delights in distributing these among the crowd. Nay, to allure the minds of the simple, at one it sells them, at another with an insidious liberality it bestows them. Again, therefore, we exhort you that your courage fail not. The power of temporal princes, will, we trust in the Lord, come to your assistance, whose interest, as reason and experience show, is concerned when the authority of the Church is questioned.”[23] =5. England.= The Synod of Canterbury, held at Oxford in 1408, forbids the translation into English under individual authority (_auctoritate sua_) of any portion of the Scriptures. It further forbids, under penalty of the greater excommunication, the reading or the possession (except with the approval of the bishop or provincial council) of any versions of the Scriptures which had been issued since the time of Wyclif, or which might thereafter be issued.[24] This prohibition appears not to have been very thoroughly enforced. Sir Thomas More speaks of seeing old versions of the Bible in the hands of the laity, without criticism from the bishops.[25] It is the case, however, that, between 1408 and 1525, the date of Tyndale’s Bible, no English version of the Scriptures was printed. The first Bible published in England was Tyndale’s English version of the New Testament. This was, however, printed not in England but in Cologne at the press of Quentell. Tyndale was by birth a Welshman. After studying in Oxford and in Cambridge, he sojourned in Antwerp and in that city he completed, in the year 1525, with the assistance of John Fryth and Joseph Royes, his translation of the New Testament. The supplies of the book when forwarded to London, came into immediate demand, but as soon as the ecclesiastical authorities had an opportunity of examining the text, the book was put under ban and all copies that could be found were seized and destroyed. At the instance of Catholic ecclesiastics in England, Tyndale was, in 1536, arrested at Antwerp, under the authority of the Emperor Charles V and after being imprisoned for eighteen months, was burned. In 1535, a complete English Bible, comprising Tyndale’s version of the New Testament and the Pentateuch and a translation, prepared by Coverdale and others, of the remaining books of the Old Testament, was printed somewhere on the Continent, probably at Zurich by Trochsover.