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A LIST OF OCCASIONAL

FORMS OF PRAYER AND SERVICES,

FOR THE MOST PART, PUBLICLY AND AUTHORITATIVELY USED DURING THE

REIGN OF QUEEN ELIZABETH.

I.

II.

1560. A FORM OF PRAYER commanded to be used for her majesty's safety, and the good estate of the nation, and of the religion professed therein.

There is extant (Bibl. Lans. 6. art. 62) a letter from Parker to Cecil, dated the 23rd of July, 1563, wherein he tells him of his having prescribed for the inhabitants of his own cathedral city in their distresses, 'that comon prayer, that was apointed in the Gwises tyme, alteringe a fewe wordes in the same.' Wright's Elizabeth and her Times, Vol. i. p. 134. The Form to which the archbishop alludes, Strype, without ever having seen it, supposes (Parker, p. 131) to have been put forth about the Year 1559 or 1560,' when Elizabeth was in great fear lest, by having introduced French troops into Scotland, the duke of Guise and his brother should be meditating the conquest of our crowne for their Neece the Queene of Scottes. Camden (p. 657.) (Kennet's Collection). Zurich Letters, second edition, pp. 103, 106. The English attacked Scotland by sea and land in January 1560, and peace was proclaimed on Sunday, July the 7th. Stow's Annals, pp. 1085, 1093.

1560. A SHORTE FOURME AND ORDER to be vsed in Common prayer thrise a weke, for seasonable wether, and good successe of the Common affaires of the Realme: meate to be vsed at this presente and also heareafter when like occasyon shall arryse, by the discrecyon of the Ordinaries within the prouince of Canturburye. [Grindal's Register, St Paul's Cathedral, fol. 4, b.]

This Form was sent by the archbishop to Grindal, bishop of London, (ibid., fol. 7, a), on Sondaye beinge the vii. daye of Julye.' During the summer of 1560 the foule wether' was sorely felt in Germany and France, as well as in England. Wright's Elizabeth, Vol. i. p. 40. Grindal, in a letter to Cecil respecting the plague of 1563 (Remains, p. 259), most probably refers to this same time of unseasonable weather,' and to the religious observances then enjoined. No complete copy of any kind has been discovered. Herbert, however, (see his Ames, p. 726,) had met with one; for he gives 'Richard Jugge,' as the name of the printer, and 'octavo,' as the size. Strype (Parker, p. 90) has likewise no more than the commencement of the preface.

III. 1562. A PRAYER to be vsed for the presente estate in [the] churches, at the ende of the latanie, on Sondaies, Wednesdaies, and Frydaies, throughe the whole Realme. [Grindal's Register, St Paul's Cathedral, fol. 26, a.]

We may read this Prayer in Strype's Annals, Vol. i. p. 248. Elizabeth, having made a compact with the French protestants to aid them against

the Guisian faction, in September and October sent over into Normandy a large body of men under the command of Dudley, earl of Warwick. Camden, p. 390. Davila, (Aylesbury's translation,) p. 139. See also Strype, ibid. p. 327, where we are told, that on Nov. the 14th prayers were commanded to be offered up on three successive days for the English army then about to engage in battle with the duke of Guise.

1563. A FOURME to be vsed in Common prayer twyse IV. aweke, and also an order of publique fast, to be vsed euery Wednesday in the weeke, duryng this tyme of mortalitie, and other afflictions, wherwith the Realme at this present is visited. Set forth by the Quenes Maiesties speciall commaundement, expressed in her letters hereafter folowyng in the next page. xxx Julii. 1563. Jugge and Cawood. Quarto. Collates F in fours. [Archbishop Harsnet's Library, Colchester.]

This, the commonest of all the Forms, which served as the basis of those issued for a somewhat similar reason in 1593, 1603, and 1625, has with the Homily been already reprinted by the Parker Society in the 'Remains of Archbishop Grindal,' its author, who had meant it simply for his own cure.' See pp. 75-110, 258-261. The plague was brought into England by our soldiers, on their return from Newhaven, or Havre de grace, of which town the French protestants, according to agreement, had the year before put Elizabeth in possession. There is an account of several circumstances connected with the composition of the Form, and likewise a minute description of it, as well in Strype's Parker, p. 131— 134, as in his Grindal, pp. 70-73. Holinshed, p. 1206. Stow, p. 1112. Herbert's Ames, p. 721.

1563. A FORME OF MEDITATION, very meete to be v. daylye vsed of house holders in their houses, in this daungerous and contagious time. Set forth accordyng to the order in the Quenes maiesties Iniunction. Alexander Lacy. n. d. Octavo. Collates A in eight. [Archbishop Harsnet's Library, Colchester.]

The plague of 1563 occasioned this publication, of which we have a reprint in Grindal's Remains, pp. 477-484. Is it not the 'short Meditation to be used in private houses,' of which the bishop writes to Cecil (ibid. p. 264) in a letter dated August the 21st? It would seem, too, to have been put out by authority, notwithstanding its not coming from the office of the queen's printers. Herbert's Ames, p. 1005. In 1580, after the earthquake, the householders were similarly provided with suitable devotions. See p. 464.

1563. THANKSGEUING TO GOD for whdrawing & ceasing vi the plage. [Strype's Grindal, Appendix, p. 7. The British Museum, Bibl. Lans. 116. art. 27.1

VII.

VIII.

The manuscript 'prayer or collect,' 'wth ye Secretaries corrections,' belonging to this Form, (which seems to have been set forth in the middle of December,) is thus indorsed, though the first sentence shews it to relate simply to the 'Abatement of the plague,' under which title the whole Form was reprinted in Grindal's Remains, pp. 111-114. Strype, misled by the indorsement, considered it to be the last Service on account of the plague, and mentions its having been 'sent to the Secretary about the seventh of March,' [1564]. Grindal, p. 84. Here, however, we need not doubt of his being wrong, both from the fact above mentioned, and from the contents of one of Grindal's letters. See his Remains, p. 265.

1564. A SHORT FOURME OF THANKESGEUYNG TO GOD for ceassing the contagious sicknes of the plague, to be vsed in Common prayer, on Sundayes, Wednesdayes, and Frydayes, in steade of the Common prayers, vsed in the time of mortalitie. Set forth by the Byshop of London, to be vsed in the Citie of London, and the rest of his diocesse, and in other places also at the discretion of the ordinary Ministers of the Churches. Jugge and Cawood. n.d. Quarto. Collates A in four. [Archbishop Sancroft's Collection in the Library of Emmanuel College, Cambridge.]

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We have this Form in the same work as the two others about the plague, pp. 115–120. The mortality was not fullie ceassed' in London having in August been above a thousand a week, by the end of January, 1564, the date of the Form, it had only just sunk under a hundred. Holinshed, p. 1206. Zurich Letters, p. 188. Herbert's Ames, p. 721. When Strype printed his Grindal, he had either quite overlooked, or was ignorant of, the present Office. In his Parker, on the contrary, he describes it (p. 135); but still it could scarcely have been seen by him in its original state: for, immediately after, he quotes its title, (transferring the Form itself to the Appendix,) as if it were the composition of bishop Cox, and solely for his own diocese of Ely. That it came at first from Grindal, how widely soever adopted, and that it was designed to terminate the religious exercises of the period, may be made manifest by two letters, no. xxv and xxvii, published in his Remains. A second copy, with a date, is in the State Paper Office.

1565. A FORME to be evsed in Common praier euery Wednesdaie and Fridaie, within the citie and Dioces of Sarum to excite al godly people to praie vnto God for the deliuerie of those Christians, that are now inuaded by the Turke. London. Jhon Waley. n. d. Quarto. Collates A in four. [The Cathedral Library, Salisbury.]

Malta, the key of that part of Christendom,' and since 1525 the residence of the knights of St John of Jerusalem, was attacked in 1565

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