James VI and I (1566-1625)

The result of their work was the King James Bible, published in London in 1611. James is sometimes mistakenly credited with writing what is known today as 'the Authorised Version', when in fact he commissioned the translation and authorised it to be read in churches.

James VI and I (James Charles Stuart; 19 June 1566 – 27 March 1625) was King of Scotland as James VI from 24 July 1567 and King of England and Ireland as James I from the union of the Scottish and English crowns on 24 March 1603 until his death in 1625. Although he long tried to get both countries to adopt a closer political union, the kingdoms of Scotland and England remained sovereign states, with their own parliaments, judiciaries, and laws, ruled by James in personal union. He was the longest-reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Scotland.

James was the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, and a great-great-grandson of Henry VII, King of England and Lord of Ireland, and thus a potential successor to all three thrones. He acceded to the Scottish throne at the age of thirteen months, after his mother was forced to abdicate in his favour. Four regents governed during his minority, which ended officially in 1578, though he did not gain full control of his government until 1583. 

In 1589, he married Anne of Denmark. Three of their children survived to adulthood: Henry Frederick, Elizabeth, and Charles. In 1603, James succeeded his cousin Elizabeth I, the last Tudor monarch of England and Ireland, who died childless. He continued to reign in all three kingdoms for 22 years, a period known as the Jacobean era, until his death in 1625. After the Union of the Crowns, he based himself in England (the largest of the three realms) from 1603, returning to Scotland only once, in 1617, and styled himself "King of Great Britain and Ireland". He was an advocate of a single parliament for England and Scotland. In his reign, the Plantation of Ulster and English colonisation of the Americas began.

At 57 years and 246 days, James's reign in Scotland was the longest of any Scottish monarch. He achieved most of his aims in Scotland but faced great difficulties in England, including the Gunpowder Plot in 1605 and conflicts with the English Parliament. Under James, the "Golden Age" of Elizabethan literature and drama continued, with writers such as William Shakespeare, John Donne, Ben Jonson, and Francis Bacon contributing to a flourishing literary culture.

James was a prolific writer, authoring works such as Daemonologie (1597), The True Law of Free Monarchies (1598), and Basilikon Doron (1599). He sponsored the translation of the Bible into English (later named after him, the Authorized King James Version), and the 1604 revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Anthony Weldon claimed that James had been termed "the wisest fool in Christendom", an epithet associated with his character ever since. 

Since the latter half of the 20th century, historians have tended to revise James's reputation and treat him as a serious and thoughtful monarch. He was strongly committed to a peace policy, and tried to avoid involvement in religious wars, especially the Thirty Years' War that devastated much of Central Europe. He tried but failed to prevent the rise of hawkish elements in the English Parliament who wanted war with Spain. He was succeeded by his second son, Charles I.

Early reign in England

James survived two conspiracies in the first year of his reign, despite the smoothness of the succession and the warmth of his welcome: the Bye Plot and Main Plot, which led to the arrest of Henry Brooke, Lord Cobham and Walter Raleigh, among others. Those hoping for a change in government from James were disappointed at first when he kept Elizabeth's Privy Councillors in office, as secretly planned with Cecil, but James soon added long-time supporter Henry Howard and his nephew Thomas Howard to the Privy Council, as well as five Scottish nobles.

In the early years of James's reign, the day-to-day running of the government was tightly managed by the shrewd Cecil, later Earl of Salisbury, ably assisted by the experienced Thomas Egerton, whom James made Baron Ellesmere and Lord Chancellor, and by Thomas Sackville, soon Earl of Dorset, who continued as Lord Treasurer. As a consequence, James was free to concentrate on bigger issues, such as a scheme for a closer union between England and Scotland and matters of foreign policy, as well as to enjoy his leisure pursuits, particularly hunting.

James was ambitious to build on the personal union of Scotland and England to establish a single country under one monarch, one parliament, and one law, a plan that met opposition in both realms. "Hath He not made us all in one island," James told the English Parliament, "compassed with one sea and of itself by nature indivisible?" In April 1604, however, the Commons refused his request to be titled "King of Great Britain" on legal grounds.

In October 1604, he assumed the title "King of Great Britain" instead of "King of England" and "King of Scotland", though Francis Bacon told him that he could not use the style in "any legal proceeding, instrument or assurance" and the title was not used on English statutes. James forced the Scottish Parliament to use it, and it was used on proclamations, coinage, letters, and treaties in both realms.

James achieved more success in foreign policy. Never having been at war with Spain, he devoted his efforts to bringing the long Anglo–Spanish War to an end, and a peace treaty was signed between the two countries in August 1604, thanks to the skilled diplomacy of the delegation, in particular Robert Cecil and Henry Howard, now Earl of Northampton. James celebrated the treaty by hosting a great banquet. Freedom of worship for Catholics in England, however, continued to be a major objective of Spanish policy, causing constant dilemmas for James, distrusted abroad for repression of Catholics while at home being encouraged by the Privy Council to show even less tolerance towards them.

The King James Bible has long been celebrated as one of the most significant texts of all time, not only for its accessible portrayal of the Christian religion but also for its ability to spread the English language worldwide to become the dominant global language (in both a commercial and cultural sense) that it is today.

However, whilst it is the most widely recognized version of the Bible today, the King James version is by no means the first translation of the original biblical texts.

Original English Translations

John Wycliffe, the English lay preacher, philosopher and reformist actively supported a translation of the Bible in an attempt to provide more autonomy for the Church of England. Often quoted as a forefather to the Protestant Reformation, Wycliffe and his followers (know as the Lollards), translated the Vulgate (the fourth century Latin version of the Bible) into English during 1382-1384. Further updates were added by Wycliffe’s assistant John Purvey and other supporters in 1388 and 1395, after Wycliffe’s death. He passed away on 31 December 1384 as a result of a stroke suffered several days before during mass in his local parish church.

Whilst Wycliffe’s Bible, as it came to be known, may have been the earliest version of the ‘English’ Bible, it is the translation of the Hebrew and Greek biblical texts by the 16th century scholar, translator and reformist William Tyndale which became the first printed version of the New Testament in 1525, following the advent of the printing press. Whilst he was strangled to death and burned as a heretic before he could complete his translation of the Old Testament, Tynsdale’s translations became the basis for many versions to follow; including the Great Bible of 1539, the first authorised edition of the Bible in English; the Geneva Bible of 1560, which was produced by the English religious reformers who had fled to Geneva when the catholic Mary Tudor took to the throne, and indeed the King James Bible itself.

By the time Elizabeth I took the throne in 1558, England was split between supporters of the populist Geneva Bible, the Church of England’s Bishop’s Bible – a weighty, expensive and therefore less popular reworking of the Great Bible – and the Douay-Rheims New Testament of 1582, which was produced by exiled Roman Catholics as part of a Counter Reformation.

A new King and a new Bible

In May 1601, King James VI of Scotland attended the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland at St Columba’s Church in Burntisland, Fife to argue in favour of a new translation of the Bible into English having actually translated a number of psalms himself. The result was an updated Geneva bible, published in Scotland with English text and a Scottish preface.

Following the death of Elizabeth I in 1603, James was notified of his right to the throne by the Privy Council and was sent Elizabeth’s ring as a symbolic gesture of his claim. James then travelled from Edinburgh to London to become King James I, uniting the two crowns. Whilst there was a peaceful acceptance of James as the new English King he inherited the deep and fearful religious struggles of Elizabeth’s reign.

Having clashed at times with the opinionated reformists in the wake of Scotland’s reformation in the 1560s, James became the most strong and effective King Scotland had seen for many years. However at the same time, England was experiencing the Elizabethan settlement of religion. Having come to the throne as a very young woman Elizabeth was confronted with major religion volatility. Her father Henry had been a strong Protestant, but his predecessor Mary Tudor had taken England in a very Catholic direction. Elizabeth strove to assert her own authority as a monarch and strike a balance between Protestantism and Catholicism and restore stability to the country.

In the wake of Elizabeth’s death religious uncertainty was a very real debate across the land. Roman Catholics hoped that some of the penal laws against them would be relaxed and Puritans rushed to show support of James in the hopes that he would agree to their wishes. James was given a list of demands by the opposing factions and whilst there was no suggestion at this time that a new English version of Bible should be created there was a great pressure on him to do something.

The Commission and translation

It was on 18 January 1604 that James summoned a collection of scholars and churchman to attend a conference at Hampton Court, where he was based to avoid the plague that had taken hold of London. A notable attendee on behalf of the Bishops was Richard Bancroft, Bishop of London and future Archbishop of Canterbury, who presided over the conference. As a leading member of the Puritan delegation, John Reynolds was invited to the conference because of his academic excellence and politically and ecclesiastically moderate views.

The conference took place in the Privy Chamber in the presence of both James and his Privy Council. The three day conference was billed as a discussion on the provision of preachers in Ireland, whether ecclesiastical courts could excommunicate people from church and a consideration of the Puritan objections to readings and prayers in the Bible. James was keen to let both parties know that he wished to seek a continuity of what had gone before and was not looking for change but confirmation of what has been settled already.

On the second day, Reynolds accidently angered the King by suggesting a model of the church to include the bishop and congregation working together in a presbytery. Having faced numerous troubles with the Scottish Presbyterians James was unhappy with the ill thought out reference. Sensing he was losing ground Reynolds shifted tack to raise the issues the Puritans had with the Bishop’s Bible and request that another Bible more in keeping with the Puritan way of thinking could be authorised to be read allowed in Church, namely the Geneva Bible. Whilst James was in agreement with the principles of the Geneva translation, he was very much opposed to its annotation, in particular the marginal note in the first chapter of the book of Exodus which questioned the authority of the King. It was at this stage that James suggested a new translation as a compromise.

rontispiece to the King James’ Bible, 1611, shows the Twelve Apostles at the top. Moses and Aaron flank the central text. In the four corners sit Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, authors of the four gospels, with their symbolic animals

A committee of 54 translators and revisers made up of the most learned men in the nation was introduced to complete the translation and was made up of 6 committees, called companies. Three companies were responsible for the Old Testament, two for the New Testament and one for the Apocrypha, the books that the Protestant Christian Church considered useful but not divinely inspired.

James and Bancroft drew up very specific rules for the translators, which included the process of exchanging drafts which were then subject to close scrutiny and the exclusion of the marginal notes which had made the Geneva translation so problematic.

The King, Bishops and Puritans all left the conference happy that their needs (or at least some of them) had been met. Whilst the Puritans had lost most of their arguments about the ceremonial aspect of the Church of England service they had gained a new translation of the Bible so were reasonably happy. It wasn’t until later that they realised that the rules of the new Bible were actually stacked against them.

By 1608 the various sections were completed and in 1610 a meeting was held to discuss and agree the translation at the Stationers Hall in the City of London and the King James Bible was published by Robert Barker, the King’s Printer, in 1611.

The legacy of the King James’ Bible

The King James Bible was read in every church throughout the country and the archaic language which was heard so regularly by so many imbedded itself in the nation’s consciousness and vernacular, as every day and familiar as the practice of Christian worship itself.

The most striking characteristic of the translation is its simplicity. The Bible was written with resonance and uplifting rhythms. It was easy to remember with the familiar structure of 10 syllables and an iambic rhythm which was written to be spoken, much like Shakespeare and Milton.

It was not just the influence of the prose and language; the actual stories themselves were hugely influential on eighteenth and nineteenth century writers. Novels like Moby Dick and The Old Man and the Sea are inspired by the King James Bible. This influence went beyond literature and provided inspiration for many hymns and musical compositions such as Handel’s most famous eighteenth century piece, Messiah.

However, the King James Bible did not only influence UK culture, but went on to have a worldwide presence.

The King James Bible first travelled overseas when the Puritan group known as the Pilgrim Fathers set sail for America on the Mayflower in 1620. Their plan was to set up a new civilisation more in-keeping with their Puritan ideals. Having taken the Bible with them it was soon established at the centre of America’s religious culture.

The bible and missionary societies of St Paul’s Cathedral also exported the Bible throughout the world, with the simple vocabulary lending itself to translation into foreign languages and as a useful tool for teaching and learning the English Language.

The growth of the British Empire was also a great mechanism for spreading the English language and the King James Bible was always stowed aboard the great merchant navy ships, becoming the first English book that many would encounter worldwide. The East India Company alone saw it travel to India and to the colonies in Africa, Australia and New Zealand; another reason why English is now a dominant world language.

The King James Bible has contributed 257 phrases to the English language, more than any other single source, including the works of Shakespeare. Expressions such as “a Fly in the ointment”, “thorn in the side” and “Do we see eye to eye”, which are still commonly used today all originated in the Bible. Whilst it is the revised, grammatically correct eighteenth century version of the Bible produced by Benjamin Blayney that is more commonly used today, the lasting appeal of the King James Bible cannot be argued.

From those who worship Christianity to those who worship our cultural heritage, the King James Bible represents the English literature and language that we hold dear as well as an enduring instrument of faith. Ironically the translation which was an impulsive suggestion at King James’ conference of 1604 is in fact the enduring artefact of those discussions.

The King James Bible Trust has been established to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the first English translation of the Bible.

The English language originated in the British Isles in the 5th century CE from the languages of Germanic tribes, including the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who settled there. This language, known as Old English, provided the foundation for the English language we speak today, including words like "be", "strong", and "water". 

Old English evolved from a Germanic linguistic continuum along the Frisian North Sea coast, and its closest living relatives are the Frisian languages and Low German/Low Saxon. English has also been influenced by other languages and cultures over the centuries, including Latin, French, Dutch, and Afrikaans. For example, Middle English was influenced by Old Norse and Norman French, with Old Norse perhaps having a significant impact on English syntax and word order. 

English is a constantly changing language, and colonialism also played a role in its spread. As the British Empire expanded, English was introduced to other nations as a way for them to learn and benefit from British influence.

The English language is around 1,400–1,600 years old, with its origins in the 5th and 6th centuries. The language developed from West Germanic dialects spoken by the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes, who migrated to Britain from northwest Germany and settled in various regions between 400 and 500 CE. These tribes each spoke their own dialect, but they were similar enough for members of different tribes to understand each other. This collective language is known as Old English or Anglo-Saxon, and it's the ancestor of Middle English and Modern English.