calculated,
Hence, when these individuals came to be examined and condemned, neither the
Chancellor nor eleven of his Bishops were there! The whole process was
despatched, and that speedily, by Bonner alone, as Ordinary, who had called the
Lord Mayor, Sir John Lyon, and certain Aldermen, to sit with him and his
underlings.

Bonner had examined the whole number on Friday, and condemned them all to the
flames on Saturday the 9th of February, or the fifth day after the Proto-Martyr
had been consumed to ashes; and what, then, could the reader expect to follow
only next day? If it was a sermon-which, in these times, was a great rarity, and
therefore the more to be observed-must it not have been a sermon in praise of
the Bishops, for their burning zeal on behalf of “the old learning?” It was
quite the reverse. The blundering assertion of Gardiner to Rogers, only thirteen
days since, confirmed as it had been by all the Bishops present, and even two
official laymen, had neither been forgotten nor unfelt. It had certainly placed
her Majesty before the country in one of the most critical of all positions, as
the sole and imperative persecutor; and there can be no doubt, from what
followed, had made her tremble, not only for herself, but the husband on whom,
at this moment, she doated. The truth is, that public feeling still ran very
high against the Queen’s marriage. She had allied herself to a Spanish prince,
and the people had been foretold that, to a certainty, he would introduce the
Court of Inquisition into England. Nothing, therefore, could have been more
dangerous to the Queen than the positive affirmation of Gardiner, before a large
and promiscuous audience. So, at least, it had been felt, but more especially by
King Philip; and what was the miserable artifice to which he resorted? he had
brought with him into England, as his confessor, Francis Alphonso di Castro, a
Spanish divine, himself an author against heretics; and this was the man
appointed by the King to preach before the Court, on the 10th of February, and
against religious persecution.

We regret not being able to find out his text; but in the course of his sermon
he enlarged on the sin of taking away the lives of any for their
religion-reprobated the practice or burning men on account of their opinions-and
affirmed that the Bishops would search the Scriptures in vain for any authority
to spill the blood of their flocks. The Scriptures, he insisted, taught Bishops,
in the spirit of meekness, to instruct those who opposed them, and not to burn
them for their conscientious opinions! But the Lord Chancellor of England, at
the moment, was a Bishop, and President of the Court for burning; Tunstal, who,
in former days, led the van of persecution, had sat on his left hand, and Bonner
on his right, who, only the day before, at one sweep, had appointed not fewer
than six men to the flames. By the authority of these men, and ten others of the
same order, on Monday before, Rogers had been consumed to ashes; on Friday, at
Coventry, Saunders had followed; and only twenty-four hours before the sermon,
Hooper was in the flames at Gloucester, and Dr. Tailour at Hadley! As an
exhibition, therefore, next day, nothing could have exceeded this. A Spanish
priest upon English ground, preaching before the Court, and against the Bishops
of England, especially those in power! Arraigning, nay denouncing them in
public, for having embrued their hands in blood! While there sat Philip to
sanction the sermon, not without some fear for his personal safety or favour;
and, like Pilate of old, he seemed “to take water and wash his hands before the
multitude,” saying, “I am innocent of the blood of these just men.” The
occurrence was a remarkable one; and the more so, since it is evident, that
nothing less than apprehension of some sort in the breast of the Monarch, could
have been the impelling motive. “It was believed,” says Collier, “that the Queen
was overruled since her marriage, and that these fires had been kindled by
Philip: however, the King, it seems, had no mind to lie under this imputation.”
Where Gardiner and Tunstal were, or how engaged, at the moment when the Spaniard
was preaching, we are not informed; but certainly our exulting Lord Chancellor
had but little imagined, that the Editor of Tyndale’s Bible would live to come
to England, and lead him, in the last year of his life, so to expose the Bench
and the Court, at one stroke! Still less could He have supposed that the stone
man would so hit the mark, as to cause him eventually to shrink behind the
curtain, and retire from playing at the game of persecution ever after!! Such at
least was the fact, for “he never afterwards,” says Lingard, “took his seat on
the bench,”-“whether it was,” says the same author, “that Gardiner disapproved
of the measure, or that he was called away by more important duties!!” The
latter alternative is, to say the least, strangely expressed; but neither the
one nor the other will now serve the purpose of history, in accounting for the
Chancellor’s nonappearance. “Gardiner,” says Soames, “having kindled the fires
of persecution, left to others the hateful office of supplying them with a
succession of victims:” but we have no evidence whatever of any change of
disposition in the man. The circumstances now related, alone and perfectly
account for that change of tactics which ultimately ensued. At present, however,
there was a dead pause; the execution even of the condemned prisoners was
suspendedc and the crisis occasioned farther debate in the Council itself.

Now, it was precisely at this moment that Coverdale was re/eased, and sent out
of the country. On Monday week after this sermon, it had been thought advisable
for the Queen at last to write her letter. It might very conveniently seem
almost to contradict what Gardiner had said in open court, that day three weeks
before, and on Tuesday the passport was also ready. It will, perhaps, therefore
now be conceded, that there was at least some connexion, between the examination
of Rogers and the escape of Coverdale: though the interference of his Danish
Majesty must not pass unexplained.

It so happened that Covcrdale, as well as Rogers, was a married man; and strange
as it may appear, that which had formed a source of such agonizing distress to
the one man, became one of relief and safety to the other; a circumstance the
more remarkable, as marriage, though “honourable in all,” was alone sufficient,
after the accession of Queen Mary, to ensure the bitterest mockery, as well as
privation and punishment. So Rogers had felt, especially during the last ten
days of his life. It was to an excellent woman, Elizabeth: Macheson, that
Coverdale had been allied for a number of years, and they were both at Exeter
when he was summoned to appear before the Council at Richmond, in August 1553.
From that time he had been committed, though as a prisoner at large. But then he
and an exile from Scotland had married two sisters, known, from monumental
inscription, to be of Scottish extraction, though they might have been born
abroad. This exile, who had passed through England to the Continent, was John
Macbee, named in his own country Macalpine, and known abroad as Dr. Maccabaeus.
Having retired to Denmark, he had been of great use to Christian II.; was not
only one of his Chaplains, and professor of Theology in the University of
Copenhagen, founded by the King, but had been one of the translators of the
Danish Bible, first printed in 1550. It was through his intercession for his
brother-in-law, Coverdale, that the King interfered, and himself wrote a letter
to Mary, so early as the seventh calends of May, or 25th April, 1554. This drew
forth a tardy and evasive reply, as if the only cause of displeasure with
Coverdale had been, that he was in debt to the Treasury, or in arrears with his
tenths. Taking advantage of this admission, his Majesty wrote a still more
urgent letter-“It was only a debt, and the bishopric had not been enjoyed long
enough to afford to pay anything-he would not trouble her Majesty by repeating
the petition;” but “we plainly hope for such an end, that Coverdale himself
shall shortly, in our presence, make declaration concerning the benefit of his
welfare obtained of your Majesty.” In this letter, dated from “our city of Otton
(Odensee) the 24th of September, 1554,” the case was actually so put, as if a
refusal might affect the good understanding between the two kingdoms; and yet we
have seen that four months passed away, till at last they came to the
examination of Rogers and its consequences. It may therefore be said, in
conclusion, that to the influence of two men, Maccabaeus and Rogers, both of
whom had been connected with the translation of the Scriptures, the third,
Coverdale , was indebted for his deliverance! That the sermon of the Spanish
friar was not merely a shallow artifice, but a piece of profane mockery,
appeared but too soon. Only five short weeks had passed away, when Philip and
Mary, and the Bishops by their authority, and that of Cardinal Pole, were once
more fairly started on their pursuit after blood. Six individuals, it will be
remembered, were under condemnation at the moment when di Castro was denouncing
all cruelty.

Five of these it was found expedient to send to the country, and put to death in
different places; one of whom, Mr. Hawkes, did not suffer till so late as the
10th of June: but even so early as the 16th of March, the fire was first kindled
for one of the six, Tomkins, and in Smithfield itselt. Only ten days after this
step, an order was sent to the Justices of Norfolk, in which they had special
instructions to look after all preachers of heresy and private meetings; and
this order, let it be observed, was by no other than the King and Queen. Nay,
before the 24th of May they had sent their “Letters unto the Justices within
every of the counties of this our realm,” and even Bonner himself must be roused
and urged to proceed to extremities; their Majesties at the same time actually
expressing “no little marvel” that there had been such relaxation on the part of
certain Justices. Paulet, Marquess of Winchester, “the willow tree and not an
oak,” who bent with every blast, was specially vigilant in the Council, and
Richard Lord Rich, a persecutor from the days of Sir Thomas More, was no less
active down in the country; but still, even to the close of this year, 1555, it
was found necessary to proceed with caution in London Out of above eighty
martyrs before the 18th of December, not more than seven appear to have suffered
in the capital.

It was in January the next year, 1556, that the persecutors set off in full
vigour, when seven individuals were committed to the flames at Smithfield, in
one fire, and five at Canterbury, in another! In short, Gardiner, unchanged,
must go the way of all the earth, and Cardinal Pole succeed as the adviser;
when, what with his official authority, administered with characteristic policy,
and that of the King and Queen, at certain convenient moments, Bonner, as “the
chief slaughterman of England,” powerfully aided by his Satanic assistants, and
other persecuting prelates, contrived to perpetrate all the cruelties, or the
sickening enumeration, which has been already given. As for Latimer and Ridley,
they (tied triumphantly at Oxford, on the 16th of October, twenty-seven days
before the unhappy death of Gardiner.

Cranmer followed on Saturday the 21st of March, 1556, in the sixtyseventh year
of his age, and after the manner which has been so plentifully described
elsewhere, by conflicting authorities. Whatever imperfections were to be found
in his character, the virulence with which it has occasionally been attacked,
only proves, that for the part he acted as a whole, he is never, by certain
parties, to be forgiven. In a history such as the present, however, the
character of Cranmer now comes before us, under an aspect altogether different
from that which it may have done in any other history. The present writer is not
only relieved from entering farther into its merits or demerits, but that there
is high, because sacred ground, for his abstaining. The translation of the
Sacred Volume was the work of another. So far as Cranmer followed up the
subject, under Henry’s reign, in conjunction with Crumwell, we have endeavoured
to do him ample justice. Under Edward he never appears to have personally
returned to the work; but his abstaining from all interference with any others
so engaged, ought never to be forgotten.

Upon the accession of Henry’s eldest daughter, and with immediate reference to
the Scriptures, the country at large was in a very different state from what it
had been less than thirty years ago, when there was neither a printed Bible, nor
even a New Testament in print, within its borders. Just before Mary assumed the
Crown, England seemed to be fairly on the way for becoming a land as
distinguished for the possession of the Sacred Volume, as God had appointed it
should be, in the end. About sixty-five editions of the New Te stament, and
thirty of the entire Bible, had passed through the press: but here now was an
opposing party, not only in full power, but determined to exercise it. Resolved
to carry everything before them, it might naturally have been supposed, that one
of the very first movements must have been a systematic attempt to destroy all
these volumes. Could the burning of the sacred books have been a more obnoxious
measure, than the burning of men and women, old and young? Was the seizing of
the Scriptures, and at once burning them in open day, not as easy as the seizure
and imprisonment of men? And yet, however much blood was shed ultimately, and
however much cruelty inflicted, on the part of Government there was, on the
whole, a most mysterious silence maintained, with regard to the English Bible,
which has never been sufficiently observed. In the days of Henry the Eighth, it
was the book by way of eminence, the “pestiferous poison,” as Tunstal profanely
styled it; the “heretical fountain of all novel and dangerous opinions;” or, the
Sacred Volume, under various abusive epithets, against which they gave forth
their loudest thunder, and after which, under orders, they daily hunted. The
very possession of it, or its distribution, whether by gift or sale, were crimes
denounced and punished. There were a thousand copies in England now, for one at
that period; and yet, under Queen Mary the great hue and cry had almost entirely
changed. Justification by faith, as a tenet of Scripture, but, above all,
transubstantiation, as a chief corner-stone of “the old learning,” were the
engrossing topics; mixed up with an endless measure of low and even obscene
abuse on the part of the examinators. But throughout these tedious and repeated
cross-examinations, the cautious abstinence from reference to the Bible, as a
book, or to the possession of it, is very remarkable. The examinators never
appear to have been enjoined to abstain, and yet they did. Throughout the entire
reign there were three proclamations, and in the second only were any books
whatever specified by name. The first of these, 18th August, 1553, already
mentioned, merely forbade the public reading of the Scriptures. The second was
not issued till twenty-two months after, on the 13th of June, 1555. In this,
twenty-five authors are distinctly denounced by name, or thirteen foreigners,
and twelve English-men; thus hinting, by the way, a continued and powerful
importation of books from abroad, but nothing is enjoined as to burning the
Scriptures already printed and possessed. The injunction related solely to the
books specified being imported from henceforth. The last proclamation was
certainly the most dreadful. It referred to books, in general terms, wicked and
seditious, to be delivered up on pain of death, without delay, by martial law!
But this was not issued till three years after the former, on the 6th June,
1558, or only five months before Mary’s death; and still no mention is made of
the Bible. Testament, separately. It was a proclamation against books of human
composition only, not the Sacred Scriptures.

Copies of the Scriptures no doubt were consigned to the flames, though we can
fix upon no more than three occasions. The first is mentioned, three years after
Mary had been on the throne, when at least one foreign author, Cabrera, has told
us that “many of the Bibles, chained to desks in churches, were burnt about this
time;” and again, in the opening of 1557, when the Universities of Cambridge and
Oxford were visited by Ormaneto, a furious Italian, datary of the Pontiff, or
chief officer of the Court of Rome. When the bones of Bucer and Fagius were
actually dug up and burned at the former, Bibles as well as other books were
also consumed; and the same course is said to have been pursued at Oxford, when
the dead body of Peter Martyr’s wife was treated with such indignity. But still,
in the midst of so much Satanic opposition, and the royal denunciation of other
books and human authors, perhaps there has never been a more striking line of
distinction drawn, in reference to the Sacred Volume. What renders the fact
already stated still more observable is-that the translations of the Bible by
Tyndale and Coverdale had been once pointed out, or referred to, at least by the
priests or clergy, und for destruction. In an address by the Lower to the Upper
House, these were their words-“We the clergy of the province of Canterbury do
humbly pray”-“that all suspect translations of the Old and New Testament, the
authors whereof [not however here named] are recited in a statute made year of
Henry VIII. &c. may be destroyed and burnt throughout this reahn” These few
words are buried among twenty-eight other items, and the, reference made must be
to the Act of 34th of Henry; but still no express law followed, nor was there a
single proclamation in compliance, or one in which the Sacred Volume was pointed
out for destruction, either by royal authority or that of the Convocation, or
that of Cardinal Pole. Why then not acknowledge the Overruler? “He maketh the
wrath of man to praise Him, and the remainder thereof he restrains.” Nor was
this the only point worthy of observation under this reign.

Providentially, time was afforded for the preservation of the Scriptures, and by
two distinct methods. One was by their being carried abroad, beyond the reach of
danger. The pause at the commencement of Mary’s reign was not unimproved as to
personal safety, and the exiles unquestionably availed themselves of the
opportunity as to that which they valued above most fine gold. A single copy, if
more could be carried away, would not satisfy any one among them; and it was far
more easy for them to carry books away at the time they went, than it was
afterwards for some of these exiles to import their own writings. This, however,
they afterwards did, and to such extent, as to provoke the royal inhibition of
June 1555, which, after all, could not stem the influx. The stern proclamation
of death by martial law, three years after, was a proof of failure; and the
Queen was thus, in effect, only declaring-what her father before his death had
done-that royal edicts, in certain circumstances, if not nearly impotent,
possess no sovereign power. But the other mode of preservation was by
concealment; and this was practised to no small extent, whether in the crowded
city or the hamlets of England. This course, however, from its very nature, did
not admit of its being put on record, and yet; we are not without evidence of
the fact. The highly-prized treasure, read often in the dead of the night, was
concealed under the bed, in hay-lofts, or in out-houses; and we have one notable
instance, of another mode. Mary had not dismissed from her immediate service all
who had any value for the Scriptures; on the contrary, Strype assures us, from
manuscript, that the Gentlemen Ushers of iht Queen were “almost all favourers of
the Gospel.” These had been in the service of Edward, her brother, with the
exception of others that she had appointed. Of one of them the same laborious
author gives a long account in his “Memorials,”-Mr. Underhill, a gentlemen, who,
though imprisoned and molested, after all continued to receive his pension, and
outlived the present reign. At one, period, “a diligent search being made for
all suspicious books,” he was then living in Wood Street, Cheapside. Underhill
forthwith “sent for a bricklayer, and built up a wall in his chamber, against
the place where all his books were, and so inclosed them in sccurity from the
danger of being taken, preserving them for himself against better times.”
Similar precautions were, no doubt, taken by others; and it is impossible to say
how many precious volumes, if not also printing materials, were built up until
Mary should draw her last breath.

It may now, however, be observed that, of all the other books printed up to this
period in England, there are not a few of which not a vestige remains; while, in
reference to the Scriptures, of which so many editions had been printed, nay,
and innumerable editions since, it is a most singular fact, that there are very
few, perhaps not above three or four, of which we have not a copy, and of the
great majority several copies, either in England or Scotland. In this point of
view, our list of editions at the end of this work becomes one of the most
remarkable in the entire range of English literature.

Returning, however, to the reign of Mary, Rogers has been martyred, and
Coverdale banished; Grafton and Whitchurch, though imprisoned, and excepted in
the general pardon granted at Mary’s accession, have escaped to the Continent;
John Day, the spirited printer, and above twenty more beside, can act no more as
they were wont to do, up to July 1553, when Edward died. Was there then
absolutely nothing to be done, under this Queen’s reign, in the way of farther
progress? With regard to printing the Scriptures, howevcr humbling to national
vanity, we are obliged to answer-in England absolutely nothing. The press was
fettered or suppressed, and not a leaf could be issued. The text of the
translation also required to be reviewed with far more leisure and superior
skill than it had ever yet been upon English ground, or since the first edition
by Rogers; but this cannot be done, or rather, as Providence had determined,
must not, in any corner of our native land. The Government has fallen back into
very much the same condition in which it was in 1523, when Tyndale found at the
last, that there was “not only no room in my Lord of London’s house to translate
the New Testament, but that there was no place to do it in all England.” But
what did all this signify? Providence had at the first spoken to this Island, in
a way not common to the other nations of Europe, and there was nothing now to
prevent a repetition of the same singular mode. An exile from his native country
first accomplished the translation, and somehow or other got the book introduced
into the kingdom, in spite of’ Henry VIII., and his Cardinal Wolsey. Then, an
exile shall do the same thing once more; by correcting and printing the New
Tcstament, and sending it into England in spite of either Philip or Mary, or
their Cardinal Pole. In every point of view this was no other than a similar
triumph; and in both instances at a moment when there was nothing but opposition
from the Crown and the bench of Bishops, as well as a Cardinal, by authority
from Rome, triumphantly presiding in the country. It also deserves remark, that,
in both cases, the Testament was published anonymously, without ostentation, or
a dedication to any official individual whatever. In the first instance, the
name of the translator was not known, nor till Tyndale was compelled by
circumstances to disclose it. In the second instance, nothing having occurred to
compel the improver of this version to disclose his name, it has been ovcrlooked
to the present hour. Both books were prepared, and sent into England, when
perseccution was the order of the day, and every seaport seemed to be shut
against them. No analogy could be more striking, or complete. But was this
second triumph effected while Mary was yet on the throne? It was. The recension
of the text must, have commenced not long after the time when the stake was
first prepared; the book left the press on the 10th of June, 1557, one of the
most awful months in the record of persecution, when at least twenty-seven
martyrs perished in the flames; and it was perusing in England, for some time
before the Queen’s death. By how many indeed, it is impossible to say; one
authentic instance we find in a victim of’ Bonner’s cruelty, John Living, a
priest of some learning, who complains that on being conveyed to prison, the
jailer carried him first to his own house in Paternoster Row, and “there,” says
he, “robbed me of my purse, my girdle, my Psalter, and a New Testament of
Geneva.” But what was this Testament of which he spake? It was the book to which
we have referred; avery beautiful one, and now of rare occurrence, printed with
a silver type, and on the best paper; by far the best review of the Sacred text
that had yet been made, “diligently revised by the most approved Greek examples,
and conference of translations in other tongues.” It is the first English New
Testament, divided into verses, and formed an important preliminary step to the
revision of the whole Bible.

Few mistakes have been more common, and even up to the present day, than that of
ascribing the translation of the Scriptures into English to a number of
individuals. Thus the name of Tyndale has frequently been associated with
various other men. The same confusion has prevailed, when referring to this
“Testament of Geneva.” “This translation,” it has been said, “was made by mary
of the principal English Reformers.” The translation, correctly speaking, is an
improvement of Tyndale’s, on comparing it with the Greek original, once more:
but so far from many being engaged, the address to the reader at the beginning
incontestably proves it to have been the work of only one man; and we now offer
some interesting particulars respecting one, which will probably leave no
hesitation as to his being the person to whom his country stood indebted.
William Whittingham, the branch of a family, not extinct in the male line, till
so recently as 1758, was born in the year 1524 at Holmeset, afterwards called
Holmeside Hall, six miles from Durham, in the parish of Lanchester. His father,
William Whittingham, Esq., of Holmeset, had sent him to Oxford, where he became
a commoner in Brazen-nose College about 1540, and made such proficiency in
learning, that in 1545 he was elected a Fellow of All-Souls. Anthony Wood
affirms that he was after this chosen one of the senior students in Christ
Church, formerly Cardinal College; “Henry VIII. endeavouring to replenish it
with the choicest scholars in the University,” precisely as, the reader may
remember, Wolsey at first attempted. This is curious enough, as Whittingham was
thus following in the same path by which John Fryth had been led, twenty years
ago.

Whittingham, however, so for from being, like his predecessor, confined in the
dungeon below, in May 1550 had leave granted him, by the dean and canons, to
travel for three years. he embarked for France, intending to go into Italy; but
being taken unwell at Lyon, he proceeded first to Paris, and then to Orleans
University, spending at least a year and a half between these two cities. After
having visited several parts of Germany, his travels terminated at Geneva, where
he remained till about May 1553, when his three years had expired. But what a
change awaited him on his return!

Edward died on the 6th of July. Christ Church now must soon have proved as
dangerous to him, as Cardinal College, or the same spot, had done to Fryth.
Whittingham, with a mind now enlightened, had no idea of waiting till another
Cardinal should bear sway, and his agents at Oxford burn Bibles, as Wolsey had
treated the New Testament Scriptures. Instead, therefore, of “leave granted” a
second time, just as if to make the parallel more complete, like Fryth or
Tyndale before that, he must now fly to the Continent, where he arrived in
safety, and at Frankfort, on the 27th of June, 1554, with the first exiles who
there took up their abode. In March, next year, arose the well-known “troubles
of Frankfort,” where the exiles differing in nothing that respected the great
essential principles of Divine Truth, plunged into a vortex of angry strife
respecting the mere external forms of social worship. Neither party had
sufficient light to take the high and safe ground, the all-sufficiency of the
Sacred Record itself; and the contention became so sharp, that soon they were
divided into two hostile bands! One party retired to Basle and Geneva, and the
other, who had conquered, remained at Frankfort, but were never united among
themselves. Whittingham was one of the retiring party; in retiring with him we
shall now have occasion to mark the watchful care of the Almighty over His own
Word; once more about to be given to a country, which was once more fighting
against it. He immediately after this found out for this confessedly eminent
scholar, far different and nobler occupation than that of fighting at Frankfort,
about the words which man’s wisdom teacheth.

Whittingham had hitherto sustained only the character of a Christian and a
scholar. Having had no official, that is, no ministerial character in the
Church, he bore still nearer resemblance to John Fryth; and in his own
apprehension, we know, that, “from his former travels and observations, and his
acquisition of several languages,” he imagined “he had fitted himself more for
civil or state employment than any other.” No matter; this, we presume, is the
individual now selected to sit down, with greater skill and more composure, to
the New Testament, than any man since Tyndale himself; and, like him also,
happily now unfettered by any human authority whatever. Hitherto Whittingham had
lived a single life, but after retiring to Geneva, where he had arrived in the
autumn of 1555, he was married to Catherine, the sister of John Calvin. Whatever
may have been the date of his marriage, this was the time in which he must have
applied assiduously to the English New Testament, with “the most approved Greek
examples” before him. To his recension of Tyndale’s version, he prefixed two
things.

First, “an Epistle declaring that Christ is the end of the Law, by John Calvin,”
his brother-in-law; and then his own address, of three leaves, “To the Reader.”
In this, he speaks throughout in the singular number, taking the entire
responsibility upon himself; and after the broil in which he had previously been
involved at Frankfort, his language becomes the more impressive. Adverting to
three distinct classes of men, he says- “The third sort are the simple lambs,
which partly are already in the fold of Christ, and so hear willingly their
Shepherd’s voice, and partly wandering astray by ignorance, tarry the time till
the Shepherd find them, and bring them unto His flock. To this kind of people,
in this translation, I chiefly had respect, as moved with zeal, couselled by the
godly, and drawn by occasion, both of the place where God hath appointed us to
dwell, and also of the store of heavenly learning and judgment, which so
aboundeth in this city of Geneva.....To these, therefore, who are of the flock
of Christ, which know their Father’s will, and are affectioned to the truth, I
render a reason of my doing in few lines,” &c. “Counselled,” as he tells us, by
others, it is evident that the writer had obtained the palm for scholarship
among his brethren: now as Whittingham will come before us, presently as the
chief person engaged with the entire Scriptures, or the Geneva Bible of 1560,
there can remain little or no doubt that he is the man now speaking in this
preface. Afterwards he will appear to have availed himself of the learning of
some other individuals, though by no means to the extent which has been all
along so vaguely reported. This New Testament, in duodecimo, neatly printed in
Roman and Italic types, consists of 456 leaves, including the title-“The Newe
Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ, conferred diligently with the Greke and best
approued translations. With the arguments as wel before the chapters as for
every Boke and Epistle; also diversities of readings, and moste proffitable
annotations of all harde places; whereunto is added a copious table.-At Geneva,
printed by Conrad Badius, M.D. LVII.” And at the end, “Printed by Conrad Badius,
M.D. LVII. this x day of June.” ‘The date is worth notice on one account, that
Whirringham died only six miles from the spot where he was born, or at Durham,
on the very same day, twenty-two years afterwards, the 10th of June, 1579. A
copy of this book, at public sale, has brought as much as £11 5s.

Here, then, was one set-off for the reign of Queen Mary, which she and her
husband would have gladly dispensed with. Literally, in the time of “blood and
fire, and vapour of smoke,” in a dark and cloudy day for England, that was
accomplished which had never been overtaken all the time of King Edward. The New
Testament did require revision, but it must be done by an exile upon foreign
ground, and be printed much nearer to Rome than London, while the book, as we
have seen, was already in the kingdom.

More than this, the entire Bible, still more improved by a careful comparison of
the original Hebrew and Greek, was already commenced; nay, during the last year
of this Queen’s reign, the revisers at Geneva were engaged with it literally
night and day. Whatever, therefore, had been overturned or trodden down in
England, this cause had sensibly advanced. The storm had only enlivened its
progress, and actually brought it into a far better state than it was before. We
have yet to see how it fared with “the Exiles’“ Bible, and what a blessing it
proved to the families of our native land, for a period equal to ten times the
duration of Queen Mary’s reign. The Queen expiring on the 17th of November,
1558, she was succeeded by her sister Elizabeth.

REIGN OF ELIZABETH. 1558.-1603. A Reign, However Powerful In Every Other
Department, Having No Actual Control Over The Choice Or Preference Of The People
Of England, With Regard To The Sacred Scriptures In Their Native Tongue, And
Thus Presenting The Only Exception To Unlimited Sway. THE second daughter and
only surviving child of Henry VIII., or the last branch of the Tudor family, now
ascended the throne, at the age of twentyfive.

Born with the finest natural capacity, the education of Elizabeth, followed by
the discipline through which she had passed, enabled her to hold the sceptre
with a firmer grasp than that of any of her family who had preceded her; and
throughout the long period of above forty-four years, England had no occasion to
complain for want of a strong government. The preservation of the Queen to the
present hour was very remarkable, and it proves, in the most striking manner,
that a nation can no more judge of what may contribute to its stability, than
any single man can tell what is good for him all the days of his vain life,
which he spendeth as a shadow.

Thus, the English people, when Mary was proclaimed, had drowned with joy the
voice of the heralds; but their hearts revolted at the very prospect of her
marriage to a Spanish prince; and the step once taken was never forgiven. Yet
that prince must come into the country, and enjoying, as he did, entire sway
over his English Queen, thus prove one instrument, and in no inferior degree, of
preserving her sister from the block. The life of no heir to a throne was ever
worth less than that of Elizabeth at one period; and had Mary only remained
single, with Stephen Gardiner for her adviser, humanly speaking, her sister
might have ended her days on the scaffold.

One providential purpose for which Philip had come to England being answered, he
may live abroad, and another day, with his Armada, seem to be bent on the ruin
of the princess he had saved; but she will outlive him us well as every storm
that shall be raised against her. The first months of this able monarch were
distinguished by caution, a caution which extended to her treatment of the
Sacred Volume. It is true that when presented with an elegant English Bible, on
her first progress through London, she kissed it, and said that she would
ofttimes read that holy book; but that did not imply her approbation of its
being printed and circulated freely. Even at her coronation, when there was to
be an opening of the prison doors to them that were bound, and one besought her
to set free four or five others who had long been shut up, meaning the four
Evangelists and the Apostle Paul, she replied with more shrewdness than grace,
“That it were better first to inquire of themselves whether they would be
released or no.” There was now to be no Parliament or Convocation for three
years, but at last, and without therefore having consulted either the one or the
other, about midsummer or the ‘autumn of this year we hear something respecting
the Scriptures; and by virtue of Elizabeth’s authority, certain injunctions were
issued. Among these were the following, left with every parish visited:- “To
provide within three months after this visitation, at the charges of the parish,
one book of the whole Bible of the largest; volume in English, and within one
twelve months the paraphrases of Erasmus, also in English, and the same to be
set up in some convenient place within the said Church, where the parishioners
may most conveniently resort and read the same. All parsons under the degree of
A.M. shall buy for their own use the New Testament in Latin and English with
paraphrases, within three months. Inquiry was to be made whether any Parsons,
Vicars, or Curates, did discourage any person from reading any part of the
Bible, either in Latin or English.” No intimation was given here, or anywhere
else, as to how or where such, volumes were to be found, and hence it has been
inferred by Lewis, that under the late reign they had not been destroyed or
burnt to any very great extent. At the same time, it may be observed that this
was nothing more than a royal in junction; buried too among not fewer than fifty
others, some of which are strange enough; and if the effects resembled those
which resulted from Henry’s voice, then there would, in many instances, be a
reluctant, in others, only a tardy compliance. As for the preparation of more
copies, Elizabeth said not one word, while the printing press, as we shall see
presently, far from approaching its freedom in the days of Edward, has become
more fettered than it had ever been, since the art was first introduced into
England!

All this, however, will only render the progress in printing of the Sacred
Volume still more remarkable. This was a cause in which neither the reigning
Prince nor the Privy Council, the Parliament or Convocation, had ever been much
consulted, and never with a view to its essential progress.

It had commenced contrary to the will of all these parties, and as certainly
proceeded without taking orders from them. For the progress therefore, at this
crisis, as we were accustomed to do in the days of Elizabeth’s father, we must
now look abroad. From thence the Queen requires to be put on her way, and in a
manner not unlike to Henry’s reception and sanction of the Bible at first, in
1537.

While Elizabeth was yet in jeopardy of her life, and under the guardianship of
Sir Thomas Pope, we have already seen that an edition of the New Testament had
been printed at Geneva,-that copies were finding their way into England, in
despite of all opposition,-and that an edition of the entire Scriptures was
already commenced, in the same city. The exiles themselves inform us when this
was begun. It was when “the time was dangerous, and the persecution, in England,
sharp and furious.” The fact is, that no sooner had the New Testament left the
press, than Whittingham, with one or two others, were preparing for their larger
undertaking, and, at the latest, by January 1558 they had commenced. These men
tell us that “they thought they could bestow their labours and study in nothing
more acceptable to God, and comfortable to His Church;” and they add,-“God
knoweth with what fear and trembling we have been for the space of two years and
more, day and night, occupied herein.” The spaco referred to, therefore, was
from January 1558 to the 10th of April, 1560, when the last sheet was put to
press.

Considering the high character of this version, and the number of editions
through which it passed, it would have been gratifying could we have fixed, with
more positive certainty, on the individuals to whom the nation stood indebted.
They were most probably not more than three in number, or four at the most; but
whether it arose from modesty or motives of prudence, we are left to find out
the real parties. The revision has been often, it is true, and very loosely
ascribed, to six, and even nine, individuals, as though engaged in one
body:-viz. William Whittingham, Anthony Gilby, Miles Coverdale, Thomas Sampson,
Christopher Goodman, Thomas Cole, John Knox, John Bodleigh, and John Pullain.

This, however, is doing nothing else than numbering up certain men possessed of
learning, who happened to be then living in Geneva. It requires but a little
investigation to reduce the number to one-third, and then, we presume, the great
burden, if not the entire responsibility, will appear to have fallen upon three
of these scholars. It is true that all these men, with many others, were
intimately and affectionately connected with each other. They were members of
the same Christian church, and a church, be it observed, which as a body felt
deeply interested in this edition of the Sacred Volume. The entire expense not
only of this Bible, but of an edition of the Psalms by itself, was defrayed by
“such as were of most ability in that congregation.” There was no application to
their native country, no solicitation of one farthing from without. Amidst the
storm that raged against the truth, they had been driven into a corner, and thus
the Church was employed. In the fulness of their hearts, the sound learning of
certain members, and the pecuniary substance of others, being devoted to the
cause of their common Saviour, nothing could be a finer exhibition of Christian
zeal for the highest interests of their native land. Thus, as the first
translation of the Sacred Word, commenced in 1524, had sprung from the devoted
zeal of a solitary Christian exile, whose heart had bled with pity for his
country; so the next thorough revision of the entire Sacred Text must come from
the bosom of a small Christian community, also in exile, “for the Word of God
and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” The accession of Queen Elizabeth, however,
in November 1558, naturally filled this entire circle with joy, and the men we
have named, as well as others, were as naturally separated; but then this was
with the exception of those who had devoted themselves to the revision and
printing of the Bible. The good news had reached Geneva in December, and at that
moment, we are informed, that the greater part of the book was not finished; but
“Whittingham, with one or two more, did tarry at Geneva a year and a half after
Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown, being resolved to go through with the work.”
Le Long has affirmed that “the chief and most learned” of the men already
mentioned, were Coverdale, Whittingham, and Gilby; but Coverdale, now seventy
years of age, cannot be traced as at Geneva sooner than December 1558, and it is
certain that he returned in 1559; how early we cannot tell. He was preaching at
Paul’s Cross on the 12th of November. In short, Knox had left Geneva as early as
January 1559; Goodman followed him to Scotland, where we find him in September;
while it is as certain that Coverdale and Cole, Pullain and Bodleigh, returned
to England in the same year. The only three left, therefore, were Whittingham,
Gilby, and Sampson, and with their names only the translation should have been
associated; since the men who completed “the greater part,” must have been those
by whom it had been begun. Many of their brethren, indeed, they tell us, “put
them on this work by their earnest desire and exhortation;” while others
encouraged them “not to spare any charge for the furtherance of such a benefit
and favour of God toward His Church.”

Although we cannot now notice every edition here, but rcfer to our list, yet as
the only English Bible distinctly pointed out in any patent, from Elizabeth
downwards, and especially as the basis of so many editions for above eighty
years to come, this demands some farther notice. Title.-“ THE BIBLE AND HOLY
SCRIPTURES conteyned in the Olde and Newe Testament. Translated according to the
Ebrue and Greke, and conferred with the best translations in divers langages.
With moste profitable annotations upon all the harde places, and other thinges
of great importance as may appeare in the Epistle to the Reader.” Beneath is a
wood-cut, of the Israelites passing through the Red Sea. “At Geneva.

Printed by Rouland Hall, MDLX.” Collation.-After a dedication to the Queen, and
an Epistle to the Readers, about to be noticed, we have the text from Genesis to
2nd Maccabees, fol. i., 474. “The Newe Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ,” &c.,
with the same wood-cut and imprint as before. “The Holy Gospel,” &c., fol. ii.,
cxxii. A table of interpretation of proper names-of principal things-the years
from Adam to Christ -and the years from Paul’s conversion. There is no Colophon.
The Sacred text is in Roman, the contents of chapters in Italic type. A full
page contains lines. Not at all aware, perhaps, of the cautious expediency by
which the Queen of England was now guided, their subjoined a dedication to her
Majesty, remarkably free from that fulsome adulation, which had been far too
common, and expressing with great frankness their zeal for further progress in
the cause of truth and righteousness. But there was a second address or
“Epistle,” still more worthy of notice. In what they had done, the translators
now fixed an eye of sympathy and love, not upon England alone, but, taking a
nobler flight, upon all those to whom the English language was vernacular. Such
was the happy effect of adversity and travel; the one softening, the other
enlarging their minds. Their epistle of explanation, therefore, as to this
version, is addressed to no particular party; but-“TO OUR BELOVED IN THE
LORD;THE BRETHREN OF ENGLAND, SCOTLAND,AND IRELAND.” A most-judicious title, and
if there must be any Epistle to the Christian Reader at all, it would have been
well for the interests of the United Kingdom had the words been preserved
inviolate from that day to this. Amidst all that has occurred since, it is the
only one to which no objection worth notice, could, or can, be brought; to say
nothing of its being so akin to the simple majesty of the Divine Record, and to
that only light in which God has regarded the entire number of His people, in
this highly favoured country, all along. The last sheet of this Bible having
been committed to the press on the 10th of April, 1560, Whittingham, Gilby, and
Sampson returned home immediately; but of all the men already mentioned, there
was one, who had not only fostered the translation when proceeding at Geneva,
but was specially interested in its circulation throughout England, immediately
afterwards, and he must not now be passed over. Bodleigh or Bodley is a name
that one should have imagined would not have escaped notice, as it has generally
done.f102 Although, however, these exiles had completed their translation of the
Bible, and borne the charge, it by no means followed that the book should be
forthwith admitted into England, and more especially by authority. They had
laboured “night and day,” indeed; but though so zealous, this was a point yet to
be ascertained. The New Testament of 1557 had been secretly introduced, but it
was then an interdicted book-it had not since been recognised as lawful, and
already we have witnessed the extreme caution of the reigning Queen. Besides,
there was a translation under the name of Matthew, and, above all, of Cranmer,
both of whom had been once, or already sanctioned; while this new version had
been accomplished by men, who, like Tyndale of old, had been obliged to fly the
kingdom. But, notwithstanding, the time had come for the Geneva book to be
admitted, and this was as soon as it was finished; only all these circumstances
render its reception at the moment more worthy of notice. On returning to our
native land, while not one word has yet been said as to any reprint of Cranmer,
and in the face of John Cawood and Richard Jugge having been already appointed
her Majesty’s printers, the first distinct notice of the Geneva Bible having
arrived in England is by no less than a patent from the Queen, granted in favour
of John Bodleigh already mentioned. “Elizabeth, &c.-To all manner of printers,
booksellers, &c.-We do you to understand, that of our grace special, we have
granted ami given privilege and licence, and by these presents for us, our
heirs, and successors, do grant, and give privilege and licence, unto our
well-beloved subject John Bodeleigh, and to his assignes, for the term of seven
years next ensuing the date hereof, to imprint, or cause to be imprinted, the
English Bible, with Annotations, faithfully translated and finished in this
present year of our Lord God, a thousand, five hundred and three score, and
dedicated to us; straitly forbidding and commanding, as well printers and
booksellers as other persons, within our realms and dominions, in any manner of
wise, to imprint, or cause to be imprinted, any of the foresaid English Bibles,
that the said John Bodeleigh shall, by the authority of this our licence,
imprint, or cause to be imprinted, or any part of them, but only the said John
Bodeleigh and his assignes; and that every offender shall forfeit to our use
forty shillings, of lawful money of England, for every such Bible at any time so
printed, and all such books to be forfeited, &c. In witness whereof, &c. 8th
Jan. 1560-1561.”

Whether this patent was of much advantage to the patentee is at present of
secondary moment; but it forcibly reminds us of Henry VIII., in the year 1537.
It presents Elizabeth before us, now at the first call from abroad, and without
any hesitation, herself opening the way for the general circulation of this
Bible throughout her dominions, for seven years to come. Little did the exiles
imagine, when flying abroad for their lives, that one grand intended purpose was
the improvement of the Book of Life itself, and that no sooner should that be
finished, than it should be at once, and so received! Both Philip and Mary had
thus, unconsciously, been pushing forward the cause they wished to destroy, and
Elizabeth, however imperative at other moments, or however cautious, must not
now stand in the way. But is this the selfsame Queen who spake so warily before
all her courtiers, less than a year ago? It is the same. Her reign was the
commencement of a new era, in many respects; but, in the present case, one is
forcibly reminded of another, in the reign of her father, twenty-four years ago,
and the analogy is not faint. As only eleven months had elapsed between Henry’s
winking at the martyrdom of Tyndale and the royal sanction of his translation,
so only eleven months had now passed between the evasive or cautious reply of
his daughter and her royal patent. Both volumes had been prepared upon foreign
ground, and both in the face of clouds and darkness, or the frown of the
reigning government; yet the second is now come into England, as did the first,
by the declared consent of the Sovereign. Henry had not read the Bible he
sanctioned, nor had his daughter assuredly examined the present volume. In tills
second instance, however, there is equal, if not superior, emphasis. The present
Sovereign, no less arbitrary and inflexible, was far more quick-sighted and
vigilant than her father. It has been said that “her eye was everywhere,” and as
far as free inquiry through the medium of the press was concerned, never since
the introduction of the art into England had it been so guarded. Every book, on
whatever subject, or in whatever language, required to be licensed by her
Majesty in express writing, or by six of her Privy Councillors. Under these
circumstances, the patent granted to Bodley is the more remarkable.

Such was the commencement of those numerous editions of the Geneva version which
followed, not only during the long reign of Elizabeth, but down to nearly the
middle of the next century. As for the present moment, placed in circumstances
the most critical, but surrounded by men of high renown as politicians, a Prince
more potent had never swayed the sceptre of England; only we have yet to see
whether Elizabeth had power sufficient, either to control, or in the slightest
degree regulate, the stream of Divine Truth which in a few years flowed over the
land; or, in other words, whether the public opinion and taste, as to the
translation of the Sacred Word, was influenced by regal authority or not.

After that two editions had been executed abroad, besides two of the New
Testament ina separate form, it was certainly time for the English printers to
bestir themselves; and the man who had printed for Queen Mary all along, John
Cawood, must be allowed to take the lead. He had changed with the times, and now
came forward with an edition of Cranmer’s Bible in quarto; while Richard Jugge,
silent since the days of Edward, now gave two editions of the New Testament, one
of Tyndale’s, and, it has been affirmed, one of Coverdale’s. Richard Harrison,
too, though not printer to her Majesty, having obtained licence, had printed an
edition of Cranmer’s Testament. Thus, and before the year 1561 had expired, it
is curious enough, the people had Tyndale and Coverdale, Cramner and the Geneva
version all before them. Seven years must pass away before another competitor
appears; but this will be no other than Parker’s or the Bishops’ Bible, and the
result remains to be seen. These, even including Parker’s Bible, it must be
borne in mind, were, without exception, personal undertakings, or affairs
managed with certain stationers-that is, printers or booksellers for the time
being, the licence granted for every single edition being applied for, to secure
the parties against loss by their outlay of capital. The different versions were
like so many candidates for public choice, or so many feelers, put forth through
an all-wise, overruling Providence, leaving time to discover which was to
prevail, as esteemed by the readers to be the best, or nearest to the Divine
original. In the year 1562, an edition of Cranmer’s Bible appeared, the first in
folio under Elizabeth: and it is worthy of notice, that this came from neither
of her Majesty’s printers, but from the press of Richard Harrison, already
mentioned. The two previous editions of the Geneva Bible being exhausted,
Bodley, in 1565, was preparing a new impression, but wishing to renew his
privilege beyond the seven years first granted, he applied to Sir William Cecil.
The wary Secretary consulted Archbishop Parker, who replied that though he was
himself, with other Bishops, then engaged on “another special Bible for the
Churches,” he thought so well of this one, that he wished Bodley to have twelve
years’ longer term to his special privilege, but coupled with this
recommendation his desire to “take such order with the party in writing under
his hand, that no impression should pass, but by their direction, consent, and
advice.” Thus quietly setting aside the royal licence unless confirmed by the
consent and advice of the Bishops! The idea of such a rider on his patent, once
communicated to Bodley, seems to have been quite sufficient, for after this date
we hear not one word more of it; and the Geneva translation was printed again
and again, without licence either asked or granted!

About twenty-eight years ago, or in 1538, the reader cannot fail to remember an
edition of Matthew’s Bible being conmenced under Coverdale’s inspection at
Paris, which, however, had to be finished ia London. But if the state of France
was unpropitious to such an attempt then, it seemed to have been much more so
now. There happened, however, to be a short pause in the civil wars which for
forty years had desolated that fine country. The King of Navarre had been killed
at a siege, the Duke of Guise assassinated, and fifty thousand Huguenots already
slain. Elizabeth, for her own safety’s sake, had aided this people; and in 1563
a peace was concluded which lasted till 1567. A gentleman, then living at Rouen
in Normandy, belonging to the Customs, and of good repute, resolved to seize the
opportunity here presented him; and at his own cost and charges, committed to
the press an edition of Cranmer’s Bible in folio. This is a very fine book, on
royal paper, printed “at Rouen by C. Hamilton, cum privilegio, 1566.” This
gentleman, Richard Carmarden, the frequent, correspondent of Cecil, as in the
Lansdowne manuscripts, was afterwards in the London Custom House, and living as
late as the year 1599.

Another instance at home was no other than the last edition printed by the same
man who in the midst of actual pestilence, and with but doubtful prospect of
success, first brought the Bible of 1537 into England, Richard Grafton. He had
weathered the storm in Mary’s reign, and now saw his old virulent enemy, Bonner,
still living, but under general contempt, and in prison. Though advanced in
life, Grafton ventured on an edition of Cranmer’s Bible, evidently intended for
family use. It was the first edition of the English Bible in one volume octavo;
and it seems to have been a very large impression. At least there is a passage
in the annals of Queen Elizabeth, by Sir James Ware, the Irish Camden, which, if
correct, could bear upon no other than the present octavo Bible. “In the year
1566,” says he, “John Dale, a bookseller, imported seven thousand copies of the
Bible from London, and sold the whole, in Ireland, within two years.” What a
singular contrast to so many succeeding years! But it would be a circumstance no
less memorable, if the very same individual who first brought the Sacred Volume
into England in 1537, should, before his death, have been the first employed in
printing it even for Ireland itself.

Accordingly, there does not appear to be one copy left in the possession of any
private collector, or public library, on this side of the Channel, nor have we
heard whether there be one left in Ireland. At last, in 1568, or the tenth year
after Elizabeth had ascended the throne, the first edition of the Bible,
superintended by Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, was published. Great care had
been taken in this revision of the text, by more than fifteen learned men, Greek
and Hebrew scholars, besides Parker himself, who superintended the several
portions, as they came from the hands of those to whom he had committed them.
The Pentateuch was consigned to W. E. or William Alley, Bishop of Exeter;
Joshua, Judges and Ruth, to R. M. or Richard Davies of St. David’s, who had
previously been engaged in translating the Bible into Welsh; Samuel, the Kings
and Chronicles, were assigned to Edwyn Sandys of Worcester; Ezra, Nehemiah,
Esther and Job, to A. P. C. or Andrew Pearson, Prebendary of Canterbury; the
Psalms to T. B. or Thomas Bentham of Lichfield and Coventry; the Proverbs to A.
P. C.; Ecclesiastes and Solomon’s Long, to A. P. E. or Andrew Perne, Dean of
Ely; Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Lamentations, to R. W. or Robert Horn of Winchester;
Ezekiel and Daniel to T. C. L. or Thomas Cole, once at Geneva, afterwards Dean
of Lincoln; the minor Prophets to E. L. or Edmunde Grindel of London; the
Apocrypha to J. N. or John Parkhurst of Norwich; the Four Gospels and the Acts,
to R. E. or Richard Cox of Ely; the Romans to Edmund Guest of Rochester; the
Corinthians to G. G. or Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster. Mr. Laurence, a
learned Grecian, was also engaged, with one or two other individuals. From the
majority of these men being on the Bench, this translation has been styled “the
Bishops’ Bible,” the initials above mentioned being printed at the end of their
respective parts.

Parker had now at last accomplished that which Cranmer had attempted in vain, or
a version of the English Bible, generally revised from the prececling, in
conjunction with certain brethren on the Bench, and other scholars. It was a
decided improvement on the whole. They had watched Cranmer’s or Coverdale’s
leaning to the Vulgate; they expunged the three verses from the fourteenth
Psalm, which the latter first inserted at Paris, and in Timothy, they altered
Cranmer’s rendering “by authority of the priesthood” to that of “the eldership,”
besides other amendments of the text.

It has been erroneously supposed that this revision was undertaken by royal
command. There is not only no proof of this, hut the evidence presented forbids
the idea. Parker, in presenting the first copy to Elizabeth, through Cecil,
prays for her Majesty’s “gracious favour, licence and protection to be extended
to this recognition of the Bible.” He entreats the Secretary himself to procure
such royal licence for this version, “to be only commended in public reading in
churches, to draw to one uniformity;” and that “Jugge only may have the
preferment of this edition.” This is not the language of one who is acting under
royal command in the matter. Still more is this evident from the circumstance
that the requests thus preferred were never granted. The Geneva version
continued to be read in many churches, and Jugge received no licence for the
exclusive printing of this one. As far as printing editions could carry it, all
justice was done to the Bishops’ Bible; and backed by the influence of so many
men on the Bench, personally interested, it must have been presumed that this
book would at last carry the palm of superiority, and put not only Cranmer’s
version out of sight and out of mind, but the Geneva Bible also. Had not Parker
completed his task, and even his final corrections? He was now deceased, a
circumstance which, might be supposed to lend additional interest to his
labours; and he had been succeeded by Edmund Grindal, one of the translators
actually engaged in the work. The Queen, therefore, if she had any zeal, such as
the Bishops desired, seemed to owe it to the Primate’s memory, that this, and
this alone, should be the Bible in general use; and so, it may be supposed,
certain parties anticipated. Besides, to make this the more probable, there had
evidently been some hindrance, if not demur, about allowing the Geneva Bible to
be printed at all. We know not whether it was owing to Archbishop Parker’s fixed
determination to have it under his control; but it is certain that while he
lived, no edition was printed upon English ground. After Mr. Bodley’s attempt,
there had, it is true, been three impressions, dated in 1568, 1569, and 1570;
but all these had been printed at Geneva. Since 1570 there had been no reprint,
and in 1575, the sixteenth year of the reigning Queen had come. By this time,
complaint as to the long delay in printing it at home, had been publicly and
strongly expressed. “If that Bible,” it was said, “be such as no enemy of God
could justly find fault with, then may men marvel that such a work, being so
profitable, should find so small favour as not to be printed again.” In the
meanwhile, her Majesty was never applied to again, to license by patent the
Geneva Bible. Mr. Bodley’s, of course, had expired in 1568; and it may have been
on the strength of his expiring patent that the book was edged into England, as
it was also into Scotland. If it was now to be printed in London, and far more
frequently than any other version; if, after it begins to be so, scarcely a year
is to pass without one, or two, or three editions issuing from the press, then
this must be brought about in some other way. However imperative the government
was, in a thousand other things, great and small, there was to be no force
applied here. From the Queen-and her authority was paramount to all other-there
were to be no “injunctions” that Parker’s Bible was to be received into
families, or alone read under the domestic roof Nay, therc had positively been
none whatever as yet, as to its being read in public assembly. The man too,
styled “her Majesty’s printer,” and now, moreover, he alone, shall continue,
from year to year, to meet the choice and wishes of the people: and though in
many other things, connected with their ideas as to the supposed form of
religion, Elizabeth be determined to have her own way, and so to cross their
will; one whisper of disapprobation as to the people’s BIBLE, or its domestic
use, and almost universal perusal, shall never be recorded to have escaped from
her lips! If the silence of her sister Mary, in issuing no denunciation of the
English Bible by name, was remarkable, considering the general tone of
Elizabeth’s character, her silence was far more so; for let it only be
remembered that after Parker’s decease in 1575, Elizabeth had yet twenty-eight
years to reign, yet this shall not prevent the Geneva Version from being now
printed either in folio or quarto, and being read in churches also. Parker has
already told us, that they were so read in his days, and twelve years
afterwards, we know they were. For the proof of this fact we are indebted to the
best of all witnesses then living in the kingdom, the Archbishop of Canterbury,
Whitgift himself. “Divers,” says he in the year 1587, “Divers, as well Parish
Churches as Chapels of Ease, are not sufficiently furnished with Bibles, but
some have either none at all,” (observe still!) “or such as be torn and defaced,
and yet not of the translation authorized by THE SYNODS OF BISHOPS.” But the
preference shown, both before the sway of Whitgift, as well as under it,
survived him for years. If the Queen knew of any difference between the two
versions, it must have frequently met her Majesty’s ear, when present at Sermons
before the Court; and it might have met her eye, if she deigned to look into
what was printed around her. Thus Gervase Babington, a pupil of Whitgift’s, who
preached his funeral sermon, and had been successively Bishop of Llandaff,
Exeter and Worcester; if we turn to his “Comfort able Notes on the Pentateuch,”
to his other expositions, or his sermons preached before the Court at Greenwich,
or at Paul’s Cross in 1591, we find him uniformly quote the Geneva Bible, as
well as read his text from it.

Thus George Abbot, the successor of Bancroft and predecessor of Laud, when
Master of University College, Oxford, under Elizabeth and Whitgift, not only
preached, but published in 1600, his sermons upon Jonah, and throughout he used
the same version. Other instances might be adduced, but however striking, they
would, taken altogether, prove but a feeble indication of that decided
preference which began to be shown by the people at large, from the year
immediately after Parker’s death.

Here then we are met by a course of events, and the moving cause of that course,
the most signal features of Elizabeth’s reign, which after all that has been
written, have been passed over by most historians, and never fully explained by
any. But are they, on this account, of but, inferior moment? An extraordinary
demand for the Sacred Volume, and supplied by means not less extraordinary, can
never be unimportant in the estimation of many; while at the same time the cause
of this demand was of such a character, as to form, in the history of the
English Bible, one of its brightest pages. To each of these in turn, therefore,
the attention of the reader is now solicited. This eager desire for the Word of
Life, and decided preference for it, in the Geneva Version, were simultaneous,
in the year 1575. There are therefore several circumstances connected with the
times, as well as the character of Elizabeth’s sway, which here invite notice,
and will reward it. If the reader, however, will first turn for a moment to our
List of Bibles at the close of this work, he cannot fail to be struck with one
peculiarity in its appearance. For a period extending to fifty years, or from
1525 to 1575, he may observe what a number of different men had been engaged in
printing the Scriptures; after which, or from 1577, one name alone meets his
eye, from year to year. That name is Barker, and since the change, or rather the
origin of the change, has never been explained, so that great confusion still
prevails on the subject, it becomes of no little importance to understand it
now. The reign of Elizabeth was the age of patents. Jealous of her prerogatives,
the granting of monopolies by patent was one of the most cherished modes of
displaying it. Enriching herself and a few of her courtiers and crafty traders,
the extension of this policy fended to impoverish the kingdom and fill it with
discontent. It was the subject of frequent remonstrance in Parliament, where the
idea thrown out, that it might be extended to bread, filled the members with
alarm. Their expostulations had little effect, for, with a few exceptions; these
patents, above forty in number, remained unrepealed at the Queen’s death in
1603. Among these, there was a class styled, by way of distinction,PATENTS OF
PRIVILEGE, the holders of which might sell licences of that for which they held
the patent to the highest bidder.

One of these patents of privilege was granted in 1575, (no doubt for a
consideration,) to Sir Thomas Wilkes, Elizabeth’s Ambassador to France, Holland
and Germany, as “her Majesty’s printer of the English tongue.” The chief part of
this patent was resold to John Jugge, the son of Richard, the printer of
Parker’s Bible. A formal complaint of this was made to the authorities by 175
members of the Stationers’ Company, and 185 dealers in books, free of other
companies, all of London, representing the injury inflicted on them, their
families, workmen, apprentices, and the public generally by this monopoly.

John Jugge died soon after, having never once exercised his privilege; but in
1577, Wilkes again sold a patent of a far more exclusive character than the one
complained of; and who was the purchaser? One of those who had so bitterly
complained of the former, who changed his voice as soon as he was in possession
of the coveted privilege,-one that specially included the printing of the Old
and New Testament in the English language. This was Christopher Barker, who
afterwards speaks of the great sum he had paid to Wilkes, as if he were a loser
by the bargain. Nevertheless, in 1589, when Wilkes had fallen into disgrace,
Barker, now well known to Cecil, and patronized by Walsingham, applies for and
obtains a new patent from the Queen direct. For a still greater sum he now
secures the privilege, for the joint lives of himself and his son Robert, who
survived him for the long period of forty-six years. The extensive patent of
Christopher and Robert Barker once secured, in regard to the Scriptures, it
embraced “all B ibles and Testaments whatsoever, in the English language, of
whatever translation, with notes, or without notes, printed before then, or
afterwards to be printed by our command.” The privileges are granted,
professedly, in consideration of Mr. Barker’s great improvement in the art of
printing. But the most singular feature of the document at such a crisis, is
this, that no notice whatever is taken of any one translation, as preferable to
another, no, nor of any one as having been either ordered or sanctioned by the
Queen. This too becomes more remarkable, when it is observed that the patent was
granted under the sway of Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, the strenuous
promoter of uniformity in everything else, and whose decided preference of the
Bishops’ version had only the year before been strongly marked and enforced.
Burleigh indeed, and Sir Francis Walsingham, may be presumed to have acquiesced
in a licence so broad; but at all events, here, under one of the most powerful
monarchs that had ever held the English sceptre, and as rigid a Primate as had
occupied the See of Canterbury, since the invention of printing. if we look to
what followed, it is not difficult to see there, an overruling hand once more.
Whatever may be said of Queen Elizabeth, assuredly Archbishop Whitgift did not
intend to promote the perusal throughout all England of any version of the
Scriptures, save one, now sanctioned by “the Synod of Bishops;” but then here
comes her Majesty, with open eyes, and by her sign manual, she has left the
people free to choose, in the highest sense, when, so far as her power extended,
she would on no account allow it, in any other. No one will stand up now, to
justify the course pursued by Barker from the beginning. It was a most mercenary
affair from first to last; and yet even when a man is so influenced, the
consequences, whether immediate or remote, by the hand of God may easily be
overruled for good. One consequence, at all events, is here worthy of special
observation. Even under an exclusive patent, granted by a Queen imperative even
to trifles, since the supply was after all regulated solely by the demand, and
only the sordid prospect of remuneration, we are able to see, and as clearly as
we did under Edward the Sixth, what was the taste or choice of the great body of
English readers. In contemplating this long and powerful reign, with immediate
reference to the Sacred Volume, there are three distinct points alike worthy of
notice and recollection. The first is, the number of editions on the whole, so
very far beyond that which has ever been observed. A second peculiarity is very
manifest, or the number of impressions in what is usually styled the Geneva
version, in comparison with others, or with Cranmer’s and Parker’s versions
taken together. Bur, the third point, as soon as our list at the close is
glanced at, cannot escape notice-the large number of Bibles, as compared with
the editions of the New Testament separately.

Apprehension, approaching nearly to horror, had been expressed in Parliament, at
the very idea of a patent for bread; but here was a commodity infinitely above
it, in point of importance and value-the Bread of Life; and since it had been
delivered into the hands of one man, to deal it out in conformity to privilege
granted; this being the first movement of the kind, every reader must be curious
to observe the experiment in its first operation and consequences. Here, then,
he may now do so, at the distance of two hundred and forty years, and for a
space of time equal to that of the entire generation first so circumstanced. The
supply on the whole cannot fail to occasion delightful surprise, as it so far
exceeds what has ever been pointed out in history. Speaking of the Geneva
version only, Lewis conjectured that there had been “above thirty editions in
folio, quarto, and octavo, printed from the year 1560 to the year 1616.” And so
very loosely has the history of our Bible been regarded, that, although the
editions of Shakspeare have been scanned and counted with the most vigilant
scrupulosity, this vague estimate of the Scriptures has been repeated in print,
by Newcome and many others, down to the present hour! Lewis took great pains in
his day, and then spoke according to the extent of his research; but had he
multiplied by three, and said ninety editions, instead of thirty, and added
thirty editions more of the New Testament separately, he would have been not far
from the truth. We are here, however, confined to the reign of Elizabeth
terminating in 1603, or thirteen years before the estimate of Lewis; and,
referring to our list at the end for particulars, we can now speak only in round
numbers. From the year 1560 to that of 1603 inclusive, there had been certainly
not fewer than one hundred and thirty distinct issues of Bibles and Testaments,
or about eighty-five of the former and forty-five of the latter, which presents
an average of three issues annually throughout the entire reign; and
notwithstanding all the caution exercised for the first sixteen years. With
reference to the Geneva version, out of the gross issues now stated the number
approaches to ninety editions, thus leaving only forty for all others. Or if we
speak of Bibles alone, while the number of Cranmer’s and Parker’s version put
together we state as twenty-five, that of the Geneva Bible had amounted at least
to sixty editions. The very remarkable disproportion, however, between the New
Testaments issued as compared with the Bible entire, demands more particular
observation, and it will come before us presently.

Here, it is granted, we have a subject which previous historians have
overlooked, as either below their notice, or unworthy of investigation. The
imprisonment and death of Mary Queen of Scots, the invincible Spanish Armada,
and the dominant power of Elizabeth, on the one hand; or the life and actions of
Parker, Grindal, and Whitgift, of Bacon and Leicester, Cecil and Walsingham, on
the other, have so engrossed the mind, that history on this subject has been
cold, nay, silent. But may we not leave it to the judgment of every unbiassed
reader, whether there was any movement of the passing day to be compared to
this, either in itself or in its consequences? What are the footsteps of men or
monarchs, moving like shadows o’er the plain, when compared with the progress of
Divine Truth in any nation? Editions of the Sacred Volume, at any given time,
rise in importance infinitely above those of any human composition; but at this
period especially, owing to peculiar circumstances, they formed the only
unerring index to the thirst for Divine revelation, or the actual progress in
Christian knowledge. This, it will be granted, is a state of mind the most vital
of all others, so far as Christianity in its proper sense is concerned; while,
far from being a transitory ebullition, it extended over a space of time equal
to more than a generation. This was a growing and prodigious purchase of the
Sacred Scriptures, for they were neither given away, nor sold at reduced prices,
as in modern times. In short, the people of the day, whether in England or
Scotland,PURCHASED all they read, nay, and paid ten times the value of the
present prices. The cause of this remarkable demand for the Word of God is a
problem that cannot be solved by pointing either to the power of party or to the
power of preaching. In the days of Edward VI., there were but two parties, the
“Friends of the Old Learning,” and the “Friends of the New;” and to the zeal of
the latter might be ascribed the thirst for the Sacred Word that then prevailed.
But under Elizabeth this party was again divided, so that there were now three
great parties in the kingdom, whose struggles occasioned all the restless
uneasiness of that otherwise powerful reign. But whatever desire some one or
other of these might feel for the circulation of the Bible, or preference for
some version of it, the patent of Christopher Barker now stands ia the way.
Every sheet of either version must issue from his press, and he, a man of the
world, with a view to gain alone, will throw off only those which will answer
the one object he has in view. The Queen has sold away her interest in the sale,
and Barker will go with the stream, where the prospect of gain may carry him.
The people are left to show their preference by their demand, and he meets this
demand in the way most profitable to himself, never allowing his interests to be
affected by the smallest zeal for party. It was his interest to lessen the cost
of printing the Bible, while the price was kept up; hence, by degrees, disappear
dedications, prefaces, addresses to the reader, and all that might gratify
either party. To the same avarice in the patentee we must ascribe the small
number of Testaments compared with Bibles printed by him. “Testaments ALONE”
said the poor mercenary monopolist, “are not greatly commodious, by reason the
prices are so small as will scarcely bear the charges.” They were found
commodious enough before the exclusive patent was granted. But now, all who
desired to have a New Testament must gratify it only at a great personal
expense. Nor can the large sale of the Scriptures at this time be ascribed to
the power of preaching. The “liberty of prophesying’’ was under even greater
restraint than the liberty of the press. The London petitioners to Parliament
complained that one half of the City churches were without preachers, and of the
remaining half “is scarce the tenth man to be found that maketh any conscience
carefully to wait upon his charge.” In vain did Archbishop Grindal plead for
“the plentiful preaching of the Gospel of Christ,” aud approach the throne on
its behalf. The Queen herself told him “that it was good for the Church to have
few preachers; that three or four might suffice for a county; and that the
reading of the homilies to the people was sufficient!” Firm as a rock, she never
relented, nor forgave the man who so earnestly pled for the “ministry of
reconciliation,” Primate of all England though he was. Under the cloud of her
displeasure he closed his days.

Whitgift succeeded him with a policy the reverse of his, and preaching was all
but put down. But it mattered not. The demand for the Word of Life rose
progressively, and the issues of edition after edition from the press of Barker
continued to meet the growing demand. In conclusion, we enter not here into the
comparative merits of the Bishops’ and the Geneva versions, nor should the
attention at present be diverted to any such point. Both went on to be printed,
and they will, therefore, come before us under the next reign. Suffice it to
say, that, as translations, as instruments in the hand of God, both were
all-sufficient for His purpose; but it is of more immediate consequence, that
the mind should rest on the remarkable fact, that under the reign of Elizabeth
not fewer than one hundred and thirty distinct publications of the Divine Word
passed through the press, mainly to meet the desires of the people; while the
disposition thus to purchase and to read must have had a cause.

Unable, therefore, to point out any adequate instrumental cause upon earth, why
should there now be any hesitation in all England to refer immediately to Him
“from whom all good counsels and all such desires proceed”? Considering the
people as a people, far from being any disadvantage or discredit to them, that
God himself should thus speak to them more directly than usual, and by His own
Word, it only placed them in a higher state of responsibility. The number of its
editions has shed quite a new light, and, in reference to the period itself, it
is questionable whether any people in Europe can now produce a parallel; but
certainly there was, at that period, no similar proceeding in any nation. The
Queen upon the throne might cast indignity upon the ordinance of Heaven for
saving the souls of men, or care not for it. For this the Primate of all
England, being of another mind, might pine for years under her frown; or, as
ever after, his successor, Whitgift, might carry everything before him. The
Commons’ House of Parliament itself might propose to meet for prayer, and to
hear a sermon; when, being rebuked by her Majesty for their presumption in not
first asking counsel of her, to obtain her sanction, they gave up the intention,
and never heard one. One half of the buildings called churches in the capital
might stand there, and no one faithful voice be heard within their walls, while
only the tenth man of the remaining half possessed any conscience. All this and
more might be, but the Word of Jehovah must not be bound. Nor was it that the
Almighty Redeemer undervalued the ministry of his own appointment. Far from any
mind be such a thought. But HE is a Sovereign, “having no need either of His own
works or of man’s gifts,” and for a season might suspend their operation for a
higher end, even the glory and power of His Revealed Word. True religion revived
in Babylon when Jerusalem lay in ruins, as it had prospered in the wilderness,
before the Temple was built; and of that favoured people, as the depositaries of
the truth, it was once said, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither
will they be persuaded though one rose from the dead,”-but a greater than Moses
was here.

All this while, the nation was seen rising, confessedly, into far greater power,
though often agitated; and if without were rightings, within were fears. The
reign had been stained by the blood of persecution; and as liberty of conscience
was understood by no party, instances of oppression occurred with a frequency
which cannot be explained fully, till the State Paper Commission has done the
same justice to Elizabeth which it has done to her father. But throughout all
the tumultuous scene-the zeal for what was styled uniformity-the decrees of the
Star Chamber, and the restrictions of the press, the “still small voice” was
there. In other words, from year to year, and as with pointing finger, a
benignant Providence stood above the nation, directing it to the Bible alone, as
its only charter to the skies; or God’s own divine grant, in the language of the
people, to all the glories of life eternal.

Christianity, not an outward conventional form, being essentially a mental
subject, addressing the heart and soul of man, this first and fundamental
truth-“the all-sufficiency of the Divine record,”-it was worthy of its Divine
Author to repeat, so emphatically, in the ear of the people, from month to
month, and from year to year, amidst all their wild confusion and the strife of
tongues. This was a consideration, which, historically, had taken precedence of
everything else, whether of the ministry itself, or the form of godliness. Nay,
and it is a truth still, which if the heart and conscience of this nation were
once fixed upon it, the consequences would surpass human foresight: meanwhile
this, and by way of eminence, seems to be one main instruction to be drawn from
all that had yet occurred. By the man of mere party, it is true, of whatever
class throughout the kingdom, from Oxford all round to the sea, the monition may
not even yet be heard; and that simply because the subject is one which happens
to be above his customary sphere of judgment. But should the slightest
hesitation remain in the mind of any reader, let him read on. Upon this subject
there is no ambiguity awaiting him, in the sequel.

JAMES I. TO THE COMMONWEALTH. 1603.-1650.

Accession Of James-His Strange Progress Through The Country-His Needless
Profusion-Conference At Hampton Court Explained-Revision Of Tile Scriptures-The
Revisors-Instructions Givien-Progress Made-Revision Of Tile Whole-Money Paid,
But Not By His Majesty, Nor By Any Bishop, After The King’s Application But By
The Patentee-Tile Present Version Published-No Proclamation, No Order Of Privy
Council, Or Any Act Of The Legislature Upon Record, On The Subject-Did Not
Become The Version Generally Received Throughout England, Scotland, And Ireland,
Till About Forty Year,S Afterwards-The Last Attempt To Interfere With The
English Bible By A Committee Of Parliament, Representing England, Ireland, And
Scotland-Utterly In Vain,

UP to the present moment, the history of tho English Bible had maintained a
character peculiar to itself Originating with no mere patron, whether royal or
noble, the undertaking had never yet been promoted at the personal expense of
any such party. But now in regard to that version of the Sacred Volume, which
for two hundred and thirty years has been read with delight from generation to
generation, and proved the effectual means of knowledge, holiness, and joy to
millions; it may be imagined by some, as there was now another and a final
change, that our history must, at last, change, or in other words, forfeit its
character. If, however, the accounts frequently given of our present version
have been involved in as much inaccuracy of statement, as they have been with
regard to all the preceding changes, there is the greater necessity for the
public mind being disabused; and that, too, whether in Britain, or America, or
the British foreign dependencies. This is a subject which alike concerns them
all, as they all read, and prize, the same version.

If because that a dedication to James the First of England has been prefixed to
many copies, though not to many others; and if because not only historians at
their desks, but lawyers at the bar, and even judges on the bench, have made
most singular mistakes-it has therefore been imagined by any, or many, that the
present version of our Bible was either suggested by this monarch; or that he
was at any personal expense in regard to the undertaking; or that he ever issued
a single line of authority by way of proclamation with respect to it, it is more
than time that the delusion should come to an end. The original and authentic
documents of the time are so far explicit, that, just in proportion as they are
sifted, and the actual circumstances placed in view, precisely the same
independence of’ personal royal bounty, and, on the part of the people at large,
the same superiority to all royal dictation, which we have beheld all along,
will become apparent. James himself, however vain, is certainly not so much to
be blamed for any different impression, as some others who have misrepresented
his Majesty. On the other hand, his character was such that to many writers it
has occasioned some exercise of patience even to refer to it. But since his name
occurs in connexion with this final revision of the English Bible, it is of the
more importance to ascertain tho exact amount of this connexion. From the moment
in which he was invited to the throne, and to be King of Great Britain, his own
favourite term, down to the year in which our present version was published, his
“royal progress” is forced upon our notice. By the death of Elizabeth on the
24th of March, 1603, James succeeded to the throne of England. During the whole
of the summer and autumn of that year, he gave himself up to the pleasures of
the chase, the monotony of which was only interrupted by feasts and masks on the
most extensive scale; occasioning the greatest anxiety to the Lord Treasurer to
find means to supply the King’s profusion. To avoid the plague which was then
raging in London and its vicinity, as well as to find sport for James, the Court
made a progress through the kingdom, but was haunted by the sickness which
followed it everywhere, and infected every spot at which it halted.

Before the close of the year, so exhausted were the King’s resources, and so low
his credit with the money-lenders both at home and abroad, that he was forced to
issue his proclamation for the meeting of Parliament on the 19th of March
following, to obtain supplies. It was in the midst of his heartless sports at
Wilton, when the plague was carrying off its thousands weekly in London, that
James summoned another meeting, known as the CONFERENCE OF HAMPTON COURT, “for
the hearing, and for the determining, things pretended to be amiss in the
Church.” This Conference was held on the 14th, 16th, and 18th January, 1604, but
did not consist of any official body of men. As Parliament had not met, James
was not as yet, according to law, King of England, except by courtesy. There
were present only nine Bishops, eight Deans, two Professors of Divinity from
Oxford, and two from Cambridge, with the King’s Chaplain, Patrick Galloway, from
Scotland. Nor were these all present any one day. The only subject debated, the
result of which has been of any lasting consequence to posterity, was, the
necessity for another translation of the Bible. The proposal came from Mr. John
Rainolds, a man of high character, and perhaps iht most eminent individual for
learning in the kingdom. His fame grew from the Greek lecture in Corpus Christi
College, Oxford, of which he was the president. Some made a few objections,
especially Bancroft, Bishop of London, who muttered that, “if every man’s humour
were followed, there would be no end of translating;” but the King expressing
his approbation of the scheme, there was, at present, no gainsaying. The second
of the articles, as presented by Rainolds, (according to Galloway, whose account
was corrected by the King’s own hand) was the following:- “That a translation be
made of the whole Bible, as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and
Greek; and this to be set out and printed, without any marginal notes, and only
to be used in all Churches of England in time of divine service.” The Parliament
met on the 19th of March, and the Convocation next day; but the former was
dissolved, and the latter rose, without a word being uttered on the subject of
the new translation. Before the end of June, a list of scholars suitable for the
work was presented to James for his acceptance. They were selected for him, and
he of course approved. This was notified to the intended translators in a letter
from Bancroft, dated 30th June, 1604, in which he informs them that it is “the
King’s pleasure that they should, with all possible speed, meet together in
their University and begin the same.”

Then followed another letter dated 31st July, addressed to all ·the Bishops,
enclosing one from His most excellent Majesty, straitly charging them to confer
any prebends or parsonages in their gift, which “shall next upon any occasion
happen to be void,” on some one of the learned translators who may have no
ecclesiastical preferment, or one “unmeet for men of their desert,” pleading his
own inability to supply them, for” We of OURSELF, in any convenient time, cannot
well remedy it.” Cecil as Chancellor of Cambridge addressed that University to
the same purport.

We give the list of translators here, with their respective tasks to which a few
particulars, from the best authorities, are subjoined:- Westminster .

Genesis to II Kings inclusive.

Dr. Lancelot Andrews , then Dean of Westminster, who is reported to, have been
such a linguist that he understood fifteen. Afterwards Bishop of Chichester,
1605; then of Ely in 1609; and finally of Winchester in 1619. Died 21 Sep. 1626,
aged 71.

Dr. John Overall , then Dean of St. Paul’s. Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry,
1614; of Norwich in 1618. Died 12 May, 1619, aged 60.

Dr. Adrian A Sarvia , then Cauon of Westminster. Of Spanish extraction: the
friend of Hooker, and tutor of Nicholas Fuller. Afterwards Prebend of
Gloucester, and Canterbury, where he died 15 January, 1613, aged 82.

Dr. Richard Clarke , then Fellow of Christ College, Cambidge; Vicar of Minster
and Monkton in the isle of Thanet. Died in 1634, and a folio volume of his
sermons published in 1637.

Dr. John Laifield , then Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; afterwards Rector
of St. Clement’s Danes. A Fellow of Chelsea College, which, however, was never
founded. Died in 1617.

Dr. Robert Tighe , or Teigh , (not Leigh as often misnamed,) then Archdeacon of
Middlesex, and Rector of All-Hallows, Barking. An excellent textuary and
profound linguist. He died in 1616, leaving his son £1000 a year.

Dr. Francis Burleigh, then Vicar of Bishop Stortford, if not of Thorley, Herts,
and died in 1619 (?)

Dr. Geoffry or Wilfrid King , then Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. As
Regius Professor of Hebrew in that University, he succeeded Robert Spalding,
about to be mentioned.

Richard Thompson , M.A. of Clare Hall, Cambridge; born in Holland of English
parents; an admirable philologer, but better known in Italy, France, and
Germany, than at home.

William Bedwell , the best Arabic scholar of his time. The tutor of Erpenius and
Pocock; (but not W. Bedell of Kilmore, as has been conjectured; he was then at
Venice.) “The industrious and thrice-learned,” said Lightfoot, “to whom I will
rather be a scholar, than take on me to teach others.” Cambridge .

I. Chronicles to Ecclesiastes inclusive.

Edward Livlie , Regius Professor of Hebrew for thirty years in this University;
an eminent linguist, in high esteem by Ussher and Pocock. His death, in May
1605, is supposed to have retarded the work in hand.

Dr. John Richardson , then Fellow of Emmanuel College; afterwards Master of
Peter House, then of Trinity College. He is not to be confounded with Ussher’s
friend of the same name. Died in 1625.

Dr. Laurence Chaderton , distinguished for Hebrew and Rabbinical learning, then
first Master of Emmanuel College. “If you will not be Master,” said Sir Walter
Mildmay, “I will not be Founder.” He was the tutor of Joseph Hall of Norwich and
W. Bedell of Kilmore, who retained the highest veneiation for him, and died the
year after him. Chaderton, who never required the aid of spectacles, died,
according to his epitaph, at the age of 103! Born in 1537, he lived to 13th
November, 1640. His life, in Latin, by W. Dillingham, was published in 1700.

Francis Dillingham , then Fellow of Christ’s College, an eminent Grecian. He was
Parson of Dean, and beneficed at Wihlen, Beds. As an anthor, he, ns well as
Overall, continued to quote the Geneva version years after our present one had
been published. He died a single and a wealthy man.

Thomas Harrison , Vice-Chancellor of Trinity College, was eminently skilled in
the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew tongues, as his own University has borne witness.
Dyer ascribes to him a Lexicon Pente Glotton.

Dr. Roger Andrews , brother of Lancelot, then Fellow of Pembroke Hall, and
afterwards Master of Jesus College, and Prebendary of Chichester. Died in 1618.

Dr. Robert Spalding , then Fellow of St. John’s Collcge, and afterwards the
successor of Livlie as Regins Professor of Hebrew, a sufficient proof of his
skill in that; language.

Dr. Andrew Byng , (not Burge, as in Burner and Wilkins,) then Fellow of St.
Peter’s College. In 1606 Sub-dean of York, and in 1618 Archdeacon of Norwich. As
Regius Professor of Hebrew, he succeeded King, who had succeeded Spalding,
already mentioned. Oxford .

Isaiah to Malachi inclusive.

Dr. John Harding , then Regius Professor of Hebrew in the University, and
afterwards President of Magdalen College, and also Rector of Halsey in
Oxfordshire.

Dr John Rainolds , President of Corpus Christi College; or the man who moved the
King for this new translation. “The memory and reading of that man,” said Bishop
Hall, “were near to a miracle; and all Europe at the time could not have
produced three men superior to Rainolds, Jewell, and Ussher, all of this same
College.” At the age of 58, he died 21st May, 1607. Even during his sickness,
his coadjutors met at his lodgings once a week, to compare and perfect their
notes.

Dr. Thomas Holland , then Fellow of Balliol College, afterwards Rector of
Exeter, and Regius Professor of Divinity in Oxford. “Another Apollos,” says
Wood, “and mighty in the Scriptures.” Died 17th March, 1613, aged 73.

Dr. Richard Kilby , the Rector of Lincoln College, highly esteemed by Isaac
Walton. He was afterwards prebendary of Lincoln, and Professor of Hebrew in the
University of Oxford. He left commentaries on Exodus, drawn from the Rabbins and
Hebrew interpreters. Died November 1620.

Dr. Miles Smith , then Canon of Hereford. A Hebrew and Chaldee, Syriac and
Arabic scholar. He is understood to have been the writer of the preface. He and
Bilson we shall find to be the final examinators of the whole work. Bishop of
Gloucester in 1612.

Dr. Richard Brett , then Fellow of Lincoln College. Eminent as a linguist in
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, to which he added Chaldee, Arabic, and Ethiopic.
Rector of Quainton, Bucks, where he died 15th April, 1637.

Richard Fairclough of New College, Oxford(?); the Rector of Bucknell.
Oxfordshire, who died there in 1638. Oxford .

Matthew to rite Acts inclusive, and the Revelation.

Dr. Thomas Ravis , then Dean of Christ Church; afterwards, on the 14th March,
1605, Bishop of Gloucester, and in 1607 of London, where He died, 14th December,
1609.

Dr. George Abbot , then Dean of Winchester and Vice-Chancellor of Oxford. Bishop
of Lichfield and Coventry in 1609; of London 1610, and, Bancroft dying 2nd
November, Abbot became primate in 1611. Died 4th August, 1633, aged 71.

Dr. John Aglionby , then Principal of St. Edmund’s Hall and Rector of Islip, and
afterwards chaplain in ordinary to the King. “Accomplished in learning and an
exact linguist.” Dr..Richard Eedes was indeed the first appointed, but he died
19th November, 1604; Aglionby died 6th February, 1610.

Dr. Giles Tomson , then Dean of Windsor, afterwards in March Bishop of
Gloucester, but died 14th June next year. “He had taken a great deal of pains in
translating.”

Sir Henry Savile , Greek tutor to Elizabeth, and Provost of Eton. He was
knighted by James this year, and, losing his son about that period, he devoted
his time and fortune to the encouragement of learning. He contributed several
rare books and MSS. to the Bodleian, besides Greek type and matrices to the
Oxford press. His fine edition of Chrysostom’s Works, in Greek, with notes by
John Bois after-mentioned, and of which 1000 copies, in 8 volumes folio, were
printed, is said to have cost him £8000. He died at Eton, 19th February, 1622,
aged 73.

Dr. John Peryn , Professor of Greek, and afterwards Canon of Christ Church. Died
9th May, 1615.

Dr. Leonard Hutten , then Vicar of Flower, Northamptonshire; an excellent Greek
scholar, and learned in other branches. He died at the age of 75, 17th May,
1632. Dr. Ravens had been first appointed, but his place vacated.

Dr. John Harmar had been Professor of Greek, Warden of Winchester College. A
noted Latin and Greek scholar. He published Latin translations from Chrysostom,
and his translation of Beza’s sermons into English bespeaks him an excellent
writer of English. He died 11th October, 1613. Westminster .

Romans to Jude inclusive.

Dr. William Barlow , made Dean of Chester in December 1604, Bishop of Rochester
in 1605, of Lincoln, 1608. Died 7th September, 1613.

Dr. Ralph Hutchenson , then President of St. John’s College, Oxford.

Wood’s Athenae, by Bliss, ii. p. 92.

Dr. John Spencer , Fellow of Corpus Christi College, and afterwards Chaplain to
the King. On the death of Dr. Rainolds he succeeded him as President of Corpus
Christi, and died 3rd April, 1614.

Dr. Roger Fenton , it has been supposed; if so, Fellow of Pembroke Hall,
Cambridge; and Minister of St. Stephen’s, Walbrook, London.

Michael Rabbett , B.D., was Rector of St. Vedast, Foster Lane, London.

Dr. Thomas Sanderson , of Balliol College, Oxford (?) Archdeacon of Rochester in
1606.

William Dakins , B.D., then Greek Lecturer, Cambridge, and afterwards junior
Dean in 1606. He had been chosen for his skill in the original languages, but
died February 1607. f104 To these men the King is reported to have given the
following Instructions or Rules:- 1. The ordinary Bible read in the Church,
commonly called the Bishops’ Bible, to be followed, and as little altered as the
original will permit. 2. The names of the Prophets and the holy writers, with
the other names in the text, to be retained as near as may be, according as they
are vulgarly used. 3. The old ecclesiastical words to be kept: as the word
CHURCH not to be transated CONGREGATION, &c. 4. When any word hath divers
significations, that to be kept which hath been most commonly used by the most
ancient Fathers, being agreeable to the propriety of the place, and the analogy
of faith. 5. The division of the chapters to be altered either not at all, or as
little as may be, if necessity so require. 6. No marginal notes at all to be
affixed, but only for the explanation of the Hebrew or Greek words, which cannot
without some circumlocution, so briefly and fitly be expressed in the text. 7.
Such quotations of places to be marginally set down, as shall serve for the fit
reference of one Scripture to another. 8. Every particular man of each company
to take the same chapter, or chapters; and, having translated or amended them
severally by himself where he thinketh good, all to meet together, confer what
they have done, and agree for their part what shall stand. 9. As one company
hath dispatched any one book in this manner, they shall send it to the rest, to
be considered of seriously and judiciously: for his Majesty is careful in this
point. 10. If any company, upon the review of the book so sent, shall doubt or
differ upon any places, to send them word thereof, note the places, and
therewithal send their reasons: to which, if they consent not, the difference to
be compounded at the general meeting, which is to be of the chief persons of
each company at the end of the work. 11. When any place of special obscurity is
doubted of, letters to be directed by authority, to send to any learned man in
the land, for his judgment in such a place. 12. Letters to be sent from every
bishop to the rest of his clergy, admonishing them of this translation in hand;
and to move and charge as many as, being skilful in the tongues, have taken
pains in that kind, to send his particular observations to the company, either
at Westminster, Cambridge, or Oxford. 13. The Directors in each company to be
the Deans of Westminster and Chester for that place; and the King’s Professors
in the Hebrew and Greek in each University. 14. These translations to be used,
when they agree better with the text than the Bishops’ Bible: viz., 1.
Tyndale’s; 2. Matthew’s; 3. Coverdale’s; 4. Whitchurche’s (i.e. Cranmer’s); 5.
The Geneva. The accuracy of these Rules is considerably shaken by the accouter
delivered in to the Synod of Dort on the 20th of November, 1618. They state that
only seven rules were ultimately prescribed, and that after each individual had
finished his task, twelve men (not six) assembling together revised the whole!

Most of the translators were already in independent circumstances, though some
were not so, and the posts to which any of them succeeded afterwards are noted
under each of their names. These appointments, however, cost his Majesty
nothing. But there was another point which the King left Bancroft to explain to
all his brethren. The fact was, that seine money did appear to be requisite in
the first instance, and his Majesty not choosing to signify in writing that he
had none of his own to spare, or that the Lords in the Privy Council would not
agree to his drawing on the public purse, he left it to another to explain the
dilemma, and, through him, turned to the Bishops and Deans in the hope that they
would furnish supplies. The sum specified by Bancroft was not large. It was only
marks, £666 13s. 4d., the same amount he had spent in reparing his palace. The
Bishop, however, being under orders, must forward his circular as to this point,
which it seems he did; and from one of them yet extant, dated 31st July, 1604,
we find him requiring his brethren, with every several Dean and Chapter, in the
King’s name, to contribute to the work, and to send him word, as soon as they
could, of the amount they would so contribute, hinting that he would “ acquaint
his Majesty with every man’s liberality towards this most godly work.” For a
reply to this pressing circular we search in vain. From the Bench entire we hear
not one echo; for if there was even one reply, it has never been found, and, at
least, no money was ever contributed. The public exchequer was empty, and
nothing was to be got from that quarter. It was well that most of the
translators were in good circumstances, others had to look forward to the future
for their reward, while we find at least one of the most able of them all, John
Boys, eating his “commons” first at one college table, and then at another, in
Cambridge, during the entire period in which he was there engaged.

It is not fully ascertained when these men sat down to their work. The different
parties might not all commence at the same moment, but, on the whole, it may be
presumed that, with the Hebrew of the Old Testament, and the Greek of the New,
before them all along, the first revision of the sacred text by the forty-seven,
occupied about four years; the second examination by twelve, or two selected out
of each company, nine months more, and the sheets passing through the press,
other two years, when the Bible of 1611 was finished and first issued. No money
was needed while the six companies were working separately at Westminster,
Cambridge, and Oxford. But when the selected two of each company met in London,
pecuniary supply, to a moderate extent, had become necessary. The entire Bible
as it came from the forty-seven was now before these twelve men, who met at
Stationers’ Hall, and were thus daily occupied in their second revision for nine
months or thirty-nine weeks. They were paid weekly, and a sum of “a thousand
marks,” and more, is now required, and the only question is, from whence it
came? From a memoir of John Boys already mentioned, one of the twelve, and who
alone took notes, we learn, that each of them, while in London, duly received
thirty shillings a week; “though BEFORE they had NOTHING.”

Upwards of £700 must have been thus expended, but with regard to the paymasters
for this service, it is evident that the Company of Stationers, in whose Hall
they met, had too little interest in the affair to meet this demand. From the
King nothing could be hoped for. If it was “not convenient,” to use his own
phrase, in 1604, it was far less so in 1608.

After the twelve had performed their share of the work, the translation had to
be superintended through the press under the eye of Dr. Miles Smith and Thomas
Bilson, Bishop of Winchester, with their subordinates-a process which involved
much additional expense for two years, yet neither was this met by any grant of
public money. To a writer in 1651 we are indebted for the information we are in
quest of.

Defending the patented monopoly enjoyed by Barkers for more than seventy years,
he argues:- “And forasmuch as propriety rightly considered is a legal relation
of any one to a temporal good; I conceive the sole printing of the Bible and
Testament, with power of restraint in others, to be of right the propriety of
one Matthew Barker, Citizen and Stationer of London, in regard that his father
paid for the amended or corrected translation of the Bible £3500: by reason
whereof the translated copy did of right belong to him and his assigns.”f105 In
perfect harmony with this payment, immediately after Robert Barker (the son of
the original patentee, and now son-in-law of Day, Bishop of Winchester) had
printed the Bible of 1611, in May following he obtains from the King a patent
for Christopher, his eldest soft, to hold the same after the death of his
father; with the proviso, that if the son should die first, his heirs were to
enjoy the benefits for four years after Robert the father’s death. Within five
years after this the son died, and so, in February 1617, the King granted the
same patent to Robert, the second son, for thirty years, to commence after the
death of his father. The Barkers assigned their rights, in July 1627, to Bonham
Norton and John Bill, which the King confirmed. In 1635, the father, Robert
Barker, yet alive and unsatisfied, obtains the same patent in reversion to
Charles and Matthew, his younger sons, after the expiration of all the others!
Thus, from down to 1709, during the long period of 132 year’s, not a single copy
of the Sacred Volume had issued front the press in which this one family,
father, son and grandsons, had not a personal pecuniary interest.f106 To return
then for a few moments, and finally, to the Bible of 161l; after neither his
Majesty, nor the Bishops, nor the Stationers’ Company, had afforded any
pecuniary aid, we have found the money furnished, and very properly, by the only
party who was to receive the profits. The honour of payment for the whole
concern, so often ascribed to James the First, is by no means to be taken from
him, if one shred of positive evidence can be produced; but this, it is
presumed, lies beyond the power of research. In this case, therefore, to speak
correctly, we have come at last, not to an affair of government, not to a royal
undertaking at his Majesty’s expense, according to the popular and very
erroneous historical fiction, but simply to a transaction in the course of
business. If we inquire for any single royal grant, or look for any act of
personal generosity, we search in vain.

There is, however, in conclusion, one other inquiry to be made; and this, to
some minds, may be not the least important. It is this. By whose influence or
authority was it, that our present version of the Sacred Volume came to be read,
not in England alone, but in Scotland and Ireland? This, too, is a question the
more interesting to millions, as it is now the Bible of so many distant
climes-read not only in the Americas and Canada, but in all the wide-spread and
daily extending British colonies. The reigning King had indeed signified his
approbation of the undertaking, and when the Bible was published it bore on its
title-page, that the version had been “newly translated out of the original
tongues, and with the former translations diligently compared and revised, by
his Majesty’s special commandment.” In a separate line below, and by itself, we
have these words, “Appointed to be read in churches.” Now, as the Book never was
submitted to Parliament, never to any Convocation, nor, as far as it is known,
ever to the Privy Council, James, by this title-page, was simply following, or
made to follow, in the train of certain previous editions. As for Elizabeth, his
immediate predecessor, we have already seen, that under her long reign, there
was another version, beside the Bishops’, and that the former enjoyed the
decided preponderance in public favour: so, in the present instance, that there
might be no mistake or misapprehension, in regard to the influence or authority
by which our present Bible came to be universally received, a result somewhat
similar took place. “We can assign,” says Professor Lee, of Edinburgh, “no other
authority for using the present version of the Bible, except that of the
Conference at Hampton Court.” But that Conference had no authority at all, in
point of law. The King wrote a letter, by his Archbishop, to the Dignitaries of
the Church, but after that one letter, so abortive in one of its objects, he
spoke no more. “After this translation was published,” says a writer in the
Bibliotheca Literaria, “the others all dropt off by degrees, though I don’t find
there was any canon, proclamation, or Act of Parliament to enforce the use of
it.” “The present version,” says Dr. Symonds, “appears to have made its way
without the interposition of any authority whatever; for it is not easy to
discover any traces of a proclamation, canon, or statute published to enforce
the use of it.” Sometimes indeed at an episcopal visitation, the question, “Have
you a large Bible of the last translation?” was put to the churchwardens. But
such inquiries only proceeded in virtue of the King’s personal authority over
that Church of which he was recognised as the head, and could have too little
effect to account for the growing use of the new version.

One mighty advantage, besides its general superiority as a translation to all
its predecessors, consisted in its being without note or comment. That which
sunk the Geneva Version, excellent though it was, into oblivion sooner than it
otherwise would, was the dead-weight of its notes. Though it continued to be
printed by Barker up to 1618 or later, and when he ceased, was printed in
Holland, and imported down to 1640 into England, and much later into Scotland,
it gradually gave way to the newer and better version.

Under the gradual disclosure of attested facts, in regular succession from Henry
the Eighth down to this period; while establishing the high independence of the
English Bible as a distinct undertaking, and not to be confounded with other
things; the present history may seem to have borne hard upon some men in high
places; since it has bereaved the reigning prince, as well as some of his titled
advisers, of an honour and influence which have too often been falsely ascribed
to them. But in never soliciting their patronage, and in no vital point
admitting of their control, it becomes a very observable circumstance, that, at
this crisis, when the question of our present version of the Bible came to be
settled for two centuries to come, the history will effectually redeem itself
from all imputations as to anything invidious towards the Crown, as the Crown.
The course it held under monarchical government, will not change when this is
gone. Let executive human power be held by whomsoever it might, if put forth
here, in the shape of control, it cannot be allowed, and, like former attempts,
it must come to nothing. The proposal may be hinted, but it will die away.

It happened about eight years after the death of Laud, and four after that of
Charles the First, that a Bill was introduced into the Long Parliament, on the
11th of January, 1653, for “a new English translation of the Bible out of the
original tongues.” Such a Bill, it must be remembered, had never before been
laid before any previous Parliament in England. Once upon a time indeed, under
Edward VI., we have seen that a Bill was brought before the Senate referring
simply to the reading of the Bible, which was never mentioned a second time, or
heard of more; but respecting any version, or revision of the Scriptures, as the
corrsent of Convocation had never been deemed necessary, so that of Parliament
had never been consulted. At a period, therefore, when there was no King upon
the throne, no Primate in existence, nor any House of Lords, such a proposed
Bill excites special notice; while as an attempt on the part of official power
to interfere, it becomes the more striking, as being of a new character. The
Bill was once mentioned, and only once; but the Parliament of the Lord- Brethren
must no more invade the peculiar character of this cause, than the Parliament of
royalty; nor must the sovereignty of the people be flattered, any more than the
sovereignty of the Prince. This Parliament had already sat for more than twelve
years, retaining the supreme authority in their hands, so that this Bill sunk
into oblivion by the well-known dissolution of the House soon after. On the 20th
of April, Cromwell, surrounded by some of his officers and several hundred men,
repaired to the Parliament, and after hearing them for a quarter of an hour
discuss the question as to the form of their own dissolution, he rose and
peremptorily settled it. In the way which has been so often described, he
upbraided certain members, dissolved the House, ordering the members to
disperse, the mace to be taken away, and carrying the keys of the House with
him, in the afternoon of the same day, he also dissolved the Council of State.

It was just at the time that the London press was occupied with the last volumes
of the London Polyglot, edited by Walton, in 1657, that the final attempt to
interfere with our present version occurred. Walton himself and a few others
appear as though they were about to reconsider it; that is, they were deputed to
do so, but as they come before us under the orders of a parliamentary
sub-committee, they were not allowed to proceed. The existing Parliament had
been summoned by Cromwell, as the Lord Protector, to represent England,
Scotland, and Ireland. They had chosen what they were pleased to style “The
grand committee for Religion,” but whatever else they had done, or did after,
they must not interfere in regard to the Scriptures. This Committee assembled at
the house of lord Commissioner Whitlock, who has himself recorded their
fruitless attempt in the following words:- “Jan. 16, 1656,” (that is, 1657,)
“ordered that it be referred to a sub-committee to send for and advise with Dr.
Walton, Mr. Hughes, Mr. Castell, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Poulk, Dr. Cudworth, and such
others as they shall think fit; and to consider of the translations and
impressions of the Bible, and to other their opinions therein to this committee;
and that it be specially commended to the Lord Commissioner Whitlock to take
care of this business.” This Committee accordingly often met, from this date to
November following, when they gave in a Report. They might say what they
pleased, as to any existing impressions of the Bible, but, as an official body,
they must not touch with the Translation itself. Accordingly they had occasion
to reprobate the incorrectness of certain editions, but particularly one,
printed by John Field for the Barkers, in 1653, or twenty years after their
father had been fined under Charles, for the same crime. As for the Translation
itself, they made several remarks upon some mistakes; while they agreed, that,
as a whole, it was “the best of any translation in the world.” In this
testimony, Walton, Castell, Pocock, Seldon, and others concurred; but official
authority could not be permitted to proceed any farther.

Parliament was soon dissolved, and from about this period the general
acquiescence of the nation in that version of the Bible, which has been read and
revered ever since, may be considered as having taken place. The reader cannot
fail to mark the season of this very important national occurrence; but of this
we must refrain from taking any farther notice, till the History of the Bible
inSCOTLAND be brought down to the same period.


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  CHAPTER 5: 03 BOOK 3. SCOTLAND. - INTRODUCTION.
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SCOTLAND. - INTRODUCTION.

Brief Notice Of Scotland During The Fourteenth And Fifteenth Centuries The
Opening Of The Sixteenth Before The Sacred Scriptures In Print Were First
Imported.

BEFORE the Sacred Volume in our vernacular tongue, and in a printed form, was
brought into England itself, we had occasion to notice the two preceding
centuries; and it would be doing injustice to the northern part of our island,
were we not now to glance, however briefly, at the same period. The early
connexion of Scotland with France is distinguished by the institution of the
Scots College, or “Seminaire des Ecossais,” in Paris, founded in 1325, by the
Bishop of Moray; and in the revival of literature during the fourteenth century,
such as it was, individual natives of Scotland must have taken an interest, if
one of her sons may be admitted in evidence. In furnishing a poetical historian,
contemporary with Wickliffe and Chaucer, of whom an Englishman, even Wharton,
has told us, that he “adorned the English language by a strain of versification,
expression, and poetical imagery, far superior to the age;” Caledonia had so far
already proved herself to be no unmeet “nurse for a poetic child.” We refer to
John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen, the author of “The Bruce”-a soothfast
history of the life and adventures of Robert; the First; for, independently of
its poetical merits, it is acknowledged to be a book of good authority.
“Barbour,” says Dr. Irving, “was evidently skilled in such branches of knowledge
as were then cultivated; and his learning was so well regulated, as to conduce
to the improvement of his mind: the liberality of his views, and the humanity of
his sentiments, appear occasionally to have been unconfined by the narrow
boundaries of his own age.” His apostrophe to Freedom, like the earliest lark of
the morning, though hailing a day which hc could not anticipate, has been quoted
with admiration in his own country, at the distance of more than four hundred
and fifty years. “Ah! freedom is a noble thing:- Though he that aye has lived
free May not know well the property.” This work, finished about the year 1375,
was written while Wickliffe was yet busy with his translation of the Scriptures;
and we notice them together, simply for the purpose of remarking, that as there
was but little difference in the phraseology of the Scottish and English writers
of this period, so the prose of Wickliffe must have been as intelligible in
North Britain, as the poetry of Barbour in the south. “The obscure and
capricious spelling,” it has been said, may, perhaps, deter some readers from a
perusal of “The Bruce,” (a supposition equally applicable to Wickliffe;) “but it
is very remarkable, that Barbour, who was contemporary with Gower and Chaucer,
is more intelligible to a modern reader, than either of these English writers.”
Nor was the language unfelt by those who first read it. On the contrary, so
highly was the work appreciated, that, by Robert II., the author had a pension
assigned to him, which was punctually paid until the day of his death in 1395.

Seventeen years, however, before that event, this man, along with the rest of
his countrymen, had taken part in that great controversy, which agitated all
Europe, when Scotland and England became divided in opinion, and on a point of
such vital importance as the Pontificate itself. To this subject, reference has
already been made, in our introduction at the commencement of the volume; but to
understand it now, so far as Scotland was concerned, we know not of a shorter
method, than that of exhibiting the two countries in the position which they
respectively occupied for nearly half a century.

ENGLISH PONTIFF. CHOSEN. DEPOSED. RESIGNED. DIED SCOTTISH PONTIFF. CHOSEN. DIED.

Urban VI. 1378 1389.. Clement VII. 1378. 1394.

Boniface lX 1389. 1404. Benedict XIII. 1394. 1424. lunocent VII. 1404. 1406.

Gregory XlI. 1406. 1409. 1415 1417.

Alexander V. 1409. 1410.

John XXII. 1410. 1415. 1419. The Chair now vacant, two years and five months.

Martin V. 1417 1431. Clement VIII. 1424. 1429.

Thus strikingly had Providence shed confusion into the counsels of Rome; and
throughout the whole period, there must have been a degree of mental agitation
such as the entire island had not experienced for many a day, if, indeed, ever
before. During all these years, England had been bowing to seven different
Poutiffs in succession; but six of these Scotland would never acknowledge. On
the contrary, she abode by Clement and Benedict, two different men; and yet it
was at one of the most perplexing moments of this schism, or in 1411, that the
first University in Scotland was founded at St. Andrews. Then, there were three
rivals before the world; Gregory, Benedict, and John; and the grand question of
the day was, which was the true Pontiff. Two years before this, the Council of
Pisa, by way of allaying all strife, had increased the confusion, by deposing
Benedict, the Scottish, and Gregory, the English Pontiff; leaving both England
and Scotland to make their choice of Alexander V., a poor feeble character.
England acquiesced, but Scotland had taken her ground, and was never to be
moved; though her Monarch, James I., was then a captive in England,
unrighteously detained. The consequence was, that when the University of St.
Andrews came to be founded, Henry Wardlaw, the Bishop, who must have not fewer
than six bulls to confirm the appointment, obtained them from Benedict, dated at
Paniscola in Arragon, 25th August, 1412. Thus the first school of learning in
Scotland received its authority from Peter de Luna, then in his 80th year, but a
deposed Pontiff; while two other men besides himself, Gregory and John, were
fighting for the same chair. Nor was this the only college established in
Scotland under the fifteenth century. The breach as to Rome once more healed,
the delusive idea, that the promotion of such literature would be able to secure
the prolongation of spiritual and temporal power, had taken fill possession of
different Pontiffs, and especially of Nicholas V. By his authority, therefore,
and while they were running riot at Rome, in keeping their noted Jubilee of
1450, the University of Glasgow was founded; a place then containing only about
fifteen hundred inhabitants, or not the one hundred and seventieth part of its
present population. A second college at St. Andrews, St. Salvator’s, followed in
1455, and King’s College, Aberdeen, in 1594-5.

Thus, in Scotland, as well as in England, before the learning or philosophy of
Greece had reached either country, what was called scholastic erudition was
first permitted to put forth its powers, and prove to posterity its utter
impotence for doing good. The human mind, however, in Scotland, as well as in
other countries, was evidently waking up; though in all this it is not difficult
to perceive only the first efforts of “the old learning,” to prevent the
slightest innovation, or the introduction of a better day. They were so many
feeble attempts, akin to the grand exploit of Wolsey at Oxford, in the early
part of the next century. Henry Wardlaw has been to Avignon, and lived in
friendship with Benedict. As it was from him he had received his appointment to
the See of St. Andrews, from him he returned as his Legate for Scotland, with
full powers. This was in 1404, or the same year in which James the First, then
on his way to France, was seized by Henry IV. of England; so that for twenty
years Wardlaw was left free to pursue his own plans. The University was
concocted in union with Benedict, and when first set on foot, it was through the
efforts of learned men, who gratuitously afforded their services as professors,
rather than from any stipendiary patronage either of a public or private
character. For above sixty years the professors had no fixed salaries, and the
students paid no fees, so that we have before us rather a nursery in favour of
existing opinions, than a school of learning, intended for the ultimate benefit
of the people at large. Thus, on the release of James in 1424, so far from any
improvement in morals, to check the licentiousness of the ecclesiastics, the
king had to labour in establishing schools, such as should be available to all
ranks, as well as not hold the sword in vain. In short, it turned out, that the
Legate of Benedict, though proverbially a hospitable man, was a far greater
enemy to what he deemed heresy, than to open immorality; and the first bloodshed
in Scotland for opinions held, was shed not only under his sway, but in the city
where he had founded his University. Two men are well known to have suffered by
his authority; and as neither of these were natives of Scotland, it only shows
what a dread was felt, lest one ray of light from abroad should disturb the
surrounding gloom, or existing authority. John Resby, an Englishman, was
condemned in 1408; and in 1432, Paul Craw or Crawar, a native of Germany or
Bohemia, but certainly a disciple of Huss; both being burnt to ashes, as the
punishment then affixed to the operations of the human mind. The death of this
Bohemian, who is described, by one annalist, as having “first displayed the
bright beams of the Gospel in St. Andrews,” must have been regarded at the
moment as a great achievement, since it stands even now in strange association
with the venerable remains of Melrose Abbey. Very soon after, that monastery was
given in reward to an abbot who had acted as the chief persecutor! “This year,”
1433, says Sir James Balfour, “the king, at the earnest solicitation of the
clergy, but especially Henry Wardlaw, Bishop of St. Andrews, bestowed the Abbey
of Melrose upon a lubberly monk of the Cistercian order, named John Fogo, who
had written a blasphemous pamphlet against Paul Craw’s heresy.” The reign of
superstition continued to maintain its supremacy; but though the progress of
knowledge was slow, the efforts of genius in certain directions, during the
latter part of the fifteenth century, and the opening of the next, were not to
be repressed. The names of William Dunbar and Gavin Douglas, of Kennedy and
Henryson, of John Mair, Sir David Lindsay, and others, were quite sufficient to
allow of Scotland taking no inferior place in the rising dawn of literature.
Dunbar has been frequently styled the Scottish Chaucer: and Douglas was the
first translator of a Roman classic into the English language; his own original
poetry prefixed to the different books of the AEneid having received the warmest
praise of the present day.

James IV. was decidedly in favour of the progress of letters. Witness only “The
Thistle and the Rose,” by Dunbar-a poem fun of picturesque beauty-presented to
James, in 1503, on the occasion of his marriage to Margaret, the eldest daughter
of Henry VII. By the king’s sanction also, and under his own eye at Edinburgh,
the art of printing itself was introduced into Scotland. The first patent was
granted, in 1507, to Walter Chepman and Andro Myllar, his workman; and they set
up their press accordingly in “the Southgate.” But though the press was set up,
the idea of applying that art to its noblest end, or the printing of the Sacred
Scriptures, and in Edinburgh, was not to be cherished for seventy years to come.
We are left, therefore, to inquire at what time any part of the Sacred Volume,
printed in our native tongue, had first reached the shores of North Britain.


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  CHAPTER 6: 04 BOOK 3. - SCOTLAND
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BOOK 3. - SCOTLAND.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER - NEXT CHAPTER - HELP - FACEBOOK FROM JAMES THE FIFTH TO THE
COMMONWEALTH.

REIGN OF JAMES V. 1526.

State Of Scotland-The First Introduction Of The New Testament In The English
Language-Earliest Arrivals At Edinburgh And St. Andrews-Singular Condition Of
The Country, And Especially Of Its Primate, At The Moment. THE first
introduction of the New Testament into England, by Tyndale, has been fully
described, and it must have been felt how much the existing state of the country
deepened our interest in that ever memorable event: the state of Scotland
immediately before, and at the same moment, will complete the picture as to the
entire island. For nearly eight, years longer, it is true, the inhabitants of
both countries regarded each other with no amicable feeling. Monarch and people
considered the interests of the two kingdoms to be perfectly distinct, and far
from being disposed to union, they viewed each other with proverbial jealousy,
and fought accordingly. In the year 1526, therefore, more especially after
England had gained such influence in the north, the idea that the monarch of the
inferior state would ultimately become the sovereign of the whole island, must
have been treated with disdain; but that the change, when it did take place,
whatever was the character of that King personally, would be overruled for
introducing, to all alike, that Sacred Volume, which has been read ever since,
is a result which would then have been regarded with equal scorn by both
parties. Yet thus early, and whatever might be the feelings entertained, or
sentiments then held, on either side of the Tweed, it seems as if the Governor
among the nations, regarding them as only one people, had begun to act
accordingly. If it shall turn out that the highest gift which He has ever
bestowed upon both countries, was conveyed to them both at the same period; if
the only effectual cement or remedy, for all local and petty antipathies, was
then first supplied to both, however imperceptibly, and hitherto unnoticed,
certainly the fact well deserves to be traced out, and will, it is presumed,
fully reward attention. In 1526, when the New Testament in English was, as far
as is known, first introduced into Scotland, that kingdom was in a state of the
greatest distraction. On looking over the criminal trials of the day, we see but
one continued series of slaughter and theft, treason and deadly feud. James V.
was yet a minor, and three parties had been struggling for the mastery; one,
under the Earl of Arran and the Queen Mother, sister to Henry VIII.; another,
under the Duke of Albany and James Beaten, Archbishop of St. Andrews; and the
third, under the Earl of Angus and the Douglases, in the pay of England. The
last of these soon gained the ascendency and seized the person of the young
king, who, against his will, was kept in thraldom by this party. The other two
parties united and did what they could to obtain the person of James. An appeal
at length was made to the sword, but in the battle of Linlithgow, Angus was
victorious, the Queen Mother had to esccape in disguise, and Beaton, the
counsellor of the party, was compelled to provide for his personal safety,
assuming the garb of a shepherd, and remaining on the hills for several months.
The news, on reaching the English court, were hailed with joy by Henry and his
Cardinal; and from a letter of Sir Thomas More to the latter, it is evident that
it was the policy of Wolsey to get Benton into his power, and that instructions
were sent to Angus and his party to “provide and see so substantial order taken,
that none evil weed have power to spring up too high.”f107 Archbishop Benton
having exchanged his palace or castle for the hills, and his crosier for a
shepherd’s crook, it had been well for himself, as well as the interests of
humanity, had he abode by his occupation to the day of his death. At present,
however, he could do nothing, and must keep as quiet as possible; but it will
not be out of place or uninstructive to observe what was doing in England at the
same moment.

Wolsey, as a politician, was evidently playing one of his double games with
Scotland, as well as with the Continent; a proof of his consummate talents for
worldly business all round him, in every direction; but he was now also enraged
at the existence of Tyndale’s Testaments, recently detected in Antwerp, and
straining every nerve to get them burnt; while Tunstal, Bishop of London, was
not only authenticating the book for this end, but he and Warham of Canterbury,
in October and November, were thundering out their injunctions against the
Sacred Volume as “pestiferous poison.”

Now, after all that we have witnessed in England; while they were thus up in
arms, and while Benton, the grand enemy in Scotland, was laid aside -wrapped up
in his shepherd’s disguise, or tending his sheep on the hills-it would certainly
be a curious and memorable coincidence, if the same sacred treasure was then
arriving in Scotland at different ports, not excepting St. Andrews itself; if
indeed the earliest copies had not secretly arrived in the course of the summer!
But we shall see presently. With regard to the first introduction into Scotland
of the Sacred Volume in a printed form, the historian has never yet been able to
proceed farther than a shrewd conjecture. It has been supposed that the
translation of Tyndale may or must have found its way there; but when, how
early, or by what recalls, we have never been told. If it can now be proved that
the book was conveyed to Scotland as well as England, not only by the same
method, but nearly about the same time, and certainly within the compass of the
same year, the reader cannot fail to return with fresh interest to the period.
This would be sufficient to render the year 1526 equally memorable in Caledonia,
as in Old England.f108 In their commercial intercourse with the Continent,
Scotland and England were altogether independent of each other, and the trade of
the former with the Low Countries was of equally ancient standing; but it is of
importance to observe, that, by this period, and by the authority of Parliament,
the Scottish merchants generally went along with their goods, and that none were
allowed to do so, but persons “able and of good fame.” So much the better, or
more in favour of what was now to take place. The reader can scarcely fail to
remember what a battle was fought in Antwerp respecting the New Testaments of
Tyndale, when first detected there, and how the Ambassador of England, John
Hackett, got himself so embroiled in the business; Wolsey and Tunstal being not
more fierce at home than he was abroad. Hackett’s object was to “see justice
done” upon all such English books as were entitled “The New Testament.” By
“justice done,” he meant burning them; and this he said was for “the
preservation of the Christian faith.” Now it is in the very midst of this, the
first onset in that long war, that we have positive information as to Scotland;
and while it must be new to the reader, it happens to be fully as distinct as
any we have read in the history of England, if not more so. Hackett was in busy
correspondence both with Cardinal Wolsey and Brian Tuke, the Secretary of State.
It was to the former he addressed a letter, dated from Mechlin, on Wednesday the
20th of February, 1526, that is, 1527; from which the following is an extract:-
“Please your Grace to understand that since my last writing to your Grace, I
have received none of yours. I trust by this time that your Grace has ample
information of such execution and justice as has been done in the towns of
Antwerp and Barrow (now Bergen-op- Zoom) upon all such English books as we could
find in these countries, similar to three such other books as your Grace sent
unto me, with my Lord the Bishop of London’s signature. “By my last writing to
Mr. Brian Tuke (4 January, 1527) I advertised hint how that there were DIVERS
merchants of Scotland that bought many of such like books, and took them into
Scotland; a part to Edinburgh, and most part to the town of St. Andrews. “For
the which cause, when I was at Barrow, being advertised that the Scottish ships
were in Zealand, for there the said books were laden, I went suddenly
thitherward, thinking, if I had found such stuff there, that I would cause to
make as good a fire of them, as there has been done of the remnant in Brabant;
but fortune would not that I should be in time; for the foresaid ships were
departed a day afore my coming. So I must take patience for all my labour, with
leaving My Lady Margaret’s letters, and good instructions with my Lord of Bever,
and the...... Mr.... off...concerning the foresaid business”f109 Mons. de Bever,
who was Lord of Campvere, and Admiral of Flanders, had been in London only in
March 1525, as Ambassador from Lady Margaret, Regent of Flanders, and must have
been fully aware of Wolsey’s imperious temper, as he had then insulted himself;
but it is not a little remarkable, that, at this very moment, confidence in the
Court of England was failing, if not gone; the double dealing of the Cardinal on
the Continent had been detected, and for some time to come, no attention will be
paid to any request from that quarter. The Lord of Campvere was not so likely
therefore to quarrel with the Scottish traders at their own staple port; nor is
there the slightest, evidence of Wolsey having conveyed the intelligence he had
received to Scotland, a circumstance the more remarkable since he was so annoyed
with the subject. He had, it is true, far higher game in prospect. The sack of
Rome itself first, and then his own splendid embassy to France, engrossed him;
but, besides, when these last ships arrived, Beaten lay under his frown, and in
concealment! Hackett, however, certainly refers to importations as already past;
and as more business was done in summer than in autumn, the probability is, that
even these were not the first Testaments. At all events, here the channel of
conveyance was opened.

Besides Leith and St. Andrews, there were the ports of Dundee, Montrose, and
Aberdeen, which all traded with Zealand; and as in Scotland there were no
official steps taken against the New Testament by name, for at least five years
after this, the book must have arrived, again and again, at all these ports.
This is easily understood, after the scene we have witnessed in England, in the
face of far greater and more vigilant opposition. But farther evidence awaits
us.

Thus, although England and Scotland were washed by the same sea, the one country
was to be, in no degree, dependent upon the other for the Word of Life; either
at first, or for years to come. Into both, it was to be imported, and both were
to stand alike on the same humble ground, as recipients. Nor when first
conveyed, in either case, was it to be by some one man of great mental energy
rising up, and rousing the attention of his countrymen to the truth of God.
Quite the reverse. But having once made of the Scottish Primate a fugitive, in
terror of his life, it was the God of Providence himself finding His way into
the very metropolis of superstition, as well as other sea-ports; pouring
contempt upon the crafty, and saying, in effect to the people of Scotland, as
well as England, at the same moment-“From henceforth let no man glory in men;
let veneration for foreign names, or for that of any man, who shall afterwards
rise in either country, never be carried to an undue or idolatrous extent.” For
a number of years the same providential course of supply was steadily pursued;
so that afterwards should any boasting or vain-glory, in connexion with
Christianity, ever be heard, whether in the south or the north, a most singular
foundation had been laid, for replying as Paul once did to his Corinthians,
“What came the Word of God OUT from you, or came it UNTO YOU ONLY? For who made
thee to differ? And what hast thou which thou didst not receive? ”-among all the
other nations of Europe, by way of eminence, receive? Petty or narrow-minded
rivalry has too often been evinced between England and Scotland, as to priority
in smaller matters; but there was to be no room left for boasting in regard to
the greatest of all. That such coincidence should never have been observed
before, may indeed seem strange; but once pointed out, it certainly was not
intended to be simply noticed, and so forgotten. Let it rather be improved, even
at this late hour, to the praise of Him, who thus, in spite of every species of
hostility, so signally conveyed His own word to the very camps of the enemy-to
the north as well as the south, about the same period-to Edinburgh as well as
London-to the mouth of the Eden at St. Andrews, and no doubt other places, as
well as to the mouth of the Thames, or to Oxford and Cambridge! In this point of
view, the year 1526 becomes by far the most remarkable in the annals of our
common country. The New Testament thus conveyed to both countries, was dreaded
and deprecated by both alike, and as an evil of the greatest magnitude. More
than ten years, passed away in England, before their greatest national blessing
was accepted or allowed by the sovereign; it was seventeen years before a
similar allowance occurred in Scotland. Where then, ever since, has there been
any ground for boasting? It is excluded; and that by the simple and authentic
history of the Sacred Volume itself. The Scriptures, however, once introduced,
one is curious to inquire after the Archbishop. To an ambitious mind no
punishment could be more severe than that of retirement and disguise, and Beaton
was soon thoroughly sick of both; but he was very rich, and must now therefore
try what money could effect. The Queen first ventured from her concealment, and
approaching to Edinburgh on Tuesday the 4th of November, or two months after the
fatal battle, was met on the road at Corstorphine by her youthful son, the King,
and other Lords, who conducted her to Holyrood. This so far paved the way for
Beaton’s release, but as Angus had all men in his power, “to fine and ransom at
his pleasure,” mere personal influence was not to avail, and least of all that
of the Queen Mother. David Beaton, therefore, the primate’s nephew, the future
Cardinal, was now in Edinburgh, negotiating for the fugitive; and through the
noted Sir Archibald Douglas, Provost of the city, an uncle of the Earl of Angus,
he at last succeeded. To the Earl of Arran the Archbishop had to present the
Abbey of Kilwinning; to Angus himself, in money, two thousand marks Scots; to
George and Archibald Douglas, one thousand each, and to Hamilton, the murderer
of Lennox, one thousand. Five thousand marks and an abbey was certainly no
trifling ransom in those days. After all, though Beaton was released by the end
of the year, and was keeping Christmas with the Queen in Edinburgh, he was but
barely forgiven, and not to be trusted. Soon after, both the Queen and he had to
withdraw from the seat of the Court, and to Stirling once more. Restored,
however, to his episcopal functions, we shall see, only too soon, the base and
ungrateful use which he made of his power. But so ended the year 1526.
1527.-1528 Consternation Of The Authorities In Scotland-The New Testament Soon
Followed By One Living Voice, That Of Patrick Hamilton-His Martyrdom-Alexander
Seton, The Next Witness, Persecuted He Escapes To England-The New Testament Goes
On To Be Imported, ONCE more the analogy between England and Scotland is
presented to our view. Under the English history we had occasion to observe,
that as early as 1520, some alarm had been felt respecting what was
calledLutheranism, the phrase of the day for any approach to Scriptural truth,
even though the party molested might never have heard of Luther’s name, or, at
least, read a page of his writings. So Scotland was soon seized with similar
alarm, and by the 17th of July, 1525, an Act of Parliament had passed, enacting,
that “no manner of persons, strangers, that happen to arrive with their ships,
within any part of this realm, bring with them any books or works of the said
Luther, his disciples or servants,” on pain of imprisonment, besides the
forfeiture of their ships and goods. Now, whether what was taking place last
year as to books imported was known, we have no positive evidence; but at all
events, by the autumn of this year there was fresh alarm, and that not owing to
strangers. In the month of August 1527, the Earl of Angus having got himself
appointed to be Chancellor, with Dunbar, the Bishop of Aberdeen and uncle of
Dunbar the Archbishop of Glasgow, to assist him; Angus and the Lords of Council
added the following clause to the Act of 1525 :-“ And all other, the king’s
lieges, assistaries to such opinions, be punished in seemable wise, and the
effect of the said Act to strike upon them.” Thus, between July 1525 and
September 1527, as it was determined to extend those penalties to natives of
Scotland, we have sufficient proof that importations by them had been going on;
but while there were, very probably, some other publications, it is not a little
extraordinary, that the only books which can now be traced, or distinctly
specified, should be those of the New Testament itself of Tyndale’s version.

Never, then, let it be overlooked, that if the provisions of this Act were
followed out, there existed a time in the history of our country, when, if a
vessel arrived at Leith or St. Andrews, at Dundee, Montrose, or Aberdeen, with
copies of the New Testament on board, the ship and cargo were liable to
confiscation, and the captain to imprisonment! A battle was now to be fought and
won, in the north as well as in the south of Britain. But again, as in England,
serious and long-continued persecution did not commence till after the
Scriptures had arrived; so it was in Scotland.

Copies had soon found their way, and not in vain, to the canons of Cardinal
College, Oxford; but so they had to the canons of St. Andrews, as well as other
parties. The explosion at Oxford occurred in February 1526, and by February
1528, at the very moment when Tunstal and his vicargeneral were sitting in
severe judgment on the book in London, the New Testament will now be very
pointedly referred to, and condemned, within the walls of the Metropolitan
Church in Scotland. The occasion of this, the first storm, is well known. It
followed the arrival from abroad, about the autumn of 1527, and the subsequent
exertions of one of the loveliest and most interesting of all characters in
early Scottish history-Patrick Hamilton. Of the noble army of Martyrs on British
ground, during the sixteenth century, he was to be the youthful and heroic
leader.

He was born in 1504, the son of Sir Patrick Hamilton of Kincavil, a son of Lord
Hamilton who was brother-in-law to James III. His mother was a daughter of John
Duke of Albany, brother to the same monarch, so that by both parents he was
related to the royal family of Scotland. His father was killed in the High
Street of Edinburgh in a feud between the Earls of Arran and Angus. Patrick,
intended for the Church, was educated under the wellknown John Major at St.
Andrews. There receiving the knowledge of the Word of God, he could not conceal
his sentiments, and had to leave with several others for the Continent. This was
ia 1525, and he was about two years abroad. That he visited Luther and
Melancthon at Wittenburg, though not certain, is probable. But at Marburg, from
which he returned direct to Scotland, he was intimate with Francis Lambert, John
Fryth, and William Tyndale. Though affectionately warned by these friends, and
dissuaded from rushing into certain danger, he was pressed in spirit to revisit
his country, which he did in 1527. While at Marburg, he wrote his well-known
treatises in Latin, “De Lege et Evangelio,” and “De Fide et Operibus,” called
afterwards, “Patrick’s Places.” These, soon after his departure, Fryth
translated into English, as he says, “to the profit of my nation; to whom I
beseech God to give light, that they may espy the deceitful paths of perdition,
and return to the right way which leadeth to life everlasting.” He speaks of his
friend as “that excellent and well-learned young man Patrick Hamilton, born in
Scotland, of a noble progeny, who, to testify the truth, sought all means, that
he might be admitted to preach the pure Word of God.”

Hamilton, on his arrival, had proceeded first to his brother’s house in
Linlithgowshire, Sir James having succeeded his father as Sheriff of that
county; and here, as the sequel proved, he had preached, and conversed not in
vain, as well as elsewhere. On the one hand, it has been said of him, that he
did not fail to lay open the corruptions of the Church, and the errors by which
the souls of men were ruined; but, on the other, that he had not attacked the
hierarchy as an Establishment, nor its claims to infallibility, He certainly had
not commenced with denunciation, but by preaching the truth itself, by enforcing
the reading of the Scriptures, with the necessity of repentance towards God, and
faith in Christ in order to good works. His discrimination as to the Law and the
Gospel, as to Faith and its fruits, was evidently of the first order, very far
above the age in which he suffered; and as to his mode of procedure, it seems to
have exactly corresponded with the counsel which Tyndale gave to Fryth himself,
five years after, as already explained. The Bellum Sacramentarium, or the bitter
strife about ordinances, had commenced on the Continent in 1524, or before
Hamilton’s reaching Germany, and it was still raging there; but the zeal of our
first martyr was not to be spent on the ceremonial or outward form of
Christianity. His was a controversy with tho heart, addressed to the soul and
spirit of man within him; and for proof we only need to observe the points which
he regarded to be “undoubtedly true,” and from which all the terrors of the
stake could not, for one moment, move him. They were simply these” 1. That the
corruption of sin remains in children after their baptism. 2. That no man by the
power of his free will can do any good 3. That no man is without sin so long as
he liveth. 4 . That every Christian may know himself to be in a state of grace.
5. That a man is not justified by works, but by faith only. 6. That good works
make not a good man, but that a good man doeth good works; and that an ill man
doeth ill works; yet the same ill works, truly repented of, make not an ill man.
7. That faith, hope, and love, are so linked together, that he who hath one of
them, hath all; and he that lacketh one, lacketh all.”

All others he denominated “disputable points,” though such as he could not
condemn; but the above he regarded as vital truths. The youth of Hamilton and
his rank, his fine talents and his views of Divine truth, had all combined in
producing an immediate impression; while the power of his family, of which the
Earl of Arran was the chief, and who had so resented the death of Patrick’s
father, must have rendered any open hostility more difficult. The recent union
also of Arran with the Earl of Angus, the present possessor of all power, to say
nothing of Beaton himself, so lately in disgrace, and Lord Chancellor no more,
one should have imagined would have still farther increased the difficulty.
These circumstances, however, clearly show the height to which alarm had been
excited, or, in other words, the powerful result of this young man’s exertions.
After the Scriptures had come, it was like a voice crying, “Arise from the dead,
and Christ shall give thee light.” the panic among the leaders of “the old
learning” must have been both great and general, before decided steps were
taken; and these, at last, were accordingly distinguished, not only by deep
dissimulation, but Satanic haste.

Invited to St. Andrews by a special message from the Primate, who, with solemn
promises of safety, said, he only wished to converse with him, Hamilton went
without hesitation. Beaton received him with a hypocritical show of kindness,
assigned him a lodging in the city, and so left him to be fully ensnared by a
Dominican friar, Alexander Campbell, with whom he had come in contact before his
departure for the Continent. Only a very short time was required to draw from
the ardent and zealous youth ample ground for accusation to the Archbishop; more
especially as Campbell, who was the Prior of his order, had pret tended to admit
the force of all that Hamilton advanced. In fact, he had been only a few days in
St. Andrews, when, under night, he was apprehended in bed and carried to the
Castle; and the very next day he was before Beaton, with thirteen different
articles laid to his charge, by the man who seems to have long thirsted for his
blood. Though drawn into some general conversation at this moment, the youthful
martyr, with the finest discrimination, separating the truths from the errors,
had evidently resolved to die for the confession of the.former, rather than the
denial of the latter, and therefore he abode by the seven points already
mentioned. So Fox informs us that “learned men who communed and reasoned with
him, do testify, that these were the very articles for which he suffered.”
Meanwhile, with a hypocritical show of moderation, Beaton remitted the articles
entire to the judgment of fourteen theologians, such as they were, not
forgetting, however, to include among the number his base persecutor, Campbell.
Within only a day or two more, these men returned their censure, condemning the
whole articles as heretical, before a solemn meeting in the Cathedral. This
happened on Saturday the 28th of February, 1528; and now, on the same day, the
prisoner, after all that had been promised by Beaton, was to be tried,
condemned, and reduced to ashes, before the sun went down! They trod in the
footsteps of the Pharisees of old, for the next day was the Sabbath! That no
small sensation had been created by the youthful and heroic martyr, we only need
to glance at the mighty array brought together to condemn him, after a mock
trial. Beaton durst not send to the King, and say, as Amaziah the priest did of
Amos to the King of Israel, “The land is not able to bear all his words;” but it
really seems as if he had sent round, and said something of similar import to
his brethren; for here we have more than twenty judges, and all assembled to
doom this young man to death.

Here, there were the two Archbishops and three Bishops, two Priors and four
Abbots, five Rectors and three Deans, a Sub-dean and a Canon, including friars
black and friars grey. The trial, such as it was, formed but a very summary
proceeding; but we must not omit part of the brief dialogue between the Martyr
and Campbell his accuser, in presence of his judges; as it forms the first
evidence on record that the New Testament in English, by way of eminence, had
become a subject of alarm; the mere reading of it, involving all that the
hierarchy already feared and deprecated. It seems as if, this Testament having
arrived, Hamilton’s enforcing the reading of it by all, had formed the head and
front of his offending; for the articles being read over by his determined
prosecutor, with this he commenced :- Campbell.- “ Heretic, thou sayest it is
lawful to any man to read the Word of God, and in special the New Testament?”
Hamilton. - “I said not so (to you) to my knowledge; but I said, and say it now,
it is lawful to all men that have a soul, to read the Word of God, that they may
understand the same, and specially the latter will and testament of Jesus
Christ, whereby they may acknowledge their sins and repent of the same, whereby
they may amend their lives by faith and repentance, and attain salvation by
Christ Jesus.” Campbell. -“Now, heretic, I see that thou affirmest the words of
thy accusation.” Hamilton.-“ I affirm nothing, but the words which I have spoken
in presence of this auditory.” The auditory to whom he addressed these, and
other like words, all condemned him to be guilty of death; and delivering him
over to the secular power, on the afternoon of the same day, he was led forth to
a stake placed, in terrorem, before the gate of St. Salvator’s College. On the
scaffold, turning affectionately to the faithful servant, who had long attended
him, and slept in the same apartment, having divested himself of his gown, his
coat, and his bonnet-“ These,” said he, “will not profit in the fire; they will
profit thee. After this thou canst receive no commodity from me except the
example of my death, which, I pray thee, bear in mind. For, although it be
bitter to the flesh, yet is it the entrance into eternal life, which none shall
possess that deny Christ before this wicked generation.’’ When bound to the
stake, far from exhibiting any fear, he fixed his eyes towards heaven,
commending his soul unto God. The executioners setting fire to the pile, it
would not burn, but merely scorched the left side of their victim! In this
excruciating state, obliged to send some distance to the Archbishop’s Castle for
gunpowder, as well as elsewhere for more combustible materials, an immense crowd
having assembled, some of whom loudly denounced the persecutors, while others
implored the martyr to recant and save his life, he thus addressed them :- “As
for my confession, I will not deny it for fear of your fire, for my confession
and belief is in Jesus Christ; and therefore I will not deny it. I will rather
that my body be burnt in this fire for confession of my faith in Christ, than
that my soul should suffer in the unquenchable fire of hell, for denying of my
faith. But as for the sentence and judgment pronounced against me this day, by
the bishops and doctors, I here, in the presence of you all, appeal against the
said sentences and judgment given against me, and betake myself to the mercy of
God.” Then turning to Campbell, who had acted in the threefold character of
traitor, judge, and executioner, as he even now satanically assailed his victim,
and reviled him as a heretic, Hamilton closed by adding, “Wicked man! thou
kuowest the contrary; to me thou hast confessed. I appeal thee before the
tribunal seat of Jesus Christ.”

Amidst the noise and fury of the flames now kindled, and the tumult of the
multitude, his last words were distinctly heard-“How long, O Lord, shall
darkness cover this realm! How long wilt thou suffer this tyranny of men!

Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”

Thus gloriously fell, as far as we know, the first native of Scotland as an
unspotted martyr for the truth, for the Word of God itself, as well as our right
to read it. The powerful consequences resulting from this martyrdom can never
now be fully traced; but if we follow them out as far as they may be, it will be
evident, that, hitherto, the event has been greatly underrated. The New
Testament Scriptures had arrived in Scotland, and they had been reading in
secret for at least a year and a quarter. These were God’s own providential
gift, at a period when the country was full of strife and feud, ferocity and
murder. This it was which is to be regarded as the commencement of decided
blessing from God; and now came the bold and loud summons from the believer’s
lips, to rouse the dead in sin, and embolden them to read, believe, and live. A
space equal to nearly three generations had passed away since anything so truly
horrible had occurred in Caledonia, however stern and wild. Besides, in 1432, it
was a foreigner who had suffered; but here was a native, of the most amiable
character, and high birth. The report of the martyrdom speedily ran through the
kingdom, promoting a spirit of inquiry into the cause, as well as the cause
itself. For as truly as Antipas, the faithful martyr of old, so God’s most
faithful servant had now been “slain among them where Satan dwelt, even where
his seat was ;” and yet no place was so deeply affected as the spot where the
deed was done. Of the extent of the sensation now produced, it is impossible to
judge with accuracy, but of its depth there can be but one opinion, since it
actually so far changed the character of this metropolitan city, the Rome of
Scotland. From being the stronghold of the Prince of Darkness, it became the
seat of deep inquiry and indomitable discussion, among not a few of the students
in the different colleges, the canons of the Cathedral, and even the friars. The
sufferings endured will furnish the evidence of this.

Another human voice was now demanded; but where shall one be found?

Campbell, the prior of the order of St. Dominic, or the Black friars, had
betrayed this heroic young man, ,and who so proper to speak next, as a brother
of the same fraternity? The Friar who had been appointed to preach throughout
Lent, in the Cathedral itself, it might seem far too much to expect, but in
truth it was no other! He was the first to sound again the trumpet of truth, and
that almost immediately after the Martyr had gone to receive his crown. Opening
his lips, they found he was no other than what they denominated a heretic!
Standing on the very spot where the murderers had sat in judgment, this, as the
prophet once expressed it, was as if “the stone had cried out of the wall, and
the beam out of the timber had answered it.” Nor was the preacher himself, from
his official character, less remarkable. The Archbishop, as well as all under
his authority, were afraid to touch him, he being actually the Father Confessor
of the King himself-that King whom Beaton had not consulted, and who had
therefore not consented to the counsel or deed of these bloody men. This was
Friar ALEXANDER SETON, brother of Ninian Seton, or Seytoun of Touch. In
discharging his duty, and following the example of his deeply lamented
predecessor, Seton now saw that in the truth itself there was enough to convict
all its enemies, and produce dismay; and that no wise man will ever commence his
labours by merely attacking superstition, or pulling at prejudices, as he would
at a cart-rope; an egregious mistake, into which many have since fallen. Taking
for his subject the law of God itself, Seton insisted much on the following
points :- “That the Law of God is the only rule of righteousness; that if God’s
Law be not violated, no sin is committed; that it is not in man’s power to
satisfy for sin; that the forgiveness of sin is no otherwise obtained than by
unfeigned repentance and true faith, apprehending the mercy of God in Christ
Jesus. Of purgatory, pilgrimage, prayer to saints, of merits and miracles, the
usual subjects of the friars’ sermons, not a word he spake.” F111 It is
remarkable that he should have been permitted to repeat his sentiments; but
having been appointed to preach during Lent, this, together with his official
character, may have been his safeguard, until he had given his auditory line
upon line, and proof after proof. About the end of that season, however, having
occasion to go northward to Dundee, he was there informed that a friar of his
own order had been set up to refute his doctrine, He then returned to St.
Andrews, and the King’s Confessor, not to be resisted, confirmed his former
positions, adding, from Scripture, the qualifications required for a good and
faithful bishop. This last subject could not be passed over, and soon brought
him before the Archbishop; but he, knowing Seton to be of a bold spirit,
dissembled his anger. Upon another martyrdom he dared not venture so soon, a
negative testimony to the power of Hamilton’s death; nor could the Primate
resolve upon trying any expedient, except that of first undermining Seton’s
character in the estimation of the young King. This was easily effected, and
very soon after. Poor young prince! His natural powers were of no inferior
order, but these men, whether nobility or clergy, had allowed him to grow up in
a state of comparative ignorance, and of self-indulgence, even to
licentiousness: the nobility, that they might rule him as a puppet, which his
high spirit could not endure; the clergy, that he might one day fall into their
hands, and move only in subservience to their designs. Now, at this very period
a crisis had arrived, of the King’s emancipation from the one party, and his
falling under bondage to the other. His Highness had groaned from day to day
under the iron yoke of the Earl of Angus, who, supported by the influence of
England, was the absolute governor of the nation still, though James had been
crowned in 1525. Next year the King had applied to some of his nobles to relieve
him from bondage, and hence the battle of Linlithgow in 1526. On the watch ever
after, at last, on the 22nd or 23rd of May, 1528, he himself dexterously
succeeded, by his escape from Falkland to the castle of Stirling; soon after
which Angus and the Douglas party were overcome and banished. In part indebted
for his escape to Archbishop Beaton, at this moment the young monarch must have
been ready to listen to whatever he said, and hence it was no difficult task to
destroy all respect for Seton; while this was rendered still more easy, not only
from his having been the Confessor of his Highness in the wearisome days of his
thraldom, but because Seton, much to his credit, had warned him respecting his
licentiousness. From what had happened in February, and observing the confidence
or respect of the monarch to be on the decline, Seton well knew what must
ultimately await him, and seeing no safety on the spot, he fled to Berwick. From
thence, however, he wrote to his royal master, a faithful letter, warning him of
the men under whose influence he had now fallen. He here explained that the
authority of the Bishops, and by no means that of his Highness, was what he
dreaded.

They behaved, he said, as kings, and would not allow any man of whatever state
or degree, if once they pronounced him to be a heretic, to speak in his own
defence. Nevertheless, if he might but have audience before the king, he now
offered to return and justify his cause. Like a faithful adviser, he then
informed James, that in duty he ought to see that every subject accused of his
life, should be allowed to use his lawful defences; since the Prelates held that
such matters did not fall under the cognizance of the Prince, and if only once
heard, he would demonstrate the contrary by their own laws. He then besought his
Highness not to be led any longer by their informations, lint to use the
authority committed to him by God, and not to suffer these tyrants to proceed
against him, till brought to his answer. This he would not refuse to give, if
once assured of the safety of his life. At Berwick he waited for some reply, but
waited in vain. Before this time Angus had been banished, and his estates
forfeited; Dunbar, Archbishop of Glasgow, had been appointed Chancellor in
August, as his successor, and Beaten, though not yet in power, had been recalled
to the Council by the end of November. Seton, therefore, retired into England,
where he became chaplain to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. As if to show how
equally balanced the two countries, England and Scotland, were, with regard to
their progress in Divine truth; about thirteen years after, or in 1541, Seton
was called before Stephen Gardiner, and examined, but denied not any point which
he had formerly taught. He even continued to preach the truths with which he had
been charged, and died, it has been said, next year, or 1542. In the meanwhile,
or before the close of 1528, it is pleasing to find any information whatever,
bearing on the Scriptures, and their continued importation. The friars now were
more busy everywhere than they had ever been, since friars were in fashion. The
reader may recollect of one, under our history as to England, Friar John West.
Earnestly charged, by Wolsey, with despatches to Counsellor Herman Rincke of
Cologne, their united efforts were to be employed in the apprehension of Tyndale
himself, and of William Roye, once his amanuensis; or, at all events, their
books. With regard to the men they entirely failed, but a number of what Rincke
calls “their books,” he had found out and secured. These must have included
copies of the New Testament, as well as Roye’s celebrated Satyre on the
Cardinal, a personal affair, which the latter so deeply resented. One short
passage in Rincke’s reply to Wolsey, dated the 4th of October, 1528, and sent by
West, deserves to be repeated here- “But these books, unless I had found them
out and interposed, must have been pressed together with parchment, and
concealed; and enclosed in packages, artfully covered over with flax, they would
in time, without any suspicion, have been transmitted by sea, into Scotland and
England, as to the same place; and would have been sold as merely clean paper;
but as yet, few or none of those, carried away and sold, have been found.”

Here then we have distinct mention of a continued traffic going on, and of one
of the asserted methods of transit, for there must have been various; nor is it
less worthy of repetition, that the Jews are to be supposed as having had some
concern in these importations, whether “to Scotland or England, as to the same
place.” 1529.-1534. All-Important Period, Hitherto Unnoticed-Alexander
Ales-Cruelly Persecuted By Hepburn, The Prior Of St. Andrews-At Last Escapes By
Sea, From Dundee, First To France, And Then To Germany-His Epistle Addressed To
James V.; Or The Commencement Of The First Regular Controversy In Britain
Respecting The Scriptures Printed In The Vulgar Tongue-The Abusive Publication
Of Cochlaeus In Reply -The Representations Of Ales Confirmed By The State Of The
Country, And The Second Martyrdom-Answer Of Ales To The Calumnies Of
Cochlaeus-Ales Pleads For The New Testament To Be Read-But Especially In
Families-Cochlaeus Addresses James V.-And Is Rewarded -The Persecutions And
Martyrdoms Of 1534 Again Confirm The Statements Of Ales-Who Is Now Standing By
Himself Alone In Defence Of The Truth.

WE are now arrived at a very memorable period in the history of Scotland.

It involves a space of five years, from the year 1529 to 1534 inclusive, and yet
it has been treated by all our historians as a sort of chasm, or calm in the
annals of persecution. No author has informed us that there was, at such a time,
one fragment of distinct information in existence, respecting the Sacred Volume;
its importation into the country; its being bought, or sold, and read by the
people; or that such reading was being so bitterly opposed. This is the more
surprising, since, upon this subject, it forms one of the most interesting
periods in the early history of the entire island.

Commencing seven years before Henry the Eighth had decidedly broken off from
Rome, and while both the South and North were still under the dominant power of
“the old learning;” yet was it the season of the first regular controversy in
Britain, though carried on with Scotland, respecting the Sacred Volume in our
native language; as well as the undoubted right of every one, “both low and
high, rich and poor together,” to read the Scriptures for themselves. The first
individual who took up this argument, one of the highest which can occupy the
tongue or the pen of man, wasALEXANDER ALES, whose name does occur in our
histories, as an exile from his native land, and a professor at Leipsic, where
he died, but his chief claim to his country’s grateful remembrance seems to have
been altogether overlooked. Fond recollections of his native city while in a
foreign land, led him to write a description of it, which is the only work of
his reprinted in modern times; but his exertions in reference to the free
circulation of the Scriptures in the language of the people, call for some
notice here.

He was born in Edinburgh on the 23rd of April, 1500. His father was a burgess of
the city, and gave his son such education at home as fitted him for entering the
University of St. Andrews. At that seat of learning, having completed the usual
course of study, he took priests’ orders, and became one of the Canons of the
Cathedral Church in that city, then the largest in Scotland. We hear nothing
more of him, however, till he had reached the twenty-eighth year of his age.
Then, as a proof that the alarm of the bishops and monks in 1525 and 1527,
respecting the introduction of “the new learning” into Scotland, was not without
grounds, it turned out that the canons and students were, through the medium of
certain books, studying the grand controversy of the times. But whatever might
be the object of other young men, that of Ales was, that he might be qualified
to oppose all innovation. When Patrick Hamilton, therefore, four years younger
than himself, was “drawn unto death” at St. Andrews, and now “ready to be
slain,” far from disposed to “deliver” him, and confident in his own scholastic
powers, Ales actually undertook to reclaim the suspected heretic. For this
purpose he held several conferences with his more enlightened junior, little
dreaming that the attempt was about to change the current of his whole life. But
staggered by the reasoning of that young gentleman; then hearing his noble
testimony, in a full house, or within the very walls where Ales himself was
accustomed to engage in services which the Martyr had so exposed; and finally,
beholding the heroic constancy with which he maintained his integrity in the
flames, amidst the rage, and more than savage cruelty of his enemies, the scene,
as well as the sentiments, were never to be forgotten. In short, the heart of
Ales was pierced by convictions, which ended in his conversion to the faith he
had laboured in vain to destroy. St. Andrews was not now to sleep in quiet,
after the smoke of Patrick’s funeral pile had been blown upon the spectators,
and scorched the Benedictine friar, his persecutor. Seton, as we have seen, was
the first victim soon after, but severer trials awaited Ales, the very next
year.

Almost all the inhumanity of these times has been heaped upon David Benton, the
nephew of the Archbishop and future Cardinal; but in this early stage at least,
the lasting odium was largely shared by another man, of whom we are about to
hear. Ales, as we have seen, had been a Canon in the Priory of St. Andrews, of
which the Superior was Patrick Hepburn.

Named after his father, the first Earl of Bothwell, and then frequently styled
“the young Prior of St. Andrews,” he had succeeded his uncle John, in 1522. He
soon became one of the most wicked men of his time, as far as licentiousness and
unbridled passion could go. A veteran in crime, long before the prime of life,
the public registers bear testimony to his enormous profligacy. Witness the
legitimation of at least eleven children, seven sons and four daughters. The man
had gloried in destroying the peace of many a family. It is but an imperfect
idea that can now be formed of the immorality in which these official men rioted
life away, and frowned on every attempt to reform a Church that winked at such
enormities in her priesthood. In a Latin oration delivered by Ales at the
command of Archbishop Benton before the Synod of Bishops and Priests, the
preacher bore hard in his strictures on the debauched clergy, bat avoided all
personalities, Hepburn thought himself aimed at, and as, about the same time,
the whole college had com:-plained to the King of the Superior’s cruelty, he
rushed with armed men into the hall of the Chapter, and twice attempted to stab
Ales, from which he was only held back, first by the other Canons, and then by
his own guards. He then seized the whole of the Canons and threw them into
prison, from which they were all, without exception, commanded by the King to be
immediately released. Ales, however, was retained, and thrown into a dungeon
under the Bishop’s Castle in St. Andrews, among the ruins of which it is still
shown. It is hewn in the solid rock in the shape of a bottle, its only entrance
being from the top or mouth, from which the prisoner was let down. The orifice
is 7 feet, but at the depth of 8 feet it widens to 17 feet in diameter, and is
in all 23 feet deep. Here Ales might have died, had not his friends and
fellow-canons raised a cry against the Superior’s cruelty and disobedience to
the royal mandate; then, on the twentieth day, the sufferer was brought up, and
shown to the magistrates, who were assured that he would forthwith be set at
liberty. He was, however, remanded to prison, and lay there for nearly a year.
The Canons, during the absence of the Superior, got him out, and restored him to
his office. But the infuriated man, returning one day unexpectedly, and finding
him officiating at the altar, flew into a rage, and would have dragged him at
once to the dungeon, had not the Canons once more interfered. That night, by the
advice of his deliverers, who assured him his death was determined on, he
escaped alone to Dundee, where he was received on board a vessel by a kind
relative, and sailed next day for the Continent. Whither he went at first, it is
impossible now to say, but certainly not to Wittenberg, since, even in 1534, he
tells us that he knew not Luther, nor had acquired the German language. He had,
however, “traversed part of the coast of France and many other places,” and some
time after he speaks of being in Cologne.

After the escape of Ales, an edict or order of the Bishops was promulgated,
prohibiting the New Testament in English from being read or sold. The alarm of
the enemy is one decided proof of progress in this cause, and the writings of
Ales, still untranslated, throw much additional light on this history. Indebted
to James V. for his kind interposition in favour of himself and the other
Canons, Ales writes under the impression that the royal youth is the same in
1533 that he had been in 1529, little aware how rapidly he was sinking under the
baneful influence of the hierarchy, till at last they brought him to sanction,
by his own personal presence, the burning of his subjects. His first work was
addressed “To the renowned King of Scots, James the Fifth, Duke of Albany,
Prince of Ireland and the Orkneys, his most compassionate lord, Alexander Ales,
S.D.” It is entitled “An Epistle of Akxander Ales, against a certain Decree of
the Bishops in Scotland, which forbids to read the books of the New Testament in
the vernacular tongue.” In this he earnestly expostulates with the King for
permitting this prohibition of the Divine Word to take effect, using, for the
first time, all those arguments which have often been repeated since, for an
unfettered Gospel, and showing how this would tend to heal many of the woes
under which his unhappy country then laboured. He implores the King, as one to
whom God had committed all departments of the State, to interpose,-describes the
advantages which must accrue to the people, and especially the children and
youth, from being trained up by such domestic reading and instruction,-that they
would prove better subjects and better citizens, which otherwise they could not
be. He quotes the Scripture to show that this is an imperative duty, and warns
his Highness of the evils which must arise from the interdict. He reminds him of
those who in former times had stood between the Message of Heaven and those to
whom it was sent. Here occurs the remarkably prophetic passage :- “When
Antiochus attempted to destroy religion in Judea, he commanded the books of the
prophets to be sought out everywhere, to be burned. And he suffered indeed the
just punishment of his madness. With his ruined arvey, be himself was consumed
with grief of mind. Nor was God satisfied with this punishment, but destroyed
also his posterity, that He might set forth an example of the punishment
described in the decalogue, where God says that punishment for iniquity should
travel through all posterity.”

How sadly parallel were the conduct and fate of unhappy James, though thus
warned! Persisting in burning the best of his subjects, and closing the best of
books, he, literally, “with his ruined army, was consumed with grief of mind,”
and died of a broken heart at the early age of thirty-one. After pleading for
himself as an exile unjustly banished from his country, but willing to endure
this if the Scriptures were but free to his country, Ales concludes- “The
histories of all ages, of all nations, teach what end cruelty shall experience,
especially that against the pious and the priests or ministers of a church.
Wherefore, I shall not cease to beseech thee, most gracious Sovereign, that you
would carefully examine these matters, and not grant this unbounded licence to
the chief priests and monks, which Christ will not long endure; and surely it is
opposed to your justice and clemency. This, therefore, I desire to obtain, if
what I ask be equitable, just, worthy of yourself, and profitable to the Church
and the State. May Christ preserve thee, and direct thy mind to the public
welfare! Anno 1533.”

Thus it appears, at this early period, that Scotland was not behind England in
point of progress made. The New Testament had been given to her in the same
year.-She could already point to her proto-martyr-and an advocate rising out of
his ashes, was now as earnest with her King, and against her bishops, as John
Fryth now was with similar parties in London. Had Ales only been forthcoming, he
had expired in the flames this year, as certainly as Fryth did in England. In
reply to this letter, as far as is yet known, there was not one man in Scotland
able to move his tongue; but there was one abroad, who, though abundantly ready
in reply, could never answer any argument; and who, when engaged in furious
wrangling, was never so much in his element.

This, the reader may anticipate, was no other than John Cochlaeus, the same who
raised the alarm respecting the New Testament, at first, in 1525.

Stung with disappointment, at his having no reward assigned to him by Wolsey, or
Henry VIII., he now did his utmost to procure notoriety and a pension, by
addressing King James V. of Scotland. The epistle of Ales could scarcely have
been read in his own country, before this indefatigable opponent must have been
at the press, as his tirade is dated on the 8th of June, 1533. There is nothing
whatever of sound argument in the book, though professing to answer Ales,
paragraph by paragraph. It abounds in different parts with virulent abuse, and
in others with blasphemy. There is no lack of positive falsehood as to Luther,
the writer’s perpetual eye-sore; and Ales, though unknown to Cochlaeus
personally, comes in for his full share, upon one hundred and sixty pages, in
reply to twenty-six! The object in view was to mystify and alarm the young King;
and the title is perfectly expressive of the great point in hand-“ Whether it be
expedient for the Laity to read the books of the New Testament in the vernacular
tongue.” f114 At the commencement, Cochlaeus owns that he was shooting in the
dark, not knowing whether this name of Alexander Alesius was a real, or only a
fictitious one; but though ignorant of his man, and equally so of the state of
Scotland, he artfully insinuates that the representation of the country, as
drawn by Ales, was altogether incredible. That the Bishops of Scotland could act
towards any subject whatever, in tho manner described, without the consent of
his Highness, he pretends to think impossible. The exile, he asserts, must
either falsely praise the King to stir him up against his Bishops, or else feign
the King’s wonderful clemency to himself, to render him suspected abroad, with
regard to the orthodox faith. Ales, too, he insists, must be a Lutheran, of
course, and the epistle itself must come from Wittenberg, the common asylum of
fugitives and apostates; while “the whole is concocted with such skill, that
readers may believe that the gospel of Luther is already propagated to the most
remote Scots, as far as Ultima Thulae.” It is here that Cochlaeus repeats, by
way of warning, the groundless falsehood of Tyndale and his amanuensis having
come to Wittenberg, acquired the German language, and then translated the New
Testament of Luther into English; adding, what was true, that he found them at
Cologne, and forewarned Henry VIII.; though he takes care to conceal that he had
received no thanks for his pains, and now entertained a very bad opinion of the
English monarch. Not aware that the New Testament had been introduced into
Scotland as early as 1526, and boasting of his own exploit of 1525, he warns the
King of similar snares preparing for his kingdom, and dissuades him from
reversing the Bishops’ edict against the reading of the Scriptures, by dwelling
on “the accumulation of evils which have sprung up among the Germans within a
few years from such reading, to say nothing of the loss of property suffered
from this Gospel; while for these mischievous books, the people have squandered
an incalculable sum of money, for so many hundreds of thousands of copies
printed and sold! From these they have got no good, but a deal of harm; artizans
neglecting their shop and their work from whence they ought to procure a
subsistence for their wives and children. Nor will I mention those evils which
many have endured in their body through this, while, in opposition to the edicts
of the magistrates, they read the prohibited books; and for this offence were
shut up in prisons, confined in towers, fined, banished from their country, and
suffered other bodily inconvenience.”

Cochlaeus then fortifies the royal youth, originally disinclined to deeds of
blood, not only against all the cruelties which might ensue in Scotland, and the
counter advice of any of his councillors, but against all the odium that was
sure to follow. His bishops ought to act with just severity against a few
transgressors in order to preserve the souls of many; nor was the New Testament
of Luther, as he artfully calls every vernacular version, to be considered the
Gospel of Christ, but of Satan! Therefore, if the King desired to preserve among
his people concord in the faith and unity of the Church, agreement in piety and
worship, fixedness of faith, and all the benefits of ecclesiastical discipline,
let him “desist from this business of translation, especially at this time.” He
then proceeds to inform the King that any translation of the New Testament, “the
best and most undoubted,” if it be “in the vulgar tongue,” must produce all
imaginable evil, and closes with the warning that copies may soon be secretly
transmitted, “through merchants, by the Elbe to Hamburg, which looks over to
Scotland”! Such was the advice with which this persecutor sought to fill the ear
of the young and thoughtless Scottish monarch. With Cochlaeus abroad, and such
men in power at home, both bishops and monks, a Prince once averse to all
cruelty, and still given to deeds of kindness in regard to the bodies of his
subjects, was driving on to ruin, by yielding to the sophistry of the hierarchy,
with respect to opinions which could neither be gainsaid nor resisted. At the
same time, let the chief blame rest where it actually did. Had the King,
unmolested, been allowed to pursue his pastime, humanly speaking, there had been
no such cruelty as still ensued. But the ecclesiastics, led on at present by
Patrick Hepburn, the young Prior of St. Andrews, as they were afterwards by
David Beaton, Abbot of Arbroath, were perpetually insisting that heretical
opinions, as they styled them, did not belong to the King’s jurisdiction; while,
in justice to the Prince himself, there is reason to believe, that he. by no
means yielded without a struggle, and did actually interfere again and again, as
Ales has represented. The King and the ecclesiastics had formed two parties
quite distinguishable in the estimation of many more than the writer of this
epistle: but soon after that Ales had done his best in addressing his former
benefactor, not only did Cochlaeus follow, but it so happened, that an
ambassador or legate from the Pontiff had been perambulating the country in
company with the King and the Queen Mother. They terminated their journey by
visiting St. Andrews, where they were all entertained in style by Beaton and
Prior Hepburn. In short, the year 1533 seems to have been about the turning
point in James’s course and character. He was even now only twenty-one years of
age, but in early life, “a stranger to pride, easy of access, and fond of
mingling familiarly with all classes of his subjects; with a generosity and
warmth of temper, which prompted him, on all occasions, to espouse with
enthusiasm the cause of the oppressed;” f115 what wonder that Ales should have
so addressed him? The change was most melancholy not only for himself, but his
kingdom. The year before this, or 1532, he had been sinking deep into the
licentious course which he afterwards pursued, for to this the hierarchy had no
objection; and now he is giving himself up to the counsel of these unprincipled,
and far more licentious, ecclesiastical men.

Before the end of the year 1533, and just as if to confirm every word that Ales
had so faithfully written, the second martyrdom took place at St. Andrews, and
this also was but a young man. Hamilton’s death was sufficient to have roused
both priests and canons, which it certainly had done, but the monks had also
responded to the call. Seton was the first, Ales was the second, but here was a
third, who seems to have been moved by Patrick’s earliest exertions on his
return from abroad, as well as his subsequent death. Henry Forrest of
Linlithgow, a Benedictine monk, had contracted such an admiration of Patrick
Hamilton as he could not suppress. He thought that he had been wrongfully put to
death, that the articles for which he suffered were not heretical, and might be
defended. This much, however, they could not fully establish against him, till
they resorted to the same base method which they had pursued with the first
martyr; and one Friar Walter Laing was ready to act over again the same part
which Campbell had done. Another specific charge however was, that he had in his
possession a copy of the New Testament in English; now, of course, deemed to be
a crime far more heinous after the edict or decree.

There must have been considerable hesitation about proceeding to extremity, as
Forrest had been for some time kept a close prisoner “in the tower” or Castle of
St. Andrews; and at last the spot on which he died at the stake, was at once
expressive of the truth having extended far beyond the bounds of St. Andrews,
and of the fear entertained as to its further progress. “He suffered death,”
says the manuscript, “at the north church style of the Abbey church of St.
Andrew, to the intent that all the people of Forfar or Angus might see the fire,
and so might be the more feared from falling into the like doctrine which they
call heresy.” On such a mode they had at last ventured, though far from being
according to the counsel previously given by one John Lindsay, a man of wit,
familiar with the Archbishop. “If you burn any more of them,” said he, “take my
advice and burn them in cellars; for I assure you that the smoke of Patrick
Hamilton has infected all upon whom it blew.” The first molestation of Henry
Forrest appears to have commenced about the year 1530, but his death cannot be
stated earlier than 1538; a circumstance which may account for his martyrdom
being ascribed to both years.

Only a very short time, however, now elapsed, before there arrived front abroad,
an all-sufficient exposure of Cochlaeus, and of other men at home besides the
calumniator. the slander and falsehood which had been emitted, had, it is
probable, not been seen by Ales for some months, but early in 1584 he was ready
with his Response. It is entitled-“ The answer of Alexander Ales, Scotsman, to
the calumnies of Cochlaeus.” It is addressed to the King as before, and as it
has been equally unknown to the English reader, with his first letter, no
apology is necessary for giving some account of this very rare book. Among other
information, it contains the full account of his own personal treatment, besides
some valuable particulars with regard to the Scriptures of the New Testament,
still read by stealth, and hid with anxious care. Cochlaeus had questioned the
veracity of Ales-had insisted that he was a Lutheran had approved highly of the
interdict as to reading of the New Testament-had tried to terrify the King by a
bold endeavour to identify the translation of the New Testament into German by
Luther, with the independent English version-had strongly deprecated the New
Testament being presented to any man in the vernacular tongue, however correct,
and represented this as the only source of all evil, national and domestic;
warning his Highness to succumb, or by all means yield to the advice of his
ecclesiastics, those determined enemies of Divine truth. Every one of these
points was now met by this first and able advocate of the people. As Ales, even
still, could not be aware of any alteration in the King’s character and conduct,
he writes under the impression of these being yet unchanged. Addressing the King
once more, as his most gracious Sovereign, before answering the main argument of
Cochlaeus, he defends himself from the double charge of being an exile and a
Lutheran, with which he is reproached by his adversary. He sorrowfully confesses
his exiled state, in which there was more evil than could be expressed in words,
calling for sympathy rather than for calumny. As for the cause of his
banishment, he appeals to the King’s memory to confirm the truth of the
narrative which follows of the circumstances which led to his flight. IIe
appeals to the testimony of his own college at St. Andrews, by the fidelity and
constancy of whom his life was preserved; and then leaves it to the judgment of
all good men, whether he had done anything worthy of punishment; for if free
from blame, exile ought not to be his reproach. He then comes to the charge of
being a Lutheran, and of wishing to introduce Lutheranism into his country. In
reply, he disclaims connexion with any sect, avowing only his covenant with the
Church of Christ, and offering, either before the King, or in the presence of
other good men, “simply and clearly to give a reason of my faith. I believe the
writings of the Prophets and Apostles, and embrace the consent of the holy
Fathers, of whom the Church approves. I also reverence the authority of the
Church, and its judgment in doubtful cases, as that which chiefly I do, and will
freely follow. Does Cochlaeus require more than this?” He disclaims undertaking
the defence of Luther, but states his strong disapprobation of the dreams of the
Monks, and their persecution of those who question these. He had seen the
burning of Patrick Hamilton in Scotland, and subsequently the martyrdom of two
very good men at Cologne, whose death afflicted him with grief for the Church,
and horror at such cruelty. He had conversed with “one of the highest learning
and authority,” who was himself much grieved at the confusion and corruption of
the Church, and whom he exhorted to interpose his opinion, and use his influence
with both prince and people toward a reformation, but he could only draw from
him an apologue, which seemed to intimate that the prudent should keep silence,
because, on the one hand, truth is greatly disliked, and, on the other, flattery
injures both the state and the flatterer. f117 Ales proceeds to answer “those
who set the title of the Church in opposition to the Word of God, who
vociferate, like Cochlaeus, there had been no Church for ages, but for the
doctrine of the Monks. For there was a Church, though the Word of God was very
obscure, and there were a few who taught more correctly than did the bulk of the
Monks. There exist some writings of almost all ages, which smell sweetly of the
pure doctrine of the Apostles. Hence, when Cochlaeus adduces the authority of
the Church, why should we not inquire what the ancient Church thought?” He then
states his own views on several subjects, proving them from the Scriptures, and
confirming them by quotations from Augustine, Hilary, Ambrose, Ireneous, and
Epiphanius. “These men,” he maintains, “never teach that Christian perfection is
placed in human traditions; never do they sell works of supererogation.” The
subjects of repentance and faith; of reliance on mercy alone, and the
forgiveness of sins; of supererogation, of invocation of saints, “beclouding the
glory of Christ ;” the Mass; public idolatry and vows,-are touched on, with a
defence of the “new learning” from the charge of causing sedition. He then
shrewdly concludes: “If the causes of that tumult were to be collected, we
should somewhere discover, that the minds of men were provoked by the
unrighteous cruelty of certain persons. Then after discord once commenced on
account of religion, it is very probable that many evils followed, which
accompany civil commotions. Covetous men, on either side, take advantage of the
public disturbance for their own purposes.” The sentiments of this writer, at
this early period, and so well expressed, must occasion surprise to all those
readers who have never before heard of such a man; but the chief importance of
this Response, as well as of the previous Epistle, consists of this grand point,
which, at this early day, and by himself alone, he urged with such zeal and
ability, for the benefit of his native land. Both England and Scotland owe
everything to the Bible, and if proof be still sought, we need not look far to
find it, so long as we see Ireland lying, as it were, in the lap or bosom of
Great Britain. The first translator, therefore, and the first advocate, though
alike standing at a distance in a foreign land, and under the frown of their
respective countries, occupy such high ground, that they never can be
overshadowed by any other men who followed in their wake. But if the countrymen
of Ales be bound to cherish his memory with becoming gratitude, as their first
able intercessor for unlimited access to the Sacred Volume in their own tongue;
he enjoys a second claim, which sets him before us as a man possessing wisdom or
sagacity, very remarkable for his own time, and but too uncommon still. He had
evidently felt assured that, in the melancholy condition of Scotland, personal
religion could not possibly be promoted, if the Scriptures were withheld, and
for this he first pled, as lying at the foundation of all that he desired. What
then, with him, was the next argument? What the next measure, which lay with
such weight on his mind? Was it an immediate refutation of all existing errors?
Was it a direct attack upon the existing hierarchy, as to the ceremonial of
their false and hideous system? No; neither the one nor the other. Had he any
plan, as men now speak? Any scheme or platform to propose, or lay before the
King, which was to bring order out of confusion? No; nothing of the sort. With a
shrewdness and Christian simplicity far superior to many since his time, he
earnestly urged a more excellent way. For although public exercises of religion,
when properly conducted, possess a happy tendency to prepare the mind for those
of a more private nature, there were then no public exercises, save such as were
pernicious in the extreme. Through them, as a regular system covering the land,
Ales saw that its baneful roots, had struck into the bosom of every family
there. The ecclesiastical rulers, so called, were the very curse of society, and
especially of that “only bliss of paradise, that has survived the
fall,”-domestic happiness and peace.

Every other social bond in which men were united, being but loose and
incidental, when compared to this, the heart of this man now panted after the
immortal interest of every circle round the household fire. Nor did he, like
some in modern times, fix his eye upon children only, but upon parents. That
venerable character in the eye of domestics, with which the reading of the
Scriptures is sure to invest them, he regarded as sufficient to discomfit even
the Prince of Darkness! If every chimney that smoked in his native land was
liable to Peter’s pence; by this time he must have felt assured, that the simple
exercise of domestic reading would deliver from the imposition, and soon cause
the smoke to ascend freely to the skies.

Only grant him access to the families of his country, and he saw that out of
these would rise the morning of a better day. And although he now pleads for
that which neither the King, nor, above all, his hierarchy will allow; this was
the path which an overruling Providence had already opened and afterwards
pursued, and to a far greater extent than can now be told.

Evidence, indeed, presently, will not be wanting; but at all events here was the
secret hinge on which the future well-being of the entire island was then
turning. At many a fireside, therefore, Ales ought to have been not only better
known, but highly respected, long before this late day. What would the Scotland,
which he left with such reluctance, have been, but for the practice for which he
first pled? He reminds his readers that the Divine Lawgiver, in Deuteronomy,
requires the fathers of families to read the law themselves, that they may
inculcate it upon their children; that domestic reading of the Scriptures was
now the custom in Germany, even beyond the circles that favoured the
Reformation, and boys and girls in almost all the more respectable families read
the New Testament, and learned the Psalms; that so far from preaching setting
aside the necessity for the study of the Scriptures, the best preachers greatly
encouraged the practice, and only the ignorant suppressed it. Thieves, they say,
hate noise. Hence the monks close the New Testament, lest comparisons should be
made of their doctrines with the Gospel. He vindicates himself from the charge
that he was about to translate Luther’s version. “I do not know the German,”
says he, “and speak of that version which now, for some time past, exists in the
country, and against which that decree was made.” Though not called on to defend
Luther’s New Testament, he reminds Cochlaeus that Emser, who first censured,
afterwards published it with a few verbal alterations as his own. Difficulties
there might be in the interpretation of some few texts, but not more than in any
other ancient author. The general fidelity of the Scottish version, as he now
calls Tyndale’s, the only one then in existence that could be read in Scotland,
was unimpeached. “I have heard,” he adds, “even the chief among our preachers
declare, that this same version gave them much more light than the commentaries
of many.”

Cochlaeus had denied that “noble men and honourable citizens were not
prohibited, but only inquisitive people who read that they may bring into
question received opinions.” Ales replies that the edict he complains of is
equally severe “against the best men of all ranks, andPROHIBITS THE NEW
TESTAMENT FROM BEING IMPORTED INTO THE ISLAND,-from being sold, and consequently
from being bought by any, even the most honourable; but the Sacred Scriptures
were designed for all, for ‘the wise and the unwise,’ and adapted to the
capacity of either, teaching ‘all ranks of life what is great and honourable for
assisting and protecting society ;’ but is silent respecting those trifles which
the Monks sell under the most specious pretences. For this cause they do not
wish the Gospel to shine forth, as they are afraid both for their character and
for theirKITCHEN.” He closes with a powerful appeal to the King, reminding him
of his royal father’s noble conduct, when the Monks would have deprived some of
his subjects of their Bible, warning him of the sycophants, who, on account of
their own lusts, cannot bear the light of the Gospel, and carry on everywhere a
horrible warfare against those who are pious, and who desire to show forth the
glory of Christ; concluding with a prayer that God would guide his mind to the
glory of Christ, to his own salvation and that of the Church.

Naturally impetuous, and delighting in war, Cochlaeus was now in a perfect rage,
and though evidently confounded by the talent displayed against him, as he
could, at any moment, make lies his refuge, he lost no time in replying to Ales,
by again addressing the King. f118 He commences with one of his bold shifts or
assumptions, which he reiterates as a fact, throughout his quarto pamphlet. It
was no less than this, that Ales was not the author, either of the Epistle or
the Response! He now ascribes the whole to no other thanPHILIP MELANCTHON; a
very plain proof of the ability displayed, and an unwilling eulogy upon our
Scottish exile, then and even still so little known. In writing his Response,
however, this year, it so happened that Ales had informed his readers that he
was not as yet acquainted with Luther personally; and it corroborates his
state:-ment, that as for Melancthon, there is not one shadow of evidence that he
had become acquainted with him, till after his answer to Cochlaeus had been sent
to Scotland. It is not at all improbable, that the calumny now raised might
bring them into contact; which appears to have happened about the close of 1534,
perhaps the spring of 1535. But be this as it may; formerly, Cochlaeus had no
idea whether Alexander Ales was a real or supposititious character: now, that
this will no longer serve him, both compositions must, it seems, be the
production of Melancthon, to whom, as well as to Luther, Cochlaeus bore such
invincible hatred! The traducer, of course, could not foresee that, in two years
hence, Ales would display equal talent upon English ground, and before all the
bishops assembled; when he was far removed from the ear of Philip Melancthon.
Nor could he foresee, that seven years hence he would meet with Ales, and at the
same time, apparently, be afraid even to address him. But our German canon was
equally dexterous, whether in making facts, or in feigning ignorance of what he
must have known. Thus, after even the Doctors of Louvain, in a body, had made
such boast, and sent such congratulations to Scotland in 1528, over her
proto-martyr Hamilton, he pretends to be profoundly ignorant of the event, nay,
and still of the state of Scotland, as well as of the facts now stated by Ales
with regard to himself. He must therefore set himself to spy out some
discrepancy between the Epistle of Ales to the King, and his Response to the
calumnies already published. In this, however, he signally fails; but mentions a
Scotchman, “of no small authority and trust with the King, appointed to
England,” who had declared Ales’s book to be one continued lie. No sooner than
he had finished at press, Cochlaeus afforded a striking proof, not only of his
fury, but his thirst after some remuneration for all this gross scurrility. His
book was finished on the 13th of August, and by the following month, his
confidential servant was safely arrived with copies in Edinburgh itself. The man
“of no small authority and trust,” of whom he had spoken, Stewart, Bishop of
Aberdeen and Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, had gone as Ambassador into
France; but there were those under him, who were not slow to welcome the servant
with his master’s production. Of this we have full evidence in the Register
Office of this, the native city of Ales, or in the accounts of the Lord High
Treasurer himself.

Thus, the indefatigable opponent of the Scriptures in our native tongue, has, at
least, discovered to us, the grave importance which was then attached to the
single-handed efforts of Alexander Ales. f119 All this verbiage of Cochlaeus,
however, goes for nothing, when compared with the melancholy facts, which were
attesting at the moment, the truth and importance of all that Ales had written;
and this the servant, if he was not as blind as his master, must have seen,
immediately on reaching the end of his journey to Scotland. It was while this
man was actually on the road to Edinburgh, that the flames of persecution had
been kindled for the third time. The martyrdom of last year confirmed the
Epistle of Ales; those of this year his Response. The flames had hitherto blazed
at St. Andrews; now, for the.first time, they had done so at Edinburgh. Those of
the year 1533, in effect, told us that the truth was extending beyond the
boundaries of the metropolitan city; and we shall now have proof, by the flames
of 1534, that it had reached far beyond those of the capital. The former were
kindled, to be seen at a distance, as a terror to the people of Angus; those of
this year so as to be seen by the inhabitants of Fife. One martyr at a time had
served hitherto, but now two men were consumed at the same stake, on the
afternoon of Thursday the 27th of August, 1534. There were two, also, out of a
nameless number, who had been summoned, from various quarters; and as if the
death of the proto-martyr, so lamented by Ales and many others, was now to be
followed up, and the family exterminated, his brother and sister had been
ordered to appear. In short, here was a band of selected witnesses; and
unquestionably we are to regard them as the representatives of many other
individuals, not only in Angus and Fife, Clackmannan, and Linlithgowshires, but
in Edinburgh and Leith. On Tuesday the 7th of July, Parliament had met at
Edinburgh, and by Wednesday the 26th of August, an ecclesiastical court, of
unwonted solemnity, assembled in the Abbey of Holy-rood. The infatuated young
King, in the face of repeated warning and entreaty, from an Exile, whom he had
once rescued out of the paws of the persecutor, was now about to take his first
ominous step. To lend greater importance to this occasion, he had agreed to
preside, and clothed in scarlet,-the judicial Scottish dress, in matters of life
and death, down to the present day. A number of persons had been summoned, and
among them there appears to have been more than the following :- Belonging to
Edinburgh-Mr. William Johnstone, Advocate, Mr. Henry Henderson, Master of the
Grammar School; but the “Diurnal” adds, “with sundry others, baith men and women
in Edinburgh.” From Leith-Henry Cairns, skipper, Adam Dayes or Deir, shipwright,
John Stewart, indweller, and a married woman. From St. Andrews-Gavin Logie, John
Fife, John M’A1pine, - M’Dougal From Angusshire-Mr. David Stratoun. From
Linlithgowshire-Sir James Hamilton, the hereditary Sheriff; and Katharine
Hamilton, his sister, besides Norman Gourlay and William Kirk, two priests,
whose residence is not mentioned by any historian. With the exception of
Hamilton and his sister, all these were disposed of before the Court rose.
Several had already fled, and others abjured; but Mr. David Stratoun or Straiton
and Norman Gourlay were reserved for execution. The martyrdom itself took place
next day. Of Gourlay we know nothing more than that he was a man of “reasonable
erudition,” having been abroad. He said there was no such state as purgatory,
denied the authority of the Pontiff in Scotland, but he had also married a wife,
and this was an unpardonable crime. Mr. Straiton’s was a far more interesting
case. He was a gentleman of landed property, at the confluence of the North Esk
with the sea, in the parish of Ecclesgreig, (Ecclesia Gregorii,)now called St.
Cyrus, in the shire of Angus. His property included the scat of a productive
fishery; and whether one refers to the present proprietor of the soil, to the
present fishermen of Milton, or to the limestone quarrymen there, in the history
of their predecessors above three hundred years ago, they have not a more
interesting subject for remembrance than the present. Laurieston Castle, built
in the tenth century, where Straiton was born, and part of which still
re:-mains, had, before and after his day, continued in the same family for four
hundred years. The martyr appears to have been brother to the last laird or
baron of Laurieston, and uncle to the present, then a young man. The Straitens,
for several generations, were equally distinguished for stature and strength,
and the martyr’s temper had once been both rough and imperious. In former days,
he had resolutely resisted one tythe claimed by the vicar, Robert Lawson of
Ecclesgreig; who exacted the tenth fish from those which his servants had taken
out at sea. Straiten had said, “If he would have them, he must go and take them
where the stock was taken;” and this had given great offence. “Before,” says
Calderwood, “he had been very stubborn, and despised all reading, specially of
good purposes; now he delighted in nothing but reading, although he could not
read himself, and exhorted every man to peace and concord, and contempt of the
world. He frequented much the company of John Erskine, Laird of Dun,” (the
Provost of Montrose, who had recently returned from the Continent,) “a man
marvellously enlightened in respect of these times.”

One day “when the Laird of Laurieston, being then a young man, was reading to
our martyr the New Testament, (so much hated by many,) he chanced to read this
sentence of our Master-‘ He that denieth me before men, I will deny him in the
presence of my Father, and before his angels.’ At these words, as one revived,
he suddenly cast himself upon his knees, extending his hands, and looking
constantly with his visage to the heavens a reasonable time, he burst forth at
length in these words-‘ O Lord, I have been wicked, and justly mayest thou
abstract thy grace from me; but, Lord, for thy mercies’ sake, let me never deny
Thee, nor thy truth, for fear of death, or bodily pain!’” It becomes evident,
that Straiten was fully prepared for such a time as the present. When brought
before the King, on the 26th, great pains were taken to move him, and procure
his recantation; but all efforts failing, he was adjudged to the fire. He then
applied to his Highness, but the Bishops answered, proudly, that “the King’s
hands were bound, and that he had no grace to give to such as were by law
condemned.” It was after dinner next day that Mr. Straiten and his companion
Gourlay were led forth to death. The spot was evidently chosen for effect,
whether near or afar off, on the northern brow of the Calton-hill, above the
rood or cross at Greenside. The stake was planted so far up the hill as that not
only the surrounding crowd from the city, whether below or above, might see; but
“to the intent,” says Calderwood, “that the inhabitants of Fife, seeing the
fire, might be stricken with terror and fear, not to fall into the like.” Not
satisfied with these flames, the ecclesiastics, with the King at their head,
assembled at Holyrood once more, on the 28th or next day, and by way of
conclusion to this headstrong burst of cruelty, brought forward the persons of
highest rank; Sir James Hamilton and his sister, both of whom were related to
the King. By advice of his Highness, however, the former had fled, so that the
scene closed with the appearance of the lady, his sister. The Bishops gathering
courage by their progress, neither her rank or sex could shield her. Mr. John
Spens of Condy, the lawyer, and future King’s Advocate, or one of the men who
had sat in judgment on her brother Patrick in 1528, held a long discourse
respecting works, telling her there were divers sorts; “works of congruity and
works of condignity.” Katharine, disturbed with the length and nicety of the
argument, at last out of all patience, cried out before them all, the King also
sitting by-“ Work here, work there, what kind of working is all this? I know
perfectly that no works can save mo, but, the works of Christ, my Saviour.” Hi s
Highness, amused with the very brief manner in which she had disposed of the
lawyer’s tedious harangue, interposed, and saved her from death. The visible and
decided progress of Divine Truth is, however, to be observed, not only in those
who suffered, but in the character and station of those who had fled. The
teacher of the grammar-school, and the advocate, Johnstone of Edinburgh, must
have been men of some talent and influence. The former died in England. His
house forfeited, was given to James Bannatyne, W.S. The property of the latter,
also falling to the King, was sold for a trifling consideration, chiefly to
Reid, abbot of Kinloss, afterwards President of the Court of Session, and Bishop
of Orkney, and partly to another individual. Johnstone, however, returned some
years after, when he was permitted to live in a single chamber of that house
which had been once his own; though, at his death, his body was not allowed to
be interred in any churchyard! But the refugees from St. Andrews, the former
associates of ALES, were among the most eminent for literature then in the
country; and they prove that the disciples of “the new learning,” far from being
weak men, as some one has grossly asserted, were duly appreciated elsewhere. Of
Logie we know nothing afterwards, but having been the Rector or Principal of St.
Leonard’s College, he had so imbued the minds of the students, that when any of
them was suspected, it was said that “he had drunk of St. Leonard’s well.”
M’Alpine, who changed his name to M’Bee, or Maccabaeus, as he was called on the
Continent, became a favourite of Christiern, King of Denmark, Professor in the
University of Copenhagen, and one of the translators of the Danish Bible. He was
the brother-in-law of Miles Coverdale, and to this expatriated native of
Caledonia and translator of the Danish Scriptures, that of the English was
indebted for his life, as already explained. Fife accompanied Ales to the
Continent, though not when he first fled from Scotland, but afterwards from
England, in 1539; as soon as “the bloody Statute,” or that of “the six
articles,” had passed. At Leipsic he continued to teach as a professor for
years; but he returned finally to his own country, acted as a minister, and died
at St. Leonard’s, soon after the year 1560, or about five years before Ales.
f120 The state of Scotland and England, at the close of 1534, was, in one sense,
directly opposed to each other, and in another, exhibiting precisely the same
aspect. Scotland profoundly attached to the rule of the Pontiff, and England
proclaiming throughout the country hostility to Rome: but amidst all the turmoil
of political affairs, both governments had found time to be alike enraged, and
for the same cause; both alike imagining a vain thing-that they should be able
successfully to stem the introduction of the Divine Word. Again, both countries
had furnished their respective martyrs in this single-handed struggle, though
neither of them at home could show even one open, bold, and determined advocate
for the Scriptures. John Fryth, it is true, had come home from abroad, and shown
the people of England how to die, rather than deny the truth; as Patrick
Hamilton and others had nobly done in Scotland. But the present was
distinguished as the moment when TYNDALE on behalf of England, and ALES on the
part of Scotland, occupied a position all their own, and one which was singular
throughout Europe. “Say not,” said Tyndale upon one occasion to England, “Say
not that ye be not warned ;” and so might Ales have now said to his King and
countrymen. With a nation on one side, and a solitary exile on the other, in
reference to both countries; while the Sacred Volume had been actually reading
in both, and for eight years, in spite of their respective rulers; perhaps no
cause was ever more evidently exhibited to be that of God, and not of man. No
exact resemblance to this was then to be found in any land. 1535.-1537. State Of
Scotland-Provincial Council Of The Prelates-Agitation-Reading Of The New
Testament Forbidden By Proclamation-Progress Of The Cause. In the course of our
English history, these three years, from 1535 to 1537, abounded with interesting
details, as including the year before and after Tyndale’s martyrdom; the first
being that of his imprisonment, the second that of his death, and the third so
distinguished for the arrival of his Bible in London. On turning to Scotland,
the interest is deepened. We there discover throughout, increasing alarm at the
progress of “the new learning,” and determined opposition to the Sacred Volume,
as translated by Tyndale, and already so powerfully enforced by Ales. As
nations, England and Scotland were far from being on sound terms with each
other, yet were they firmly united in hostility to the Word of God; while in
reference to Scotland, the cruelties of last year seem to have only strengthened
the determination to obtain the Sacred Volume. The hollow device of representing
the English New Testament to be the production of Luther or his disciples, which
Cochlaeus had done all in his power to promulgate, continued to be fostered by
the priests for years to come: but by this year it must have been well known,
both by friends and foes, in Scotland, that Tyndale was the author. In the
Castle of Vilvorde, he was now contending for the truth with the Doctors of
Louvain, who, since the days of Patrick Hamilton, had their eye on Scotland.
Ales, it is true, all along, and with great propriety, had mentioned no names.
But how is this to be accounted for, that we now see Dr. Buckingham, Prior of
the Black Friars at Cambridge, a most determined enemy to the Scriptures in the
vulgar tongue-the man whom Latimer so successfully opposed, and who had for some
time been living with his brethren in the Monastery at Edinburgh-leave that
city, with a brother friar as his companion, and direct for Louvain? This
occurred at the close of March, 1535; and the object of this hitherto mysterious
movement, we have already explained. We have seen how he wrought, in conjunction
with Gabriel Dunne and Phillips, in the persecution of Tyndale, throughout this
very year. Buckingham, unquestionably, would not leave his old friends, the
friars in Edinburgh, ignorant of what was going on, whether at Louvain or
Brussels, as to the prisoner in Vilvorde, with whom all the doctors now
wrangled, though in vain.

Meanwhile, the alarm of the Scottish government shows that books were still
coming into the country. The Act of Parliament in 1525, against all importation
by strangers, had been strengthened in 1527, so as to apply to the native
importers; but by the language of Ales, it seems as if there had actually been
attempts at selling the New Testament in book-shops; and certainly if the Act
was now to be repeated, and with greater severity, it lends countenance to all
his remonstrances. Parliament, at all events, opening in the summer of 1535, and
on the 8th of June, farther degraded itself by not only repeating the Act, but
now all persons having any such books were commanded to deliver them up to their
Ordinary within forty days, under the penalty of confiscation and imprisonment.
As a decided evidence of no small progress made, even “discussion of opinions”
was now sternly prohibited by the Parliament! Happily, however, there was an
exception, or, as some would say, a flaw in the Act, as there has often been
since, in many such feats of human legislation. An exception was made in favour
of clerks in the schools, who might read, in order to refute. The consequence
was, that a number of these clerks, by reading and discussion, sincerely
embraced the same sentiments, or the reverse of those which were intended by the
indulgence. In the year 1536, with regard to the Scottish monarch himself, now
sinking under the power of licentious habits, and to which the clergy offered no
objection, his situation was one which might well excite pity. The language of
Ales has clearly shown, that, as a youth, there were generous and humane
feelings within him; and the banishment of the Douglas family, with Angus at
their head, was owing to a burst of emotion perfectly natural. But now the King
was beset by no less than three parties. The family of Angus, though not in
Scotland, were ever on the watch, having sold themselves to England. James,
still unmarried, and without a direct heir, had the Hamiltons near him, not
without an eye to the throne; while, as the clergy’s kingdom of this world
seemed to be in danger, the guidance of the monarch had become, with them, a
subject of supreme and intense interest. The erratic course of the King’s uncle,
Henry VIII., had also raised Scotland in the scale of importance in the eye of
Rome; so that, in conjunction with the hierarchy, James, being the man he was,
had no chance of escape from vexatious thraldom. On the one hand, Henry’s eager
desire to have a personal interview with his nephew, must be thwarted. the
Queen-Mother, Henry’s sister, in conjunction with Lord William Howard, strove
for this at present, but in vain. At the same time, in the spring of 1536, the
needle seemed to be still quivering in the beam, as to what course the King
would pursue. In 1534, the clergy, with the concurrence of the Pontiff, Clement
VII., had granted a tenth part of their revenues to James for three years, to
encourage him, it has been supposed, in following their advice with regard to
the suppression of heresy. Clement had ceased to live in September, 1534, and
this grant would expire in 1537. But whatever was the cause, the monarch appears
to have been dissatisfied, and especially with the exactions of the priests at
large. The clergy were in motion throughout the kingdom, and from the 11th to
the 17th of March, 1536, a provincial council of the Prelates was held in
Edinburgh. Once assembled, they received a message from the King. Of its
purport, we have one account from the Earl of Angus- “These,” he writes to his
brother, “were the points of the King’s charge, as I was advertised-bidding the
clergy give over the corps.present and the upmost cloth through all Scotland,
that they should be no more taken; and that every man should have his own teind
(tythe), paying for his tythes, such like as he pays to his landlord of his
maills (rents), and no more, for his whole tythes. If they granted not that, at
the King’s command, there should be a charge laid to them, that he would get
(make) them set all the temporals that the kirk have, to leu (fee), and to have
for it, but the old rent, such as the old rentals bear. The Kirkmen of Scotland
were never so ill content.” f121 If this intelligence was substantially correct,
it was certainly indicative, thus early, of very general dissatisfaction on the
part of the common people throughout the country; although the grounds of
complaint were not removed for twenty-four years after this, or eighteen after
James was in his grave. The King himself, however, was evidently ill at ease,
and it might seem, at the moment, as if he were on the point of following his
uncle’s footsteps. How he became pacified does not fully appear, though it be
evident that the power of the hierarchy-the counsel of the chief priests-had
prevailed. The Queen-Mother was writing to her brother in England, while these
prelates were yet sitting, and she informs him on the 16th of March, that the
King, her son, had got counsel of the Kirkmen to desire of him these points:
That he will promise not to desire his nephew to take his new constitutions from
the Scriptures; not to labour for the Earl of Angus; to desire the meeting-place
should be Newcastle, not York. In April, Lord Howard finds also that the time of
the meeting had been prorogued to Michaelmas; he had had an interview with the
King himself, at Stirling, on the subject, and being disgusted, wished to return
home. In May, Henry expresses to his nephew his surprise at their meeting being
changed, both as to place and time; when James, on the 20th of that month, by
way of prolonging the game, replies in a letter, sweet as summer. “Dearest
uncle, trust firmly, that it shall not be in the power of any wicked person to
make us believe anything of you, but to repute and hold you our most faithful
and kind uncle, and we to be semblable, an heartful and true nephew, ever ready
to do unto you all honour and humanity to us possible.” In short, the entire
communication is pregnant with hypocrisy, as it was not possible for James to be
ignorant, that already John Thornton, the protonotary apostolic, had passed
through England on his way to Rome, for the Pontiff’s brief, charging the
Scottish King to have no meeting whatever with the King of England. Of this
fact, Henry had been informed a week before, so that on receiving his nephew’s
letter, he could only learn with what celerity he was following his own
footsteps, in a course of perpetual dissimulation. But we have not yet ffone
with this council of prelates. Both Howard and Barlow were present at their
discussions and sermons; and whether the latter had, or had not, been the author
of the Satyre on WOLSEY or “The Burial of the Mass ;” his language now certainly
borders on it, in point of violence, He was still Prior of his monastery, and
did not resign till next year; but he had recently been made Bishop of St.
David’s, and was extremely anxious to try his powers for the first time in
Scotland. Having alluded to the troubled state of the borders, when writing to
Crumwell, he adds- “Also, I am sure that the Council, which are only the clergy,
would not willingly give such advertisement to the King, for due execution upon
thieves and robbers; for then ought he first of all to begin with them, in the
midst of iris Realm, whose abominable abused fashion, so far out of frame, a
Christian heart abhorreth to behold. They show themselvcs, in all points, to be
the Pope’s pestilent creatures, very limbs of the Devil, whose popish power
violently to maintain, their lying friars cease not in their sermons, we being
present, blasphemously to blatter against the verity, with slanderous reproach
of us, which have justly renounced his wrong usurped papacy. Wherefore, in
confutation of their detestable lies, if I may obtain the King’s licence
(otherwise shall I not; be suffered) to preach, I will not spare for no bodily
peril, boldly to publish the truth of God’s Word among them. Whereat though the
clergy shall repine, yet many of the lay people will gladly give hearing.” f124
Such was the state of things in March, 1536, at least in Barlow’s estimation,
and his testimony on behalf of “the lay people” may be received as evidence that
they already knew much more than such clergy had either told them, or knew
themselves. Nor was this all. In only two months more, a more important fact,
because referring to the manifest progress of Divine truth, comes out, nor is
the name of Luther or Lutheranism mentioned in connexion with it. In May, 1536,
the reading of the Sacred Volume in the vulgar tongue was publicly prohibited.
Lord Howard and Barlow, in their joint letter of the 13th, give this
information- “Though we have not brought to such final pass the contents of our
INSTRUCTIONS, according as we have confidence, to the King’s Highness’ pleasure,
yet there wanted in us no diligent endeavour, which nevertheless is not so in
vain, but that we have necessarily tried out the Scottish dissembling
mutability; which known and mistrusted, can do little displeasure, whereas their
feigned untrusty amity intendeth us no farther pleasure but their own profit:
except hereafter God give them a more faithful heart, grounded on knowledge of
His Word, which, to be read in their vulgar tongue, is lately prohibited, by
open proclamation.”f125 Now, in our English history we have already always
found, that every such measure as this, within the country, was only indicative
of still greater pressure from without, and so it must have been in Scotland.
Thus, then, before Tyndale expired, so powerful had his exertions proved, that
his translation had been publicly denounced by the authorities in the north, as
well as in the south; while all the time it was making its way, in unknown
directions, and in both countries.

Barlow must have written in this style simply to please Crumwell, and perhaps
the King, though he uses language actually at the expense of both. tie could
scarcely be ignorant that a similar prohibition lay on the same version in
England; nor was it till a full year after this that Crumwell obtained the
removal of all restriction. But he was soon to hear from Latimer, in
Convocation, how little the English Bench could take credit over their brethren
in the North; and to learn from Fox of Hereford, that the Bishops of England
were “in danger of being laughed to scorn by the common people (who knew more of
the Scriptures than they did), as having not one spark of learning or godliness
within them;” and to witness a native of that same Edinburgh, from which he
wrote, on the point of adjusting the balance more correctly between the English
and the Scottish bench, putting Stokesly, Bishop of London, in a rage, though
simply pleading for the authority and all-sufficiency of Scripture with a power
and point which excited the fear of even Crumwell and Cranmer, who shrunk from
the responsibility of allowing him to fight the battle out. These equal
reminiscences show that the Clergy in both countries were equally hostile, and
at the same moment, to the highest favour which Heaven had ever bestowed on them
both, while “the lay people” alike in Scotland as in England were far ahead of
them.

1538.-1542. STATE OF Ttie COUNTRY-BEATON A CARDINAL AND PERSECUTION REVIVED-THE
MARTYRDOMS OF 1538-DEAN FORRET-THE CAUSE OF.ALL THE TUMULT IN OPPOSITION TRACED
TO THE NEW TESTAMENT IN THE NATIVE TONGUE-ANOTHER MARTYRDOMMEN ESCAPING-THE
CRUEL PROGRESS OF CARDINAL BEATON-DEATH OF THE KING JAMES V.-GLOOMY STATE OF
TIIE COUNTRY AS TO ITS GOVERNMENT AT THIS MOMENT. THROUGHOUT these five years
ensuing, or from 1538 to 1542 inclusive, just as though it had been intended by
Divine Providence to be the more observed by the people as such, and at all
events by posterity, the only cause that looked upward was that which was most
hated; the only progress towards improvement, in any department, was in that of
Divine Truth. At the close of this period the King is to die, and even now,
whether in relation to himself or the country at large, every movement was from
bad to worse. All things went the downward road.

David Beaton, Prior of Arbroath, a nephew to the Archbishop of the same name,
was now rising into power. As licentious and ambitious as Wolsey, he was far
more unrelenting in his disposition. He had been sent to France tc bring home
the young and amiable Queen of James; but she having died within fifty days
after her arrival, Beaton was sent again to France to negotiate another
marriage. He returned in May, 1538, with Mary of Guise, an alliance perfectly
agreeable to the clergy, but most injurious to the best interests of the counry.
While at the French Court, Beaton had contrived to be made Bishop of Mirepoix in
Languedoc; but this was only a step to higher promotion. He applied to the
Pontiff for the office and power of a Cardinal, and though but an Abbot in his
own country, he succeeded at the Court of Rome, and was actually raised to that
honour by Paul III., on the 20th December, 1538.

Throughout the year 1538, the “new learning” having made very manifest progress,
the disposition to persecute was about to be fully gratified. The secret of
Beaton’s zeal for power could not long remain hid, and since James was both so
married, and too far gone to profit by any warning; his character as a man must
“smart for it,” as Henry, his uncle, had predicted.

Nothing improved by his former visit to France, gay, licentious, and
thoughtless, James was as much in want of money as his uncle always was, and
money he must have. In younger life he had shrunk from the shedding of blood,
but now, in order to beguile him from an eye to clerical wealth and the
accumulated treasures of the monasteries, the property of all who should either
die for their opinions, or abjure, was held out as the base incitement to the
enslaved and infatuated monarch. If, therefore, among the subjects of James
there were those who would “take joyfully the spoiling of their goods, knowing
that they had in heaven a better and an enduring substance,” and if their
attachment to the Word of God as such should thus become apparent, a better
evidence of progress made could not be wished. At the same time, the course
about to be pursued by the enemy, is worthy of notice, on another account. It
was the choice plan of Stephen Gardiner in England to hunt after such as he
styled “the head deer ;” and as the persecutor in Scotland is about to gratify
not merely his own malice, but supply the King’s necessities; the poor believer,
who had nothing to forfeit or leave behind him, not being a subject suitable to
the miserable end in view, must have been, most providentially, passed over. The
poor, often the richest in faith, were below notice, merely because not worth
the trouble and expense.

Before, however, noticing any instances of persecution, it must be remembered
that “the New Testament in the vulgar tongue” had been pointed out since May,
1536, by public proclamation. There may have been some other English books
suspected of heresy already in Scotland, but even still, no other book is
expressly named. The presumption therefore is, that in all these proceedings,
the Scripture chiefly, if not solely, were now aimed at, and all opinions
grounded on the Sacred Volume.

Beaten once a Cardinal, there was no farther occasion for troubling either the
Lords of the Privy Council, or those of the Justiciary, in prosecution for
heresy. Wherever his cross was borne before him, there he reigned as lord
paramount over the conscience, and the suspected will not now easily escape. By
the 10th of January, 1539, we find Robert Forrestcr, brother to the Laird of
Arngibbon, William Forrester, son of John, burgess of Stirling, Walter Cousland,
David Graham, and James Watson, all of Stirling, were seized for books,
suspected to be heretical; “for breaking his Highness’ proclamation, in having
and using such books as are suspected of heresy, and are prohibited by the
KIRK.” Observe the altered phraseology, or how soon and slily they were
interposing their own authority. The caution at once exacted from these parties
amounted to no less than 3,100 marks, so that the entire property must have been
considerable. The first gentleman, we shall find die at the stake; the second
and third, as well as another, a burgess of Edinburgh, Robert Cant, were all
entirely forfeited in March.

Similar forfeitures extended to Perth, as well as to Stifling, where John
Stewart, son to Henry, Lord Methven, was among the number; and so far as the
seizure of property was concerned, the persecution lay very heavy upon Dundee.

Two parties had now fully engrossed the mind of Beaton, namely, the Kirk and the
King. The former was to be defended by fire, the latter to be cajoled by fines;
and this month of March served to unfold his character, as equally busy in both
departments. The most fearful week was the first in this month, and Saturday the
1st its most shocking day. The country hitherto had witnessed no scene so
outrageous. The trial, such as it was, and the sentence to death being all
overtaken before the sun went down, it must have been intended to strike with
terror, not Edinburgh alone, but every other place. Not fewer than five
different men appeared; John Keillor and John Beveridge, two Benedictine monks
or Black Friars, nor improbably from the same monastery in Edinburgh where Prior
Buckingham had lodged till 1535, when he set off to the persecution of Tyndale;
Sir Duncan Simpson, so called as being a priest, from Stifling; Mr. Robert
Forrester, notary, a gentleman of the same place; and last, though not least, a
Dean of the Kirk, Thomas Forret, canon regular in the Monastery of St. Colm’s
Inch, and Vicar of Dollar. Having been summoned before Beaton, and Chisholm,
Bishop of Dunblane, men equally notorious for licentious habits and bigoted
attachment to their system, no mercy was in store for any of the five, while the
last was treated with characteristic reproach and barbarity. The trial soon
over, the fire was prepared on the esplanade of the Castle, visible at once far
and near, to two counties, Mid-Lothian and Fife. The King, too, must proceed one
step farther on the present occasion. In 1534 he had presided in a red dress at
the trial of Straiton, but his authority on the bench was now not consulted. It
had, in fact, been superseded by that of this Cardinal, but still his Majesty
must sanction all. He must follow the footsteps of his father-in-law Francis I.,
in 1535, and himself be present to see the red flames on the Castle-hill, when
five of his best subjects were consumed to ashes before his eyes, on the lst of
March, 1539. f126 From the record of Dean Forret’s trial, it appears that his
official accuser, John Lauder, having demanded a proof of some statement made,
he produced a New Testament, which Lauder snatched out of his hand, and holding
it up, cried, “Behold, Sirs, he has the book of heresy in his sleeve, that MAKES
ALL THE DIN AND PLAY IN OUR KIRK!” “Brother,” said the Dean, “God forgive you!
Ye could say better, if ye pleased, nor to call the book of the Evangel of Jesus
Christ, heresy!” But he was immediately interrupted by his accuser with, “Knows
thou not, heretic, that it is contrary to our acts and express commands, to have
a New Testament or Bible in English, which is enough to burn thee for?” Then
proceeds the record, “The Council of the Clergy gave sentence on him to be
burnt, for the having and using of the same book-the New Testament in English”
No attestation could be more distinct than that which was here given by those
unprincipled and wicked men. No other book is once named. All the healthful and
life-giving commotion is ascribed to one source, and that the Book of God. This
alone, it is confessed and deplored, was that which gave such great annoyance,
and, in their style, occasioned all the din and play throughout the country! Not
satisfied with this horrible scene, Beaton must look westward, where it seems to
have been resolved there should be another martyrdom by way of terror. Here,
however, he was to meet with some temporary obstruction from Gavin Dunbar, who
was not only an Archbishop (of Glasgow), but at the same time possessing the
highest civil authority, as the Lord Chancellor. The fact was that Beaton,
though nominally a Cardinal, had not even yet received the “instrument of
possession” to his title, nor did he do so till October; but though he had been
in fun power, Glasgow as well as Ross would have demurred to his authority, and
objected to his cross being borne there. He will provide for all this presently,
but now, being still only an Abbot in Scotland, if resolved to push his way over
the head of Dunbar, it will only display the arrogance and fury of this man’s
ambition.

Two individuals-Jerome Russell, a Grey Friar, and Ninian Kennedy, a young man,
only eighteen, of good education and poetic genius-were brought to trial. The
Archbishop would gladly have saved them, but the Cardinal was not to be checked
in his course of cruelty and ambition; Dunbar was threatened, and not liking to
come into collision with this power so new to Scotland, he yielded. The martyrs
died in triumph.

Another suffered at Cupar-Fife. Many fled the country, and Berwick was crowded
with refugees. “Daily cometh to me,” writes Norfolk from that place to Crumwell,
“some gentlemen and some clerics (priests), which do flee out of Scotland, as
they say for reading of Scripture in English, saying that if they were taken
they should be put to execution.”

Such was the result of the influence and title, newly imported from Italy, but
at the same time the storm has again cleared the moral atmosphere, giving
decided proof that a great and unwonted power had been introduced into Scotland.
In other words, we have before us the veritable progress of all the scriptural
Christianity which has been in the country ever since; and however feeble and
unpretending in its commencement, the work, since 1526, was now of thirteen
years standing. With such a second Queen as the Cardinal had procured, and with
this increase of tyrannical power to such a man, it was to be expected that
James’s uncle, the King of England, would take alarm. Through his own rude
violence of language, however, to say nothing of his liecntious character, and
the undermining policy he had pursued, all influence over his nephew was now
gone; but for his own, sake, he must try the effect of warning, through his
herald or ambassador, once more. His letter, however, was too late, and he might
have saved himself the trouble. James had already “smarted” in his character, by
yielding to Beaton, who was by no means to be interrupted in his career after
higher authority still. In the autunm of 1539, by the death of his uncle, he had
become Primate, but even this, and the red hat of a cardinal to boot, would not
satisfy. The western Archbishop, the Lord Chan:-cellor, still sitting, like
Mordecai in the King’s gate, must be fully, or without question, overruled. The
Primate’s mind, by this time, was soaring after all power, whether over the King
or the country, as he will prove before long.

Meanwhile, he felt, at this moment, that there was still a technical flaw in the
authority for which he panted. He must carry his cross triumphantly over broad
Scotland, and no man shall gainsay or plead exemption. In short, though both an
Archbishop and a Cardinal, he must not only be Legate a natus, which, as
Primate, he was already, but Legate a latere, or plenipotentiary, and enjoy as
much or more power than any primate had done before him. Hence Oliphant, his
most willing agent, who had been to Glasgow, was then dispatched to Rome, and by
the 16th of November, 1539, we have Beaton writing from Kelso, urging him on to
“diligence and to labour at his power.” “Attour,” says he, or, “Besides, ye
shall incontinent get us a brief, that we, as Primate of the realm, may bear our
cross before us, through the whole kingdom of Scotland, both in the diocese and
province of Glasgow, and all other places whatsoever exempt.” And again, in
December from Edinburgh, he adds- “Make the best and most honourable persuasions
ye can, or may, to induce his Holiness to the granting of the said legation.”
f127 The fact was, that the Pontiff himself faltered and hesitated, but, at
last, Beaton’s agent was successful; and since he was the last individual in
Scotland to be clothed in such high and shocking authority, we can now see a
propriety in the Pontiff being permitted to put forth all his power, and lift
his head as high as he possibly could in the person of this man, a little before
his authority in Scotland was to be broken for ever. It will be remembered, that
precisely the same thing had been permitted to take place in England.

Whether, however, it was infatuated policy, or rather profligate extravagance,
in the Scottish King, there could be no excuse for the guilt of persecution;
though still we are not to imagine that James was a true son of the Kirk. He did
not care one straw for their system, and held the persons of his ecclesiastics
in profound contempt. In the drollery and satire which was played off against,
them, he would himself indulge, and even listen to it for hours, with the
keenest pleasure. An instance had occurred at this very time, on the 6th of
January, 1540, at Lithgow, whore an interlude was played before the King and
Queen and the whole Council, spiritual and temporal. The subject of the play,
according to an eyewitness, was “the naughtiness in religion, the presumption of
the Bishops, the pollution of their courts, and misusing of priests.” At the
close the King called on the Archbishop of Glasgow and other Bishops present to
reform their manner of living, saying that, unless they so did, he would send
six of the proudest of them to his unck of England, and as those were ordered,
so he would order all the rest that would not mend. But then upon such an
occasion as that of this play, what has become of Beaten? He was not there, and
as long as he carried his cross so high, all this was nothing more than idle
talk. James might amuse himself, but he must live and die, the mere shadow of a
King. This scene at Lithgow, however, was not a solitary or unwonted affair.
Such plays and poems and satires were repeatedly acted; and though the most
eminent scholar in Scotland, George Buchanan, had to fly, there was another man
who never did, and whom the Cardinal never was allowed to touch. Here was a
second Mordecai, far more obnoxious than Gavin Dunbar had been, who was long to
survive all the fury of this period, and write his “Tragedie of the late
Cardinal,” after he had gone to his account. This was no other than the Lord
Lyon King at Arms, Sir David Lindsay of the Mount, Fifeshire.

He had been the official keeper and companion of the King, in the days of his
infancy; and now, the author not only of the interlude referred to, but of other
satirical pieces, bearing with such force and effect on the superstition of the
day,, and especially on the ignorance and immorality, or vices of the Kirk, as
to render its officers, both high and low, most contemptible in the eyes of
many. Yet must he never be molested, nor Beaton ever wave his cross over his
head. So far from it, the Queen having been lately crowned, Sir David had been
not the least conspicuous figure. We find a sum of not less than a thousand
marks had been actually paid to him and his with, for their official services on
that occasion.

Mary of Guise was scarcely crowned Queen, when Sir Ralph Sadler was down once
more to visit the King. He tried, but in vain, to shake the confidence of James
in his Cardinal and Legate; at least so the King pretended, by the manner in
which he continued to rally Sadler in reply. But in May, clothed in all his
honours thick upon him, Beaten, as Legate a latere, proceeded in grand entrance
to St. Andrews, with an unwonted array of nobility, and there delivered his
first oration.

It was on the 22nd of this month, from his Abbey of St. Andrews, that the King
informed Henry of his having become a father, by the birth of James his eldest
son: but from this period, it may be added, the gay but enslaved monarch was
hastening rapidly to his ruin. One cause of molestation or perplexity now
followed the other in quick succession. By the sudden death of Thomas Scott,
Lord Justice Clerk, the King had been not a little disturbed, but the execution
of Sir James Hamilton of Finnart, for high treason, appears to have shaken his
nervous system. Jealousy of his nobility preyed on his mind, and there were
those who were ever ready to promote the feeling. In April 1541, his second son
Arthur was born, but he survived only a few days, and in a few more his elder
son and heir followed his brother to the grave. In December the Queen Mother,
Henry’s sister, died at Perth, and the reign of discord between England and
Scotland began. The battle of Solway Moss, so fatal to the King’s reputation and
so ruinous to the kingdom, was fought in the year following. Slow fever, the
result of distraction with the deepest melancholy, preyed on the vigorous
constitution of the unhappy monarch. He lived only to hear of the birth of his
daughter, the equally misguided and unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots, and seven
days after died of a broken heart. Did he remember in his last hours the warning
of Ales, pointing to Antiochus, who, “with his ruined army, himself was consumed
with grief of mind”?

Meanwhile the Word of the Lord grew and multiplied. Beaton had drawn up a list
of victims for his intended Inquisition, most of them men of rank and property;
and the number shows the extent to which the principles of truth were embraced.
Sir Ralph Sadler, Henry’s Ambassador, computes them at 360 “gentlemen, all well
minded to God’s Word.” But against the horrible proscription here meditated, the
mind of the King revolted, and he could not stand even the sight of the list,
and the bloody intention was frustrated. Still it discovers the extent to which
the Scriptures were read and prized, while Buchanan speaks of “many thousands
who did not hesitate to peruse the books of the Old and New Testaments.” An
important question now is-How, or by what instrumentality, had this mighty
change already been effected?

Seven years after the Scriptures of the New Testament in English had been first
conveyed into Scotland, there had, indeed, been an able and wellsustained
controversy, though hitherto buried in oblivion, as to the right and duty of the
people to read the Scriptures for themselves, and at home in their own
dwellings; but there had been no ministry of the Word, properly so called. One
man, Forret, in a very limited district, for a short time had spoken out; but he
was almost immediately silenced, and then burnt to ashes. There had been no son
of thunder lifting up his voice, nor had any such means been employed as to
account for this confessedly great change. Two or three men from England may
come down afterwards, and make some impression; but we now speak of the past,
and of what had been already effected. Putting the presumptive heir to the crown
entirely out of view, as a weak and vacillating man, have so many round about
him been so shaken in mind, as to involve themselves, by Beaton’s casuistry, in
the deadly sin of what he called heresy? Then, as far as the art of printing, or
English books were concerned, nothing can be ascribed to either cause: and of
books imported from abroad, we find not upon record a single titlepage, save
one. But that one has been proclaimed in open court, by Lauder, in 1538, as
having been the great, nay, the only source of annoyance. He denounced it as
heresy. “God forgive you,” said Forret, “that ye should call the book of the
Evangel of Jesus Christ heresy.” But he insisted that it was, and that it was
this which had occasioned “ALL the din and p/ay in their Kirk,” or throughout
Scotland. Certainly it was intended, that posterity should observe this, and no
event of the day has been more distinctly marked, if so much so. The ministry of
the Word, though of Divine appointment, has all along, so grievously neglected,
which now at last engaged notice. The destitution of the native Irish, was
almost like the destitution of life itself. They had then no one to speak for
them, and Britain, like the hard-hearted Levite of old, had ever passed by on
the other side. On the other hand, the scarcity so complained of by the Welsh,
was actually the result of previous supplies. But upon inquiry respecting these,
we are led back, not to any authoritative or national movement, but simply, as
in other cases, to individual benevolent exertion?

It was in December 1802, that Thomas Charles, of Bala, happened to be in London,
lamenting, as he had often done, the scarcity of Welsh Bibles throughout the
country. On Tuesday, the 7th of that month, at a meeting of the Tract Society,
of which the Rev. Joseph Hughes of Battersea was Secretary, Mr. Charles was
present, and the subject was introduced. Mr. Hughes, a member of the same
community with Carey, had been acquainted with every step of his progress from
the beginning, ten years before. After a long conversation, he stood up, and
suggested whether it would not be desirable to awaken the public mind towards a
general dispersion of the Sacred Scriptures in all languages, or throughout the
world. The proposal was warmly greeted, and at the request of all present, Mr.
Hughes drew up his tract or pamphlet of thirty pages, on “The excellence of the
Holy Scriptures, an argument for their more general dispersion.” Of this tract,
two editions were circulated throughout 1803, and, after various consultations,
the result was, that on the 7th March, 1804, that institution was formed, with
whose title not a few are perfectly familiar in the four quarters of the globe.
In the first instance, it will be understood that it is mainly in its connexion
with the English Scriptures that we are now called to notice the operations of
the British and Foreign Bible Society; while, at the same time, the reader need
scarcely be apprised, that the field now opening before him, in the history of
the English Bible, embraces a far larger surface. Before and since the formation
of that Society, the printing of the Sacred Volume in our vernacular tongue has
proceeded to an extent which was never foreseen, never once contemplated, and
that extent has now reached a point, of which but very few persons are at all
aware. This extent, indeed, may, at first, be viewed by some with astonishment,
but, unlike many other events, it never can be with regret; not only as having
been ordered by more than human wisdom, but because in conclusion, we shall find
there is a moral involved, which will be found to demand the notice of the
Christian community, individually and entire; and in the present day especially,
more than any other to which it can be directed. The sphere occupied by the
British and Foreign Bible Society, in the ENGLISH department, has been
delightfully large, and this has been dwelt upon in a variety of ways so
frequently, that it is in danger of diminishing the rate or pace of exertion, if
not of filling the whole field of vision. But as it regards the English
Scriptures printed within the last forty-four years, the field we now
contemplate is far greater. Independently of whatever number of English Bibles
and Testaments may have been dispersed through that one medium, we have to
include those which have been printed in Scotland, and the general sale
throughout the kingdom from 1800 to 1844. From these three sources we come to
the following aggregate of English Bibles and New Testaments separately :- The
British and Foreign Bible Society have issued... 9,400,000 There have been
printed in Scotland, independently, above. 4,000,000 The general sales, besides
these, have been considered to be more, but cannot have been less, than
9,000,000 or above twenty.two millions in round numbers! Now, wherever these
volumes have gone,-whether throughout England, Scotland, or Ireland, or to the
British dependencies at the ends of the earth,-we have here to do at first
simply with the remarkable fact, and it may well serve to regulate exertion for
years to come. But having once pointed it out, we are the better prepared to
take up the institution referred to, as not merely an important subject of
review, but as forming one index to the plain path, or the special course of
future duty. f128 To those who are old enough to remember, with any interest,
the formation of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and its immediate
effects, the recollection must ever prove one of the most pleasing in their past
lives. Its simple or exclusive object being to circulate the Sacred Volume; “the
Bible, without note or comment,” being its only motto, the effect was such as
should be pondered still. Well does it deserve, and in these days demand,
reconsideration; for no proposal on British ground had ever gone so directly to
the heart, nor to the hearts of so many, throughout the empire.

Founded on a principle so simple, so intelligible, so unexceptionable, the
formation of the Society produced an effect altogether unprecedented; indeed the
mere announcement ran through every denomination in the kingdom, and conveyed an
impulse, at once the most powerful and the most extensive under which the
Christians of this country had ever come.

Unquestionably it was the most powerful, in its visibly drawing to itself
parties who, ever since their origin, had lived in estrangement from each other,
if not in a degree of prejudice; though in their apprehension, of conscientious
or consecrated separation. Many wondered why the proposal had never been before
made, since it was one to which there was but one response. The most estimable
and useful members of every community discovered the same cordiality, and vied
with each other only in their zeal to advance a cause, which they all alike felt
to be their privilege and duty.

Upon British ground there never had been an association of greater moral power.
There might, indeed, be many others drawn in, as by a vortex; but still they
were Christians, and these the most eminent and consistent, who led the van and
formed the strength of the institution. No combination ever so earned for itself
the title of British, for although the proposal first emanated from London, the
Bible Society has never been a local, or merely a metropolitan institution, up
to the present hour, and less now than ever it was. Its resources have been
drawn from every corner of the empire; its strength has ever lain in its
auxiliaries; forming, on the whole, the largest Christian circle that had ever
existed in this country. To that circle, its single but sublime object conveyed
a degree of invigorating warmth, which, as separate bodies, the Christians thus
united had scarcely, if ever, before enjoyed. It was the discovery of a new
influence. It was as if a finer sun had risen. Nor was this all. The institution
had assumed the name of “The British and Foreign Bible Society;” and this one
word, charged as it was with more disinterested feeling, brought with it a
degree of animation greater still; and one beyond anything of the kind, ever
since Christianity had an existence within the shores of this favoured Island.
But for this word, which, at that time, came like a refreshing breeze over the
whole land, the number of contributors, the collections made, and the sums
subscribed, had never been what they were, then or since. Hence it was that the
most powerful impulse became the most extensive. The title assumed was, in
short, tantamount to this,-that the Sacred text, the Divine Record, standing by
itself, as it always ought to have done from the beginning, and ought in due
reverence to do, in all time to come; or, in other words, thatTHE BIBLE,WITHOUT
NOTE OR COMMENT, was not only all-sufficient for the people of Britain, but for
every OTHER nation under heaven, or for all the world, far as the curse was
found. British Christians had seized at last, upon a simple principle, of
imperative and infinite value to our common humanity, in all its dialects; and
in these days, by solemn, public, and often repeated acknowledgments, they were
never to stop short of its UNIVERSAL application. The men who then lived are now
rapidly passing away, but those early friends who yet survive certainly owe it
to themselves, in connexion with the generation they are so soon to leave, to
inform it dilly of the deep sensation then felt, and the joy with which this
simple proposal respecting the Sacred Volume was then hailed throughout the
kingdom. They can explain to their families to what extent this proposal was
felt by every denomination of British Christians, as conveying life to
themselves and sympathy for the world; how it smoothed the asperity of
discordant sentiment, and absorbed the best feelings of the heart in favour of
the Oracles of God. They can toll them, that no sooner were the terms simply
announced, than they were felt as a summons from on high, far above the regions
or spirit of party; for all right-hearted men came out to obey the call. But why
need we thus speak? The palpable results are now before us, and with these the
existing generation of Christians have to do. They speak in language which our
countrymen, less than forty years ago, would have regarded but as some visionary
prospect or pleasing dream. Of these results then, they had no more expectation
than they had of those of steampower, or of the benefits about to spring from
the atmosphere around them, by the discovery of gaslight. We repeat, therefore,
that there is no subject to which the attention of ALL Christians can be more
profitably RECALLED; none upon which, in the present state of our country, and
of the world, it can be more profitably fixed. To give any history of the
British and Foreign, or of any other Bible Society, is here altogether
unnecessary; but there are several statements which are now essential to our
knowing with some degree of accuracy the present position of this cause, whether
in relation to this Island, or its very singular connexion with the rest of the
world. Independently of the general sales, as there has been already expended in
money, even by these Bible Societies, considerably more than three millions
sterling, it is time to report progress, and far more than time to mark the
relative proportion, or rather disproportion, between home and abroad; or
between the Scriptures printed merely in the languages of Britain or Ireland,
and those in the languages of all other nations put together.

There has been received by the British and Foreign Bible Society, from every
source of supply, up to May 1844, the total sum of £3,083,436 18s. 8 3/4d.; of
this amount, not less than £3,036,698 Os. 3d. have been expended, according to
the last or Fortieth Report, leaving a balance, upon which the Committee were
under engagements to the amount of £41,469 12s. 7d. f129 For all the purposes of
comparison, the entire receipt may, we presume, with sufficient accuracy, be
thus stated, viz. : f130 - Received by the Parent Society £537,831 5 5 3/4 “
from Auxiliary Societies 2,432,948 0 “ from abroad, chiefly Europe 112,657 13
£3,083,436 18 8 3/4 But whatever else might be said respecting the amount
received, it is to the declared expenditure that every one must look as to the
guide for all future operations. Gathered as the supplies have been from the
kingdom at large, it may be supposed, that not only in the character, but the
direction of their outlay, the contributors at large will now be interested. The
entire expenditure, according to the last or Fortieth Report, has been
£3,036,698 Os. 3d. Naturally enough, one of the first questions will be; “how
much has been spent in the British and how much in the Foreign department?” Or,
in other words, “How much has been spent upon the Scriptures in the languages of
Great Britain and Ireland only, and how much on the Sacred Volume in the
languages of all Foreign nations, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America?”
To these questions the following may be received as the first reply :-
Expenditure in the British department, on the languages spoken within Great
Britain and Ireland. £2,004,726 12 l0 Expenditure in the Foreign, department,
upon languages spoken throughout all the rest of the world, no more 1,031,971 7
than..... £3,036,698 0 At an early stage in these exertions, a cry was heard,
not unfrequently, as to the folly of collecting and sending such large sums out
or THE COUNTRY, and that more attention ought to be paid to our own. But it must
now be confessed by all, that the somewhat altered now, if we may judge from the
Cash Account in the Report for 1861.

Received by the Parent Society :- In Legacies, Subscriptions, Collections,
&c.£30,373 By Sales 7,660 By Dividends and Drawbacks 3,935 41,968 Received from
Auxiliary Societies:- Free Contributions · £52,165 For Bibles and Testaments.
46,322 98,487 From abroad, for Scriptures 27, £167,943 British Lion has, all
along, enjoyed the Lion’s share. Such a disparity as this, however, courts
inquiry, and, for futurity’s sake, it may be supposed to interest the great body
of contributors.

It is not then to be supposed that these two sums entire have been spent upon
the Scriptures themselves. The expenses of management and distribution, of
course, remain to be deducted, and these involve a material reduction of the
total amount. For if the whole amount of expenditure has been.. £3,036,698 0 The
expenses referred to, turn out to have been. 433,284 8 7 1/2 Leaving for the
Scriptures, whether at home or abroad, not £2,603,413 11, 1/2 more to be
accounted for than..... The positive expenditure on theSCRIPTURES themselves, as
now reduced, and to be explained, is, therefore, l 2,603,413 11s. 7 1/2d.; of
which there appears to have been spent On languages spoken in Great Britain and
Ireland.. £1,691,940 14 7 1/2 On all others spoken throughout the world, only .
911,472 17 As soon as this is observed, the extraordinary disproportion will
probably excite regret in those who are truly interested, that so very little,
comparatively, has yet been done, for destitute foreign nations, or the world at
large. But, at this moment, the eye must on no account be diverted from the
history of the English Bible. Let that subject, above all, be here first fully
understood, and then no mystery will remain as to the imperative obligations of
British Christians for many years to come.

Before, however, looking at the broad surface of England and Wales, it would be
doing injustice toLONDON and its immediate vicinity, as the centre of action,
were we to pass unnoticed the sum spent upon the Scriptures by the auxiliary
societies even there. What share have they enjoyed in this general expenditure?
It is only twenty-eight years since the distinction was drawn between money
contributed, and Bibles received in return, but since then more than seventy-six
thousand pounds, or £76,704 15s. 8d., have been expended by them, in the
distribution of the Sacred Volume, and at the reduced prices. And all within the
compass of London and Middlesex alone! What a contrast is presented here
toPARIS,VIENNA, MADRID, or indeed any other city in Europe!

If we now turn from the Parent Society and these London auxiliaries, to the
kindred Societies throughout England and Wales, we find that, independently of
their free contributions, or l 1,128,762 7s. 8d., they have spent on the Sacred
Scriptures, in their various localities, not less than £962,803 3s. 8d.
Additional supplies for England, Scotland, Ireland, and the British Colonies,
will account for the entire amount defrayed by the parent institution, in its
British or home department. But the general reader must be perfectly aware, that
there are many Bible institutions, in Scotland and Ireland, which, during almost
all these years, have been exerting themselves independently of the British and
Foreign; while, at the same time, their main strength has been spent upon our
native land and colonies, through the medium of the English Scriptures; so that,
look wherever we may, in regard to money spent, precisely the same echo is
heard. And even still, justice is not yet done to the subject before us, except
we turn from pounds sterling, to the Scriptures themselves. Confining the
statement, therefore, to this British and Foreign Society; in their Report for
1844, they tell us that they have issued fifteen millions, nine hundred and
sixty-five thousand, and twenty-five volumes of Bibles and Testaments. But then
of these, how many have been in the languages of our own diminutive country
alone? More than ten millions and a half; or 10,523,157! Thus leaving for all
the world besides, not equal to five millions and a half; or 5,441,868! And even
with regard to the home department, or the languages spoken within this kingdom,
what proportion of these Scriptures have been in the English tongue alone? Not
fewer than nine millions, seven hundred and thirteen thousand, seven hundred and
sixteen Bibles, Testaments, Psalms, and Gospels. In addition, moreover, to the
disparity exhibited by these millions, as compared with the scanty and inferior
supply yet sent to all other nations; it is greatly heightened by another
consideration. Every one must be aware that an English Bible or New Testament
has never cost so much, as almost all in foreign languages; and that,
consequently, every single pound has gone much further at home, than it could by
possibility have ever done abroad.f131 Thus, at the distance of not less than
forty years from its commencement, or more than the space of an entire
generation, it is now evident, that the formation of the British and Foreign
Bible Society, with that of all its auxiliaries, as well as all the kindred
institutions in Scotland and Ireland, was a movement, not so much with regard to
foreign lands. It was one, up to the present hour, mainly, though not foreseen,
with reference to the Scriptures in the English language, throughout the United
Kingdom and its colonies. It was, in truth, the same gracious Being, whom we
have beheld from the beginning, still pursuing his own wondrous way towards this
country, which he had pursued so long; and stirring up a part of the population
to accomplish that of which not one among them had the slightest intention at
the outset! So entirely providential, because above the purpose of the original
movers, has the result been, that if any one man, in the room at London, on the
7th of May, 1804, had proposed to do, what has actually been done; whatever
might have been thought of the state of his judgment or reason at the moment,
the proposal must have been viewed, as not only the height of extravagance, or
selfish policy, but altogether absurd. Had any person risen and said- “
Gentlemen, you have met to make a commencement indeed, but it is mainly in order
that you should print the Scriptures in your own English tongue, and that not
for sale at their original cost only, which they never have been before, but for
distribution at a reduced price, and to the extent of more than nine millions of
Bibles and Testaments.” Would not such an announcement have been fatal to this,
the very first meeting, and consequently to the design of the secret mover of
them all? Is it to be imagined, that the speaker would have found any person
present ready to second him, since no one there or elsewhere had any such
purpose in view? Meanwhile, all were unanimous, cordially unanimous, as under
one impulse, and they obeyed it, having no conception whither it would lead
them, and thousands more. They began, but least of all imagining that they had
combined to do more for their native land only, than for all the world beside!

Such an amount however having been expended on the whole, it is evident that the
proportion of Scripture in the English tongue has been immense; and yet though
many may wish that a larger share had fallen to nations in far greater need, let
this only operate the more powerfully after we have done; but in the meanwhile
actually no room is left for regret as to the English proportion, when the
entire subject, or field of operation, comes into view. This money is gone, it
is true; it has been so spent, and yet considered as an event past, perhaps its
most extraordinary feature is this, that it is an event, for which, as no
particular person is to be blamed, so no one can be applauded, since not a
single individual either foresaw, or ever intended it! It may be true, that
there is absolutely nothing precisely similar to this in the history of British
expenditure, during the last forty years, if ever before; for certainly it is
not usual for an institution to work in a direction, by no means originally
contemplated; and more especially to such an extent as to swallow up the great
proportion of its funds. This, however, should only win for the event itself
now, the more deliberate consideration. In relation to the Scriptures in
English, therefore, let it now be specially observed, that, in the operation of
these Bible institutions, there has been actually nothing which can, correctly
speaking, be denominated excess; since, all along, in the usual current of
national affairs, Divine Providence has been going far beyond it, and effecting
far more by men separately than by men combined. The latter, it is true, have
issued above nine millions of English Bibles and Testaments, but the former,
without its being annually noted in any way, have produced a larger number. The
men combined may have spent a million and a half sterling, and in the English
tongue alone, but this is far from approaching even the half of what has
actually been expended on the whole. Besides, in the latter case, the Scriptures
have been sold, they have been purchased at a price, yielding to the bookseller
his profit; in the former, they have been dispersed at reduced rates; but when
both methods are combined, they form a retrospect, certainly of the most
commanding character. The Divine blessing has, without doubt, rested on these
united voluntary effort; but still the hand of Him who “instructs the ploughman
to discretion,” has been upon the printer, and the purchaser also, and even to
greater extent all the time! There is a vast difference between even ten or
eleven millions of volumes issued according to the former method, and above
twenty-two millions on the whole, as already explained. In conclusion, if we
look at this subject with reference to money, how few persons throughout the
kingdom have ever observed, or been aware of the fact, that since the present
century commenced, an amount equal, at the least, to four millions sterling has
been spent upon the Sacred Volume in the English tongue?

Such might have been the conclusion of the present work, and, but little more
than four years ago (1841), probably must have been, but for an event,
altogether unprecedented, which then took place. Happening without any previous
intimation, it took every man by surprise; though now it forms, if not the
top-stone to the present history, that which, in a few years hence, will be
regarded as the stone next to it. But even now, or rather every moment since it
took place, it has added more than double emphasis to all that has been stated,
respecting that immense mass of English Scripture printed and circulated in our
day. The event conveys a meaning, from which there is no possibility for any
Christian, or even the nation, to escape.

Long before this time, the reader is perfectly aware, that for many generations
back, the English Bible has been printed by the authority of what has been
styled a Patent from the Crown. Now, whatever may be said respecting the merits
or demerits of patents in general, or of the benefit or injury resulting from
such royal grants; it will certainly be singular enough, if, on looking back, it
should be found that all these Bible Patents have taken their rise from what was
once distinctly understood, and pronounced to be illegal; in other words, if it
shall be found that these Patents actually rest upon one grained by Queen
Elizabeth in 1577, and then styled a PATENT OF PRIVILEGE. It was upon the
strength of this that Christopher Barker first printed the Bible for nearly
twelve years. But that was a description of patents, which, when submitted to
the Attorney-General of the day, he distinctly ruled that they could not stand
with the laws and statutes of the realm. Various such patents, therefore, fared
accordingly.

They became null and void, though, by way of marvellous exception, this of
Barker’s remained untouched! But more strange still, Elizabeth, either not
recollecting, or not adverting to, the distinction already drawn, but quoting
the patent of privilege by way of precedent, granted another with her own hand
in 1589. Thus, the course began, which has been discussed, an rediscussed, in
courts of law, not unfrequently, at great expense, both in England and Scotland,
again and again.

It is something to be able to record, at the close of such a history as the
past, that her Majesty’s printer, in the spring of 1841, came forward and
reduced the value of his patent, to date a degree as to create astonishment.

It would be saying too much, that it became of no more value than waste paper,
or a piece of old parchment; for still he is secure of certain advantages, with
relation to the Scriptures, in large size. But in regard to many smaller
editions, as it appears now that as he could, so he actually did, nearly merge
the trade in the nation, by placing them almost on the same footing. “There is
no occasion for any minute detail here, in proof of a fact so very well known to
many. But by way of brief illustration, it may be stated, that in the close of
1840, the patentee advertising five different sizes of the Bible, viz.,
twenty-four mo, duodecimo, octavo, quarto, and folio; and thus presenting a
Bible in twenty-four distinct editions, the united price charged was £20 ls. 6d.
Early in 1841, he came forward, and by a list of prices, offered the whole for
£9 14s. 5d.! The largest, or folio Bible, for which before he charged £4, he had
now reduced to £1 10s.! The smallest, formerly charged 8s., was now only 3s.
That which before cost 5s. 6d., was now to be no more than 1s. 2d.! A similar
reduction was advertised upon nineteen editions of the New Testament. Single
books, gospels or epistles, printed separately, which had bcen charged sixpence,
were now to be sold for three half-pence! So much for February 1841, but even
this would not suffice for the very next month of March. The surprise and
satisfaction felt at the former reductions had not subsided, when there came
farther reduction still, and upon ten different books. Thus, the edition which
in January was nine shillings, and in February only six, was now down to four
shillings and sixpence! And so in proportion with various other editions of the
English Bible.

Inquire not how this could possibly be done. The patentee himself best knows
this. WHY it was done, is another question, and admits of a brief historical
reply.

It was in the year 1831 that Parliament began to inquire into the working of
this patent, and abundance of evidence was taken, yet all this died away, or was
permitted to sleep for years. It was afterwards to be of value, but this was to
be in other hands, and of these but very few. The patent of Mr. Spottiswoode was
not to expire till the year 1860, but that granted for Scotland was then near
its end. Evidence was, therefore, called for in reference to it; and wise, at
last, in the doctrine of noninterference, but without foreseeing what were to be
the very remarkable results, the patent was allowed to expire, without renewal,
on the 19th of July, 1839. This printing establishment being at the moment in
possession of many advantages as such, to her Majesty’s former printers for
Scotland was thus transferred the honour of being the first free-traders in that
part of the kingdom since the days of Andrew Hart, or two hundred and thirty
years ago, nay, and the first inBRITAIN, since the reign of EDWARD THE SIXTH.
As, then, when any respectable house applied for a licence to proceed, it was
forthcoming, so it came to pass now in Scotland, simply by an application to the
Lord Advocate; a mode of procedure of which other printers immediately availed
themselves.

Only a few months had elapsed when the Committee of the British and Foreign
Bible Society began to wonder at an impulse, for which, they informed their
subscribers, in May 1840, they “could scarcely account.” It arose from an
earnest desire for the Scriptures, and at a more moderate price. This led to an
offer on their part, of a Bible and a New Testament, separately, at a much lower
rate than they had ever been presented; but the stop they had taken showed, and
in a very short time, that if persisted in, it would, at the prices then paid to
the English patentee, soon swallow up their free income entire. In six months,
by this single step, they had thus spent, or lost, £13,000! They paused, and
suspended the offer. Meanwhile, the free-trade prices in the north could not
remain a secret, and before the close of the year, the people of England were
paying for their English Bibles, from one hundred and fifty to two hundred per
cent more than those in Scotland. In England, however, all parties still
remained actually dormant. The pressure from without happening not to have
originated there, so long as no voice was raised against the enormous difference
between the two sides of the Tweed, the English patentee held fast by his
prices, affirming, in print, before all his countrymen, and that even so late as
November 1840, that “equal efficiency and cheapness could not be obtained upon
any other system. ” The people of London, also, or of the south generally, still
appeared as though they believed this, even though her Majesty’s Board for
Scotland were reporting the reduction of prices there, and the advantages which
had arisen from the happy change. “Besides,” said they, “it is not merely a
question as to the amount of reduction, but whether a vast number of individuals
are, or are not, to be put in possession of the Sacred Scriptures? The
difference of a single penny in the price of a Bible, determines, year after
year, whether the Word of God is, or is not, to enlighten and gladden thousands
of families.” The royal Patentee, it is true, might speak, or even print, as he
had done in November, but without saying more, he was to act very differently,
and in little more than eight weeks, or in February 1841, as already stated.
When reviewing, another day, what will appear very remarkable, the sudden and
prodigious fall in the prices of the Sacred Volume, posterity, if net informed,
might be apt to conjecture that the monopolist must have been roused to act so
by the nation at large,-but no; nothing more was requisite than that three
individuals only should move, and the unprecedented reduction followed,-followed
also very quietly, and, contrary to all custom in this advertising age, without
any boasting, or the slightest ostentation on the part of the Patentee himself.
Since the day that business of any moment was done in Britain, such a thing, in
business, was never so done. One Englishman, indeed, with two natives of the
north, must, it is granted, feel deeply interested in the subject, and to many
now it may be unnecessary to mention their names,-Mr. Childs, of Bungay, the
Rev. Dr. Thomson, of Coldstream, and the Rev. Dr. Campbell, of London. The first
gentleman had corresponded with the second, but, without further detail, it so
happened, that into his mind had come the idea, that as these “Living Oracles”
had been originally committed in charge, as a sacred deposit, to the people of
God as such; so it ought to be an object with them to present the Scriptures to
any, or to all, at no higher price than the simple cost of their production; or,
in other words, that they ought to be redeemed out of the usual channels of
commerce altogether. But in these days, when it seems as if no individual
expects to accomplish any enterprise singlehanded, what was styled a Board must
be formed. In the present instance, but for the artificial state of society into
which Britain has wrought herself, this might have been dispensed with, and it
appears to have been of no other moment than that of directing attention to the
efforts of an individual. The prices of Bibles and Testaments, then, thus
advertised, were so low as to appear incredible; while the London patentee
became so adventurous as to affirm that under the whole affair there lurked some
fallacy. Meanwhile, all that became necessary was that this gentleman should
move from the banks of the Tweed to visit the north of England, where, having
once explained his views, and exhibited certain specimens of’ Bibles and
Testaments, at their aflixed prices, many eyes were opened. The reception given
was cordial, nay, enthusiastic; nor did he require to visit the metropolis at
all. The third individual, however, who was residing there, was now required,
and both meeting at Liverpool, and elsewhere, both spoke and wrote, and both
were listened to, and read. Nothing more was required, and though neither of
these friends to the cause they advocated could expect to meet with that
applause which, in our day, has been so often awarded to men for doing little or
nothing, an impulse more powerful had been felt than either the one or the other
had anticipated. The royal Patentee evinced penetration and wisdom to a degree
seldom, if ever before, exhibited in such circumstances. He had spoken out once,
as already mentioned, but proceeding no farther, he presently issued his
delightful and most extraordinary reduction of prices. The patent itself, it
will be remembered, has not been abolished, but, sixteen years before its
natural termination, it has been, to a great degree, effectually neutralised.

Ever since, competition has been at work, and all in favour of the purchaser.
Into the merits or demerits of this competition as to price between the patentee
and the free-trader, there is no necessity for us to enter here; though it must
be evident to all, that so long as the patent, and these concurrent rights of
Oxford and Cambridge, continue, the sales throughout the Kingdom cannot arrive
at a healthy or natural and desirable condition. Meanwhile, the public at large
is happily left to judge for itself; but that such an immense circulation as
that which had taken place should have been suddenly followed up by such a vast
and unprecedented reduction in price is an occurrence far from being the least
remarkable among the multitude of events which it has been our aim throughout
impartially to record.

Such then have been the mysterious, and, compared with every other nation under
heaven, the majestic outgoings of Him who has been with this cause, all along
and so evidently, from the beginning; and who having now brought it to this
stupendous height, will, to a certainty, not leave it in its present state or
position, or ever be turned aside from His own high purpose and ultimate design.
We have said, mysterious outgoings, because the cause, as such, may be compared
to a path without an end; that is, an end worthy of the path; an end in unison
with the present condition of a nation, where the number of the copies of the
Sacred Record actually outnumbers the souls that are in it, but where thousands
still contemn the proffered gift! The reader of the previous history, it is
true, has travelled a very singular and eventful journey, and all the while, for
more than three hundred years, he has been ascending to the eminence, on which
he now stands; so that according to this time, he may be exclaiming-“ What hath
God Wrought!” Yet the exclamation is no sooner uttered, than it seems to excite
in every considerate mind but one question-WHAT IS HE ABOUT TO DO? Were the
public mind in this kingdom once brought to such a state of watchful inquiry,
although to answer such a question is not within the province of human
foresight; yet there is one point connected with the present position of our
English Bible, and only one, to which we may advert, before bidding adieu to the
history itself. Whatever Providence intends to accomplish, and whatever
obscurity may rest on the future, it is already evident that an Almighty hand
has been, and is now proceeding, on a scale far beyond the limits of our
sea-girt island. Some of our legislators have recently begun to ruminate over
what they call systematic emigration; but that Providence, which perfectly
foresaw what would be the condition of the inhabitants of Britain for some years
back, in which every time the clock struck twelve, another thousand has been
added to our population-that Providence has already and long been at work, with
His own word, for such as go away, or have gone, never again to see their native
land; and the printing-press, which is now more busy than ever it was, both in
England and Scotland, can very easily keep pace with the emigration, let it
increase as it may. Now this, it is confessed, so far as the Scriptures in the
English tongue only are still to be concerned, may be the next legitimate sphere
of action; but, at the same time, every one must perceive, that this can never
involve more than a fraction, or not so much as approaching to a tithe of our
future and imperative obligations. In point of responsibility as a nation, we
have been exalted into circumstances of which many before had little or no
conception; nor had thcy been at all aware, that we have been placed in a
condition, involving duty and obligatons, from which there is no escape. The
very rich supply of Sacred Scripture peculiar to our country, even before this
century began, will be held in remembrance; more than twenty-two millions of
volumes have since been added to the number, and still the printing-press is as
urgently plied as before; so that an amount of above four millions sterling has
been spent upon our own version! After an entire generation has been thus so
peculiarly distinguished, that there is nothing approaching to it, on the face
of the earth; to rouse us from slumber, as but too visible, in our unequal
dealing with the world at large; all at once, and in the quarter where it was
least of all, or last of all, to be expected, there comes, in one day, a great,
an immense reduction of price with regard to the Sacred Volume in English, and
let it be particularly observed, in English ALONE.

What though no real voice, no sound, was heard? No man accustomed to think at
all, will presume to say that in an event so unexpected, and altogether so
unprecedented, there was nothing intended for the ear, or rather the heart of
those who are daily deriving light and counsel from the sacred page. Taking the
entire previous history into account, and the broad field of action now full in
view; is it not, to say the least, as if Providence had sounded a pause?-an
authoritative pause, calling upon us to do the same; and, at last, review his
footsteps? Calling upon us to observe, more deliberately, His procedure, and
then putting the all-important question-“ How, or in what manner, will it become
the Christians in Britain to act NOW?”

We are perfectly aware, that some of our men of “profit and loss” may be
disposed to detain us, by fretting over this prodigious fall of price.

Something, indeed, may be mooted in reply, as to a gradual fall in the price of
paper, if not other materials, but this will, by no means, satisfy others, who
have looked more deeply into the circumstances. “Why, at these present prices,”
says one, “we might have dispersed more than double the number of Bibles and
Tcstaments, and is there any man who can now deny it?” “But what is more to be
deplored,” says another, “at these prices, we might have been, all these years,
expending upon destitute foreign nations, eight or nine hundred thousand pounds,
more than we have done!” While, independently altogether of these former high
prices, a third party meets us with his complaint, as to the expenses incurred
at home, throughout England and Wales, and more especially within the last
twenty years. But weighty as these murmurings may appear to some minds, they are
actually of no consequence, when compared with the solemnity of our present
obligations, or that momentous position in which Providence has now placed us.
In truth, they only press our one question with greater urgency.

Besides, standing, as we do, in the midst of a nation, which has but recently
paid twenty millions of money, for the liberation of not nearly one million of
men in bondage; it would be idle to suppose that, as a people, we have been thus
strikingly summoned to pause, merely for the purpose of murmuring over the past.
Certainly they are not to be envied, who exacted such prices from the benevolent
public; but as for those who have paid them, every moment now is lost, if spent
merely in lamenting over the outlay. The supremely important, the urgent, and
the only question at present is-How, or in what manner, and to what extent, will
it become the Christians of Britain to act Now? At the close of the present
history, therefore, it so happens that there are several points left for
deliberate and general consideration, every one of which will be found to bear
with accumulating force on this one question.

CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE PRECEDING HISTORY.

THERE is a frequent propensity in the mind of man to run every thing into one
thing. But even after all that has been said, it will not be supposed that the
renovation of man is anticipated by the present author, from the mere
multiplication and dispersion of the Sacred Volume throughout any country
whatever. If but one native of Britain has ever so dreamed, the present state of
his own land may now awaken him to the painful reverse. No nation has ever
enjoyed such opportunities of discovering its devotion or hostility to the Book
of God, and in none is there to be found the two extremes in greater strength.
Yet, if the past history has referred to only one subject, it has been because
of its supreme importance as the basis or ground-work of all moral improvement.
To prevent confusion, we have proceeded on the principle that it is necessary to
consider only one thing at a time; and that in applying tho same incumbent
remedy to the world around us, it, is of importance to understand what has been
the history of Divine Revelation in our own tongue, and what is the existing
condition of our native land. In surveying the cause to which this volume has
been devoted, from an origin of the most unpretending character, it has grown to
a magnitude which meets us in the very threshold to all reflection. One leading
feature of the history itself will then invite some notice. After this, the
visible and uninterrupted progress, or effect produced, must not escape
observation.

Thus, as a community, however dispersed, yet the most important, because most
influential upon earth,-“ the present readers of the English Bible” naturally
come before us; for here, and in these times most happily, they must be regarded
in the light of but ONE body. Though, after this, the responsible position of
this wide circle, but especially at its centre, on British ground, cannot fail
to lend a tone of deeper solemnity to the unwearied footsteps of that gracious
Providence, which so visited at first, and has so watched over this land ever
since. In conclusion, only one question will remain,-How, or in what manner,
shall becoming gratitude to God be expressed and proved, by far more vigorous
action?

ONE LEADING FEATURE IN THE PRECEDING HISTORY, visible in a long and
uninterrupted series of events, was its superiority to all human sanction in its
commencement, and of all human control in its progress. All along, the integrity
of the history of the English Bible has been most singularly preserved, and the
distinct line of an overruling Providence has been quite visible from first to
last. In holding on, throughout its entire course, ever independent of all
associated bodies, as such, even the history of our Sacred Volume comes clothed
with a prerogative, or sovereign authority, above everything else, in the shape
of religious history. It has been kept distinct, or, as it were above, yet
among, this people, for more than three hundred years; and never was the highest
favour which God has bestowed so long, more conspicuous and abundant than at the
present moment. If, at such a time, there should be any, or too many, who seem
to be wholly engrossed, whether by ecclesiastical self-righteousness, or mere
party spirit; still, it is altogether in vain for any Community, as such, within
the shores of Britain, to talk of its superior importance here. All other
questions are absolutely local, and subordinate. All communities offer to the
eye, but a section of the people, or an inferior circle. Every one of them is
here not only spoken to direct, but all alike are here providentially
overarched. Not one, without exception, can rise and lay claim to the glory of
that bow in the clouds.

Changes in sublunary things, there have been many; divisions and subdivisions as
to its meaning; but never has it been permitted to fall under the power, much
less into the keeping of any one circle. Never has it been allowed to become the
badge or the partisan of a single party. Not one could ever address another in
the style of the Venetians to the Roman pontiff, and say-that Book is ours. An
historical event, therefore, extending over three centuries, with immediate
reference to our vernacular Bible, may certainly be presumed to carry some
significance beyond the external fact. But if so, that cannot be anything of
trivial moment, which speaks to all alike, and for so long a period. It is true,
only one simple principle may be all that is involved, though it must be one
worthy of this high and longcontinued course of procedure. After all this then,
some, if not every intelligent observer, may now be disposed to pause a little,
having verified this anomaly in our national history. The boon bestowed he has
long felt to be Britain’s best hope; and if the peace and tranquillity of his
country has been supposed to depend upon the harmony and stability of the
Institutions within her shores, he may begin to apprehend that season, if not
past, may be passing away. But again he turns to the highest gift bestowed on
all alike. In its history it now appears as if it had been uninterruptedly
calling upon every circle, without exception, to look up for superior light; or
in waiting for its own peculiar place in the wide community below-waiting for a
supremacy to which it has been all along entitled.

Three hundred years ago, in many parts of Europe, but particularly in this
country, both in England and Scotland, the high and keen dispute was, whether
what they called the Church, or the Sacred Scriptures, were uppermost, or which
was to be regarded as supreme in point of authority. For ages proceeding, it had
seemed to be the former. At least, a body, usurping that name, had long wantonly
reigned over them; and the use they made of that daring assumption is well
known. It brought on that night of pitchy darkness which so long brooded over
Europe. They had taken away the key of knowledge, and substituted other keys.
They had not only closed or contemned the Sacred Volume; they denied to the
people at large the use or even the possession of it. But the time to favour
Zion, the set time was come. The Almighty vindicated His own cause in this our
native land, by way of eminence; and after a peculiar manner, by the power of
His own Word, rescued it out of the hands of those, the profane rulers of
darkness. This was His first note of interpretation, which, for illustration’s
sake, we ventured to compare to the key-note in music; and it really seems to
vibrate in the ear now, as distinctly as it did in August 1537.

Now, in this kingdom, where so much has been said about the Church, ever since,
perhaps more than in all the world besides, at present it becomes worthy of
universal observation, that God, by His high providence, has, all along, never
permitted his Word, in a single instance, to fall into, much less under, the
power of any Church, so called, of whatever form, or whatever name. The supreme
authority of the Scriptures He has visibly demonstrated, before the eyes of the
nation at large, by carrying them, in point of numbers and dispersion, far, very
far above the capacity, and beyond the narrow bounds, of any Church so named, or
of any single community within our shores. The supremacy of the Divine Word,
though still far from being understood even on British ground, a watchful
Providence has not left to expositors, to spell out or explain. God has been His
own interpreter, and He has made it plain. This is one great lesson, which the
Sovereign Ruler has been reading to this kingdom entire, for more than three
hundred years.

Hence it is, at the present most eventful crisis, whatever may betide the
country as a whole, or whatever may await any of its more limited interests,
that His own cause stands out before us, healthy and strong, and in vigorous
operation; far more vigorous than at any previous period, and by far the highest
undertaking of our day. Of the VISIBLE EFFECT produced by the arrival of
Tyndale’s first edition of the New Testament on our shores there was one, by way
of eminence, which imperatively demands our notice.

Almost immediately after the introduction of the Sacred Volume in our native
language, we saw it at once divide the people, whether in England or Scotland,
into two bands. Scarcely a month seems to have passed away, before this result
became visible. At first, indeed, one of these divisions embraced but few in
number, and an appearance so feeble as to be doomed to destruction. It will now
be remembered, that in those early days the names given to these two parties
were, “the Friends of the Old Learning,” and “Friends of the New.” They are
titles, to which we had not only no objection, but adopted them, and we prefer
them still. They serve perfectly well to indicate by far the most momentous
division of this empire. In observing it, we need to fetch no compass, for in a
straight and uninterrupted line, we have still the two parties standing before
us. They are, as they have ever been, for and against the Sacred Scriptures in
the vulgar tongue, and their being given to all, without note or comment. This
division, as being the first, and therefore the most ancient, is one from which
the public mind ought never to have been diverted. It possesses the advantage of
great or perfect simplicity, nor, throughout the long war of opinion, is there
any other by which a more distinct understanding can be obtained. In the
beginning, or from the first moment, the friends of the old learning were
opposed to the importation of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, and above
all things deprecated their being given to the people.

They hunted after them; they ordered them to be given up; burnt them, and even
those who read them, or possessed them and refused to surrender. On the other
hand, the friends of the new learning eagerly sought after the hated book; they
read it with insatiable avidity, and cleaved to it in the face of threatening,
cruelty, and bitter death. By them it was prized, as the book of life and
salvation, as the voice of God, as the book of the soul; and still it, went on
to prove, as it had declared, “mighty in operation.” The common people heard, or
read gladly. In process of time, however, the gentlemen of “the old learning,”
finding that all threatening and denunciation were in vain; having failed to
exterminate the Scriptures themselves, and failing in power to consign their
opponents to the flames, it was not long before they had brought forward what
they styled other authorities to be obeyed, beside that which was daily proving
itself, and so powerfully, to beSUPREME. They talked learnedly about antiquity.
They mooted the authority of the Church, even such as it had been in their own
hands, and the authority of ancient doctors, styled the Fathers; upon which, for
too many of their opponents with blind simplicity followed them; whethcr by way
of argument or in the way of compliance, to prove their skill in polemics.
Certainly these, though the professed friends of the “new learning,” had never
intended to weaken or betray the rising cause for one moment, and much less for
generations to come; but in thus acting, they but little knew what they were
about, or what they had done. The Sacred Volume, it is true, had been given to
the people providentially, and independently of all these men, and its progress
to the present hour has been conducted after a similar fashion; but it is to
this sad, this heedless and mistaken movement, that we are to ascribe in a great
degree the history and mystery of these two classes within this kingdom. Thus it
was in the beginning, that, under the show of argument, the adherents of the old
learning contrived to maintain their ground, nay, and prolong the existence of
their “learning ;” for precisely so have they acted, from time to time, as
occasion has offered, ever since. The party, indeed, cannot now boast that they
are one and indivisible, any more than their opponents, for it is under more
names than one, that the old learning has still lingered throughout the land.
From generation to generation, its votaries have survived, and certainly they
have been overruled to serve one valuable purpose; that of ever and anon
recalling, if not driving, the friends of the new learning, to their first
fundamental principle. That principle was the supreme authority and
all-sufficiency of the Sacred Volume; and had this only been regarded as the
pole-star, and followed fearlessly, long before the present day, though not upon
a sea which knows no storms, the natives of Britain must have been under a
clearer sky. On the contrary, too many of the adherents of the now learning,
though never done with repeating their favourite maxim respecting the Bible, and
the Bible alone, have ever since treated it chiefly as a sheet anchor, and as if
it were to be resorted to only when assailed by a storm; though it was given
them also as a chart to guide through all the perils of the deep. Such was the
first great controversy in Britain, and as it took precedence of all others in
point of time, so, as first in point of importance, even in our own day it is
abundantly manifest, that all subsequent, all subordinate points of difference,
submissively wait upon its progress, and upon its decision even still. When one
is constrained to turn his eye to that particular quarter, in England, from
whence this sympathy with “the Old Learning” has, in our own day, proceeded,
what associations are these which crowd upon the mind! It seems as if the spot
had been selected, in order to rouse the public mind. Among all the cities in
Britain, was this that one which became the seat of the very first
printing-press set up in this kingdom? So it has been affirmed; but be that as
it may, there are other associations more than sufficient to awaken the mind and
rivet the eye of every reader of his Bible in the land. Here it was that the
morning star first rose in England, and so, over Europe; when our own Wickliffe
first opened to the people of his country the treasures of Divine Truth in their
mother tongue. Here it was where the immortal Tyndale first gave his lectures on
Scripture, and then proceeded on his way. It would, however, be doing great
injustice to Oxford, and that throughout our own times, did we not discover
something there in which there is neither “mystery” nor “reserve,” nay,
something happily far superior to any testimony from men. If sympathy with “the
Old Learning’’ has been oozing out from a certain class, through the medium of
the press, and though the friends of the New may have been bordering upon
slumber, has there been no overwhelming echo from the Oxford press itself? It is
in this locality, for more than ten years, that certain anonymous writers have
been very busy; but has nothing been doing there, in multiplying the Sacred
Record of which they have thus dared to speak? On the contrary, above every
other spot on earth there has been a work proceeding, from week to week, in
favour of those Scriptures. Among the cities of this kingdom, or of the world,
the point of distinction at Oxford is confined to one, and that one connected
with the English Bible, without note or comment! During these years it has been
affirmed to be within the power of its noble printing-press, that they could
print a Bible entire, in one minute! But be this as it may, the power possessed
has been employed in giving existence to the Divine Record, in our native
tongue, and to such an amount, that it has exceeded that of the presses of all
the cities in continental Europe put together! Even London and Cambridge, with
all their myriads of copies, have not been able to keep pace with Oxford alone!

If, then, there has been an enemy in this quarter, threatening, however feebly,
to come in like a flood, is no significance to be attached to the singular fact
now stated? Or rather, in the very camp where he has been so long sounding his
trumpet, has not a standard every morning been lifted up against him? The stress
of battle, before long, must bear on this one point-the Sacred Volume and its
all-sufficiency, whether for “the plainest rustic,” or “the deepest
philosopher;” then will it be remembered, as at least some encouragement, that
no spot on the face of the earth has been so distinguished as Oxford, the school
of Wickliffe and Tyndale, for the multiplication of the English Bible.

If, however, the ancient contest between the Old Learning and the New is ever to
be revived, not only must all “mystery” and “reserve” be dismissed, but all
other consequential points be lost in the grand one. By the New Learning, as in
days of old, is to be understood,-the Bible, without note or comment, in our
vulgar tongue; and surely, if the history of the past is admitted to be any
guide for the future, and if there be any tide, or any voice, in human affairs,
the Ruler of nations appears to be summoning the mind of Britain, and above
every other nation, to His own highest movement. If, then, this summons is ever
to be obeyed, if the devoted admirers of Divine Revelation are once more to be
favoured to engage in this, the highest of all warfare, might it not, as a
preliminary, prove to be the exercise of a sound discrimination or discerning
wisdom, if the British mind were afresh directed, with unmitigable energy, to
that one division of the people which has in reality existed throughout all the
past, or from the beginning? At first, in the sixteenth century, this division
soon became palpable or visible to every eye. As if it had been expressly
intended to explain to all posterity its infinite importance, to save from all
delusion or mistake in time to come, it was marked in a manner never to be
forgotten.

It was a division of the community then accompanied by distress in every form of
persecution, of imprisonment, and death by fire. It seemed meet to Infinite
wisdom to permit, that this line should be drawn in blood, by the awful
instrumentality of the rack and the stake, by the flames and their ashes, or
pining death in prison; and though all these horrors have passed away, this line
now stands out, thus glaringly, in authentic history, as a division of the
entire community, from which the eye of Omniscience all along has never removed,
nor ever will. At such a crisis as the present, therefore, when not one
intelligent Christian, of whatever persuasion, can imagine that his party, as it
stands, like Aaron’s rod, will ultimately swallow up all others; what can be the
existing purpose or intention of an overruling and ever-watchful Providence?
Full, to overflowing, with Divine revelation, the mere multiplication of the
Scriptures in English cannot possibly be the main intention now. The identical
course pursued from 1804 cannot now be pursued. We have been brought forward to
an advanced stage, but it is a stage only in preparation for what is to come. We
may look back, but must look forward. It is only a breathing time, which now
calls for some vigorous and corresponding exertion, but it must beELSEWHERE. In
the dispersion of the Scriptures Britain has been distinguished for thirty
years, both for persistence and perseverance. There has been no lack of
persistence in her continual efforts, as to the English Bible. But has there
been any relaxation of perseverance in her separate efforts, throughout her own
foreign dominions, or the world at large? We must, of necessity, immediately
inquire. So far as the present history is concerned, the actual state of things
appears to be this :-There is no sectarian movement now before us, nor does
anything which can be so denominated come in our way. But with all her
imperfections in the administration of the affair, still Britain, by her
activity in multiplying and dispersing the Sacred Record, has drawn the eyes of
the world uponn her, or, happily, far more than the eye of old Europe. With what
have been styled “missions,” therefore, conducted by whomsoever they may, the
Pontiff, personally, does not seem to interfere. These he may counter-work, he
imagines more effectually, without a bull. But it is the SACRED VOLUME in the
vernacular tongue anywhere and everywhere, upon which, in our own day, he
discharges his gall of bitterness entire.

Thus it is, whether British Christians become more alive to the fact or not,
that three different Pontiffs, out of four, in regular succession, have been
permitted to signify to them, above every other people, where lies the strength,
the best or the chief hope and mainstay, of Britain, and the only ground of
security as to her vast dominion.

Time there was, when the thunder of one bull would have, sufficed to fix
attention in this country, but though three in succession have failed to excite
much notice, and many have never heard of one; still, if there be any
relaxation, if anything bordering on mere party-spirit, within our shores, these
documents may well be regarded as so many distinct intimations, that we are
neglecting the highest of all duties, and one which ought to be common, as well
as dear, to every circle in the land. There may be those, it is true, whether
few or many, even within this country, who are sympathising with the enemy of
truth beyond seas; but in reality the friends of Divine truth may feel obliged
to these three successive Pontiffs. It is allowable to derive instruction even
still from the old European enemy. His opposition once contributed to the supply
of Britain herself, and why may it not now help to the supply of even the world
in general? No believer in Divine revelation, it is true, need to feel any undue
apprehension at these things, but it is strictly within his province, to observe
the signs of the times. His only question must ever be,-“ What is the duty of
the day?” And if he tread only in the footsteps of the Word of God, he need not
to fear any mere ripple in the waves, any apparent reflux in the advancing tide.
On the devout READERS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE, whether at home or abroad, all our
hope for future exertion must depend. At present we regard them all as but one
community, and the most united upon the face of the earth; possessing certain
points of attraction to each other, for which we search in vain throughout the
world. Although the most widely diffused branch of the family of man, except the
Jews, yet they alone are in firm possession of the entire Sacred Volume; and
once contemplated as a community-before the eye of Him who never slumbers, it
cannot be said, at any given moment, that its members have ceased to peruse or
to search the same Divine Record. At any hour of the twenty-four, or rather any
minute, the eyes of some among this body are in the act of resting on the same
Book of Life, and that, from the beginning of the year to the end of the year!
To be found in the midst of a people of the same tongue, now approaching to
fifty millions, and in possession of Divine Revelation to an extent which serves
as a contrast to the world; these favoured individuals, of both sexes, from
youth to old age, are hourly drawn to the same heavenly centre of attraction;
and however far apart, there alone they all alike find their best and their
happiest moments. The present age, with all its faults, has been designated “the
age of Bibles;” but then, in the readers we now address, having this divine and
sovereign authority before their eyes, every page has reached the heart; and no
people upon earth so feel the necessity for the Author’s presence; or in other
words, for special influence to accompany and sanction their reading.

Already, however, the Divine Spirit has been with His Word, and as a preliminary
to every other step, the observance of which is fitted to diffuse a friendship,
or mutual interest, never yet felt; let us, whether at home or abroad, near or
afar off, turn to that more distinguished weekly homage paid to the Volume we
alike revere. Here is the point, the one point, in which we all meet, and it is
enough. Even in times such as the present, it is all-sufficient. Our common
centre of attraction, is the only immovable centre of repose. As one Community,
we may turn to one day in seven, and in the view now to be presented,
distinguish it as the SABBATH OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE. That period of time to which
we now advert, as recurring at every seventh revolution of the sphere, embraces
one day and night entire; and once begun, to the admiring readers of the English
Bible, considered as a body, in some resemblance to the sun in the firmament,
there is no twilight; no evening shade. Before the Sovereign Author of this
extraordinary distribution of one people, in possession of the same Sacred
Record, it can in truth be affirmed-there is no night there. Nor is He ever more
present with them all, than when they look to Him through this Divine medium.

It will, of course, be understood, that we now cast an eye not at Britain
alone,-a light in which no intelligent man of the present day should ever regard
this kingdom. We look also at her dominions, now held by but one imperative
condition, or that of being subservient to the designs of Providence. And here,
as the day we contemplate is a day of rest and reading, of worship and inquiry,
it has no parallel in any other tongue. The great majority of reflecting
admirers is, no doubt, to be found in Britain, but long before they have ceased
from the cares of business, at the end of the week, the Lord’s-day has already
begun; and long after they have once more drawn the curtains and retired to
rest, there are many in the far west, who are yet to go on for hours, exploring
the same sacred page. We have traced the English Bible as being certainly in
perusal above an hundred and seventy degrees east, and about an hundred and
eighty west, of Greenwich. The half-hour out of twenty-four, which may yet
easily be ascertained, is, for the present, of no moment. Should this very
memorable day, however, be thus taken into frequent consideration, there is
another which will not be forgotten, and it is of equal length. It is the day
before. This is perfectly well known, and even to the most influential members
of this singular community. With them it is a day of research as well as of
reading the same common standard. Here there is a positively ascertained effort
of mind, of twenty-four hours’ duration, an uninterrupted mental aim after
“rightly dividing” the same “word of truth.” The object in view is that the
trumpet may give one certain sound, for these men are to lead the devotion of
myriads on the following day. The ascertained fact, therefore, is this, that for
a space equal to not less than forty-eight hours, every week, the devoted
attention of the same people is directed to the same Sacred Volume.

Now, it cannot be that such a community, whom it is possible thus to select, and
thus address, has yet fulfilled the providential purpose of its wide extension.
By no means; for here may already be descried the twilight of a brighter day
than Britain has ever witnessed. Whether they be in Old England or New England,
in Scotland or Nova Scotia, in Middlesex and Braidalbin at home or Middlesex and
Braidalbin abroad, in Canada or the Cape of South Africa, in India or Burmah, in
the Indian Archipelago, the Pacific, or on the coast of China, this favoured
people of one language, have been thus scattered, certainly not in wrath, but in
mercy to mankind. “Thou hast scattered us among the heathen” was the mournful
complaint of the ancient Jew to his God, because this was the token of His
frown-the ruin or the death of Judaism; but this unprecedented dispersion of one
Gentile nation may, and probably will, prove the life of Scriptural
Christianity. It was the providential dispersion of the first community at
Jerusalem of old which gave birth to the very name of Christian; and in this
vastly greater dispersion of one people, why may not untold or unprecedented
good be involved?

There is only one circumstance which remains to be glanced at, in reference to
this select day, so observed by one people on both sides of the globe. Their
common language happens to be the only one in Europe in which the doctrine of
the seventh part of time, as well as the joyful occasion of its observance, has
been so fully comprehended and observed. For these three hundred years the day
has been differently regarded by all the nations on the Continent; so that, with
all our faults, there has been, as remarked by Guizot, a moral as well as an
insular separation. Let us hold fast by the distinction, and improve it now in
both hemispheres. The neighbouring nations may have smiled at these Sabbaths,
and wondered at our weakness or simplicity in having so multiplied the
vernacular version of our Bible; but they will not deny, that to a people
remarked for these peculiarities, there has been conveyed an empire far more
extensive than any that has ever existed. But for these, there had been no such
singular community as that which it has been our object to address, and our
desire to interest more deeply in each other, and then, in the world around
them.

After this, would it not be well for the adjoining Continent, were these nations
now to take both the Volume and the Day into more thoughtful consideration?-The
circulation of the one?-the observance of the other? f132 Our existing
circumstances as a nation, in connexion with the Sacred Volume, whether relating
to the height of privilege, or the amount of duty, we have all along felt our
inability to describe, or express in words. There is a certain crisis in the
history of nations, as well as in the life of man, fitted and intended to
provoke or draw forth the activity and force of every agent. That our present
circumstances are critical, is the persuasion of all thinking men. But then they
are the critical circumstances of a strong and favoured nation, when so far from
repose, or even relaxation, the condition of other countries never so favoured,
must be taken into consideration, after another manner than they have ever yet
been. The present times are distinguished by a number of peculiarities. This, it
has been said, is “the age of improvement-the age of social advancement,-it is a
mercantile age, and the wealth of the world is poured into the lap of Britain,
while its inhabitants are living in the midst of discoveries which have almost
given life and breath to material nature.” In all this the enlightened Christian
patriot cannot but feel and take an interest. But still, in his sober and
deliberate judgment, by far the most momentous and significant point in the
state of this country, consists in the abundant possession of Divine Revelation,
however lightly it may be regarded, and the prodigious reduction in price of the
Sacred Volume.

Consequently, the question which he desires to be resolved is this-What is the
present duty? What are the obligations thus imposed on British Christians? This
subject of inquiry, as the final question, is one which, on the part of the
author, it is here confessed, has never been absent from his mind for years
past. And though it was to be amidst a thousand interruptions by professional
engagements, it seemed to be above all things else desirable, to ascertain the
actual state of our country; not as containing this or that particular form of
ecclesiastical polity; but the state of Britain as the distinguished depository
of Divine Revelation: and consequently the paramount duty of a people so
enriched by the possession of the Sacred Volume. It then occurred to the writer
that there was no other method so likely to present in their due force, the
imperative obligations of his country to the rest of the world, as a distinct
and impartial record of what had actually been done for it, from the beginning.
Out of the wide and wonderful wilderness of “religious privileges” so called, in
the possession of which so many seem to be satisfied to live and die, there
appeared to be no way of escape, but by fixing upon the Sacred Volume itself,
without note or comment; and following it rigidly as the day-star, or surest
index, far above all party, all local, narrow, or limited considerations;
following it, till one could see clearly, and look round on the state of our
native island as such. A more certain clue to the responsible condition of its
inhabitants he did not know, and he may now, perhaps without presumption, be
permitted to suppose, that, in this point of view, our real position among the
nations has never before been fully understood. In seeking for a wide and
imperative field of future exertion there is no necessity, in the first
instance, for going even out of the Empire.

Looking at that Britain in which we dwell, and to which this previous history
has immediate regard, finished as it has been with the truth of God, the real
position of the Island cannot be too strongly enforced. By the Sovereign
Disposer of all events it has been gradually encompassed by an area more than
thirty times the size of itself, an area peopled by above one hundred and-forty
millions of our own species, the great proportion of whom are our
fellow-subjects! The sails of the mother-country whiten every sea; the smoke of
her steam-vessels has filled with astonishment the people of many lands. Our men
of commerce, brought into contact with all these parts, breathe after more free
and frequent intercourse; while the sons of science are not less eager after an
accurate acquaintance with the earth, and especially with the whole Eastern
World. The measurement of the meridional are, extending to more than 1500 miles,
from Cape Comorin to the Himalya Mountains, begun in 1822, after twenty years’
application, has been completed. In India itself, under the present
Governor-General, the leading aim of his policy is peace. But above all, there
is a renewed attention to education in the vernacular tongue. The principle is
openly admitted by the authorities, that the instruction of the body of the
people through the medium of their own tongue is one of the essential duties of
Government: a body amounting to above thirty millions in Bengal, with fifty
millions more adjoining. And there too comes CHINA, with her three hundred
millions, and the adjoining nations, all, as it were, stretching out the hand
especially to Britain-a happy and an amicable arrangement which is still the
subject of wonder to men of all opinions. All this is at once propitious and
animating. But can it be here at home imagined by any one, that an Overruling
Power has brought these vast regions into such intimate connexion with this
distant Isle, for any lower purpose than that of presenting them with a faithful
rendering of His own Sacred Word in all their different vernacular tongues? When
reflecting on this peculiar, this untransferable responsibility, of our country,
but especially of all within it who believe inDIVINE REVELATION; in any man’s
vision there must be some great defect, if he cannot discern what is involved in
her dominion. Upon the manner in which this is conducted, her actual safety must
now depend. Britain has not received authority, or even influence, over so many
millions of our species, with liberty to act by them as she pleases. Nor does
she hold in North America, an area double the size of all France, to neglect or
foster it, just as fancy or ambition may suggest. No, if property at home has
its duties affixed to it, so ALSO HAS DOMINION ABROAD. The world entire, it is
true, demands the swell of pity, and it is not without special claims upon us;
but to avoid being lost in generality, let us at least endeavour to understand
the dominion which Providence has affixed to our native land, whether in Asia,
Africa, or America, and allow no power on earth to beguile us from its
cultivation. Dominion, therefore, we repeat, and however distant, has its duties
affixed to it. But distance, which twenty years ago, used to be stated as
accounting for the apathy of Britain, can now be mentioned no more. To this
country has been granted not only the knowledge, but especially the application,
of the power of steam, by which the whole Island is growing into one vast
Metropolis, while a path in the sea has been given to her.

Whether we look to the west, or to the east, regular communication is now
brought nearly within the compass of every week, or four times a month, and a
monthly intercourse with China has already commenced. Providence is introducing
us to the wide earth, or causing the World to draw near and come, but especially
to this island. Its position is altogether unprecedented, and enough to rouse
the most unthinking stupidity. Dominion so vast, and brought so near at hand,
the world has never witnessed. In all previous history there is no resemblance.
Space and time were never so abridged to the hand of any earthly power. Every
other acquisition of territory or dominion by any nation, shrinks before it. The
conquest of South America by Spain was not equal to a fourth of the extent, in
which more of human blood was shed in a short time, than there may have been in
India from the beginning. The Roman or Mahometan conquests will not bear
comparison. To this vast field of action, over which an overruling Providence
has given us influence, not to mention other frequent opportunities of
intercourse, we have forty-eight direct or stated channels of communication
every year.

These, like so many distinct incitements, call us to go out, or send out, and
double our diligence in conveying to all these populous regions, certainly not
the peculiarities of our different indigenous religious systems, upon which some
are so blindly bent, but the unsophisticated BOOK OF GOD, without our notes or
comments, but in translations, if possible, at least equal to our own. This, we
cannot but imagine to be the highest end for which such wide dominion has been
bestowed, and the duty, by way of eminence, assigned to this country.

Such has been the history of our English Bible, and such appears to be the
paramount duty imposed upon all, who have so long and so richly possessed it. If
to thousands around them, that Sacred Volume be of no more utility than a
sundial in the dark,-if others esteem those lines not worth reading, which God
himself deemed worthy of His inspiration, and if many more are eager after the
adjustment of merely certain local interests upon British ground; all this only
forms a more powerful proof of the necessity for invoking the Divinc Spirit,
and, in present circumstances, a stronger argument need not, perhaps cannot, be
adduced. But nothing whatever can weaken our obligations to go forward in this
high path, or justify the hands hanging down, in a single instance. The
all-sufficiency of the Divine Record, and now, especially the Ministration of
the Spirit, form the two great themes, calling for universal and supreme regard
throughout our native land; but, at the same time, not unmindful of the
beneficial reflex influence of foreign operations, before the commencement of
this century, and during a season of great national peril, we have thus written;
as well as from a full persuasion that the permanent interests of this country,
her surest protection and best defence against all aggression, are now in a
state of dependence upon the general diffusion of Divine Truth, properly so
called. Separate from all systems of human opinion, removed from the din of
disputation and the strife of tongues, this appears to be the preeminent duty to
which the Christians of Britain are now invited, as by a voice from above. They
have been favoured beyond those of any other nation; but this should only lead
them the more to remember that there is a favour higher still than that of being
blessed, nay, blessed by God himself. It consists in their being made a blessing
to others. His object, in the first instance, is to be adored, but let us
beware, above all things, of forgetting His intention, or, as it were, retarding
the flow of the Divine benignity to mankind, His fixed purpose, uttered again
and again, in the face of open rebellion, disscusion among His professed
followers, and even the people at large labouring in the fire, or wearying
themselves for very vanity, is still the same,-“The earth shall be filled with
the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea.” The Divine
Record, therefore, by itself considered, must visit every land. In the various
languages of our world, here is the highest object to which the human mind
should address itself; and were the collective zeal in this kingdom, now, at
last, to awake and take this one direction, through all our principal sea-ports,
it would be nothing more than the very extraordinary procedure of the Almighty
towards this nation, for more than three hundred years, and the aspect of these
times, demand. At a moment when, in every other walk pursued by British
Christians, the seeds of mutation are so thickly sown,-a season, in which Divine
Providence is in the act of bringing down the self-importance of all collective
bodies,-drawing with unwonted solemnity over the entire kingdom, and to be more
deeply venerated, the line of distinction between His own revealed Word, and all
the opinions of men respecting it; and demonstrating to the humblest capacity,
that no Church, yet in existence, is to prove the ark of this nation; even at
such a period, whatever these signs portend, or come what may, what is the
actual state of this greater cause? Its prospects were never, by half, so
encouraging, its claims never so imperative! Thus strikingly, by every calm
intelligent observer, may this undertaking be seen at present, rising far above
the regions of party, or of mere party zeal.

Meanwhile, if everything in the condition of mankind indicates the approach of
some great crisis, is it not more than observable, that in this our eminently
favoured land, all things else appear as though they had conspired chiefly to
render more conspicuous or glaring, and certainly far more inviting, one
solitary path, left open by God to British Christians as such? A path, indeed,
to which, as far as they regard their common standard, they appear to be now
very nearly hedged up, just as they were above forty years ago, by the fear of
infidelity. A path, however, in which they may proceed in the largest body, and
by the smallest groups, or rather by both methods, in perfect harmony. That
path, in which those who revere Divine Revelation as their common charter to the
skies, or their sheetanchor in every storm, can still meet; and meeting with
success their common foe, however divided on some points, can only the more
triumphantly repel the charge of sectarianism. That path, where, as the
asperities of discordant sentiment can have no place, so every acrimonious or
noxious controversy, is left to wither down to its root; and where, though they
confute no heresies, they may effect what is better still, cause them all to be
neglected or forgotten. In that plain path, where diffusion, seems to be the one
idea that cometh out from the Divine throne daily, dispensing with a bountiful
hand “the sovereign balm for every wound,” through other and distant clinics,
the parties so engaged are in the way of being twice blessed: and there, while
working in the rear of the Almighty’s most determined purpose and highest end,
ultimate success is no less certain, than in the course of nature. “For as the
rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but
watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to
the sower and bread to the eater: so shall my Word be that goeth forth out of my
mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I
please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

What, then, although many things around us say, or seem to say, Trust not in
man? let the heart of no Christian fail him for one moment. With more profound
reverence for the Divine Word as the appointed instrument, a clearer perception
of its adaptation to its end, a firm reliance on the Divine veracity, and a
habitual reference to the Holy Spirit of God, let this path only be pursued as
its supreme importance demands, it must end in consequences which are not left
to human conjecture, and such as the earth we inhabit has yet to enjoy.-“ For ye
shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace; the mountains and the hills
shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall
clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead
of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree: and this shall be unto Jehovah for a
memorial, for an everlasting sign, which shall not be abolished.”


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  CHAPTER 7: 05 ENGLISH BIBLES AND NEW TESTAMENTS.
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ENGLISH BIBLES AND NEW TESTAMENTS.

PREVIOUS CHAPTER - NEXT CHAPTER - HELP - FACEBOOK EXPLANATORY NOTE. THE best
account of English Bibles and Testaments, with their proprietors, which has ever
been published, is that which was printed at the Clarendon Press, Oxford, in
1821, by the Rev. Henry Cotton, D.C.L. In the following Index-List will be found
about a hundred editions not there specified.

Under the description column, the quotations marked are taken verbally and
literally from the title-page or colophon, which may assist other possessors to
identify their imperfect copies. More proprietors might have been added to some
books, but these are sufficient to authenticate all the editions mentioned, and
put an end to a degree of uncertainty respecting these precious volumes, which
has too long prevailed. The number, on the whole, will be found to corroborate,
and even strengthen, the statements in the preceding History. In the following
pages Ty. denotes the translation of Tyndale-Co. that of Coverdale-Ma. that of
Rogers, alias Matthew, or that of Tyndale left for publication-Cr, denotes
Cranmer’s-7a. that of Taverner-Gs. the Genevan version-Bps. that of the Bishops,
and To. that of Laurence Tomson. The Library of the late Hon. Thomas Grenville
is now in the British Museum. Various Editions Of The New Testament And The
Bible In English With Certain Public Libraries And Individual Proprietors In
Possession Of Copies; Serving As An Index To The Preceding History.Henry The
Eighth Fifty-Four Editions, Viz. Thirty-Nine Of The New Testament And Fifteen Of
The Bible B. “The Holy Bible, Conteyntng the Old Testament, and the New:

NewlyTranslated out of the Ortglnall tongues: and with the former Translations
diligently compared and revised, by his Maiesties speciall CSmandemeut.
Appointed to be read in churches. Imprinted at London by Robert Barker, Printer
to the Kings most Excellent Malestie. Anuo Dom. 1611.”-N.B.-It has been said
that the British Museum has two editions of this year; but this is a mistake.
The title of 1611 has been affixed to the editions of 1619, 1617, 1634, and even
1640, to make apparently fine copies of the first, but there certainly was no
second edition in 1611.* T. “The New Testament of our Lord and 8aniour Jesvs
Christ. Newly translated,” Sc. Our present version in the same year, very rare.
An. 1611. 12mo.

KING JAMES’S TRANSLATORS TO THE READER.

“We are so far off from condemning any of their labours that traveiled before us
in this kind, either in this land, or beyond sea, either in King Henry’s time-or
Queen Elizabeth’s-that we acknowledge them to have been raised up of God, for
the building and furnishing of His Church, and they deserve to be had of us, and
of posterity in everlasting remembrance.” “Therefore, blessed be they, and
honoured be their name, that brake the ice, and gave the onset upon that which
helpeth forward to the saving of souls! Now, what can be more available thereto,
than to deliver God’s book unto God’s people in a tongue which they understand?”
“Truly, good Christian Reader, we never thought from the beginning, that we
should need to make a new Translation, nor yet to make of a bad one a good, but
to make a good one better; or out of many good ones, one principal good one, not
justly to be excepted against; that hath been our endeavour, that our mark. To
that purpose there were many chosen, that were greater in other men’s eyes than
their own, and that sought the truth, rather than their own praise.Ӡ IN the
preceding List, it may have been observed, there are no questionable books, and
yet in the course of eighty-six years, or up to the period in which our present
Version was first published, there had been 278 editions of Bibles and New
Testaments separately. This gives an average of more than three editions
annually. Could, however, all the editions, particularly of Tyndale’s New
Testament, be verified, of which, to a certainty, a number exist, still
unascertained, we are now fully persuaded that the average would, at the least,
amount to four editions every year. All the volumes preceding the year 1560,
must be contemplated as one would so many ancient Warriors, after a long and
severe conflict. Even their mutilated remains are to be venerated, after having
in their own day and generation, proved so many witnesses for the truth; but
having sustained the loss of their title-page, or colophon, they could not be
called up to the present muster. Though, therefore, we have, with some research,
brought about an hundred more into the field than ever were before, their number
may yet be increased. An average, however, is not the only view which should be
taken of the entire period. Each reign is considered by the historian as having
a character of its own. Thus, in the reign of Henry, from 1525 to 1541, after
which he began to frown, the average of publication was fully three editions
annually. Before ever he listened, or before he was over-ruled, of the New
Testament there had been at least 24 editions! During the long reign of
Elizabeth, the average was about the same, or above three issues annually. The
brightest period was that of Edward VI., when there were about eight editions
for every year he reigned. For the striking disparity between this brief reign
and that of his sister Elizabeth, as to the New Testament, see the preceding
history.

We have ascertained a larger number of the Bishops’ Version than has ever before
been mentioned, or 32 distinct issues. But it may now be observed, that instead
of thirty editions in folio, quarto, and octavo, of the Genevan Version, printed
from 1560 to 1616, as Lewis reported, and NEWCOME, with many others, have
repeated down to this day, we may now very safely assert that by that year there
had been at least one hundred and fifty editions of Bibles and New Testaments,
of which the reader has the proof before him of one hundred and twenty-nine
editions, even by the year 1611. The Bible of Parker, or the Bishops’ Version,
was never again printed after that year, though of the New Testament there were
editions by Barker in 1614, 1615, 1617, and 1618. But the Gcnevan Bible still
continued to be issued, and by the King’s printer, as well as at Edinburgh and
Amsterdam.

Thus, besides four editions of the New Testament, we have the Genevan version in
4to, reprinted in 1613 both at London and Edinburgh. Again at London in 1614,
and two editions in 1613. Again in folio, and by Barker still, in 1616. In
quarto, at Amsterdam, in 1633, and six other editions, all antedated, as if in
London, and in 1599. Again in folio, at Amsterdam, 1640, and two editions in
1644. In 1649 the present Version was printed with the Genevan notes by way of
pushing it into favour, but about this period it prevailed, and took the place
it has occupied ever since.

HISTORICAL INDEX TO THE ANNALS OF THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

“It is a very striking circumstance, that the high-minded inventors of this
great art tried at the very outset so bold a flight as the printing an entire
Bible, and executed it With astonishing success.

We may see, in imagination, this venerable and splendid Volume (though in Latin)
leading up the crowded myriads of its followers, and imploring, as it were, a
blessing on the new art, by dedicating its first-fruits to the service of
Heaven.”-Hallam. For its description, see our lntroduction , 48, 49. “Truth is
the daughter of time, and time is the mother of truth. And whatsoever ts
besieged of truth, cannot long continue; and upon whose side truth doth stand,
that ought not to be thought transitory, or that it will ever fall. All things
consist not in painted eloquence, and strength or authority. For the Truth is of
so great power, strength, and efficacity, that it can neither be defended with
words, nor be overcome with any strength: but after she hath hidden herself
long, at length she putteth up her head-and appeareth!”-EDWARD FOX, the King’s
Almoner, and Bishop of Hereford, anno 1536; this being the first diocese in
England in which the daily reading of the Scriptures in English was enforced on
the vicars and curates, through Dr. Curwen, theDEAN of that day, and afterwards
Bishop of Oxford under Elizabeth. See p 256.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE.

CERTAIN statements as to the English Scriptures have been given in past times by
JOHN BALE, in his Centuries of Writers, and JOHN FOXE in his Acts and Monuments;
by Father SIMON, in his Critical History, and LE LONG, in his Bibliotheca Sacra;
by STRYPE, in his Memorials of Cranmer, and ANTHONY JOHNSON, in his Historical
Account of Translations. To these may be added the accounts given by LEWIS and
NEWCOME, by MACKNIGHIT and HERBERT MARSH, by CRUTTWELL, in his preface to
Wilson’s Bible, andGRAY, in the introduction before his Key to the Old
Testament. Not to mention others, an eye has been kept on them all; but their
statements, on the whole, are so defective and contradictory, that they, and
those who refer to them as authority, require to be read with caution. The
confusion and inaccuracy which have reigned throughout the whole, may be traced
to one cause. The respective authors had not the Books before them, and probably
not one had ever seen, much less inspected, the tenth part of the volumes at
which he pointed. In the preceding History and Index-List, on the contrary, all
the books have been seen and examined. No reliance has been placed on any loose
previous statement, since there occurred such frequent reason to distrust every
one of them; and as yet, from all that the Author has learned or read, he has
had no occasion to question the general accuracy of either the History or the
List of Bibles. No authentic addition has been discovered to the latter, but in
the following Index, advantage is taken to insert several items, illustrative or
confirmatory of both. It may be added, that in the last edition of “The
Introduction to the Study and Knowledge of the Scriptures,” by Mr. Hartwell
Horne, he has corrected his notices of the English Scriptures by the preceding
Annals.

Another subject, by way of addition to this history, has been suggested, but the
Author has abstained, on principle, from all verbal criticism as to the English
Bible. As far as man is concerned, imperfection attends him at every step, and
the shamefully incorrect manner in which the Scriptures were too often printed,
especially in former days, as well as the tardiness to correct remaining minor
imperfections in the Sacred text itself, greatly illustrate the forbearance of
Heaven: but in these volumes we have the past and present state of Britain, and
British Christians with the Scriptures in their hands, before us, such as they
have been, and now are; and these, for the present, demand deliberate and
exclusive respect. To have entered on the verbal differences, whether in the
English Bible, from Tyndale’s down to our present version, or those which have
been observed in manuscripts of the Sacred text since examined, would have been
only diverting away the mind to a subject altogether foreign to the nature and
design of this work.

Here, the past will be allowed, as in some other histories, to form the best
indication or discoverer of the future. Now in tracing out a series of
authenticated events, extending over more than three Centuries, the writer was
early struck with a vein in the history peculiar to itself, and the more so, as
it firmly continued to exhibit this characteristic down to the present day-a
species of commanding supremacy, amidst various attempts to control, and
peculiar to this kingdom. On the whole, therefore, it is presumed, the mind
cannot escape from frequently observing a distinguishing feature, which, at the
close, among other reflections or inquiries, leads so forcibly to one-What does
this history portend? So secretly imported from abroad, as these Scriptures
were, into England and Scotland, at the beginning, preserved so independent of
control from every section of the British community, multiplied as they have
been, and now so widely dispersed, the entire narrative carries every appearance
of steady and determined approach-but it is to some one point, never yet gained.
Has then some great moral lesson, not yet learned, been thus patiently held up
to view, from age to age, but especially to the present? Has some cardinal
principle, not yet understood, been waiting for adoption? Whatever that be, it
remains for reflection, whether the History itself be not pressing forward,
irresistibly, towards a period, when Sacred Scripture will have become the only
authoritative source of Christian knowledge, faith, and practice? when the
Sacred Vohume will have gained that throne of Supremacy, to which many incidents
in every stage of its providential history have been pointing so long?

Meanwhile, in the history of the transmission of ancient Books to modern times,
there is absolutely nothing, in our langnage, to be placed in comparison with
the introduction and conveyance of the English Scriptures to our times; thus
rendering not only deep interest to all the past, but such ample ground for
anticipation as to the future. In all ages, according to the magnitude and
importance of its ultimate object, has been the compass fetched by the all-wise
providence of God.

Abbot, George , afterwards archbishop, one of the translators of the Bible, 479.

Address or Prologue -forming the first language of Tyndale, in print, to the
people of God in England-unknown to history for above three hundred years, and
but recently discovered,46.-for a fac-simile of the first page, and of the first
New Testaments, see Appendix.

Adolphus of Mentz , patron to Gutenberg. Introd. xlix.-takes Mentz by storm, l.

Aglionby , Dr. John, one of the translators of the Bible, 479.

Aitken , Robert, printer of the first English Bible in America, 592.

Alarm , the very great and simultaneous, in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, on
first receiving from abroad the New Testament in the English language,
51-62.-the first alarm in Scotland from the same cause, 501.-the panic among the
bishops in Edinburgh, and all their churches closed, when the English Bible was
first proclaimed as free to all readers, 556-560.

Aldus , the prince of Venetian printers, Introd. liv.

Ales or Aless , Alexander , (Alesius,) his history and exertions hitherto
unknown; born April anno 1500, and in Edinburgh, 512.-student at St. Andrews,
ib.-cruelly used in the dungeon there, still in existence, 514.-escapes to
Dundee-shielded by the Provost there-embarks for the Continent, 515.-the author
of the first printed controversy in Britain as to reading the Scriptures-his
memorable letter to his King, James V., 516.-attacked by Cochlaeus, 517.-was
triumphantly answered by Aless, 521.-his curious and significant interview with
Herman, the Archbishop of Co. logne, 523.-Aless, the first man, by many years,
who pleaded for the Scriptures to be read at home round the household fire in
Scotland, 525.-Crum well invites him into the Convocation, 252.-the first man,
therefore, who, on British ground, argued for Baptism and the Lord’s Supper to
be the only ordinances under the New Testament, 255, 256.-Cranmer and the
bishops afraid of his counsel, 257.-by the King’s order sent to Cambridge, to
expound Scripture, 533.-prevented, he studies medicine in London, id.-escapes
again to Germany, id.-made professor of divinity at Frankfort on the Oder, id.-
often employed in discussion, id.-pub lished various expositions of Scripture,
534.-his wife and children, id.-Professor for twenty-three years at Leipsic, and
where, in 1565, he died in peace, id.-taking the precedence of all other eminent
Scotsmen, and pleading for his Country long before any other voice was heard,
some suitable Memorial is now due to his character and exertions, but more
especially in Edinburgh, his native city, 534.

Alfred the Great , Introd. xxxi.

America, North, the Bible first seen by its natives, an English one,
588.-afterwards carried there by the Pilgrim Fathers, 589.-but printing it there
not permitted by Britain, id.-all must use an imported Bible, for more than 160
years, 590.-the first open imprint, in defiance of Britain, by a Scotsman there,
591.-the first in folio and quarto, not till 1791, 592.-conveyance from and then
to a distance, a very notable peculiarity as to the English Scriptures, for
above two centuries and a half, id.

Andreas, John, secretary to the Vatican, promotes the press in Rome, introd. li.

Andrews, Dr. L., translator of our present version, 477.

Andrews , Dr. R., translator of our present version, 478.

Angus , Earl of, head of the English party in Scotland, 494, 501.

Ann of Luxemburg , a reader of Wickliff’s Testament, Introd, xlii.

Antwerp , first English New Testaments burnt there, 79.-persecution, through the
English Ambassador, for printing an edition there, 76, 77.-or importing them to
Britain, ll0.-nobly resisted by the citizens, 77-79, ll0- 112.-Tunstal’s visit
to buy up Testaments, 122.-a new English Ambassador sent, 150.-his bold
remonstrance with Crumwell against persecution, 170.-various editions printed
there, 278.

Arbuthnot , Alex., printer of the first English Bible in Scotland, 571.

Arran , Earl of, head of his party, 494.-protector of Scotland, 554.-succumbs to
Beaton, 565.

Arrival , the first, of the English New Testament in London, Oxford, and
Cambridge, 50-60.-the first in Edinburgh and St. Andrews, 497, 498.

Arundel , Archbishop, stirs persecution against the Wickliffites, Introd. xliii.

Askew , Anne, her heroic behaviour under examination, 393.-the cruel torture
inflicted, id.-her eminent character, and testimony to the allsufficiency of the
Scripture before death; her martyrdom, forming the climax of cruelty under Henry
VIII., 394, 395.

Audley , Chancellor, on receiving the Great Seal, relaxes persecution, 107.

Authority of Scripture , supreme and exclusive, might have been the polestar of
Britain for three centuries past, 627. -but afraid to follow it, id.-though this
be the highest of all sacred social questions, and must be settled, if even the
providential history of the English Bible itself be any guide, 628, 629.

Bainham , his examination, 179.-confession before the Congregation in Bow Lane,
180.-his martyrdom, id.

Barbo , Peter, the Venetian pontiff.-See Paul II.

Badius Conrad , printer of the first Geneva Bible, 451.

Barker , Christopher, first patentee of the English Bible, 467.-his selfish
policy, 471.- secured the patent to his son Robert, 467.

Barker , Robert, is at the cost of the present version, 483.-secures the patent
to his family for generations, id.

Barker , family of, as patentees, 466-471.

Barlow , Jerome, Roye’s associate, 28.- pursued by Wolsey, 110, 114.

Barlow , Bishop, one of the translators of our version, 480.

Barlow , Dr., Ambassador of Henry VIII. to Scotland, his report of the state of
things there, 539, 541.

Barnes , Robert, 60.-the first recantation, 64.-escapes to the Continent,
Bassandyn , Thomas, first printer of the Scriptures in Scotland, 571.

Bayfield’s history, 164.-zealous importer of books, 165, 166.-his cruel usage
and martyrdom by Stokesly, 167.

Beaton , Archbishop, in disgrace and concealment at the moment when the English
New Testament first arrived in Scotland, 494-500.-the mover of Sir Patrick
Hamilton’s death, the proto-martyr, 505.

Beaton , Cardinal, aims after unlimited authority in Scotland, 546-549.-in
prison, when parliament proclaimed the Sacred Scriptures to be free to all men,
554-560.-his cruelty, 565.-his own death by violence, 566.

Beton , Thomas, his testimony to free perusal of the Scriptures in 1542, 376.

Bedwell , Dr., one of the translators of our present version, 478.

Benedict XIII. grants six rules for the establishment of St. Andrew’s
University, 490.-his favour for Scotland, 491.

Bible-the first ever printed was in Latin; long unnoticed and unknown, till
discovered by De Bure in the Mazarine Library at Paris; and hence it has been
sometimes called the Mazarine Bible, Introd. xlviii, xlix.

Bible in English , without note or comment, was that for which Tyndale so boldly
pleaded, 43.-in this he was joined by Fryth, and these two men, thus early,
stood alone, the purest martyrs for the Word of God. 44. 199. 268. Bible alone,
without note or comment. the perfect rule of faith and practice, though never
yet fairly tested, 627.

Bible, without note or comment, the mere proposal so to circulate it in all
languages, at once conveyed an impulse, the most powerful and extensive which
British Christians have ever felt, 640.

Bible in English now, the only version in existence on which the sun never sets,
Preface.-it has arrived at this extent, not by any united effort so much as by
regular sale and dispersion, 603.-rapidity of its issue from the press, Preface,
628.

Bible Society , the first, 597.-the second, id.-the third, or British and
Foreign, 599-611.

Bilney , his conversion, 59.-first ensnared,60.-he recants, 90.-preaches,
162.-died a genuine martyr, 163.

Bishops of England -they denounced as poison, and ordered to be delivered up,
the first printed New Testaments in English, 72.-they had before been burning
them in public, after a sermon, 65.-they are arraigned by Tyndale as the very
fountain and spring, or wellhead of all mischief and disorder, 85.-they unite,
under Warham their primate, in buying up English New Testaments for destruction,
and at considerable expense, 88.-Tunstal of London, two years after this,
purchases more copies at Antwerp, 122.-their second grand burning at Paul’s
Cross, Tunstal of Durham presiding for Stokesly of London, 144.-at their first
Convocation, the former cement of the Bishops mutually cleaving to each other
having lost its power, they divide, as nine to nine, 249-252.- but they are all
at last signally overruled to receive that Bible, the New Testament of which,
and even the owners of it, they had so often denounced and burnt, 301-305. -four
years after, certain bishops, led on by Gardiner, were longing to discuss and
alter the Sacred text, 372, 373.-once assembled and wrangling over it, the King
takes the English Bible out of their hands, and whih, they are yet sitting in
Convocation, he published his decided sanction in favour of a citizen of London,
who had nobly advanced the great cost of many already in print, 374.-that
version frequently styled “the Bishops’ Bible” was never ordered by Queen
Elizabeth, 462.-nor ever marked by any public or formal sanction of the Crown,
463.-the authority it carried being that of the bishops only, 465.-the bishops
under King James, though applied to for some pecuniary aid in regard to our
present version, returned no answer, 477, 481.-if they were unwilling, the King
himself was unable, 483.-thus the English Bible of our own day, stands as
independent of all such aid from authority, as it had done, since its origin, of
all Royal or ecclesiastical control, 484.

Bishops of Scotland -in alarm, 501.-equally hostile to the Scriptures as in
England, 534.-all reading of them publicly denounced, 540.-but in vain,
549.-they oppose in parliament, 559, -but alike in vain, 560.

Blayney , his corrected edition of the English Bible, 582.

Boccaccio , Introd. xxxiii.

Bodley , John, an exile during Mary’s reign, 456.-publishes the Gencva version
on English ground, 459.-obtains a patent for it from Elizabeth, 458.

Bodley , Sir Thomas, son of the above founder of the Bodleian Library, 457.

Bois or Boys , John, one of the translators of our version, n. 480.-his notes
during the translating, 482.

Boleyn , Queen Anne, read Tyndale’s writings, 124.-her marriage, 197. -she
justifies the importation of Tyndale’s New Testaments, 224.-no man ever dared so
to speak out while the translator lived, 225.-her own copy, now in existence,
227.-her cruel death, 245.

Bonner , Edmund, in Paris, (and now a bishop), 315, 316.-his vile hypocrisy,
367.-sent abroad, 381.-after disgrace under Edward, reinstated by Mary, 420.-he
and Gardiner now in union, 427, 428.-Bonner the slaughter man of England, 425,
441.-his cruelty singularly arrested, 425.

Bracciolini , Introd. xxxiii.

Bradford , Rudolph, zealous in dispersing New Testaments, Latimer’s chaplain,
70.

Brainerd , David, Missionary, 590.

Brandon , Charles, Duke of Suffolk, his death, 385.

Brett , Dr., one of the translators of our present version, 479.

Buchanan , George, obliged to leave Scotland, 548.-quoted, 550.

Buckingham , Prior, inveighs against Dr. Barnes, 61.-in the pay of Tyndale’s
betrayers, 234.-at Louvain, 239, 536.

Burghley , Lord, his estimate of the number of martyrs in the reign of Mary,
423.

Burleigh , Dr. Francis, one of the translators of our present version, 478.

Buschius , Herman, his testimony to Tyndale’s learning, 220.

Byng , Dr. Andrew, one of the translators of our present version, 478.

Cambridge , great alarm there, on first receiving the English New Testament in
print, from abroad, 59-63.-the first Testament known to have been printed there,
see Index-List, No. 105; the first Bible, No. 89.

Campeggio , Cardinal, his arrival in England, 108.-his departure, 125.

Canne , John, his Bible with notes and references, n. 581.

Canne , John, his editions of the English Bible, 581.

Cardinal College , Oxford, by Wolsey, his original and insidious design, 22,
23.-rendered abortive by the perusal of Tyndale’s New Testaments, 56-59.

Carey , William, the Tyndale of India, 598.

Carondelet , Archbishop of Palermo and President of the Brabant Council, 236.
-presided as such at the time of Tyndale’s imprisonment and mock trial before
his martyrdom, 266.

Castro , Alphonso de, Philip’s confessor.-his sermon against persecution, 291.

Chaderton , Dr. Laurence, one of the translators of the authorised version, 478.

Charles , Thomas, of Bala, at the founding of the Bible Society, 602.

Church , our own Church, of whatever form, not the highest point to which, for
three centuries, Providence has been inviting the supreme regard of British
Christians, 625.

Clark , Dr. Richard, one of the translators of our present version, 477.

Cochlaeus , the grand continental opponent of Scripture, 31.-interrupts Tyndale
at the press in Cologne, 33, 36.-alarms the English government,33.-enraged at
Alexander Aless, and writes to James V. of Scotland, 517.-actually sent his
servant with his tract to Edinburgh, who was richly rewarded, 529. -triumphantly
answered by Aless, 521-529.-his death, 534.

Congregation in Bow Lane , Cheapside-was it the earliest resemblance, even under
Henry VIII., of a Christian Church founded on the Scriptures? 181, 188.-see it
again, under Queen Mary, 425, 426.

Constantyne , George, a very zealous importer of Tyndale’s New Testament,
106.-caught and put in irons by Sir T. More, 306.-escapes to, Antwerp, 168. -in
England again, 170.-and becomes a vicar, 338.-dies abroad, but his son-in-law
became Archbishop of York, and President of the Council of the North! 339.

Coverdale , Myles, his first appearance,64.-sent abroad, to sound Tyndale,
135.-his version of the English Bible, 244.-compared with Tyndale’s, 281- 293,
305.-Coverdale in Paris, editing the second edition of the latter, 314- 318.-his
second and singular escape to the Continent, under Mary, 433- 440.

Coxe , Leonard, schoolmaster at Reading, rescues Fryth from the stocks, 185.

Cranmer sent to the Emperor , with Sir T. Elyot, then in pursuit of Tyndale,
176-178.- Fryth stands before him add other bishops, 200- 202.-refers to the
death of Fryth by fire, 202.-fully informed of Tyndale’s imprisonment at
Vilvorde, but does nothing, 234,234.- he is overruled to receive Tyndale’s
version of the Bible, 296-301.-his first edition of it was in 1540,
347-349.-accused by the Council but in vain, 386-389.-one valuable trait in his
procedure, 412, 414.-his martyrdom, 442.

Crumwell , Thomas, his pursuit after Tyndale, 240, 269-278.-all in vain, 279.
-fully informed of Tyndale’s imprisonment at Vilvorde, but, like Cranmer, he
does nothing to shield him from the persecutors, 234, 263.-constrained at last
to seem interested, 236.-but accomplishes nothing, 237.-presides as Vicegerent
and Vicar-General in the first convocation under Henry, 249-261.-he is overruled
to accept of Tyndale’s version of the Bible, 299, 305.-his base subserviency,
311.-his first injunctions enforcing, not Cranmer’s, but Tyndale’s Bible,
319.-his headlong cruelty, to please his avaricious master, 333.-his zeal and
energy as to the Scriptures, admits of but one interpretation, 341-345, 359.-his
death, 352. -his character,id.

Dakins , William, B.D., one of the translators of our present version, 480.

Delaber , Antony, a student at Oxford and confessor of Christ,55,56.

Distance , conveyance first from, and then to a distance, a marked feature in
the history of the English Bible, for above 250 years! 592.

Divine revelation , or the voice of God to man, however unheeded, knows no pause
by night or day, in the England language, Preface, x. xi. 631-634.

Dominion of Britain , its highest import, or what it involves of imperative
duty, ii. 636-638.

Donne , Gabriel, the Monk of Stratford Abbey, and the basest betrayer of
Tyndale, his strange and hitherto unknown history, 232, 239, 274-276.

Dunbar , Archbishop of Glasgow, interposes some check to Beaton’s power, but
yields, 545.-protests against the free reading of the Scriptures, 559.

Edinburgh , its state, when the reading of the Scriptures was first freely
allowed, ii. 555-559.

Edward VI., the contrast to his father, ii. 409.-Scriptures printed under his
reign, 410.414.- but still an undertaking separate from the reigning
authorities, 415, 417.-Edward’s personal character and death, 416.

Edwards , President, 590.

Eliot , John, Missionary to the Indians, 590.

Elizabeth , Queen, her cautious policy at first, extending even to the
Scriptures, 453.-yet, by a distinct patent, sanctioned the Genevan version of
the English Bible, 456.-Parker’s proposal to interfere with it, in vain,
461.-the English Bible printing at Rouen as well as in London, id.-Parker’s
version not ordered by the Queen, 463.-never authorised, nor even specially
noticed by her, 465.-patents, their strange origin and history, 466.-Bibles
under Elizabeth’s reign, far more numerous than ever before imagined, 468.-the
cause of this explained, 470.

Elyot , Sir Thomas, employed in pursuit of Tyndale, by the King’s order, though
still in vain, 175-179.

Endhoven , Christopher, printer of Tyndale’s Testaments at Antwerp, 78.

England , hostile to Tyndale’s design, 21-23.-the first arrivals, the
Scriptures, and effects, 49-64.-the first burning of books, 65.-persecution,
100-107.-arrested by pestilence at home, 108.-persecution again, 120.-the King,
parliament, and bishops, alike hostile to the truth, 128-134.-opposed by
Latimer, 142-144.-warned by Tyndale from abroad, 159.-persecution at home,
179-182. -Henry and his counsellors signally overruled to receive the Bible,
301-304.-character of the King’s parliaments and convocations, 328.-death of
Henry, 403.-retrospect of his reign, 405-408.-England under Edward the Sixth,
409-418.-under Mary, 418-451. -under Elizabeth, 452- 474. - under James I. to
the Commonwealth, 474-488.

Erasmus , his New Testament, the instrument of Bilney’s conversion, 59.-Erasmus
describes the character of the Bra-bant Privy Council, under whom Tyndale
suffered, 266.

Fairclough , Dr., one of the translators of the authorised version, 479.

Fisher , bishop of Rochester, preaches in 1526, before the first burning of
books seized,65.-his violence in parliament, 127.

Fitzralph , Richard, the precursor of Wickliffe. Introd.

Forrest , Henry, a Scottish Martyr, 521.

Ferret , Dean, his trial and martyrdom, 544, 545.

Fox , Bishop of Hereford, his noble address to convocation, 256.

France , its early and promising condition as to the Sacred Scriptures, 504.-its
state for two centuries past, 504-506. -the French revolution, and its effect on
Britain and her colonies, 505.

Frankfort fair , searching for Tyndale there, in vain, ll4-116.-the troubles of
Frankfort, 449.-the troubles overruled for good, as to the English Scriptures,
449-451.

Fryth, John , born at Westerham, Kent, 95.-scholar at Eton, and King’s College,
Cambridge, id.-escapes from the dungeon below Cardinal College, 57.-reaches
Tyndale abroad, though ambassadors could never find him out, 82.-Fryth’s first
printed tract, under the name of Brightwell, 119.-comes to England, 175.-he is
in peril, 185.-in the Tower of London, for the word of God, 187.-Tyndale’s
letters to him, 190, 196.-who writes and publishes in his defence, 191.-Fryth’s
noble heroism, 199, 201.-his martyrdom, the first in England, without one
syllable of recantation, 203.-signal effects, 205, 336.

Fysh , Simon, his “Supplication of Beggars,” 51.-its very powerful effect, 52.
-he escapes abroad, but returns, 105. -is hunted after by Sir T. More, but sees
the King, and soon after dies of the plague in London, 147.

Gardiner , Stephen, bishop of Winchester, he and others denounced Scripture in
the language of the people, 141, 142.-thirsted after the destruction of Tyndale,
231.-recalled, when persecution is advised, 307.-and soon resumed,
310.-Gardiner’s curious colloquy with the King and Cranmer, 349.-his virulent
opposition to Scripture, 373.-in vain, 374.-he is quite ready to have sacrificed
Queen Catherine had not Henry relented, 402.-Gardiner himself in trouble,
id.-quite out of Henry’s favour, id.-he is restored by Queen Mary,
420.-completely foiled by Tyndale’s friend, John Rogers the martyr, when under
examination, 430, 435-438.

Garret , Thomas, persecuted for disseminating the New Testament, 54-
56.-abjures, 73.-suffered martyrdom with Dr. Barnes.

Geneva , the English New Testament revised, and first printed there, different
from the version in the Bible following, 450.-thrce members of the English
Church in exile at Geneva, revise the English Bible, and print it there; one
other member bearing the chief cost; it became the household Bible of Britain
for about eighty years, 454-459.-patent for printing it in England, 458.
-dedicated to Elizabeth, and addressed to “the Brethren of England, ,Scotland,
Ireland,” &c. 357.

Gilby , Dr., one of the exile translators of the Geneva New Testament, 456.

Grafton , Richard, first printer of Tyndale’s Bible, 294, 297, 300.-and of the
second edition in Paris, 314.-of others, with his usual partner, Whitechurch,
356, 369.-his last Bible was the first in 8vo, 462.

Greek Church , Introd. xxxvi.-more correctly, it had not, in so many words
interdicted the Scriptures, but it had added to them the canons of the first
seven General Councils; it was then sunk into barbarism, and greatly fallen
under the power of the Latin church.

Grindal’s fidelity , cruelly resented by Elizabeth, 471.

Grossteste , Robert, an early precursor of Wicliffe, and promoter of the
translation of the Scriptures, Introd. xxxiii.

Gutenberg and Fust , inventors of the art of printing, Introd. xlviii.

Gutenberg of Mentz, inventor of printing, Introd. xlviii.

Haokett , John, Henry’s Envoy in Flan-ders, commissioned to destroy English New
Testaments there, 76-93.-arrested for false imprisonment, 112.

Hamburg , where Tyndale first arrived from England, 24.-remained for one year,
where he had already been at the printing press, 27-30.-moved to Cologne, 30.

Hamilton , Sir Patrick, the proto-martyr for the word of God in Scotlandhis
history, and death by fire, 502-507.-the powerful effect, 508.

Harding , Dr. J., one of the translators of the English Bible, 479.

Harman , Richard, a memorable importer of the New Testament by Tyndale, 51.
-Wolsey very eager to seize him, 109. -he and his lady imprisoned at Antwerp,
ll0.-released at last, 111.-the English ambassador in trouble for his pains,
ll2.-and he must remove to Mechlin,id-five years after, Mr. Harman restored to
favour in England by Queen Anne Boleyn, 224-226.

Harmar , Dr. John, another of the translators, 480.

Harrison , Thomas, another of the translators, 478.

Hart , Andro, printer of the second Bible put forth in Scotland, 571.

Henry VIII. hostile to the entrance of divine truth,22.-his wrath, and
denunciation of the first English New Testament, 68, 69.-his parliament hostile
to the truth, 128.-the bishops, with Henry, cordially agreed in this, 13l,
132.-the King and prelates unite in persecution, 141, 148.-this is followed up
after the same temper by Crumwell and his royal master, 149.-he exchanges heresy
for treason, as the great leading crime of his subjects, 222. -marries a third
time, and the day after his second Queen’s murder, 245.-the pontiff, Paul III.,
aware, and before her death, of the plot against Queen Anne, id.-Henry overrules
his first and unprecedented Convocation, 258.-but he himself, as well as all
around him, overruled to receive the Bible of Tyndale, as soon as presented,
301-305. -character of the King’s parliaments, 328-330.-his address for the free
use of the English Bible, 344.-gross historical mistake as to the Crown, in
connexion with the Bible, 355.-his injunctions as to religion, so called, now
owned by himself to have been disregarded, or of no effect, 383, 398.-lecturing
first his privy-council, then his parliament, 389, 390.-displeased with members
of his council, or Wri-othesly and Gardiner, Norfolk and Surrey, 402.-his
miserable death, 404.-retrospect of his reign, 405-408.

Hepburn , Prior of Arbroath, his persecution of Ales, 514.

Herman , Count de Wied, Archbishop of Cologne, interview with Ales, 523 and n.
523.

Holland , Roger, an eminent martyr in the reign of Mary, 425.

Holland , Dr. Thomas, one of the translators of the authorised version, 479.

Holland , Roger, a memorable martyr, by Bonner, 425.-its powerful effect in
restraining that cruel persccutor, 426.

Hollybushe , assumed name put on some of Coverdale’s Bibles, 321.

Hughes , Joseph, the founder of the British and Foreign Bible Society, 602.

Hutchinson , Dr. Ralph, one of the translators of the English Bible, 480.

Hutton , Dr. Leonard, another of the translators, 480.

James , his accession to the throne of Elizabeth, 475.-his expenditure,
476.-conference with him at Hampton Court explained, 476.-present version of the
Bible did not originate with him, 476.-the bishops requested by him to lend
pecuniary aid for its execution, 477, 481.-but none ever came from any one,
482.-nor from the King himself, 483.-the expenses of the revisers, properly so
called, were defrayed by the patentee, 483.-whose patent had been purchased from
the King, id.-the entire procedure being simply a business transaction, as far
as the Crown is concerned, 484.-there was no proclamation, no royal orders,
485.-and the version, though finished at press in 1611, did not come into
general acceptance and usage throughout Britain till about forty years after,
486-488.-the very singular period when it did so, by no human authority
whatever, 488, 574.

James II., his attempt to introduce the “Old learning,” 580.

Jerome , Friar, see Barlow.

Jews employed as agents in forwarding the first English New Testaments into
England and Scotland, 115, 512.

Joye , George, some account of him, 217. -his ungracious and ignorant
interference with Tyndale’s version, 218-221. -his attestation to Tyndale’s
learning in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, 220.

Jugge , Richard, the printer of Parker’s Bishops’ Bible, 467.

John of Garret , Wicliffe’s protector, Introd. xxxvii, xlii.

Kilby , Dr. Richard, one of the translators of the present version, 479.

King , Dr. Geoffry, another of the translators, 478. “ King’s own Book ”-a
phrase which has been strangely applied to the English Bible from sheer
ignorance, and even in courts of law, though in no sense correct or true, from
Henry VIII. down to King James, inclusive, 355, 366, 367, 484.

Knox, John , the mistake, that he had any concern in the Genevan version of the
English Bible, corrected, 456.-first began to study Hebrew, he bears witness to
the importation of the English Scriptures into Scotland long before his own day,
563, 564.-read for an entire generation, or above thirty years before he settled
in his native land, in use during all the lifetime of Knox , were imported, the
first Bible printed on Scottish ground, not published till seven years after his
death, 569.

Koberger , of Nuremberg, the greatest printer of the 15th century, lntrod. liv.

Lambert , a convert of Bilney, his shameful persecution, mock trial before
Henry, and martyrdom, 309-311.

Larfield , Dr. John, another of the translators, 478.

Lascelles , fellow martyr with Anne Askew, 394.

Lasco , John a-, the uncle of the King of Poland, a minister in London, his
escape and subsequent troubles, 421.

Latimer , Hugh, called before Wolsey, 73, -licensed by him to preach,
id.-preaching before Henry, 142.-his bold and faithful letter to the King,
143.-pleads intrepidly for Scripture in English, summoned before Stokesly, 143.
-he falters, 181, 182.-his ever memorable sermon before the bishops in St.
Paul’s, 247-249.-he lays aside his robes as a bishop, and among all his fellows
stands alone, 337.-imprisoned and most shamefully treated by Henry, 338.-under
examination again, 395.-but no recanting now, 397.-released by King Edward,
307.-under Mary he died in triumph at the stake, 441.

Latimer , William, the Greek scholar, advises young Tyndale to caution, 19.

Le Fevre , the venerable French translator of Scripture, his great age and
affecting death,5.

Lekprevik , Robert, the first printer in Scotland, licensed to print the Bible,
574.

Lewis , John, author of History of the Translations of the Bible, quoted 585.

Lindsay , Sir David, saved from Beaton by the king’s favour, 548.

Literature , Early English, Introd. xxxiii. -early Scottish, 489-492, 572.

Livlie , Edward, one of King James’s translators, 478.

London -great alarm there on first receiving the English New Testament, in
print, from abroad; 52.-the first New Testament in English printed there, after
full ten years of bitter and burning opposition, 279.

Longland , Bishop, his notable letter as to Wolsey’s insidious designs, 22.

Luft , Hans, of Marburg, printer of Tyndale’s works, 94.

Luther -Tyndale did not repair to him on leaving England, 24.-but he entered
Worms four years after Luther, and there finished at the press the first English
New Testaments, 39.-letter of Luther to Henry VIII., 111.-never sent by him to
the King, id.

Maccabeus , John, translator of the Danish Bible, and brother-in-law to
Coverdale, 440.

Marler , Anthony, the ever-to-be-remem-bered citizen and haberdasher of London,
presents Henry VIII. with the English Bible, printed on vellum, 360.-a generous,
though unnoticed character in history, id.-because hitherto overshadowed by the
King and Cranmer, 365.-yet he it was who bore the expense of these large folio
Bibles, in six distinct editions! neither the King, Cranmer nor Crumwell being
proprietors, or even contributors, 365-369, 374.

Mary Queen of England -bloodshed prevented for a year and a half, 419.-thus
there was time for escape, exiles to the Continent, 420- 422.-martyrs,
423-426.-but the Scriptures wonderfully preserved, 444- 446.-and never, even
under this reign, denounced by name, as they had been under Henry, her father,
443.-martyrdom of Rogers, and the singular escape of Coverdale, explained,
427-440.-the martyrdoms of Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer, 441, 442.-but the New
Testament had been again revising and printing abroad, 446. -nay, already it was
coming into England, under Mary, 447.-the revision was by Whittingham, then in
exile, at Geneva, 448-451.-a triumph analogous to that of Tyndale, over Henry,
448.

Mary Queen of Scots , born, 549.-history of the Bible in her reign, 553.

Mather , Cotton, author of “Essays to do good,” &c., 590.

Matthew’s Bible is not a new translation, but made of Tyndale’s, with part of
the Old Testament of Coverdale, though with various amendments of the latter, by
John Rogers, the reviser and superintendent of the whole, 294-296.-[See Lewis,
pp. 107, 224; this being the first adventure of Grafton and Whitchurch, and the
first in which we have any certain account of Grafton being engaged. See
Herbert’s Ames, pp. 511, 539.] Maxwell , Lord, who moved in the Scottish
parliament that the Scriptures in English should be open to all, 557.

Mentz or Mayence, the mother city of printing, Introd. xlvii.

Mistake , a gross historical, as to the English Bible, 355, 366, 367, 484.

More , Sir Thomas, cross-examining Scripture readers, 104.-sent to France,
121.-Lord Chancellor, 125.-he advises persecution, 128, 130-133.-he has been
over-eulogised, 139.-he denounces the writings of Tyndale, 141.-Tyndale answers
his calumnies, 155.158.-More writing again, 183.-resigns the great seal, but
remains Chancellor for some time, 197.-he is assailed by Saintger-man,
207-210.-his prodigious efforts in writing against Tyndale, 211.-he is finally
overcome in argument, and not read, 213, 214.

Mumford , James, Jesuit author under the patronage of James II., 580.

Munmouth , Humphrey, the host and benefactor of Tyndale, 21.-in trouble on his
account, 25, 103, 105.

Necton , Robert, disclosures concerning the distribution of the Scriptures, 105.
Nicolas de Cusa, Cardinal, first brought the press to Rome, Introd. li.

Nicolas de Lyra’s , the first printed commentary on the Scriptures, Introd.
liii.

Norfolk , Duke of, his party dominant, 364.-he and his son the Earl of Surrey
arraigned, 401.-narrowly escaped the block by the King’s death, 403.

Norwich , Bishop of, cheerfully contributes to buying up the New Testament for
destruction, 89.-he thinks the English Scriptures will ruin the hierarchy! 141.

Nycolson , James, printer of Coverdale’s Bible, 291, 293.

Obligation of British Christians , now to convey Divine Revelation to other
nations, at once primary and momentous, 635-641.

Overall , Dr. John, one of King James’s translators, 477.

Oxford , the great alarm there, on first receiving the English New Testament, in
print, from abroad, 54-58.-the printing press there of the present day, a lesson
to be drawn from it, not of encouragement only, but of warning, 628.

Packington , A., merchant, buys up New Testaments in Antwerp for Tunstal, 122,
145.

Paris and London, at one era, in contrast, 314.-the second English Bible,
printing in the former, and finished in the latter, 314-318.

Parker , Archbishop, his version of the Bible, 462-464.-not undertaken by royal
command, nor ever peculiarly sanctioned by Elizabeth, 463- 465.-Parker’s
editions of the Bible compared with those of the Genevan Version, 463-466.

Parker , Dr., Chancellor of the diocese of Gloucester, Tyndale brought before
him, 18.

Patents or Monopolies , for printing the Bible, peculiar to this country, their
origin and history, 466-468.-the “Patent of privilege” seems to vitiate all that
have followed it, 467.

Patmore , Thomas, merchant, persecuted for distributing New Testaments, 161,
223.

Paul II., or Peter Barbo, the Venetian, and reigning pontiff, blindly amusing
himself, by poring over the printers when at work in Rome, not once foreseeing
the consequences of the art, Introd . 52.

Petrarch and Italian literature, Introd. 32.

Philips , Henry, the hired betrayer of Tyndale, at Antwerp, and his more guilty
associate Gabriel Donne, 232-235.-he remains at Brussels, to persecute him, and
raging also against his king, was evidently an agent of “the Old Learning”
party, 262, 263.-his future history and death, 274.

Philips , Thomas, complaint against Stokesley and is released, 223.

Pole , Cardinal, cousin of Henry VIII., and educated by him, 233.-the cruelty of
Pole in England under Mary, 426.

Pontiffs during the great schism, 490.

Poyntz , Thomas, the noble and disinterested friend of Tyndale unto death, 232,
233.-his earnest letter in his favour, and personal exertions to rescue him,
235-238..-obliged to escape for his own life, 238.-his future history,. his
family, and his tomb in North Okendon Church in Essex, 271-273.

Printing , invention of, Introd. xlvii.-Bible, the first book printed,
xlviii.-no one adverted to the ultimate results of the art, not even the pontiff
or cardinals, li.-nay, one cardinal, and the Librarian of the Vatican,
particularly zealous, id.-nearly a thousand works printed at Rome, including
Lyra’s commentary on the Bible, but all in learned languages, before anno 1500,
lii., liii.-the restrictions of the press trader Queen Elizabeth, 459.

Pursuit after Tyndale on the Continent, first by Wolsey, through Hackett, the
English envoy at Antwerp and others, 100-111, ll5-117.-then by the King and
Crumwell, through Vaughan, a second ambassador, 149- 155.-alludes to some other
out in pursuit, 151.-finally by a third, if not fourth, or Sir T. Elyot, and by
the King’s order, 175-179.-all these attempts having failed, our translator of
the Bible is at last ensnared, and basely betrayed, through two agents of the
Bishops in England, 230-233.

Pykas , John, an early reader of the New Testament, 104.

Quentel , Peter, of Cologne, the first man employed by Tyndale to print the New
Testament, 32-36.

Rainolds , John, who first suggested our present version of the English Bible,
to which King James, at Hampton Court, agreed, 476-479.

Ravis , Dr. Thomas, one of King James’s translators, 479.

Readers of Scripture , the earliest, 98.-cross-examined and persecuted,
100-108.-the present readers addressed, 631.

Revolution , the French, and its results, 494-596.

Richardson , Dr. John, another of the translators, 478.

Ridley , Nicholas, his martyrdom, 441.

Ridley , Robert, the uncle of Nicholas, 86. -his violent letter, the first
mentioning Tyndale by name: he is very hostile to the English New Testament, and
urges most determined opposition, 87.

Rincke , Herman, of Cologne, the coadjutor of Cochlaeus against Tyndale, 33.
-employed by Wolsey to apprehend Tyndale, Roye, Constantyne, &c., 114. -he is
searching for them at Frankfort, in vain, ll5.-buys up Roye’s Satire from Scott
of Strasburg, the printer, but can find neither Tyndale nor Roye, 114-116.

Rogers , John, the convert, the disciple and friend of Tyndale, 268.-the reviser
and superintendent of his Bible, 294, 295.-apprehended under Queen Mary and
cruelly treated, 419.-his wife and ten children, 429- 431.-his memorable
examination, when Stephen Gardiner was so completely foiled, 431-438.-the
martyrdom of Rogers, 433.

Rome , Bibles in all vernacular tongues prohibited by her, as early as anno
1229, Introd.-especially from the first list issued by Paul IV. in 1559,
enumerating 48 editions; but still more pointedly in our own day, and for the
last thirty years, by four pontiffs, including the present Plus IX., 630, 631.

Rough , J., a native of Scotland, the man who called Knox to the ministry, a
memorable martyr in London, and shockingly treated by Bonnet, 425.

Roye , William, the amanuensis of Tyndale, 27.-dismissed by him, 84.-Wolsey bent
on seizing Roye, 109.-for his stinging Satire, 83-115.-the printer of it not
before known, 116.-and revisited England even in Wolsey’s lifetime, 116.

Sabbath of the English Bible -a day without night, 632.-the Sabbath of Britain
happily distinguishable from that of the Continent, 634.

Sacred Scriptures, the, as printed in English, not the production of any Church,
as such, Preface.-thus printed, and viewed historically, they stand above the
sphere of all churches, or bodies styled ecclesiastical, in Britain, Preface,
xviii., xix., 623, 624.-in this historical event, there is a principle involved,
which demands the supreme regard of British Christians, 624, 625, 627.

Sacred Scriptures printed in English, the origin by Tyndale at Hamburg,
28.-progress at Cologne, 30, 31.-thwarted by Cochlaeus, who alarms the English
Government,32.-progress at Worms,38.-the first arrivals in England, 49.-first
alarm in London, 51.-first alarm in Oxford, 55.-first in Cambridge, 59. -first
burning of books, 65.-Warham of Canterbury in fear,67.-the King’s
wrath,68.-Henry’s denunciation of Tyndale’s quarto Testameut, 69.-Tunstal’s
injunction as to the first two Testaments, 72.-Warham’s mandate, id.-all in
vain, the Testaments they judge must be bought up, 88.-this first undertaken by
Warham himself, and as primate, 89.-still in vain, as more Copies arrived from
abroad and in the most singular way, 91.-early readers, 98.-cross-cxamined and
persecuted, 100- 108.-importers caught and punished, ll0-112.-Tunstal going to
Antwerp, must now buy up New Testaments, 122.-this only helped forward the
cause, 145.-parliament and the bishops arrayed against Divine Truth, 128.-the
King cordially unites, 132.-the Pentateuch by Tyndale, now ready, 137.-the rage
of the King and his prelates, 141-118.-Bishop of Norwich in greatalarm, 141.
-Latimer’s bold remonstrance, 143.-second public burning of the Scriptures,
144.-persecution once more, 179-182.-one chief importer restored to honour by
Queen Anne Boleyn, 224.-her own English New Testament, in vellum, unique,
227.-the first New Testament printed on English ground, 278.-Coverdale’s version
of the Bible, 281- 292.-remarkable and sudden change in favour of Tyndale’s
Bible, 292.-its arrival, 297.-cordially received by Cranmer, 298.-the King and
his counsellors signally overruled to receive and prefer it, 301-304.-the second
edition is printed in Paris, 314.-the Inquisition interferes, 316.-but is
foiled, 317.-nay, their interference greatly contributed to the printing of more
English Bibles in London, and by French types and artists, 318.-joy in England
on receiving the Bible, 323.-particulars as to various editions, 341-349.-but
after the Bible had been thus received independently of the bishops as a body,
it is now brought before the Convocation, as they imagined, to be discussed,
372.-Gardiner’s wild and wicked attempt to corrupt the version, 373.-but by such
men it was not to be judged, 374.-the Convocation, though yet sitting, very
signally condemned and overruled by the King, as he himself had been, and still
was, 375. -next Convocation still wickedly opposed to the Scriptures,
377.-enmity to the Truth once more, 398.-but in vain, and Henry at last
confesses even his own impotence in all his injunctions or denunciations,
id.-Edward VI. under his brief reign, the numerous editions of the Sacred
Scriptures, 408-418.-Mary, Queen, the Scriptures wonderfully preserved, 419,
445.-and never, even under this reign, denounced by name, as they had often been
under her father, 443.-New Testament revised abroad once more, and sent into
England before her death, 446-451.-Elizabeth, very cautious at first, and even
as to the Scriptures in English, 453.-first injunction, id.-yet she at once
sanctioned the Genevan English version, and by special patent, 456.-singularly
compliant here, 459.-Parker’s proposed interference with it in vain,
461.-Parker’s or the Bishops’ version was not ordered by the Queen,
463.-Elizabeth’s patents, their strange origin and history, 466.-Bibles under
this reign, especially the Genevan version, far more numerous than were ever
before imagined, 469.-James I. Conference at Hampton Court explained, 476.-our
present version did not origi nate with royalty or the prelates, 476.-the
bishops lent no pecuniary aid, 477- 482.-the revisers, 477-480.-the entire
procedure a business transaction, 484.-no proclamation, no royal injunctions,
485.-our present version became the general one, but through no royal, no human
authority, and not till about forty years after it was first printed, 488.

Sacred Scriptures in English, sent from the Continent into Scotland.

Tyndale’s New Testaments, their first arrivals, 497.-the authorities in alarm,
501.-they are equally hostile with those in England, 534.-reading the Scriptures
denounced, 540.-but though contrary to their law, not a few persist in reading
secretly, and for sixteen years, 549, 562. -state of Edinburgh at the moment of
general allowance, 557.-the Scriptures proclaimed to be free to all, a step
never revoked, at least as it was in England, 559.-the Scots, to their honour,
called New Testamenters, 569.-the Bible first printed in Scotland, 570.-the
money furnished by the people before the Bibles were delivered, or even finished
at press! 571.-the second Bible, id.-the supply from abroad truly remarkable,
572-574.-at what period the present version became universal, 575.

Sadler , Sir Ralph, his testimony to the reading of the Scriptures in Scotland,
524.

Saintgerman , Christopher, author of “the Pacifies” against Sir Thomas More,
208.

Sanderson , Dr. Thomas, one of the translators of our present version, ,480.

Saravia , Dr. Adrian, another of the translators, 477.

Satire , the severe poetical, on Wolsey, by oye, 113, 115.

Savile , Sir Henry, another of the translators, 479.

Schoeffer , Peter, an early printer of the Scriptures, Introd. xlix.-his son
prints Tyndale’s first Testaments at Worms,42.

Scotland , brief notice of, in the 14th and 15th centuries, 489-492.-her
commerce with Flanders favourable to their introduction, 497.-the first
arrivals, 498.-in the same year as in England, 499.-authorities in fear,
501.-first martyr, 502-507.-Seton, Aless, and others escape, 510, 515.-other
martyrs, 521. -England and Scotland then equally opposed to the Scriptures,
534.-reading them in Scotland in 1536 prohibited by open proclamation,
540.-bitter persecution, 543-546.-yet the Scriptures had been read in secret and
for sixteen years, 550, 562.-state of Edinburgh when this favour was allowed to
all, 558-560.-thus Scotland, at the moment, had advanced before England, 560,
561.-Sir Ralph Sadler then gives the proof, 562. -and in process of time, nearly
twenty years after, John Knox comes forward with evidence, 564.-Bible first
printed in Scotland, 571.-the second, id.-the supply of Scriptures imported from
time to time very memorable, 572.-the era when the present version came into
general usage, 575.-hostility to the Scriptures by James II. strikingly evinced
before that event, 578-581.

Secret search , and at one time, for books, in London, in Oxford, and Cambridge,
22, 53-62.

Seton , Alexander, persecuted by Beaton, but escapes, 509-511.

Smith , Dr. Miles, one of King James’s translators, 479, 483.

Spalding , Dr. Robert, another of the translators, 478.

Spencer , Dr. John, another of the translators, 480.

Stokesly , Bishop of London, hand in hand with Sir Thomas More, 160, 168,
179.-opposed to Latimer, 181.-resists Cranmer most resolutely as to the
Scriptures, 241.-in the Convocation he is incensed with Alexander Aless,
255.-though when Tyndale’s Bible arrived, he must be silent, 303.-yet he
persecutes again, 309.

Strype , his, testimony to the joy with which the Scriptures were received, 323.
“ Supplication of Beggars ,” 52. “ Supplication of the poor Commons ” before
Henry’s death, 399-401.

Surrey , Earl of, his undeserved death, 402.

Symson , Cuthbert, a memorable martyr in London, 425.

Taverner , Richard, an eleve of Crumwell, his editions of the English Bible,
56-7, 342.

Testament, the English New, the first, 29-37.-the second, 39-41.-the third,
75-80.-part of the first two burnt in London, 65.-and abroad in Antwerp, 79.-the
fourth edition, 92.-the fifth, 135.-singular importations, 91.-the first New
Testament printed on English ground, 278.-the first divided into verses was
printed in Geneva, in the reign of Mary, 447, 450.

Tewkesbury , John, examined and abjures, 120.-confesses and is martyred, 168.

Theobald , the confidential agent of Cranmer and Crumwell: he informs both of
Tyndale being in prison, 234, 235.-the second visit of Theobald to the Continent
after Tyndale’s martyrdom, 262.-he describes the misery of Philips, one of the
betrayers, 274.

Thomson , Richard, one of the translators of our present version, 478.

Tighe Dr. Robert, another of the translators, 478.

Tomson , Dr. Giles, another of the translators, 479.

Tunstal , Cuthbert, Bishop of London; Tyndale’s significant interview with him
before going abroad, 20.-Tunstal was not in England when the first New
Testaments arrived, 49.-his injunction denouncing them after his return from
Spain,72.-he entangles Bilney, 90.-cross-cxamining and persecuting the readers
of Scripture, 100-107.-busy at Antwerp in buying up English New Testaments,
122.-burning them at Paul’s Cross, 144. - Tunstal feignedly sanctions the Bible,
362, 364.

Tybal , John, an early reader of the New Testament, 104.

Tyndale -his proper contemporaries, 2, 3. -born in Gloucestershire, 5.-his
family ancestors, 6-8.-his education at Oxford and Cambridge, 10, ll.-had been
expounding Scripture at both Universities, 12.-returns to his native county,
12.-tutor in Little Sodbury Manor, 13-19.-discussions at the
dinner-table,16.-Tyndale now translating the “Christian Soldier’s Manual,” by
Erasmus, but resolves to translate the Scriptures into English, 16, 17.-he is
summoned before his Chancellor, 17.-his defiance of the pontiff, and firm
resolve as to translation, 19.-leaves Sodbury for London, 20.-his abode there in
Munmouth’s house, and after his significant interview with Tunstal, the future
enemy,21.-all England hostile to the fixed design of Tyndale, 21-23.-he embarks
for Hamburg, 24.-there, he is already at the press, 27, 28.- proceeds to
Cologne, 30.-basely interrupted by Cochlaeus, 31-35.-his actual commencement at
the press, 36.-proceeds to Worms, with his printed sheets, 37.-his first two New
Testaments, 31-45.-his first language in print to the people of God in England,
46.-the first arrivals of the New Testament in England, 49-60.-the first in
Scotland, 497.-Roye, an amanuensis, soon dismissed, 83.-Tyndale’s “Parable of
the Wicked Mammon,” 84-86.-his “Obedience of a Christian Man,” 85.-it is read in
the King’s palace, 124.-marked out for persecution, 110.-Wolsey’s pursuit after
him, vain, lll-ll7.-Coverdale sent to Hamburg to sound Tyndale, 135.-their first
anal last interview, and its real intent, id.-the Pentateuch by Tyndale
published, 137.-his “Practice of Prelates,” id.-the King and Crumwell’s pursuit
after him, 148-155.-his Answer to Sir Thomas More, 155-158.-the scholarship of
Tyndale, 10, 220.-his address to England in the prologue to Jonah, 158.-he is
again pursued, at the King’s request, by Sir T. Elyot, 379. -his first letter to
Fryth, now in the Tower of London, 190.-writing in his aid, and against Sir T.
More, 191, 195. -one distinguishing feature in Tyndale’s character and conduct,
192.-his second letter to Fryth, 196.-the interference of George Joye explained,
217- 220.-corrected edition of the New Testament, 218.-the latest printed words,
while yet the translator was at liberty, 221.-the apprehension of Tyndale at
last 231.-his two hired betrayers, 232-239, 274-276.-Cranmer and Crumwell fully
apprised, but they take not one step for his relief, 234, 236, 265.-Tyndale in
prison at Vilvorde, 239.-his martyrdom there, 268.-his New Testament, in folio,
printing in London, and by the King’s printer, about the same moment! 278.-being
the first printed upon English ground, 279.-Tyndale’s character, 269.-his
reward, 270.-his Bible entire, arrives in London next year, or about ten months
after his death at the stake, 294-298.-it is immediately sanctioned, the King
and his council being alike overruled to accept of it, 301-305. -the second
edition printing in Paris, a signal second triumph, 313-317.-but his
translation, as such, again denounced, 378, 398.-though it was actually now in
wide circulation, under the names of Matthew, Cranmer, Taver-ner, and even
Tunstal, 379.-fifty-six editions of his New Testament ascertained, and about
fourteen issues of the Bible entire. See the Index List.

Tyndale , John, a brother of William, persecuted for assisting his brother, 161.

Underhill , a gentleman-usher of Queen Mary, who built up his books, to preserve
them till better days, 445.

Vaughan , Stephen, the English ambassador to Brabant, 150.-searching for
Tyndale, 151.-alludes to some other person out in pursuit, id.-singular
interview between Tyndale and Vaughan, but not until it was offered by the
former, 152.-Crumwell rates the ambassador for being too favourable to the
translator, 154.-the second interview with Tyndale, id.-V aughan’s bold
remonstrance, as to the procedure of Crumwell, the King, and Sir Thomas More, or
the extreme folly of persecution, and of Tyndale in particular, 169-172. yet on
his recall in 1536, (perhaps afraid to speak out once more,) he leaves our
Translator in prison, 265.

Venice -distinguished for early nd beautiful printing, Introd. 54.

Voltaire , leader of the confederacy against Divine truth, 595.

Vulgate or Latin Bible , translated into English by Wickliffe, Introd. xxxix.
why it had the precedence of the original Hebrew and Greek, id.

Waldenses , their spirited exertions were the special occasion of the earliest
interdiction of the reading of Scripture, Introd. 31. 37.

Waldenses or Vaudois , no connection between them and Wickliffe proved, Introd.
37.

Walsh , Sir John; Tyndale tutor to his children,14.-under his roof he first
resolved to translate the Scriptures into English, 17.-the manor-house still
standing, 13, 15, 18.

Walsingham , patron to Christopher Barker, the patentee, 467.

Warham of Canterbury , his anxious letter about Oxford to the Cardinal, 67.-his
mandate to deliver up the New Testament, 72.-the first man who was busily
engaged in buying up Tyndale’s New Testament for destruction, 88.-at a cost of
nearly a thousand pounds of our present money, 89.-but the other bishops aided
him, id.

West, Friar, Wolsey’s agent in pursuit after Tyndale, 114-117.

Whitchurch , Edward, the printer; see his partner Grafton, 294, 360.

Whittingham , William, his family, 448.-leaves England, 449.-at Frankfort, id.
-retired to Geneva, and the happy consequences, 450.-he there revises the
English New Testament, and publishes it, with a preface by his brotherin- law,
John Calvin` id.-he, with Gilby and Sampson, revise and edit the English Bible
entire, the Exile English Church at Geneva bearing the whole cost, 454.

Wickliffe , John, his translation of the Scriptures, Introd. 35-45.

Williams , Roger, the founder and Legislator of Rhode Island, 590.

Wishart , George, his martyrdom, Beaton’s own act, 566.

Wolsey , Thomas, the Cardinal, Lord Chancellor, &c., his artful project to
exclude the knowledge of Divine truth,22.-he is greatly alarmed, 53.-his secret
search for books, and at one time, in London, Oxford, and Cambridge, 53-60.-in
great pomp burning them at St. Paul’s, and Fisher preaching,65..-he is eager to
seize Tyndale, 109-116.-but in vain, 123- 125.-the Cardinal’s career, 218-220.

Works of Tyndale; his New Testament, 31-45.-Pentateuch, 137.-exposition of 1
John, 158.-Jonah, with a prologue, 159.-our Lord’s sermon on the mount, 173.-his
Bible by Rogers, under the name of Matthew, 294.-“ Parable of the Wicked
Mammon,” 84-86.-“ Obedience of a Christian Man,” 85, (for a translation of this,
in MS., even into Italian, by S. Roccatagliata, anno 1559, see Casley’s Cat. 14.
A. 6., British Museum.)-“Practice of Prelates,” 137. -answer to Sir Thomas More,
155- 158.

Worms , where Luther appeared before the Emperor, and from whence he retired to
translate the New Testament-the same place where Tyndale stood-within five years
after him, and completed at press his first two editions of the English New
Testament, 37-42.

Wriothesly advising the murder of Bea-ton, 392.-examining Anne Askew by torture,
393.-in disgrace, 402.

Zuingle , the contemporary of Tyndale, 2, 3.

Zuphten , a martyr at Mehldorf, near Hamburg, 27. THE ENGLISH BIBLE.

THOUGH far from being insensible to the charms of Biblical Criticism, far from
wishing, in the slightest degree, to depreciate the subject of Various Readings,
either in the several revisions of our English Bible down to our present
Version, or in the Manuscripts since examined; but, on the contrary, urging
every student to their careful observation; still, at the close of such a work
as the present, the consequence of minute attention to both these departments
ought to be known to all. With regard to verbal differences, for they are
nothing more, in our English Bible, from Tyndale downwards, these are to be
found noted in the Bible published by Wilson, the Bishop of Sodor and Man, in 3
vols. quarto, 1785. But by far the best survey of the New Testament has but
recently commenced, in a work of which the first volume only has yet appeared.
It is rather quaintly entitled-“A Supplement to the Authorised English Version
of the New Testament,” &c., by the Rev. F. H. Scrivener, M.A. of Trinity
College, Cambridge. It is intended to form a critical illustration of all the
early English Versions, the present volume reaching to the end of Matthew. In
the interesting and valuable Introduction, after stating that “a formal critique
of our present Version it is not his province to attempt,” the author adds-“It
is enough if I have afforded to others the means of forming a more exact
estimate of its worth, than can be gathered from the vague encomiums of our
popular writers. Yet I should be acting wrongfully both to my theme and to
myself, were I to suppress the conviction which the devotion of several years to
this employment has fixed on my mind: that if faithfulness and perspicuity; if
energy of tone, and simplicity of language, be the true tests of merit in a
translation of Holy Scripture, our authorised Bible is in no wise inferior to
the most excellent of the other versions with which I am acquainted.”

HEBREW AND GREEK ORIGINAL SCRIPTURES.

IT has been not unusual for some men, deeply read in these tongues, to dwell
upon the great progress that has been made in Scholarship since the days of our
early Translators, and to depreciate their acquirements, though simply because
of their not being in possession of those ample means that are now enjoyed for
translating the Scriptures from the original. These languages, they have said,
have been much more cultivated, and far better understood since the year 1600.
The great acquisitions in literature, in respect not only of languages, but also
of antiquities and criticism; as well as the varieties discovered in the
Manuscripts of the original text, since our present translation was made, have
all been reiterated; and that sometimes by men who have ventured on the attempt
of only a single book, or a part of the Bible, in English. The welcome, and very
singular result, therefore, up to this hour, of many years of laborious
attention paid to all the existing Manuscripts of the Scriptures, both in Hebrew
and Greek, must not be withheld here even from the general reader, as it is so
well fitted to send him with double relish to his English Bible.

Modern scholars tell us float “the manhood of criticism” began with MILL’ S
edition of the Greek New Testament, in folio, 1707. It was finished only
fourteen days before his death, after thirty years of incessant application, and
contains thirty thousand various readings! Happily, then lived “the greatest of
English critics in this, or possibly any other age,” RICHARD BENTLEY, who
carefully dwelt on the result. Profoundly acquainted, and almost literally, with
every word in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriae Scriptures, though he did not
succeed in publishing his intended edition of the Greek New Testament, he again
and again gave to the world the fruit of all his own experience as far as he had
gone. On one occasion, it was in these expressive terms:- “The 30,000 various
lections, then, are allowed and confessed; and if more copies yet are collected,
the sum will still mount higher. It is good, therefore, to have more anchors
than one; and another Manuscript would give more authority, as well as security.
It is a good providence, and a great blessing, that so many Manuscripts of the
New Testament are still among us; some procured from Egypt, others from Asia,
others found in the Western Churches. For the very distance of the places, as
well as numbers of the books, demonstrate, that there could be no collusion, no
altering, or interpolating one copy by another, nor all by any of them. Not
frighted, therefore, with the 30,000, I, for my part, and, as I believe, many
others, would not lament, if out of the old Manuscripts yet untouched, 10,000
more were faithfully collected; some of which, without question, would render
the text more beautiful, just, and exact: though of no consequence to the main
of Religion; nay, perhaps wholly synonymous in the view of common readers, and
quite insensible in any modern version.” Since the days of Bentley, however, far
greater progress has been made, and still ampler opportunities for examination
have been enjoyed; and what, then, is the deliberate judgment at which our most
distinguished Scholars have now arrived? The conclusion of the whole matter, we
prefer, on several accounts, to give in the language of an Author recently
presented to the public. “We may well inquire,” says he, “what has been the
result of this laborious and acute research,-of this toilsome collation of
Manuscripts of every age, of the many theories for classifying critical
documents; in fine, of all the years which able and learned men have dedicated
to the zealous task of amending and perfecting the Sacred Book? Why, truly, if
we exclude the great and important conclusions which we have at present in view,
the result is so trifling, that we should say there had been much unthrifty
squandering of time and talents thereupon. Not, indeed, that there has been lack
of abundant differences of readings; on the contrary, the number is
overpowering.MILL’ S first effort produced 30,000, and the number may be said
daily to increase. But in all this mass, although every attainable source has
been exhausted; although the Fathers of every age have been gleaned for their
readings; although the versions of every nation, Arabic, Syrian, Coptic,
Armenian, and Ethiopian, have been ransacked for their renderings; although
Manuscripts of every age, from the sixteenth upwards to the third, and of every
country, have been again and again visited to rifle them of their treasures;
although, having exhausted the stores of the West, critics have travelled, like
naturalists, into distant lands, to discover new specimens,-have visited,
likeSCHOLZ, orSEBASTIANI, the recesses of Mount Athos, or the unexplored
libraries of the Egyptian and Syrian deserts-yet has nothing been discovered-no,
not one single varios reading which can throw doubt upon any passage before
considered certain or decisive in favour of any important doctrine. These
various readings, almost without an exception, leave untouched the essential
parts of any sentence, and only interfere with points of secondary importance,
the insertion or omission of an article, or conjunction, or the forms rather
than the substance of words. “This result is precisely the same as has been
obtained from the critical study of the Old Testament.-But once more returning
to the New, and the critical attention paid to its text, the advantages which
this has procured to us are far from stopping at the assurance, that nothing has
been yet discovered which should shake our belief in the purity of our Sacred
books. This advantage was but the first step gained by it, in the earliest
labours ofMILL and WETSTEIN.GRIESBACH, with whose name I closed my list, went
much farther; he gave us, in addition, a security for the future-and this
important step has received important modifications, all tending to simplify it
farther. “Thus, may we say, that critical science has not only overthrown every
objection drawn from documents already in our possession, but has given us full
security against any that may be yet discovered; and has, at the same time,
placed in our hands simple and easy rules for deciding complicated points of
difference. And these results will be still more within our reach, when a new
edition (the Codex Vaticanus), now preparing, shall have appeared, in which only
select readings, examined with great care, and given with great accuracy, shall
have been completed.”

How memorable and confirmatory is this beautiful summing up of evidence from the
lips of such a man! And yet why should we, by the same pen, be so painfully
reminded of the ancient Bishop of Durham,RICHARD DE BURY, as far back as the
fourteenth century, of whom an old Annalist has said, that “he is somewhat to be
remembered for example to others;” but who, while lamenting the total ignorance
of the Greek language among his brethren, yet scrupled not to affirm-“Laici
omnium librorum communione indigni sunt,”-regarding the laity as unworthy to be
admitted to any commerce with books. To his select audience in London, it is
true, and we are to presume in Rome also, our Lecturer concludes by presenting
the following testimony:- “The study of God’s Word, and the meditation upon its
truths, surely forms our noblest occupation But when that study is conducted
upon severe principles, and with the aid of deep research, it will be found to
combine the intellectual enjoyment of the mathematician, with the rapture of the
poet, and ever to open new sources of edification and delight.” This witness is
true; nor is there one word of limitation here. Yet, alas! it appears elsewhere,
that this noble satisfaction he would not, even in a humble degree, extend to
all. But thus it is, and ever has been, that God rules and over. rules all
things and all men, even men of research, for His own glory. We have used the
term “overrule,” as the reader, if he be not already aware of the fact, will
scarcely credit us when we tell him, that the testimonies last given are in the
words of an author (Cardinal Wiseman), in a delightful work on “The Connexion
between Science and Religion,” who is opposed to the general circulation of the
Bible in any tongue intelligible to the people! Recently, under the mistaken
notion, that the present wide dispersion of the Scriptures has been the effect
merely of men combined for that end; yes, and of men under the strange
impression that the mere distribution of the Bible is God’s appointed way of
conversion; he regards the entire procedure as altogether in vain, if not
unwarrantable!! Of course no such impression exists, as our readers have been
perfectly aware, nor has any combination, any united body of men, effected the
dispersion of the Sacred Volume, at least in English, to its present extent. To
this mistaken idea we must again allude presently; but who can suppress the
sincere and earnest wish, that this Writer may be induced to reconsider the
entire movement of our age, as a movement, in all its bearings, and be led at
last to adopt the motto inserted at the close of some of our ancient folio
Bibles-“A Domino factum est istud.” Few such able men existed in the days of our
first Translator, though if there had, this would have only increased his
astonishment over those who spoke against the Bible “to be had inEVERY tongue,
and that of EVERY man,.” In regard to the Hebrew and Greek original Scriptures,
we formerly glanced at the memorable fact-that no Government on earth, however
absolute, has ever been permitted to restrain them! But when to this we now join
the result of all the deep research into both texts, and remember, as Bentley
has insisted, that the same thing cannot be asserted of any other species of
ancient Manuscript, may we not exclaim-“Who is so great a God as our God!” When
the quantity of writing contained in every single manuscript is considered, this
conclusion becomes not only wonderful in itself, and greatly welcome to the
general reader, but it may lead him to look with still greater veneration on the
Divine Word so providentially watched over, and of which so many myriads now
possess such an excellent translation in their hands-beyond conception the most
weighty and valuable of all deposits.


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  CHAPTER 8: 06 FOOTNOTES
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FOOTNOTES

PREFACE Richardson’s English Dict. Preface.

Ft2 While these sheets were passing through the press, the author has enjoyed
the advantage of a second journey on the Continent. Taking occasion to visit the
principal places about to be mentioned, not only Antwerp and Mechlin Vilvorde
and Brussels, but other cities on both banks of the Rhine, from Cologne to
Strasburg, as well as Basil, Berne, Zurich, and Geneva, he has only been more
confirmed in the general correctness of the history now given. Some
discrepancies may be detected in a work now first taken from the writer’s
manuscript, in which there are so many references to authority; but the general
stream of the narrative, it is presumed, can never be disturbed. The well-known
collection of Bibles and Testaments in the possession of the King of Wirtemberg,
time did not admit of his examining. But though it be the only eminent
collection which has not been explored, it is believed that there is no English
edition at Stuttgard which is not to be found in the libraries of our native
land. The Royal Library at Paris is not at all remarkable for editions of the
English Scriptures.

Into the once imperial city of WORMS, where our first English New Testaments
appear to have been finished, and where a printing-press was first set up, three
hundred and thirty years ago, any man may now enter, and either reflect on the
marriage of Charlemagne, or look on the few remaining fragments of the ancient
imperial palace; he may visit the Cathedral or Dom Kirche, standing as it did;
look into the little Jewish Synagogue, above eight hundred years old or within a
church at the market-place, the site of the venerable Rathhaus, stand upon the
ground which Luther trode when he appeared before the Emperor; but in reference
to the printing-office to which, only four years after, Tyndale had repaired, it
was in vain to inquire for the street or the corner where Peter Schoeffer, or
any other brother of the trade, had once been so busy. Not one solitary printer
was to be found at work throughout the city!

COLOGNE, on the contrary, where Tyndale had commenced his New Testament at the
press, exhibited a different aspect. Lately declared to be a free port, and now
also to be reached by railway, it promises to rise to greater importance than
ever before. It was indeed equally in vain to, inquire for the quarter were
Ulric Zell, Henry and Peter Quentel, or any other ancient printer, once plied
their occupation, but their works were to be fouud there. In ene repository was
a catalogue of Bibles and Testaments (l843) such as is scarecly ever to be found
with any bookseller in this country. Besides Polyglots, there were Bibles, or
parts of the Scriptures, in twenty-seven different languages,-- in Hebrew,
Greek, Latin (in 240 articles), Ethiopic, Arabic, Syriae, Persie, Armenian, and
even Tamulian or Malabar. And of European languages, in Gothic, Finnish, Danish,
Russ, Slavonic, Turkish, polish, German (in 236 articles), Wendish, Hungarian,
Bohemian, Swiss Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Belgian, and English.
These, however, in genera1, were ancient, not modern, editions, but amounting to
more than 800 articles of sale, in the Bibliotheca of J. M. HEBERLE. Here, also,
the very rare tracts of Alexander Ales had been recently sold for a trifle,
which altogether in this country have fetched above four guineas.

INTRODUCTION

"Prolubenus etiam, ne libros Veteris Testamenti," etc. Labbei SacroSancta
Concilia 2., p.1., p. 430. The profane mixture of human composition with the
Divine Word is sufficiently characteristic; and it is of importance to observe
that the prohibition expressly referred to the\parLATIN Bible itself. It seems
to have been a step taken to prevent translation.

Ft4 The Assembly at St. Paul’s having broken up in riot and confusion, there was
a second attempt to execute their purpose in a Synod at Lambeth in June, but the
Bishops were deterred from coming to any definite sentence by a message from the
Queen-Mother by Sir Lewis Clifford.

Ft5 Henry de Knyghton, "De eventis Angliae."

Ft6 William Butler, a Franciscan friar.

Ft7 Trialogus, lib. 3 The first, or earliest text, is from a nanuscript of the
late Francis Douce, Esq., now belonging to the Bodleian, at Oxford; the second
is from MS. Reg, 1., c. 8., in the British Museum.

BOOK 1, CHAPTER 1 - 1500-1523 Merle D’Aubigne.

Ft10 Mr. Jekyll’s genealogies, quoted in the Biog. Brit.

Ft11 Rudder’s Gloucester, under Stinchcomb, p. 695.

Ft12 Bigland’s Glos., p. 293.

Ft13 We quote from the letters of Mr. O. Roberts, in the British Museum.

Ft14 Whitaker.

Ft15 Memoirs of Bristol, from old authorities, by Seyer, vol. ii. p. 215.

Ft16 The money referred to by Dame Walsh, was equal to from £1500 to £4500 of
our present money.

Ft17 Who could this "ohl familiar" be, if not William Latimer the Greek Scholar?
He retired to Saintberry and Weston-sub-Edge as rector, and these were both in
Gloucester County. Preface to the Pentateuch, 1530.

CHAPTER 2 - 1524, Cochlaeus, Com. de actis et scriptis Martmi
Lutheri--Moguntium, 1549. Or Colonia, 1568, pp. 153-156. See the Nouvelle Bibl.
of Dupin 1703, vol. 14. p. 185.

Ft21 J. Coehlaeus adversum Lutherum. Coloniae, Petr. Quentel, 1525.

Ft22 MS. Cotton, Vitell. B. xxi. 10, b. Sir Jo. Wallop to Wolsey, 30t,h Sept.
1526.

Ft23 This fragment was found attached by the binding to a 4to tract of
(Ecolampadius by Mr. Rodd of London, who, comparing it with other works printed
at Cologne by Peter Wuentel, found, from the type, the initials and the cuts,
that it must have come from his press.

CHAPTER 3 - Foxe, first and following editions, compared with Strype.

Ft26 See the original edition in the British Museum; or Harleian Misc., vol. 9.
pp. 77, 81. Edit. 1812.

Ft27 The injunction of Tunstal is in Foxe, vol. 2., p. 284, ed. 1631; and the
Mandate of Warham in Wilkins’ Concil., vol. 3., p. 706.

Ft28 MS. Harleian, No. 422, fol. 85-86.

Ft29 MS. Cotton, Galba, B. 7. p. 353, 354, b. Galba, B. 6. fo. 3, 9, 10.

Ft31 Galba, B. 9. fol. 33, b. Barrow, Barois, Barrough, all refer to the same
place, now known as Bergen-op-Zoom, then in immediate contact with the water.

Ft33 Galba, B. 9. fol. 35.

Ft34 Lowndes’ Bib. Manual.

CHAPTER 4 - Marburg, the ancient Mattium, is situate on the right bank of the
Lahm, a tributary of the Rhine, 41 miles north from Frankfort.

Ft36 Honey Lane, Cheapside, nearly opposite to Bow Church, p. 54. In the
viciuity of the house where lived, for many years, the veneiable John Newton.

Ft38 MS. Chapter-house, Westminster, vol. 10., no. 25.

Ft39 MS. Chapter-house, Westminster, vol. 5., no. 24. Campeggio arrived at Dover
29th September.

Ft40 Galba, B. 9., fol. 126.

Ft41 Galba, B. 9., fol. 131.

Ft42 Cotton MS., Vitellius, B. 21., fol. 43.

CHAPTER 5 - Cotton MS. Galba, B. iv., fol. 196.

Ft44 Bayonne’s Letter in Le Grand, p. 333.

Ft45 Le Grand, p. 296. Burnet, edit. 1720, lib. 2. p. 159.

CHAPTER 6 - Cotton MS., Cleopatra, E. v., fol. 360.

Ft48 MS. c. c. c. Burnet’s Reform., 3., App., p. 23, ed. 1715.

Ft49 Burnet.

Ft50 See Wood’s Ath. by Bliss, i., p. 59-60, and Foxe’s "Story of Simon Fyshe."

CHAPTER 7 - Cotton MS. Galba, B. 9., fol. Idem, fol. 238. Galba, B. x., fol. 38.
Cotton MS. Titus, B. i., fol. 67, dated at "Antwerp, the 18th day of April."
Cotton MS. Galba, B. x., fol. 338. Cotton MS. Galba, B. x., fol. 5, 6.
Manuscript Life of More, edited by Dr. Wordsworth. Galba, B. x., fol. 25.

CHAPTER 8 - Cotton MS., Vitell., B. xxi., fol. 54.

Ft62 Todd’s Life of Cranmer, i., 41, 42.

Ft63 Cotton MS., Vitell., B. xxi., fol. 64.

Ft64 Leonard Coxe, a native of Caerleon, Monmouth, who had studied at Cambridge,
was an early popular philological writer, under Henry VIII.

He became a great traveller, and was well known on the Coutinent. He defended
the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ. The intimate of Erasmus, he
translated his Paraphrase of the Epistle of Titus into English, and was living
in the reign of Edward VI.

Ft65 Preface to More’s "Confutation." Fryth’s Works.

CHAPTER 9 - Burnet.See the letter itself, page 190.

CHAPTER 10 - Townley’s Biblical Literature, vol. 2., p. 394.

Ft69 Cotton MS., Cleop. E. v., fol. 330.

Ft70 Journal of the Convocation, fol. 60.

CHAPTER 11 - Cotton MS., Cleop. E. vi., fol. 334.

Ft72 A cubit arm, erect, the fist clenched, pp. vested arg.

Ft73 Cotton MS., Galba, B. x., fol. 62.

CHAPTER 12 - Hallam’s Constitutional History.

Ft75 Thus, for example, Hume, in his History of England, informs us, that "a
vote was passed for publishing a new translation of the Scriptures; anal in
three years’ time the work was finished, and publisbed at Paris! " Burner
represents certain "arguments" as so prevailing with both houses of Convocation,
that "they petitioned the King, that he would give order to some to set about
it. "These arguments, joined with the power that the Queen had in his
affections,were so much considered by the King, that be gave order for setting
about it immediately! To whom that work was committed, or how they proceeded in
it, I know not. For the account of these things has not been preserved, nor
conveyed to us, with that care that the importance of the thing required. Yet it
appears that the work was carried on at a good rate: for three years after this,
it was printed at Paris, which shows they made all convenient haste, in a thing
that required so much deliberation!!" Nicholas’ Synopsis, where the day of his
consecration is stated the 9th of June.

Ft77 Vitellius, B. 21., No. 39, and fol. 103.

Ft78 The 17th and 19th of May were iudeed days of blood in London; whenQueen
Anne, Lord Rochford, Sir F. Weston, Sir H. Norris, and other, were unjustly put
to death.

Ft79 How long shall this be true? How long shall England’s best benefactor be
without; a monument to speak a nation’s gratitude?

CHAPTER 13 - Upon a marble tablet erected to his memory, by the parishioners of
St. Magnus in London, where he used to preach, they have engraved, that he
"spent many years of his life in preparing a translation of the Scriptures;" and
they add--"On the 4th of October 1535. the first complete English printed
version of the Bible was published under his direction." On the other hand, more
recently, in "a historical account of the English versions of the Scriptures,"
we have been told that instead of "many years," this translation of the eutire
Bible "could not have commenced before November 1534, and, probably, it was not
until the following mouth! Thus, the longest time that Coverdale could have had
for thc completion, both of the translation and of the printing, was eleven
months; andIF this work did, in any way, result from the resolutions of
theCONVOCATION, 19th December, 1534, then the whole was executed in the short
space of nine months and a half! The time when he began was certainly not
previous to November, 1534."

Ft81 MS. Crumwell’s Correspondence in the State Paper Oitice; and see Gov. State
Papers, 1., p. 383.

Ft82 See "An Historical and Critical Enquiry into the Interpretation of the
Hebrew Scriptures, by John W. Whittaker, M.A., 1819;" and Letter to Marsh Bishop
of Peterborough, by Henry Walter, B. D., In whole or in part, Esther 8. Proverbs
31. Isaiah 1. Isaiah 2. Isaiah 6. Isaiah 7. Isaiah 44. Isaiah 51. Isaiah 53.
Isaiah 57. Isaiah 58. Jeremiah 28. Ezekiel 1. Ezekiel 8. Ezekiel 36. Joel 2.
Joel 3. Hosea 11. Amos 4., and Zechariah 2. Zechariah 8.

Ft84 Crumwell’s Corr., Chapter-House. Original. Gov. State Papers, vol. 1., p.
561.

CHAPTER 14 - Harleian MS., No. 604, p. 98; dated 1539 in the Catalogue, instead
of 1538.

Ft86 Cleop., E. v., fol. 326.

Ft87 Cotton MS., Calig. E. 4., fol. 8, 10.

Ft88 Wilkins Cone., Mag. Brit., p. 815.

CHAPTER 15 - Gov. State Papers, 1., p. 613.

Ft90 Cleop. E. v., fol. 172, or Strype. records, 104.

Ft91 Cleop. E. v., p. 128, as quoted by Lingard.

Ft92 Rymer’s Foed., vol. 14., p. 649. Herbert’s Ames, 3., p. 1550.

Ft93 Cotton MS., Cleop. E. v., fol. 303.

CHAPTER 16 - Cotton MS., Cleop., E. v., fol. 337.

CHAPTER 17 - Gov. State Papers, 1. p. 846.

BOOK 2, CHAPTER 1 - 1547-1553 Newcome’s Historical View of English Biblical
Translations, p. 64.

CHAPTER 2 - 1553-1558 Cotton MS. Titus, B. 2., 116.

Ft98 Regist. Bonn. fol. 363.

Ft99 Parker MS. Col. Cor. Chr. Cant.

Ft100 Lewis, Newcome, Horne, Lowndes, and others.

CHAPTER 3 - 1558--1603 Wood’s Athenae, 4to, 1., p. 447.

Ft102 John Bodley, Esq., a native of Exeter, was one of the many exiles for
conscience’ sake, in Mary’s reign, He wandered over a part of Germany, and
having at; last settled at; Geneva, he joined the English Church there, His son
Thomas, afterwards the founder of the famous Bodleian Library at; Oxford, here
received his education under the best; teachers. On returning to England, he
entered Magdalene College, and, at the age of twenty-one, was reading
GreekLectures in Merton Hall, Wickliffe’s College. Much as England owes to the
son for the magnificent Library that hears his name, she is under a deeper,
though less acknowledged debt to the fathor for his zeal in the cause of Divine
Truth.

Ft103 Cardwell’s Documentary Annals, 2. p.

CHAPTER 4 - 1603-1650 Wood’s Fasti and Athenae--Newcourt’s Repertorium--Le
Neve’s Fasti-- Todd’s Vindication--Whittaker, and several other authorities
compared. In addition to these forty men, engaged on theSACRED TEXT, seven more,
or the second class at Cambridge, were put to the Apocrypha: viz. John Duport,
Dr. Branthwaite, Jeremiah Radcliffe, Dr. Samuel Ward, Andrew Downes, the Greek
Professor, Mr. Ward, andJOHN BOYS, who, however, afterwards was engaged on the
Sacred text.

Ft105 "A Brief Treatise concerning the Regulating of Printing, humbly submitted
to the Parliament of England. By William Ball, Esquire, London. Printed in the
year 1651."

Ft106 In 1635, the same year in which he obtained his last patent, Robert Barker
the elder became involved in difficulties which landed him in the King’s Bench,
where he lived ten years, and where he died in 1645.

BOOK 3, CHAPTER 1 - Gov. State Papers, 4. p. 458, note.

Ft108 Alexandri Alesii Scotti Responsio ad Cochlei calumnias, 1534.

Ft109 MS. Cotton, Galba, B. 6., fol. 4.

Ft110 Gov. State Papers, 4., pp. 461, 463.

CHAPTER 2 1527-1528 Spottiswood, fourth edit., p. 64.

Ft112 Gov. State Papers, vol. 4. Tytler. Pitcairn’s Criminal Trials.

Ft113 Gov. State Papers, 4., pp. 476, 540.

CHAPTER 3 - 1529-1534 "An expediat Laicis, legere novi Testamenti libros lingua
Vernacula?

Ad serenissimum Scotiae Regem Jacobum V. Disputatio inter Alexandrum Alesium
Scotum et Johannem Cochlaeum Germanum."

Dated "Ex Dresda Misniae ad Albim. vi. Idus Junii 1533."

Ft115 Tytler.

Ft116 "Alexandri Alesii Scotti, Respousio ad Cochlei calumnias." This occupies
thirty-one leaves 18mo, in a smaller type than the former publication, and
without any colophon.

Ft117 This was no other than the well-known Herman, Count de Wied, the Prince
Archbishop of Cologne. He had denounced Lutheranism, but now, at the age of
sixty, felt deeply the causes of the Reformation.

Hence his conversation with the young Scotchman; and soon after his interviews
with Melancthon and Bucer. He was timid, and shrank, like Cranmer, from an open
avowal of his convictions, but in maturer age rose above all fear and earthly
considerations, exposed himself to excommunication by the Pope, and deposition
by the Emperor, and died in 1553 as simple Count de Wied, in the faith and hope
of the Gospel.

Ft118 This is entitled--"Pro Scotiae Regno Apologia Johannis Cochlei.

Adversus personatum Alexandrum Alesium Scotum. Ad Sereniss.

Scotorum regem. 1534." At the end we have this colophon--"Ex Dresda Misnie,
Idibus Au-gusti 1533. Excusum Lipsiae apud Michaelem Blum." Leipsic was the very
city in which Ales was afterwards established aa a Professor, for many years.

Ft119 From the Accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland, September, 1 534
--" Item, to ane Servand of Cocleus, quhilk brocht fra his Maister an buyk,
intitulat To his reward --1. li." The blank may now be filled up with "Pro
Scotiae," &c. But such was the reward, £50 Scots, not a trifling sum in those
days.

Ft120 The reader may wish to know what became of Ales, who never returned to his
native land, though its welfare lay always near his heart. From Cologne he
removed to Antwerp in 1534, but as Tyndale was now close prisoner in the
fortress of Vilvorde, he could have ao direct intercourse with him. In the
spring of 1535 he was invited by Crumwell to England, and appointed to read
"Lectures on Scripture" at Cambridge. The Heads of that University, however,
were not yet prepared for such doctrine, and by the advice of the
Vice-Chancellor he withdrew to London. There he entered on the study and
practice of physic, in which he acquired some celebrity. It was while he was
thus practising in London that Crumwell took him to the Convocation in June,
1536, introducing him as "the King’s Scholar," and availing himself of his aid
in the discussions there. (See p. 255.)

Notwithstanding Crumwell’s favour and his success in his profession, Ales in a
few years found there was no safety for hint in all England. In 1539 he went
abroad, and in the July of that year we find him at Wittenberg, with his friend
Melancthon, and writing a letter of thanks to Crumwell for his kindness to him
when in this country. The same year the Elector of Brandenburg appointed him
Professor of Divinity at Frankfort-on. Gratulati Buceri, p. 55. † Camerar. in
vita Melanct. 1569.

CHAPTER 4 - 1535-1537 Holograph. State Papers, Scotland, in the Chapter-House,
Westminster.

Ft122 Gov. State Papers, vol. 5., p. 38.

Ft123 Gov. State Papers, vol. 5., p. 51.--"20th day of May, the 23rd year of our
regime."

Ft124 Holograph. Calig., b. 3., fol. 194. Gov. State Papers, vol. 5., p. 37.

Ft125 Gov. State Papers, vol. 5., p. 48.

CHAPTER 5 - 1538-1552 "1 March, 1538-39. Accusatio haereticorum et eorum
combustio, apud Edinburg Rege presente." Household Book of King James V. The
King left the city, next day, for Lithgow, perhaps to escape odium; but it was
in perfect keeping with the whole affair, that on the day itself, the Searcher
was gone after the property! March 1, Item. "Delivered to Archibald Heriot,
Messenger, to pass and search their goods, who were abjured and declared
heretics in Edin-burgh and Stirling," 16sh. Lord Treasurer’s Accounts.
lndcpendently of the cruelty and deep depravity of persecution, it, is generaly
accompanied by a meanness most detestable. Sadler’s letters, 4to, 1. p. 14-17.

Ft127 There had been a scarcity of the Sacred Volume in the vernacular tongue of
Wales, deeply felt and long lamented; but if any one search for the cause of
this feeling, he will soon find himself, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
century, among the hills and dales of the Principality. During that period there
had been dispersed one hundred and two thousand copies of the Welsh Bible
entire, chiefly in octavo, and at least eighteen thousand five hundred of the
New Testament; but in accounting for this dispersion, three or four instances of
individual exertion chiefly engage notice. The New Testament in Welsh was first
given to his countrymen by William Salisbury in 1567; the Bible entire in 1588
by Dr. Davies and others; the Standard Version in 1620 by Drs. Richard Parry and
John Davies; for the multiplication of copies, there was first, the
well-known\parTHOMAS GOUGE of London. Once ejected from his pulpit in the
Metropolis, he betook himself to works of benevolence and mercy.

Though possessed of independent property, or a good estate of his own, after he
had lost much by the great fire in 1666, had settled his children in the world,
and been bereaved of his wife, he had but one hundred and fifty pounds a year
left. Thus circumstanced, and now about sixty-five years of age, it was then
that he began to compassionate the condition of Wales. For the next ten years of
his life, he visited that country annually. His objects were to preach the
truth, to educate the children, and disperse the Scriptures in their mother
tongue. He preached till they persecuted him from place to place, and at last he
was excommunicated from the Church of which he had been so long a minister; but
nothing could prevent his travels in Wales, nor his spending regularly,
two-thirds of his annual income, and living on the remaining fifty pounds! To
his bounty and personal solicitations, the editious of 2000 of the Welsh New
Testament in 1672, of 8000 of the Welsh Bible in 1678, if not also that of 1690,
are chiefly to be ascribed. But he had to die before justice was done to his
character, when a funeral sermon was preached for him by no other than
Tillotson, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury.

Then there wasGRIFFITH JONES of Llandourer, with his delicate state of health,
who in the next century, from 1737 to 1760, was the Superintendent in teaching
at various schools, above one hundred and fifty thousand of his countrymen to
read their native tongue, when more than thirty thousand of the Welsh Bible were
printed and circulated. And then, at last, after a long interval, cameTHOMAS
CHARLES of Bala; or three men whose memories are still fragrant throughout the
Principality. Thus it is, that ia reviewing the past, relative proportion in the
way of individual effort should never be forgotten. These were labours of which
subscribers to a Bible Society, in these easy days, know little or nothing.

Ft128 According to its last Report (57th) the British and Foreign Bible Society
had issued of the English Scriptures from its commencement to March 30, 1861:—
Bibles 11,251,851 The issues of Bibles and Testaments from the Scottish Press,
as well as those from the Patentees’ and University Presses, for independent
Societies and general sale, must have been greater in proportion after 1811 than
before that date; but assuming them to have been the same, upwards ofFIFTY
MILLIONS of the English Scriptures must have gone into circulation through this
country and its dependencies since 1805.

Ft129 The receipts of the British and Foreign Bible Society from every source of
supply from its commencement to 30th March, 1861, amounted to the sum of nearly
£5,272,000. The expenditure up to the same date was £5,149,738. The Society
possessed at the closing of its Account, March 1861, £120,000, belonging mostly
to the Jubilee and Chinese New Testament Funds. The Society was also under
engagements at home and abroad amounting to £72,270.

Ft130 The proportion of the whole receipts arising from these three sources
issomewhat altered now, if we may judge from the Cash Account in the Report for
1861.

Received by the Parent Society:— In Legacies, Subscriptions, Collections, etc.
£30,373 By Sales:— 7,660 By Dividends and Drawbacks:— 3,935; 41,968 Received
from Auxiliary Societies:— Free Contributions £52,165 For Bibles and Testaments
46,322; 98,487 Front abroad, for Scriptures 27,488; 167,913 It would be
difficult to analyse the Cash Accounts of the British and Foreign Bible Society
from its commencement to the present year, as the author has done up to 1844, so
as to ascertain the exact amount of what has been expended solely on the
translation and printing of the Scriptures, apart from the expenses of
management and those incurred in raising funds and circulating the Book by
agents and colporteurs. By the last Report there seems to have been expended on
the printing and binding of the Scriptures during the year:— In the languages of
Great Britain £67,089 In foreign tongues £59,480 81; £126,569,167 Expenses of
management, agents, colporteurs, travelling, and annual and monthly reports
38,892,157 The total expenditure of the year £165,462,122 The amount spent on
foreign objects compared with that laid out on the Scriptures at home appears to
have been increasing since the author wrote in 1844, when England certainly
enjoyed the lion’s share. The more liberal policy of the Society further appears
if we look at the sum total of copies of the Scriptures printed directly by it
up to 30th March, 1861, and those in the languages of the British Isles.

Total issues of the Society 39,315,226 Of these 1,718,629 were only portions of
the Old or New Testament. English Bibles and Testaments 22,570,386 Psalms and
portions 593,827; 23,164,213 Welsh Scriptures 1,162,681 Gaelic Scriptures 154,
Irish Scriptures 99,523 Portions 18,020; 117,543 Manx Scriptures 7,250;
24,606,412 Scriptures in eighty-six of the languages of Europe, Asia, Africa,
America, and Australasia. 13,602,042 Portions of Scriptures 1,106,772;
14,708,814; 39, 315, Thus, while in 1844, 66 per cent. of the total issues were
in the languages of the British Isles, in the year 1861, this proportion has
been reduced to 62 percent. — still sufficiently high, especially whcn the
numbers issued for general sale and by independent; societies are considered.
When the United States of North America are taken into the account, it is
evident that thereARE THREE TIMES AS MANY COPIES OF OUR ENGLISH BIBLE IN
EXISTENCE AS THEREE ARE IN ALL THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD PUT TOGETHER!

CONCLUSIONS It is now not unworthy of notice that the nation which, with all its
faults, has been most distinguished for the observance and the mental occupation
of the Christian Sabbath, has proved to be the most energetic and enterprising
upon earth. It has lost nothing by resting one day in seven. In its own place,
that day has been found to be equally invigorating with nocturnal repose. So far
from any interrupt;ion to business, it has proved itself to be the economist of
time, nay, of human life itself; and they are but superficial minds who have not
frequently observed this. *After several years’ research, the author was still
of opinion there was but one edition of the Bible of 1611; but found that a
distinct text of the same size type exists, with the date of 1611 on the New
Testament title, and without the line "Appointed to be read in Churches;" but
out of ten such copies, not one has a printed title of the Old Testament, dated
1611. The copper-plate title contains no proof, but of these ten, six have no
title, and four have printed titles, datedl 1611 All this confirms the
correctness of the history already given, that the English Bible of 1611 was a
book in the hands of thc patentee. † It is well that these translators so
expressed themselves, as they could not consistently have spoken otherwise. For
whatever were the instructions given to them, suah was the adherence to the
language of the former Versions, that very happily, the translation is not in
their own style. It is not the language of their own preface, nor of the reign
of James I. The style they found in their prototypes, the diction and
phraseology they adopted from their predecessors translation.


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