By the Queen.
Anne the Queen.—Trusty and right well-beloved, we greet you well. And whereas we be credibly informed that the bearer hereof, Richard Harman, merchant and citizen of Antwerp in Brabant, was in the time of the late lord cardinal put and expelled from his freedom and fellowship of and in the English house there, for nothing else, as he affirmeth like a good Christian man,[66] but only for that, that he did, both with his goods and policy to his great hurt and hindrance in this world, help to the setting forth of the New Testament in English. We therefore desire and instantly pray you, that with all speed and favor convenient, you will cause this good and honest merchant, being my Lord's true, faithful, and loving subject, to be restored to his pristine freedom, liberty, and fellowship aforesaid. And the sooner at this our request: and at your good pleasure to hear him in such things as he hath to make further relation unto you in this behalf.
Given under our signet at my Lord's manor of Greenwich, the xiv. day of May.
To our trusty and well-beloved Thomas Cromwell, principal secretary to his Majesty, the king my lord.
This intervention of the queen in favor of a persecuted evangelical was much talked about. Some ascribed her conduct to the interests of her own cause, others to humanity: most of the friends of the Reformation regarded it as a proof that Anne was gained over to their convictions, and Tyndale manifested his gratitude to the queen by presenting her with a handsome copy of his New Testament.
=DISPLEASURE OF THE KING.=
What gave such joy to Tyndale annoyed the king greatly. Such a private order as this coming from the queen singularly displeased a monarch whose will it was that no business should be discussed except in his council. There was also in this order, at least in Henry's eyes, a still greater evil. The evangelical reformation, which Henry had so stoutly combated and which he detested to the last, was making great progress in England. On the 4th of July, 1533, Fryth, the friend of Harman and Tyndale, was burnt at Smithfield, as being one of its followers; and ten months later, on the 14th of May, 1534, Harman, the friend of Tyndale and Fryth, had been declared 'a good Christian' by the queen. Anne dared profess herself the friend of those whom the king hated. Did she design to make a revolution—to oppose the opinions of her lord the king? That letter did not remain without effect: it was reported that the friends of the Word of God, taking advantage of these favorable dispositions, were printing at Antwerp six separate editions of the New Testament, and were introducing them into England.
=SNARES LAID FOR TYNDALE.=
It was not only the king who was irritated, the anger of the Romish party was greater still; but as they dared not strike the queen, they looked about for another victim. Neither Bishop Fisher, Sir Thomas More, nor Henry VIII. appear to have had any part in this new crime. Gardiner, now bishop of Winchester, gave a force to the episcopal body of which it had long been deprived; and several prelates, 'incensed and inflamed in their minds,' says a document,[67] called to remembrance that the best means of drying up the waters of a river is to cut off its springs. It was from Tyndale that all those writings proceeded—those Gospels which, in their opinion, were leading England astray. The moment seemed favorable for getting rid of him: he was actually in the states of Charles V., that great enemy of the Reformation. Gardiner and his allies determined to send into the Low Countries two persons with instructions to keep an eye upon the reformer, to take him unawares, and have him put to death. For this purpose they selected a very clever monk of Stratford Abbey and a zealous young papist, who had the look of a gentleman, and who (they hoped) would soon gain Tyndale's heart by his amiability.
It was about the end of the year 1534, while the reformer was still living at Antwerp in the house of Thomas Poyntz, when one day, dining with another merchant, he observed among the guests a tall young man of good appearance whom he did not know. 'He is a fellow-countryman,' said the master of the house, 'Mr. Harry Philips, a person of very agreeable manners.'[68] Tyndale drew near the stranger and was charmed with his conversation. After dinner, just as they were about to separate, he observed another person near Philips, whose countenance from being less open pleaded little in his favor. It was 'Gabriel, his servant,' he was told. Tyndale invited Philips to come and see him: the young layman accepted the invitation, and the candid reformer was so taken with him, that he could not pass a day without him—inviting him at one time to dinner, at another to supper. At length Philips became so necessary to him that he prevailed upon him, with Poyntz's consent, to come and live in the same house with him. For some time they had lost sight of Gabriel, and on Tyndale's asking what had become of him, he was informed that he had gone to Louvain, the centre of Roman clericalism in Belgium. When Tyndale and Philips were once lodged beneath the same roof, their intimacy increased: Tyndale had no secrets from his fellow-countryman. The latter spent hours in the library of the hellenist, who showed him his books and manuscripts, and conversed with him about his past and future labors, and the means that he possessed for circulating the New Testament throughout England. The translator of the Bible, all candor and simplicity, supposing no evil, thinking nothing but good of his neighbor, unbosomed himself to him like a child.