The Sum and Substance of the Conference at Hampton Court
An account of the three days’ conference between James I, the bishops and four Puritan spokesmen at Hampton Court in January 1604, written by William Barlow, dean of Chester, who was present. It records how the new Bible translation was proposed.
Barlow’s title dates the conference “Jan. 14, 1603”, by the English reckoning in which the year began in March; by the modern calendar it was January 1604. He says in his preface that the task was laid on him by a churchman who had since died, and he was himself one of the deans summoned to attend on the bishops’ side. The four Puritan ministers he calls “agents for the millenary plaintiffs”.
The request for a new translation and the king’s answer come in the second day’s proceedings, Monday 16 January. Barlow writes from the bishops’ side: he gives the king’s remarks at length and the Puritans’ arguments in summary. It is cited in the King James Bible for what was said about the translation, a point on which the translators’ preface of 1611 agrees with him.
Cited in
- 1611, firm date