SOURCE: Mozley, J. F. “The Making of the Coverdale Bible,” “The Coverdale Bible in England,” and “The Making of the Great Bible.” In Coverdale and His Bibles, pp. 65-76, 110-124, 201-220. London: Lutterworth Press, 1953.

[In the following essays, Mozley discusses the nature of Coverdale's Bibles, how they were translated, printed and published, how their content and textual history relate to the cultural climate of the time, and the differences found among his editions.]

THE MAKING OF THE COVERDALE BIBLE

(A) ITS FORM AND ACCESSORIES

The Coverdale bible is a small folio, printed in a German black letter, with two columns to the page, and the colophon informs us that it was “printed in the year of our Lord 1535, and finished the fourth day of October”. The biblical text is divided after Luther's manner into six parts, each with its own foliation and signatures: (1) The five books of Moses. (2) The historical books, Joshua to Esther. (3) The poetic books, Job to “Salamon's Balettes”, i.e. the Song of Songs. (4) The prophets. (5) The Apocrypha. (6) The New Testament. In the side margins are printed a few notes showing alternative readings and interpretations, and also a fairly full concordance or references to parallels. Before nearly every book (Psalms is the chief exception) stands a table of contents, arranged chapter by chapter, but the table for Genesis was omitted at the beginning of part one, doubtless by an oversight, and was later added as the final page of the preliminaries. Each part, save the first and the third, has a title-page of its own, and on these title-pages and scattered over the text are nearly 150 small woodcuts. There are (so I reckon) 65 blocks in all, but 31 are used more than once. St Paul appears eleven times, a battle scene eight times, another battle scene six times, the storming of a city nine times, Holofernes' (or Nicanor's) head hanging from the city wall four times, the stoning of Achan (or other offenders) thrice. Only one of these blocks is of any size, a picture of the tabernacle. Many of the woodcuts are inferior copies of the famous set designed by Sebald Beham, which appear in several German bibles of the period.

So much for the text of the bible. When we turn to the preliminaries, we find that these exist in two forms, one printed in the same German letter as the body of the book, the other in an English black letter. It is clear that the former is the original, but it is found, and then in a very imperfect shape, only in two copies out of the fifty or so that survive. The earl of Leicester's copy, at Holkham Hall, Norfolk, has two leaves only, viz. the first (i.e. the title-page) and the last, both perfect; and one of the British Museum copies has nothing but the title-page, and that much mutilated. How much came in between the two leaves of the Holkham copy?¹ Let us see first what is contained in the preliminaries, printed in English black letter—by James Nicolson of Southwark, as will hereafter appear. There are eight leaves or sixteen pages: first the title-page, which is blank on the back; then five pages of a dedication to Henry VIII, signed by “your grace's humble servant and daily orator, Myles Coverdale.” At the head of this dedication stands a prayer that God will grant wisdom, faithfulness and prosperity “unto you, most gracious prince, with your dearest just wife, and most virtuous princess, queen Anne.” Next comes a prologue of six pages, headed “Myles Coverdale unto the Christian reader”; then two pages of an index to the books of the bible; and lastly one page showing the contents of the book of Genesis, which had been omitted, as we have seen, from part one of the biblical text.

Let us now return to the Leicester copy. The title-page (which will be described in a moment) has on its back the first half of the index to the bible; the last leaf has on its front the final portion of Coverdale's prologue to the Christian reader, and on its back the contents of the book of Genesis. Thus the Holkham copy contained originally all the Nicolson preliminaries except possibly the dedication to the king. Was this too part of the missing matter? Most of the bibliographers say no, maintaining that the Holkham preliminaries consisted only of four leaves, and that the dedication to the king was added later by Nicolson. I confess that I cannot follow this reasoning. The part of the prologue preserved at Holkham is (so I calculate) slightly less than one-fifth of the whole, and it occupies very nearly a full page. How then can the rest of the prologue have gone into three pages? If my reckoning is correct, five full pages would be needed for the whole prologue. Thus the last three leaves of the preliminaries are accounted for, and also the first leaf and a half; for an extra page would be needed to complete the index to the bible. Something then must have come between the index and the prologue, and why may this not have been the dedication? We shall see later that as early as August 1535 Coverdale wrote a dedication and sent it to England for approval. There was ample time for him to receive this back by the beginning of October. That the foreign preliminaries were printed after the completion of the bible is certain: for the index to the books gives the numbering of the leaves. The German type is indeed slightly smaller than Nicolson's, but in spite of this the dedication, assuming it to be the same as that printed by Nicolson, would (I think) have gone over on to the fifth page; and if so, we get seven leaves for the preliminaries, as they originally stood in the Holkham copy.

The title-page is of high interest. Its text runs as follows:

BIBLIA

THE BIBLE / THAT

IS, THE HOLY SCRIPTURE OF THE

OLDE AND NEW TESTAMENT, FAITH-

FULLY AND TRULY TRANSLATED OUT

OF DOUCHE AND LATYN

INTO ENGLISHE.

M D X X X V.

S. Paul. II. Tessa. III.
Praie for us, that the worde of God maie
have fre passage, and be glorified. &c.
S. Paul. Col. III.
Let the worde of Christ dwell in you plen-
teously in all wyssdome &c.
Josue I.
Let not the boke of this lawe departe
out of thy mouth, but exercyse thyselfe
therin daye and nighte &c.

This title is enclosed in a woodcut border, which has been highly praised, and which is considered by the experts to come from the hand of Holbein,² who was then residing in England. It is composed of four blocks. The top block has the sacred name [YHVH] (Jehovah) set in the midst of the rising sun, with Adam and Eve on the left hand and the risen Christ on the right. The left side-block has two scenes from the Old Testament—Moses giving the tables of the law, and Ezra reading the law to the people: the right side-block has two from the New Testament—Christ giving his commission to his disciples, and St Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost. The bottom block has David with crown and harp on the left, St Paul with sword on the right, and in the centre Henry VIII bearded, sitting crowned with the royal arms of England at his feet, holding a drawn sword in his right hand, and with his left giving the bible to the mitred bishops, while his nobles kneel on the other side. Scattered over the woodcut border are six biblical texts—three from either testament—and these follow the wording of the Coverdale bible.

From the dedication and prologue we learn something of the genesis of the work, Coverdale's motives in undertaking it and the methods he employed. The dedication is couched in flattering terms. After denouncing the crimes and tyranny of “the blind bishop of Rome”, his suppressing of scripture and undermining of the authority of princes, Coverdale commends the king for showing himself a true defender of the faith and for favouring the word of God, that word which is the true instructor of men of all degrees, the origin of all good and the remedy of all evils. Then he speaks of himself and his task:

“Considering now, most gracious prince, the inestimable treasure, fruit and prosperity everlasting that God giveth with his word, and trusting in his infinite goodness that he would bring my simple and rude labour herein to good effect, therefore, as the Holy Ghost moved other men to do the cost hereof, so was I boldened in God to labour in the same. Again, considering your imperial majesty not only to be my natural sovereign liege lord and chief head of the church of England, but also the true defender and maintainer of God's laws, I thought it my duty, and to belong unto my allegiance, when I had translated this bible, not only to dedicate this translation unto your highness, but wholly to commit it unto the same: to the intent that if any thing therein be translated amiss (for in many things we fail, even when we think to be sure) it may stand in your grace's hands, to correct it, to amend it, to improve it, yea and clean to reject it, if your godly wisdom shall think it necessary. And as I do with all humbleness submit mine understanding and my poor translation unto the spirit of truth in your grace, so make I this protestation, having God to record in my conscience, that I have neither wrested nor altered so much as one word for the maintenance of any manner of sect, but have with a clear conscience purely and faithfully translated this out of five sundry interpreters, having only the manifest truth of the scripture before mine eyes.”

The “Prologue” to the reader shows Coverdale's modesty in a pleasing light. He has been unwilling (he says) to set himself up as translator of the bible, feeling himself unequal to the work. Yet when pressed, he could not refuse, since the need of an English bible is so great, and the previous translator (i.e. Tyndale) has been unable as yet to finish his work. It is a good thing to have a multitude of translations. In the early ages they had many versions, and the church was never in better health. We ought to thank God for the men of our day who undertake this great task, and not least in our own language. A translator may not always hit the mark, yet one man may improve on another. Differing interpretations bring the truth to light, and if only a man is doing his best he should be commended and encouraged. If there are faults in this book (as there needs must be), let them be leniently judged; for his part he promises to amend them so soon as he perceives them. This book is the word of God; let every reader receive it thankfully “with ten hands”, and use it, whatever his station, as the guide of his own behaviour and of the teaching that he gives to others.

The following passages in the prologue are specially important:

“Considering how excellent knowledge and learning an interpreter of scripture ought to have in the tongues, and pondering also mine own insufficiency therein, and how weak I am to perform the office of a translator, I was the more loth to meddle with this work. Notwithstanding when I considered how great pity it was that we should want it so long, and called to my remembrance the adversity of them, which were not only of ripe knowledge, but would also with all their hearts have performed that they began, if they had not had impediment: considering, I say, that by reason of their adversity it could not so soon have been brought to an end, as our most prosperous nation would fain have had it: these and other reasonable causes considered, I was the more bold to take it in hand. And to help me herein, I have had sundry translations, not only in Latin, but also of the Dutch interpreters: whom (because of their singular gifts and special diligence in the bible) I have been the more glad to follow for the most part, according as I was required. But to say the truth before God, it was neither my labour nor desire, to have this work put in my hand: nevertheless it grieved me that other nations should be more plenteously provided for with the scripture in their mother tongue, than we: therefore when I was instantly required, though I could not do so well as I would, I thought it yet my duty to do my best, and that with a good will. …

“For the which cause (according as I was desired) I took the more upon me to set forth this special translation, not as a checker, not as a reprover, or despiser of other men's translations (for among many as yet I have found none without occasion of great thanksgiving unto God) but lowly and faithfully have I followed mine interpreters, and that under correction. … And though it be not worthily ministered unto thee in this translation by reason of my rudeness, yet if thou be fervent in thy prayer, God shall not only send it thee in a better shape by the ministration of other that began it afore, but shall also move the hearts of them which as yet meddled not withal, to take it in hand, and to bestow the gift of their understanding thereon, as well in our language as other famous interpreters do in other languages, and I pray God that through my poor ministration herein I may give them that can do better, some occasion so to do.”

(B) THE DATE OF TRANSLATING

But when did Coverdale begin this great work? He himself leaves us in no doubt of the answer. In reprinting his bible in 1550 (August 16) he inserts marks of time into two places of the preliminaries. Both of them we have already quoted in their original form. The first is in the dedication (to Edward VI), and now reads:

“Trusting … that he would bring my simple and rude labour herein to good effect, therefore was I boldened in God

The second is from the prologue to the Christian reader:

“For the which cause (according as I was desired 3

This seems clear enough: he began in 1534. But some writers⁴ water down this evidence, and suppose that Coverdale merely means that he determined in 1534 to publish the bible which he had already prepared: for they think he could not have accomplished the translating in so short a space as one year. But it is impossible to extract this meaning from the words. When Coverdale talks of his faithful labour he plainly means the labour of translating; he is explaining how it was that despite his ill equipment he had had the hardihood to venture upon this enterprise. When once launched on the project Coverdale would not spare himself. These old warriors, burning with zeal for the spread of the gospel, and conscious that the night might at any moment descend upon them, worked with a fierce enthusiasm that puts to shame our more leisurely proceedings. They could not afford to wait; they must seize the golden moment and be content with something far short of perfection. But we have more precise evidence than that. Coverdale could not have begun until the later part of 1534, because he uses versions which appeared only in the autumn of that year, as will be proved in the next chapter.

(C) COVERDALE'S EMPLOYER

Coverdale tells us himself that he was “desired” and “instantly required” to undertake the translation, and was “required” to follow generally the German interpreters, and that other men bore the cost. Who then was his prompter and supporter? It was Jacob van Meteren, a merchant of Antwerp.

We have the testimony of Jacob's son Emanuel, who came to London in 1550 as a boy of fifteen, and died there in 1612. This Emanuel, giving evidence in 1609 in some dispute concerning the Dutch church in London, stated that his father was

“a furtherer of reformed religion, as he that caused the first bible at his costs be englished by Mr Myles Coverdal in Antwerp, the which his father, with Mr Edward Whitchurch, printed both in Paris and London.”

In the final words there is plainly some confusion: for it was the Great bible of 1539 and not the Coverdale bible that was printed in Paris and London, and with this Meteren had nothing to do. But on the main point, that Coverdale's bible was promoted by Jacob van Meteren, we have supporting evidence from Emanuel's friend Simeon Ruytinck, who on editing a book of Emanuel's in 1614 added a sketch of his life in Dutch, a sketch (he tells us) compiled out of Emanuel's own papers. In this we read that Emanuel was born at Antwerp on 9 July 1535 and that his father Jacob

“knew how to distinguish light from darkness, and showed his zeal more especially in bearing the cost of the translating and printing of the English bible at Antwerp, using for this purpose the services of a learned student named Miles Coverdale, to the great advancement of the kingdom of Jesus Christ in England.”⁵

That Coverdale was in Antwerp in 1534-5 we have already seen, and all that we know of Jacob van Meteren makes it likely that he would interest himself in an English bible. He was a merchant doing a good trade with England. According to his son's modern biographer, Verduyn—but I know not what his evidence is—he helped to distribute in England the first pirate edition of Tyndale's New Testament, printed by Christopher van Endhoven in October 1526. He was a man with an intense zeal for the reforming doctrines, and in the end lost his life from this cause. For he fled to England with his wife about 1553 to escape persecution, but perished in the waves, when their vessel was sunk by a French man-of-war.

In this very year 1535 Jacob was in trouble for his religion. Shortly before Emanuel's birth he was away in England on business when his house was visited by officers. Their warrant was to search for forbidden books and to arrest his wife's uncle, who lodged there and who was suspected of Lutheranism. The books lay in a chest in the room, but the men failed to discover them though they often laid their hands upon it. As Jacob's wife watched them with a trembling heart, she made a prayer to the almighty, that if her child turned out to be a son, she would name him Emanuel (or God with us). We can well imagine what Jacob was doing in England at this time. He would be arranging with Nicolson for the sale of the Coverdale bible, and one presumes that he brought back with him Holbein's design for the title-page.⁶

The whole therefore fits together, and the only flaw in the evidence is Emanuel's statement that the bible promoted by his father was printed in Paris and London—a very venial mistake in an old man of seventy-four, who is speaking of events that happened before he was born. Nevertheless not all scholars are willing to accept the connection between Meteren and the 1535 bible, Wright, for example, thinks that the Great bible or Matthew's bible is intended.⁷ If it be the Great bible, then we certainly get rid of the flaw above mentioned, but we meet much greater difficulties. There is no room for Meteren in the preparation of the Great bible. It was inspired by Cromwell, and financed by Grafton and Whitchurch; it was not the first English bible, nor even the first authorized English bible: nor was Coverdale in Antwerp when he prepared it, but in England and France.

On the other hand, if the Matthew bible is intended, then Emanuel's mistake over the place of printing remains in all its strength, and other errors are added to it. The Matthew bible was certainly printed at Antwerp, but it was financed by Grafton and Whitchurch, not by Meteren. Coverdale had nothing to do with it; he was not then at Antwerp but in England. It was Rogers who prepared the Matthew bible, and Rogers wedded a year or two later a kinswoman (perhaps a sister) of Jacob van Meteren's wife, and his sons were on the most intimate terms with Emanuel, who calls them his cousins. It is highly unlikely that Emanuel should have said Coverdale when he meant Rogers. Nor was the Matthew bible the first English bible, but the second.

(D) THE PLACE OF PRINTING

For a long time it was customary to say that the Coverdale bible was printed at Zurich by Christopher Froschover. There had indeed been other claimants for the honour—Antwerp, Cologne, Frankfort and Hamburg—but in the course of the nineteenth century opinion veered strongly in favour of Zurich. For this there were two reasons: firstly the Coverdale bible of 1550 was printed by Froschover, and secondly, the famous Jewish Christian scholar, C. D. Ginsburg, claimed to possess two leaves of a German bible, printed by Froschover, and showing a type identically the same with that of the first bible of Coverdale. These two leaves, he said, belonged to a bible that was stolen from him when placed on exhibition. But the second of these proofs has now been completely exploded. The two leaves passed on Ginsburg's death in 1914 into the British Museum library, and they turned out to belong to a bible printed at Frankfort by Egenolph in 1534, nor is their type the same as that of the Coverdale bible, though it is like it. But in truth Zurich never seemed a very likely place for the printing. Coverdale himself never visited it in his first exile, for in 1541-2 he was still a stranger to the town,⁸ and though no doubt the bible might have been sent thither from Antwerp or lower Germany, yet there were many expert printers much nearer at hand, and Froschover had not in 1535 formed that close intimacy with England and Englishmen which he enjoyed some years later.

But recently the claims of Cologne have been revived, and with far more potent arguments than before. In The Library of December 1935 Mr L. A. Sheppard examines the capital letters used in the Coverdale bible, and finds that almost all of them belong to one or other of two different alphabets. The first alphabet, of which seven capitals are used, occurs only in parts (1), (2) and (6), except that one letter appears once in (5). The second alphabet occurs in (3), (4) and (5) only. There are also four other capitals, not belonging to either alphabet or to one another. Of these four one appears only in (4), one only in (5), and the other two only in (6).

Now the second alphabet is used between 1522 and 1540 by John Heil or Soter, printer of Cologne, and so are the two odd letters that are found in (4) and (5) respectively. The first alphabet is used by Peter Quentel of Cologne in his Latin bibles of 1527 and 1529, and again by Soter in 1529-33 and 1539-40, and also by Eucharius Hirtzhorn or Cervicorn, another printer of Cologne, in 1534 and 1536-7. The two odd letters in part (6) are also used by Cervicorn in 1523-41. It may be added that some letters of both alphabets are found in works of Rupert of Deutz, which were printed at Cologne, probably by Quentel, in 1526 and 1532, and that the general type of the Coverdale bible is found in a book of Cochlaeus printed by Soter in 1528. There are however two odd capitals, one in Genesis and the other in Lamentations, which have not yet been found in Cologne books of this period.

All this points strongly to Cologne as the place and to Cervicorn and Soter as the printers, each man taking half the bible. But here Mr Sheppard, having put us all in his debt by this careful investigation, goes off into what I cannot but call an aberration. He ascribes the book indeed to these two printers, but holds that they printed it at Marburg and not at Cologne: for Cervicorn was appointed printer to Marburg university in 1535, matriculating there on 25 November, and holding the office for three years. But this matriculation is too late; it is after the completion of the Coverdale bible. So far as is known, Cervicorn printed only one book at Marburg in 1535, and even during the ensuing three years he continued to print at Cologne. As for Soter, there is no evidence that he ever printed at Marburg at all.⁹

Why then does Mr Sheppard prefer Marburg to Cologne? The real reason is that he considers it a safer place for printing. At Marburg the Lutherans were in control, but in Cologne the town authorities had stopped the printing of Tyndale's New Testament in 1525. So they did indeed, but much may happen in ten years. The Antwerp authorities also had in 1527 burnt Tyndale's New Testament and forbidden any reprinting, nevertheless a dozen editions of the book appeared there within the next ten years. How did things stand in the summer of 1535? At Antwerp the reformers were in trouble. Tyndale was arrested in May, and his English friends found themselves in peril; a general hunt was made for Lutherans and their books, and Meteren's own house was searched. That Meteren should determine to print elsewhere is easy to understand; and if elsewhere, where better than at Cologne, which was within easy reach, and where archbishop Hermann of Wied held the reins of power. Hermann was more than half a Lutheran, and in due course initiated those reforms, which brought down on his head the wrath of the papacy and led to his excommunication a few years later. Cologne had never lacked printers of liberal and humanist outlook, and among these are particularly named Quentel, Soter and Cervicorn. All these three had printed Lutheran books, and they would be ready enough to welcome an English bible in 1535.¹⁰

Mr Sheppard's theory needs further study from the bibliographers, but at present it holds the field. It is not yet conclusively proved, but it is much more than the beginning of a proof. It offers us at long last some solid ground for our feet, and we may conclude with good confidence that Coverdale's bible was printed at Cologne by Cervicorn and Soter. If so, it is likely that Coverdale himself travelled to Cologne to correct the proofs and to give the help that only an Englishman could supply.

.....

THE COVERDALE BIBLE IN ENGLAND

We have seen that nearly all copies of the 1535 bible have their preliminaries printed in an English black letter. Now the same letter was used by James Nicolson of Southwark when he reprinted the Coverdale bible in folio in 1537, and he also used most of the woodcuts of the original book, including the Holbein border. It is clear, therefore, that he took over the whole edition from Meteren in sheets, and put it upon the market on his own account.

For Meteren to sell his sheets to an English printer was an obvious way of distributing them, and it had become still more desirable, and even necessary, in the light of a new law passed by parliament in 1534 for the protection of English bookbinders. This laid down that after next Christmas no man might import bound books from oversea for the purpose of selling them again; from henceforth the binding of foreign books must be done in England. Nicolson himself was a native of the Low countries, and was doubtless already well known to Meteren. It may be added that the same act of parliament forbad any alien to sell foreign books by retail in England unless he became a citizen of the realm. This will explain why Nicolson and his assistant John Hollybush took out letters of denization in February 1535.¹¹

That Nicolson put the Coverdale bible on the market has long been recognized. But I am happy to lay before the reader some new and very interesting evidence on the matter, which shows him in the process of importing the book. This evidence is in the form of a letter from Nicolson to Cromwell, and to the best of my belief it has been overlooked by all previous writers on the Coverdale bible, though an abstract of the contents has long been in print. We will give it in its original spelling.

“Yt may playse your mastership to be so good master not only to me: but also unto the trouth (who hath unther the kynghys grace) your goodnes for an only patrone unto her: as to visit the copie of the epistle dedicatorie for the bible to the kynge. And as your goodnes ever and only hath put forth your fote for the preferremente of goddes worde: even so that your mastership wyll now sett to your helpynge handes that the hole byble may come forth, where of as moche as ys yet come into englonde I have sende unto yow by thys brynger George constantyne a copie wych I beseke your discretion for the zele ye beare unto the trouth so to promote that the pure worde of god maye ones go forth unther the kynges prevelege: wych yf your mastership maye opteyne the whole realme of englonde shall have occasyon to have your acte in more hye remembrance then the name of Austen that men saye brought the faith fyrst unto englonde. Thus our lorde Jhesu lende us your wysdome longe to rule after hys wyll and playsure. Amen.

“After I had wrytten thys letter I receved melanctons comen places newly oversene and dedicate to the kynges hyghnes, wych I sende to your mastership wyth the bearer here of.

“your humbly servant Iamys nycolson glaysyr.”

(“To the Ryght worshipfull and me syngular good master, master secretary.”)¹²

We can date this letter with some exactness. It was written towards the end of August 1535. On 6 August Melanchthon writes to a friend that he is busy on an edition of his Common places, which must be completed before the Frankfort fair [September 2 in that year], but that he expects to be finished in a few days. Before the month is out he sends the book to the king by the hand of Alexander Alesius the Scot, together with letters to the king and Cranmer, both dated in August 1535. Alesius was in London by the end of the month: for a paper of Cromwell's memoranda, or list of topics to be discussed with the king, which mentions the instructions to Edward Foxe as ambassador to Germany, mentions also “Melancthon's book De Locis Communibus”. Now the instructions to Foxe were given, according to Gairdner, on 31 August.¹³

This is an important letter. It tells us that part of the printed bible was in England before the end of August and also a copy of Coverdale's dedication to the king. The latter may well have been brought over by Constantine, who in past years had been more than once in Antwerp, engaged in the traffic of protestant books to England. Whether the dedication was in manuscript or had been specially printed we cannot say. It is clear that the dedication was not, as is usually assumed, an afterthought, conceived and composed after the arrival of the bible in England, but was part of the plan from the start. It was written abroad, six weeks before the printing of the biblical text was finished, and there was ample time for it to be sent back to Antwerp and Cologne by the beginning of October. We learn too from the letter, what we have already gathered on other grounds, that the project of the Coverdale bible was not Cromwell's: he is asked to help, he is expected to sympathize, he has been informed before, but the initiative and the risk plainly lie elsewhere, with Nicolson himself and his backers. All that Cromwell is asked to do is to enlist the royal support.

In answer to this appeal Cromwell would of course show the bible to the king, and doubtless would show also the epistle dedicatory. Now the king's custom, when books were sent to him, was to give them to his advisers to read—advisers of various opinions—and on hearing what they had to say, to make his own decision.¹⁴ With this fits in well a story told by William Fulke in 1583.

“I myself, and so did many hundreds beside me hear that reverend father, Master Dr Coverdale, of holy and learned memory, in a sermon at Paul's cross, upon occasion of some slanderous reports that then were raised against his translation, declare his faithful purpose in doing the same: which after it was finished and presented to king Henry VIII, and by him committed to divers bishops of that time to peruse, of which, as I remember, Stephen Gardiner was one; after they had kept it long in their hands, and the king was divers times sued unto for the publication thereof, at the last being called for by the king himself they redelivered the book; and being demanded by the king what was their judgment of the translation they answered that there were many faults therein. ‘Well’, said the king, ‘but are there any heresies maintained thereby?’ They answered there were no heresies that they could find maintained thereby. ‘If there be no heresies,’ said the king, ‘then in God's name let it go abroad among our people.’ According to this judgment of the king and the bishops, Mr Coverdale defended his translation, confessing that he did now himself espy some faults which, if he might review it once over again, as he had done twice before, he doubted not but to amend: but for any heresy, he was sure there was none maintained by his translation.”¹⁵

Now I have little doubt that the bible spoken of in Coverdale's sermon is the 1535 bible, and Wright takes the same view: but Westcott and most writers suppose that he means the Great bible of 1539.¹⁶ They point out that whenever Fulke speaks of Coverdale's bible he means the Great bible. This is quite true, but it does not carry us very far. Fulke has no occasion to mention the 1535 bible, because he is defending himself against an opponent who singles out only three bibles for his attack, the Great bible of 1562, the Bishops' bible of 1577 and the Geneva bible of 1579. With the earlier bibles Fulke has no concern, though he once or twice mentions the Matthew bible of 1537, of which he himself possessed a copy. Besides we are not dealing with Fulke's usage but with Coverdale's. What did Coverdale mean in speaking of “his translation”? If he did mean his 1535 bible, what more natural phrase could he have used for describing it? Whether Fulke misunderstood him or not is another question.¹⁷

There are two strong arguments to prove that the 1535 bible is meant. Firstly, the king committed the book to the bishops to be perused by them before he “let it go abroad among our people”. Is he likely to have done this with the Great bible? He had already in 1537 formally licensed the Matthew and Coverdale bibles, and the Great bible was a mere revision of the former, and a conservative revision too. It was an official undertaking, promoted by Cromwell, who was still in high favour. The king knew of it beforehand, got a licence for the printing from his brother of France, and was angry when the inquisitors intervened to stop the work. Before the printing was finished, the famous injunction of September 1538 was put out in the royal name ordering that a copy be set up in every church. After all this can there have been any doubt about a permission to circulate? The king himself had already approved it. But with the 1535 bible all was different. It was the first English bible and no portion of English scripture had as yet been licensed by the king. Many volumes in fact had been publicly burned; nay, as late as December 1534 the chancellor of England had committed fifteen English New Testaments to the flames. Can we believe that Nicolson would put his book upon the market without making certain that he would not lose his money, would not himself be in trouble as a favourer of heresy?

Secondly, if Coverdale meant the Great bible in his sermon, how are we to understand the double revision which he says that he gave it? The second edition of April 1540 might pass for a revision, though not a very thorough one: but what else is there? The later editions are little more than reprints of the second, and with none of them can Coverdale have had anything to do except with the third (July 1540): for he fled to Germany about the middle of 1540. But if Coverdale meant the 1535 bible, we have a choice of three or four interpretations. He may have meant the Nicolson folio of 1537 (which is described on its title-page as “newly overseen”) and the Great bible, or the first and second editions of the Great bible (this is Wright's interpretation), or even the diglot and the Great bible.

It appears then that Cromwell received the Coverdale bible at the end of August and presented it to the king. The king handed it to Gardiner and other bishops to read, and since their verdict, however grudging, was not unfavourable, he suffered the publication to go forward.¹⁸ But he did not grant what Nicolson had desired, a formal licence to be printed on the title-page; for this doubtless is what Nicolson meant by the words “go forth under the king's privilege.” It may be that Cromwell, feeling that the project was regarded with hostility in powerful quarters, did not think it prudent to ask so much as this, and was content with assuring himself that the publication would not be actively hindered.

As soon as the complete book arrived in England, Nicolson took steps to put it on the market. Without delay he reprinted the foreign preliminaries, and his new title-page (which is extant in two copies) bears the date 1535.¹⁹ Early in 1536 the book was in circulation: for on 25 February Chapuys, the imperial ambassador, wrote as follows to his master's minister:

“A bible has been printed here in English in which the texts that favour the queen, especially Deuteronomy 19, have been translated in the opposite sense.”

Another letter from England of March 18 said that

“to confirm their heresies they have translated the bible for the people into the vulgar tongue, altering many passages to support their errors.”²⁰

But why did Nicolson reprint the preliminaries? To this question no certain answer can be given. The usual answer is that he wished to insert the dedication to the king, which had been wanting in the preliminaries printed in Germany: but we have seen reason to doubt whether it was so wanting. But there are other possible reasons. He may have disapproved of the wording of the title-page, or of the arrangement of the preliminaries, with the list of books preceding the dedication to the king; or it may be that some copies of the preliminaries were damaged or destroyed in transit.

But whatever the reason may have been, Nicolson took the occasion to make a notable change in the title-page. He used again the Holbein border (whose blocks must have been sent him by Meteren), but he altered the wording within the compartment. Instead of saying that the bible was “faithfully and truly translated out of Dutch and Latin into English”, it now reads “faithfully translated into English”, and the space saved by this shorter form is filled up by the completion of the last of the three quotations, that from Joshua 1. Two lines are added to it, so that it now reads:

Let not the book of this law depart
out of thy mouth, but exercise thyself
therein day and night, <that thou mayest
keep and do every thing according
to it that is written therein=.

How are these changes to be explained? The matter has been much debated. There are two theories. Some (e.g. Eadie, Pollard) suppose that Nicolson feared that the mention of Dutch or Latin translations, or of both, would offend buyers. The word Dutch (i.e. German) smacked of Luther, and Luther was unpopular in many quarters. The word Latin even might be unpalatable to some. So he omitted the words and lengthened the third quotation in compensation. It is hard to feel any confidence in this interpretation. What was the use of omitting the mention of Dutch and Latin from the title-page, when Coverdale confesses to the same horrid fact in his “Prologue” to the reader?

Other writers therefore (e.g. Wright, Lovett) suppose that there was no deep meaning in the change, but that Nicolson simply thought that the compartment would look better if the third quotation were completed, and to gain space for this he omitted the words higher up the page. The objection to this explanation is that the reason alleged for the change seems too trivial to carry the weight placed upon it.

But there is a third possible theory, though I do not remember to have seen it suggested. On reflection Coverdale may have felt that the words “out of Dutch and Latin” were inaccurate and misleading, and indeed unfair to Tyndale, who had made his translations from the original tongues, and from whose versions Coverdale himself had freely drawn. The wording on the original title-page was too sweeping. In his “Prologue” to the reader Coverdale was more cautious, and merely asserted that he had had the help of the German and Latin versions.

But though the bible was thus approved or tolerated by the king, we cannot doubt that its circulation was highly offensive to the enemies of the reformation, and one of them, bishop Stokesley, is said to have taken active, albeit unofficial, steps to suppress it. Hooker tells us that Coverdale on leaving England

“passed over into low Germany where he printed the bibles of his translation and sent them over into England, and thereof made his gain whereby he lived. But the bishops, namely Dr Stokesley bishop of London, when he heard hereof, and minding to prevent that no such bibles should be dispersed within this realm, made inquiry where they were to be sold, and bought them all up supposing that by this means no more bibles would be had; but contrary to his expectation it fell out otherwise: for the same money which the bishop gave for these books was sent over by the merchant unto this Coverdale, and by that means he was of that wealth and ability that he imprinted as many more and sent them over into England.”

What are we to say to this story? It is patently wrong in some of its details; Hooker is speaking of events which happened half a century ago, and which he could know only by hearsay. Also it bears a suspicious likeness to the famous story of Tonstall, who preceded Stokesley in the see of London, buying up Tyndale's testaments in 1530 to burn them. Nevertheless I am inclined to think that it may possibly have a foundation of truth. It is in full line with Stokesley's character and opinions, for he was bitterly hostile to vernacular scripture, and only a few months before had indignantly refused to lend his hand to a revision. There are, too, some notable differences between the two tales. Tonstall buys the books at Antwerp, Stokesley in London. Tonstall burns his booty openly at Paul's cross, doubtless amid a great concourse of people and to the accompaniment of a sermon; Stokesley makes away with them, so it would seem, privately. Debarred as he was from striking directly at the book by the favour shown to it by the king, the only course open to him was to buy up copies at his own expense and put them out of the way. But we should like to find supporting evidence to the story.

It is at first sight surprising that Henry VIII, who had furiously attacked Tyndale's translations of scripture, should succumb so readily to the bible of so prominent a Lutheran as Coverdale. The explanation would seem to lie partly in the influence of Anne Boleyn. That Anne Boleyn was, from whatever motives, favourable to reform and a helper of the English scripture, we know from several pieces of ancient evidence. Foxe says that “so long as queen Anne lived, the gospel had indifferent success”; Lawrence Humfrey calls her “the distinguished propagatress of evangelical truth”.²¹ An interesting petition also is extant, undated but written in 1530 by one Thomas Alwaye to an unnamed “right honorable lady”, who must be Anne Boleyn.

Extreme need compels me to seek friends “by whose means I might be released out of my miserable thraldom”. I could think of none, until “your gracious ladyship came unto my remembrance.” But when I remembered your many deeds of pity within this few years, both to strangers and Englishmen, both to your own country folk and other, to poor men even more than to rich, so that some were not only delivered by your means out of long, costly and hopeless imprisoning, but also by your charity largely rewarded and completely restored, my shamefastness vanished and I plucked up heart to make my petition.

“At Christmas two years now fully past [i.e. 1527] I chanced to buy English testaments and certain other books prohibited. Whereof my lord cardinal had knowledge within short space and commanded me to the Tower of London.” I remained there above a year, and then Wolsey, being too busy to examine me himself, handed me over to “my lord of Durham, then being bishop of London, and my lord of Lincoln”. I did penance, and Longland ordered me on pain of death never to go to Oxford or Cambridge or the city of London without his leave, and for a year to remain in his diocese. I have been there a full year and can get no work. After three months I got some, but I had not held it for six weeks when Longland, hearing of it, had me discharged therefrom by a letter of his chancellor. Since then I have had no living save what is given me “by a poor sister of mine.” I beg you to help me, so that “either by the king's commandment or else by leave obtained of my lord of Lincoln” I may be released from the injunction not to visit London and the universities, and may have a chance to earn my living.²²

And in 1534 queen Anne intervened on behalf of Richard Herman, the importer of Tyndale's first New Testament, who for his pains in this behalf had lost his membership of the English house at Antwerp; and it may well have been in gratitude for this service that she was presented with the vellum copy of Tyndale's 1534 New Testament, that still bears her name.²³

But more than this, we find in Parker's De Antiquitate a passage connecting her directly with the Coverdale bible. After describing Gardiner's hidden opposition to the project of an official English translation, the author proceeds:

Sed clarissimae integerrimaeque Dominae reginae gratia et intercessione a rege tandem impetratum est ut Biblia sacra Anglicana imprimerentur, et per singula templa in loco quo populo legendi potestas fiat locarentur. Quae tamen regis concessio nondum effectum sortita est, quia haec clarissima regina capite paulo post mulctata est.

But by the favour and intercession of the famous and virtuous queen permission was at last obtained from the king that the holy bible be printed in English and placed in every church in a place where the people might be able to read it. But this concession of the king did not yet take effect because this famous queen was soon afterwards beheaded.²⁴

And another piece of evidence has just appeared. The Bodleian has lately acquired a manuscript written about 1560 by William Latimer the younger, and describing Anne Boleyn's doings, as he had witnessed them when he was her chaplain. Here we read that “she commanded an English bible to be laid” on the “desk in her chamber”, so that all might read when they would; “neither did her majesty disdain in her own person to repair to the common desk” where the bible was placed. This bible can be none other than Coverdale's.²⁵

The passage in Parker throws much needed light on a problem arising out of the injunctions of 1536. Cromwell, as vicegerent of his master in spiritual things, issued two sets of injunctions on religion in September 1536 and September 1538. As is well known, those of 1538 contain a clause ordering that the English bible be set up in every church. But those of 1536 had originally contained a like clause, though it was omitted in the final version. The clause is to be found not only in Foxe, but in the edition of the injunctions printed in 1536 by Thomas Berthelet, the king's printer, of which three copies still survive. It runs as follows:

“Item, that every parson or proprietary of any parish church within this realm shall, on this side the feast of St Peter ad Vincula [August 1] next coming, provide a book of the whole bible, both in Latin and also in English, and lay the same in the choir for every man that will to look and read thereon; and shall discourage no man from the reading of any part of the bible, either in Latin or English, but rather comfort, exhort and admonish every man to read the same as the very word of God and the spiritual food of man's soul, … ever gently and charitably exhorting them that (using a sober and a modest behaviour in the reading and inquisition of the true sense of the same) they do in no wise stiffly or eagerly contend or strive one with another about the same, but refer the declaration of those places that be in controversy to the judgment of them that be better learned.”²⁶

Now these injunctions were printed in the middle of July; for they mention the acceptance by convocation (on July 11) of the ten articles of religion: but, like the ten articles themselves, they appear to have been conceived earlier; for the date fixed for the setting up of the bibles (August 1) is not likely to refer to the year 1537.

The queen was arrested on May 2 and suffered on May 19, and we may well suppose that as Cromwell witnessed the king's growing alienation from his dead consort, he finally decided not to press the bible-injunction which she had favoured. But although it was withdrawn, it remained in print, and it was not altogether without influence, as we shall see presently.

We see then that the Coverdale bible narrowly escaped being the first bible set up in the churches. But it was involved in the fate of the queen. From henceforth it must pursue its own way privately, and we hear little of it. But it was reprinted thrice in the next fifteen years, and of these reprints something should be said. As we have seen, James Nicolson reprinted the book in 1537, in folio, using the woodcuts of the Meteren edition. But he brought out another edition in the same year, this time a quarto, which is one of the rarest of all English bibles. Both these versions bear on their title-page the words “newly overseen and correct,” and although it is customary to say that this claim is unfounded, and that their text is merely a reprint of 1535, there was undoubtedly some revision. The two versions almost always stand together against 1535, and their text is followed by the edition of 1550. Here are some specimens of the changes made, which are mostly away from the German versions, and in the direction of the Vulgate.

Gen. 6: 1. Begot them daughters—1535: sons and daughters—1537, 1550.

There seems no authority for this change: but some copies of the Vulgate read filios for filias, and I suppose Coverdale combined the two readings.

Deut. 32: 22. Unto the nethermost hell—1535: bottom of—1537, 1550.

Job 4: 17. May a man be justified before God? May there any man be judged to be clean by reason of his own works?—1535.

May a man compared unto God be justified? May there any man be more clean than he that made him?—1537, 1550.

Isaiah 57: 6. Should I oversee that?—1535: not be grieved therewith—1537, 1550.

Isaiah 58: 9. He shall say: Here I am. Yea, if thou layest—1535; am (for I the Lord thy God am merciful). Yea—1537, 1550.

This clause is inserted in some copies of the Vulgate.

Jer. 1: 18. An iron pillar and a wall of steel—1535; wall of brass—1535 margin; brazen wall—1537, 1550.

Mal. 3: 1. The Lord whom ye would have shall soon come to his temple, yea even the messenger of the covenant whom ye long for—1535; and—1537, 1550.

Wisdom 11: 10. A boysteous king—1535: dreadful—1537, 1550.

Rom. 12: 11. Apply yourselves unto the time—1535; serving the Lord—1537, 1550.

That the 1537 folio appeared earlier than the 1537 quarto has been generally assumed. The quarto alone bears on its title-page the legend “set forth with the king's most gracious license”. Now it is very hard to believe that Nicolson would not have printed these words in the folio as well, if he had been entitled to do so, particularly as his rivals had just received the same privilege for the Matthew bible. But the matter is put out of doubt by an examination of those few places, where the folio and the quarto editions differ from one another.

Isaiah 65: 15. Your name shall not be sworn by among my chosen—1535, 1537 folio, 1550; shall be—1537 quarto.

This is not a misprint, but a return from Z. 1534 (nit mer im eyd benamset) to the correct rendering of the Latin versions and Luther.

Isaiah 66: 8. Sion beareth his sons—1535, 1537 folio, 1550; hyr—1537 quarto.

Jer. 2: 3. Thou, Israel, wast hallowed unto the Lord, and so was his first fruits—1535, 1537 folio, 1550: werest thou—1537 quarto (=Z. 1534).

1 Macc. 2: 27. Whoso is fervent in the law and will keep the covenant—1535 (Luther); and—1537 folio, 1550; to—1537 quarto.

The 1537 quarto does the best it can with the misprint of the 1537 folio.

1 Macc. 2: 40. Then shall they the sooner root us out—1535, 1550; the soone—1537 folio; soon—1537 quarto.

Here too the quarto deals with a misprint of the 1537 folio.

In 1550 (August 16) another reprint appeared in quarto. The publisher was Andrew Hester of London, the printer Christopher Froschover of Zurich. There is still to be seen in the public library at Zurich Froschover's own copy, with an inscription in his handwriting. But strangely enough his printed title-page (which exists only in that one copy) misdescribes the book as “translated into English by Master Thomas Matthew,” and gives the same text from Isaiah 1 (and in the same wording) as is printed on the Matthew title-page. Hester of course printed a correct title-page of his own, and along with it a revised version of the preliminaries of 1535, Coverdale making the necessary changes in dedication and prologue. The only preliminaries printed by Froschover were the title-page and seventeen leaves of “the arguments upon the Old and New Testament”, i.e. the contents of the chapters, with a preface (presumably by Coverdale) explaining why they were now all grouped together at the beginning of the bible. But these arguments were ignored by Hester, and his 1550 bible contains no chapter headings at all.²⁷

The 1550 bible is a reprint of the 1537 folio, and almost invariably agrees with it, whether against 1535 or against the 1537 quarto. It even follows its misprints. Here are two examples:

Gen. 1: 18. To divide the light from darkness—1535, 1537 quarto: night—1537 folio, 1550.

John 1: 21. Art thou the prophet—1535, 1537 quarto: not the—1537 folio, 1550.

No doubt a copy of the 1537 folio was sent to Zurich: but why Froschover should have misdescribed it on his title-page is not easy to see.

In 1553 the sheets of the Froschover bible were re-issued by Richard Jugge of London with a reprint of the Hester preliminaries. Thereafter no edition of the Coverdale bible appeared until modern times, when Samuel Bagster reprinted the book twice, in 1838 and 1847.²⁸

.....

THE MAKING OF THE GREAT BIBLE

That Coverdale should be chosen to edit the Great bible was only to be expected. The book was Cromwell's enterprise, and Coverdale had long been friend and supporter to that statesman. But he was also the fittest man for the task, and we cannot doubt that Cranmer, if he was consulted, approved the choice. Coverdale had a longer and wider experience of bible-translation than any other Englishman. If he was not a first-class scholar, he was as good a one as any other man that was available, and his modesty, industry, conciliatory temper and readiness to learn from any quarter made it likely that he would produce a presentable piece of work and one not unsuited to the needs of the times. He was instructed—and indeed that may have been his own wish—to take the Matthew bible as his basis, and it is characteristic of his modesty that he was well content to see his own version superseded by another's.

The publishing was entrusted to Grafton and Whitchurch, who had well earned the honour by their production of the Matthew bible, and who were certainly fitter for the new enterprise than Nicolson. They were Englishmen and men of standing, members of the city companies, and merchant adventurers. Probably they were wealthier than Nicolson—a point of some moment, since they appear to have borne the expense of the Great bible. Foxe says so positively: they “bare the charges” and “were at the cost and charge thereof”: and Thomas Norton says the same:

“The bible in English, that unvaluable jewel, we have by his [Grafton's] travail, first with his charge and attendance procuring the translation thereof, then sundry times copying the same out with his own hand, thirdly printing it in France with his great expense and peril, when the rage of those holy fathers [the English bishops] … would not suffer it to be done in England.”

The cries of distress, too, raised by Whitchurch, when danger began to threaten and Cromwell refused to take action to defend “our purposed work lately taken in hand for your lordship”, surely imply that the publishers were risking something of their own. On the other hand, Grafton, writing on 23 June 1538, asks for Cromwell's “favourable help at this present” to meet the heavy costs, and Cromwell himself told the French ambassador on 31 December that he had printed the bible “at his own cost and expense” and had sunk 600 marks [£400] on the project. Most likely the truth is that Grafton and Whitchurch had undertaken to finance the bible, but as the printing dallied and the costs mounted beyond expectation, Cromwell consented to make a contribution, or at least to advance them money which they would repay out of the sales. From Norton's words it would appear that the publishers paid Coverdale for his revision, and indeed that Grafton in Paris acted as his secretary and helped to copy out the texts.²⁹

For the place of printing Paris was selected, because (as Foxe says) “paper was there more meet and apt to be had for the doing thereof than in the realm of England, and also that there were more store of good workmen for the ready dispatch of the same.” Cromwell himself gives the same reason to the French ambassador: “printing is finer there than elsewhere, and with the great number of printers and abundance of paper, books are dispatched sooner than in any other country.”³⁰ Thomas Norton with less likelihood says that the bishops would not suffer it to be done in England. It is true that the enemies of the bible were on the watch at home and might perhaps get the ear of the king, but there were dangers too in printing in a foreign land, as was speedily to appear.

The risk can hardly have been overlooked by Cromwell, and according to Foxe he took steps to provide against it: he “procured of the king of England his gracious letters to the French king to permit and license a subject of his to imprint the bible in English within the university of Paris”; which university had the oversight of all printing in the city. And in fact there exists in the British Museum a copy of a licence, bearing no date, granted by the king of France to Grafton and Whitchurch, empowering them to print the bible both in Latin and English with any printer in France, and to transport it to England, provided only that the book so printed contained no “private or unlawful opinions”.

But what is the date of this licence? From Foxe's narrative and from general likelihood we should naturally suppose that it was given in the spring of 1538 before Grafton and Coverdale sailed for France. What was the sense in sending two or three men to Paris, with all their apparatus of books, when it was not certain that they would be permitted to print? But Pollard thinks that this is precluded by the mention of a Latin bible: this (he says) can only refer to the Regnault diglot; and therefore the licence cannot be earlier than July, in which month Coverdale first saw a copy of the Nicolson diglot. This theory, however, is not without difficulties. If the diglot is meant, then the licence is in error in saying that the king of England gave leave (libertatem concesserit) to Grafton and Whitchurch to print and bring to England the holy bible both in Latin and in English (sacram bibliam tam latine quam britannice sive anglice). Henry VIII had nothing to do with the Regnault diglot; it was a private venture, not an official book; indeed, when Grafton on December 1 sends the diglot to Cromwell, he explains the genesis of the book, as if Cromwell had never heard of it before. And why is not Regnault named in the licence, if the printing had already begun? The vague phrase “any printer in our realm” (in regno nostro apud calchographum quemcumque) points to the early date; and I am disposed to think that originally Grafton and Whitchurch had desired to print a Latin as well as an English bible. But however this may be, the licence meant very little: for the French king and the inquisition could always intervene under the phrase about unlawful opinions, and they did so intervene, as we shall see.

By about the end of May Grafton and Coverdale were in Paris, and took up their lodgings with their printer, Francis Regnault.³¹ Thence on 23 June they write to Cromwell to report progress. They tell him that they “be entered into your work of the bible”, and they send him the first printed sheets in two copies, one on paper and the other on parchment, on which latter material they intend to print two copies, for the king and Cromwell severally. It is interesting to note that two copies in vellum of this first Great bible survive today, one at St John's college, Cambridge, and the other in the National Library of Wales, into which depository it passed in 1921 after being in private hands for nearly four centuries;³² and we may presume that these are the two copies on parchment mentioned by the writers of the letter. The print (they say) is sure to please Cromwell, and the paper is “of the best sort in France”. The costs indeed are great, and to meet these they will be glad to receive whatever help Cromwell pleases to send. But they fear danger from the papists: they are “daily threatened, and look ever to be spoken withal”, and they know not how they will be used. They trust therefore that Cromwell will defend them by sending his letters by the present bearer either to the English ambassador in Paris (bishop Gardiner) or to whomsoever else he pleases.

What answer Cromwell made to this plea is uncertain. It may be that he refused to do anything: for an undated letter survives written to Cromwell by Whitchurch, seemingly from London, expressing his grief and despair at learning from Cromwell that “you would not write your letters nor meddle at all with our purposed work lately taken in hand for your lordship”. He begs him “not to refuse us now but with your goodness to help us in the furtherance of our said work”, and to “aid and defend us in this our just business”; and he offers to give the names “of those people, and most chiefly of our countrymen, which do complain on us unto the university” and rail upon the king and council of England.³³

The danger, however, passed for the moment; the enemy held their hands and did not as yet proceed to extremes. On 9 August Coverdale and Grafton send Cromwell some more printed sheets, and promise to send the rest of the book from time to time as it should be printed. On 12 September all is still going well. They write again asking Cromwell to do a favour for their host, Francis Regnault, and saying that if Cromwell consents to grant it, “we shall not fare the worse in the readiness and due expedition of this your lordship's work of the bible; which goeth well forward, and within few months will draw to an end by the grace of almighty God.”

But soon the clouds gather in threatening fashion. On 7 October Bonner (the new ambassador) writes to Cromwell to complain of the general coldness and unkindness with which he has been treated in Paris, and adds:

“Of late there is a stay made at Paris touching the printing of the bible in English, and suit made to the great master to provide for remedy therein; but as yet it is not obtained.”

It is to be supposed that the great master (Anne de Montmorency, Grand Master and Constable of France) gave the Englishmen their remedy: for the printing proceeded till the month of December.

But then the peril flares up, and fearing the worst the Englishmen send some of the printed sheets into Cromwell's keeping by the hand of Bonner, and along with the sheets a letter written on December 13 “somewhat hastily” by Coverdale to his patron:

“Whereas my said lord of Hereford is so good unto us as to convey thus much of the bible to your good lordship, I humbly beseech the same [Cromwell] to be the defender and keeper thereof; to the intent that if these men proceed in their cruelness against us and confiscate the rest, yet this at the least may be safe by the means of your lordship.”

Four days later the blow fell. On December 17 the inquisitor general for France issued an order expounding the dangers of vernacular scripture, and citing Francis Regnault and other persons unnamed to appear before him on the following day, since they were engaged in the printing of an English bible; at the same time forbidding them to proceed further with the printing or to alienate the printed sheets from their possession, until both bibles (utraque biblia) should have been examined by him. Under the phrase utraque biblia he doubtless includes the New Testament diglot which Regnault had printed for Coverdale.³⁴

This was the end of the printing at Paris. Regnault appeared before the inquisition, Grafton and Coverdale escaped to England, and the printed sheets were seized by the French authorities. Foxe's account is as follows:

“Then was there a quarrel picked to the printer, and he was sent for to the inquisitors of the faith, and there charged with certain articles of heresy. Then were sent for the Englishmen that were at the cost and charge thereof, and also such as had the correction of the same, which was Myles Coverdale, but having some warning what would follow, the said Englishmen posted away as fast as they could to save themselves, leaving behind them all their bibles, which were to the number of 2500, called the bibles of the great volume.”

Grafton too has something to say: “not only the same bibles being XXV C. in number were seized and made confiscate, but also both the printer, merchants and correctors with great jeopardy of their lives escaped.”³⁵

The fate of the confiscated bibles is not so clear as we should like. Some appear to have been burned, and the date of this we shall consider in a moment. But amid much that is obscure, one thing is certain, that the great mass of them were held by the French authorities for more than six months, during which time Cromwell made repeated but vain efforts to recover them. The story can be read in the diplomatic correspondence of the time.³⁶

On 31 December Cromwell had an interview with the French ambassador and told him that he himself was sinking £400 in the new edition, that the text was translated word for word for the benefit of such Englishmen as knew no Latin, and that the books would be of no use for any other nation. He begged, therefore, the king of France to permit the printing to be continued in Paris: or if that could not be granted, at least to consent (as he understood had already been promised to the English ambassador) that the books be sent to England in their unfinished state. Meanwhile Bonner was pressing hard in Paris: on January 1 he had an interview with the French king, who received him very graciously and ordered that what was already printed of the English bible should be handed over to the ministers of the king of England. This conciliatory step was followed by another: a day or two later Francis imprisoned two French friars who had defamed Henry VIII in their sermons. This news reached the king of England on January 9, and he was highly delighted at the friendly dealing of his brother of France. But his rejoicing was premature; the promise to release the bibles was not fulfilled.

We again new light on the matter from an interesting and important letter, which has been in print for nearly three hundred years but has hitherto escaped the notice of writers on the English bible. It was written on 25 February 1539 by the constable to Castillon, the French ambassador in London, and describes an interview of Bonner with the Privy council of France three days earlier. The English ambassador made a strong plea for the restoration of the “impressions du Nouveau Testament et de la Bible”. He claimed that the late chancellor of France (Antoine du Bourg, who died by an accident early in November 1538) had given him permission to have the books printed at Paris on the strength of a report made on them by du Peyrat, president of Parlement, whom he had deputed to examine them. A great number of books had therefore been printed, and these Bonner desired should be delivered to him to be sent to England, in accordance with a promise made to him by the constable within the last few days.

In reply the constable told Bonner that he could only say what he had always said whenever the subject had been raised before, that it was impossible to comply with his request. Bonner then rejoined that the reason of the request was because the printing types at Paris were finer than in England or elsewhere, the printers more skilful, and the paper better. The constable retorted that in that case there was nothing to hinder him from recovering the types at Paris, and also printers and paper in abundance, and that the French authorities would let him take as much of these as he desired sooner than permit him to have the printed sheets. As to du Peyrat, it was true indeed that he had inspected the books, but he had found many depraved and disturbing things therein, and therefore it was hardly credible that du Bourg should have given verbal permission (permis verbalement) for the printing: for in such cases the custom was to have works that were presented for printing examined by the court of Parlement or other persons deputed, and if they were approved as suitable for publication, to prepare letters patent sealed with the king's seal, giving the sole right of printing to a stationer named in the letters. That the chancellor did not bring the bible before Parlement was an act of kindness: for a condemnation in this court would have been known to all and would have been attended with scandal, and this the king desired to spare Bonner. As for the constable himself, he denied that he had ever promised Bonner the delivery of the printed books, but only of the manuscripts (les copies ou exemplaires), and these had been given to the printers, so that they could be taken back to England.

After this letter, is printed a “Declaration” of the king of France on the complaints of the English ambassador:

“As to the printing of the bible and New Testament in the English vulgar tongue, the English ambassador knows the answer that he has often received, that good things can as well be printed in England as in France, but bad ones will never be suffered by the king to be printed on this side, where English is not generally understood, and therefore the ambassador should speak no more on the matter at present since it is not agreeable to the king: not that the king wishes to condemn (impugner) this work, for he knows not whether it be good or bad, but that he thinks that it can be printed in England, … and there is no need to have it printed at Paris.”³⁷

This letter shows us that it was from the French side that the suggestion was first made that the type, printers and paper should be transported from France to England, so that the bible might be printed there. The hint was taken up, as we shall see, and the printing was completed at London in the month of April. Meanwhile the confiscated sheets remained in Paris, but Cromwell had not given up hope of recovering them. On May 1 Marillac, the newly appointed French ambassador, reports to the constable from London that Cromwell has again asked for the delivery of the books, and he is instructed (on May 6) to give once more the reply that has already been repeatedly made to the English ambassador, that Francis has been informed that the bible is in some things falsified and erroneous, and that he is resolved not to release it. If it were harmless it could as well have been printed in England as in France. On 20 May the French ambassador writes that he expects the matter to be raised again, and that he intends to give the same answer as before;³⁸ and early in July Cromwell once more broaches the subject, but with what result is unknown, and we have no positive evidence to show whether the bibles were ever returned or not.

While the bible lay confiscated at Paris, Lady Lisle tried to purchase a copy of it; she was interested in bibles, as we have seen. On 16 May 1539 she writes from Calais to Bekensaw, her agent in Paris: “Sir, I pray you, if there be any bibles printed in English to send me one”; and she sends him a crown to pay for it. He replies on 10 July: “as concerning any English bibles, here are none throughout printed, for such as were here begun be not perfect, nor they will let no man see that this [?these that] is done”; and in another letter, undated, he writes: “here lieth no bibles in English to be sold; for those that were here begun and almost ended, the justice will not suffer them to have them that caused them to be printed.”³⁹

What was the reason of the confiscating of the bible? The king and constable of France and the inquisitor general all say that it was heresy or the fear of heresy: and the other ancient evidence supports them. Grafton himself says that the bible was printed at Paris “in as privy a manner as might be”.⁴⁰ What need was there of secrecy, save that they knew that there were theological enemies waiting to spring? From their first arrival in Paris the Englishmen complain of the daily threatenings of the papists, and Whitchurch offers to reveal to Cromwell the names of the men—some were French, but most were English—who were complaining of them to the university. On 24 December the pope gives the following instruction to one of his servants whom he is sending to France: that the bible corruptly translated into English may either not be published or be burnt.⁴¹ All this tallies excellently with Foxe's statement that the bible was “stayed at Paris through the practice of English bishops”. As Brinkelow puts it in 1542, “how busy were they to stay the putting forth of the Great bible and to have had the bible of Thomas Matthew called in”.⁴² The root of the opposition was in England, but it found ardent sympathizers in France, ready to lend their aid to the battle against heresy.

But this consensus of ancient opinion is unceremoniously brushed aside by Pollard and by other scholars who follow his lead. He will have none of such theological motives, but maintains that the interference of the inquisition and the confiscation of the bibles “was a political move suggested by the French ambassador in London.” What is the evidence for this surprising judgment? It is supposed to lie in a letter written on 9 January 1539 by Chapuys, the imperial ambassador in London, to his royal master. Chapuys describes a visit which he had that very day received from the secretary of the French ambassador, who informed him of the extreme gratification of Henry VIII at learning from Bonner that Francis I had imprisoned the two railing friars and had promised to release the English bible. After reporting this conversation Chapuys adds:

“And the said [French] ambassador sent me word that all that had been done in France was only an artifice to abuse those here, so as not to put them in mistrust (tout ce quavoit este fait audit France nestoit que artiffice pour abuser ceulx cy, pour non les mectre en meffiance) and that he had advised this (cella sollicite) by his letters: nevertheless those which he wrote on the matter of the defamation of the king and concerning the sequestration of the bible can scarcely yet have arrived at the court of France”.⁴³

Now these words cannot possibly bear the interpretation put upon them by Pollard. “All that had been done in France” (says Castillon) was for the purpose of not arousing mistrust in the minds of the English rulers. How then can it refer to the seizure of the bible? for the seizure of the bible was eminently calculated to arouse mistrust, or to create bad feeling between the two kings, and it had this effect, as we have seen. By “all that had been done in France” Castillon means the imprisonment of the two friars and the promise to release the bible. These things did not show the real mind of the king of France: they were a sop “to abuse those here”, or in other words to throw dust in the eyes of the king of England and to allay his irritation. The plan worked. Henry was deceived by this apparent change to friendliness. Francis never meant to release the bible, though he promised to do so. Castillon read his master's mind quite accurately; six months later the bible was still forcibly detained in the French capital.

Thus Pollard's interpretation falls to the ground; the traditional view holds the field, and it is indeed in full line with the historical situation. In England the project of the Great bible was viewed with hostility by theological conservatives. It was sponsored by Cromwell whom they hated, it was being revised by Coverdale whose views were only less unpalatable to them than Tyndale's, and it was to be intruded perforce into every parish church in the realm. Long after that bible was authorized and had been set up in churches, Gardiner was working against it and trying to get it set aside. Is it likely that the Englishmen who were intriguing against the bible at Paris and trying to persuade the university to stop the printing, were acting without the sympathy and support of some at least of the malcontents at home? Thus Foxe's statement, so summarily dismissed by Pollard, that the bible was “stayed through the practice of English bishops” (he does not say “the English bishops”) is not only not absurd, but it even becomes probable.

And our interpretation fits well into the French scene. We see Francis labouring under some division of mind, anxious to show himself as the most Christian king, or at least not to alienate that powerful church opinion which was the chief bulwark of his throne, and yet at the same time desirous to keep on reasonably good terms with his brother of England. We see the ecclesiastics, and the Parlement which was their ready tool, making the running against heresy and bringing the king somewhat further than he was willing to go of his own accord. Ten years ago there had been a sharp struggle between king and church in the celebrated case of Louis de Berquin. Thrice within six years Berquin was condemned for heresy and destined to the fire. Twice Francis interposed at the last minute and saved him from death; but he was defeated in the end, and the third time he left his favourite to his persecutors.

When the proposal was made to print an English bible in Paris, Francis would see no reason to refuse outright. The translation might be perfectly harmless; he himself had a few years before encouraged Lefèvre's version despite the attacks of the ecclesiastics; besides, he wished to keep on good terms, if he could, with Henry VIII. He agreed therefore, but at the same time safeguarded his credit with the orthodox by the proviso that the new translation must contain no unlawful opinions. The printing began, and before long complaints were heard. Englishmen alleged that the version was heretical, and that it ought to be stopped. The attacks grew despite the endeavours to keep the matter as secret as possible, and in October the inquisition issued the first citation upon Regnault, and the bible was stayed. The Englishmen appealed to the constable and he quashed the proceedings. The printing continued, but the complaints grew in urgency, and when the second citation was issued in December, perhaps not without prompting from the pope, the king felt he could do not more. But he still seeks to keep on terms with Henry VIII. The books are not destroyed; he himself fences, now calling the book heretical, now saying that he does not know whether it is heretical or not; and although he refuses to surrender the books, yet he is willing that the types and paper and printers should go to England. And if, as we suppose, he gave the books up ten or eleven months later, this doubtless sprang from diplomatic motives and the desire to conciliate the king of England.

In the letters between the two courts we read of the confiscation of the bible, but not a word is said of its burning; and yet there is ancient evidence that some part of the sheets was burnt. The chief witness is Foxe, who tells us a graphic story:

“The Englishmen posted away as fast as they could to save themselves, leaving behind them all their bibles … and never recovered any of them, saving that the Lieutenant criminal having them delivered unto him to burn in a place of Paris (like Smithfield) called Maulbert Place, was somewhat moved with covetousness, and sold 4 great dry fattes of them to a Haberdasher to lap in caps, and those were bought again, but the rest were burned, to the great and importunate loss of those that bare the charge of them. But notwithstanding the said loss, after they had recovered some part of the aforesaid books, and were well comforted and encouraged by the Lord Cromwell, the said Englishmen went again to Paris, and there got the presses, letters, and servants of the aforesaid Printer, and brought them to London, and there they became printers themselves (which before they never intended) and printed out the said Bible in London, and after that printed sundry impressions of them: but yet not without great trouble and loss, for the hatred of the bishops, namely Steven Gardiner and his fellows, who mightily did stomach and malign the printing thereof.”

Now it is impossible to believe that this story of the burning is invented; the graphic details ring true, and we know that the Place Maubert was one of the regular places for martyrdoms and other such spectacular demonstrations. Besides, the fact of the burning is supported from another quarter. Thomas Norton writes that “the rage of those holy fathers … procured the same, being printed, to be attached in France and openly burned, himself [Grafton] hardly escaping with his life.”⁴⁴

But when was the burning? The natural time would be towards the end of December, soon after the arrest of the sheets and the disciplining of the printer, and Foxe and Norton seem to mean this. We have seen how at Christmas the pope sent a messenger to France with instructions to press for the burning, and it may have been this pressure of the pontiff that produced the holocaust. In that case the burning was of a small part only, not more than four or five hundred at the outside, a token burning that testified to the iniquity of the whole. It is indeed at first sight surprising that there is no mention of the burning in the diplomatic letters, but the English rulers might well think it prudent not to raise the matter, since they were more anxious to recover the confiscated sheets than to harp on the past misdeeds of France. If it was not then, it must have been in July or later, which seems improbable in itself, and is inconsistent with any return of the confiscated sheets.

A few weeks after the burning the Englishmen recovered the type, paper and printer's workmen, and brought them to England. Hitherto this fact has rested solely upon the witness of Foxe, but from the constable's letter of 25 February we learn the date of it and that this was suggested from the French side. Grafton and Whitchurch or their emissaries were no doubt in Paris by the beginning of March, and this will leave six or seven weeks for the printing to be finished (as the colophon informs us) in April 1539. The time would be ample: for there cannot have been much of the bible to complete. Foxe says the printing had gone “even to the last part”, and Lady Lisle's factor in Paris says the bibles were “here begun and almost ended”. The evidence of the book itself tells the same way. The general title-page is part of the preliminaries and is believed to be of English origin: but the same title-page appears also before the Apocrypha, and is there reckoned as leaf one of the first gathering. Thus the Apocrypha would seem to have been printed in England. The New Testament title-page (on leaf one of the first gathering) contains a number of woodcut blocks which (unlike the great majority of the woodcuts in the first Great bible) were never used in any of the later editions of that bible. Presumably, therefore, they were not brought to England. The same thing is true of a woodcut at the beginning of St Matthew and another at the beginning of Psalms.

We learn something too from a study of the ornamental capital letters, a point to which Mr A. F. Johnson of the British Museum has drawn my attention. Four letters (A, I, P and T) large and handsome, and all belonging to the same set, are used about thirty times in the bible at the beginning of books—in the Old Testament from Genesis to Job and in the New Testament from Mark to 1 Peter. Now since these capitals do not appear in the second and later editions that were printed in England, and do appear again in two books printed at Paris in 1543 and 1545 by Michael Fezandat, we conclude that this alphabet never came to London and that these parts of the bible were printed in Paris.⁴⁵ There is also a smaller capital A at the beginning of Numbers, which does not appear in the later English editions, but is used in two books printed at Paris by Peter Vidoue in 1527 and 1539; and other letters of the same alphabet are used in these same two books and also in another book of the same printer in 1540.⁴⁶

From these facts one may hazard the inference that nearly the whole of the canonical scripture was finished in Paris, but the Apocrypha was not touched. This order of proceeding was very natural. The Apocrypha was put upon a lower plane and was regarded with less urgency: translators (e.g. Pagninus and Coverdale himself) sometimes did not trouble to revise it but reprinted it as it stood. In London, then, Grafton and Whitchurch completed what had been left undone at Paris, and printed off as many copies as would match the confiscated sheets, if ever those should be recovered from the French capital. They had of course already in their hands a few of the sheets printed by Regnault, viz. the copies that had been sent into Cromwell's keeping in December and the four vatfulls which had been sold to the haberdasher at the time of the burning: and Pollard is of opinion that these together cannot have amounted to more than a hundred copies.

But were the confiscated books ever recovered from Paris? There is no positive evidence on the matter, but there are several facts that lead us to suppose that they were returned in November 1539. Foxe tells us that Grafton was at Paris when Bonner took his oath of allegiance as bishop of London—which seems to have been on 12 November—and that on that occasion Bonner made the following promise to Grafton, whom he had summoned to be one of the witnesses to his oath:

“To tell you Mr Grafton, Before God (for that was commonly his oath) the greatest fault that I ever found in Stokesley was for vexing and troubling of poor men as Lobley the bookbinder and other, for having the scripture in English; and God willing he did not so much hinder it but I will as much further it, and I will have of your bibles set up in the church of Paul's, at the least in sundry places six of them, and I will pay you honestly for them and give you hearty thanks. Which words he then spake in the hearing of divers credible persons, as Edmund Stile grocer and other.”

Now if Grafton recovered the bibles in November, there was excellent reason for his being in Paris at that time and for Bonner promising to buy the bible that was so soon to be on the market.

This conclusion is supported by the following entries in Cromwell's Remembrances under date of late October or early November: “Item for licence for sale of the bibles” and “the bill for the bibles”.⁴⁷ We know too that the price of the Great bible was fixed about the same time. On November 14 Cranmer writes to Cromwell to tell him that Berthelet, the king's printer, and Whitchurch had been with him, and had “by their accounts declared the expenses and charges of the printing of the great bibles”. He had therefore, on Berthelet's advice, fixed the selling price at 13s. 4d. a copy. Whitchurch, however, had told him that Cromwell would prefer 10s., and although Whitchurch and his fellow [Grafton] thought this low in consideration of their heavy costs (the paper, says Cranmer, “in very deed is substantial and good”), yet they were willing to accept it, provided that Cromwell would grant them a monopoly of printing. Otherwise they would be much damaged, “they sustaining such charge as they already have done”. Cromwell acted with great promptness. He did not indeed grant them a monopoly, but on the same day he obtained a patent from the king expatiating on the danger to the people of a diversity of translations, and forbidding any printer in England to print any English bible for the next five years unless deputed thereto by Cromwell himself. Thus he kept the whole matter in his own hand. Presumably the price was fixed at 10s., that is to say for unbound copies. In his interview with Cranmer, Whitchurch promised to print the price at the end of the bible, so that all men should know what they had to pay: but this was never done.⁴⁸

In the same letter of November 14 Cranmer speaks of a preface which he has written for the bible, and which he has already sent to Cromwell to be shown to the king. Does his grace approve it? he asks. If so, will Cromwell send it to Whitchurch for printing? The archbishop trusts that “it shall both encourage many slow readers, and also stay the rash judgments of them that read therein”, i.e. in the bible. This is the famous preface that was first printed in the second edition (April 1540) of the Great bible. But why was it composed so early as the beginning of November, unless that was the time when the bible was first being put upon the market?

When once the Great bible appeared, editions succeeded one another in rapid succession, and six more were printed by Grafton or Whitchurch in the years 1540-1. Cromwell certainly used his monopoly to protect the interest of these two printers: for the only other Great bible (or indeed bible of any kind) to appear during these years was one of April 1540, printed by Petyt and Redman for Berthelet, and following with trivial changes the text of April 1539. But this was not a serious rival to the editions of Grafton and Whitchurch. It was smaller in size, though still a folio, and meanly printed; presumably it was for private use since it did not come up to the standard required by the injunctions for a church bible. The New Testament title-page says that the version was “after the last recognition and setting forth [i.e. in 1535] of Erasmus.”

The dates of the seven editions of Grafton and Whitchurch are as follows:

• (1) April 1539.
• (2) April 1540, with Cranmer's preface and with much new revision by Coverdale, particularly in the poetical parts of the Old Testament.
• (3) July 1540, the last edition in which Coverdale himself might have had a hand: for he fled oversea about this time.
• (4) November 1540 (colophon); but dated 1541 on its title-page, which tells us that the book is “overseen and perused” by bishops Tonstall and Heath.
• (5) May 1541.
• (6) November 1541, with the identical title-page that appeared in the November 1540 edition.
• (7) December 1541.

Of these seven editions the last six contain Cranmer's preface and inform the reader that this is the bible appointed to be used in the churches, and the last five reproduce the text of (2) with trifling variations. But in other respects (1), (2), (3), (5) and (7) stand together against (4) and (6): they have 62 lines to the page and read together leaf for leaf.⁴⁹ The other two also stand together: both have 65 lines to the page, and read together leaf for leaf; both have the same (very few and slight) changes in the text and omit the Olivetan preface to the Apocrypha.

Since these bibles so largely read together and followed one another so rapidly, one might expect to find many mixed copies; and so it is. Francis Fry (A Description of the Great bible, 1865) asserts that of the 146 copies he examined, only 31 or 32 were unmixed. How then can we be sure what a standard (unmixed) copy is, or in other words what leaves belong to what edition? Fry devised elaborate tests, by which he claimed—at enormous labour to himself—to have solved this problem, and his conclusions have been accepted by bibliographers and cataloguers, though some complain that it is difficult to check his results, because he so seldom tells us what copy he is using. For my part I have not entered into this highly complex matter, but I am inclined to think that if his conclusions were wrong the fact would have decisively appeared in the course of eighty-eight years.

The next edition of the Great bible appeared in 1549, two years after the accession of Edward VI. From 1542 onwards the whole cause of English scripture was under a cloud; Cromwell was dead, and the conservative reaction in full swing. It was solemnly pronounced by the convocation of 1542 that the Great bible could not be countenanced for reading in church, and a year later all private reading of the English bible was forbidden with very few exceptions. In the last five years of Henry VIII's reign only a single edition of any part of English scripture appeared from an English press, and that was a New Testament of the Great bible printed by Whitchurch on 10 November 1546. In the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth, however, the Great bible was reprinted several times—four times in folio and six in quarto—until it was superseded for church reading by the Bishops' bible of 1568. Since 1569, or thereabouts, no edition has appeared, but its New Testament (1539) was reprinted in Bagster's English Hexapla, 1841.

Notes

1. The Holkham copy has lately (1951) been acquired by the British Museum.

2. Recent writers on Holbein are agreed on this point, e.g. Woltmann (1874-6), G. S. Davies (1903), A. B. Chamberlain (1913), W. Stein (1929), Hans Reinhardt (1938), W. Waetzoldt (1938).

3. The words anno 1534 stand within the bracket, not outside as is sometimes asserted.

4. E.g. Francis Fry, The Bible by Coverdale, 1535, (1867), p. 4; Westcott, 56.

5. J. H. Hessels, Ecclesiae Londino-Bataviae Archivum (1887-97), III (1), p. 1212 (the copy used by W. J. C. Moens, Registers of Dutch Church, Austin Friars, 1884, is a transcript); Emanuel van Meteren, Historie, 1614: both passages in Pollard 198.

6. W. D. Verduyn, Emanuel van Meteren, 1926.

7. Westcott, 57 note.

8. Coverdale, Works, II, 502; Original Letters, 247.

9. A. von Dommer, Die aeltesten Drucke aus Marburg, 1892.

10. L. Ennen, Geschichte der Stadt Köln, IV, 372.

11. Statutes of the Realm, III, 456; L. & P. VIII, 291, (52) and (58). Nicolson was a glazier, and Wolsey at his fall owed him £58 for glazing done at Southwell, Scroby and Cawood; L. & P., IV, p. 3048 (15).

12. L. & P., IX, 226.

13. Corpus Reformatorum, II (i.e. Melancthon, Opera, II), col. 899, 919 f., 930, 947; L. & P., IX, 211-3.

14. So Cranmer says, Orig. Letters, 15.

15. Fulke, Defence of the translations of the holy scriptures into the English tongue, Parker Society, p. 98.

16. Westcott 63, 192-3.

17. Fulke, Defence, 20, 67 f., 91, 112, 226, 548. Fulke supposes there was an earlier Matthew of 1532, being misled doubtless by Foxe's mistake (cf. p. 138 below). Very likely he had no clear idea of the 1535 bible, and regarded it merely as a first draft of the Great bible. He was born in 1538, so the Coverdale sermon was probably in Elizabeth's reign.

18. Gardiner had just been appointed ambassador to France, but he did not leave till about October 20; he reached Calais on October 24.

19. The two copies belong to the Cambridge University Library and the marquess of Northampton. In two other copies—at Gloucester cathedral and Elton Hall, Peterborough—the title-page is dated 1536.

20. L. & P., X, 352 (French), 698 (Spanish). Chapuys means Deut. 25: 5-9, where Coverdale renders kinsman and kinswoman after Luther's Schwäger and Schwägerin.

21. Foxe, V, 260; Humfrey, Juelli vita, 1573, p. 263.

22. Brit. Mus., Add. MS. 1207, ff. 1-4. Tonstall was translated from London to Durham on 21 Feb. 1530; Wolsey fell in Oct. 1529.

23. L. & P. VII, 664; Mozley, Tyndale, 290.

24. De Antiquitate, 1572, p. 385 (p. 493 in 1729 edition).

25. This manuscript is to be printed in the Bodleian Quarterly Record.

26. S.T.C. 10085; Foxe V, 167, 850; L. & P. XI, 377, 405. The final version, without this clause, is in Cranmer's register and also in a manuscript copy in the Record Office. The latter says they were promulgated in August, Wriothesley at the beginning of September. They seem to have been exhibited in Cornwall about Sept. 5.

27. Francis Fry had facsimiles made of the eighteen leaves of the Froschover preliminaries. These are bound up with several copies of the 1550 bible; see Lovett, 167.

28. Some moderns accept Heylyn's statement that the convocation of [June] 1536 petitioned the king “that the bible being faithfully translated, and purged of such prologues and marginal notes as formerly had given offence, might be permitted from henceforth to the use of the people” (History of Reformation, 1674, p. 20); but I hold it to be a confusion with the petition of Dec. 1534. The 1535 bible was already permitted, and it had no offensive notes or prologues; nor would convocation so soon have attacked the matter again, after Cranmer had failed with their first petition. Moreover the whole paragraph in Heylyn is confused; e.g. he supposes that the suppressed bible-injunction of 1536 was enforced, and that the Matthew bible existed in that year.

29. Norton's preface to Grafton's Chronicle (1569); Pollard, 226, 229, 236, 250-1, 256.

30. Pollard, 250; see too the French king's licence in Pollard, 233-propter chartam, and p. 208 below.

31. L. & P. (1539), XIV (1), 1. Budgewood left England in May 1538, stayed at Rouen seven days, then went to Paris where he stayed eight days, “and for fear of divers English persons, who lie there printing books of the New and Old Testament in English for the king of England”, he went into Flanders.

32. L. A. Sheppard describes it in National Library of Wales Journal (1939). It is often alleged that the copy at St John's belonged to Cromwell, but, as Mr Sheppard shows, this is only conjecture.

33. Pollard, 236. Pollard supposes that it was only after this urgent appeal that Cromwell applied to the French king for a licence.

34. Pollard, 246, L. & P. XIII (2), 1085. This citation bears a heading in Bonner's hand: “The copy of the second citation and inhibition against the printer of the English bible”. The first citation will (I suppose) have been at the time of the “stay” mentioned in Bonner's letter of October 7.

35. Grafton's Abridgement of the Chronicles of England (1570), p. 142. The 1564 Abridgement gives the number as 2000 (XX C) and Pollard accepts this as correct, seemingly unaware of the alteration in 1570 which is continued in the edition of 1572.

36. Most of it is printed in Pollard, 249-56.

37. G. Ribier, Lettres et Mémoires d'Estat (1666), I, 386; not in Pollard, but reprinted at p. 320 below. The abstract in L. & P. XIV (1), 371 omits the interesting things about the bible. Du Peyrat may be a misprint for (William) Poyet, who was president until November 12 when he succeeded du Bourg as chancellor. He must, I think, have examined the bible at the time of the first stay, in October.

38. J. Kaulek, Correspondence Politique de Castillon et Marillac, 1537-42, p. 100. This letter is not in Pollard.

39. L. & P. XIV (1), 974, 1248, 1352.

40. Abridgement (Pollard, 227). So also Thomas Cooper, Chronicle (1560), 307—“printed in Paris privily”.

41. Che la Biblia tradotta in lingua Angla corrottamenti o non si divulghi o si abbruci—L. & P. XIII (2), 1136, a transcript of a manuscript at Rome.

42. Complaint of Roderick Mors, 1874, p. 54.

43. Pollard, 252 f.

44. Preface to Grafton's Chronicle, 1569.

45. Pliny, Historiae Mundi Libri 37, 1543, e.g. pp. 49, 64, 419, 452; Boccaccio, Le Decameron, for E. Roffet, 1545, e.g. 3^a, 9^b, 177^b. Some copies of the Pliny carry on the title-page the words Apud Petrum Regnault, i.e. the son of Francis who was now dead.

46. Quintilian, Oratoriarum Institutionum Libri 12, 1527, e.g. 23; Aristotle, Paraphrases a Vatablo recognitae, 1539, leaf 277^b; P. Rebuffe, De Scolasticorum Privilegiis, 1540.

47. L. & P. XIV (2), 425, 427, 494.

48. Pollard, 257. I suppose Whitchurch took Berthelet with him to Cranmer as an outsider whose expert opinion would be likely to weigh with the archbishop.

49. But there is an exception in Job (leaf 116^b) where G.B.^2,3 have four more lines, and G.B.^5,7 six more, than G.B.¹.