Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1. SPITTLE:
King James and his Bible
The bodies of Henry, Lord Darnley, and his servant, found strangled in an orchard beside his house, which had just been blown up, on the night 10 February, 1567.
An obscene manuscript poem by Thophile de Viau addressed to the duc de Boukinquan (Buckingham); composed around 1611 MS. Fr. 15220 B.N. (fol. 50v)
2. GUNPOWDER:
The explosive nature of
William Tyndale,
executed 1536
VIVAT REX!
Ephesians i3-4
interpolated essays
A crash-test dummy mock-up of the House of Lords in The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend (ITV, 2005).
A crash-test dummy mock-up of King James opening parliament in The Gunpowder Plot: Exploding The Legend (ITV, 2005).
3. PARCHMENT:
The creation of a new Bible
Hampton Court
Psalm xci5
Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night
Psalm xci5
Thou shall not nede to be afrayed for eny bugges by night.
Jeremiah viii22
Is there no balm in Gilead?
Jeremiah viii22
Is there no tryacle in Gilead?
Genesis iii7
they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
Genesis iii7
they sowed figge-tree leaves together, and made themselves breeches.
Lancelot Andrewes, general editor of the King James Bible, Bishop of Chichester and then Ely
Richard Bancroft,
Archbishop of Canterbury (died 1610)
George Abbot,
Archbishop of Canterbury after 1610
no doctrinal commentary,
no doctrinal commentary
elegantly printed,
elegantly printed
The there was, alas, a nasty Preface, dedicating the whole Bible :
and continuing:
But what does that matter? We can skip the fawning Dedication to King James;
we can forget what King James himself was like.
The King James Bible will always be the greatest English Bible
not because it was a fresh translation (it wasnt; 70% of the KJB New Testament is simply Tyndale),
but because it was the final perfection of nine decades of development in English Bible translation.
The first decade of King James reign saw the mature perfection of the English language.
The political background of the King James Bible is sordid. King James himself is an obscene figure.
And his revised translation did not fulfil his political goals.
For although its literary excellence drove all competitors from the market; although it soon became the English Bible. although Papists and Puritans embraced it the Roman Catholics were never reconciled to the Church of England.
And, as for the Puritans, they rebelled against King James son, the saintly Charles Stuart,
The English dynasty King James founded was overthrown, its place eventually usurped by princes from Germany.
But the English Bible King James sponsored has never been overthrown, nor had its place usurped.
The glory of King James Bible has outlasted the disgraces and scandals of his reign the gunpowder and the spittle. In the end no one could resist it. It has dominated English literature and the English language ever since 1611, unaltered
except for printers errors! beginning with the so-called Printers Bible of 1612, its second year of publication:
was misprinted as
(The Adulterous Bible of 1631; printers fined 300; only 11 copies survive)
Psalm xiv1 the fool hath said in his heart there is no God
Psalm xiv1 the fool hath said in his heart there is a God
(The Fools Bible of 1763; printers fined 3000; all copies ordered destroyed)
Marko Antun Domniani[ (or de Dominis) Archbishop of Split 1602, Dean of Windsor 1618; died a prisoner of the Inquisition in Rome 1624
Title-page, 1611