ABSTRACT
In November 1589, news of a provocative act of vandalism reached the ears of the Elizabethan authorities. Robert Goldesborowe, an outspoken recusant who christened his children ‘in corners’ and openly affirmed that all Protestant ministers were knaves, had maliciously defaced an English Bible in three distinct places. One of the passages he chose to mutilate apparently concerned the translation of the Scriptures into the vernacular. Goldesborowe subsequently confessed to this crime of sacrilege ‘under his owne hand wrytinge’.1
