[3][4] In 1530, Tyndale wrote The Practice of Prelates, opposing Henry's plan to seek the annulment of his marriage on the grounds that it contravened Scripture.

[5] Fleeing England, Tyndale sought refuge in the Flemish territory of the Catholic Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.

[10][11] Tyndale lived and worked during the era of Renaissance humanism and the revival of Biblical scholarship, which were both aided by both the Gutenberg Revolution and the ensuing democratisation of knowledge; for example, the publication of Johann Reuchlin's Hebrew grammar in 1506.

[12] However the religious foment and violent rebellion of the Lollards resulted in heresy being treated as sedition under English law, which bore the death penalty.

Tyndale's brother Edward was receiver to the lands of Lord Berkeley, as attested to in a letter by Bishop Stokesley of London.

As Tyndale later complained:[19] They have ordained that no man shall look on the Scripture until he is modeled in heathen learning eight or nine years and armed with false principles, with which he is clean shut out of the understanding of the Scripture.He was a gifted linguist and became fluent over the years in French, Greek, Hebrew, German, Italian, Latin, and Spanish, in addition to English.

His opinions proved controversial to fellow clergymen, and the next year he was summoned before John Bell, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Worcester, although no formal charges were laid at the time.

[22] After the meeting with Bell and other church leaders, Tyndale, according to John Foxe, had an argument with a "learned but blasphemous clergyman", who allegedly asserted: "We had better be without God's laws than the Pope's", to which Tyndale responded: "I defy the Pope and all his laws; and if God spares my life, ere many years, I will cause the boy that driveth the plow to know more of the Scriptures than thou dost!

He asked to join the household of London Bishop Cuthbert Tunstall, a well-known classicist who had worked with Erasmus, his friend, on the second edition of his Latin/Greek New Testament.

There is an entry in the matriculation registers of the University of Wittenberg of the name "Guillelmus Daltici ex Anglia", and this has been taken to be a Latinisation of "William Tyndale from England".

[26] He began translating the New Testament at this time, possibly in Wittenberg, completing it in 1525 with assistance from Observant Friar William Roy.

A full edition of the New Testament was produced in 1526 by printer Peter Schöffer the Younger in Worms, a free imperial city then in the process of adopting Lutheranism.

[citation needed] The translation was condemned in October 1526 by Bishop Tunstall, who issued warnings to booksellers, bought all the available copies, and had them burned in public.

The colophon to Tyndale's translation of Genesis and the title pages of several pamphlets from this time purported to have been printed by Hans Lufft at Marburg, but this is a false address.

[33] In 1530, from exile, he wrote The Practice of Prelates, opposing Henry VIII's desire to secure the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon in favour of Anne Boleyn, on the grounds that it was unscriptural and that it was a plot by Cardinal Wolsey to get Henry entangled in the papal courts of Pope Clement VII.

Eventually, Tyndale was betrayed by Henry Phillips[37] to ducal authorities representing the Holy Roman Empire.

[39] Following the insurrections of the Albigensians, the Lollards, the Hussites, the German Peasants' War, the Münster Anabaptist rebellion, etc., heresy was connected by states with sedition and possible regicide; it carried, at worst, the terrible death penalty of burning at the stake.

The Church could usually protect someone accused of heresy from being charged by the state, if that person satisfied the appointed theologian Inquisitor, in a formal process, that they did not (now) hold heretical views.

[45] Within four years of Tyndale's death, a sequence of four English translations of the Bible were published in England at the king's behest, revising Tyndale's versions of the New Testament and Pentateuch with various objectionable features removed: Miles Coverdale's, Thomas Matthew's, Richard Taverner's, and the Great Bible.

A life-sized bronze statue of a seated William Tyndale at work on his translation by Lawrence Holofcener (2000) was placed in the Millennium Square, Bristol, United Kingdom.

A stained-glass window commemorating Tyndale was made in 1911 for the British and Foreign Bible Society by James Powell and Sons.

[61] The Common Worship that came into use in the Church of England in 2000 provides a collect proper to 6 October (Lesser Festival),[62] beginning with the words: Lord, give your people grace to hear and keep your word that, after the example of your servant William Tyndale, we may not only profess your gospel but also be ready to suffer and die for it, to the honor of your name;Tyndale is honored in the Calendar of saints of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America as a translator and martyr the same day.

[citation needed] In his own words, Tyndale was "evil-favoured in this world, and without grace in the sight of men, speechless and rude, dull and slow-witted".

"[65] Tyndale fought with another reformer George Joye who wrote in 1535: "Let every man be ware how he medle with Tin[dale]," finding him disdainful, conceited, hypocritical and unwilling to have his Bible translations corrected.

The 1998 film Stephen's Test of Faith includes a long scene with Tyndale, how he translated the Bible, and how he was put to death.

[citation needed] In 2007, the 2-hour Channel 4 documentary, The Bible Revolution, presented by Rod Liddle, details the roles of historically significant English Reformers John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, and Thomas Cranmer.

The "Battle for the Bible" (2007) episode of the PBS Secrets of the Dead series, narrated by Liev Schreiber, features Tyndale's story and legacy and includes historical context.

[citation needed] He has also appeared as a character in two plays dealing with the King James Bible, Howard Brenton's Anne Boleyn (2010) and David Edgar's Written on the Heart (2011).

In 2011, BYUtv produced a documentary miniseries, Fires of Faith, on the creation of the King James Bible, which focused heavily on Tyndale's life.