1535—1537
London, England

“With the King’s Most Gracious License”

Here may all manner of persons: men, women; young, old; learned, unlearned; rich, poor; priests, laymen; lords, ladies; officers, tenants, and mean [average] men; virgins, wives, widows; lawyers, merchants, artificers, husbandmen, and all manner of persons, of what estate or condition soever they be; may in this book learn all things, what they ought to believe, what they ought to do, and what they should not do, as well concerning Almighty God, as also concerning themselves, and all others.

—Thomas Cranmer, “Preface to the Great Bible”

“Before They Call, I Will Answer”

The Lord promised Isaiah “that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear” (Isaiah 65:24). He was true to his word to his faithful servant William Tyndale, for even as William offered his final prayer at the stake in Brussels, his friend, Miles Coverdale, was busy printing a complete Bible in English. Coverdale was a friend of Thomas Cromwell, who favored a Bible in English and whose influence with Henry was at its height. Anne Boleyn’s influence also cannot be minimized. She owned a deluxe copy of Tyndale’s 1534 New Testament, a gift from an Antwerp merchant with the words Anna Regina Angliaestill faintly seen on its gold edges. The Bible would soon strengthen English nationalism and widen the gap between London and Rome. But Coverdale needed no political motivation or prodding from high officials; his friend was alone in the dark of Vilvorde, and he knew his friend’s desires.

In the fall and winter of 1535—36, a full Bible appeared in the streets of London. It was printed on the Continent, shipped to England, and bound by the English printer James Nicolson. Coverdale was not fluent in Greek and Hebrew, but he knew how to take the best from what others had done and was a scholar in his own right. In working with Tyndale, he had learned to tune his ear to the harmony of an English phrase. The New Testament and Pentateuch were Tyndale’s, but Coverdale gave us such phrases as “the pride of life,” “enter thou into the joy of the Lord,” “tender mercies,” “respect of persons,” “lovingkindness,” “the valley of the shadow of death,” and the memorable petition from the Lord’s Prayer, “and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,” which Coverdale altered slightly from Tyndale’s rendering.¹

“Let It Go Abroad among Our People”

Coverdale’s Bible came to Henry’s attention through Thomas Cromwell. Henry immediately asked some of his bishops to read it. Many hesitated to let it circulate freely, citing a number of criticisms, but Henry asked them point-blank, “Well, but are there any heresies maintained thereby?” They admitted there were none. “If there be no heresies, then in God’s name let it go abroad among our people.”² Tyndale and Frith both had promised the king they would remain silent if only he would let a translation of God’s word spread among the common people of England. They were both now silent, and the words they gave their lives to hear had finally been spoken by the king.

Coverdale would not put forth his work without giving credit to Tyndale. However, since Tyndale’s name was still stained with the mark of heresy, Coverdale could not do so openly. Yet, in his prologue to the reader, he gave a hint, according veiled recognition to Tyndale. Indeed, it was for that man’s vision he had undertaken his present labors. Coverdale wrote:

“Considering how excellent knowledge and learning an interpreter of scripture ought to have in the tongues, and pondering also mine own insufficiency therein, and how weak I am to perform the office of a translator, I was the more loath to meddle with this work. Notwithstanding when I considered how great pity it was that we should want it so long, and called to my remembrance the adversity of them which were not only of ripe knowledge, but would also with all their hearts have performed that they began, if they had not had impediment: considering (I say) that by reason of their adversity it could not so soon have been brought to an end, as our most prosperous nation would fain have had it: these and other reasonable causes considered, I was the more bold to take it in hand.”³

W T

Tyndale’s friend John Rogers also knew of his “adversity” and “impediment.” Rogers, the chaplain of the English House in Antwerp, was the last person to work with Tyndale. He had something Coverdale lacked—the manuscript copy of Tyndale’s translation of the historical books of the Old Testament. Whether he obtained them from Poyntz’s wife before the Brussels authorities could confiscate them or knew they were hidden in another spot, he was determined to take advantage of the current atmosphere in England and produce a Bible with all of Tyndale’s work included. He too was wary of using Tyndale’s name openly or of even using his own for that matter.

Rogers’s edition was published in Antwerp under the name Thomas Matthew and has been called Matthew’s Bible ever since. Rogers had his own way of bestowing credit where it was due. He placed his initials, “JR,” at the end of an exhortation to the reader, and the initials of the English merchants who financed the publication, Richard Grafton and Edward Whitchurch, on the backside of the title page to the prophets. These were done in beautifully fashioned letters. He also placed the initials “W T” at the end of Malachi. Large enough to cover half the page, they were also done in elaborate design. It was 1537. Tyndale had been dead but a short time.

Coverdale’s version was allowed in England’s bookshops by vocal approval of the king, but Archbishop Cranmer and Thomas Cromwell wanted official written sanction for an English Bible and set out to get it. When Matthew’s Bible appeared, Cranmer sent it to Cromwell with the following note:

“You shall receive by the bringer hereof a Bible in English, both of a new translation and of a new print. . . . So far as I have read thereof, I like it better than any other translation heretofore made. . . . I pray you, my Lord, that you will exhibit the book unto the king’s highness, and to obtain of his Grace, if you can, a license that the same may be sold and read of every person, without danger of any act, proclamation, or ordinance, heretofore granted to the contrary, until such time that we the Bishops shall set forth a better translation, which I think will not be till a day after doomsday.”⁴

“The Light Which Every Man Doth See”

Cranmer knew his fellow bishops as well as his king. He was asking Henry to revoke every prohibition to the English Bible back to the Constitutions of Oxford and to allow Tyndale’s translation to be acceptable, but only until the bishops produced a “better translation,” which he knew would never happen. Effectively, Matthew’s Bible would become the official English Bible. That same year, the bishops met in convocation and discussed an English translation. Fierce opposition arose from the more Catholic-leaning bishops, but Cromwell had the upper hand. Bishop John Stokesley, in particular, was adamant that a widely read English Bible would challenge the very pillars of Christendom, but Edward Fox, the bishop of Hereford, calmly arose and turned the tide with cold, clear logic:

“Think ye not that we can, by any sophisticated subtleties, steal out of the world again the light which every man doth see. Christ hath so lightened the world at this time that the light of the Gospel hath put to flight all misty darkness; and it will shortly have the higher hand of all clouds, though we resist in vain never so much. The lay people do now know the Holy Scripture better than many of us. . . . Wherefore, ye must consider earnestly what ye will determine of these controversies, that ye make not yourselves to be mocked and laughed to scorn of all the world.”⁵

Hints of Lehi’s dream, as well as of Gamaliel’s advice to the Pharisees, pervade this passage (1 Nephi 8; Acts 5:34—39). And, of course, we hear Tyndale’s own boast given in Little Sodbury a decade earlier that he would see that the ploughboy knew more of the scriptures than the clergy.

In Every Parish Church

Matthew’s Bible, which was at heart Tyndale’s Bible, was “set forth with the King’s most gracious license.” The victory was won! Henry, who had once allowed the fiery destruction of both Tyndale’s translations and those who owned them, now officially sanctioned them. Crowds now gathered to the warmth of Tyndale’s English instead of the burning of his smuggled pages. Six copies were placed in St. Paul’s, the site of so many public burnings. Men would step forward and begin reading to the pressing people. When their voices tired and began to fade, others would take their place as the life of Jesus held the listeners spellbound for hours.

But Cromwell and Archbishop Cranmer were not yet finished. The English Bible should be had in every parish church across the realm, including the smallest rural chapel, where those who could not purchase their own could still hear the flowing cadences and cryptic truths so admirably expressed by one of England’s greatest native sons.

Some of the marginal notes in Matthew’s Bible, however, were not popular with many of the realm’s clergy. So Coverdale was approached and asked to produce a new Bible, drawing upon the best from both his own edition and the Matthew’s Bible edition. Coverdale did his work in France with one of Europe’s most skilled printers, but the French inquisition caught wind of it, forcing him to use bribes and smuggling techniques polished during darker days. After the printed sheets had been safely delivered as “waste paper” in England, Cromwell bought the press and type and hired the original printers to finish the job in England.

In 1539, the Great Bible was completed, so called because of its size—small enough to fit comfortably on the pulpit of a parish church but large enough for all to see its conspicuous presence. Its title page carried a hidden tribute to its major contributor: “The Bible in English . . . truly translated after the verity of the Hebrew and Greek texts, by the diligent study of diverse excellent learned men, expert in the foresaid tongues.”⁶

This version was also sponsored by Grafton and Whitchurch. Through Cromwell’s influence, Henry ordered the clergy to see that “one book of the whole Bible, of the largest volume, in English, and the same set up in some convenient place within the said church that you have cure of [responsibility for], whereat your parishioners may most commodiously resort to the same and read it.”⁷

In 1526, Tyndale’s New Testament was burned at St. Paul’s; now his words were placed in every parish church. Furthermore, the clergy were to “expressly provoke, stir and exhort every person to read the same, as that which is the very lively Word of God.”⁸

The Rod for the “Yoke” of Iron

How did the people in the villages and towns respond to their new English Bible? As in London, they crowded the churches to read and discuss the truths they found therein. Throngs became so thick and the services and sermons so often ignored that Henry issued another edict requesting his people to benefit from the new Great Bible “most humbly and reverently,” using it “quietly and charitably every [one] of you to the edifying of himself, his wife and family.”⁹ So great was the desire to know truth fresh from its source that the new Bible encouraged literacy among the people. The rod of iron was replacing the “yoke of iron” that had held men in “captivity” for so many dark centuries (1 Nephi 13:5). In 1611, the King James Version took as its foundation and core Tyndale’s work.

Tyndale published his first New Testament without adding his name because he wanted to follow his Savior’s command to do good works without the left hand knowing what the right hand was doing. He would not have been troubled by the fact that the crowds of common folk who massed around his translations did not know to whom they owed such a debt of gratitude. Nephi was once told, “It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief” (1 Nephi 4:13). In a reverse application of the Spirit’s words, one man had perished—doing so because his nation had lingered long enough in the dark world of unbelief and because the light of God’s words could not forever be locked in the prison of dead languages, clerical ignorance, and blind authority.

We must not let his name perish from the conscious memory of those who love the Bible’s reverberating words, so melodiously rendered in the simple, plain speech of the common man—words that have lifted and inspired the English race for five centuries.

Notes

^1. Bobrick, Wide As the Waters, 145.

^2. Bruce, History of the Bible, 55—56.

^3. Ibid., 57—58.

^4. Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, 255.

^5. Bobrick, Wide As the Waters, 147.

^6. Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, 256—57; spelling standardized.

^7. Ibid., 258; spelling standardized.

^8. Bruce, History of the Bible, 68.

^9. Price, Ancestry of Our English Bible, 259.