RICHARD CLARKE
?–1634; fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; vicar of Minster and Monkton in Thanet.
JOHN LAYFIELD
?–1617; fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; 1598 chaplain to Earl of Cumberland on Puerto Rico voyage; 1601 rector of St Clement Dane’s, London.
ROBERT TIGHE
?–1620 born Deeping, Lincolnshire; Archdeacon of Middlesex; parson of All Hallows, Barking; left his son an estate worth £ 1,000 a year.
GEOFFREY K ING
?Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge; Regius Professor of Hebrew; friend of Hugh Broughton; severe anti-Catholic.
R ICHARD T HOMSON
?–1613 born in Holland of English parents; ‘a debosh’d drunken English Dutcheman’; translator of Martial’s epigrams; Andrewes when Bishop of Ely presented him to Snailwell Rectory, Cambridgeshire.
WILLIAM BEDWELL
1561–1632 Arabic scholar and mathematician; Rector of St Ethelburgh’s, Bishopsgate; Lancelot Andrewes, as Bishop of Ely, made him vicar of Tottenham High Cross.
FRANCIS BURLEIGH
?–1590; Andrewes appointed him vicar of Bishop’s Stortford.
The First Cambridge Company
I Chronicles, II Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah, Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs
EDWARD LIVELY (Director)
?1545– 1605; Trinity College, Cambridge; 1575 Regius Professor of Hebrew; 1597 author of ‘A true Chronologie of the Persian Monarchie’; 1602 prebendary at Peterborough thanks to Whitgift; 1604 rector of Purleigh, Essex, thanks to Richard Bancroft; becomes client of William Barlow; too many children; died young.
JOHN RICHARDSON
?–1625 born Linton, Cambridgeshire; Clare Hall Cambridge; 1585 fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, under Laurence Chaderton; 1607 Regius Professor of Divinity; 1609 Master of Peterhouse; Master of Trinity College, Cambridge; increasingly ceremonialist and fat.
LAURENCE CHADERTON
1537–1640 born Lancashire; disinherited on becoming Protestant at Cambridge; inspirational figure; 1568 fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; part of radical Puritan movement in 1580s; 1584–1622 first Master of Emmanuel College.
ROGER ANDREWES
Londoner; brother and client of Lancelot Andrewes; fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge; 1606– 07 prebendary, archdeacon and chancellor at Chichester; prebendary at Ely; 1618 Master of Jesus College, Cambridge. Widely loathed.
THOMAS HARRISON
1555–1631 born London; Merchant Taylors’ school (with Lancelot Andrewes); part of radical Puritan movement with Chaderton in 1580s; Vice-Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.
ROBERT SPAULDING
Fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge; 1605 Regius Professor of Hebrew (after Lively’s death).
ANDREW BING
1574–1652; fellow of Peterhouse; 1608 Regius Professor of Hebrew (after Spaulding).
FRANCIS DILLINGHAM
Born Dean, Bedfordshire; fellow of Christ’s College, Cambridge; Puritan admirer of Chaderton’s; parson of Dean and of Wilden, Bedfordshire.
The First Oxford Company
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Malachi
JOHN HARDING (Director)
1591 Regius Professor of Hebrew; President Magdalen College, Oxford; Rector of Halsey, Oxfordshire.
JOHN REYNOLDS or RAINOLDS
1549–1607 born Devon; 1566 fellow and (1598) president of Corpus Christi; 1592 criticised by Elizabeth: ‘she schooled Dr John Rainolds for his obstinate preciseness, willing him to follow her laws and not run before them’; 1593 Dean of Lincoln; anti-theatre; anti-bishop; ‘a prodigy in reading, a living library and a walking museum’.
THOMAS HOLLAND
1539–1612 born Ludlow, Shropshire; Balliol College, Oxford; 1585 chaplain to Earl of Leicester in Netherlands; 1589 Regius Professor of Divinity; 1592 rector of Exeter College; fierce Puritan; ended sermons with words ‘I commend you to the love of God and to the hatred of all popery and superstition’; friend of Richard Kilby and of Reynolds; enemy of Laud’s whom he rebuked in 1604 for contending that ‘there could be no true churches without diocesan episcopacy’.
RICHARD KILBY
1560–1620 born Radcliffe, Leicestershire; Lincoln College, Oxford; 1590 rector of Lincoln College with Richard Brett as fellow; 1610 Regius Professor of Divinity; a severe and frowning man; presided over chaotic period in Lincoln’s history when number of fellows reduced to three.
MILES SMITH
1554–1624 born Hereford; Corpus Christi and Brasenose; on revision committee, author of the Preface; strict Calvinist, hated Laud; author of ‘Certain plaine, brief, and comfortable notes on Genesis’; 1612 Bishop of Gloucester; ‘covetous of nothing but books’; kept no books in his library he had not read.
RICHARD BRETT
1567–1637 born into Somerset gentry family; Hart Hall, Oxford; 1595 vicar of Quainton; fellow of Lincoln under Richard Kilby; scholar in Latin, Greek, Chaldee, Arabic, Hebrew and Aethiopic tongues.
RICHARD FAIRCLOUGH (or FEATLEY)
1578– 1645 born Charlton, Oxfordshire; 1602 fellow of Corpus Christi, Oxford; chaplain to George Abbot and his client; vicar of Lambeth, All Hallows, Bread Street, and of Acton; 1642 almost martyred by parliamentarians; a small man.
The Second Cambridge Company
The Apocrypha
JOHN DUPORT (Director)
?– 1617; 1583 rector of Fulham; 1585 precentor of St Paul’s; 1590 Master of Jesus College; 1609 prebendary of Ely (thanks to Andrewes).
JOHN BOYS or BOIS
WILLIAM BRANTHWAITE
?–1620; 1582 Clare Hall, Cambridge; 1584 founding fellow of Emmanuel College under Chaderton; 1607 Master of Gonville and Caius (the safe government candidate, put in to replace a man suspected of Catholicism).
ANDREW DOWNES
?1549–1628; St John’s College; 1585 Regius Professor of Greek; irascible, lazy and jealous of John Bois, his ex-pupil who outshone him; helped Savile with his edition of Chrysostom at Eton.
JEREMIAH RADCLIFFE
?–1612; fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge; 1588 vicar of Evesham; 1590 rector of Orwell; 1597 Vice-Master of Trinity College.
ROBERT WARD
Fellow of King’s College; prebendary of Chichester Cathedral, thanks to Andrewes.
SAMUEL WARD
?–1643 born Durham; Puritan diarist; Christ’s College, Cambridge; 1595 fellow of Emmanuel under Chaderton; 1610 Master of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; 1611 king’s chaplain; 1615 Archdeacon of Taunton; 1615 prebendary of Wells (thanks to James Mountague); 1618 prebendary of York: 1623 Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Cambridge.
The Second Oxford Company
The Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Revelation
THOMAS RAVIS (Director)
1560–1609 born Surrey; Westminster School; 1582 Christ Church, Oxford; 1591 rector of All Hallows, Barking; 1592 canon of Westminster; 1596 Dean of Christ Church; 1605 Bishop of Gloucester; 1607 Bishop of London; pursues Nonconformists with a vengeance.
GEORGE ABBOT
1562–1633 born Guildford; a severe and grave figure, stiffly principled, habitually gloomy; 1582 Balliol College, Oxford; 1592 private chaplain to Thomas Sackville, later Earl of Dorset; 1597 Master of University College, Oxford; 1600 Dean of Winchester (a post he bought for £ 600); 1608 helped re-establish bishops in Scotland; 1609 Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield; 1610 Bishop of London; 1612 Archbishop of Canterbury; 1619 shot and killed a gamekeeper by mistake.
RICHARD EEDES
1555–1604; Westminster School; Christ Church College, Oxford; 1584 prebendary at Salisbury; 1590 prebendary at Hereford; queen’s chaplain; 1596 Dean of Worcester; as a young man a
poet composing plays, mostly tragedies; ‘held in great admiration at court, not only for his preaching, but his most excellent and polite discourse’. Died before he could contribute to the translation.
GILES TOMSON
1553–1612 born London; University College, Oxford; fellow of All Souls; queen’s chaplain; rector of Pembridge, Herefordshire; 1602 Dean of Windsor; 1611 Bishop of Gloucester; praised by Lord Burghley for his habit of ‘cutting short his compliments and proving himself brief, learned and discreet’.
SIR HENRY SAVILE
1549–1622 born Bradley, Yorkshire; Brasenose College, Oxford; 1565 fellow of Merton; tutor in Greek to Queen Elizabeth; 1585 Warden of Merton; 1596 Provost of Eton –‘Thus this skilful gardener had, at the same time, a nursery of young plants, and an orchard of grown trees, both flourishing under his careful inspection’; 1604 knighted; publisher of Chrysostom edition 1610–13; founded Savile professorships of geometry and astronomy at Oxford; ‘a magazine of learning’, tall and handsome, neglected his wife for his books.
JOHN PERYN or PERNE
?–1615; 1575 fellow of St John’s College, Oxford; Regius Professor of Greek; 1605 resigned post to work on King James Bible; vicar of Wafting in Sussex (thanks to Andrewes when Bishop of Chichester).
RALPH RAVENS
?–1615; vicar of Easton Magna in Essex.
JOHN HARMAR
?–1613 born Newbury, Berkshire; Winchester College; 1574 fellow of New College; 1585 Regius Professor of Greek; 1596 warden of Winchester College; client of the Earl of Leicester, travelling with him to Paris where he debated with the doctors of the Sorbonne; translated Theodore Beza’s French sermons into English; strict Calvinist.
LEONARD HUTTEN
?1557–1632 Westminster School; Christ Church College, Oxford (both school and university with Ravis, this company’s director, and Eedes, whom he probably replaced); 1601 vicar of Floore; 1609 prebendary of St Paul’s (thanks to Ravis, now Bishop of London).
JOHN AGLIONBY
1566–1609 born Cumberland; Queen’s College, Oxford; perhaps appointed to translation instead of Eedes; royal chaplain; principal of St Edmund Hall, Oxford.
JAMES MOUNTAGUE or MONTAGU
?1568–1618; Christ’s College, Cambridge; 1595 first Master of Puritan Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge; 1603 Dean of Lichfield; 1604 Dean of Worcester; 1608 Bishop of Bath and Wells; 1616 Bishop of Winchester; 1616 edited and translated works of James I.
The Second Westminster Company
The New Testament Epistles
WILLIAM BARLOW (Director)
?–1613 born Barlow, Lancashire; Trinity Hall, Cambridge; client of Whitgift; 1603 prebendary of Westminster (with Lancelot Andrewes as Dean) and Dean of Chester; 1605 Bishop of Rochester; 1608 Bishop of Lincoln; court propagandist and operator.
JOHN SPENCER
1559–1614, born Suffolk; Corpus Christi College, Oxford (with John Reynolds); great friend and amanuensis of Richard Hooker; 1589 vicar of Alveley, Essex; 1592 vicar of Broxborn; 1599 vicar of St Sepulchre’s, beyond Newgate, London; 1607 president of Corpus Christi College after Reynolds’s death; 1612 prebendary in St Paul’s.
ROGER FENTON
1567–1617 born Lancashire; fellow of Pembroke Hall, Cambridge and client of Lancelot Andrewes; 1606 vicar of Chigwell, Essex; 1609 prebendary at St Paul’s in succession and thanks to Andrewes; vicar of St Stephen’s Walbrook; a weak and sickly man.
RALPH HUTCHINSON
?1553–1606; Merchant Taylors’ school (with Lancelot Andrewes); 1590 president of St John’s College, Oxford.
WILLIAM DAKINS
1567–1606; Westminster School; Trinity College, Cambridge; 1603 Vicar of Trumpington; 1604 professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London, as payment for his work on the translation, and thanks to Cecil.
MICHAEL RABBET
Rector of St Vedast, Foster Lane, London.
THOMAS SANDERSON
Perhaps a student at Balliol College, Oxford; 1606 perhaps Archdeacon of Rochester.
Chronology
England 1603–1611
1603
March 24: Queen Elizabeth dies
James accedes to throne of England and begins to promote union of England and Scotland
Catholic Bye and Main Plots to turn England Catholic effectively neutralised by Cecil
Lord Chamberlain’s Men become King’s Men
Outbreak of plague in England
1604
March: James’s first parliament
August: Spanish envoys sign peace with England in Somerset House. The peace is sworn on a copy of the Vulgate, St Jerome’s Latin Bible
James writes Counterblast against Tobacco
Othello, Merry Wives of Windsor and Measure for Measure
The King James Bible and its Translators
1603
April: Millenary petition presented to James requesting reform of church
William Barlow becomes prebendary at Westminster
1604
Hampton Court Conference on future of church
King and Bancroft draw up Rules for Translators
Translators appointed
Bancroft issues new canons for the church and becomes Archbishop of Canterbury
Work begins on the initial phases of translation
Henry Savile knighted (for £1,000 fee)
James Mountague becomes Dean of Worcester
William Dakins becomes Professor of Divinity at Gresham College, London
John Overall’s wife elopes
1605
Masque of Blackness by Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson
November: Gunpowder Plot
Merchant of Venice, King Lear, Volpone, Westward Ho!
Francis Bacon’s Advancement of Learning
1606
Gunpowder Plotters mutilated and executed at St Paul’s
Jesuit Henry Garnet hanged, drawn and quartered
Parliament reassembles; anti-papist legislation; £435,000 voted to the king
Death of Princess Sophia; William Barlow buries her
Christian IV of Denmark and retinue make hay in London
1607
120 colonists leave for Virginia
James swops Theobalds with Robert Cecil for Hatfield
Separatists in Lincolnshire come under pressure
Robert Carr catches the king’s eye
Thames freezes over
1608
Brewster and Scrooby Separatists flee to Amsterdam
Robert Cecil becomes Lord Treasurer
1605
Edward Lively dies
Lancelot Andrewes becomes Bishop of Chichester
Andrewes, Barlow and Ravis preach against Gunpowder Plot
Thomas Ravis becomes Bishop of Gloucester
William Barlow becomes Bishop of Rochester
1606
Ralph Hutchinson dies
1607
William Dakins dies
John Reynolds dies; John Spenser becomes President of Corpus Christi
William Barlow becomes Bishop of Lincoln
Thomas Ravis becomes Bishop of London
1608
Lancelot Andrewes involved in controversy with Cardinal Bellarmine
James Mountague becomes Bishop of Bath and Wells
Samuel Ward becomes his chaplain
The king demands that the new translation is completed ‘as soone as may be’
1609
James brokers truce between Spain and the United Provinces as part of his programme for universal peace
Robert Cecil sets up Britain’s Burse on the Strand
1610
Henry IV of France stabbed to death; James turns white at the news
February: Parliament reassembles. Parliament makes grant of £200,000 to king but Cecil’s attempt to set royal finances on reliable basis (the Great Contract) breaks down
Shakespeare Sonnets published
The Tempest played at Whitehall
Royal debts mount
1611
Chapman’s translation of Homer published
Raleigh in the Tower writes the History of the World
William Bedwell gives communion to Henry Hudson before he embarks on exploratory voyage to Cathay via North-West Passage
1609
Andrewes becomes Bishop of Ely and Privy Councillor
George Abbot becomes Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry
Thomas Ravis dies
Roger Fenton becomes prebendary at St Paul’s in succession and thanks to Andrewes
Andrew Downes paid £50 by the king to persuade him to attend the Revision Committee
1610
Revision Committee meets in Stationers’ Hall in London
Samuel Ward becomes Master of Sidney Sussex
George Abbot becomes Bishop of London
Henry Savile begins publication of Chrysostom edition
Richard Bancroft establishes open access library at Lambeth
1611
King James Bible published
Giles Tomson becomes Bishop of Gloucester
Select Bibliography
Abbot, George, Sermons (London, 1600)
——, A briefe Description of the whole worlde (London, 1605) Acheson, R. J., Radical Puritans in England 1550–1660, (London, 1990)
Akrigg, G. P. V., Jacobean Pageant (London, 1962)
——, (ed.), Letters of King James VI and I (London, 1983)
Allen, Ward S., Translating for King James: Notes Made by a Translator of King James’s Bible (London, 1970)
——, Translating the New Testament Epistles 1604–1611 (Ann Arbor, 1977)
Allen, Ward S. and Jacobs, Edward, The Coming of the King James Gospels—A Collation of the Translators’ Work-in-Progress (Arkansas, 1995)
Alter, Robert and Kermode, Frank (eds) The Literary Guide to the Bible (London, 1987)
Andrewes, Lancelot, XCVI Sermons (London, 1629)
——, Preces Privatae (London, 1648)
Anon, A collection of Certaine Sclaunderous Articles Gyven out by the Bisshops (Dort, 1590)