PBS had “Battle for the Bible” on Secrets of the Dead  last night (I think it's a repeat from last season); covering the religious back and forth during the reign of Henry VIII. It started by briefly touching on the start of Reform during the 1300s and 1400s, Wycliffe's radical notion of a Bible in the language of the people, and his followers, the Lollards. Wycliffe died of natural causes, but the church later posthumously declared him a heretic, dug up his body and burned it.

In Henry's time, William Tyndale went into exile to Brussels to write an English translation of the New Testament, and was nearly through with the Old Testament when he was betrayed and burned at the stake in late 1536. Ironically, in early 1537, much of his work was pseudonymously used in the “Matthew Bible”, legally published in England. But then Henry wavered between demanding that every parish have an English translation of the Bible to later deciding that only the nobility should be allowed to read the Bible (wouldn't want the peasants to get any bright ideas about thinking for themselves, you know), and went through the rapid changes wrought by the reigns of Edward, Mary and Elizabeth.

It was neat for a show not technically about the Tudors, per se.