Mary I

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(Ruled 1553–58)

When Mary became queen, many prominent English Protestants fled to Europe. A devout Catholic and the only surviving child of Henry’s first wife, Catherine, Mary was eager to mend the breach with the Roman Catholic Church created by her father and continued by her younger brother, Edward VI.

Some English people welcomed the return to Roman Catholicism, but those reluctant to comply knew they could be legally charged with offenses that were still punishable by burning at the stake.

As a direct result of Mary’s restoration of Catholicism, English exiles thus found themselves overseas in Protestant centers such as Geneva, the city of John Calvin. While there, some of the refugees produced the New Testament of the Geneva Bible during Mary’s lifetime and the Old Testament soon afterwards.

The passage shown here, from the nativity story in Chapter 2 of the book of Luke, shows several of the reader aids for which the Geneva Bible is known, including verse numbers, descriptive page headings, and notes in the margins. The note next to verses 7 and 8, for example, explains that Jesus’ birth in a stable shows his family’s poverty, as well as the “cruelty which would not pity such a woman in such case.”

Click on the passage to see the full page of the Geneva Bible in which it appears.