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 ?" 8 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 all 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 wrest

8 The money referred to by Dame Walsh, was equal to from £1500 to £4500 of our present money.

ing 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 thiswise 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 in 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

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the district, and the questions very naturally present themselves -Who was this Chancellor ? Who the Cardinal that had recently appointed him? Who was the non-resident 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.

ENTRANCE TO LITTLE SODBURY MANOR HOUSE, FROM THE EAST.

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.""9

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

9 Who could this "old 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.

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 Hebilthwayte, 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 He 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 in 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