Let me rephrase my first sentence. Until the Reformation (or just prior to that), the Bible wasn't in English so there wasn't an english rendering of "elder" to deal with.
The rest of my paragraph stands. It's getting late.
There was ample devotional literature available in English, and of course, there was Douay. Regardless of any written word, the English speaking Christians referred to preists as "priests" and not as "elders" since time immemorial.