0:00:07 > 0:00:09500 years ago,
0:00:09 > 0:00:12this was the scene of a primitive
0:00:12 > 0:00:13and horrifying execution.
0:00:15 > 0:00:20In 1536, an English priest and one of its very greatest scholars,
0:00:20 > 0:00:24was led from his cell to a nearby bridge,
0:00:24 > 0:00:30tied to a stake, wood piled around him and burnt to death.
0:00:30 > 0:00:34His crime was translating the Bible into English.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39His name was William Tyndale.
0:00:41 > 0:00:43Today, many have never even heard of him,
0:00:43 > 0:00:47yet this man's legacy lives on in every English-speaking country.
0:00:49 > 0:00:51Tyndale's influence is immeasurable.
0:00:51 > 0:00:53His translation of the Bible
0:00:53 > 0:00:55fuelled a Protestant ascendancy
0:00:55 > 0:00:57that went throughout the world.
0:00:57 > 0:01:01The biblical ideas that he released into the common tongue
0:01:01 > 0:01:04fired the English Reformation.
0:01:04 > 0:01:08And his genius, now acknowledged,
0:01:08 > 0:01:10makes him, alongside Shakespeare,
0:01:10 > 0:01:14one of the co-creators of the modern English language.
0:01:16 > 0:01:19Tyndale's words and phrases have shaped the way
0:01:19 > 0:01:22we express ourselves and what we believe.
0:01:22 > 0:01:24Yet he's been written out of history,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28perhaps because of the savage truths his story reveals
0:01:28 > 0:01:32about the men and women who dominated Tudor England.
0:01:33 > 0:01:35William Tyndale was a matchless scholar
0:01:35 > 0:01:37whose heroic life of principle
0:01:37 > 0:01:41took on the great forces of Henry VIII with only an army of words
0:01:41 > 0:01:45and proved him to be a hypocrite, a bully and a tyrant.
0:01:45 > 0:01:50Henry VIII retaliated by trying to hunt him down and have him killed.
0:01:53 > 0:01:55I think that William Tyndale
0:01:55 > 0:01:58is one of the greatest men in English history.
0:01:58 > 0:02:01And in this film, I'm going to uncover his remarkable story.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07It's a quest that reveals a courageous pioneer
0:02:07 > 0:02:10who wanted to see the word of God accessible to everyone,
0:02:10 > 0:02:13from plough boy to monarch.
0:02:13 > 0:02:16But his work was thought to be an act of revolution,
0:02:16 > 0:02:19feared by kings and statesmen and bishops alike,
0:02:19 > 0:02:23who believed it would cause the status quo to be ripped apart.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27In the longer term, they were right.
0:02:28 > 0:02:32This is a story of 16th-century espionage.
0:02:32 > 0:02:34The burning of heretics and sympathisers
0:02:34 > 0:02:39who risked their lives to get the word of God into English homes.
0:02:39 > 0:02:43It's a story of a man who was hounded out of his own country
0:02:43 > 0:02:48and spent most of his adult life on the run, in exile.
0:02:48 > 0:02:52Yet no-one in history has changed our language as he did.
0:02:52 > 0:02:56No-one has had the impact on it, which released imagination,
0:02:56 > 0:03:00shaped thought and reconsidered belief.
0:03:02 > 0:03:03So, who was William Tyndale
0:03:03 > 0:03:05and why did his work strike fear
0:03:05 > 0:03:08into the hearts of England's most powerful men?
0:03:28 > 0:03:31William Tyndale was a man from the heart of England.
0:03:32 > 0:03:35It was in these tranquil Cotswold hills on the Welsh border
0:03:35 > 0:03:37that his turbulent life began.
0:03:39 > 0:03:45He was born here in 1494, in an area dominated by the wool trade.
0:03:45 > 0:03:48His parents were cloth traders, so he grew up among farmers,
0:03:48 > 0:03:50merchants and the people round here,
0:03:50 > 0:03:53the commons of England, from whom he was to draw so much.
0:04:02 > 0:04:04This farm in the village of Slimbridge
0:04:04 > 0:04:06once belonged to Tyndale's brother, Edward,
0:04:06 > 0:04:08and it's still a working farm today.
0:04:11 > 0:04:12- Hello, Ken.- Hello, Melvyn.
0:04:12 > 0:04:14- How are you? Good to see you. - Fine, thank you.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16It's amazing, isn't it, William Tyndale, born here?
0:04:16 > 0:04:19- Yes, it is. - Changed a bit since then.
0:04:19 > 0:04:22Everyday life then was a hard grind.
0:04:22 > 0:04:25But there was also great hope of something more.
0:04:25 > 0:04:30The world of Tyndale's childhood was dominated by religion.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33England was an obedient Roman Catholic country.
0:04:33 > 0:04:35He would go to mass every Sunday,
0:04:35 > 0:04:38he would be taught that his purpose in this world
0:04:38 > 0:04:41was to seek salvation in the next.
0:04:41 > 0:04:44And to that end, he'd go to confession and do penance.
0:04:44 > 0:04:48His daily life would beat to the drumroll of the calendar
0:04:48 > 0:04:51and the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56And the language of the Church and its Bible was Latin.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59Beyond most people's comprehension.
0:05:00 > 0:05:01They spoke English,
0:05:01 > 0:05:04a language not seen as fit for the word of God,
0:05:04 > 0:05:08which meant they couldn't understand the Bible for themselves.
0:05:09 > 0:05:11And for the monarchy and the ruling class,
0:05:11 > 0:05:13it was very useful that the people, the commons,
0:05:13 > 0:05:16didn't know this language, this Latin.
0:05:16 > 0:05:19It gave them control in thought and word and deed,
0:05:19 > 0:05:21as elite language always does.
0:05:21 > 0:05:24At that time, religion and politics
0:05:24 > 0:05:26were different sides of the same coin.
0:05:26 > 0:05:28This was the currency
0:05:28 > 0:05:31and Henry VIII was determined to keep his grip on it.
0:05:32 > 0:05:34BELLS PEAL
0:05:35 > 0:05:38And for the Catholic Church, control of the Bible through Latin
0:05:38 > 0:05:42was crucial to maintaining its structure and power.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48Many of the key concepts of the Roman Catholic Church at that time,
0:05:48 > 0:05:50purgatory, penance, confession,
0:05:50 > 0:05:54even the hierarchy itself, weren't in the Bible.
0:05:54 > 0:05:57They were the rulings of popes through the centuries.
0:05:57 > 0:05:59Canon law, it was called.
0:05:59 > 0:06:03And unless people could read the Bible, get past the Latin,
0:06:03 > 0:06:07they couldn't gather the evidence to challenge these concepts.
0:06:12 > 0:06:16In the 16th century, even to attempt a translation of the Bible
0:06:16 > 0:06:18into English was illegal,
0:06:18 > 0:06:20an act of heresy, punishable by death.
0:06:21 > 0:06:23Yet even as a boy around here,
0:06:23 > 0:06:27Tyndale dreamed of translating the Bible into English.
0:06:27 > 0:06:29And one day, he would risk his life
0:06:29 > 0:06:32to become the liberator of this sacred text.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43It was in Oxford, where Tyndale began his education,
0:06:43 > 0:06:46that he first realised both the power and the dangers
0:06:46 > 0:06:48of attempting an English translation of the Bible.
0:06:51 > 0:06:56He arrived here in the spring of 1506 to attend Magdalen School,
0:06:56 > 0:06:59and then Magdalen Hall, where he did his BA.
0:07:01 > 0:07:05The school is no longer here, but one of its original buildings
0:07:05 > 0:07:07is still part of what's now Magdalen College.
0:07:09 > 0:07:11William Tyndale came here when he was 12 years old.
0:07:11 > 0:07:13He would stay for eight years.
0:07:13 > 0:07:16He got what was probably the finest education available
0:07:16 > 0:07:19at that time in the whole of the medieval world.
0:07:21 > 0:07:25During Tyndale's time here, England gained a new king.
0:07:25 > 0:07:29In 1509, Henry VIII came to the throne.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32And he was gathering around him the men who would become
0:07:32 > 0:07:34his most influential advisers.
0:07:34 > 0:07:36They would come to dominate
0:07:36 > 0:07:38the course of Tyndale's life and mission.
0:07:39 > 0:07:41The first of these was Wolsey.
0:07:41 > 0:07:44He'd been at this college a generation before Tyndale
0:07:44 > 0:07:47and he was a stunningly-brilliant scholar.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50He became the Lord Chancellor and then a cardinal,
0:07:50 > 0:07:52a mighty force in the land.
0:07:56 > 0:08:00Alongside Wolsey was Thomas More, a devoted Catholic
0:08:00 > 0:08:04and soon to become one of Henry's most trusted advisers,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08as well as the most feared heretic hunter in the land...
0:08:08 > 0:08:09and Tyndale's arch-enemy.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15It was here at Oxford
0:08:15 > 0:08:19that Tyndale's passion for languages and rhetoric flourished,
0:08:19 > 0:08:23skills which were essential for his later work, translating the Bible.
0:08:24 > 0:08:26But the approach to studying the Bible here
0:08:26 > 0:08:29had been undisturbed for centuries.
0:08:32 > 0:08:33The Bible was studied in Latin.
0:08:33 > 0:08:37And the emphasis was on scrutinising particular verses and passages,
0:08:37 > 0:08:39with little sense of the whole.
0:08:39 > 0:08:41Oxford was a fortress
0:08:41 > 0:08:45of Roman Catholic domination and authority.
0:08:45 > 0:08:48It stood for stability and continuity.
0:08:48 > 0:08:51And any intrusions from heretics
0:08:51 > 0:08:53were to be guarded against and repelled.
0:08:53 > 0:08:55Tyndale was not impressed.
0:08:57 > 0:09:01It was during his education here that Tyndale began to reject
0:09:01 > 0:09:04the ancient and unchallenged approach to the Bible
0:09:04 > 0:09:07and expose himself to new, and more radical, ideas
0:09:07 > 0:09:09coming from the Continent.
0:09:10 > 0:09:13Tyndale's imagination was fired
0:09:13 > 0:09:17by the great Dutch classical scholar and humanist, Erasmus.
0:09:17 > 0:09:20Erasmus believed that, to get to the truth of a text,
0:09:20 > 0:09:24you had to study it in the language in which it was originally written.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27In the case of the New Testament, that was Greek.
0:09:27 > 0:09:31So Erasmus began to prepare a new Greek edition of the New Testament.
0:09:31 > 0:09:34This opened Tyndale's eyes.
0:09:34 > 0:09:36Greek was the key.
0:09:38 > 0:09:42But it was an endeavour the Catholic hierarchy viewed with suspicion.
0:09:45 > 0:09:48This, after all, to very many people, was a sacred book,
0:09:48 > 0:09:50like the Koran is today.
0:09:50 > 0:09:52You touched it at your peril.
0:09:52 > 0:09:54You left it alone. It was the word of God.
0:09:56 > 0:10:00The fear was that, if you began to go back to the original text
0:10:00 > 0:10:01and find discrepancies,
0:10:01 > 0:10:04you would undermine this word of God.
0:10:04 > 0:10:06It would be dangerous.
0:10:09 > 0:10:10Tyndale didn't share their fears.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14For him, Erasmus was an inspiration.
0:10:16 > 0:10:18And it wasn't just Erasmus.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22He also began to hear talk of Luther,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26an obscure radical German monk, who, in 1517,
0:10:26 > 0:10:29launched an attack on the power of the Pope.
0:10:30 > 0:10:32He translated the Bible into German,
0:10:32 > 0:10:35the language of the common people.
0:10:36 > 0:10:40Luther's study of the Bible led him to radical new beliefs
0:10:40 > 0:10:43which struck at the heart of the Catholic Church.
0:10:43 > 0:10:47Which was how you achieved eternal life.
0:10:47 > 0:10:49He said that nothing in the Bible
0:10:49 > 0:10:52talked about the Church being the intermediary,
0:10:52 > 0:10:54holding the key to the gates.
0:10:54 > 0:10:58What it said in the Bible was that you were justified by faith.
0:10:58 > 0:11:00This was the doctrine of grace.
0:11:01 > 0:11:03There couldn't have been a bigger battle.
0:11:03 > 0:11:06The Church saying, "We are the gates to heaven."
0:11:06 > 0:11:08And Luther saying, "No!
0:11:08 > 0:11:12"It's the individual and justification by faith."
0:11:12 > 0:11:13It was war.
0:11:16 > 0:11:18This wasn't just a war of words.
0:11:18 > 0:11:20Souls were at stake.
0:11:21 > 0:11:24If Luther was right, there was no need
0:11:24 > 0:11:28for the complex Church structure put in place for securing salvation.
0:11:29 > 0:11:32Confession, penances, pilgrimages. They were all redundant.
0:11:35 > 0:11:39Luther's ideas triggered revolution in Europe.
0:11:39 > 0:11:40Riots and wars.
0:11:40 > 0:11:4230,000 deaths.
0:11:42 > 0:11:44And they ushered in the Reformation,
0:11:44 > 0:11:48which struck fear in the hearts of the Catholic Tudors.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55Martin Luther made Henry VIII famous.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57With some help from his friends,
0:11:57 > 0:12:00Henry VIII wrote a rebuttal of Luther, savaging him.
0:12:00 > 0:12:03This gained the sympathy and admiration of the Pope,
0:12:03 > 0:12:06who dubbed him Defender of the Faith.
0:12:06 > 0:12:08With this great swagger title,
0:12:08 > 0:12:11Henry saw himself as the Pope's avenging sword
0:12:11 > 0:12:13against these new ideas.
0:12:14 > 0:12:17For Tyndale, it was his attraction to Luther's dangerous arguments
0:12:17 > 0:12:20that put him on a collision course with the Tudors...
0:12:23 > 0:12:25..and marked his first steps towards martyrdom.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37After Oxford, Tyndale was ordained as a priest.
0:12:38 > 0:12:41And it was in his very first post back in Gloucestershire,
0:12:41 > 0:12:43as tutor and chaplain to the Walsh family,
0:12:43 > 0:12:46that his subversive beliefs began to cause a stir.
0:12:49 > 0:12:53A contemporary record reports he attended dinners with local clergy,
0:12:53 > 0:12:55in which discussions were heated.
0:12:57 > 0:12:58According to the account,
0:12:58 > 0:13:03a churchman Tyndale was arguing with said,
0:13:03 > 0:13:08"It would be better to be without God's laws than the Pope's."
0:13:08 > 0:13:12This totally appalled and infuriated Tyndale,
0:13:12 > 0:13:14as it had done Luther.
0:13:14 > 0:13:18The whole point was that the Bible contained the word of God,
0:13:18 > 0:13:20not laws and rules
0:13:20 > 0:13:23made by successive popes over centuries
0:13:23 > 0:13:25and turned into a system
0:13:25 > 0:13:29which he objected to in almost every particular.
0:13:29 > 0:13:32For Tyndale, the only way to save your soul,
0:13:32 > 0:13:35which was the only meaning of being on Earth,
0:13:35 > 0:13:38was to listen to the word of God.
0:13:38 > 0:13:41And to find the word of God, you were to understand it,
0:13:41 > 0:13:44preferably in your own language.
0:13:47 > 0:13:49It was an argument that provoked Tyndale to lay bare,
0:13:49 > 0:13:51probably for the first time,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54the ambition that would drive the rest of his life.
0:13:54 > 0:13:58His determination to translate the Bible into English.
0:14:00 > 0:14:03At that same meeting, Tyndale's reported as saying
0:14:03 > 0:14:07that he defied the Pope and all his laws.
0:14:07 > 0:14:09And he added, "If God spares me,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13"I will cause the boy that driveth the plough
0:14:13 > 0:14:16"to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost."
0:14:18 > 0:14:20Tyndale's passion to make God's word
0:14:20 > 0:14:23accessible to the ordinary men and women of England
0:14:23 > 0:14:24was made explicit.
0:14:26 > 0:14:30Tyndale's choice of the image of the plough boy was brilliant...
0:14:31 > 0:14:34..because the plough boy was illiterate.
0:14:34 > 0:14:36And what Tyndale intended to do
0:14:36 > 0:14:39was to write a book, a bible,
0:14:39 > 0:14:42that would be available to everybody,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45that could be read aloud and understood by everybody.
0:14:45 > 0:14:49And the effect of this was to be immeasurable.
0:14:53 > 0:14:54In Tyndale's eyes,
0:14:54 > 0:14:58the Catholic clergy seemed unfit to transmit the word of God.
0:15:00 > 0:15:04So the commons of England had to be able to read it for themselves,
0:15:04 > 0:15:07in plain English, to ensure their souls were saved.
0:15:10 > 0:15:14But Tyndale's criticism of papal law and his radical ambition
0:15:14 > 0:15:17turned the local clergy against him.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20Rumour spread that he was a heretic
0:15:20 > 0:15:22and his days in Gloucestershire were numbered.
0:15:24 > 0:15:28To achieve his dream, Tyndale needed a patron.
0:15:28 > 0:15:29He made for London.
0:15:38 > 0:15:42In the 16th century, this was a city of spies and heretic hunters.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48And it was well known that sympathisers of an English Bible
0:15:48 > 0:15:49faced severe punishment.
0:15:54 > 0:15:57London under Henry VIII could be a savage city.
0:15:57 > 0:16:00There were as many prisons, stocks and whipping posts
0:16:00 > 0:16:01as there were gleaming spires.
0:16:01 > 0:16:04Whispers of Lutheranism reported to bishops
0:16:04 > 0:16:06led to people being tried and tortured.
0:16:07 > 0:16:11It wasn't the best place to come to seek the privacy and the finance
0:16:11 > 0:16:13to translate the Bible into English.
0:16:16 > 0:16:19But Tyndale, nonetheless, sought out the man he believed
0:16:19 > 0:16:21would help him realise his ambition.
0:16:23 > 0:16:25Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of London.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31Tunstall was a traditionalist.
0:16:31 > 0:16:35He hated Luther just as much as his master, Henry VIII, hated Luther.
0:16:35 > 0:16:37He was also a friend of Thomas More,
0:16:37 > 0:16:40by then, Speaker of the House of Commons.
0:16:40 > 0:16:44The two of them were united in loathing any sort of heresy.
0:16:44 > 0:16:48When Tyndale went to see Tunstall, he was polite to him, we're told,
0:16:48 > 0:16:49but he showed him the door
0:16:49 > 0:16:52and he made sure that no other door in London
0:16:52 > 0:16:56was open to him to translate this sacred text into English.
0:17:03 > 0:17:04If Tyndale had shown an innocence
0:17:04 > 0:17:07in thinking the bishop would back his cause,
0:17:07 > 0:17:10it seemed he knew immediately what this rebuff meant.
0:17:12 > 0:17:15In 1524, he boarded a boat out of London.
0:17:18 > 0:17:20At a time when no new work could be published
0:17:20 > 0:17:22without permission of the Church,
0:17:22 > 0:17:25he knew that he would never achieve his mission in England.
0:17:27 > 0:17:30This was the most decisive moment of his life,
0:17:30 > 0:17:32a solitary scholar leaving the country
0:17:32 > 0:17:35he would crucially help revolutionise.
0:17:36 > 0:17:38Tyndale didn't know this at the time,
0:17:38 > 0:17:41but he'd embarked on a self-imposed exile
0:17:41 > 0:17:45which would last until his death, a decade later.
0:17:45 > 0:17:48He was in his twenties and he would never see England again.
0:17:48 > 0:17:52He would be fighting not only the people in this city -
0:17:52 > 0:17:55Bishop Tunstall and Sir Thomas More and King Henry VIII -
0:17:55 > 0:17:57but, eventually, the spies
0:17:57 > 0:18:00from the Holy Roman Emperor and from the Pope himself.
0:18:00 > 0:18:03For the rest of his life, William Tyndale was a hunted man.
0:18:07 > 0:18:09Tyndale's destination was Germany,
0:18:09 > 0:18:12Luther's home and a place where he believed
0:18:12 > 0:18:15he would find financial support for his venture.
0:18:18 > 0:18:21It was a journey that would set in motion a train of events,
0:18:21 > 0:18:24ultimately leading to chaos and revolution in England
0:18:24 > 0:18:26and trigger a battle
0:18:26 > 0:18:29in which religion almost destroyed the Tudors.
0:18:45 > 0:18:48When he reached the Continent, Tyndale disappeared
0:18:48 > 0:18:51and it was during his first two years undercover
0:18:51 > 0:18:52that he started work on a book
0:18:52 > 0:18:56that would make him the most dangerous man in England...
0:18:59 > 0:19:02..his translation of the New Testament.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05It's difficult to keep track of Tyndale once he's in Germany.
0:19:05 > 0:19:08He did some translating in Hamburg, some in Wittenberg,
0:19:08 > 0:19:10where he might have met Luther.
0:19:10 > 0:19:11Certainly, he learned vernacular German,
0:19:11 > 0:19:14in order to translate Luther's Bible into English,
0:19:14 > 0:19:18just as he was working on Erasmus's Greek version of the New Testament.
0:19:18 > 0:19:21He would work 12-15 hours a day, we're told.
0:19:21 > 0:19:24And when he'd finished it, the next thing was to find somebody
0:19:24 > 0:19:28who would be bold enough to take the risk of printing it.
0:19:30 > 0:19:33Cologne was a city known for its printing presses.
0:19:33 > 0:19:35It was also staunchly Catholic.
0:19:36 > 0:19:40The archbishop controlled all new publications
0:19:40 > 0:19:43and kept an eye on printers who might be publishing heretical works,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46an offence punishable by death.
0:19:50 > 0:19:53Although it was both a dangerous and expensive endeavour,
0:19:53 > 0:19:57Tyndale managed to find funding from sympathetic English merchants
0:19:57 > 0:19:59and a printer, Peter Quentell,
0:19:59 > 0:20:03who was willing to take a chance on his New Testament.
0:20:05 > 0:20:08But as the work began, Tyndale's plan was interrupted.
0:20:13 > 0:20:16One of Bishop Tunstall's friends and a notorious Bible hunter,
0:20:16 > 0:20:18Cochlaeus, was in Cologne.
0:20:20 > 0:20:22And by an unfortunate coincidence,
0:20:22 > 0:20:24he'd also commissioned Peter Quentell
0:20:24 > 0:20:26to publish a work for him.
0:20:28 > 0:20:32He got friendly with Quentell's men and, drunk one night,
0:20:32 > 0:20:36they revealed that 3,000 copies of an English New Testament
0:20:36 > 0:20:38were to be secretly shipped to England.
0:20:40 > 0:20:44The printer's workshop was raided.
0:20:44 > 0:20:47When the authorities arrived, Tyndale had already fled.
0:20:50 > 0:20:51But the damage was done.
0:20:51 > 0:20:55Word of his dangerous work was already on its way to England.
0:20:56 > 0:20:58Cochlaeus wrote to Wolsey and Henry VIII
0:20:58 > 0:21:02to keep a strict watch for the "pernicious merchandise."
0:21:11 > 0:21:13Tyndale might have escaped,
0:21:13 > 0:21:17but the printing of his New Testament was far from complete.
0:21:17 > 0:21:18So he took the pages he'd salvaged
0:21:18 > 0:21:22and made his way to the town of Worms, to finish what he'd begun.
0:21:25 > 0:21:28This must have been a tremendous moment for Tyndale.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30The book was being printed.
0:21:30 > 0:21:32He was on his way to achieving his great ambition
0:21:32 > 0:21:36and he was derisory about those who tried to stop him.
0:21:36 > 0:21:38"Who would be so bedlam mad,"
0:21:38 > 0:21:41he said, "as to keep people in dark ignorance,
0:21:41 > 0:21:45"when they could have access to true light, by reading the word of God?"
0:21:48 > 0:21:52The first step of Tyndale's ambition had been realised.
0:22:00 > 0:22:03Thousands of copies of the New Testament were printed,
0:22:03 > 0:22:07but there's only one complete copy still in existence
0:22:07 > 0:22:10and I've travelled to Stuttgart to see it.
0:22:14 > 0:22:18So here it is. The only remaining complete first edition
0:22:18 > 0:22:20of Tyndale's 1526 translation
0:22:20 > 0:22:23of the New Testament from Greek into English.
0:22:23 > 0:22:24The only one.
0:22:24 > 0:22:26Thousands were printed.
0:22:26 > 0:22:28This is the only complete one.
0:22:29 > 0:22:31And the first thing you think
0:22:31 > 0:22:32is how small it is.
0:22:32 > 0:22:34That's partly because it was forbidden
0:22:34 > 0:22:37in the country for which it was destined,
0:22:37 > 0:22:40and this could be hidden away in clothes.
0:22:40 > 0:22:43It could be carried around surreptitiously,
0:22:43 > 0:22:46and it had to be, because if you were caught with this Bible,
0:22:46 > 0:22:48you were liable to be tortured
0:22:48 > 0:22:50and sometimes executed.
0:22:50 > 0:22:53It had that powerful effect on the Tudors.
0:22:54 > 0:22:57And the greater effect was that, once its power
0:22:57 > 0:22:59spilled into the population,
0:22:59 > 0:23:01it changed Tudor history,
0:23:01 > 0:23:03English history and, eventually,
0:23:03 > 0:23:05world history, for ever.
0:23:07 > 0:23:10Tyndale's name is not on the title page.
0:23:10 > 0:23:14He didn't want himself, as it were, to get between the word of God
0:23:14 > 0:23:16and those it was destined for.
0:23:16 > 0:23:19But when you read the prose within it,
0:23:19 > 0:23:25you hear his unmistakeable voice in the phrases he chooses to use.
0:23:25 > 0:23:28"In the beginning was the word."
0:23:28 > 0:23:30"Eat, drink and be merry."
0:23:30 > 0:23:32"Our Father, which art in heaven."
0:23:32 > 0:23:37His language is simple and resonant, sentences short.
0:23:37 > 0:23:41And the phrases are ones that are still on our common tongue.
0:23:42 > 0:23:44For the ordinary men and women of England,
0:23:44 > 0:23:48to read this wasn't just an education, it was a revelation.
0:23:51 > 0:23:53It's almost impossible to imagine
0:23:53 > 0:23:56the effect that this translation in English
0:23:56 > 0:24:00had on the minds of the people who read it or who heard it in England.
0:24:00 > 0:24:04It was as if the dark cave of their minds had suddenly been illuminated
0:24:04 > 0:24:07and they had all the story of the New Testament - the characters,
0:24:07 > 0:24:11the conflicts, the arguments, the difficulties, the nuances.
0:24:11 > 0:24:13They were all theirs. They could talk about it.
0:24:13 > 0:24:15They could discuss God among themselves.
0:24:17 > 0:24:19Towards the end of his reign,
0:24:19 > 0:24:22Henry VIII was dismayed that he'd allowed this to happen.
0:24:22 > 0:24:25"Even a pot boy," he said, "will have an opinion!"
0:24:25 > 0:24:26And he was right.
0:24:26 > 0:24:27And he was fearful of it,
0:24:27 > 0:24:32because language produced by Tyndale became one of the great instruments
0:24:32 > 0:24:35which attacked the Tudor and forthcoming dynasties.
0:24:38 > 0:24:41And it was Tyndale's political, radical choice
0:24:41 > 0:24:44of very particular words that proved so subversive.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47This wasn't just a literary work,
0:24:47 > 0:24:50it was an attack on Catholic Tudor England.
0:24:53 > 0:24:57When he translated, he didn't just put one word there for another,
0:24:57 > 0:24:58he made a difference.
0:24:58 > 0:25:01Now, these, to non-scholars, like myself, might seem small,
0:25:01 > 0:25:03but at the time, they were dynamic.
0:25:03 > 0:25:06For instance, when he translated the Greek word, "ecclesia,"
0:25:06 > 0:25:09instead of using "church," which was expected,
0:25:09 > 0:25:11he used "congregation."
0:25:11 > 0:25:14"Church" meant a hierarchy, authorities, bishops,
0:25:14 > 0:25:16all the things he detested.
0:25:16 > 0:25:22A "congregation" meant a collection of people, a democracy, equal souls.
0:25:22 > 0:25:25Then there was the Greek word, "presbuteros."
0:25:25 > 0:25:28People expected it to be translated as "priest."
0:25:28 > 0:25:31Tyndale emphatically translated it as "elder."
0:25:31 > 0:25:35To him, priests were a special caste of people, self-appointed,
0:25:35 > 0:25:39unnecessarily intervening between ordinary people and God.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43The elders were merely the wisest members of the congregation.
0:25:43 > 0:25:44By taking away "priest,"
0:25:44 > 0:25:48he was stripping away the hierarchy of the Church.
0:25:48 > 0:25:51It was a democratisation and it was thrown in the faces
0:25:51 > 0:25:54of the authorities - and Tyndale knew that.
0:25:56 > 0:25:59Tyndale was completely undermining the biblical basis
0:25:59 > 0:26:02for the Catholic hierarchy and its practices.
0:26:03 > 0:26:07The messages of the New Testament could no longer be controlled.
0:26:09 > 0:26:11And its translator, a man of principle,
0:26:11 > 0:26:14would show Henry VIII to be a tyrant and a hypocrite.
0:26:15 > 0:26:19This small volume was about to destabilise an entire nation.
0:26:30 > 0:26:33In 1526, copies of Tyndale's translation
0:26:33 > 0:26:35began to arrive on English shores.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41They were smuggled in here along the Thames,
0:26:41 > 0:26:44first in their scores, then in their thousands.
0:26:44 > 0:26:47Some in casks, falsely claimed to hold oil or wine,
0:26:47 > 0:26:49some in woollen bails,
0:26:49 > 0:26:53some as separate leaves of paper put in other books.
0:26:53 > 0:26:55Somehow or other, they got through.
0:26:58 > 0:27:00From St Catherine's to Westminster,
0:27:00 > 0:27:02creeks and quiet anchorages
0:27:02 > 0:27:05saw smugglers offloading their illegal cargo.
0:27:05 > 0:27:06And even though it cost
0:27:06 > 0:27:09two-and-a-half weeks' of a servant's wages,
0:27:09 > 0:27:12the New Testament was an immediate, clandestine bestseller.
0:27:14 > 0:27:17But while it was popular with merchants and tailors,
0:27:17 > 0:27:20for the Tudor hierarchy, it was incendiary.
0:27:23 > 0:27:25And it was here at St Paul's,
0:27:25 > 0:27:29100 yards from where the book smuggling was going on
0:27:29 > 0:27:30right under their noses,
0:27:30 > 0:27:33that the war against Tyndale and his translation
0:27:33 > 0:27:35was most fiercely waged.
0:27:36 > 0:27:38The men in the front line of opposition
0:27:38 > 0:27:41were the Bishop of London, Cuthbert Tunstall,
0:27:41 > 0:27:44Thomas More and Archbishop Wolsey.
0:27:44 > 0:27:48They soon showed the uncompromising reception
0:27:48 > 0:27:50that Tyndale and his supporters could expect,
0:27:50 > 0:27:52when they turned on those involved
0:27:52 > 0:27:55in spreading the revolutionary ideas of Luther,
0:27:55 > 0:27:57that were already flooding into England.
0:28:00 > 0:28:02At the beginning of 1526,
0:28:02 > 0:28:05Thomas More made an armed raid on the Steelyard,
0:28:05 > 0:28:08the headquarters of the German merchants in London,
0:28:08 > 0:28:11alleging that they were importing Lutheran texts,
0:28:11 > 0:28:13which were causing grievous harm.
0:28:13 > 0:28:18On the 11th February, four of them faced a humiliating punishment.
0:28:23 > 0:28:26The men were forced to process through the city.
0:28:26 > 0:28:30They were led into St Paul's
0:28:30 > 0:28:33and forced to stand in the aisle with firewood lashed to their backs.
0:28:37 > 0:28:40It must have been a terrifying warning.
0:28:40 > 0:28:45The Bishop of Rochester gave a furious sermon against Luther,
0:28:45 > 0:28:47scarcely heard because of the shouts of the crowd.
0:28:47 > 0:28:50And at the end, the penitents were brought forward
0:28:50 > 0:28:53and made to kneel and beg for forgiveness.
0:28:54 > 0:28:59As a final warning, Luther's texts were ceremonially burnt.
0:29:00 > 0:29:03And as Tyndale's New Testament began to flood into England,
0:29:03 > 0:29:05it faced the same treatment.
0:29:08 > 0:29:10In 1526, Cardinal Wolsey
0:29:10 > 0:29:15and the bishops decided the "untrue translations" should be destroyed.
0:29:15 > 0:29:21On the 26th October, Bishop Tunstall preached his most famous sermon.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24He attacked Tyndale's New Testament viciously.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27He said it was full of strange doctrines
0:29:27 > 0:29:31and contained more than 2,000 errors in translation.
0:29:31 > 0:29:32After he had finished,
0:29:32 > 0:29:36he ordered all copies of Tyndale's New Testament to be taken outside.
0:29:47 > 0:29:50In the 16th century, people used to gather outside St Paul's
0:29:50 > 0:29:54to hear the teachings of the Bible.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57Bishop Tunstall came out here, not to proclaim the words of God,
0:29:57 > 0:29:59but to burn them.
0:30:06 > 0:30:08In Tunstall's mind, burning these books
0:30:08 > 0:30:12was a purification of the Church from works that were of the Devil.
0:30:14 > 0:30:16But for the common people of England,
0:30:16 > 0:30:18it was an act of violence that went too far.
0:30:21 > 0:30:25It was one thing to burn the work of a radical priest, like Luther.
0:30:25 > 0:30:30It was quite another to burn the Bible, the word of God.
0:30:30 > 0:30:32That had a profound impact.
0:30:35 > 0:30:37For many, the destruction of the New Testament,
0:30:37 > 0:30:41even if it was said to contain errors, was a deeply unsettling act.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45A line had been crossed.
0:30:46 > 0:30:50And when the news reached Tyndale, his work took on a new edge.
0:30:52 > 0:30:55He became more than just a translator of the Bible.
0:30:55 > 0:30:58He became a man convinced that the Catholic hierarchy
0:30:58 > 0:31:00was perverting the will of God.
0:31:02 > 0:31:04His writing began to focus on the clergy,
0:31:04 > 0:31:07with attacks that were both brilliant and targeted.
0:31:10 > 0:31:14It was war. This troublesome priest had to be silenced.
0:31:16 > 0:31:19And it was the renowned heretic hunter, Thomas More,
0:31:19 > 0:31:21who stepped up to seek him out.
0:31:29 > 0:31:31More lived here, in a mansion
0:31:31 > 0:31:33in Chelsea, and he had a fearsome reputation
0:31:33 > 0:31:36as a man devoted to stamping out heresy.
0:31:37 > 0:31:41There was no-one better to take Tyndale on.
0:31:43 > 0:31:45It was the start of a feud between the two men
0:31:45 > 0:31:48that would generate three-quarters of a million words.
0:31:52 > 0:31:54More's great work against his enemy
0:31:54 > 0:31:57was The Dialogue Concerning Heresies,
0:31:57 > 0:31:58in which he revealed just why
0:31:58 > 0:32:01he considered Tyndale the most dangerous man in Tudor England.
0:32:03 > 0:32:06And I've come to the chapel in which More once worshipped
0:32:06 > 0:32:09to talk about it with the historian, John Guy.
0:32:10 > 0:32:14Can you tell us what The Dialogue Against Heresies consists of?
0:32:14 > 0:32:15The book is a conversation
0:32:15 > 0:32:18with the character that he calls "the messenger",
0:32:18 > 0:32:20"the messenger", the emissary of a friend,
0:32:20 > 0:32:22who's confused about
0:32:22 > 0:32:25what to believe in these troubled times.
0:32:25 > 0:32:29The messenger is clearly somebody who sympathises with Tyndale
0:32:29 > 0:32:31and More tries to convert him.
0:32:31 > 0:32:35So, we are talking about More and Tyndale
0:32:35 > 0:32:38looking at religion in completely different ways?
0:32:38 > 0:32:39Yeah.
0:32:39 > 0:32:43More saw Tyndale as a serious threat in the same way that
0:32:43 > 0:32:45the Soviet Union and America, you know,
0:32:45 > 0:32:49stared at each other across the world during the Cold War.
0:32:49 > 0:32:52Because if Tyndale was right about authority,
0:32:52 > 0:32:55then half the institutions of the Catholic Church collapsed
0:32:55 > 0:32:57and we were into a completely brave new world,
0:32:57 > 0:33:00in which authority was dedicated by scripture.
0:33:00 > 0:33:04But More's problem with that is that how do you interpret scripture?
0:33:04 > 0:33:09Every man or woman will interpret it differently and you'll have chaos.
0:33:09 > 0:33:11But there's a great passage from More saying,
0:33:11 > 0:33:14"This is what will happen, if this man gets his way."
0:33:14 > 0:33:16Well, More got carried away sometimes,
0:33:16 > 0:33:17and he went right over the top.
0:33:17 > 0:33:20And he writes, "If Tyndale's Testament be taken up,
0:33:20 > 0:33:22"then shall false heresies be preached,
0:33:22 > 0:33:24"then shall the sacraments be set at nought,
0:33:24 > 0:33:26"then shall Almighty God be displeased,
0:33:26 > 0:33:28"then shall He withdraw His grace
0:33:28 > 0:33:29"and let all run to ruin.
0:33:29 > 0:33:32"Then will rise up rifling and robbery, murder and mischief
0:33:32 > 0:33:34"and plain insurrection.
0:33:34 > 0:33:36"Then shall all laws be laughed to scorn."
0:33:36 > 0:33:39In other words, it's the collapse the Church, as he knows it,
0:33:39 > 0:33:41and also the collapse of the state.
0:33:41 > 0:33:44So he sees these two conjoined, should Tyndale get his way.
0:33:44 > 0:33:47So he's fighting an enemy of the state,
0:33:47 > 0:33:48as well as an enemy of the Church.
0:33:48 > 0:33:52He's fighting an enemy of the Church and, in More's Catholic world,
0:33:52 > 0:33:54the Church and state have to work together.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00The Dialogue gives a lurid insight into More's fevered state of mind.
0:34:00 > 0:34:01For him,
0:34:01 > 0:34:06Tyndale's Testament was nothing less than an invitation for anarchy.
0:34:10 > 0:34:13More believed that Tyndale had threatened the peace of the realm.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16"I will follow him," said More, "to the world's end."
0:34:21 > 0:34:24But events in England took an unexpected turn.
0:34:24 > 0:34:29One which would, in the end, decide the fate of both More and Tyndale.
0:34:29 > 0:34:34King Henry VIII had fallen in love with Anne Boleyn.
0:34:40 > 0:34:45It was here, at the Boleyn family home, that Henry first met Anne.
0:34:45 > 0:34:48He was already married to Catherine of Aragon,
0:34:48 > 0:34:50but she'd failed to produce a male heir.
0:34:52 > 0:34:55Anne was sexually shrewd and intelligent,
0:34:55 > 0:34:58and Henry was fascinated by her.
0:34:58 > 0:34:59She was also a Protestant.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03It seemed that Tyndale might well have a new and unexpected ally.
0:35:05 > 0:35:08In 1528, Henry VIII appealed to the Pope
0:35:08 > 0:35:11for the annulment of his marriage.
0:35:11 > 0:35:14He based his case on the Bible, the Book of Leviticus,
0:35:14 > 0:35:20in which it said that a man may not marry the widow of his brother.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23Henry had married the widow of his brother, Arthur,
0:35:23 > 0:35:26and these were the grounds that he put to the Pope
0:35:26 > 0:35:28for annulling his marriage.
0:35:29 > 0:35:33His plea was sent to Rome, but the Pope refused him.
0:35:33 > 0:35:37The King appeared to have nowhere to turn.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41But help came from the least expected source - William Tyndale.
0:35:47 > 0:35:51Still on the run, Tyndale had fled to Antwerp.
0:35:52 > 0:35:56And it was here that, in 1528, he published a new work -
0:35:56 > 0:35:58The Obedience Of A Christian Man.
0:36:00 > 0:36:03Very soon, a copy of it found its way into Henry's hands.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08Even though Henry saw himself as a traditional Catholic,
0:36:08 > 0:36:12Tyndale's message was one that the King would have found reassuring.
0:36:15 > 0:36:18The British Library has an early copy of it.
0:36:19 > 0:36:24Well, here we have The Obedience Of A Christian Man, published in 1528.
0:36:24 > 0:36:26What did he set out to write this book for?
0:36:26 > 0:36:29Well, Tyndale wished to enforce, I think, really two key points.
0:36:29 > 0:36:33The first was the supremacy of scripture, of God's word,
0:36:33 > 0:36:37over any other authority, including the false authority of the Pope.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40And that's something he emphasises time and time again.
0:36:40 > 0:36:45The second main point of the text is the supremacy of kings.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49For Tyndale, God is the highest authority and God appoints
0:36:49 > 0:36:53kings, therefore kings are the highest authority in the land.
0:36:53 > 0:36:55And actually here he says,
0:36:55 > 0:37:00"God hath made the king in every realm judge over all.
0:37:00 > 0:37:03"And over him is there no judge."
0:37:03 > 0:37:08So the supremacy of kings and therefore...not the Pope.
0:37:08 > 0:37:10So did The Obedience Of A Christian Man -
0:37:10 > 0:37:11well, it must have done! -
0:37:11 > 0:37:13find favour with Henry VIII?
0:37:13 > 0:37:15- Yes...- How did he get hold of it?
0:37:15 > 0:37:19Well, there is a much later story -
0:37:19 > 0:37:20so we don't know if it's true or not -
0:37:20 > 0:37:25that it was actually handed to Henry VIII by his sweetheart Anne Boleyn.
0:37:25 > 0:37:27And he's said to have read it
0:37:27 > 0:37:31and declared that this was a book for him and all kings to read.
0:37:31 > 0:37:32And you can see why.
0:37:32 > 0:37:37The king is said to wield the spiritual sword.
0:37:37 > 0:37:40The bishops, the popes, the temporal sword.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44So they lack this authority from God himself.
0:37:47 > 0:37:50At a time when Henry's annulment was dividing the country,
0:37:50 > 0:37:53a confirmation of his divine authority over the Pope
0:37:53 > 0:37:55by a man of Tyndale's intellectual standing
0:37:55 > 0:37:58was something Henry would have welcomed.
0:38:00 > 0:38:02But if the King had further hopes
0:38:02 > 0:38:04of Tyndale's support for his annulment,
0:38:04 > 0:38:06within two years, they were shattered...
0:38:08 > 0:38:11..with the publication of another of Tyndale's works.
0:38:13 > 0:38:17In 1530, Tyndale publishes The Practice Of Prelates,
0:38:17 > 0:38:21in which he discusses the King's campaign for an annulment.
0:38:21 > 0:38:24And, unfortunately, it does not come to a conclusion
0:38:24 > 0:38:26which Henry VIII would have appreciated.
0:38:26 > 0:38:30Now, Henry VIII is forming his annulment campaign
0:38:30 > 0:38:32on this passage in the Bible.
0:38:32 > 0:38:35He says, "I'm not lawfully married to my first wife,
0:38:35 > 0:38:36"Catherine of Aragon.
0:38:36 > 0:38:39"There is more than one passage in Leviticus that says a man
0:38:39 > 0:38:43"shall not take his brother's wife. It is an unclean thing."
0:38:43 > 0:38:45And yet, in The Practice Of Prelates,
0:38:45 > 0:38:47Tyndale says, "Well, yes, that's true,
0:38:47 > 0:38:50"but there are also other arguments in the Bible that contradict that,
0:38:50 > 0:38:54"saying that a man SHOULD marry his brother's widow."
0:38:54 > 0:38:58And at one point, Tyndale actually says it is a flat commandment
0:38:58 > 0:39:03in Deuteronomy that stipulates a man shall marry his brother's wife.
0:39:03 > 0:39:06This is not good news for Henry VIII.
0:39:09 > 0:39:11The Practice Of Prelates reveals Tyndale
0:39:11 > 0:39:15doing exactly what Henry feared an English translation would do...
0:39:16 > 0:39:19..allow the Bible to be used against him and his wishes.
0:39:21 > 0:39:25It was a work which enraged the King.
0:39:25 > 0:39:29Yet within weeks, Henry made Tyndale a startling offer.
0:39:31 > 0:39:32An appointment within his court
0:39:32 > 0:39:35and a return to England, all things forgiven.
0:39:39 > 0:39:44In 1530, the King's new secretary, Thomas Cromwell, a man sympathetic
0:39:44 > 0:39:48to reformers, sent an agent to meet Tyndale to try and lure him back.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53For the first time in six years, Tyndale broke his cover.
0:39:56 > 0:39:59He made his way to a field outside Antwerp city gates,
0:39:59 > 0:40:03where he was to meet Cromwell's man, Stephen Vaughan.
0:40:05 > 0:40:07This was an extraordinary encounter.
0:40:07 > 0:40:10After all, Tyndale was the most wanted man in the realm
0:40:10 > 0:40:11meeting a royal agent.
0:40:14 > 0:40:17The men met a number of times over the next six months.
0:40:17 > 0:40:21Tyndale repeatedly refused any suggestion of a return.
0:40:23 > 0:40:26Perhaps he didn't trust Henry and feared, with reason,
0:40:26 > 0:40:29sooner or later he would have been called a heretic and burnt.
0:40:31 > 0:40:32Then things came to a climax
0:40:32 > 0:40:35when Tyndale, eventually, proposed a deal.
0:40:37 > 0:40:41Vaughan reported that Tyndale said, yes, he would come back,
0:40:41 > 0:40:45provided that the King brought out a Bible in English.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48He would return within two days, he would never write again,
0:40:48 > 0:40:52he would endure pain and torture and, even, death.
0:40:54 > 0:40:59But, said Tyndale, there had to be a Bible in English.
0:40:59 > 0:41:02That was his condition.
0:41:05 > 0:41:08Tyndale's desire for a Bible in the common tongue far outweighed
0:41:08 > 0:41:11any concerns he might have for his own safety,
0:41:11 > 0:41:13but Henry wouldn't have it.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25In London, Henry's impatience with the Pope over his annulment
0:41:25 > 0:41:26had come to a head.
0:41:28 > 0:41:30In 1531, he addressed Parliament.
0:41:33 > 0:41:36Henry demanded that he become sole protector
0:41:36 > 0:41:40and supreme head of the English Church and clergy,
0:41:40 > 0:41:41and, from then on,
0:41:41 > 0:41:47became head, in effect Pope, of the Catholic Church in this country.
0:41:49 > 0:41:52For Tyndale, it should have been a great moment of triumph.
0:41:52 > 0:41:56Henry had rejected the authority of the Pope.
0:41:56 > 0:41:59But any hopes that the King would also reject his Catholic beliefs
0:41:59 > 0:42:02were disappointed.
0:42:02 > 0:42:05Henry VIII remained theologically conservative.
0:42:05 > 0:42:09Except for papal supremacy, he held on to Catholic sacraments -
0:42:09 > 0:42:12the penance, the mass, confession -
0:42:12 > 0:42:18and he was still just as committed to the Bible in Latin.
0:42:18 > 0:42:21Tyndale's position hadn't improved.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26And, as 1531 wore on,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29Tyndale's war of words with More reached a crescendo.
0:42:31 > 0:42:33In their works, the ideas
0:42:33 > 0:42:35that epitomised either side of the Reformation
0:42:35 > 0:42:39clashed repeatedly, often in vitriolic language.
0:42:40 > 0:42:43More believed that the only way the Scriptures could be
0:42:43 > 0:42:47understood was through the filter of Church teaching and its priests.
0:42:48 > 0:42:52Tyndale thought it was wrong to say that uneducated men
0:42:52 > 0:42:54and women couldn't arrive at their faith without
0:42:54 > 0:42:56the intervention of the Church.
0:42:56 > 0:42:59Mankind, he thought, was born with a spiritual sense.
0:43:01 > 0:43:04Reflecting the increasing fury of these two men,
0:43:04 > 0:43:06the language got very rough indeed.
0:43:06 > 0:43:08Sorry about this!
0:43:08 > 0:43:13More wrote, "You kissed the arse of Luther, the shit devil.
0:43:13 > 0:43:16"Look, my fingers are smeared with shit
0:43:16 > 0:43:19"when I try to clean your filthy mouth."
0:43:19 > 0:43:22Tyndale was against anything that was not in the Bible.
0:43:22 > 0:43:27He condemned penances, pardons, pilgrimages, purgatory.
0:43:27 > 0:43:31He taunted More and said he was a lying papist.
0:43:31 > 0:43:35And of his Church, he said he was of the Devil, of Satan, of wretches.
0:43:35 > 0:43:39For More, the spiritual immensity of the Church was reflected in
0:43:39 > 0:43:42its construction, in its great hierarchy of priests.
0:43:43 > 0:43:48And compared with the Church, the Bible was merely parchment.
0:43:49 > 0:43:52For Tyndale, the Bible was the route to salvation
0:43:52 > 0:43:55and the words in the Bible were the words of God himself.
0:43:58 > 0:44:02Both men were full of fury and obsessed with refuting each other.
0:44:04 > 0:44:07More personally interrogated the supporters of Tyndale
0:44:07 > 0:44:09and executed them ruthlessly.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13It was about to become a struggle to the death.
0:44:21 > 0:44:24For Tyndale, hearing the news of his friends' deaths
0:44:24 > 0:44:27must have been deeply disturbing.
0:44:31 > 0:44:35Yet, still he remained committed to the work that he believed in.
0:44:37 > 0:44:40"In the beginning, God created Heaven and Earth."
0:44:40 > 0:44:42The first line of Genesis.
0:44:42 > 0:44:46In 1530, Tyndale published the first five books
0:44:46 > 0:44:48of the Old Testament, The Books Of Moses.
0:44:48 > 0:44:51He then went on into the Old Testament
0:44:51 > 0:44:53translating directly from the Hebrew.
0:44:53 > 0:44:55Nothing was going to check his resolve.
0:45:03 > 0:45:05And in England, the tide was turning in his favour.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09In 1533, Henry's marriage to Catherine
0:45:09 > 0:45:12was declared null and void.
0:45:12 > 0:45:14In the same year, he married Anne Boleyn.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19And as Protestant sympathisers in Henry's court gained ground,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22so More, the ultimate defender of the Catholic faith,
0:45:22 > 0:45:24dramatically fell from grace.
0:45:31 > 0:45:34He was arrested for treason, for failing to swear an oath
0:45:34 > 0:45:37affirming the legality of Anne and Henry's marriage.
0:45:40 > 0:45:43Because he refused to deny the supremacy of the Pope,
0:45:43 > 0:45:46Thomas More was sentenced to a hanging.
0:45:46 > 0:45:50After that, while still alive, he would be taken down and castrated.
0:45:50 > 0:45:52Then his bowels would be taken out
0:45:52 > 0:45:54and he would have to watch them being burnt.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56Then he would be beheaded.
0:45:56 > 0:45:58Because of their long friendship,
0:45:58 > 0:46:02Henry VIII decided that he merely needed to be beheaded.
0:46:06 > 0:46:09On 6th July 1535, More was led from here to his execution.
0:46:11 > 0:46:13His severed head was boiled until it was black
0:46:13 > 0:46:16and displayed on London Bridge.
0:46:18 > 0:46:22He died fearing for the future of the Catholic Church in England.
0:46:22 > 0:46:27And he was right to do so. Henry continued to dismantle it.
0:46:30 > 0:46:33But the weeks leading up to his death might have been eased
0:46:33 > 0:46:36had he known about the impending death of Tyndale.
0:46:37 > 0:46:41His greatest enemy was also about to meet his end.
0:46:49 > 0:46:53Unbeknown to Tyndale, there was a new threat closing in.
0:46:54 > 0:46:56And with More's death,
0:46:56 > 0:47:00this time the threat wasn't from the English Tudors, but from the Pope.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06Antwerp was under the power of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V,
0:47:06 > 0:47:13and local Catholics had petitioned for it to be purged of heretics.
0:47:13 > 0:47:15The hunting began again.
0:47:15 > 0:47:17Once more, Tyndale was in danger.
0:47:22 > 0:47:25In 1535, he befriended a new arrival,
0:47:25 > 0:47:27a man named Harry Phillips,
0:47:27 > 0:47:30with whom he seemed to share many interests.
0:47:31 > 0:47:35Phillips was an Oxford graduate and, seemingly, well off.
0:47:35 > 0:47:39But there was a mystery as to why this charming, educated man
0:47:39 > 0:47:40was in Antwerp at all.
0:47:42 > 0:47:45Tyndale saw Phillips several times
0:47:45 > 0:47:48and when he was questioned about him closely, Tyndale said,
0:47:48 > 0:47:52"He's an honest man, handsomely learned and very conformable,"
0:47:52 > 0:47:56by which he meant conformable to his, Tyndale's, beliefs.
0:47:56 > 0:48:00He was taken in by him. Sympathetic, this man from England.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07But Phillips wasn't what he seemed.
0:48:07 > 0:48:08Tyndale didn't know
0:48:08 > 0:48:11that Phillips had studied at a strict Catholic university
0:48:11 > 0:48:15and was colluding with the imperial court in Brussels
0:48:15 > 0:48:16to have him arrested.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20He was no sympathiser to Tyndale's cause.
0:48:23 > 0:48:25He was his betrayer.
0:48:26 > 0:48:30On 21st May, Phillips called on Tyndale in the English House
0:48:30 > 0:48:33and said he had no money.
0:48:33 > 0:48:36As anticipated, Tyndale took him out to dinner.
0:48:36 > 0:48:39They went down a particularly narrow street
0:48:39 > 0:48:42and Phillips insisted that Tyndale walked in front of him.
0:48:42 > 0:48:44At the bottom of this street, waiting for him,
0:48:44 > 0:48:47were two arms bearers of Charles V.
0:48:47 > 0:48:51They said, "We pitied his simplicity when we took him."
0:49:02 > 0:49:04It had taken a Judas to capture Tyndale.
0:49:06 > 0:49:09He was taken to the Castle of Vilvoorde,
0:49:09 > 0:49:12the state prison outside Antwerp.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15He had 16 months left to live.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23William Tyndale's cell no longer exists,
0:49:23 > 0:49:24but this 18th-century prison
0:49:24 > 0:49:28was built on the very site where it had once stood.
0:49:29 > 0:49:31He was here for more than 14 months.
0:49:31 > 0:49:34It was a miserable, bitter, cramped experience.
0:49:34 > 0:49:37At one stage, he wrote to the master of the prison.
0:49:37 > 0:49:39I have a copy of his letter.
0:49:39 > 0:49:43"I beseech Your Lordship to send me from my goods in his keeping
0:49:43 > 0:49:47"a warmer cap, for I suffer greatly from cold in the head,
0:49:47 > 0:49:49"being troubled with a continual catarrh,
0:49:49 > 0:49:51"which is aggravated in this prison vault.
0:49:51 > 0:49:55"A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin."
0:49:55 > 0:49:59He goes on, "I ask for leave to use a lamp in the evening,
0:49:59 > 0:50:01"for it is tiresome to sit alone in the dark.
0:50:01 > 0:50:05"But, above all, I beg and entreat your clemency to allow me
0:50:05 > 0:50:09"the use of my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew grammar
0:50:09 > 0:50:14"and Hebrew lexicon, that I might employ my time with that study."
0:50:15 > 0:50:18We don't know whether he got them or not.
0:50:20 > 0:50:21Right to the end,
0:50:21 > 0:50:24Tyndale's commitment to bringing the word of God
0:50:24 > 0:50:27to the plough boy back in England never left him,
0:50:27 > 0:50:29even in the face of death.
0:50:31 > 0:50:34On 6th October, 1536,
0:50:34 > 0:50:37William Tyndale was led from his cell, for execution.
0:50:41 > 0:50:44Despite attempts by Thomas Cromwell to secure his release,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47he'd been found guilty of heresy,
0:50:47 > 0:50:49and any hopes of a final reprieve
0:50:49 > 0:50:52disappeared with Anne Boleyn's fall from favour.
0:50:54 > 0:50:59After her beheading, Henry once more cooled towards Protestant reformers.
0:51:16 > 0:51:17As an act of mercy,
0:51:17 > 0:51:20they decided to strangle Tyndale before they lit the fire.
0:51:22 > 0:51:26His last words were, "Lord, open the King of England's eyes!"
0:51:27 > 0:51:30But the strangling was inept and, as the flames rose,
0:51:30 > 0:51:33he regained consciousness
0:51:33 > 0:51:38and witnesses recall the stoic, silent acceptance of suffering,
0:51:38 > 0:51:40as his body burned.
0:51:47 > 0:51:51Tyndale died still believing that the only way to God's salvation
0:51:51 > 0:51:53was through his word.
0:51:53 > 0:51:56And whilst others bent their principles to survive
0:51:56 > 0:51:58the winds of political change,
0:51:58 > 0:52:01Tyndale was a man whose refusal to give up on his beliefs
0:52:01 > 0:52:03led to his own destruction.
0:52:05 > 0:52:09He died before he'd completed his entire translation of the Bible,
0:52:09 > 0:52:11but he'd done enough. The New Testament,
0:52:11 > 0:52:14the first five books and a little more of the Old Testament.
0:52:14 > 0:52:18He liberated the language. He liberated the word of God.
0:52:18 > 0:52:21He took it away from the elite and it went out into the streets,
0:52:21 > 0:52:24into the field, into the workplace, into the shipyards, everywhere.
0:52:28 > 0:52:31And in the end, even Tyndale's dying wish for King Henry's eyes
0:52:31 > 0:52:33to be opened was granted.
0:52:39 > 0:52:43In 1535, a year before Tyndale's execution,
0:52:43 > 0:52:46a Bible in English did appear in England -
0:52:46 > 0:52:48commissioned by Thomas Cromwell,
0:52:48 > 0:52:51attributed to Myles Coverdale.
0:52:51 > 0:52:54Its patron was King Henry VIII himself.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58And there's an irony on its frontispiece.
0:52:58 > 0:53:01The man who hounded the translator of the Bible into English
0:53:01 > 0:53:03across Europe
0:53:03 > 0:53:07is portrayed as a generous distributor of the word of God
0:53:07 > 0:53:08to all his subjects.
0:53:15 > 0:53:17Three years after its publication,
0:53:17 > 0:53:20a ruling was passed that an English Bible should be placed
0:53:20 > 0:53:21in every church.
0:53:24 > 0:53:288,500 copies of this Great Bible were printed
0:53:28 > 0:53:30and supplied to every parish in England.
0:53:33 > 0:53:37The word of God was now readily accessible to every man,
0:53:37 > 0:53:38from monarch to plough boy.
0:53:41 > 0:53:43And yet, the name of the man who pioneered
0:53:43 > 0:53:46the first translation of the Bible into English
0:53:46 > 0:53:48has largely disappeared.
0:53:48 > 0:53:51From being the most notorious name in England,
0:53:51 > 0:53:53Tyndale's life and work
0:53:53 > 0:53:55have remained one of England's best-kept secrets.
0:53:58 > 0:54:02But even though Tyndale himself is not a household name,
0:54:02 > 0:54:06his words and phrases have endured, not in his own work,
0:54:06 > 0:54:08but hidden in that of later translators.
0:54:12 > 0:54:14This is a copy of the King James Bible,
0:54:14 > 0:54:17which was originally published in 1611.
0:54:17 > 0:54:18Alongside Shakespeare,
0:54:18 > 0:54:22it's considered one of our greatest works of literature.
0:54:22 > 0:54:24For many years, the King James Bible was considered to be
0:54:24 > 0:54:27the work of a committee - 52 scholars.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29Recently, however, with close research,
0:54:29 > 0:54:31the startling result is
0:54:31 > 0:54:35that 84% of the New Testament in the King James Bible
0:54:35 > 0:54:37was written by Tyndale,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40and 75% of those books he translated in the Old Testament -
0:54:40 > 0:54:44the first five books, for instance were Tyndale.
0:54:44 > 0:54:46It's mostly Tyndale's Bible.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52Many of the well-loved phrases we readily associate
0:54:52 > 0:54:55with the King James are those of Tyndale.
0:54:56 > 0:55:00It's his words that still echo down the centuries.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03And I believe the way he wrote can be seen
0:55:03 > 0:55:06as the beginning of English, as we know it today.
0:55:07 > 0:55:09The English language is lucky.
0:55:09 > 0:55:12When it came into its full formation, it had two geniuses.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15The first was a genius of the imagination, Shakespeare,
0:55:15 > 0:55:18who contributed more words to our language than any other individual.
0:55:18 > 0:55:21The second was the genius of translation, Tyndale.
0:55:21 > 0:55:24He contributed more idioms than anyone else,
0:55:24 > 0:55:26words that are still on our tongue today.
0:55:26 > 0:55:27And I bet you've said some of these.
0:55:27 > 0:55:29"To lick the dust", "fall flat on his face",
0:55:29 > 0:55:33"from time to time", "rise and shine", "sign of the times".
0:55:33 > 0:55:35On they go, hundreds of these idioms
0:55:35 > 0:55:38that he placed into the Bible deliberately.
0:55:38 > 0:55:42And what they have in common is that every one of those sayings
0:55:42 > 0:55:44is a monosyllable -
0:55:44 > 0:55:47the simplest possible way to speak.
0:55:47 > 0:55:51He drew on Anglo-Saxon and Hebrew but, most of all,
0:55:51 > 0:55:53he drew on his heart.
0:55:53 > 0:55:57He wanted to tell that plough boy, plainly, what was going on.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00He chose the most basic language, and that was why it was
0:56:00 > 0:56:04so eruptively effective right across the world.
0:56:04 > 0:56:06And, as for literature, where do you start?
0:56:06 > 0:56:07Well, let's start with Shakespeare.
0:56:07 > 0:56:10One way and another, Tyndale fed into Shakespeare
0:56:10 > 0:56:12and then he went on through the centuries.
0:56:12 > 0:56:15Anybody you can think of really - Tennyson, the Bronte sisters,
0:56:15 > 0:56:16John Bunyan.
0:56:16 > 0:56:19Over in America, Melville down to Steinbeck and Bob Dylan.
0:56:19 > 0:56:23On it goes, the people that this book influenced.
0:56:23 > 0:56:26Enormous, majestic, unparalleled.
0:56:29 > 0:56:31And yet, despite Tyndale's contribution
0:56:31 > 0:56:33to the King James Bible,
0:56:33 > 0:56:35there's no trace of his name
0:56:35 > 0:56:39and that's because the translators used Henry's Great Bible
0:56:39 > 0:56:41and Myles Coverdale, who wrote it,
0:56:41 > 0:56:45had worked with Tyndale and drew massively on his version.
0:56:46 > 0:56:49But he completely ripped off Tyndale's translation
0:56:49 > 0:56:51without crediting him.
0:56:51 > 0:56:54And Henry VIII did not want him credited.
0:56:54 > 0:56:57He wanted Tyndale rubbed out of history.
0:56:57 > 0:56:59And so edition after edition after edition of the Bible,
0:56:59 > 0:57:04up to and including the King James Bible, left Tyndale's name out.
0:57:04 > 0:57:06Henry wanted him dead twice.
0:57:11 > 0:57:14But despite the best efforts of the Tudor hierarchy
0:57:14 > 0:57:17to wipe Tyndale out, they ultimately failed.
0:57:19 > 0:57:21And here in St Paul's itself,
0:57:21 > 0:57:25one of the few physical copies of Tyndale's original New Testament,
0:57:25 > 0:57:27albeit incomplete,
0:57:27 > 0:57:31has now become one of the cathedral's greatest treasures.
0:57:31 > 0:57:33It's a minor miracle that it's here, in St Paul's,
0:57:33 > 0:57:38when thousands of copies of this book were burnt here.
0:57:38 > 0:57:39It's a survivor.
0:57:45 > 0:57:47Tyndale's words, his mastery,
0:57:47 > 0:57:50indeed his reforming of the English language,
0:57:50 > 0:57:56his economic, poetic prose, are still remarkably powerful.
0:57:56 > 0:58:01But I suspect for Tyndale, this legacy wouldn't have impressed him
0:58:01 > 0:58:04because, for him, it wasn't the turn of phrase that mattered,
0:58:04 > 0:58:08it was the purpose of those phrases, to bring alive the word of God
0:58:08 > 0:58:13for every man and woman in England, and through that, save their souls.
0:58:15 > 0:58:18"In the beginning, God created heaven and earth.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22"The earth was void and empty and darkness was upon the deep...
0:58:22 > 0:58:24"And God saw that light was good,
0:58:24 > 0:58:26"and divided the light from the darkness,
0:58:26 > 0:58:28"and called the light Day..."
0:58:28 > 0:58:32"In it was life and life was the light of men.
0:58:32 > 0:58:33"And the light shineth in the darkness
0:58:33 > 0:58:36"and darkness comprehended it not."
0:58:38 > 0:58:42His work not only unlocked the English language,
0:58:42 > 0:58:45it gave to English people the liberty to think
0:58:45 > 0:58:48rather than the duty to believe.
0:58:48 > 0:58:51And it changed England itself, profoundly.
0:58:51 > 0:58:54Within a few years, his work had fuelled the Reformation,
0:58:54 > 0:58:57monasteries were vandalised, confessionals were empty,
0:58:57 > 0:59:02the clergy did not have to mediate between the people and their God.
0:59:02 > 0:59:06They could read the word of God for themselves...
0:59:06 > 0:59:07in English,
0:59:07 > 0:59:09and that's what he'd given his life for.
0:59:29 > 0:59:32Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd