The Queen's SECT. X.-A Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to Almighty God, to be used in all Churches and Chapels within this Realm, every Year, upon the Twentieth Day of Fune; being the Day on which Her Majesty began Her happy Reign. Holydays. Four special Services1 were 'annexed to' the Book The State of Common Prayer, until the year 1859, by the authority of a proclamation customarily issued at the commencement of each reign. Thus the authority for using them, instead of the Service enjoined by the Act of Uniformity, was the same as that which appoints any special Service on the occasion of a fast, or thanksgiving day. This is indeed the only authority for the special Service on the anniversary of the Sovereign's Accession, or for observing the day itself. The observance of the three days (Nov. 5, Jan. 30, May 29) rested upon Acts of Parliament. The 5th of November was kept in memory of the Gunpowder Treason, or Papists' Conspiracy;3 the 29th of May, in memory of the birth and return of the king, Charles II.; and the 30th of January, as a fasting day, in memory of the murder of King Charles I.;5 and the 1 See The Original Services for the State Holy Days, with Documents relating to the same, by the Rev. A. P. Percival (1838). 2 There is no Act of Parliament enjoining the observance of this day; but it has been observed with special prayers in every reign since the Reformation. The Service (1576, 1578) is printed in Elizabethan Liturgical Services (Park. Soc.) pp. 548 sqq. Canon II. (1640) enjoined the observance of the day, and recognised 'the particular form of prayer appointed by authority for that day and purpose' (Cardwell, Synodalia, I. p. 392; Per. cival, p. 25); but a later statute (1661, 3 Stat. 3 Jac. I. c. 1 ; Percival, p. 17. Accession. Offices for the three days sanctioned by Convoca tion. The Queen's Convocation provided a Service for each of these occasions. While the Convocation (1661) was engaged upon the revision of the Prayer Book, the Service for the 5th of November (1605) was revised, and the Offices for the 29th of May and the 30th of January1 were sanctioned. But these Offices were not sent with the Prayer Book to the Parliament. Hence there were special Services for these days, which had what might be considered sufficient authority, although not the force of law; viz. the sanction of Convocation and the Crown. In process of time, however, changes were introduced into these Offices. Altered by James II. ordered the 29th of May to be observed in a more general memory of the Restoration of the Royal Family, and accordingly altered the Service which had been provided by Convocation for that day.2 And William III. ordered the 5th of November to be observed also in memory of his landing in England, and altered that Service accordingly. Hence these Offices, in the shape in which they were annexed to the Prayer Book,* had only the authority of the Crown; exercised, too, in times when such dispensing power was certain to be disputed, when James II. was introducing Popery, and William III. was favouring the Presbyterians. Royal au thority. Construction of the Services. These Services are all constructed upon one model 1 Two Offices for the 30th of January were published in 1661. One of these contained a petition in allusion to the martyrs: 'that we may be made worthy to receive benefit by their prayers, which they, in communion with the Church Catholic, offer up unto thee for that part of it here militant.' This was laid aside, and another form published, which was again altered, as well as that for the 29th of May, by the Convocation in 1662. Lathbury, Hist. of Convoc. pp. 305 sqq., and Hist. of Prayer Book P. 334. 2 Some alterations were made in the Services for the 30th of January and the 29th of May by the Bishops, by authority of the Crown, neither the Convocation nor the Parliament being consulted.' Lathbury, Hist. of Convoc. p. 313. 3 Percival, p. 15. It was revised by Patrick. See Lathbury, pp. 333 sq. 4 The particulars of the extensive changes introduced into these Offices may be seen in Mr. Percival's comparative arrangement of them, as sanctioned by Convocation, and as commonly printed. They commence with proper sentences of Scripture: a Canticle is appointed instead of Venite, compiled of single verses from the Psalms: Proper Psalms, and Lessons additional suffrages after the Creed: long proper Collects instead of the Collect for the day: a long Prayer to be inserted at the end of the Litany and a proper Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, in the Communion Office. The wisdom of retaining such commemorations of political events need not be discussed here; since the only special Service now retained is that for the day of the Sovereign's Accession: the same authority which annexed the other three Forms to the Prayer Book has caused them to be removed from it, by a Royal Warrant, dated the 17th day of January, 1859. The Queen's APPENDIX. I. Note on the Lectionary (1871). II. Note on the proposed Amendment of the Rubrics' (1879). III. Lections from the Bible, according to the Sarum Breviary. IV. A Tabular View of the Order of Morning and Evening Prayer, compared with the Morning and Evening Offices of the Medieval English Church, and also with the proposed Revision of the Roman Offices in the sixteenth century. V. A Tabular View of the Arrangement of the several parts of the Communion Office." VI. A Table of Dates of Events connected with the History of the Book of Common Prayer.3 1 Compare Mr. Freeman's Tables, exhibiting a comparison of the Revised with the Ancient English Offices; Principles of Divine Service, pp. 288 sq. 2 Compare Bulley, Tabule View of the Variations, &c. For the comparative structure of the Eastern and Western Liturgies, see Mr. Hammond's Liturgies, Eastern and Western, Introd. p. xxvi. 3 See Riddle, Ecclesiastical Chronology. |