HELPED BY LUTHER—FINDING A COMPANION—A BOLD VENTURE—DRIVEN AWAY—BURNING THE BIBLE DOES NOT DESTROY IT.
Hamburg, as a centre of commercial activity, afforded a singularly good hiding-place for Tyndale, and it was also a most suitable port from whence he could send the Bible when printed into England. It is indeed, doubtful as to what his movements were; he may have remained for a year in Hamburg, or, as some have supposed, Tyndale may have left it upon a visit elsewhere. Monmouth says that after Tyndale left England, “within a year he sent for his ten pounds to me from Hamburg, and thither I sent it to him.” Foxe supplements this information by the statement that, “on his first departing out of the realm, Tyndale took his journey into the further parts of Germany, as into Saxony, where he had conference with Luther and other learned men.” And Tyndale’s great enemy, Sir Thomas More, said that “Tyndale, as soon as he got him hence from England, got him to Luther straight;” and adds “that at the time of his translation of the New Testament, Tyndale was with Luther at Wittemberg, and the confederacy between him and Luther was well known.” It seems, therefore, probable that almost immediately after his landing at Hamburg, Tyndale made his way to Wittemberg. His admiration of Luther would be a quite sufficient inducement to lead him to take this step, and perhaps also his sense of loneliness and desolation influenced him. Upon the exile himself the effect of the visit must have been most beneficial. Demaus says: “For Tyndale thus to come into contact with the strong, joyous faith of Luther, to hear his lion voice echoing through the crowded University Church of Wittemberg, or to listen to his wonderful table-talk as he sipped his beer in friendly social intercourse, would be to have his whole soul inspired with courage, bravely to do whatever duty God had called him to, and to learn to repose with implicit confidence in the protection of the Divine Master whom he served.”
Here, in Wittemberg, Tyndale, it would seem, obtained a companion, one William Roye, who, however, proved to be a fickle, irrepressible bore, a man who must have inflicted acute torture upon his companion. But his help was a necessity if the Bible were to be speedily translated, and Tyndale had no choice whatever; it must be either Roye or no translation; and Tyndale suppressed all personal feeling in the matter. Roye’s part in the translation was, of course, quite mechanical and subordinate, but in the laborious physical work of transcribing Roye was helpful to Tyndale.
“Imagination,” says Dr. Stoughton of the after-life of the two at Cologne, “can picture the two men, influenced by far different motives, at work in the far-famed city on the banks of the Rhine, in some poor-looking house in an obscure street, while a priest or a pilgrim passed under the windows on their way to the shrine of the Three Kings, little dreaming of the kind of employment going on there, and of the consequences to which it would lead.”
In the spring of 1525 Tyndale went to Hamburg, as we have seen, in order to obtain the money that had been sent to him from London. From Hamburg, Tyndale, accompanied by Roye, went to Cologne, and now the New Testament which had been translated was put into the press. Tyndale was prepared to venture upon an edition of six thousand copies, but the printers were only willing to undertake half that number. The book was to be an octavo, and for a time the enterprise prospered and all went well. But a busybody, one John Cochlæus, who was at that time in Cologne, by some means or another obtained a hint as to the possible peril. He relates the incident with intense self-complacency, as if it were something to boast of. He says:—
“Having become intimate and familiar with the Cologne printers, he (Cochlæus) sometimes heard them confidently boast, when in their cups, that, whether the King and Cardinal of England would or not, all England would in a short time be Lutheran. He heard, also, that there were two Englishmen lurking there, skilful in languages, and fluent, whom, however, he never could see or converse with. Calling, therefore, certain printers into his lodging, after they were heated with wine, one of them, in more private discourse, discovered to him the secret by which England was to be drawn over to the side of Luther, namely, that three thousand copies of the Lutheran New Testament, translated into the English language, were in the press, and already were advanced as far as the letter K, in ordine quarternionem; that the expenses were wholly supplied by English merchants, who were secretly to convey the work, when printed, and to disperse it widely through all England, before the King or the Cardinal could discover or prohibit it.
“Cochlæus being inwardly affected by fear and wonder, disguised his grief, under the appearance of admiration. But another day considering with himself the magnitude of the grievous danger, he cast in mind by what method he might expeditiously obstruct these very wicked attempts. He went, therefore, secretly, to Herman Rinck, a patrician of Cologne, and military knight, familiar both with the Emperor and the King of England, and a Councillor, and disclosed to him the whole affair, as, by means of the wine, he had received it. He, that he might ascertain all things more certainly, sent another person into the house where the work was printing, according to the discovery of Cochlæus, and when he had understood from him that the matter was even so, and that there was great abundance of paper there, he went to the senate, and so brought it about that the printer was interdicted from proceeding further in that work. The two English apostates, snatching away with them the quarto sheets printed, fled by ship going up the Rhine to Worms, where the people were under the full rage of Lutheranism, that there, by another printer, they might complete the work begun.”
Roye found a relief for his vexation in abusing Cochlæus, whom he calls—
“A little, praty, foolish poade,