‘An Apology or Answer in Defence of The Church Of England’: Lady Anne Bacon’s Translation of Bishop John Jewel’s ‘Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae

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Lady Anne Cooke Bacon’s translation of Bishop John Jewel’s Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae (1562) as An Apology or Answer in Defence of the Church of England (1564) is the official defence of the Elizabethan Settlement. At once an explanation and vindication of the establishment of the English Church and an attack on the perceived failings of the Church of Rome, An Apology embodies the tensions of a polemical age. It illustrates how politics and religion were inextricably entwined in early printed books. As well as shining light on the intense controversy between Jewel, Bishop of Salisbury, and fellow Devon native Thomas Harding, exiled in Louvain, Lady Bacon’s text and its reception foreground the critical significance of her translating expertise in presenting church history and debates through pungent, idiomatic prose. One of the lauded Cooke sisters and mother of Sir Anthony and Sir Francis, Lady Bacon combined her proven talent in languages and reform principles with an insider’s knowledge of court intrigues. Although her translation disappeared from print acknowledgement for almost two centuries, it is here offered in a richly annotated edition. Explaining and contextualizing the cryptic marginalia, this edition allows twenty-first-century readers to feel the heat and apprehend the strategic importance of An Apology.