Books Fatal to Their Authors | Page 7

in England, and his trunks were seized, and found to contain
over £1,600. De Dominis fled to Brussels, and there wrote his
Consilium Reditûs, giving his reasons for rejoining the Roman Church,

and expecting daily his promised reward--a cardinal's hat and a rich
bishopric. His hopes were doomed to be disappointed. For a short time
he received a pension from Gregory XV., but this was discontinued by
Urban VIII., and our author became dissatisfied and imprudently talked
of again changing his faith. He was heard to exclaim at supper on one
occasion, "That no Catholic had answered his book, De Republicâ
Ecclesiasticâ, but that he himself was able to deal with them." The
Inquisition seized him, and he was conveyed to the Castle of St. Angelo,
where he soon died, as some writers assert, by poison. His body and his
books were burned by the executioner, and the ashes thrown into the
Tiber. Dr. Fitzgerald, Rector of the English College at Rome, thus
describes him: "He was a malcontent knave when he fled from us, a
railing knave when he lived with you, and a motley particoloured knave
now he is come again." He had undoubtedly great learning and skill in
controversy, [Footnote: His opinion with regard to the jurisdiction of
the Metropolitan over suffragan bishops was referred to in the recent
trial of the Bishop of Lincoln.] but avarice was his master, and he was
rewarded according to his deserts. [Footnote: Cf. article by the Rev. C.
W. Penny in the Journal of the Berks Archaeological Society, on
Antonio de Dominis.]
The lonely fortress of Mont-Saint-Michel saw the end of a bitter
controversialist, Noël Bède, who died there in 1587. He wrote Natalis
Bedoe, doctoris Theol. Parisiensis annotationum in Erasmi
paraphrases Novi Testamenti, et Jacobi Fabri Stapulensis
commentarios in Evangelistas, Paulique Epistolas, Libri III., Parisiis,
1526, in-fol. This work abounds in vehement criticisms and violent
declamations. Erasmus did not fail to reply to his calumniator, and
detected no less than eighty-one falsehoods, two hundred and six
calumnies, and forty-seven blasphemies. Bède continued to denounce
Erasmus as a heretic, and in a sermon before the court reproached the
king for not punishing such unbelievers with sufficient rigour. The
author was twice banished, and finally was compelled to make a public
retractation in the Church of Notre Dame, for having spoken against the
king and the truth, and to be exiled to Mont- Saint-Michel.
Translators of the Bible fared not well at the hands of those who were

unwilling that the Scriptures should be studied in the vulgar tongue by
the lay-folk, and foremost among that brave band of self-sacrificing
scholars stands William Tyndale. His life is well known, and needs no
recapitulation; but it may be noted that his books, rather than his work
of translating the Scriptures, brought about his destruction. His
important work called The Practice of Prelates, which was mainly
directed against the corruptions of the hierarchy, unfortunately
contained a vehement condemnation of the divorce of Catherine of
Arragon by Henry VIII. This deeply offended the monarch at the very
time that negotiations were in progress for the return of Tyndale to his
native shores from Antwerp, and he declared that he was "very joyous
to have his realm destitute of such a person." The Practice of Prelates
was partly written in answer to the Dialogue of Sir Thomas More, who
was commissioned to combat the "pernicious and heretical" works of
the "impious enemies of the Church." Tyndale wrote also a bitter
Answer to the Dialogue, and this drew forth from More his abusive and
scurrilous Confutation, which did little credit to the writer or to the
cause for which he contended Tyndale's longest controversial work,
entitled The Obedience of a Christian Man, and how Christian Rulers
ought to govern, although it stirred up much hostility against its author,
very favourably impressed King Henry, who delighted in it, and
declared that "the book was for him and for all kings to read." The story
of the burning of the translation of the New Testament at St. Paul's
Cross by Bishop Tunstall, of the same bishop's purchase of a "heap of
the books" for the same charitable purpose, thereby furnishing Tyndale
with means for providing another edition and for printing his
translation of the Pentateuch, all this is a thrice-told tale. Nor need we
record the account of the conspiracy which sealed his doom. For
sixteen months he was imprisoned in the Castle of Vilvoord, and we
find him petitioning for some warm clothing and "for a candle in the
evening, for it is wearisome to sit alone in the dark," and above all for
his Hebrew Bible, Grammar, and Dictionary, that he might spend his
time in that study. After a long dreary mockery of a trial on October