Thomas More and the Taking of William Tyndale

Abstract

ABSTRACT The thesis that Thomas More (1478–1535) plotted and financed the capture of William Tyndale (c.1494–1536) in Antwerp in May 1535 despite being himself a prisoner in the Tower of London at the time was first advanced in a biography of Tyndale published by Brian Moynahan in 2002. That thesis came to immeasurably wider attention through being mentioned in each volume of the Wolf Hall trilogy by the late Dame Hilary Mantel (1952–2022). The wide circulation thus given to that claim, even though in a work of fiction rather than of scholarship, motivates this attempt to demonstrate that it is without any foundation. The consequent close scrutiny of the evidence about this episode indicates that the taking of Tyndale was planned by its protagonist, Henry Phillips, on his own initiative, and not, as has often been suggested, at the instigation of English ecclesiastical authorities.