printed in octavo by Hans Luft of Marburg. A second edition appeared in 1535 in octavo, dated Marburg, but more probably printed in London. Other undated black-letter editions were issued in London between 1540 and 1550, besides one printed by William Copland in 1561 (London, 8vo). The book was edited by Richard Lovett in 1888 for the ‘Christian Classics Series.’ The work is a defence of the reformers against charges of encouraging disobedience to the civil power. It lays down the duty of absolute submission to the temporal sovereign, and retorts the charge of insubordination against the ecclesiastical authorities. It also insists on the paramount authority of scripture in matters of doctrine. ‘The Obedience’ for the first time stated clearly the two great principles of the English reformation—the supreme authority of scripture in the church, and the supreme authority of the king in the state. The book was introduced to the notice of Henry VIII through Anne Boleyn, and met with his approval (Strype, Ecclesiastical Memorials, 1822, i. 173; Cavendish, Wolsey, ed. Singer, ii. 202–5).
Early in 1529 Tyndale, who seems to have made his way from Marburg to the Low Countries, was shipwrecked on the coast of Holland on his way to Hamburg. He lost his books and papers as well as the manuscript of his translation of Deuteronomy, which he had just completed. He, however, proceeded to Hamburg, where he remained for some time in the house of Margaret van Emmerson, a senator's widow, labouring on the translation of the Pentateuch. Later in the year he proceeded to Antwerp, where he found that Tunstall, who, with More, had been negotiating the treaty of Cambrai, was making large purchases of his testaments in order to burn them, in spite of his companion's economic objections. Through a London merchant, Augustine Packington, Tunstall unwittingly purchased a number of copies from Tyndale himself, whom he thus provided with funds. Part of the money Tyndale probably laid out in purchasing eleven blocks, with which he afterwards illustrated the book of Exodus; they had previously done duty for Vorstermann's Dutch Bible printed at Antwerp in 1528.
In 1530 appeared ‘The Practyse of prelates,’ a work in which Tyndale framed his final and most unsparing indictment of the Roman hierarchy. He concluded by attacking categorically the whole of Wolsey's administration, and by denouncing Henry's divorce proceedings. On this point he entirely separated himself from the other English reformers. His long exile had distorted his view of English affairs, and he regarded Wolsey's disgrace as a subterfuge of the cardinal to escape the consequences of his maladministration. His views did him much injury with Henry, and quite destroyed the effects of the ‘Obedience’ on the king's mind. When Tyndale's ‘Practyse’ was reissued in 1548 (London, 8vo), his remarks on the divorce were carefully excised. A copy of the first edition, printed at Marburg by Hans Luft (in 8vo), is in the British Museum.
In the meantime Tyndale became engaged in literary warfare with Sir Thomas More. On 7 March 1527–8 Tunstall invited More to undertake the defence of the church against ‘the children of iniquity,’ accompanying his request with a formal license to read heretical works which assailed the catholic faith. In June 1529 appeared ‘A dyaloge of Sir Thomas More … Wherin be treatyd dyvers maters as of the … worshyp of ymagys & reliques, prayng to sayntys, & goyng õ pylgrymage. Wyth many othere thyngys touchyng the pestylent secte of Luther and Tyndale.’ In this great work More, declining to enter into the practical question of the ignorance and the immorality of the clergy, defended with much acuteness and logical power the doctrines of the Roman church against the attacks of the reformers. In the spring or early summer of 1531 Tyndale committed to the press ‘An answere unto Sir Thomas Mores dialoge’ (in 8vo, printed at Antwerp according to Joye; edited for the Parker Society by H. Walter in 1850). The ‘Answere,’ though inferior in literary form to More's ‘Dyaloge,’ was a clear and cogent treatise written with great satiric force, but marred by intense personal bitterness. Tyndale's acrimony was due in great part to his belief that More had sold his pen to further his political advancement. He could not reconcile More's defence of the church with his former attacks on its practical abuses, and failed to realise his horror of the reformers' doctrinal opinions. More several times returned to the controversy, devoting to it most of his scanty leisure. In 1532 appeared ‘The Confutacyon of Tyndale's Answere,’ followed in 1533 by ‘The second parte of the Confutacyon of Tyndale's Answere.’ ‘The Confutacyon’ was distinguished by virulence and scurrility. It is of inordinate length, and in literary merit is far beneath both his own ‘Dyaloge’ and Tyndale's ‘Answere.’ In the ‘Apologye of Syr Thomas More’ (1533) and in the ‘Debellacyon of Salem and Bizance’ (1533), written in reply to Christopher St. German [q. v.] (whose mother belonged to
