Page:Cambridge Modern History Volume 2.djvu/496

 printed, with Coverdale's aid as corrector, on the best of paper with the best typographic art of the day. This work was far advanced when it was stopped by the French Inquisition; but Coverdale and Grafton succeeded in conveying away the presses, type, and a company of French compositors, by whose aid the work was finished in London in April, 1539.

That edition was known as " the Great Bible." It was issued by the King's authority and Cromwell's; but the clergy were by no means pleased with the translation, which they severely censured in Convocation in 1542, two years after Cromwell's death. They appointed committees of the best Hebrew and Greek scholars to revise it; but the King sent a message through Cranmer forbidding them to proceed, as he intended to submit the work to the two Universities. This was simply a false pretence to stop revision; for a patent was immediately granted to Anthony Marlar, giving to him instead of Grafton, who was now in disgrace, the sole right of printing the Bible for four years. The Great Bible continued to be used in churches, and six were set up in St Paul's Cathedral for general use.

These were the principal translations issued in Henry VIII's time; and authority being given for their use, those, who maintained the old Lollard theory that the Bible could be safely interpreted without the aid of a priesthood, were encouraged in their opposition to the Church. This theory was clearly gaining in strength during the latter part of Henry's reign and its adherents became still more numerous in that of his son. Men founded their convictions on an infallible book, were confident in their own judgments, and died by hundreds under Mary for beliefs that were only exceptionally held in the beginning of her father's reign. The pure delight in the sacred literature itself inspired many with enthusiasm; and among other results we find the musician Marbeck, who knew no Latin, compiling a Concordance to the English Bible, and the heroic Anne Askew, when examined for heresy, full of scriptural texts and references in defending herself.

These cases, and especially the last, deserve more than a passing mention. Some account has been already given of martyrdoms, both for refusal to acknowledge the Royal Supremacy and for doctrines of a novel kind. But the results of the severe Act of the Six Articles have not as yet been touched upon. They were not, in truth, so appalling as might have been expected. The presentments at first were quashed, and new regulations were made about procedure, which, with further modifications passed by Statute, considerably abated the terrors of the Act. But in 1543, just after the King's marriage with Catharine Parr, four men of Windsor were found guilty of heresy, of whom three were burned at the Castle, and one was pardoned. The man pardoned was John Marbeck, the celebrated musician just referred to, who possibly owed his escape in part to his musical talents; for he was organist of St George's Chapel. Yet it does not seem that he had really transgressed