Callynge them heretikes execrable
Whiche caused the Gospell venerable
To come vnto laye mens syght.
He declared there in his furiousnes,
That he fownde erroures more and les
Above thre thousande in the translacion.
Howe be it when all cam to pas,
I dare saye vnable he was
Of one erroure to make probacion.”
Tunstal preached at St. Paul’s Cross at this burning of the Testament, and yet the people read the book, which continued to be circulated in spite of the priests. Tunstal thereupon further issued an injunction in which he ordered all copies of the Testament to be surrendered to him on pain of excommunication. But although the Archbishop of Canterbury also issued a similar mandate, the books continued to be sold and to be read, although in secret. Nay more, the printers of Antwerp, encouraged by the enormous demand for Testaments that had arisen, afterwards printed a large supply upon their own account, and, further, succeeded in smuggling them into England. In sublime ignorance of the law of supply and demand, the Bishops then resolved to purchase these Testaments in order to destroy them. The aged Archbishop of Canterbury expended a sum amounting to nearly £1000, at the present value of money, for this purpose, but Tunstal is the chief hero of the incident. Old Hall, the chronicler, relates the event, which, though it occurred later, may be most conveniently referred to here:—