And what this body of works does is create a filter through which Protestants view the Bible. This becomes just as much a tradition as that of Catholics. If Protestants were true to the claim of direct access to the Bible they would either present it without any theological commentary or present both Protestant and Catholic commentaries together, giving them equal weight and allowing the reader/student to choose the interpretation that appeals to him.
It was largely because of the scripture being translated into other languages that the doctrine and practices of the Church of Rome began to be called into question and Luther gained many followers.
As I pointed out before, there were a number of translations in the various languages before Luther and Tyndale. They were not widely available before the invention of the printing press because of cost, not a effort by the Church to prevent their distribution. What happened with Luther and Tyndale was the introduction of mistranslations that were deliberately polemical. Rather than allowing the readers to have direct access to the Bible the Reformers used the process of translation to promote a theological agenda. Luther himself admitted that he inserted "alone" to the phrase "by faith alone."
The clergy were vehemently opposed to any translation of scripture into English so they could avoid an English movement similar to Luther’s from taking place.
Admittedly true but this was based on a practical need because they feared the civil war going on in Germany rather than on a theoretical opposition to vernacular translations.
The Catholic church was forced to make an English translation because of Tyndale’s work. This was a whole generation after Tyndale’s contributions.
You conveniently leave out the revolution caused by the invention of the printing press in your timeline of events. There was not attempt to "hide" the Bible from the people. Rather, before the printing press it was just too expensive and literacy rates too low to produce widespread vernacular translations. It took a whole generation for English Catholic translation because the English Catholics were forced into exile and had to work with little funding.
The founders of this nation were able to build a coalition of various Christian sects which all agreed on the freedoms of religion, speech, conscience, and associations. This would never have happened without men like Tyndale. Your failure to condemn his murder speaks volumes.
You want me to say it then I will say it, the execution of Tyndale and other heretics was unjustified and sinful. But let us not pretend that this was something unique to Catholicism. I can name a Catholic victim by the Protestants for every Protestant victim you can name. It was a sad product of the age, not of either Catholicism or Protestantism per se. Nor should we pretend that Protestantism was founded on religious liberty. Wherever the Protestants came to power during the Reformation they set up their own state churches and persecuted Catholics. We both have enough skeletons in our respective closets from this dark age.
I think your last assessment is generally pretty fair.
I do think you underestimate the opposition to spreading the Bible in English, but I will grant that much of this opposition was not because of Catholic doctrines but more of a failure to follow what all Christians generally agree to be God’s moral laws.
One other thing I will point out is that much of the Bible study tools Protestants use are dedicated to helping the reader to get more familiar with the Bible itself rather than trying to explain it.
For example, a concordance might identify the original Greek or Hebrew text being translated, distinguish this from other words with similar meanings. They sometimes help to recover what might be lost in translation. A Bible dictionary could contribute similarly. A commentary might provide some historical or cultural context which makes a passage more easily understood. Sometimes cross references help to clarify the meaning and intent.
Granted that some of these things may be influenced by the authors’ theology, but often it is just a tool like basic literacy that can allow someone to read and understand the Bible.
We regard these tools as always fallible and to generally contain errors. We even generally recognize that translations can contain errors or misunderstand the meaning of the original. Occasionally there is even dispute as to whether a word or phrase was copied correctly. But none of these things really have a definitive impact on our understanding of basic doctrines.
The debate revolves around the authority of oral traditions and teachings. We recognize these things to have value as well but believe that everything essential for us to know for salvation and godly living is preserved in the Bible.
The traditions of the apostles are not the same as the traditions of men. Apostolic traditions were ordained by God. We believe these have been faithfully preserved in the Bible.
Likewise, the apostles’ doctrines are not doctrines of men. Yes, these were taught by them to faithful men who in turn taught others who did likewise. However, we hold that none of these oral instructions contain any knowledge that is not also recorded in scripture so that everything essential can be derived through the “rightly dividing of the word of truth”.