, 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 authorised 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.[491] 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."[492]

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.

Wolsey was not cruel. There is no instance, I believe, in which he of his
special motion sent a victim to the stake;--it would be well if the same
praise could be allowed to Cranmer. There was this difference between the
cardinal and other bishops, that while they