The penalty for heresy in both Protestant and Catholic jurisdictions was, technically, death.
Tyndale believed himself to be safe in Antwerp for two reasons:
(1) Antwerp was a city where Catholics and Protestants mingled fairly freely, had an absentee ruler (the Duke of Brabant was also the Holy Roman Emperor and was not too focused on the day-to-day administration), and was governed by the city's assembly - which was more interested in commerce than theology.
(2) Antwerp was ruled by Charles V who, while no fan of Protestantism, had no desire to track down and kill the enemies of Henry VIII - whom he despised for divorcing his aunt, Queen Catherine.
Tyndale had written several pamphlets attacking the King's personal life and his Erastianism and was considered to be not just a heretic by England's new Protestant ascendancy, but also a personal enemy of the King.
However, with his fall from favor, King Henry VIII was not inclined to kill Tyndale. In fact, in August of 1535, Cromwell was given permission to write letters asking for clemency for Tyndale by the King’s authority. The appeal was turned down.
That is the spin - but Henry VIII and Cromwell wanted Tyndale dead while not offending his English supporters. So, unofficially, Cromwell sent his agent Henry Philips to inform on Tyndale to the authorities and threatened to expose the city fathers to punishment from the Emperor if they did not uphold the letter of the law. Then, officially and publicly, Cromwell cried out for leniency for Tyndale.
It was pure politics.
Cromwell knew that as long as no formal charges were made against Tyndale, the city and the emperor would not have lifted a finger against him. So Cromwell came up with a very clever solution in which the council and the emperor would have to execute Tyndale or look like they had lost all authority in their own lands. Great statecraft.
Around the same time that Cromwell was pretending to mourn Tyndale, he was having William Exmew drawn, quartered and disemboweled while still living for the "heresy" of recognizing the Pope.
“Saint” Thomas More pursued ‘heretics’ and had them tortured and killed at an unprecedented rate.
That's also completely false, by the way. Put under house arrest, absolutely. Tortured or killed? He had neither the legal authority to do so, nor has a single piece of evidence ever been put forward that he ever did such a thing.
“Cromwell sent his agent Henry Philips to inform on Tyndale to the authorities and threatened to expose the city fathers to punishment from the Emperor if they did not uphold the letter of the law.”
Not Cromwell. Sorry. And Tyndale’s fortunes in King Henry’s mind went up and down. Anne Boleyn was a supporter of Tyndale, and didn’t fall from grace until after Tyndale’s arrest.
Tyndale had opposed her marriage, but he also supported the right of Kings against the Catholic Church, so he was neither for nor against King Henry. And indeed, shortly after Tyndale’s death, his New Testament was largely published by King Henry under the guise of Coverdale.
No one knows for certain who employed Philips, but his employment was more consistent with the views of More than of Cromwell.
“The penalty for heresy in both Protestant and Catholic jurisdictions was, technically, death.”
Yes, and under Thomas More, it was more likely to happen in England than in Belgium.
“Tortured or killed? He had neither the legal authority to do so, nor has a single piece of evidence ever been put forward that he ever did such a thing.”
Oh good grief! He most certainly did. More boasted of his hatred for heretics, and his desire to kill them all. It wasn’t a secret. He wrote at great length about it.
There is a question if he did so personally in his house - where he admitted to imprisoning heretics. But that heretics were tortured and burned with his approval, support and by his authority, there is no doubt.
“James Bainham was the son of a Gloucestershire Knight. He was a man well read in the classics and a distinguished lawyer of Middle Temple. He was too an earnest reader of Scripture. He was arrested by order of More, taken to his house in Chelsea, tied to the “tree of truth” where More caused him to be whipped in the hope of discovering other “heretics”. He was taken to the Tower where he was racked until he was lamed. When he was taken to the stake at Smithfield on 30th April 1531, he said “I die for having said it is lawful for every man and woman to have God’s book . . ..that the true key of Heaven is not that of the bishop of Rome, but the preaching of the Gospel.” At the stake, as the train of gunpowder ran towards him, Bainham lifted up his eyes towards Heaven and cried “God forgive thee and show thee more mercy than thou showest to me! The Lord forgive Sir Thomas More.”
“In More’s Confutation however, More states Tyndale is no longer a “heretic swollen with pride”- he is “a beast discharging filthy foam of blasphemies out of his brutish beastly mouth “- a “railing ribald” - a “drowsy drudge that has drunken deep in the devil’s dregs” and so on. (William Tyndale, R. Demaus).”
“Further burnings followed at More’s instigation, including that of the priest and writer John Frith in 1533. In The Confutation of Tyndale’s Answer, More described him as “the devil’s stinking martyr”