rights and privileges of which on that account he had been unjustly eived, was no small proof of her enlightened understanding, her

urage, and her Christian humanity. Being still the object of Heury's idolatrous affection, she could bend his will in this stance to the side of justice; and neither Tonstal, Gardiner, Sly, nor her uncle, the Duke of Norfolk, much as they hated the Stres and their circulation among the people, dared to express their fissent, lest by opposing the queen they should excite the disasure of the monarch.

The queen's friendly interference in behalf of Harman, and her farable sentiments as to the diffusion of the Word of God in the

ther tongue, was soon made known to Tyndale, who was now at Antwerp, about to print in that city a new and improved edition of bs New Testament, and the tidings were felt by him as a great ragement. Surrounded by numerous and powerful enemies, were thirsting for his blood, and who to open hostility added base and artful treachery, it cheered him to know that a woman of Ante's influence appreciated his labours, and sympathized with the -rings of himself and of others engaged in the same cause. Not en high places in England had ventured, like her, to plead the ea of Bible circulation, and to give the sanction of their name to has translation. He had received this intelligence probably from Harman himself, before he had begun to print his new and improved an of the New Testament, and in expression of his gratitude to queen, when the work was passing through the press,' he ordered ay to be beautifully printed on vellum with illuminations,

led as a present to her, and he got it bound in blue morocco, w these words upon the gilding of the leaves, in large red letters, *ASYA REGINA ANGLIE."

The rating of this edition was finished in the month of November, 1534.

* Ater pawang through various hands, this elegant copy came into the possession of the her, Cayton Mordaunt Cracherode, who bequeathed it, with his large and valuable atrary to the British Museum, into which it was brought after his death, in April, 1799, where it is now preserved.

Anne's favour for the Reformation and the Reformers was well known to the Popish party in England, and it disconcerted them exceedingly. So fully were they convinced of her leanings on this side, that when, with Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, at their head, they had formed a plan for the destruction of Tyndale. which was by sending a hired agent from England into the Netherlands to make every effort to induce the government of that country, according to the persecuting laws then in force, to apprehend and burn Tyndale as an heretic, the plot was carefully concealed from Henry. No good reason can be assigned for this but their fears lest Anne, had she been apprised of their intentions, should have effectually defeated them, by her powerful intercessions with the king in behalf of Tyndale.'

There is even ground for believing that Anne had actively promoted the printing of the first edition of the New Testament printed in England; which was Tyndale's English translation. The previous editions had been issued from the press at Antwerp. This edition was printed in London, by his majesty's printer, in folio, with the valuable prologues of that Reformer prefixed to each of the inspired books, and with his long-proscribed name exhibited on the titlepage. It was published in the year 1536, though in all probability the printing of it had commenced in the close of the year 1535. The name of the printer, who was Thomas Berthelet, does not indeed

the

1 Anderson's Annals of the English Bible, vol. i., p. 417. The plot was successful. In the beginning of the year 1535 Tyndale was arrested at Antwerp, and carried to the castle of Vilvorde, a distance of twenty-three and a half miles. After being im prisoned nearly two years in that castle, he was condemned to the flames. On being bound to the stake, he uttered aloud, with great fervour, the prayer, "Lord, open eyes of the King of England." He was first strangled by the hangman, and then consumed by the flames. This took place on the morning of Friday, 6th October, 1536, shortly before the printing of his New Testament by the king's printer, as mentioned in the next paragraph in the text. England must ever revere the memory of Tyndale, the first who translated the Scriptures from their inspired originals into the English tongue, and the father and founder of our authorized version of the Bible. He translated the whole of the New Testament, and the historical books of the Old, from Genesis to the end of the Second Book of Chronicles, when martyrdom put an end to

his labours.

arpear on the title-page, but the most competent judges, as Ames, Herbert, and Dibdin, maintain that it must have proceeded from his press; and the type, as well as the ornamental title of the boys in triumph, peculiar to his press, place this beyond dispute. The histery of the printing of this edition is involved in mystery; but the expensive style of its execution, and its issuing from the press of the kay's printer, bespeak it as undertaken under high authority. Berthelet himself was indifferent about the Word of God. In 1530 he adficially printed a royal proclamation prohibiting any from haring copies of the Holy Scriptures in the vulgar tongues, English, French and Dutch, that is, German;' and he was not the man to trat so obnoxious and heretical a book as Tyndale's New Testament, had be thereby been exposed to danger. He must therefore have been employed by such as had both the ability and the will to protect m in doing so, as well as to pay the expenses. Would he have deed himself secure under any other patronage save that of yaty? If not, under whose auspices but those of Anne could he have engaged in this undertaking? Such a supposition is certainly army with her expressed approbation of Tyndale's version. ad her earnest intercession in behalf of Harman, its most active dinator. In the Manual of Devotions, said to have been presented by her to her maids of honour, the following striking passage

expressing gratitude to God for the approbation the king had ven to the publication of the Scriptures in the English tongue :— *Grant us, most merciful Father, this one of the greatest gifts that ver thou gavest to mankind, the knowledge of thy holy will and glad tilings of our salvation; this great while oppressed with the racay of thy adversary of Rome, and his fautors, and kept close der his Latin letters; and now at length promulgated, published, and set at liberty, by the grace poured into the heart of thy supreme wwer, cur prince, as all kings' hearts be in thy hand, as in the old a thou didst use like mercy to thy people of Israel by thy high

Many years after this, namely, in 1546, he printed the proclamation which dered Tyndale's New Testament, and all his writings.

instrument the good king Josias, who restored the temple decayed to its former beauty, abolished all worshipping of images and idolatry, and set abroad the law by the space of many hundred years before clean out of remembrance."1 This evidently expresses her own sentiments; and as to the change now wrought upon the king in favour of the circulation of the Scriptures in the mother tongue, by whose influence was it more likely to have been produced than by that of Anne? This edition of Tyndale's New Testament, it would seem, was one of the fruits of that change.

To studious youths in narrow circumstances, particularly such as favoured the Reformation, Anne was also a generous patroness. John Aylmer, afterwards tutor to the celebrated Lady Jane Grey, was indebted to her liberality for the ability to continue the prosecution

of his studies at Cambridge. He had been a candidate for the situation of abbot in St. Mary's Abbey, York, but was unsuccessful,

1 Lewis's History of English Translations of the Holy Bible, vol. i., p. 97.

one William Thornton having gained the election, March 2, 1530, and received the temporalities, April 10. Anne, however, from the highly favourable accounts she had received of his character and capa aty, made provision for his continuing to prosecute his studies. And Thornton having, in violation of an express agreement at the time of his election, removed Aylmer from the university, and traght him to St. Mary's Abbey, in which he employed him in ertain menial offices, Anne, upon the complaint of Aylmer or of se of his friends, immediately ordered Thornton to allow Aylmer to return to the university of Cambridge.'

Strype, in his Historical Collections, has recorded the names of ther ingenious young men, converts to the new opinions, and afterwars celebrated in their day, who were supported by her at the versity. "She was very nobly charitable, and expended largely in manner of acts of liberality, according to her high quality. And ng the rest of her ways of showing this Christian virtue, she being a favourer of learning, together with her father, the Lord Wire, and the Lord Rochford, her brother, maintained divers ingenious men at the universities. Among the rest were these men dote: Dr. Hethe, afterwards Archbishop of York, and Lord Chan2-r; Dr. Thirlby, afterwards Bishop of Ely; and Mr. Paget, -rwards Lord Paget, and Secretary of State: all whom in her were favourers of the gospel, though afterwards they relapsed. Of Paget one hath observed that he was a most earnest Protestant, bg in Cambridge, gave unto one Reynold West Luther's be, and other books of the Germans, as Franciscus Lambertus de

and that at that time he read Melancthon's Rhetoric openly Trinity Hall, and was a maintainer of Dr. Barnes, and all the Prestants then in Cambridge, and helped many religious persons stof their cowls." Dr. Bill, master of St. John's College Camtrige, Dean of Westminster, almoner to Queen Elizabeth, and a

See her letter to Thornton to this effect, in Miss Wood's Letters of Royal and Ilatrons Ladies, vol. ii., p. 191.

1 Mem, Ecci., vol. i., part i, p 430.