The Great Bible (named for its large…
November 1577 CE
The Great Bible (named for its large page size and first ordered by Henry VIII in 1538) had been restored to the churches after Elizabeth’s succession halted persecution of Anglicans and Protestants, but the Geneva Bible, imported from Europe and not printed in England until 1576, has been allowed to be imported without hindrance, and has quickly surpassed the Great Bible in public favor.
In secular literature, Richard Robinson’s revised edition of Wynkyn de Worde’s 1524 manuscript version of Gesta Romanorum, or Deeds of the Romans, published in 1577, proves extremely popular.
The handsome and accomplished Christopher Hatton, who, after spending several years in halfhearted study of the law, had enrolled as one of the queen's bodyguards in 1564, has impressed the queen with his talent for dancing and quickly won her affection.
There is no evidence that they have ever been lovers, though Hatton is adept in the Renaissance conventions of courtly love.
Hatton had become captain of her bodyguards in 1572 and in 1577 vice chamberlain of her household, a privy councilor, and a knight.
Regularly elected to Parliament from 1571, he has become a leading spokesman for Elizabeth in the House of Commons.
He accepts her Protestantism, but in foreign affairs he sides with the more vigorous anti-Spanish forces against the cautious policies of her former principal secretary, William Cecil, Lord Burghley, now Lord High Treasurer.