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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Around 1494 William Tyndale was born.
In 1523 John Bell was appointed to the Legantine court of audience which examined William Tyndale (age 29) on charges of heresy.
Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic Henry VIII 1533. 9th May 1533. Tyndale's Works (Daye's edit.), p. 435. 458. Tyndale (age 39) to Frith.
I hear that the hypocrites, now that they have overcome that great business which letted them, or at least brought it to a stay, return to their old nature. The will of God be fulfilled. Commit yourself only to Him. Your cause is Christ's Gospel. Be of good courage. Stick at necessary things. The death of them that come again after they have once denied, though it be accepted of God, is not glorious. Seek no help from man. Let Bilney be a warning to you.
P.S.—Two have suffered in Antwerp in die Sanctœ Crucis1 for the glory of the Gospel, four at Riselles in Flanders, and one at least at Luke, all on the same day. At Roan in France they persecute, and at Paris five doctors are taken for the Gospel. See, you are not alone. When you have read this, send it to Adrian. George Joye at Candlemas printed at Barrow two leaves of Genesis in a great form, and sent one copy to the King and another to the new Queen, with a letter to N. to deliver them and get licence to go through all the Bible. Out of this is sprung the noise of the New Bible, and out of that is the great seeking for English books at all printers and bookbinders in Antwerp and for an English priest that should print. This chanced on the 9th May. "Sir, your wife is well content with the will of God, and would not for her sake have the glory of God hindered."
Headed by the editor of Tyndale: A letter from William Tyndale unto John Frith, being prisoner in the Tower of London.
Note 1. Invention of the Holy Cross, 3 May.
Chronicle of Edward Hall [1496-1548]. September 1536. This year in the month of September Wyllyam Tyndale (age 42) otherwise called Hichins was by the cruelty of the clergy of Louvain condemned and burned in a town beside Brussels in Brabant called Vilvoorde. This man translated the New Testament into English and first put it in print, and likewise he translated the five books of Moses, Joshua, Judicum, Ruth, the books of the Kings and the books of Paralipomenon, Nehemias or the first of Eldras, the Prophet Jonas, and no more of the holy scripture. He made also divers treatises, which of many were well liked and highly praised, and of many utterly despised and abhorred, and especially of the most part of the bishops of this realm, who often by their great labours caused Proclamations to be made against his books, and got them condemned and burned, as well the New Testament as other works of his doings. Such as best knew him reported him to be a very sombre man, born upon the borders of Wales, and brought up in the University of Oxford, and in life and conversation unreprovable: and at the last being in Oxford Luther then setting forth certain works against the Bishop of Rome, Tyndale occasioned by them to search the scriptures whether Luther said the truth or no, did thereby not only himself attain the knowledge of the usurped authority of the Bishop of Rome and his superstitious and damnable doctrines that he had taught and published through all Christendom, but also lamenting the ignorant state that his native country of England was in, who altogether were wrapped in errors thought it his duty, for that God had revealed the light of his Gospel to him, to bestow his talent to the honour of God and profit of his country, and thought no way so good to reduce the people from their error as first to make them acquainted with Gods word, that they might know what Gods will was that we should do, and what the Bishop of Rome said that we must do and therefore first as is aforesaid: he translated into English the New Testament, a work no doubt very notable and to him very painful, for that he was forced to fly his own native country, and to live in a strange land among people that as well varied from his manners, as the persons to him were unknown. Amongst whom after great pains by him taken, and many and diverse treatises by him published, he was at Antwerp this year by one Philipps an Englishman and then a scholar at Louvain, betrayed and taken, and as many said, not without the help and procurement of some bishops of this realm: but true it is, that after he had been in prison more than a yere and almost forgotten, he was laboured for by letters written by the Lord Cromwell, and then in all haste because he would recant no part of his doings, was burned as you have heard before. But yet this report did the Procurator General there (which we call here the Lieutenant) make of him, that he was, homo doctus pius, et bonus that is to say, learned, godly, and good.
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Around 6th October 1536 William Tyndale (age 42) was strangled to death after which his body was burned at the stake.
Henry Machyn's Diary. 14th June 1555. The xiiij day (of) Juin was a proclamassyon [that all] bokes shuld be broyth [brought] in of Luter, Tendalles, .... and Coverdals (age 67) and bysshope Cremer (age 65), and all shyche as .... shuys and all hereses bokes, and he that dyd nott [bring them] in with-in the xv days after shuld go to presun with-owt prysse, of what degre they be of.
Note. P. 90. Proclamation for bringing in heretical books. A printed copy of this, dated 13 June, is in the collection at the Society of Antiquaries: it is inserted in Foxe's Actes and Monuments, vol. iii. p. 271. Of its objects see also Strype, Mem. vol. iii. p. 250.