CHAPTER XI.

AS

S the importation of the New Testament was a clandestine and dangerous traffic, there is no distinct record of it. The common people received it gladly; but it encountered fierce opposition from men in authority, clergy, statesmen, lawyers, and scholars. It was deemed an exponent and defence of Lutheranism, and, therefore, was spurned away. Many were scared out of their reason by it, as if there had lighted among them a shell charged with explosive missiles. We cannot tell in what way the authorities were first made aware of the audacious presence of the Book in the midst of them; but the distribution could not be long hidden from the keen and sharp eyes of suspicious ecclesiastics. Our only information on the point is from the "railing rhymes" of Friar Roye, with whom the translator had been so displeased. The satire reveals that Standish, Bishop of St. Asaph's, who "played the part of Judas," was the first who brought the report to Wolsey, "the man in the redde cappe," who spake the words of Pilate and answered that he found "no fault" therein. Tunstall (Caiaphas) and the other bishops overruled the Cardinal to an adverse decision, so that he gave judgment against the hated translation, and ordered that it should be burned wherever it was found. This reluctance ascribed to Wolsey may apparently be believed. The forty-third article in the long list of charges presented against him at his fall, alleges that the said Lord Cardinal hath been the "impeacher and

The name of his diocese was Græculus iste, calls him episcopus often contracted into St. Asse; and a sancto Asino.

Erasmus, whom he stigmatized as

disturber of due and direct correction of heresies." When Lutheran opinions had been growing at Cambridge, and a visitation of the University was demanded in 1523 by some of the bishops, Wolsey expressly inhibited it, though Bishop Longland who was the king's confessor, had urged, him to a decided prosecution of "heretics and destruction of Lutheran books." When he had selected for his magnificent foundation of Christ Church a few students from Cambridge, he did not cancel their appointment, though some of them were suspected of Lutheran leanings. When Latimer was brought before him at York House, and had given an account of a sermon which had offended the Bishop of Ely, Wolsey said to him, "You shall have my license, and shall preach it unto his beard let him say what he will." Wolsey's license sufficed for all England. To the king's chagrin, he openly disagreed with many parts of his book against Luther-the book that gained him the title of Defender of the Faith. He had refused to act on a papal bull of June 19, 1520, because he had no power to burn Lutheran books; and the Pope, in reply, told him, that not the books but the authors should be burned. For his great educational deeds and designs, he had suppressed forty-two religious houses. Indeed, he had contrived to gather in to himself, against all law, extraordinary revenues. For not only was he Archbishop of York, in succession to Cardinal Bainbridge; but the "king-cardinal" drew at the same time the incomes of the dioceses of Durham and Winchester, farmed the bishoprics of Bath, Worcester, and Hereford, and held the Abbey of St. Alban's in commendam. He had also an annuity from the French king of 12,000 livres, and from the Pope and the Emperor a yearly pension of 7,500 ducats. The first began to be paid him in 1518, and the second in 1526. "Unsatisfied in getting which was a sin, yet in bestowing he was most princely." In obtaining academic funds from the dissolution of religious houses, Wolsey had been preceded by Chichele and Waynflete. But his arrogance had grown apace. Giustiniani, the Venetian ambassador, records,1 that when he came to England, Wolsey was accustomed to 1 Despatches, vol. II, p. 314.

1

XI.]

TUNSTALL'S MANIFESTO.

173

say, "The king will do so and so;" afterwards his words. were, "We will do so and so;" and finally, "I shall do so and so."

Tunstall, soon after the consultation referred to, preached at St. Paul's, and denounced the New Testament as containing two thousand errors;1 Tyndale's simple reply being, "They have now so narrowly looked on my translation, that there is not so much as one i therein, if it lack a tittle over his head, but they have noted it, and numbered it unto the ignorant people for an heresy." The volume so denounced was then publicly thrown into the fire, and the burning of it was known at Rome by the 21st of November. At that date Cardinal Campeggio wrote to Wolsey a letter of congratulation: "We lately heard, to his Majesty's great praise and glory, that he had most justly caused to be burned a copy of the Holy Bible which had been mistranslated into the common tongue. Assuredly, no burnt offering could be more pleasing to Almighty God."2 On Wednesday, 24th October, Tunstall, "by the duty of our pastoral office," issued a prohibition, a copy of which was sent to the four Archdeacons of Middlesex, Essex, Colchester, and London. The prohibition somewhat bluntly aims at “many children of iniquity, maintainers of Luther's sect, that have craftily translated the New Testament into our English tongue. . . of which translation there are many books imprinted, some with glosses, and some without, containing in the English tongue that most deadly and most pernicious poison dispersed through all our diocese of London in great numbers." "3 Within thirty days these books were to be delivered up to his vicar-general, Geoffrey Wharton, under penalty of excommunication and incurring the suspicion of heresy. Eleven days afterwards, on the 3rd November, Archbishop Warham issued a mandate, in similar terms, to

1 Lambert, who was burned in 1538, in reply to the twenty-sixth article of his indictment, which questioned him about "scriptures in the mother language," says, among other things, that he heard Tunstall's

sermon "on the "hideous errors' in it that I, and not only I, but likewise many others, think verily to be none." Foxe, vol. V, p. 213.

3

2 Cotton MSS., Vitellius, B.viii,164. Foxe, vol. IV, p. 666.

Bishop Nikke2

Voysey, Bishop of Exeter, the document being meant for his entire province.1 The translator was at this time unknown, for the version was published anonymously; but early next year Tyndale's connection with it was no secret, as may be seen in Ridley's letter, on page 126. Warham also bought up a good many copies of both editions at an expense of nearly a thousand pounds sterling; and doubtless such copies were speedily and effectually destroyed. To defray the cost of these large purchases, the Primate sent a circular to his suffragans, asking pecuniary contributions. of Norwich, in reply, promises, in a letter of 14th June, 1527, to send ten marks, about £100 in present currency, and nearly a tenth part of the whole outlay. Some of the blind old bishop's words may be quoted: "In right humble manner I commend me unto your good lordship, doing the same to understand that I lately received your letters, dated, at your manor of Lambeth, the 26th day of the month of May, by which I do perceive that your Grace hath lately gotten into your hands all the books of the New Testament translated into English and printed beyond the sea, as well those with the glosses joined unto them as the other without the glosses Surely, in mine opinion, you have done them a gracious and blessed deed, and God, I doubt not, shall highly reward you therefor. . -your humble obediencer and bonds

The circulation of such a novelty as an English New Testament created a demand, and that demand was speedily supplied. The press which Tyndale himself had employed was at rest, but the work was done by other printers. By the end of 1526 a third edition of the New Testament, in small volume, was issued at Antwerp by Christopher of Endhoven, who was arrested in consequence of his adventure. There had been, in 1527, an alarming scarcity of corn in England" on account of the great rain which fell in the sowingtime," and in the crisis "the gentle merchants of the Stilyard brought in provisions from abroad, "so that wheat was better Cotton MSS., Vitellius, B. ix, fol. 117, b., British Museum.

1 Wilkin's Concilia, vol. III, p. 706. 2 Often, or usually, spelled Nix.

XI.]

SECRET CIRCULATION DETECTED.

"1

175

cheap in the capital than in England all over." But as there

was another and contemporaneous famine in the land, those vessels carried also a more precious cargo than "the bread which perisheth."

About the end of 1527, or beginning of 1528, the agency by which the circulation had been so successfully carried out was at last detected. Bilney had been examined at the end of the year, and probably hints incautiously dropped by some witnesses during the trial may have led to the discovery. Arrests were made in London. The University of Oxford was searched and Wolsey's own college, St. Frideswide's or Cardinal College, was found to be deeply infected. Several students escaped, and others were incarcerated in a deep cell under the college, used for storing salt fish, and some of them died from the effects of this unhealthy imprisonment and food. Nor was Bishop Tunstall idle after his return from Spain, and many people guilty of possessing an English Bible were carried before him. "Old Father Hacket, being hard set upon, made a discovery of a great many of his friends and followers," to the number of forty, who "dwelt chiefly in London; "2 and other criminated persons, being entangled in the queries put to them, gave information in spite of themselves. Another class in terror revealed everything, and at once brought friends and relatives into immediate peril. Sebastian Harris, curate of the parish church of Kensington, was brought up, and confessed that "he had the New Testament in the vulgar tongue, translated by William Hochen, priest, and friar Roye." He was sentenced not to approach the city for four years nearer than two miles. Rodolph Bradford, fellow of King's College, Cambridge, carried New Testaments to Reading, "with a godly desire to disperse them," and he was afterwards imprisoned for two years as the penalty of his work.3 Forman, rector of All Hallows, Honey Lane (Garret being his curate), and Jeffray Lolme, usher in St. Anthony's School, were trusted and successful agents in the secret and dangerous toil of sowing the divine seed "the word of God."

Strype, vol. I, pt. 1, p. 114.

3 He died chaplain to Bishop Latimer.