This delicate tidying of debris from the Earl of Essex’s fall was an indication that the evangelical revolution had some sort of future, as long as it avoided showing too much open regret for the late minister. In a significant negotiation of the new situation, a further edition of his beloved Great Bible appeared soon after his destruction – with one noticeable alteration. The monumental title-page, as we have seen, originally displayed two cartouches of the arms of Cranmer and Cromwell, identifying their figures distributing Bibles to the kingdom. Now, anticipating modern airbrushing of
...more