The Decision: A New Translation By Royal Authority
THE DECISION: A NEW TRANSLATION BY ROYAL AUTHORITY
The breakthrough came when John Reynolds, the leader of the small Puritan delegation, proposed a new Bible translation. It is not clear where this proposal came from, nor what the underlying motivation might have been. In his account of the meeting, Toby Matthew, bishop of Durham, noted a Puritan demand that “one only translation of the Bible” was to be “declared authentical, and read in the church.” Was this a negotiating strategy to secure approval for the Geneva Bible, and establish it as the only Bible authorized to be read aloud in churches?
Perhaps Reynolds might have expected his proposal for the Geneva Bible only to be read in churches to have failed, thus allowing him to make the apparently lesser request that the Geneva Bible should simply be one of a number of translations authorized for use in public worship, either in addition to or instead of the Bishops' Bible. In this way, Puritan preachers would be able to use the Geneva Bible in public without falling foul of existing laws.
Bishop Bancroft—who acted as the leader of the Anglican contingent throughout the conference—had opposed virtually everything Reynolds wanted, and saw no reason to change strategy at this point. A new translation? Surely not! “If every man's humour were followed, there would be no end of translating.” Bancroft's strategy was simple: uniform hostility to change.
Yet James saw his opening. Here was a major concession he could make without causing any pressing difficulties to anyone. A translation of this magnitude took time, so he was not committing himself to anything with major short-term implications. The longer the translation took, the better. It would postpone religious controversy to an indeterminate point in the future. He concurred immediately with the suggestion. James declared that he had yet to see “a Bible well translated into English,” and offered his opinion that “of all, that of Geneva is the worst.”
Assuming that the Puritan faction was of the view that the Geneva Bible was the best translation available, it is unlikely that its members would have been encouraged by this declaration. However, it is possible to see this vigorous statement as a sop thrown to the bishops, in the light of the decision he was about to announce. If the king disliked the Geneva version, his proposal for a new translation was unlikely to lead to a Geneva-type translation, much disliked by the religious establishment, especially in regard to the annotations.
James was aware that the situation had been rendered more complex than before by the publication in 1582 of a new English translation of the New Testament by a group of Roman Catholic scholars based at Douai and Rheims. A translation of the Old Testament was also promised, so that a complete English Bible, translated from a Roman Catholic perspective, was only just over the horizon. (In fact, it appeared in two parts over the years 1609–10, too late to be taken into account to any significant extent in the production of the King James Version.)
The Douai-Rheims translation has remarkable parallels with the Geneva Bible. Both had their origins within a community of English scholars who had been exiled from England on account of their religious views. In the case of the Geneva Bible, the English community in question was Protestant, having been forced to leave England under the repressive religious policies of a Roman Catholic queen, Mary Tudor; the Douai-Rheims translation had its origins within a Roman Catholic community exiled from England on account of the equally hostile religious policies of a Protestant queen, Elizabeth I.
The “English College” at Douai was founded in 1568, and temporarily migrated to Rheims for the period 1578–93. The translation was undertaken by Gregory Martin. Although Martin translated both Old and New Testaments, it was the New Testament that was published in 1582. The translation was based on the Vulgate Latin, rather than on the Greek original (although Martin hinted that he had consulted the Greek in making the translation from the Latin). The reason for this decision was that the Council of Trent—which laid down the teachings of the “Counter-Reformation,” or definitive Roman Catholic response to the Reformation—had insisted that the Vulgate was the only biblical text that was authoritative for Roman Catholics. Martin made it clear that his primary motivation for undertaking his translation was what he regarded as the blatant dishonesty of Protestant translators, who made all kinds of improper alterations to the text in order to make it agree with their Protestant opinions. The integrity of the translation offered by the Geneva Bible was about to be challenged from a Catholic source.
The Douai-Rheims Bible would thus pose a threat to both the Geneva and Bishops' Bible. If there was one thing that united both Anglicans and Puritans, it was a shared dislike and fear of Roman Catholicism. Might not a new English translation deal with the threat posed by this new book, and the criticisms it directed against existing English translations in use within the church? The proposal can thus be seen to have met both Puritan and establishment anxieties at a point of some importance.
James thus directed that the “best-learned in both universities”—at this stage, England had only two universities, Oxford and Cambridge—should begin work on a new translation of the Bible, which would be “reviewed by the bishops and the chief learned of the church; from them to be presented to the Privy Council; and lastly to be ratified by royal authority,” so that “the whole church would be bound to it, and none other.” It was resolved that:
There is no record of any final royal authorization of the completed translation—for example, by an Order in Council. However, it is important to note that a fire at Whitehall in January 1618 led to the destruction of the records of the Council, including its registers, for the period 1600–13. The fact that there is no known royal “authorization” for the translation cannot necessarily be taken to imply that such authorization was not forthcoming.
The decision to proceed with a new English translation of the Bible was the most important—and some would say, the only—positive decision taken by the Hampton Court Conference. The explicit royal stipulation that all forms of annotation would be excluded ensured that the difficulties created for the establishment by the Geneva Bible would be avoided—or so, at any rate, it was thought.
Richard Bancroft, having once expressed reservations about the idea of a new translation, now became its vigorous supporter. The Hampton Court Conference had given him more than he could have reasonably expected; he could afford to give way on one matter. Part of his motivation for doing so must rest in his realization that it was ultimately in order to preserve the vested interests of the Church of England against Catholics on the one hand, and Puritans on the other.
A further point that helped win Bancroft over to the new translation was that he was able to secure for himself a leading personal role in selecting the translators, and then in limiting their freedom. Bancroft had realized that it was better to create a new official translation that he could influence than to have to contend with the authorization of the Geneva Bible. It was decidedly the lesser of two evils. He was in a position to exercise considerable influence over the new Bible, by laying down rules of translation that would ensure that it would be sympathetic to the position and sensitivities of the established Church of England. And finally, he would be in a position to review the final text of the translation, in case it needed any judicious changes before publication.
It is impossible to overlook another factor that was significant to his thinking at this point. To support the new translation would be to win the royal favor. Whitgift, the ailing archbishop of Canterbury died in February shortly after the conclusion of the Hampton Court Conference. His successor would be appointed from among the present bench of bishops. Bancroft was the front runner for preferment. Yet promotion lay in the king's gift, precisely because of the royal supremacy that Bancroft so persuasively espoused. From February onward, Bancroft knew that he had no option if he wanted to secure the see of Canterbury. He would have to make sure the king's new translation project went ahead smoothly—whatever his personal views on the matter.
As bishop of London, Bancroft was well placed to make sure that the translators were appointed as soon as possible, and that the long and arduous translation process began. He personally wrote to the bishops of the Church of England in July 1604, making sure that the translators would be financially supported during their labors. In October of that year, Bancroft's diligence in supporting the new translation paid off; he became Whitgift's successor as archbishop of Canterbury.