CHAPTER 8.
Henry would willingly have clapped his hand on his sword to demand satisfaction of the pope for this outrage. The book was by Tyndale.
Laying it down, the king re-fleeted on what he had just read, and thought to himself that the author had some striking ideas ‘on the accursed power of the pope,’ and that he was besides gifted with talent and zeal, and might render excellent service towards abolishing the papacy in England.
Tyndale, from the time of his conversion at Oxford, set Christ above everything. He boldly threw off the yoke of human traditions, and would take no other guide but Scripture only. Full of imagination and eloquence, active and ready to endure fatigue, he exposed himself to every danger in the fulfillment of his mission. fj92 Henry ordered Stephen Vaughan, one of his agents, then at Antwerp, to try and find the Reformer in Brabant, Flanders, on the banks of the Rhine, in Holland,… wherever he might chance to be; to offer him a safe-conduct under the sign-manual, to prevail on him to return to England, and to add the most gracious promises in behalf of his Majesty. fj93
To gain over Tyndale seemed even more important than to have gained Latimer. Vaughan immediately undertook to seek him in Antwerp, where he was said to be, but could not find him. ‘He is at Marburg,’ said one; ‘at Frankfort,’ said another; ‘at Hamburg,’ declared a third. Tyndale was invisible now as before. To make more certain, Vaughan determined to write three letters directed to those three places, conjuring him to return to England. fj94 ‘I have great hopes,’ said the English agent to his friends, ‘of having clone something that will please his Majesty.’ Tyndale, the most scriptural of English reformers, the most inflexible in his faith, laboring at the Reformation with the cordial approbation of the monarch, would truly have been something extraordinary.
Scarcely had the three letters been despatched when Vaughan heard of the ignominious chastisement inflicted by Sir Thomas More on Tyndale’s brother. fj95 Was it by such indignities that Henry expected to attract the Reformer? Vaughan, much annoyed, wrote to the king (26th January, 1531) that this event would make Tyndale think they wanted to entrap him, and he gave up looking after him.
Three months later (17th April), as Vaughan was busy copying one of Tyndale’s manuscripts in order to send it to Henry {it was his answer to
the Dialogue of Sir Thomas More), a man knocked at his door. ‘Some one, who calls himself a friend of yours, desires very much to speak with you,’
said the stranger, ‘and begs you to follow me.’ — ’Who is this friend?
Where is he?’ asked Vaughan. ‘I do not know him,’ replied the messenger;
‘but come along, and you will see for yourself.’ Vaughan doubted whether it was prudent to follow this person to a strange place. He made up his mind, however, to accompany him. The agent of Henry VIII. and the messenger threaded the streets of Antwerp, went out of the city, and at last reached a lonely field, by the side of which the Scheldt flowed sluggishly through the level country. fj96 As he advanced, Vaughan saw a man of noble bearing, who appeared to be about fifty years of age. ‘Do you not recognize me?’ he asked Vaughan. ‘I cannot call to mind your features,’ answered the latter. ‘My name is Tyndale,’ said the stranger.
‘Tyndale!’ exclaimed Vaughan, with delight. ‘Tyndale! what a happy meeting!’
Tyndale, who had heard of Henry’s new plans, had no confidence either in the prince or in his pretended Reformation. The king’s endless
negotiations with the pope, his worldliness, his amours, his persecution of evangelical Christians, and especially the ignominious punishment inflicted on John Tyndale; all these matters disgusted him. However, having been informed of the nature of Vaughan’s mission, he desired to turn it to advantage by addressing a few warnings to the prince. ‘I have written certain books,’ he said, ‘to warn your Majesty of the subtle demeanor of the clergy of your realm towards your person, in which doing I showed the heart of a true subject; to the intent that your Grace might prepare your remedies against their subtle dreams. An exile from my native country, I suffer hunger, thirst, cold, absence of friends, everywhere encompassed with great danger, in innumerable hard and sharp fightings, I do not feel their asperity, by. reason that I hope with my labors to do honor to God, true service to my prince, and pleasure to his commons.’ fj97
‘Cheer up,’ said Vaughan, ‘your exile, poverty, rightings, all are at an end;
you can return to England.’… What matters it,’ said Tyndale, ‘if my exile finishes, so long as the Bible is banished? Has the king forgotten that God has commanded His Word to be spread throughout the world? If it
continues to be forbidden to his subjects, very death were more pleasant to me than life.’ fj98
Vaughan did not consider himself worsted. The messenger, who remained at a distance and could hear nothing, was astonished at seeing the two men in that solitary field conversing together so long and with so much
animation. ‘Tell me what guarantees you desire,’ said Vaughan: ‘the king will grant them you.’ ‘Of course the king would give me a safe-conduct,’
answered Tyndale; ‘but the clergy would persuade him that promises made to heretics are not binding.’ Night was coming on. Henry’s agent might have had Tyndale followed and seized. fj99 The idea occurred to Vaughan, but he rejected it. Tyndale began, however, to feel himself ill at ease. fj100 ‘Farewell,’ he said; ‘you shall see me again before long, or hear news of me.’ He then departed, walking away from Antwerp. Vaughan, who re-entered the city, was surprised to see Tyndale make for the open country. He supposed it to be a stratagem, and once more doubted whether he ought not to have seized the Reformer to please his master. ‘I might have failed of my purpose,’ he said. fj101 Besides it was now too late, for Tyndale had disappeared.
As soon as Vaughan reached home, he hastened to send to London an account of this singular conference. Cromwell immediately proceeded to court, and laid before the king the envoy’s letter and the Reformer’s book.
‘Good!’ said Henry; ‘as soon as I have leisure, I will read them both.’ fj102 He did so, and was exasperated against Tyndale, who refused his
invitation, mistrusted his word, and even dared to give him advice. The king in his passion tore off the latter part of Vaughan’s letter, flung it in the fire, and entirely gave up his idea of bringing the Reformer into England to make use of him against the pope, fearing that such a torch would set the whole kingdom in a blaze. He thought only how he could seize him and punish him for his arrogance.
He sent for Cromwell. Before him on the table lay the treatise by Tyndale, which Vaughan had copied and sent. ‘These pages,’ said Henry to his minister, while pointing to the manuscript, ‘These pages are the work of a visionary; they are full of lies, sedition, and calumny. Vaughan shows too much affection for Tyndale. fj103 Let him beware of inviting him to come into the kingdom. He is a perverse and hardened character, who cannot be changed. I am too happy that he is out of England.’
Cromwell retired in vexation. He wrote to Vaughan; but the king found the letter too weak, and Cromwell had to correct it to make it harmonize with the wrath of the prince. fj104 An ambitious man, he bent before the
obstinate will of his master; but the loss of Tyndale seemed irreparable.
Accordingly, while informing Vaughan of the king’s anger, he added that, if wholesome reflection should bring Tyndale to reason, the king was ‘so inclined to mercy, pity, and compassion’ fj105 that he would doubtless see him with pleasure. Vaughan, whose heart Tyndale had gained, began to hunt after him again, and had a second interview with him. He gave him Cromwell’s letter to read, and, when the Reformer came to the words we have just quoted about Henry’s compassion, his eyes filled with tears. fj106
‘What gracious words!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes,’ said Vaughan; ‘they have such sweetness that they would break the hardest heart in the world.’ Tyndale, deeply moved, tried to find some mode of fulfilling his duty towards God and towards the king. ‘If his Majesty,’ he said, ‘would condescend to permit the Holy Scriptures to circulate among the people in all their purity, as they do in the states of the emperor and in other Christian countries, I would bind myself never to write again. I would throw myself at his feet, offering my body as a sacrifice, ready to submit, if necessary, to torture and death.’
But a gulf lay between the monarch and the Reformer. Henry VIII. saw the seeds of heresy in the Scriptures, and Tyndale rejected every reformation which they wished to carry out by proscribing the Bible. ‘Heresy
springeth not from the Scriptures,’ he said, ‘no more than darkness from the sun.’ fj107 Tyndale disappeared again, and the name of his hiding-place is unknown.
The King of England was not discouraged by the check he had received. He wanted men possessed of talent and zeal — men resolved to attack the pope. Cambridge had given England a teacher who might be placed beside, and perhaps even above, Latimer and Tyndale. This was John Fryth. He thirsted for the truth; he sought God, and was determined to give himself wholly to Jesus Christ. One day Cromwell said to the king, ‘What a pity it is, your Highness, that a man so distinguished as Fryth in letters and sciences should be among the sectarians!’ Like Tyndale, he had quitted England. Cromwell, with Henry’s consent, wrote to Vaughan: ‘His Majesty strongly desires the reconciliation of Fryth, who (he firmly
believes) is not so far advanced as Tyndale in the evil way. Always full of mercy, the king is ready to receive him to favor. Try to attract him
charitably, politically.’ Vaughan immediately began his inquiries, — it was May, 1531, — but the first news he received was that Fryth, a minister of the Gospel, was just married in Holland. ‘This marriage,’ he wrote to the king, ‘may by chance hinder my persuasion.’ fj108 This was not all: Fryth was boldly printing, at Amsterdam, Tyndale’s answer to Sir Thomas More. Henry was forced to give him up, as he had given up his friend. He succeeded with none but Latimer, and even the chaplain told him many harsh truths. There was a decided incompatibility between the spiritual reform and the political reform. The work of God refused to ally itself with the work of the throne. The Christian faith and the visible Church are two distinct things. Some (and among them the Reformers) require
Christianity — a living Christianity; others (and it was the case of Henry and his prelates) look for the Church and its hierarchy, and care little whether a living faith be found there or not. This is a capital error. Real religion must exist first; and then this religion must produce a true religious society. Tyndale, Fryth, and their friends desired to begin with religion;
Henry and his followers with an ecclesiastical society hostile to faith. The king and the reformers could not, therefore, come to an understanding.
Henry, profoundly hurt by the boldness of those evangelical men, swore that, as they would not have peace, they should have war,… war to the knife.