Myroure of Oure Ladye (Mirror of Our Lady)
Hayle holy moder of God, que virgo permanes, hayle quene of heven and erthe.
Our renderingHail, holy Mother of God, who remain a virgin; hail, Queen of heaven and earth.
What it is
Composed for the Brigittine nuns of Syon Abbey—England's sole Brigittine house, royally founded and endowed by Henry V in 1415—the Myroure is a detailed catechetical commentary on the Bridgettine Daily Office of Our Lady, translating and explaining every antiphon, hymn, versicle, and prayer of that entirely Marian liturgy into Middle English for sisters whose Latin was insufficient. Authorship is disputed between Thomas Fishbourne, first confessor-general of Syon, and Thomas Gascoigne; both are plausible and the question remains unresolved. The printed edition of 1530 extended the text beyond the cloister to educated lay readers, though it never achieved wide popular circulation outside devotional and antiquarian circles. Syon Abbey's royal patronage by Henry V and its later court associations make the text court-adjacent, but its primary function was always as a practical liturgical handbook for enclosed religious women.
Why it still matters
The full Bridgettine Daily Office of Our Lady, underlying this commentary, can still be prayed today using the Syon Breviary (republished 2015); any Christian wishing a wholly Marian-structured Liturgy of the Hours will find it a rich and living resource.
Kept alongside
The Fifteen Oes (Fifteen Prayers of St. Bridget of Sweden) — Caxton Edition 1491
In 1491, at the joint command of Elizabeth of York (wife of Henry VII) and Lady Margaret Beaufort (mother of Henry VII), William Caxton printed this collection of fifteen prayers—each beginning 'O Ihesu'—meditating on episodes of Christ's Passion and Mary's compassion, together with approximately thirty additional Latin and English prayers common in Books of Hours. This is the first collection of prayers printed in England, and it represents a landmark in the dissemination of Marian-Passion devotion to a reading public beyond manuscript owners. The prayers were ubiquitous in late medieval England, frequently appended to Books of Hours, and were closely connected to Syon Abbey, the Brigittine house patronized by both royal women; Caxton's print edition transformed what had been a semi-private devotion into one accessible to any literate English Christian. Their misattribution to St. Bridget of Sweden gave them an authoritative prestige that further amplified their circulation.
Prayer Book of Lady Margaret Beaufort
This illuminated prayer book (Westminster Abbey Library, MS. 39) belonged to Lady Margaret Beaufort, mother of Henry VII and the pre-eminent lay patron of devotion and learning in late fifteenth-century England. Westminster Abbey research suggests the book may have been made for her fourth husband Sir Thomas Stanley (d. 1504) and presented to her, as his coat of arms appear in illuminated initials; it is decorated with Tudor portcullis and red rose devices and contains Latin prayers and devotional texts. The artist, known only as the Master of the Dark Eyes, was probably a Flemish illuminator working in London. Margaret Beaufort's devotional intensity is well documented: she rose at 5 a.m. to hear four or five masses before breakfast, and she co-patronized with Elizabeth of York the Caxton printing of the Fifteen Oes (1491), ensuring Marian-Passion prayer reached a wider English public.
Prayers or Meditations
Prayers or Medytacions, wherein the mynd is stirred paciently to suffre all afflictions here
Published by Queen Katherine Parr on 8 June 1545, this 60-page devotional compilation adapted Book III of Richard Whytford's English rendering of Thomas à Kempis's Imitation of Christ, reoriented for the reforming Church of England. It was the first book published in England under the name of a reigning queen in the English language; Princess Elizabeth then translated it into Latin, French, and Italian as a New Year's gift to Henry VIII. It reached at least thirteen editions before 1600 and was widely known as 'the Queen's Prayers,' demonstrating its reception across the royal family and English Protestant households. Its Kempisian core—patience under affliction, contempt of worldly prosperity, longing for eternal life—gave it an audience far beyond the court.