We really shouldn't talk about this

Never talk about politics or religion with your friends, unless you know that they also voted for Ed Miliband in the Labour leadership elections want to discover that they're secretly Tory they are pretty much unoffendable.

But, even though this is about religion, it's such an amusing story that I wanted to share it with you anyway, because I highly doubt that I could offend you anymore than I usually do with it. Today, in 1537, the first English language Bible (called the Matthew Bible) was published, by William Tyndale and Miles Coverdale. This was happening at around the same time as Henry VIII's money grabbing scheme religious epiphany, where he decided to break with Rome and form the Church of England. Initially, however, the Church of England only differed from the Catholic Church in Rome by having the King, rather than the Pope, as head of the Church, so all services were conducted in Latin, and all Bibles were published in Latin. 

William Tyndale c. 1494 - 1536

A few years down the line, however, Henry wanted to bring the country more in line with other Protestant countries, and therefore decided that English language Bibles should be present in all churches. (This was, sadly, all a little bit too late for poor old William Tyndale, who had been put to death in 1536 for his work translating.) A royal decree was passed, and English Bibles were sent to all churches in the land. Obviously, this didn't go down too well with the Catholics, but even some Protestants weren't too happy with the arrangements - particularly those in Devon and Cornwall.

In 1547, they began the Western Rebellion, which was a protest against the new religious order, as well as various other socio-economic problems in the counties. One of the items on their list of grievances, though, was that they absolutely did not want the English language Bibles in their churches. When asked why, they explained that, as they spoke in a Gaelic dialect, they couldn't understand the English translation. It was pointed out to them that all most all of them couldn't understand the Latin Bible, either. "Yes," they replied. "But that's the one we know but don't understand. We'd much rather have that than one we don't know and don't understand."


I guess, in a weird way, they did have a point. And the Cornish always have been a bit strange (in a nice way, you understand). Why else would they have such an inexplicable love for fudge?!