“ Separated from his Catholic friends, Rastell does not seem to have been fully trusted by the opposite party, for in a letter to Cromwell, written probably in 1536, he says that he had spent his time in upholding the king's cause and opposing the pope, with the result that he had lost both his printing business and his legal practice, and was reduced to poverty. ”

“ In 1530 he wrote, in defence of the Roman doctrine of Purgatory, A New Boke of Purgatory (1530) , dialogues on the subject between “Comyngs and Almayn a Christen man, and one Gyngemyn a Turke.” This was answered by John Frith in A Disputacion of Purgatorie, Rastell replied with an Apology against John Fryth, also answered by the latter. Rastell had married Elizabeth, sister of Sir Thomas More, with whose Catholic theology and political views he was in sympathy. ”

“ He began his printing business some time before 1516, for in his preface to the undated Liber Assisarum he announced the forthcoming publication of Sir A. Fitzherbe1t's Abbreviamentum librorum legurn Anglorurn, dated 1516. ”