ABSTRACT
Cuthbert Tunstall’s chief target was William Tyndale, the evangelical scholar now living in exile on the continent where he had begun his translation of the Bible. The negotiations with the visiting Germans began in June, but in the same month King Henry summoned Cuthbert Tunstall, Bishop of Durham, south to London. Tunstall was an intelligent, educated Catholic humanist, a friend of Thomas More and Erasmus. Tunstall had heard reports about Luther’s Babylonian Captivity of the Church, and prayed that God would ‘keep that book off England’. Tunstall was one of those who had urged Erasmus to ‘come to grips with this monster’ Luther. Henry’s divorce and his conflict with the pope had presented Tunstall with a crisis of conscience. Perhaps also, because Henry was still sound on a lot of traditional Catholic doctrine, Tunstall felt that there would be no danger to the true religion, at least so long as Henry reigned.
