Demaus assigns the 23rd or the 24th of May 1535 as the probable date of Tyndale’s arrest. For more than a year the exile lingered in confinement before he was put to death.
His friend Poyntz did not desert Tyndale in this calamity, but at imminent risk of his own life he busied himself in fruitless efforts to save the life of the man whom he had learned to love.
“Brother,” he says, writing to John Poyntz, a gentleman at the English Court, “the knowledge that I have of this man causes me to write as my conscience binds me; for the King’s Grace should have of him, at this day, as high a treasure as of honour: one man living there is not that has been of greater reputation.”
The efforts of Poyntz were alas useless, and he only brought himself into peril by his advocacy on behalf of Tyndale. Poyntz was arrested, and for four months he also was kept a prisoner. Indeed, had he not contrived to escape, he would probably have shared the fate of his friend.
The condemnation of Tyndale was already a foregone conclusion. The formality of a trial was indeed observed in his case, but he himself well knew that, with such enemies as his translation of the Scriptures had made for him, there was but one issue to his imprisonment.
One solitary letter, written during the winter of 1535, and addressed to the governor of the castle in which he was confined, has indeed been preserved. We subjoin Demaus’ translation of it:—
“I believe, right worshipful, that you are not ignorant of what has been determined concerning me (by the Council of Brabant); therefore I entreat your Lordship, and that by the Lord Jesus, that if I am to remain here (in Vilvorde) during the winter, you will request the Procureur to be kind enough to send me from my goods which he has in his possession a warmer cap, for I suffer extremely from cold in the head, being afflicted with a perpetual catarrh, which is considerably increased in the cell. A warmer coat also, for that which I have is very thin: also a piece of cloth to patch my leggings: my overcoat has been worn out; my shirts are also worn out. He has a woollen shirt of mine, if he will be kind enough to send it. I have also with him leggings of thicker cloth for putting on above; he also has warmer caps for wearing at night. I wish also his permission to have a candle in the evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark. But, above all, I entreat and beseech your clemency to be urgent with the Procureur that he may kindly permit me to have my Hebrew Bible, Hebrew Grammar, and Hebrew Dictionary, that I may spend my time with that study. And, in return, may you obtain your dearest wish, provided always it be consistent with the salvation of your soul. But if any other resolution has been come to concerning me, that I must remain during the whole winter, I shall be patient, abiding the will of God, to the glory of the Grace of my Lord Jesus Christ, whose Spirit, I pray, may ever direct your heart. Amen.
W. Tyndale.”
Says Foxe: “At last, after much reasoning, where no reason would serve, although he deserved no death, he was condemned by virtue of the Emperor’s decree, made in the Assembly at Augsburg, and, upon the same, brought forth to the place of execution, was there tied to the stake, and then strangled first by the hangman, and afterwards with fire consumed in the morning, at the town of Filford, 25th of October A.D. 1536; crying thus at the stake with a fervent zeal and loud voice, ‘Lord! open the King of England’s eyes!’”
Concerning Tyndale himself Dr. Stoughton justly remarks: “Tyndale was eminently a great man, great in mind and heart and enterprise. His intellectual endowments were of an order to render him a match in controversy with no less a personage than the illustrious Sir Thomas More. The qualities of his heart were as remarkable as those of his head. He combined a calm and steady heroism with a childlike simplicity. No man was ever more free from duplicity, more full of meekness, and at the same time more elevated in soul by a manly courage. Ever as in his great Taskmaster’s eye, he pursued his labours in obscurity and exile, reaping no earthly benefit whatever, and looking for no reward but the smile of his Heavenly Father.”