A world lit only by fire_ the medieval m - William Manchester [103]
Tyndale was a humanist, and his tale is an example of the deepening hostility between men of God and men of learning. English humanists had rejoiced at Henry’s coronation. Lord Mountjoy had written Erasmus of the “affection [the king] bears to the learned.” Sir Thomas More said of the new monarch that he had “more learning than any English monarch ever possessed before him,” and asked, “What may we not expect from a king who has been nourished by philosophy and the nine muses?” Henry’s invitation to Erasmus, urging him to leave Rome and settle in England, appeared to confirm the enthusiasm of English scholars. It seemed inconceivable that the popular monarch, faced with a choice between faith and reason, should choose faith.
But Erasmus, after accepting the invitation, found that the king had no time for him. And as the religious revolution grew in ferocity, Henry’s commitment to Catholicism deepened. Lord Chancellor More, with royal encouragement, imprisoned the Christian Brothers and other heretics. And the Tyndale affair, which appalled English intellectuals, seemed to align him with the most reactionary heresimachs.
William Tyndale had conceived his translation while reading ancient languages at Oxford and Cambridge, and he had begun work upon it shortly after his ordination as a priest in 1521, the year of Luther’s condemnation at Worms. A Catholic friend reproached him: “It would be better to be without God’s law than the pope’s.” Tyndale replied: “If God spare me, ere many years I will cause the boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than you do.”
Had he valued his own years on earth, he would have heeded his friend. It was one thing for Erasmus to publish parallel texts of the Gospels in Latin and Greek; few, after all, could read them. This was another matter altogether. It was actually dangerous; the Church didn’t want—didn’t permit—wide readership of the New Testament. Studying it was a privilege they had reserved for the hierarchy, which could then interpret passages to support the sophistry, and often the secular politics, of the Holy See.
Tyndale had been warned that finding a printer for his completed manuscript would be difficult. Luckless in England, he crossed the Channel and found a publisher in Catholic Cologne. The text had been set and was on the stone when a local dean heard of it, grasped the implications, and persuaded authorities in Cologne to pi the type. Fleeing with his manuscript, Tyndale found that he was now a police figure; had post offices existed, his picture would have been posted in them. The Frankfurt dean sent word of his criminal attempt to Cardinal Wolsey and King Henry, who declared Tyndale a felon. Sentries were posted at all English ports, under orders to seize him upon his return home.
But the fugitive was less interested in his personal freedom than in seeing his work in print. He therefore journeyed to Protestant Worms, where, in 1525, Peter Schöffer published an octavo edition of his work. Six thousand copies had been shipped to England when Tyndale was again spotted. He was on the run for the next four years. Then, believing himself safe, he settled in Antwerp. However, he had underestimated the gravity of his offense and the persistence of his sovereign. British agents had never ceased stalking him. Now they arrested him. At Henry’s insistence he was imprisoned for sixteen months in the castle of Vilvorde, near Brussels, tried for heresy, and, after his conviction,