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To: Mr Rogers
Not Cromwell. Sorry.

No one knows for certain who employed Philips, but his employment was more consistent with the views of More than of Cromwell.

Yes, indeed, Cromwell. Philips worked for Cromwell and was one of his agents on the Continent. He was also the man assigned by Cromwell to shadow Reginald and Geoffrey Pole in their European exile.

Why would an employee of Cromwell's be informing against Tyndale in Antwerp if Cromwell did not want him to? Why would an employee of More's be reporting to Cromwell about the movements of More's friend Cardinal Pole?

Anne Boleyn was a supporter of Tyndale, and didn’t fall from grace until after Tyndale’s arrest.

Anne Boleyn had no reason to support Tyndale, since he opposed the King's divorce on Scriptural grounds very publicly.

Oh good grief! He most certainly did. More boasted of his hatred for heretics, and his desire to kill them all.

That's funny, he never expressed such a desire for blood in any of his writings.

Quoting from Protestant propaganda texts against More is not probative.

What do the primary sources say? Nothing that supports the Black Legend.

Quite a bit of More's official paperwork survives, and it is - sadly for the propagandists - devoid of anything besides arrest warrants.

36 posted on 07/08/2011 12:05:11 PM PDT by wideawake
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To: wideawake
There is NO evidence Philips worked for Cromwell, and his actions were in line with More & More's friends, not Cromwell. Cromwell supported the Reformation, and was a strong supporter of Anne Boleyn - who also supported Tyndale.

"Anne Boleyn had no reason to support Tyndale, since he opposed the King's divorce on Scriptural grounds very publicly."

She was a supporter of the Reformation and the translation of scripture into the vernacular.

"Anne Boleyn's personal copy of the English New Testament, featuring her coat of arms at the bottom."

"The Boleyn family had been instrumental in bringing the Scripture to the people in the English language. “Promoting the vernacular Bible was clearly a Boleyn family enterprise,” Eric Ives writes in The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn." (http://www.bollyn.com/the-english-bible)

"Quoting from Protestant propaganda texts against More is not probative."

He wrote a great deal, including many threats against Protestants (heretics). You might try reading what he wrote against Martin Luther, or the NINE VOLUMES he wrote against William Tyndale!

From http://www.ianpaisley.org/article.asp?ArtKey=thomasmore2:

Tyndale's friends and readers at home were another matter. There had been no burnings in England for eight years when More became chancellor. He soon put a stop to that. Heretics, he said, must be "punyshed by deth in ye fyre". He spun a web of spies and informers. He personally led house searches to track down Tyndale Testaments and the "nyght scoles of heresye" where Tyndale's "infeccyone" was spread.

The first victim was Thomas Hitton, a priest who had joined Tyndale and the English exiles in the Low Countries, and who had returned to England on a brief visit. He was seized near Gravesend in January 1530 as he made his way to the coast to take ship. Hidden pockets in his coat were found to hold letters "unto the evangelycall heretykes beyonde the see". At his interrogation, Hitton was true to the new beliefs. "The mass he sayed sholde never be sayed. Purgatory he denyed." He was burnt at Maidstone on February 23, 1530. Hitton had learnt his "false faith and heresies" from "Tyndale's holy books", More wrote, and he had become "an apostle, sent to and fro betwene our Englysshe heretykes beyonde the see and such as were here at home. The spirit of errour and lyenge hath taken his wretched soul with him strayte from the shorte fyre to ye fyre ever lastyng. And this is lo sir Thomas Hitton, the dyuyls [devil's] stynkyng martyr, of whose burnynge Tyndale maketh boste"...

...The chancellor, as the senior law officer in the kingdom, should have set an example in upholding these safeguards. Wolsey had done so. More broke them within six months of coming into office. A London leather seller named Thomas Philips was a typical suspect. More interrogated him personally in his Chelsea home, which he had equipped with stocks and a whipping tree. "I perceyued fynally the person suche that I could fynde no trouthe," More wrote, "a man mete and lykely to do many folkie mych harme." The jury which heard the case disagreed with More and refused to convict. More was obliged by law to release Philips immediately. Instead, the miserable man was excommunicated and committed to the Tower, where he languished for three years. John Field was held illegally in the Chelsea house for 18 days. More then had him sent to the Fleet prison, although no sentence had been passed against him or proof of heresy established. Field was in the Fleet for two years, in clear breach of statute. He complained that More often had him searched, sometimes at midnight, "besides snares and traps laid to take him in".

Another leather seller, John Tewkesbury, was said to have been pinioned "hand, foot and head in the stocks" at Chelsea for six days, and to have had "his brows twisted with small ropes, so that the blood started out of his eyes". Of his terrible death at Smithfield, More purred that Tewkesbury was "burned as there was never wretche I wene better worthy". Informers subsequently told him that Tyndale had praised Tewkesbury as a martyr. More commented that "I can se no very grete cause why but yf he rekened it for a grete glory that the man dyd abyde styll by the stake when he was faste bounden to it". He rejoiced that his victim was now in hell, where "Tyndale is like to fynde hym when they come together".

More's resignation as chancellor did not dim his hatred; it seemed evidence that Tyndale and his heretics were ushering the Antichrist into the seat of power. "I find that breed of men absolutely loathsome," he told Erasmus. "I want to be as hateful to them as anyone possibly can be; for my increasing experience with these men frightens me with the thought that the whole world will suffer at their hands."

In the case of John Frith, More used all the qualities of subtlety and manoeuvre that were later let loose on Tyndale. Frith was "ientle & quyet & wel lerned", a young scholar with a charm and grace that beguiled all who knew him. He had become an evangelical at Cambridge, and sailed for Antwerp. Here he had become Tyndale's closest and most loved friend, "my dear son in faith". Frith returned to England in secret to maintain contact with Tyndale's sympathisers. More got wind of this as Frith passed through London and on to Essex to take a ship back to Antwerp. A reward was put on his head and the roads close to the coast were watched. Frith was taken, like Hitton, as he neared the sea.

It seemed likely that Frith would survive. The king needed every theologian he could muster to support his marriage to Anne Boleyn, and he was impressed by reports of Frith's learning. Cromwell arranged for him to be kept in loose detention, unshackled, in the Tower. Frith had pen and paper; materials and correspondence were smuggled into him, and his completed writings were smuggled out. More seized on this to destroy him.Frith was asked by a friend to write his views on the Lord's Supper. This was very dangerous. Years before, Henry VIII had written a treatise defending the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, which holds that the Eucharist bread and wine are transformed into the real body and blood of Christ. The pope had rewarded him with the title of fidei defensor, defender of the faith - the title still appears as FD on modern coins. From Antwerp, Tyndale warned: "Of the presence of Christ's body in the sacrament meddle as little as you can..." But Frith wrote down his belief, denying the real presence of Christ. The treatise was passed to one of More's agents. More boasted of receiving two other copies, and a copy of Tyndale's letter to Frith as well.

More now used all his skills to ensure that the treatise would bring Frith the fate he planned for him. He no longer had the king's favour and could not bludgeon Frith with a public denunciation. Instead, he prepared a paper for private circulation entitled A Letter of Sir Thomas More, Knight, impugning the erroneous writing of John Frith against the blessed Sacrament of the Altar. It was targeted at the king. More was careful to flatter Henry for being "lyke a moste faythfull catholyke prynce for the avoydynge of suche pestylente bokes". A royal chaplain backed the letter up by preaching a sermon on the Eucharist in front of Henry, pointing out that there was a prisoner in the Tower at that moment who was "so bold as to write in defence of heresy".

Henry ordered Cranmer and Cromwell to have Frith brought for trial. Tyndale wrote him a farewell letter - "Your cause is Christ's gospel, a light that must be fed with the blood of faith. The lamp must be dressed and snuffed daily, and that oil poured in every evening and morning, that the light go not out... If the pain be above thy strength, remember: 'Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, I will give it thee'" - and Frith was gone, the wind at Smithfield blowing the flames away from him, so that his dying was prolonged.

37 posted on 07/08/2011 12:55:16 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (Poor history is better than good fiction, and anything with lots of horses is better still)
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