vise the translation of
Tyndale; and the Bible which he edited was published in 1538 under the
avowed patronage of Henry himself.

But the force of events was already carrying England far from the
standpoint of Erasmus or More. The dream of the New Learning was to be
wrought out through the progress of education and piety. In the policy
of Cromwell, reform was to be brought about by the brute force of the
monarchy. The story of the royal supremacy was graven even on the
title-page of the new Bible. It is Henry on his throne who gives the
sacred volume to Cranmer, ere Cranmer and Cromwell can distribute it to
the throng of priests and laymen below. Hitherto men had looked on
religious truth as a gift from the Church. They were now to look on it
as a gift from the King. The very gratitude of Englishmen for fresh
spiritual enlightenment was to tell to the profit of the royal power. No
conception could be further from that of the New Learning, from the plea
for intellectual freedom which runs through the life of Erasmus, or the
craving for political liberty which gives nobleness to the speculations
of More. Nor was it possible for Henry himself to avoid drifting from
the standpoint he had chosen. He had written against Luther; he had
persisted in opposing Lutheran doctrine; he had passed new laws to
hinder the circulation of Lutheran books in his realm. But influences
from without as from within drove him nearer to Lutheranism. If the
encouragement of Francis had done somewhat to bring about his final
breach with the papacy, he soon found little will in the French King to
follow him in any course of separation from Rome; and the French
alliance threatened to become useless as a shelter against the wrath of
the Emperor.

Charles was goaded into action by the bill annulling Mary's right of
succession; and in 1535 he proposed to unite his house with that of
Francis by close intermarriage, and to sanction Mary's marriage with a
son of the French King if Francis would join in an attack on England.
Whether such a proposal was serious or no, Henry had to dread attack
from Charles himself and to look for new allies against it. He was
driven to offer his alliance to the Lutheran princes of North Germany,
who dreaded like himself the power of the Emperor, and who were now
gathering in the League of Smalkald.

But the German princes made agreement as to doctrine a condition of
their alliance; and their pressure was backed by Henry'