We expect great things of those born with silver spoons in their mouths and encouraged from infancy to climb every social, political and cultural ladder. Those born in great poverty and brought up by public institutions rather than in a cosy family background often give cause for concern regarding their future. Yet, in the year 1495, one of the greatest Reformers ever was born into a very large family of poverty-stricken parents and ragged children in the tiny village of Cove in Suffolk. Indeed, John Bale’s parents, Henry and Margaret could not afford any kind of education for their son and he spent his childhood as a farmhand until his parents, despairing of giving John a livelihood, took him to the Carmelite convent at Norwich…