Even MILES COVERDALE, who did the people the inestimable
service of translating the Bible into English (which the unreformed
religion never permitted to be done), was left in poverty while the great
families clutched the Church lands and money. The people had been told
that when the Crown came into possession of these funds, it would not be
necessary to tax them; but they were taxed afresh directly afterwards. It
was fortunate for them, indeed, that so many nobles were so greedy for
this wealth; since, if it had remained with the Crown, there might have
been no end to tyranny for hundreds of years. One of the most active
writers on the Church's side against the King was a member of his own
family--a sort of distant cousin, REGINALD POLE by name--who attacked him
in the most violent manner (though he received a pension from him all the
time), and fought for the Church with his pen, day and night. As he was
beyond the King's reach--being in Italy--the King politely invited him
over to discuss the subject; but he, knowing better than to come, and
wisely staying where he was, the King's rage fell upon his brother Lord
Montague, the Marquis of Exeter, and some other gentlemen: who were tried
for high treason in corresponding with him and aiding him--which they
probably did--and were all executed. The Pope made Reginald Pole a
cardinal; but, so much against his will, that it is thought he even
aspired in his own mind to the vacant throne of England, and had hopes of
marrying the Princess Mary. His being made a high priest, however, put
an end to all that. His mother, the venerable Countess of Salisbury--who
was, unfortunately for herself, within the tyrant's reach--was the last
of his relatives on whom his wrath fell. When she was told to lay her
grey head upon the block, she answered the executioner, 'No! My head
never committed treason, and if you want it, you shall seize it.' So,
she ran round and round the scaffold with the executioner striking at
her, and her grey hair bedabbled with blood; and even when they held her
down upon the block she moved her head about to the last, resolved to be
no party to her own barbarous murder. All this the people bore, as they
had borne everything else.

Indeed they bore much more; for the slow fires of Smithfield were
continually burning, and people were constantly being roasted to
death--still to show what a good Christian the King was. He defied the
Pope and his Bull, which