Tyndale himself, in his “Obedience of a Christian Man,” to which reference will be further made later on in this biography, makes the following allusion to his own childhood:--“Except my memory fail me, and that I have forgotten what I read when I was a child, thou shalt find in the English Chronicle, how that King Adelstone (Athelstone) caused the Holy Scripture to be translated into the tongue that then was in England, and how prelates exhorted him thereto.” We may therefore suppose that the child was taught at home in the ancient records of the Kingdom, and perhaps his attention was called by his father to the significant fact that then the Scriptures could not be read by the people, whereas this had been permitted in earlier days. It is singular that the boy should have noticed such a fact, and it suggests that some one significantly indicated it to him. It is certain that a strong sympathy for the opinions of Wycliffe and his followers existed all through the West of England, and probably William Tyndale’s father hinted to his sons what he did not dare to speak out to others. And there were also here and there, men, in monasteries, vicarages, and dwelling-houses, who were beginning to discern the coming dawn. “Midnight being past,” says Fuller, “some early risers were beginning to strike fire and enlighten themselves from the Scriptures.” And there was indeed great need for them to do so, for the religious condition of England was at that time lamentable. As an example of the dissoluteness of the national manners, and principally amongst the clergy, it is said of Mr. Edmund Loud, a gentleman of rank in Huntingdonshire, that he “was disgusted at the dissolute lives of the monks of Sawtry, an abbey in his neighbourhood, and even ventured to chastise one of them who had insulted his daughter. For this, and other circumstances, they determined to be revenged; and he was waylaid and assaulted by six men, tenants of the abbey. He defended himself with a billhook for some time, till a constable came up and stopped the fray, and Mr. Loud was required to give up his weapon. They then proceeded peaceably with the constable; but, watching an opportunity, as Mr. Loud was crossing a stile, one seized him by the arms, while another fractured his skull with the blow of a club, and he died seven days afterwards. The murderers escaped, and the influence of the Romish clergy prevented the matter being properly followed up.”