It was not therefore as a mere translation of the Bible that Tyndale's work reached England.

It came as a part of the Lutheran movement, and it bore the Lutheran stamp in its version of ecclesiastical words.

"Church" became "congregation," "priest" was changed into "elder." It came too in company with Luther's bitter invectives and reprints of the tracts of Wyclif, which the German traders of the Steelyard were importing in large numbers.
We can hardly wonder that More denounced the book as heretical, or that Warham ordered it to be given up by all who possessed it.
[Sidenote: Wolsey and Lutheranism] Wolsey took little heed of religious matters, but his policy was one of political adhesion to Rome, and he presided over a solemn penance to which some Steelyard men submitted in St.Paul's.

"With six and thirty abbots, mitred priors, and bishops, and he in his whole pomp mitred" the Cardinal looked on while "great baskets full of books ...

were commanded after the great fire was made before the Rood of Northen," the crucifix by the great north door of the cathedral, "thus to be burned, and those heretics to go thrice about the fire and to cast in their fagots." But scenes and denunciations such as these were vain in the presence of an enthusiasm which grew every hour.