AT LITTLE SODBURY
Churchmen and gentry were frequent guests at the hospitable board. The
topics agitating men's minds were often mentioned. Sometimes the
conversation waxed warm. The chaplain rarely spoke, though nothing
escaped his attention. It was impossible always to forbear. A question
or a reflection was at times enough to draw opposition. Indeed the
relevancy and significance of his words challenged his listener.
Tindale felt himself alone. He was not sure of the sympathies of his
host: his hostess thought him presumptuous in holding his opinion
against the company. The atmosphere was often unfriendly.
In Foxe's "Acts and Monuments" we have recorded the testimony of one who
probably got the facts from Tindale himself. Describing such table talk,
he adds: "Wherein as those men and Master Tindale did vary in opinions
and judgments, then Master Tindale would shew them on the book the
places by open and manifest Scripture; the which continued for a certain
season divers and sundry times, until in the continuance thereof those
great beneficed doctors waxed weary and bore a secret grudge in their
hearts against Master Tindale".
(Demaus' "Life of Tindale" page 67.)
It was in the course of a conversation of the kind that Tindale drove
one of those learned men to exclaim that the Pope's laws were above all
other authority; to which came Tindale's reply, impetuous and defiant:
"I defy the Pope and his laws. If God spare my life, ere many years I
shall cause a boy that driveth the plow shall know more of the
Scriptures than thou doest." (page 86 ib.)
Students of that age have been struck by the co-incidence of this
anticipation of Tindale's and the prediction of Erasmus in the passage
where the latter records his emphatic dissent from those who were
unwilling to have the Scriptures translated into the vulgar tongue and
read by private individuals.
* * * * *
The coincidence is a striking one. It may well be that the daring of the
Dutch man of letters smote a responsive chord in the breast of the brave
Englishman. If the younger catches the torch from the hand of his
precursor, must we disparage the courage with which the torch is carried
forward and kept ablaze?
From Foxe again we take the picture of a little domestic scene, very
realistic, wherein the lady of the house occupies the centre. "So upon a
time some of those beneficed doctors had Master Walsh and the lady his
wife, at a supper or banquet, there having among them talk at will
without any gainsaying: and the supper or banquet being done, and Master
Walsh and the lady his wife come home, they called for Master Tindale,
and talked with him of such communication as had been, where they come
fro (from), and of their opinions. Master Tindale there-unto made answer
agreeable to the truth of God's word, and in reproving of their false
opinions. The Lady Walsh, being a stout woman, and as Master Tindale did
report her to be wise, being there no more but they three, Master Walsh,
his wife and Master Tindale; 'Well,' said she, 'there was such a doctor,
he may dispend (spend) two hundred pounds by the year, another one
hundred pound, and another three hundred pound; and what think ye, were
it reason that we should believe you before them so great, learned and
beneficed men?' Master Tindale, hearing her, gave her no answer; nor
after that had but small arguments against such, for he perceived it
would not help in effect to the contrary."
Tindale had the good sense to know how vain would be argument with his
disputant. He found another way. Ere long both Sir John and his lady
took their stand firmly by his side.