aggressive prefaces based on those of Erasmus and Luther. All these
copies were smuggled into England, and served as fuel to the incipient
Protestant fire. Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London, alleging serious
errors in the translation, prejudice in the notes, and heresies in the
prefaces, tried to suppress the edition by buying all discoverable
copies and publicly burning them at St. Paul's Cross; but new copies
kept coming from the Continent, and More commented that Tunstall was
financing Tyndale's press. More himself wrote a lengthy Dialogue
(1528) criticizing the new version; Tyndale replied; More replied to
the reply in a Confutation of 578 folio pages. The King thought to
quiet the disturbance by forbidding the reading or circulation of
the Bible in English until an authoritative translation could be
made (1530). Meanwhile all printing, sale, importation, or
possession of heretical works was banned by the government.
Wolsey sent orders to arrest Tyndale, but Philip, Landgrave of
Hesse, protected the author, and he proceeded, at Marburg, with his
translation of the Pentateuch (1530). Slowly, by his own labor or
under his supervision, most of the Old Testament was rendered into
English. But in a careless moment he fell into the hands of Imperial
officials; he was imprisoned for sixteen months at Vilvorde (near
Brussels), and was burned at the stake (1536) despite the intercession
of Thomas Cromwell, minister to Henry VIII. Tradition reports his last
words as "Lord, ope the King of England's eyes." `062343 He had
lived long enough to accomplish his mission; the plowboy could now
hear the Evangelists tell in firm, clear, pithy English the
inspiring story of Christ. When the historic Authorized Version
appeared (1611), 90 per cent of the greatest and most influential
classic in English literature was unaltered Tyndale. `062344
Wolsey's attitude toward this nascent English Reformation was as
lenient as could be expected of a man who headed both Church and
state. He hired secret police to spy out heresy, to examine suspicious
literature, and to arrest heretics. But he sought to persuade these to
silence rather than to punish them, and no heretic was ever sent to
the stake by his orders. In 1528 three Oxford students were jailed for
heresy; the bishop of London allowed one to die in confinement; one
recanted and was released; the third was taken in charge by Wolsey,
and was allowed to escape. `062345 When Hugh Latimer, the most