He gave English the language
to read scripture. Then they
burned him for it.
Before dawn, the gates of the castle opened. William Tyndale, age 42, was led from the dungeon where he had spent eighteen months. He walked through the inner court, past the moorhens nesting in the castle's moat, and out the southern gate.
The hangman placed a rope around his neck. The executioner had been instructed to strangle him first — a small mercy reserved for those of scholarly standing, sparing them the worst of the fire.
The strangling was botched.
Tyndale was still alive when the flames were lit. His last words, recorded by witnesses: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes."
By 1539 — three years after his execution — Henry VIII personally authorized an English Bible chained to every pulpit in England. It was 75% Tyndale's work. The 1611 King James Bible was, by most scholars' count, 83% Tyndale.
The man they burned at the stake had given the English-speaking world its Bible.
Tyndale was not alone. John Wycliffe translated the Bible into English in 1382 and died of natural causes two years later. The Church could not capture him in time — but they did not let him rest. In 1428, on Pope Martin V's instruction, Wycliffe's body was exhumed. His bones were dug up, burned to ash, and the ashes dumped into the River Swift. Forty-four years after his death.
Jan Hus, burned in 1415. Thomas Hitton, burned in 1530. Thomas Bilney, burned in 1531. James Bainham, burned in 1532. John Frith, burned in 1533.
Translation has always been a battlefield. The dead have always been the translators.