The Battle Of The Bibles: Charles I And The War Against The Geneva Bible
THE BATTLE OF THE BIBLES: CHARLES I AND THE WAR AGAINST THE GENEVA BIBLE
As a result of pressure from the authorities, after 1616 the printing of the Geneva Bible ceased in England. The work now had to be imported from the Netherlands. This, however, did nothing to stem its sales. James I seems to have been relatively unconcerned over this matter, and did not consider the suppression of the importation of this rival to his own translation to be a matter of pressing importance. He cordially disliked the Geneva Bible, but believed that his own new translation would eventually displace it without any need for special action on his part.
However, the death of James I and the accession of his son, Charles I, in 1625 saw a change in the religious climate within England. Charles's marriage to the French princess Henrietta Maria had caused considerable popular resentment, partly on account of her being a foreigner, and partly because she was a Roman Catholic. Radical Protestants were alarmed at the prospect of a monarch who would be openly sympathetic to the Roman Catholic cause throughout Europe.
Charles appointed the high churchman William Laud as archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. Archbishop Laud was clearly troubled by the continuing popularity—and correspondingly high sales—of the Geneva Bible. Under Charles I, religious tensions had worsened, with overt opposition between Puritans and Anglicans emerging at point after point. England was divided into the factions that would shortly take opposing sides in the civil war, pitching Puritan against Anglican, Parliamentarian against Royalist. The Geneva Bible, with its notes, was seen as the Bible of the Puritans, and the King James Bible as the Bible of the establishment. For Laud, the continuing circulation of the Geneva Bible was, therefore, a significant contributing cause to the religious tensions of his day, which threatened to tear England apart.
Portrait of King Charles I Attributed to the workshop of Sir Anthony Van Dyck (1599–1641)
Yet it was not the Genevan translation as such that caused Laud and his supporters such headaches. The real problem lay with the extensive marginal notes, which offered guidance to the reader as to how the text was to be interpreted and applied. Although the Geneva Bible dated from two generations earlier, its critique of the abuse of monarchical powers might have been written with Charles I's reign in mind. We have already noted some of these comments (see page 141), which caused such offense to James I, and thus were partly responsible for his desire for a new English translation.
James's son, Charles I, felt similarly threatened by the Genevan challenge to the doctrine of the divine right of kings. Charles had absorbed much of his father's belief in this doctrine, and saw it as essential to the religious and political well-being of his kingdom. William Laud, archbishop of Canterbury, had a strong personal vested interest in maintaining both the monarchy and the established Church of England, and rightly saw the doctrines of the Geneva Bible's marginal notes as a serious threat to the situation. It was thus natural for Laud to want to minimize the influence of the Geneva Bible at this point. But what could he do? One option might have been to mount a major theological critique of the Geneva Bible, by publishing immense numbers of learned treatises countering its criticisms of the doctrine of the divine right of kings. But this would take time, and would have little impact at the popular level. Laud was aware that there was a much simpler solution. All that was needed was an order banning the Geneva Bible from England. But what reason could be given? In the end, Laud hit on an ingenious solution. To support the Geneva Bible, he argued, was unpatriotic.
Laud suggested that the Geneva Bible posed a threat to the livelihood of patriotic English printers, whose livelihoods were being threatened by the importation of cheap and well-produced Geneva Bibles. The commercial success of the Geneva Bible seemed to Laud to offer an entirely reasonable excuse to suppress it. As the work was printed abroad, Laud argued, would not permitting its continued import threaten the English printing industry as a whole? The Geneva Bibles printed in Amsterdam were better in every respect than the early printings of the King James Bible. If market forces alone were allowed to dictate the outcome of this economic battle of the Bibles, the Geneva Bible would dominate the English market. It may be added that the costliness of the King James Bible was the direct result of Robert Barker's monopoly on the text, which allowed him to profit extensively from the work. Laud, however, passed over this awkward point, and summed up his objections to the Genevan text as follows:
J. cochran's 1830 engraving of van Dyck's portrait of William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury
By the numerous coming over to the [Geneva Bible] from Amsterdam, there was a great and a just fear conceived that by little and little printing would quite be carried out of the Kingdom. For the books which came thence were better print, better bound, better paper, and for all the charges of bringing, sold better cheap. And would any man buy a worse Bible dearer, that might have a better more cheap?
Laud thus had a simple economic and patriotic reason for wishing to block the importation of Geneva Bibles. Although Laud was careful to present his reasons for wishing to limit, and even terminate, the circulation of these Bibles in England as fundamentally patriotic and economic in motivation, many realized that this was merely a convenient excuse for suppressing a work that he disliked for religious reasons. The Geneva Bible had its origins within Calvinist circles, and was seen as being overtly supportive of a Puritan agenda. A simple answer to Laud's concerns about the future of the English printing industry lay to hand: permit production of the Geneva Bible in England. But this option does not appear to have been given serious consideration.
Samuel Johnson once remarked that “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” Perhaps it is unfair to suggest that Laud was scurrilous in what he did. But whatever its morality, Laud's action proved highly effective. The flow of the subversive text into England was staunched. The final known edition of the Geneva Bible was published in 1644. As a result, the King James Bible enjoyed a new commercial success—the word “popularity” is not yet apposite. However, it was not long before a compromise was developed that allowed the Genevan notes a new lease on life in England. The popularity of the Geneva Bible rested not so much on the translation itself, as on the explanatory material appended to the translation. So why, some reasoned, should not the Geneva translation be replaced with the King James Bible, while retaining the Genevan notes? Between 1642 and 1715, at least nine editions—eight of which originated in Amsterdam—are known of the King James Bible with the Geneva notes.
But many Puritans regarded this as an unsatisfactory compromise, and pressed for the replacement of the King James Bible. With the outbreak of the English civil war in 1642, an opportunity to challenge the authority of the King James Bible arose.