Chap. ii. Cochlaus accounts of Tyndale's first attempt In the next year (1525) Tyndale went to Cologne, and there began to print the translation of the New Testament, which he had by that time completed1. It was a time of sore trial for the Reformers. Luther's marriage troubled some, His breach with Karlstadt alienated others. The rising of the peasants furnished a ready pretext to the lukewarm for confounding the new doctrines with revolutionary license. But Tyndale laboured on in silence, and ten sheets of his Testament were printed in quarto when his work was stopped by the intrigues of Cochlæus, a relentless enemy of the Reformation2. It is a strange and vivid picture which Cochlæus, who is the historian of his own achievement, draws of to print his the progress and discovery of the work. The translation New Testa ment. of the New Testament of Luther'-so he calls it-was, in his eyes, part of a great scheme for converting all England to Lutheranism. The expense, as he learnt, was defrayed by English merchants; and their design. was only betrayed by their excess of confidence. But though Cochlæus was aware of the design, he could not 1 Fryth did not join him till 1528; and there is no evidence that either his amanuensis Roye, or Joy, if he was with him at the time, had any independent part in the translation. See below, ch. III. The date of the printing of the New Testament is established by the use of a woodcut as the frontispiece to St Matthew which was afterwards cut down and used in an edition of Rupert of Deutz, finished June 12, 1526. A facsimile of each of these wood-cuts is given in Mr Arber's edition of the fragment, p. 71. 2 The one fragment of this edition which remains (see below, p 37) has been photo-lithographed and published with an excellent intro duction by Mr E. Arber (London, 1871), who has printed at length with great exactness and illustrated by careful notes the original records bearing upon the early life and work of Tyndale. 3 Mr Arber has given at length (.c. pp. 18 ff.) the three passages, from works dated respectively 1533, 1538, 1549, in which Cochlæus mentions the transaction: the last account, from De Actis et Scriptis M. Lutheri, pp. 132 ff., is in every respect the most detailed. Cochlæus thinks that Henry VIII. was as much indebted to him for the information as Ahasuerus to Mordecai, though he gave him no acknowledgment for the service. for some time find any clue to the office where it was being executed. At last becoming familiar with the printers of Cologne while engaged on a book to be published there, he heard them in unguarded moments boast of the revolution which would be shortly wrought in England. The clue was not neglected. He invited some of them to his house, and plying them with wine learned where three thousand copies of the English Testament were being worked off, for speedy and secret distribution through England. He took immediate measures to secure the aid of the authorities of the city for checking the work. The printers were forbidden to proceed, but Tyndale and Roye taking their printed sheets with them escaped to Worms by ship. Cochlæus -it was all he could then do-warned Henry, Wolsey, and Fisher of the peril to which they were exposed, that so they might take measures 'to prevent the importation 'of the pernicious merchandise.' Meanwhile Tyndale pursued his work under more favourable circumstances. The place to which he fled was already memorable in the annals of the Reformation. It was then not much more than four years since the marvellous scene when Luther entered Worms (1521) to bear witness before the Emperor. But within that time the city had 'become wholly Lutheran'. So Tyndale found a safe retreat there, and prepared two editions of his New Testament instead of one. The edition, which had been commenced at Cologne, was in quarto and furnished with marginal glosses. A description of this had been sent to England by Cochlæus, and therefore, as it seems, to baffle his enemies Tyndale commenced a new edition in small octavo without glosses. 1 Anderson, I. p. 64, quoting Cochlæus (plebs pleno furore Lutherizabat) and Seckendorf. Chap. ii. Tyndale finishes two editions at Worms, Chap. ii. in octavo, This octavo edition was finished first. In a short epistle to the reader, which is placed at the end, the translator The words just quoted in part describe the general and quarto. Prologue and glosses with which the quarto edition was furnished, and Tyndale appears to have lost no time. in completing this interrupted work'. Both editions 1 The quarto edition was com- it has been conjectured, completed menced by Quentel. The octavo was printed by P. Schoeffer, the son of one of the first great triumvirate of printers. The same printer, the quarto; but of this there is no direct evidence, as the Grenville Fragment contains only sheets AH, while A-K were printed by reached England without any indication of the translator's name' early in 1526; and, as might have been expected, the quarto edition first attracted attention, while for a short time the undescribed octavo escaped notice. Chap. ii. Lee's Letter Before the books arrived Henry VIII. had received a second warning of the impending danger from his almoner Dec. 2, 1525. Lee, afterwards archbishop of York, who was then on the Continent. Writing to the king from Bordeaux on Dec. 2nd, 1525, Lee says: 'Please it your highness to 'understand that I am certainly informed, as I passed "in this country, that an Englishman your subject, at the 'solicitation and instance of Luther, with whom he is, 'hath translated the New Testament into English, and Quentel. There is not however any reasonable doubt that the quarto edition was completed about the same time as the first octavo, and therefore it seems likely that it was completed at Worms and by Schoeffer. Two editions, a large and a small, one with and one without glosses, made their appearance simultaneously in England. Three thousand copies of the first sheets of the quarto were struck off and six thousand is said to have been the whole number of New Testaments printed. Moreover it is not likely that Tyndale would allow the sheets which he rescued to lie idle. [On the other hand, as Mr F. Fry reminds me, there is no direct evidence that the quarto edition was printed at Worms or printed in 1525, or that the Cologne sheets were used in this edition. But on the whole the conjectural interpretation of the facts which I have ventured to give seems to me to be correct. It is of course possible that the chapters of Mat'thew' referred to by Necton as in his possession before the Testaments may refer to these sheets, and not to another separate publication of that Gospel. Strype, Mem. II. p. 62. See Tyndale's name was attached to The cause why I set D Chap. ii. abroad. 'within few days intendeth to arrive with the same im'printed in England. I need not to advertise your grace 'what infection and danger may ensue hereby if it 'be not withstanded. This is the next way to fulfil your 'realm with Lutherans.' And then he adds, 'All our 'forefathers, governors of the Church of England, have 'with all diligence forbid and eschewed publication of 'English Bibles, as appeareth in constitutions provincial 'of the Church of England'...' The account which reached Lee's ears had travelled far and was inaccurate in its details; but the swiftness with which it reached him is a proof of the interest which Cochlaus' discovery excited. Another notice of Tyndale's translation which appears in the diary of a German scholar under August 1526 is more truthful The work a and full of interest. After mentioning other subjects of subject of conversation conversation at the dinner table, as the war with the Turks, the exhaustion of the bishops by the peasants' war, the literary troubles of Erasmus, he adds, one told us that 6000 copies of the English Testament had been 'printed at Worms. That it was translated by an Englishman who lived there with two of his country'men, who was so complete a master of seven languages, 'Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Italian, Spanish, English, 'French, that you would fancy that whichever one he 'spoke was his mother tongue. He added that the 'English, in spite of the active opposition of the king, 'were so eager for the Gospel as to affirm that they 'would buy a New Testament even if they had to give 'a hundred thousand pieces of money for it".' 1 For this letter I am indebted to same effect, informing him that he had written to the king. Brewer, State Papers, 1802. 2 Etiamsi centenis millibus æris sit redimendum. Diary of Spala |