~In 1604, King James, himself a religious scholar who had re-translated some of the psalms, sought to unite his people through one universally accepted text. The idea was proposed at a conference of scholars at Hampton Court by a Puritan, John Rainolds, the seventh President of Corpus Christi College.  Rainolds, dying in 1607, never saw the publication of his great work four years later.
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The task of translation was undertaken by 47 scholars, although 54 were originally approved. All were members of the Church of England and all except Sir Henry Savile were clergy. The scholars worked in six committees, two based in each of the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and Westminster. The committees included scholars with Puritan sympathies, as well as High Churchmen. Forty unbound copies of the 1602 edition of the Bishops` Bible were specially printed so that the agreed changes of each committee could be recorded in the margins. The committees worked on certain parts separately and the drafts produced by each committee were then compared and revised for harmony with each other.
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They had all completed their sections by 1608, the Apocrypha committee finishing first.[51] From January 1609, a General Committee of Review met at Stationers` Hall, London to review the completed marked texts from each of the six committees. The General Committee included John Bois, Andrew Downes and John Harmar, and others known only by their initials, including ~AL~ (who may be Arthur Lake), and were paid for their attendance by the Stationers` Company. John Bois prepared a note of their deliberations (in Latin) – which has partly survived in two later transcripts.[52] Also surviving of the translators` working papers are a bound-together set of marked-up corrections to one of the forty Bishops` Bibles – covering the Old Testament and Gospels,[53] and also a manuscript translation of the text of the Epistles, excepting those verses where no change was being recommended to the readings in the Bishops` Bible.[54] Archbishop Bancroft insisted on having a final say making fourteen further changes, of which one was the term ~bishopricke~ at Acts 1:20.[55]
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Translation committees
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    First Westminster Company, translated Genesis to 2 Kings:

        Lancelot Andrewes, John Overall, Hadrian à Saravia, Richard Clarke, John Layfield,
        Robert Tighe, Francis Burleigh, Geoffrey King, Richard Thomson, William Bedwell;

    First Cambridge Company, translated 1 Chronicles to the Song of Solomon:

        Edward Lively, John Richardson, Lawrence Chaderton, Francis Dillingham, 
        Roger Andrewes, Thomas Harrison, Robert Spaulding, Andrew Bing;

    First Oxford Company, translated Isaiah to Malachi:

        John Harding, John Rainolds (or Reynolds), Thomas Holland, Richard Kilby, 
        Miles Smith, Richard Brett, Daniel Fairclough, William Thorne;[56]

    Second Oxford Company, translated the Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, 
                           and the Book of Revelation:

        Thomas Ravis, George Abbot, Richard Eedes, Giles Tomson, Sir Henry Savile, 
        John Peryn, Ralph Ravens, John Harmar, John Aglionby, Leonard Hutten;

    Second Westminster Company, translated the Epistles:

        William Barlow, John Spenser, Roger Fenton, Ralph Hutchinson, William Dakins,
        Michael Rabbet, Thomas Sanderson;

    Second Cambridge Company, translated the Apocrypha:

        John Duport, William Branthwaite, Jeremiah Radcliffe, Samuel Ward, Andrew Downes,
        John Bois, Robert Ward, Thomas Bilson, Richard Bancroft.[57]
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