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Tyndale was born around 1490, possibly in one of the villages near Dursley, Gloucestershire. Within his immediate family, the Tyndales
were also known at that period as Hychyns (Hitchins), and it was as William Hychyns that Tyndale was educated at Magdalen College
School, Oxford. Tyndale's family had migrated to Gloucestershire within living memory of his birth, quite probably as a result
of the Wars of the Roses, and it is known that the family derived from Northumberland but had more recently resided in East Anglia.
Tyndale's uncle, Edward, was receiver to the lands of Lord Berkeley and it is this fact that
provides evidence of the family's origin. Edward Tyndale is recorded in two
genealogies as having been the brother of Sir William Tyndale, KB, of Deane, Northumberland, and Hockwald, Norfolk, who was knighted
at the marriage of Arthur, Prince of Wales to Katherine of Aragon. Tyndale's family was therefore derived from Baron Adam de Tyndale,
a tenant-in-chief of Henry I (and whose family history is related in Tyndall).
Tyndale was admitted to the Degree of Bachelor
of Arts at Oxford University in 1512, the same year he became a subdeacon. He was made Master of Arts in July 1515, three months after
he had been ordained into the priesthood. The MA degree allowed him to start studying theology, but the official
course did not include the study of scripture. This horrified Tyndale, and he organised private groups for teaching and discussing
the scriptures.
He was a gifted linguist (fluent in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish in addition to his native English)
and subsequently went to Cambridge (possibly studying under Erasmus, whose 1503 Enchiridion Militis Christiani — "Handbook of the
Christian Knight" — he translated into English). It is also believed that he met Thomas Bilney and John Frith at Cambridge.
Soon
afterwards, he determined to translate the Bible into English and was convinced that the way to God was through His word and that
scripture should be available even to common people. Foxe describes an argument with a "learned" but "blasphemous" clergyman,
who had asserted to Tyndale that, "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's." In a swelling of emotion, Tyndale made his
response: "I defy the Pope, and all his laws; and if God spares my life, I will cause the boy that drives the plow in England to know
more of the Scriptures than the Pope himself!"
Tyndale left for London in 1523 to seek permission to translate the Bible into
English and to request other help from the Church. In particular, he hoped for support from Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, a well-known
classicist whom Erasmus had praised after working with him on a Greek New Testament. However, the bishop did not regard Tyndale's
scholarly credentials highly, was suspicious of his theology and, like many highly-placed churchmen, was uncomfortable with the
idea of the Bible in the vernacular. The Church at this time did not deem that a new English translation of Scripture would be helpful.
Tunstall told Tyndale he had no room for him in his household. Tyndale preached and studied "at his book" in London for some
time, relying on the help of a cloth merchant, Humphrey Monmouth. He then left England under a pseudonym and landed at Hamburg
in 1524 with the work he had done so far on his translation of the New Testament. He completed his translation in 1525, with assistance
from Observant friar William Roy.
In 1525, publication of his work by Peter Quentell in Cologne was interrupted by anti-Lutheran
influence, and it was not until 1526 that a full edition of the New Testament was produced by the printer Peter Schoeffer in Worms,
an imperial free city then in the process of adopting Lutheranism. More copies were soon being printed in Antwerp. The book was smuggled
into England and Scotland, and was condemned in October 1526 by Tunstall, who issued warnings to booksellers and had copies burned
in public. Following the publication of Tyndale's New Testament, Cardinal Wolsey condemned Tyndale as a heretic and demanded his arrest.
Sculpted
Head Of William Tyndale from St Dunstan-in-the-West Church LondonTyndale went into hiding, possibly for a time in Hamburg, and carried
on working. He revised his New Testament and began translating the Old Testament and writing various treatises. In 1530, he wrote
The Practyse of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's divorce on the grounds that it was unscriptural and was a plot by Cardinal Wolsey
to get Henry entangled in the papal courts. This resulted in the king's wrath being directed at him: he asked the emperor Charles
V to have Tyndale apprehended and returned to England.
Eventually, Tyndale was betrayed to the authorities. He was seized in
Antwerp in 1535, betrayed by Henry Phillips, and held in the castle of Vilvoorde near Brussels.
He was tried on a charge of heresy
in 1536 and condemned to death, despite Thomas Cromwell's intercession on his behalf. He "was strangled to death while tied at the
stake, and then his dead body was burned". Foxe gives 6 October as the date of commemoration, but gives no date of death. The
traditional date of commemoration is 6 October, but records of Tyndale's imprisonment suggest the date might have been some weeks
earlier.
Tyndale's final words, spoken "at the stake with a fervent zeal, and a loud voice", were reported as "Lord! Open the
King of England's eyes." Within four years, four English translations of the Bible, all based on Tyndale's work, were published
in England, and one of them was the official English Bible.
