The printing of the King James Bible was sponsored by King James I of England. Until the printing of this version the scriptures were ". . . practically unknown either to clergy or to people." (1) In 1522 William Tindale, an Oxford scholar, considered translating the Bible into English. He met resistance and was exiled to Germany.
In 1525 the New Testament, partially translated by Tindale, was printed in Cologne. During the same year 6,000 copies of the Testament were smuggled into England. By the authority of the church they were publicly burned. The Bible was the first book ever to be banned in England. (2) Driven from town to town William Tindale was eventually strangled in 1536 and his body burned.
Queen Mary, the mother of James I and a devout Catholic, had commanded "that no manners of persons presume to bring into this real any messages., books, paper, etc. in the name of Martin Luther, John Calvin, Miles Coverdale, Erasmus, Tyndale etc. or any like books containing false doctrines against the Catholic faith".
The Puritans complained to King James that the Bible available to them, the Douay version, was corrupt and begged for a new translation. King James complied and in 1611 the first printing was completed.
King James I, at the age of 8, was able to translate aloud chapters of the Bible from Latin to French and then to English. James believed strongly that the Bible should be available to ordinary people, not just the clergy.
At the age of thirteen James fell madly in love with his cousin Esmé Stuart whom he made Duke of Lennox. James deferred to Esmé to the consternation of his ministers. In 1582 James was kidnapped and forced to issue a proclamation against his lover and send him back to France.
Despite his homosexual activities James later fell in love with and married Anne of Denmark with whom he had seven children. He was nicknamed Solomon for his ability to negotiate between the heads of the Catholic and Protestant churches.
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