Obviously at that late date the rising middle class was reading. Tottel was a bookseller by trade. The middle class is where all the readers were in the 16th century - neither the nobility nor the ordinary working stiff did much reading.
Maybe one can argue that the 'merchant class' or bourgeoisie - with leisure to read and business reasons to do so - started appearing as early as the 12th century, but their numbers were minuscule and remained so for centuries. The point is that we're still talking about an elite, not the common people.
And just as an aside, the popularity of unauthorized Bible translations had almost as much to do with the rising middle class's political and economic ambitions as it did with religion.
Richard Tothill (Tuttle, Tuttell, Tottel, Tuthill, Toothill, Totehille, Totehyll and etcetera, back to the Frenchified de Tottehale of the 10th century, they were a little too impressed with the Normans, I think, lol) acquired his printing concern from a Smyth, whose business "at the signe of the Hand and Star in Fleet Street, within Temple Bar," (always loved that old rhyming ditty) dated to the late 1400's. Their primary business was the compilation and printing of law books, possessing an exclusive patent from the Crown to do so, but there were numerous literary tomes published as well.
This just does not jibe with near total illiteracy. If we were to find middle ground here, you and I, would you say it's fair to credit Wycliffe and Tyndale with a great increase in the general literacy of the English populace, due to a desire to read The Word themselves?
Tying it all together, I'll cite Wycliffe's translation of Isaiah 21:8:
"... Vpon the toothil of the Lord I am stondende"
Contrast to the King James Version, " ... My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower."
For the curious, the entire Wycliffe Bible is available online in PDF format, click here.