reverence of the five principal joys of our Lady
aforesaid, and for exciting the people to devotion at such an hour,
the more to merit to their souls. And thereupon many other good
people of the same parish, seeing the great honesty of the said
service and devotion, proffered to be aiders and partners to support
the said lights and the said anthem to be continually sung, paying
to every person every week an halfpenny; and so that hereafter, with
the gift that the people shall give to the sustentation of the said
light and anthem, there shall be to find a chaplain singing in the
said church for all the benefactors of the said light and anthem."

Miles Coverdale, the great reformer, was a rector of St. Magnus'.
Coverdale was in early life an Augustinian monk, but being converted to
Protestantism, he exerted his best faculties and influence in defending
the cause. In August, 1551, he was advanced to the see of Exeter, and
availed himself of that station to preach frequently in the cathedral
and in other churches of Exeter. Thomas Lord Cromwell patronised him;
and Queen Catherine Parr appointed him her almoner. At the funeral of
that ill-fated lady he preached a sermon at Sudeley Castle. When Mary
came to the throne, she soon exerted her authority in tyrannically
ejecting and persecuting this amiable and learned prelate. By an Act of
Council (1554-55) he was allowed to "passe towards Denmarche with two
servants, his bagges and baggage," where he remained till the death of
the queen. On returning home, he declined to be reinstated in his see,
but repeatedly preached at Paul's Cross, and, from conscientious
scruples, continued to live in obscurity and indigence till 1563, when
he was presented to the rectory of St. Magnus', London Bridge, which he
resigned in two years. Dying in the year 1568, at the age of eighty-one,
he was interred in this church.

Coverdale's labours in Bible translation are worth notice. In 1532
Coverdale appears to have been abroad assisting Tyndale in his
translation of the Bible; and in 1535 his own folio translation of the
Bible (printed, it is supposed, at Zurich), with a dedication to Henry
VIII., was published. This was the first English Bible allowed by royal
authority, and the first translation of the whole Bible printed in our
language. The Psalms in it are those we now use in the Book of Common
Prayer. About 1538 Coverdale went to Paris to superintend a new