version of Pagninus, Luther’s German version, the Latin Vulgate, and Tyndale’s Pentateuch and New Testament.
Although Coverdale’s work does not rank as the true primary version of the English Bible (that honor is reserved for William Tyndale, as the translator of the Thomas Matthew Bible, published in 1537), yet “its importance in the history of the English Bible is great.” Three fourths of the Old Testament was for the first time printed in English.
Neither Coverdale’s Bible nor Tyndale’s Matthew Bible, which came off the press the same year, was satisfactory to the officials. Thus Coverdale, still under Cromwell’s patronage, set to work on yet another version intended to be free from the faults of the two already translated. As a result, he produced a revised edition of the Matthew Bible.
It is true that the Matthew Bible received royal acclaim, and during the next few years 24,000 copies were sold in London alone. But the Catholic clergy bitterly opposed it, for they saw in it the instrument which would deal the death blow to popedom in England. In 1542 this book of
“Thomas Matthew’s doings” received particular prominence on the prohibited list.
Since a better quality of type and paper could be obtained in France than in England, Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France permitted an English subject to do the work in Paris. But scarcely had 2,500 copies been printed when they were seized by the Inquisition and sent to be burned. One of the officers, wishing to make some money, sold much of the consignment for wrapping paper to a haberdasher. From this
haberdasher a portion was later repurchased, and these copies, along with the presses, type, and some of the workmen, were transported at
Cranmer’s request to London. This enabled Grafton and Whitchurch, the famous printers of the time, to publish the Great Bible in 1539.
Because the first edition had been hurriedly printed, on account of the forced exodus from France, a revised edition appeared the following year, this time called Cranmer’s Bible, because a preface written by the vicar- general appeared in it. In 1540 and 1541 six editions were distributed to the people.
Coverdale wrote a great deal, his works numbering approximately twenty- eight in all, most of them translations. Nearly all of them have been edited by the Parker Society.
Besides being famous for his writings, Coverdale deserves considerable praise as a preacher and a Reformer. He was born in 1488, probably in the district called Coverdale, in North Riding, of Yorkshire. As a zealous papist he entered the Augustinian monastery early in life, became a priest in Norwich in 1514, and later joined the Augustinian friars in their convent at Cambridge, where Dr. Robert Barnes, its prior, influenced him to reject popery.
As the doctrines of the Reformation began to circulate around that
university about 1526, a group of like-minded persons gathered in a house called White Horse. The papists nicknamed it “Germany” because its visitors discussed the beliefs advocated by the German Reformers.
When Barnes was arrested for heresy in 1526 and sent to London for examination, Coverdale, who had escaped a like charge, went up to help Barnes with his defense. After that event Coverdale left the monastery, dressed in the garb of a secular priest, and began to preach the reformed doctrines. In 1528 he went to Steeple-Bum-stead in Essex and spoke against the worship of images and the celebration of the mass. He likewise asserted that confession to God, rather than to a priest, was the proper procedure to follow in order to have one’s sins forgiven. In 1531 Cambridge granted to Coverdale the degree of bachelor of canon law.
When Cromwell and Barnes were executed in 1540 by Henry VIII,
Coverdale fled to the Continent and remained in exile for eight years under the name of Michael Anglus. At Tubingen he attained the doctor of divinity degree. At Bergzabern, in Bavaria, he served as Lutheran pastor and schoolmaster. Here he spent his leisure hours translating various religious works, “of great service in promoting the Scriptural benefit of those persons in the lower ranks of life.”
Shortly before he left England he married an excellent, godly woman, Elizabeth Macheson, sister-in-law of Dr. John Alpine, who helped translate the first Danish Bible. This matrimonial move served as an open
protest against the doctrine of priestly celibacy and allied Coverdale more firmly with the Protestant group.
When he returned to England in 1548 at the accession of Edward VI he was well received at court, largely because of Cranmer’s influence. He became the king’s chaplain, and repeatedly served as funeral orator at burials of high dignitaries, such as Lord Wentworth, Sir James Welford, and Dowager Queen Catherine Parr, whom he had served as almoner. He also gave assistance to the civil arm by helping Lord Russell at Devon and Cornwall to put down the western rebels. Coverdale preached a
thanksgiving sermon after the victory.
Upon Mary’s accession he was deprived of his bishopric and thrown into prison, along with other leading Reformers. Seemingly his offense was that of his marriage, although when Coverdale’s brother-in-law, who was then chaplain to Christian III of Denmark, influenced the king of Denmark to intercede in Coverdale’s behalf, Queen Mary said that all she had against the prisoner was his failure to pay a debt due her treasury.
Coverdale was permitted to leave the country at the moment when Rogers, Hooper, and others were going to the stake. It is probable that Coverdale escaped martyrdom because his translation of the Bible was not
considered dangerous,
“for he appears to have carefully avoided attacking many of their chief doctrines, and to have so construed certain passages as to retain the spirit, and often an exact literal translation, of the
language of the Vulgate. Where the word ‘repentance’ now appears in the Authorized Version, he almost uniformly inserted ‘penance,’
and in such a way as to convey no other meaning than the
corporeal suffering enjoined by the Romish Church, instead of the sorrow of heart and penitence of soul required by the gospel. He yielded to demands of papists and withdrew most obnoxious features of the Matthew Bible when revised for the second edition.” — John L. Chester, John Rogers, page 45.
Coverdale was “a pious, conscientious, laborious, generous, and a thoroughly honest and good man,” but also “somewhat weak and timorous,” leaning on those of stronger nature. He did not shout his
defiance of the papacy from the housetop, as did Rogers at Paul’s Cross the Sunday following Mary’s accession; he preferred rather to withdraw meekly into obscurity when the storm signals of persecution were hoisted.
Upon his arrival in Denmark, Coverdale was offered a benefice, which he did not accept because of his inability to preach in Danish. He settled in Wesel in Westphalia, where he preached to the many English refugees.
Then the duke of Zweibrucken asked him to come to Bergzabern once more to become the pastor of the congregation at that place.
In 1558 he was in Geneva, and it is supposed by some that he had a part in the preparation of the Geneva Bible, which was published in 1560.
Coverdale returned to England in 1559, after Elizabeth ascended to the throne.
During the years his power to preach had not diminished, and he was called upon repeatedly to address large congregations at Paul’s Cross.
Here, nine years before, he had spoken with such vigor and earnestness that, immediately following his sermon, the people pulled down “the sacrament of the high altar.” But his stay in Geneva had inclined him more toward Puritan ideas, and he became more of a militant Protestant.
Archbishop Grindal, who was greatly concerned over the neglect shown the aged Coverdale, who, he said, “was in Christ before them all,” obtained for him the rectory of St. Magnus, London Bridge, in 1564. Coverdale’s poverty was so great that the queen was called upon to forgive him the first fruits (that is, the customary payment to the crown of a sum equal to the first year’s wages) before he could enter upon his position.
Because of the stricter enforcement of the observance of the liturgy, Coverdale resigned in 1566; but he kept on preaching in secret, and many came to his house to find out where he would preach next.
In spite of his being deprived of a bishopric, he officiated at the famous consecration of Archbishop Parker in 1559, his objection to the wearing of vestments glaringly apparent by his appearing in a plain black gown. In 1563 the University of Cambridge granted him the degree of doctor of divinity, and in the same year he was given power by the vice-chancellor to admit Grindal as a doctor of divinity. In 1564 he published his last book, Letters of Saints and Martyrs.
According to the parish register of St. Bartholomew, Coverdale died February 19, 1568, at the age of eighty-one. He was buried inside the church.