It so happened that shortly after this that George Constantine was apprehended by Sir Thomas More, suspected of certain heresies. During the time he was in custody, More said to him: “There are beyond the sea Tyndale, Joyce, and a great many of you, I know they can not live without help, and I pray thee tell me who they are that help them thus?” “My lord,” quoth Constantine, “I will tell you truly, it is the Bishop of London that hath helped us, for he hath bestowed among us a great deal of money upon New Testaments to burn them; and that hath been, and yet is, our only succor and comfort.” “Now my troth,” quoth More, “I think even the same, for so much I told the bishop before he went about it.” BETRAYED AND MURDERED Tyndale’s enemies endeavored to decoy him into England, but he was too wary to be so easily entrapped, for he well knew what displeasure Henry VIII felt at his tract, called “The Practice of Prelates,” and what penalty the royal indignation would speedily inflict. But his enemies in England, whose power had been shaken by the wide circulation of the English New Testament, were the more enraged against him, and conspired to seize him on the Continent, in the name of the Emperor, and through the treachery of one Henry Philips, a smooth, treacherous villain, in the employ of Stephen Gardiner, after having invited Tyndale to dine with him, had him arrested and had him put in the State prison of the Castle of Vivorde, twenty-three miles from Antwerp, May 23, 1535. The English merchants aggrieved by the loss of an esteemed friend, and by this treacherous assault of their rights and privileges, made every effort to secure his release, but all in vain. The neighboring University of Louvain thirsted for his blood. He was speedily condemned, and on Friday, October 6, 1536, he was strangled at the stake and his body then burned to ashes. At the stake, with a fervent zeal and a loud voice, he cried: “Lord, open the King of England’s eyes.” As an apostle of liberty, Tyndale stands foremost among the writers of his day, whose heroic fortitude and invincible love of the truth were heard with a force superior to royal and ecclesiastical injunctions; and “the very flames to which fanaticism and tyranny consigned his writings burnt them into the very hearts of the people, and made them powerful instruments in attacking and converting multitudes to the principles of the Reformation. It is not exaggeration to say that the noble sentiments of William Tyndale, uttered in pure, strong, Saxon English, and steeped in the doctrines of the Gospel, gave shape to the views of the most conspicuous promoters of the great movement, who, like himself, sealed their convictions with their blood.” CHAPTER III. MARTIN LUTHER