Chapter V: Letter II

+Source.+--Burnet's _History of the Reformation_, Vol. III.; _Collection of Records_, Part I., No. 8.

SIR,

It may like your Grace to understand that ensuing the tenor of my letter sent unto your Highness yesterday, I have devised such Commissions and Letters to be sent unto your counsellors the Bishop of Bath, Mr. Richard Pace, and Mr. Thomas Hanibal, jointly and severally, as at the last time of vacation of the Papal Dignity were delivered unto the said Mr. Richard Pace; for the Preferment either of me, or that failing of the Cardinal de Medici unto the same, which letters and commissions if it stand with your gracious pleasure to have that matter set forth, it may like your Highness of your benign Grace and Goodness to sign, so to be sent to the Court of Rome in such diligence as the importance of the same, with the brevity of the time doth necessarily require. And to the intent also that the Emperor may the more effectually and speedily concur with your Highness for the furtherance hereof, albeit, I suppose verily that ensuing the Conference and Communications which he hath had with your Grace in that behalf, he hath not praetermitted before this time to advance the same, yet nevertheless for the more acceleration of this furtherance to be given thereunto, I have also devised a familiar letter in the name of your grace to be directed unto his Majesty, which if it may please your Highness to take the pain for to write with your own hand, putting thereunto your secret sign and mark, being between your Grace and the said Emperor, shall undoubtedly do singular benefit and furtherance to your gracious Intent and virtuous purpose in that behalf. Beseeching Almighty God that such effect may ensue thereof, as may be in his pleasure, the contentation of your highness, the weal and exaltation of your most Royal estate, realm, and affairs, and howsoever the matter shall chance, I shall no less knowledge myself obliged and bounden far above any my deserts unto your Highness, than if I had attained the same, whereunto I would never in thought aspire, but to do honour good and service unto your Noble Person and this your Realm. And thus Jesu preserve your most Noble and Royal Estate, at the More the first day of October, by

Your most humble chaplain, T. CARLIS. EBOR.

WOLSEY AND THE KING'S MARRIAGE (1527).

_A Part of Cardinal Wolsey's Letter to the King._

+Source.+--Burnet's _History of the Reformation_, Part III., Book I.; _Collection of Records_, Number 12.

We daily and hourly musing and thinking on your Grace's great and secret affair, and how the same may come to good effect and desired end, as well for the deliverance of your Grace out of the thrauld,[40] pensive, and dolorous life that the same is in, as for the continuance of your health and the surety of your realm and succession, considering also that the Pope's consent, or his Holiness detained in captivity, the authority of the cardinals now to be convoked into France equivalent thereunto, must concur for approbation of such process as I shall make in that behalf; and that if the Queen shall fortune, which it is to be supposed she will do, either appeal or utterly decline from my Jurisdiction (one of the said authorities is also necessarily requisite). I have none other thought nor study but how in available manner the same may be attained. And after long discussion and debating with myself, I finally am reduced and resolved to two points; the one is that the Pope's consent cannot be obtained and had in this case, unless his deliverance out of captivity be first procured; the other is that the Cardinals can nothing do in this behalf, unless there be by them consultation and order taken, what shall be done _in Administratione rerum Ecclesiasticarum durante dicta captivitate summi Pontificis_.

As touching the restitution of the Pope to liberty, the state of the present affairs considered the most prompt sure and ready way is, by conclusion of the peace betwixt the Emperor and the French King: for the advancement and setting forward whereof I shall put myself in extreme devour, and by all possible means induce and persuade the said French King to strain himself and condescend to as much of the Emperor's demands as may stand with reason and surety of his and your Grace's affairs; moving him further, that forasmuch as the Emperor taketh your Highness as a Mediator making fair demonstration in words, that he will at your contemplation and arbitre, not only declare the bottom of his mind concerning his demand, but also remit and relent in the same, he will be contented that your Grace forbearing the intimation of hostility may in the managing of the said Peace and inducing the Emperor to reasonable conditions, be so taken and reputed of him, without any outward declaration to the contrary until such time as the conducing of the said peace shall be clearly desperate. Whereby if the said French King can be induced thereunto, may in the mean season use the benefit of their intercourse in the Emperor's Low-Countries: not omitting nevertheless for the time of soliciting the said peace, the diligent zeal and effectual execution of the sword by Monsieur de Lautrek in the parties of Italy: whereby your Grace's said mediation shall be the more set by and regarded.

And in case the said peace cannot be by these means brought to effect, whereupon might ensue the Pope's deliverance, by whose authority and consent your Grace's affair should take most sure honourable effectual and substantial end, and who I doubt not considering your Grace's gratitude, would facilely be induced to do all things therein that might be to your Grace's good satisfaction and purpose, then and in that case there is none other remedy but the Convocation of the said Cardinals; who as I am informed will not nor can conveniently converse in any other place but at Avignon, where the Administration of the Ecclesiastical jurisdiction hath been in semblable cases heretofore exercised. To the which place if the said Cardinals can be induced to come, your Highness being so contented, I purpose also to repair, not sparing any labour, travail or pain in my body, charges or expense, to do service unto your Grace in that behalf; according to that most bounden duty and hearty desire, there to consult and devise with them for the governance and administration of the authority of the Church during the said captivity: which shall be a good ground and fundament for the effectual execution of your Grace's secret affair.

And forasmuch as thus repairing to Avignon I shall be near to the Emperor's confines, and within an hundred miles of Perpinian, which is a commodious and convenient place to commune and treat with the Emperor's person, I think in my poor opinion that the conducing of peace by your Grace's mediation not being desperate, nor intimation of hostility made on your behalf, it should much confer as well for the deliverance of the Pope, as for concluding of the Peace between the French King and the Emperor, if his Majesty can be so contented that a meeting might be between him, my Lady the French king's mother, and me at the said Perpinian; to the which....

(_The rest of this letter has been lost._)

[Footnote 40: Enslaved.]

WILLIAM TYNDALE ON THE TRANSLATION OF THE SCRIPTURES (1528).

+Source.+--Tyndale's _Obedience of a Christian Man and how Christian Rulers ought to Govern_, 1528, p. 12.

That thou mayest perceive how that the Scripture ought to be in the mother tongue, and that the reasons which our spirits make for the contrary are but sophistry and false wiles to fear thee from the light, that thou mightest follow them blindfold and be their captive to honour their ceremonies and to offer to their belly.

First God gave the children of Israel a law by the hand of Moses in their mother tongue, and all the prophets wrote in their mother tongue, and all the psalms were in the mother tongue. And there was Christ but figured and described in ceremonies, in riddles, in parables and in dark prophecies. What is the cause that we may not have the Old Testament with the New also, which is the light of the old, and wherein is openly declared before the eyes that there was darkly prophesied? I can imagine no cause verily, except it be that we should not see the work of Antichrist and juggling of hypocrites. What should be the cause that we which walk in the broad day should not see as well as they that walked in the night, or that we should not see as well at noon as they did in the twilight? Came Christ to make the world more blind? By this means, Christ is the darkness of the world, and not the light as he saith himself, John viii.

Moreover, Moses saith, Deutero. vi, "Hear, Israel, let these words which I command thee this day stick fast in thine heart, and whet them on thy children, and talk of them as thou sittest in thine house and as thou walkest by the way and when thou liest down and when thou risest up, and bind them for a token of thine hand, and let them be a remembrance between thine eyes, and write them on the posts and gates of thine house." This was commanded generally unto all men. How cometh it that God's word pertaineth less unto us than unto them? Yea, how cometh it that our Moseses forbid us and command us the contrary, and threat us if we do, and will not that we once speak of God's word? How can we whet God's word (that is put in practise, use and exercise) upon our children and household, when we are violently kept from it and know it not? How can we (as Peter commandeth) give a reason for our hope, when we wot not what it is that God hath promised or what to hope? Moses also commandeth in the said chapter: if the son ask what the testimonies, laws and observances of the Lord mean, that the father teach him. If our children ask what our ceremonies (which are no more than the Jewses were) mean, no father can tell his son. And in the xi chapter he repeateth all again, for fear of forgetting.

They will say haply "the Scripture requireth a pure mind and a quiet mind. And therefore the lay-man, because he is altogether cumbered with worldly business, cannot understand them." If that be the cause, then it is a plain case that our prelates understand not the Scriptures themselves. For no lay-man is so tangled with worldly business as they are. The great things of the world are ministered by them. Neither do the lay people any great thing but at their assignment.

"If the Scripture were in the mother tongue," they will say, "then would the lay people understand it every man after his own ways." Wherefore serveth the curate but to teach them the right way? Wherefore were the holidays made but that the people should come and learn? Are ye not abominable schoolmasters in that ye take so great wages, if ye will not teach? If ye would teach, how could ye do it so well and with so great profit as when the lay people have the Scripture before them in their mother tongue? For then should they see, by the order of the text, whether thou juggledest or not. And then would they believe it because it is the Scripture of God, though thy living be never so abominable. Where now, because your living and your preaching are so contrary and because they grope out in every sermon your open and manifest lies and smell your unsatiable covetousness, they believe you not when you preach truth. But alas, the curates themselves (for the most part) wot no more what the New or Old Testament meaneth than do the Turks. Neither know they of any more than that they read at masse, matins, and evensong, which yet they understand not. Neither care they but even to mumble up so much every day (as the pie and popinjay speak they wot not what) to fill their bellies with all. If they will not let the lay-man have the word of God in his mother tongue, yet let the priests have it, which, for a great part of them, do understand no Latin at all; but sing and say and patter all day with the lips only that which the heart understandeth not.

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE BURNT (1529).

+Source.+--Edward Hall's _Henry VIII_. Grafton's Edition, 1548.[41]

Here is to be remembered, that at this present time, William Tindale had newly translated and imprinted the New Testament in English, and the Bishop of London, not pleased with the translation thereof, debated with himself, how he might compass and devise to destroy that false and erroneous translation, (as he said). And so it happened that one Augustine Packington, a Mercer and Merchant of London, and of great honesty, the same time was in Antwerp, where the Bishop then was, and this Packington was a man that highly favoured William Tindale, but to the bishop utterly showed himself to the contrary. The bishop desirous to have his purpose brought to pass, communed of the New Testament, and how gladly he would buy them. Packington then hearing that he wished for, said unto the bishop, my Lord, if it be your pleasure, I can in this matter do more, I dare say, than most of the Merchants of England that are here, for I know the Dutchmen and strangers, that have bought them of Tyndale, and have them here to sell, so that if it be your lordship's pleasure, to pay for them (for otherwise I cannot come by them, but I must disburse money for them) I will then assure you, to have every book of them, that is imprinted and is here unsold. The Bishop thinking that he had God by the toe, when indeed he had (as after he thought) the Devil by the fist, said, gentle Master Packington, do your diligence and get them, and with all my heart I will pay for them, whatsoever they cost you, for the books are erroneous and naughty, and I intend surely to destroy them all, and to burn them at Paul's Cross. Augustine Packington came to William Tyndale and said, William I know thou art a poor man, and hast a heap of new Testaments and books by thee for the which thou hast both endangered thy friends, and beggared thyself, and I have now gotten thee a Merchant, which with ready money shall dispatch thee of all that thou hast, if you think it so profitable for yourself. Who is the merchant, said Tyndale. The bishop of London, said Packington. O that is because he will burn them, said Tyndale. Yea Mary, quod Packington. I am the gladder, said Tyndale, for these two benefits shall come thereof, I shall get money of him for these books, to bring myself out of debt, and the whole world shall cry out upon the burning of God's word. And the overplus of the money that shall remain to me, shall make me more studious, to correct the said New Testament, and so newly to imprint the same once again, and I trust the second will much better like you, than ever did the first: And so forward went the bargain, the bishop had the books, Packington the thanks, and Tyndale had the money. Afterwards, when more new Testaments were imprinted, they came thick and threefold into England. The bishop of London hearing that still there were so many New Testaments abroad, sent for Augustine Packington and said unto him: Sir, how cometh this that there are so many New Testaments abroad, and you promised and assured me that you had bought all? Then said Packington, I promise you I bought all that there was to be had: but I perceive they have made more since, and it will never be better, as long as they have the letters and stamps; therefore it were best for your lordship, to buy the stamps too, and then are you sure: the bishop smiled at him and said, Well Packington, well. And so ended this matter.

[Footnote 41: No reference has been given to the paging, as it is improbable that readers will have access to the Grafton Edition. Should there be need for further reference to Hall's Life, no difficulty will be found, as in all editions each year has a separate chapter.]

TWO LETTERS WRITTEN BY KING HENRY TO THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD, FOR THEIR OPINION IN THE CAUSE OF HIS MARRIAGE (1529).