Book of Hours, Use of Salisbury, Inscribed by Henry VIII (Museum of the Bible)
Horae ad usum Sarum (Paris, Simon Vostre, c. 1512)
A verified public-domain excerpt for this text is still being set. The folio is catalogued and linked below; an original Sub Rosa rendering will follow.
What it is
A hand-illuminated printed Book of Hours, use of Sarum, produced by Simon Vostre in Paris c. 1512 and now at the Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C., bearing Henry VIII's autograph inscription: 'I pray you pray for me your / lovyng cousin Henry R.' The book was given as a gift to a royal cousin; antiquarian catalogues have suggested Margaret Pole, Countess of Salisbury, on the basis of an erased ownership inscription, though this identification remains unconfirmed. The inscription documents Henry VIII's personal engagement with the Sarum Hours tradition and the intercessory piety of his pre-Reformation Catholic devotional life.
Why it still matters
Henry's request for prayers encapsulates the medieval intercessory piety at the heart of the pre-Reformation Hours; the Sarum prayers it contains remain a vehicle for structured daily devotion within Catholic and Anglo-Catholic traditions.
Kept alongside
Psalter of Henry VIII
Psalterium Henrici VIII (Royal MS 2 A XVI)
An illuminated psalter commissioned by Henry VIII from the French court orator and artist Jean Mallard, now British Library Royal MS 2 A XVI, this manuscript is unique in being the most heavily annotated book to survive from Henry's library, with numerous marginal notes in his own hand made in pen, pencil, and red crayon. The miniatures present Henry as a new King David — a typological identification that is simultaneously a devotional image and a piece of royal propaganda justifying his headship of the Church of England. His annotations cluster around psalms of divine judgement, the contrast of the righteous and wicked, kingship under God, and the vanity of worldly power, making this the most intimate surviving window into the private prayer life of an English Reformation monarch.
King Henry's Primer (The King's Primer of 1545)
The Primer, set foorth by the Kynges maiestie and his Clergie
Proclaimed on 29 May 1545 as the sole authorized primer in England, this was the English Reformation's official replacement for the Catholic Book of Hours. It included the reformed litany Cranmer had already published in 1544, prayers for the king, the Lord's Prayer, Creed, Ten Commandments, and daily offices—stripped of saints' veneration and prayers for the dead. A royal proclamation forbade all competing primers, making it the universal devotional text for the court household, schools, and laity alike. Its Cranmerian collects and litany fed directly into the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, giving it a formative role in Anglican devotional tradition.
Christian Prayers and Meditations (1569 — Elizabeth I's Protestant Book of Hours)
Christian prayers and meditations in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Greeke, and Latine
Published by the Protestant printer John Day in London in 1569 under the patronage of Archbishop Matthew Parker, this work has been described as 'a Protestant Book of Hours.' The sole complete copy at Lambeth Palace Library, which came from Whitehall Palace and was colored in Parker's Lambeth workshop, contains a litany in the first person indicating it was a presentation copy for Elizabeth I's personal use. Seventeen multilingual prayers are attributed to Elizabeth herself, presenting her as a sovereign who converses with God in five languages. Richard Day republished an adaptation as A Book of Christian Prayers in 1578, reprinted 1581 and 1590, giving the text a wider Protestant readership beyond the court.