History of the Reformation, vol. 5

Chapter 4

Tyndale—Sodbury Hall—Sir John and Lady Walsh—Table-Talk—The Holy Scriptures—The Images—The Anchor of Faith—A Roman Camp—Preaching of Faith and Works—Tyndale accused by the Priests—They tear up what he has planted—Tyndale resolves to translate the Bible—His first Triumph—The Priests in the Taverns—Tyndale summoned before the Chancellor of Worcester—Consoled by an aged Doctor—Attacked by a Schoolman—His Secret becomes known—He leaves Sodbury Hall

While this ambitious prelate was thinking of nothing but his own glory and that of the Roman pontificate, a great desire, but of a very different nature, was springing up in the heart of one of the humble “gospellers” of England. If Wolsey had his eyes fixed on the throne of the popedom in order to seat himself there, Tyndale thought of raising up the true throne of the church by re-establishing the legitimate sovereignty of the word of God. The Greek Testament of Erasmus had been one step; and it now became necessary to place before the simple what the king of the schools had given to the learned. This idea, which pursued the young Oxford doctor everywhere, was to be the mighty mainspring of the English Reformation. HRSCV5 738.5

On the slope of Sodbury hill there stood a plain but large mansion, commanding an extensive view over the beautiful vale of the Severn, where Tyndale was born. It was inhabited by a family of gentle birth: Sir John Walsh had shone in the tournaments of the court, and by this means conciliated the favor of his prince. He kept open table; and gentlemen, deans, abbots, archdeacons, doctors of divinity, and fat rectors, charmed by Sir John’s cordial welcome and by his good dinners, were ever at his house. The former brother-at-arms of Henry VIII felt an interest in the questions then discussing throughout Christendom. Lady Walsh, herself a sensible and generous woman, lost not a word of the animated conversation of her guests, and discreetly tried to incline the balance to the side of truth. HRSCV5 738.6

Tyndale, after leaving Oxford and Cambridge, had returned to the home of his fathers. Sir John had requested him to educate his children, and he had accepted. William was then in the prime of life (he was about thirty-six), well instructed in Scripture, and full of desire to show forth the light which God had given him. Opportunities were not wanting. Seated at table with all the doctors welcomed by Sir John, Tyndale entered into conversation with them. They talked of the learned men of the day—of Erasmus much, and sometimes of Luther, who was beginning to astonish England. They discussed several questions touching the Holy Scriptures, and sundry points of theology. Tyndale expressed his convictions with admirable clearness, supported them with great learning, and kept his ground against all with unbending courage. These animated conversations in the vale of the Severn are one of the essential features of the picture presented by the Reformation in this country. The historians of antiquity invented the speeches which they have put into the mouths of their heroes. In our times history, without inventing, should make us acquainted with the sentiments of the persons of whom it treats. It is sufficient to read Tyndale’s works to form some idea of these conversations. It is from his writings that the following discussion has been drawn. HRSCV5 739.1

In the dining-room of the old hall a varied group was assembled round the hospitable table. There were Sir John and Lady Walsh, a few gentlemen of the neighborhood, with several abbots, deans, monks, and doctors, in their respective costumes. Tyndale occupied the humblest place, and generally kept Erasmus’s New Testament within reach in order to prove what he advanced. Numerous domestics were moving about engaged in waiting on the guests; and at length the conversation, after wandering a little, took a more precise direction. The priests grew impatient when they saw the terrible volume appear. “Your Scriptures only serve to make heretics,” they exclaimed. “On the contrary,” replied Tyndale, “the source of all heresies is pride; now the word of God strips man of everything and leaves him as bare as Job.”—“The word of God! why even we don’t understand your word, how can the vulgar understand it?”—“You do not understand it,” rejoined Tyndale, “because you look into it only for foolish questions, as you would into our Lady’s Matins or Merlin’s Prophecies. Now the Scriptures are a clue which we must follow, without turning aside, until we arrive at Christ; for Christ is the end.”—“And I tell you,” shouted out a priest, “that the Scriptures are a Daedalian labyrinth, rather than Ariadne’s clue—a conjuring book wherein everybody finds what he wants.”—“Alas!” replied Tyndale; “you read them without Jesus Christ; that’s why they are an obscure book to you. What do I say? a den of thorns where you only escape from the friars to be caught by the brambles.” “No!” exclaimed another clerk, heedless of contradicting his colleague, “nothing is obscure to us; it is we who give the Scriptures, and we who explain them to you.”—“You would lose both your time and your trouble,” said Tyndale; “do you know who taught the eagles to find their prey? Well, that same God teaches his hungry children to find their Father in his word. Far from having given us the Scriptures, it is you who have hidden them from us; it is you who burn those who teach them and if you could, you would burn the Scriptures themselves.” HRSCV5 739.2

Tyndale was not satisfied with merely laying down the great principles of faith: he always sought after what he calls “the sweet marrow within;” but to the divine unction he added no little humor, and unmercifully ridiculed the superstitions of his adversaries. “You set candles before images,” he said to them; “and since you give them light, why don’t you give them food? Why don’t you make their bellies hollow, and put victuals and drink inside? To serve God by such mummeries is treating him like a spoilt child, whom you pacify with a toy or with a horse made of a stick.” HRSCV5 739.3

But the learned Christian soon returned to more serious thoughts; and when his adversaries extolled the papacy as the power that would save the church in the tempest, he replied: “Let us only take on board the anchor of faith, after having dipped it in the blood of Christ, and when the storm bursts upon us, let us boldly cast the anchor into the sea; then you may be sure the ship will remain safe on the great waters.” And, in fine, if his opponents rejected any doctrine of the truth, Tyndale (says the chronicler) opening his Testament would set his finger on the verse which refuted the Romish error, and exclaim: “Look and read.” HRSCV5 739.4

The beginnings of the English Reformation are not to be found, as we have seen, in a material ecclesiasticism, which has been decorated with the name of English Catholicism: they are essentially spiritual. The Divine Word, the creator of the new life in the individual, is also the founder and reformer of the church. The reformed churches, and particularly the reformed churches of Great Britain, belong to evangelism. HRSCV5 740.1

The contemplation of God’s works refreshed Tyndale after the discussions he had to maintain at his patron’s table. He would often ramble to the top of Sodbury hill, and there repose amidst the ruins of an ancient Roman camp which crowned the summit. It was there that Queen Margaret of Anjou halted; and here too rested Edward IV, who pursued her, before the fatal battle of Tewkesbury, which caused this princess to fall into the hands of the White Rose. Amidst these ruins, monuments of the Roman invasion and of the civil dissensions of England, Tyndale meditated upon other battles, which were to restore liberty and truth to Christendom. Then rousing himself he would descend the hill, and courageously resume his task. HRSCV5 740.2

Behind the mansion stood a little church, overshadowed by two large yew trees, and dedicated to St. Adeline. On Sundays, Tyndale used to preach there, Sir John and Lady Walsh, with the eldest of the children, occupying the manorial pew. This humble sanctuary was filled by their household and tenantry, listening attentively to the words of their teacher, which fell from his lips like the waters of Shiloah that go softly. Tyndale was very lively in conversation; but he explained the Scriptures with so much unction, says the chronicler, “that his hearers thought they heard St. John himself.” If he resembled John in the mildness of his language, he resembled Paul in the strength of his doctrine. “According to the pope,” he said, “we must first be good after his doctrine, and compel God to be good again for our goodness. Nay, verily, God’s goodness is the root of all goodness. Antichrist turneth the tree of salvation topsy-turvy: he planteth the branches, and setteth the roots upwards. We must put it straight… As the husband marrieth the wife, before he can have any lawful children by her; even so faith justifieth us to make us fruitful in good works. But neither the one nor the other should remain barren. Faith is the holy candle wherewith we must bless ourselves at the last hour; without it, you will go astray in the valley of the shadow of death, though you had a thousand tapers lighted around you bed.” HRSCV5 740.3

The priests, irritated at such observations, determined to ruin Tyndale, and some of them invited Sir John and his lady to an entertainment, at which he was not present. During dinner, they so abused the young doctor and his New Testament, that his patrons retired greatly annoyed that their tutor should have made so many enemies. They told him all they had heard, and Tyndale successfully refuted his adversaries arguments. “What!” exclaimed Lady Walsh, “there are some of these doctors worth one hundred, some two hundred, and some three hundred pounds, and were it reason, think you, Master William, that we should believe you before them?” Tyndale, opening the New Testament, replied: “No! it is not me you should believe. That is what the priests have told you; but look here, St. Peter, St. Paul, and the Lord himself say quite the contrary.” The word of God was there, positive and supreme: the sword of the spirit cut the difficulty. HRSCV5 740.4

Before long the manor-house and St. Adeline’s church became too narrow for Tyndale’s zeal. He preached every Sunday, sometimes in a village, sometimes in a town. The inhabitants of Bristol assembled to hear him in a large meadow, called St. Austin’s Green. But no sooner had he preached in any place than the priests hastened thither, tore up what he had planted, called him a heretic, and threatened to expel from the church every one who dared listen to him. When Tyndale returned he found the field laid waste by the enemy; and looking sadly upon it, as the husbandman who sees his corn beaten down by the hail, and his rich furrows turned into a barren waste, he exclaimed: “What is to be done? While I am sowing in one place, the enemy ravages the field I have just left. I cannot be everywhere. Oh! if Christians possessed the Holy Scriptures in their own tongue, they could of themselves withstand these sophists. Without the Bible it is impossible to establish the laity in the truth.” HRSCV5 740.5

Then a great idea sprang up in Tyndale’s heart: “It was in the language of Israel,” said he, “that the Psalms were sung in the temple of Jehovah; and shall not the gospel speak the language of England among us? Ought the church to have less light at noonday than at the dawn? Christians must read the New Testament in their mother-tongue.” Tyndale believed that this idea proceeded from God. The new sun would lead to the discovery of a new world, and the infallible rule would make all human diversities give way to a divine unity. “One holdeth this doctor, another that,” said Tyndale; “one followeth Duns Scotus, another St. Thomas, another Bonaventure, Alexander Hales, Raymond of Penaford, Lyra, Gorram, Hugh de Sancto Victore, and so many others besides Now, each of these authors contradicts the other. How then can we distinguish him who says right from him who says wrong? How? Verily, by God’s word.” Tyndale hesitated no longer While Wolsey sought to win the papal tiara, the humble tutor of Sodbury undertook to place the torch of heaven in the midst of his fellow-countrymen. The translation of the Bible shall be the work of his life. HRSCV5 741.1

The first triumph of the word was a revolution in the manor-house. In proportion as Sir John and Lady Walsh acquired a taste for the gospel, they became disgusted with the priests. The clergy were not so often invited to Sodbury, nor did they meet with the same welcome. They soon discontinued their visits, and thought of nothing but how they could drive Tyndale from the mansion and from the diocese. HRSCV5 741.2

Unwilling to compromise themselves in this warfare, they sent forward some of those light troops which the church has always at her disposal. Mendicant friars and poor curates, who could hardly understand their missal, and the most learned of whom made Albertus de secretis mulierum their habitual study, fell upon Tyndale like a pack of hungry hounds. They trooped to the alehouses, and calling for a jug of beer, took their seats, one at one table, another at another. They invited the peasantry to drink with them, and entering into conversation with them, poured forth a thousand curses upon the daring reformer: “He’s a hypocrite,” said one; “he’s a heretic,” said another. The most skillful among them would mount upon a stool, and turning the tavern into a temple, deliver, for the first time in his life, an extemporaneous discourse. They reported words that Tyndale had never uttered, and actions that he had never committed. Rushing upon the poor tutor (he himself informs us) “like unclean swine that follow their carnal lusts,” they tore his good name to very tatters, and shared the spoil among them; while the audience, excited by their calumnies and heated by the beer, departed overflowing with rage and hatred against the heretic of Sodbury. HRSCV5 741.3

After the monks came the dignitaries. The deans and abbots, Sir John’s former guests, accused Tyndale to the chancellor of the diocese, and the storm which had begun in the tavern burst forth in the episcopal palace. HRSCV5 741.4

The titular bishop of Worcester (an appanage of the Italian prelates) was Giulio de’ Medici, a learned man, great politician, and crafty priest, who already governed the popedom without being pope. Wolsey, who administered the diocese for his absent colleague, had appointed Thomas Parker chancellor, a man devoted to the Roman church. It was to him the churchmen made their complaint. A judicial inquiry had its difficulties; the king’s companion-at-arms was the patron of the pretended heretic, and Sir Anthony Poyntz, Lady Walsh’s brother, was sheriff of the county. The chancellor was therefore content to convoke a general conference of the clergy. Tyndale obeyed the summons, but foreseeing what awaited him, he cried heartily to God, as he pursued his way up the banks of the Severn, “to give him strength to stand fast in the truth of his word.” HRSCV5 741.5

When they were assembled, the abbots and deans, and other ecclesiastics of the diocese, with haughty heads and threatening looks, crowded round the humble but unbending Tyndale. When his turn arrived, he stood forward, and the chancellor administered him a sever reprimand, to which he made a calm reply. This so exasperated the chancellor, that, giving way to his passion, he treated Tyndale as if he had been a dog. “Where are your witnesses?” demanded the latter. “Let them come forward, and I will answer them.” Not one of them dared support the charge—they looked another way. The chancellor waited, one witness at least he must have, but he could not get that. Annoyed at this desertion of the priests, the representative of the Medici became more equitable, and let the accusation drop. Tyndale quietly returned to Sodbury, blessing God who had saved him from the cruel hands of his adversaries, and entertaining nothing but the tenderest charity towards them. “Take away my goods,” he said to them one day, “take away my good name! yet so long as Christ dwelleth in my heart, so long shall I love you not a whit the less.” Here indeed is the St. John to whom Tyndale has been compared. HRSCV5 741.6

In this violent warfare, however, he could not fail to receive some heavy blows; and where could he find consolation? Fryth and Bilney were far from him. Tyndale recollected an aged doctor who lived near Sodbury, and who had shown him great affection. He went to see him, and opened his heart to him. The old man looked at him for a while as if he hesitated to disclose some great mystery. “Do you not know,” said he, lowering his voice, “that the pope is very Antichrist, whom the Scripture speaketh of? But beware what you say… That knowledge may cost you your life.” This doctrine of Antichrist, which Luther was at that moment enunciating so boldly, struck Tyndale. Strengthened by it, as was the Saxon reformer, he felt fresh energy in his heart, and the aged doctor was to him what the aged friar had been to Luther. HRSCV5 742.1

When the priests saw that their plot had failed, they commissioned a celebrated divine to undertake his conversion. The reformer replied with his Greek Testament to the schoolman’s arguments. The theologian was speechless: at last he exclaimed! “Well then! it were better to be without God’s laws than the pope’s.” Tyndale, who did not expect so plain and blasphemous a confession, made answer: “And I defy the pope and all his laws!” and then, as if unable to keep his secret, he added: “If God spares my life, I will take care that a ploughboy shall know more of the Scriptures than you do.” HRSCV5 742.2

All his thoughts were now directed to the means of carrying out his plans; and, desirous of avoiding conversations that might compromise them, he thenceforth passed the greater portion of his time in the library. He prayed, he read, he began his translation of the Bible, and in all probability communicated portions of it to Sir John and Lady Walsh. HRSCV5 742.3

All his precautions were useless: the scholastic divine had betrayed him, and the priests had sworn to stop him in his translation of the Bible. One day he fell in with a troop of monks and curates, who abused him in the grossest manner. “It’s the favor of the gentry of the county that makes you so proud,” said they; “but notwithstanding your patrons, there will be a talk about you before long, and in a pretty fashion too! You shall not always live in a manor-house!”—“Banish me to the obscurest corner of England,” replied Tyndale; “provided you will permit me to teach children and preach the gospel, and give me ten pounds a-year for my support I shall be satisfied!” The priests left him, but with the intention of preparing him a very different fate. HRSCV5 742.4

Tyndale indulged in his pleasant dreams no longer. He saw that he was on the point of being arrested, condemned, and interrupted in his great work. He must seek a retreat where he can discharge in peace the task God has allotted him. “You cannot save me from the hands of the priests,” said he to Sir John, “and God knows to what troubles you would expose yourself by keeping me in your family. Permit me to leave you.” Having said this, he gathered up his papers, took his Testament, pressed the hands of his benefactors, kissed the children, and then descending the hill, bade farewell to the smiling banks of the Severn, and departed alone—alone with his faith. What shall he do? What will become of him? Where shall he go? He went forth like Abraham, one thing alone engrossing his mind:—the Scriptures shall be translated into the vulgar tongue, and he will deposit the oracles of God in the midst of his countrymen. HRSCV5 742.5