Myles Coverdale (1488–1569) is best known as the first translator of the complete Bible into English after the invention of the printing press. This former Roman Catholic priest became a Reformer and preacher. Because of his translation work and Reformed convictions, he fled England and lived in exile three different times. A bishop during Edward VI’s reign, he escaped being burned at the stake under Queen Mary and ultimately lived in Geneva, serving as a leader in the exile church there. When Elizabeth I took the throne, he spent the last years of his life in London, uneasy with the Elizabethan church settlement and, as an early Puritan, increasingly unwilling to conform. The life story of this important figure of the Engliash Reformation has rarely been told.
