Brian Moynahan

Brian Moynahan is an English journalist and historical writer. He graduated from the University of Cambridge in history with first class honours. After this time he became a journalist with The Yorkshire Post, Town Magazine, and The Times. He was also European Editor of The Sunday Times. Since 1989 he has concentrated on writing histories while continuing to write for British and American newspapers. His works include a History of Christianity and God's Messenger, about the Protestant martyr, William Tyndale and his relationship with Thomas More. He has travelled extensively to Russia and has written three books on Russian history. as well as three on aspects of Christianity. Because of his journalistic background, Moynahan's writing has been described as being, "mercifully free of the sludge that often clogs academic treatises", and has enabled him to become a best-seller.

Review

According to Geoffrey Gibbons, Moynahan's book If God spare my life is a remarkably vivid and compelling account of the life of one of the most determined and single minded of the new reformers who saw the need for a translation of the Bible from the Latin or Greek of other versions into the vernacular accessible to anyone who read English. Thomas More, as Chancellor of England, whose remit was to uphold and enforce the law proved to be Tyndale's bitterest enemy and Moynahan shows in the pages of his book how More used every device and scheme to seize Tyndale, bring him back to England with the clear and expressed intent to have him brought before an ecclesiastical court as a heretic, to be so charged and convicted of the offence and then handed over to the civil authority to be dealt with.