work seems to have progressed with great success, and in September, 1538, the King’s minister, in anticipation of its speedy completion, issued injunctions that a copy of it should be placed in every church at the cost of the parson and the parishioners, and that no one was to be discouraged from reading it: he advised, however, that ‘the explication of obscure plac_es_’ be referred ‘to men of higher iugement in scripture[271].’ But Cromwell was a little premature with his injunctions. An unforeseen event occurred, which made the immediate publication of the new edition impossible. The Royal Inquisition had apparently got wind of the doings of Grafton and Whitchurch at Paris, and just as the task was approaching completion, they and all their subordinates, and the French printer at whose house the work was being carried on, were suddenly cited to appear before the Inquisitor-General for the realm of France[272]. The Englishmen made haste to escape, without even waiting to collect the implements of their trade or the Bibles that had already been printed. Cromwell, on hearing of the disaster, went with a piteous tale to the French ambassador, telling him that he himself had contributed 600 marks towards the publication of the Bible in Paris, and begging him to ask his master to permit the work to be continued there, or at least to allow the copies already finished to be sent to England safely, and not to suffer the Inquisition to confiscate them. But Francis replied that good things might be printed in England as well as in France, but that bad things should never be permitted to be printed in Paris, and he further refused to deliver up the copies already completed. He was unable, however, to prevent the final accomplishment of the work in London in 1539[273]. The new version, commonly known as the Great Bible, was the last authorized translation completed in the reign of Henry VIII., but apparently great efforts had to be made to prevent the publication of unlicensed editions. It was not long before a royal commission was issued to Cromwell, commanding him, in order to avoid diversity of translations, to see that no man printed any English Bible during the next five years except persons deputed by himself[274].