The Acts of Uniformity: Their Scope and Effect

by T. A. Lacey

James B. of Exon.

The Booke of Comon Prayer, published primo Eliz. was first resolved upon and established in the Church in the tyme of K. Ed. 6. It was re-examined with some small alterations by the Convocation consistinge of the said Bishops and the rest of the clergy in primo Eliz. which beinge done by the Convocation and published under the great scale of Englande ther was an Acte of Parlament for the same booke which is ordinarily printed in the beginninge of the booke; not that the booke was ever subjected to the censure of the Parlament but being aggreed upon and published as afforesaid, a law was made by the Parlament for the inflictinge of penalty upon all such as should refuse to use and observe the same; further autoryty then so is not in the Parlament, neyther hath bin in former tymes yealded to the Parlament in thinges of that nature but the judgment and determination therof hath ever bin in the Church, therto autorised by the Kinge which is that which is yealded to H. 8. in the statute of 25 his raygne. [Endorsed] Bishops.

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Another copy follows, No. 47, written with modernised spelling. It is endorsed as follows:

(1) Bishops.

(2) Power of the Convocn in framing the Book of Common Prayer &c. and of the Act of Parlt Sr. Th. Wilson's hand.

The second endorsement of No. 47 (wrongly given in the Calendar as "Progress of the Convocation, etc.") is in the handwriting of Sir Joseph Williamson, Keeper of the State Paper Office, and from 1674 to 1679 Secretary of State. Sir Thomas Wilson was a confidential servant of Robert, Earl of Salisbury, who often employed him in matters of secret police. He was made Keeper of the S.P. Office in 1605 and died in 1629. A comparison with his letters and notes preserved in the Record Office shows that the copy in his handwriting is the earlier one, No. 46. It is written, however, more formally and with more archaic spelling than his original papers. It would therefore seem to be a copy of an older original. I venture to suggest that it may have been written for Salisbury's use in 1604, when revision of the Prayer-book was being discussed. There is nothing to show the provenance of the original, but the errors in point of fact make against an early date. Cheney is said to have been a bishop in the time of Edward VI.; he was in fact raised to the episcopate in the year 1562. Oglethorpe is said, like Kitchen, to have retained his bishopric under Elizabeth. He was in fact deposed on June 21, 1559, and died in the following December. The statement that the Prayer-book was submitted to the Convocation, "consisting of the said Bishops," is all but demonstrably false.

[1] Wilkins, Concilia, iv. 6; Strype, Cranmer, vol. i. p. 156; Cardwell, Synod., p. 421.

[2] Proclamation prefixed to The Order of the Communion, printed by Grafton, March 8, 1547/8.

[3] Cardwell, Doc. Ann., vol. i. p. 72. As the bishops were required "to cause these books to be delivered to every parson, vicar, and curate," within their several dioceses, the more scrupulous among these might fairly argue that they accepted the order on the authority of the diocesan. But it may be doubted whether such a refinement occurred to many at that time.