Miles Coverdale

Coverdale, Miles, D.D., a celebrated English Divine and Reformer, born in Yorkshire, 1487, and educated at Cambridge. He was for some time a Canon of the Order of St. Augustine. On embracing the reformed faith, he went abroad, 1528, and associated with Tyndale and various continental Reformers. His translation of the Bible was published in 1535, and the second version of the New Testament, 1538. Returning to England, in 1551 he was promoted to the see of Exeter. On the accession of Mary he went to Denmark, and then to Geneva. At the latter place he assisted his fellow refugees in producing the celebrated Geneva Bible. In 1560, on the accession of Elizabeth, he returned to England, but instead of resuming his see, he accepted the Rectory of St. Magnus, London Bridge. He died in Feb. 1569, and was buried in St. Bartholomew's church, by the Exchange, Feb. 19, 1569. For his Goostly Psalmes, one of the earliest metrical efforts in the English language, but mainly from the German.

--John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)