t they
struggled on; earning for _themselves_ martyrdom,--for _us_, the free
England in which we live and breathe. Among the great, until Cromwell
came to power, they had but one friend, and he but a doubtful one, who
long believed the truest kindness was to kill them. Henry VIII. was
always attracted towards the persons of the reformers. Their open
bearing commanded his respect. Their worst crime in the bishops'
eyes--the translating the Bible--was in his eyes not a crime, but a
merit; he had himself long desired an authorized English version, and at
length compelled the clergy to undertake it; while in the most notorious
of the men themselves, in Tyndal and in Frith, he had more than once
expressed an anxious interest.[43] But the convictions of his early
years were long in yielding. His feeling, though genuine, extended no
further than to pity, to a desire to recover estimable heretics out of
errors which he would endeavour to pardon. They knew, and all the
"brethren" knew, that if they persisted, they must look for the worst
from the king and from every earthly power; they knew it, and they made
their account with it. An informer deposed to the council, that he had
asked one of the society "how the King's Grace did take the matter
against the sacrament; which answered, the King's Highness was extreme
against their opinions, and would punish them grievously; also that my
Lords of Norfolk and Suffolk, my Lord Marquis of Exeter, with divers
other great lords, were very extreme against them. Then he (the
informer) asked him how he and his fellows would do seeing this, the
which answered they had two thousand books out against the Blessed
Sacrament, in the commons' hands; and if it were once in the commons'
heads, they would have no further care."[44]

[Sidenote: Resolution to persecute systematically.]

Tyndal then being at work at Antwerp, and the society for the dispersion
of his books thus preparing itself in England, the authorities were not
slow in taking the alarm. The isolated discontent which had prevailed
hitherto had been left to the ordinary tribunals; the present danger
called for measures of more systematic coercion. This duty naturally
devolved on Wolsey, and the office of Grand Inquisitor, which he now
assumed, could not have fallen into more competent hands.

[Sidenote: The conduct of the persecution undertaken by Wolsey; who,
however, used his powers with unusual leniency.]

[Sidenote: Heretics outl