Scottish Prayer Book (1637 Book of Common Prayer for the Church of Scotland)
Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men; We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sinnes and wickednesse…
What it is
Charles I and Archbishop Laud personally directed the composition of this liturgy for Scotland, drawing on the 1549 English Book of Common Prayer and Laudian high-church preferences. From 1617, an English BCP had been used daily in the Chapel Royal at Stirling Castle; the 1637 book was intended to give Scotland a permanent royal liturgy. Its forced imposition on 23 July 1637 triggered riots — most famously at St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh — and set in motion the Bishops' Wars and ultimately the Civil War. A cancelled copy from Edinburgh is held at The Queen's College, Oxford, and the text represents the most intimate and catastrophic statement of Stuart royal liturgical ambition.
Why it still matters
The 1637 eucharistic prayer, which stands closer to the 1549 BCP and the later Scottish Episcopal tradition than the 1662 rite, has directly influenced modern Anglican liturgical renewal and is of particular interest to those studying the theology of the Lord's Supper and the development of common prayer.
Kept alongside
The Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible
James I personally commissioned this translation at the Hampton Court Conference of 1604, set the translators' rules, and ensured publication in 1611; 47 of the 54 appointed scholars are documented as having participated. Lancelot Andrewes headed the First Westminster Company, responsible for Genesis through 2 Kings. The KJV became the Bible of the entire Stuart and Windsor dynasties in royal chapel worship, public proclamations, and coronation ceremonies, with the Bible presented at Queen Elizabeth II's coronation being the KJV. Her Christmas broadcasts routinely quoted from it, extending royal identification with this translation across more than four centuries.
Preces Privatae (Private Devotions)
Andrewes was James I's most admired court preacher and served as Dean of the Chapel Royal from 1618, reputedly spending five hours each day in prayer. The Preces Privatae were written in Greek, Hebrew, and Latin for his own private use across several decades; the manuscript was described as 'slubbered with his pious hands, and watered with his penitential tears.' On his deathbed in 1626 Andrewes gave the manuscript to William Laud, who succeeded him as Dean and brought it into the Caroline court circle. First published in 1647/1648, the prayers draw on Scripture, patristic sources, and the Eastern liturgical tradition to structure an entire week of morning and evening devotion.
A Summarie of Devotions
Laud succeeded Andrewes as Dean of the Chapel Royal in September 1626 and became Archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I in 1633, shaping court worship toward what he called 'the beauty of holiness.' The Summarie of Devotions was written in his own hand for personal use and preserved in the archives of St John Baptist's College, Oxford; it was published posthumously in 1667. A prayer from this collection, lightly adapted, entered the American Book of Common Prayer in 1928 and was retained in the 1979 BCP, giving Laud's private devotion an unexpected liturgical afterlife. The prayers reflect Laudian high-church theology — ordered confession, intercession for the Church Universal, and care for those in affliction.