Who Was King James?

By Mark Swarbrick

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I remember speaking to a man in my church who proudly showed me his Bible, which had Authorized King James Version emblazed on the leather cover in bright gold letters. He proudly told me that this was the only true word of God.

“You prefer the King James Version?” I asked.

“Oh, it is not just the King James Version,” he answered. “This is the Authorized King James Version.”

He emphasized “authorized,” as though somehow God himself had come down from heaven and put His stamp of approval upon his preferred Bible version, causing it to be authorized by heaven itself. He apparently did not know that “authorized” simply meant the king would not have the people who made it beheaded.

I have since met many Christians who take similar pride in owning a Bible labeled “Authorized King James Version,” often repeating the phrase as though it were a badge of special heavenly approval and a sign of their wisdom in choosing the one and only Bible authorized by the heavenly hosts. Indeed, the title does sound venerable and reassuring, suggesting stability, orthodoxy, and divine favor resting upon a royal commission. Yet, when Christians celebrate the phrase “King James,” they are not merely naming a translation style but are also giving recognition and honor to the legacy of a particular man.

What many do not realize is that King James I of England was not a noble patron of Scripture but a vile sinner and a brutal persecutor of Christians. He authorized the imprisonment, financial ruin, and torture of believers whose only crime was refusing to let the state dictate how they worshipped Christ. Men were dragged from their homes, consciences were crushed through relentless pressure, and bodies were broken to force outward conformity. It was this sustained cruelty that drove the Pilgrims to flee England, not out of rebellion, but out of desperation to obey God and conscience without fear.

It behooves us to examine the life of this man who commissioned the making of the King James Version of the Bible. King James I of England was an unfaithful husband, an adulterer, and a homosexual. Though legally married, he showed little regard for marital fidelity, neglecting his wife and living in open moral scandal. According to the testimony of his contemporaries, he maintained numerous sexually improper relationships, especially with male lovers, relationships widely understood at the time to be sinful rather than merely affectionate.

His life was marked by sexual immorality with both men and women, a pattern of conduct that stood in stark contradiction to the Christian morality he claimed authority to enforce over others. It is worth asking: how many “King James Only” adherents realize that the words “King James Version,” emblazoned in gold on their leather-bound Bibles, represent an unwitting celebration of an adulterous homosexual who tortured Christians and who is now being punished in the fires of Hell? Having a Bible that bears such a name is akin to having “Jeffrey Epstein” stamped upon one’s Bible.

At the root of James’s wickedness was his warped view of the Church itself. He regarded the Church of England as the Church, the only legitimate expression of Christianity within his realm, and treated all others as threats to be stamped out. Worse still, he openly placed himself over that church, assuming authority that belongs to Christ alone. He declared himself as head of the Church instead of Christ. By declaring himself Supreme Governor of the Church, he set the crown where Christ should stand and punished any Christian who refused to accept that blasphemous arrangement. In doing so, James did not merely persecute believers; he usurped Christ’s headship and enforced that theft with prisons, chains, and torture.

King James’ twisted view of the Church of England caused him to force the translators to obey his orders concerning the translation of the KJV. King James did not merely authorize the translation that bears his name; he actively shaped it to serve his ecclesiastical agenda. For example, King James issued explicit rules to the translators requiring that ekklesia must be translated inaccurately as “church” rather than “congregation” or “assembly.” This was not a neutral linguistic preference but a deliberate policy decision. By forbidding renderings that conveyed a gathered body of believers, James ensured the English text would favor an institutional, state-aligned church rather than the simple assemblies described in the New Testament. King James wanted to stamp out the private home meetings that many born-again Christians were holding. This is only one example of several that could be given, wherein King James interfered with the proper translation of the KJV.

Earlier English translations had freely used language like “congregation,” which affirmed local gatherings and undercut royal claims over Christ’s church. James would not permit that implication to stand. By locking “church” into the text, he reinforced his preexisting conviction that the Church of England was the one true church, the only legitimate expression of Christianity within his realm. The translation was thus twisted so as to shape how English readers understood the Church itself and to obscure the biblical warrant for believers gathering apart from state authority.

Another example is how King James interfered directly with how the word translated as “baptize” would appear in the Authorized Version. Under the rules imposed on the translators, the Greek verb baptizō was not to be rendered according to its ordinary meaning, such as “immerse,” but was left largely untranslated as “baptize.” This was not an innocent stylistic choice. It ensured that the English text would not plainly contradict established church customs.

Had baptizō been translated honestly as “immerse,” the text would have stood in open conflict with the Church of England’s sacramental practices of sprinkling and infant baptism. Scripture would have spoken too clearly, exposing those practices as lacking biblical support. By preserving the ecclesiastical term instead, the translation shielded tradition from scrutiny and kept doctrine safely vague. As with ekklesia, this decision reflects how King James shaped the Authorized Version to protect a state church aligned with the crown, ensuring that the English Bible would not undermine the religious system he ruled and enforced.

That legacy deserves serious scrutiny. The King James Bible did not emerge from a persecuted church crying out for Scripture, but from a throne determined to enforce religious conformity. The king whose name adorns the cover of countless Bibles was not a defender of liberty of conscience. He was a ruler who believed Christ’s church must submit to royal authority, and who was willing to use imprisonment, family separation, and physical torture to enforce that belief.

King James Versus the Pilgrims

King James ruled with the settled conviction that unity must be imposed by force. He demanded obedience from everyone to the Church of England and refused to tolerate Christians who would not submit to its forms, structures, and authority. To King James, separation was never a matter of sincere conscience but an act of defiance against both church and crown. He viewed loyalty to the state church as inseparable from loyalty to the monarchy and treated any refusal to conform as a threat that had to be crushed. In short, King James represented everything that a freedom loving Christian in America would find utterly reprehensible today.

King James’s hostility was especially sharp toward Protestant Separatists – the Pilgrims who became our forefathers. The Separatists were born-again believers who concluded that the dead, dry Church of England was so corrupted by unscriptural practices that true worship required complete separation from that institution. These Separatist Christians were not anarchists or revolutionaries. They sought no throne and raised no armies. Their crime was worshipping Christ according to conscience rather than royal decree. For this, King James regarded them as obstinate and dangerous, deserving not patience but punishment.

The Geneva Bible and Why It Alarmed the Crown

The Geneva Bible was the popular Bible of the time, and the King was determined to do away with it. This was the impetus behind the creation of the King James Bible. The Separatists did not rally around the new Bible version which James authorized. These true Christians trusted the Geneva Bible, a translation produced by English exiles who had fled persecution under earlier monarchs. The Geneva Bible was beloved not only for its clarity, but for its marginal notes, which openly taught that rulers were subject to God’s law and that Christ was head of the Church, not the king. Those notes articulated limits on kingship that James found intolerable.

King James despised the Geneva Bible precisely because it strengthened conscience rather than submission to himself. The authorized translation that would bear his name removed those notes and reinforced ecclesiastical uniformity. The King James Bible was commissioned not to make God’s Word clearer, but to strengthen the crown’s control over the Church of England.

Persecution and Torture

Among the most revealing aspects of King James’s reign was his approval of torture as an instrument of religious control. The rack was among the most feared device, precisely because it did not kill quickly. The mere knowledge that one was to be tortured upon the rack would strike panic and terror in the hearts of victims, for the horrors of the rack were well known. It destroyed slowly. Strapped naked to the frame, the victim felt the cold bite of iron at wrists and ankles before the first turn of the wheel even began. With each slow, deliberate crank, the body was dragged past its natural design, joints grinding and then tearing, muscles screaming as fibers snapped one by one, ligaments ripping like overdrawn cords. The pain did not flare and fade; it climbed in careful increments, a calculated agony measured out by the torturer’s hand. Bones creaked audibly, shoulders and hips slipping from their sockets with a sickening pop as the victim shrieked and thrashed, only to be pulled tighter still. Time became meaningless – only the next turn, the next explosion of pain, the next hoarse, broken plea that went unanswered. Many did not simply suffer; they fractured inside, sanity peeling away under the knowledge that the torment would continue until their body – or their mind – finally gave way.

This was done to Christians under the direct orders of King James. The damage did not stop when the session ended. Survivors were frequently left permanently injured. Limbs no longer functioned properly. Strength was lost. Simple tasks became lifelong struggles. Some could no longer work or care for themselves. Torture under King James was designed to leave lasting physical reminders of state power. Think about all this next time you pick up a Bible stamped: “Authorized King James Version. It is not a nomenclature to be proud of, but rather one to be ashamed of.

Other methods of torture were used as well. Prolonged confinement in harsh conditions weakened the body and mind. Irons and restraints caused lasting injury. Sleep deprivation and isolation eroded sanity and resolve. These methods, though less dramatic than the rack, were no less destructive. They attacked the whole person, destroying both mind and body.

The Use of Families as Leverage

James’s persecution did not stop with individual believers; families were deliberately targeted. In 1607–1608, before coming to America, English Separatists attempted to flee to Holland to worship freely. During one escape attempt, the men reached a Dutch ship first while their wives and children waited on shore in a smaller boat. When armed authorities were spotted approaching, the ship’s captain was forced to sail immediately to avoid capture, leaving the women and children behind. The men watched helplessly as their families were seized by the authorities.

King James’s government imprisoned the abandoned women and children, not for crimes, but to punish the faith of their husbands and fathers. They were paraded from town to town, confined, interrogated, and humiliated, until the authorities finally released them out of inconvenience rather than mercy. This separation was no accident. It was a calculated use of family suffering to crush religious dissent. The episode exposes a ruler willing to imprison mothers and children to enforce obedience to a state church.

The Pilgrims

The Separatists who eventually reached America came as survivors of this persecution. Their faith was shaped in prisons, under threat, and through pain and loss. They did not carry with them the new Bible translation authorized and tampered with by the king who hunted them, because they understood exactly what that version represented. Instead, they brought their beloved Geneva Bible and their convictions forged through suffering and sustained by Scripture read in defiance of royal control.

It is worth asking whether believers today should speak casually, even proudly, of a title that memorializes a ruler who tortured Christians for following their conscience. The founders of America would turn in their graves at the idea of entire churches declaring that the King James Bible is the only true Word of God. If they could speak today, they would ask such people, “Do you not know the history of that wicked king and his Bible?” They would wonder aloud why anyone would want a Bible named after a sexual degenerate. Indeed, the first Americans would have considered reverance of the King James Version as a most un-American preactice.

When Christians glorify the phrase “King James Bible,” they risk forgetting the men stretched on racks, the women imprisoned, and the children separated from their parents under that same authority. The Church should be careful not to sanctify tyranny by habit or tradition. The Bible belongs to God, not to monarchs who sought to control it for power. The true witnesses of this era are not kings seated on thrones, but believers who suffered rather than submit Christ’s church to earthly rule. Their faithfulness stands as a quiet but enduring rebuke to coercion disguised as order.

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