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JAMES I AND GUNPOWDER TREASON DAY
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2020
Abstract
The assumed source of the annual early modern English commemoration of Gunpowder treason day on 5 November – and its modern legacy, ‘Guy Fawkes day’ or ‘Bonfire night’ – has been an act of parliament in 1606. This article reveals the existence of earlier orders, explains how these orders alter understandings of the origin and initial purposes of the anniversary, and provides edited transcriptions of their texts. The first order revises the accepted date for the earliest publication of the special church services used for the occasion. The second order establishes that the anniversary thanksgiving was initiated not by parliament, but by King James I; it also shows that, in a striking innovation, he issued instructions for regular mid-week commemorations throughout England and Wales, expecting the bishops to change the Church of England's preaching practices. The annual thanksgivings were not just English, but ordered also in Scotland and observed in Protestant churches in Ireland. The motives for these religious thanksgivings are placed in a Stuart dynastic context, with Scottish antecedents and a British scope, rather than in the English ‘national’ setting assigned to the anniversary by English preachers and writers and by recent historians. The parliamentary act is best explained as an outcome of tensions between the king and the House of Commons.
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Footnotes
The research for this article is part of the Durham state prayers project, originally funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council; Philip Williamson also acknowledges assistance from the Leverhulme Trust. The authors are especially grateful to Kenneth Fincham for assistance with source materials, and for his comments on an earlier draft. Alasdair Raffe assisted with Scottish sources, Chloe Phillips with images from Norfolk Record Office, and Mark Nicholls with advice on records of the privy council. We also thank the journal's reviewers for helpful suggestions.
References
1 STC numbers are given for certain seventeenth-century publications in order to avoid ambiguity. For modern studies of the 5 November thanksgivings and celebrations, see particularly Cressy, David, Bonfires & bells: national memory and the Protestant calendar in Elizabethan and Stuart England (London, 1989; Stroud, 2004), chs. 9–10Google Scholar; idem, ‘The fifth of November remembered’, in Roy Porter, ed., The myths of the English (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 68–90; Hutton, Ronald, The rise and fall of merry England: the ritual year, 1400–1700 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 182–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 212, 221–2, 252–7; idem, Stations of the sun: a history of the ritual year in Britain (Oxford, 1996), ch. 39; Sharpe, James, Remember, remember the fifth of November: Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot (London, 2005)Google Scholar; Brenda Buchanan et al., Gunpowder plots (2005); and James, Anne, Poets, players and preachers: remembering the Gunpowder plot in seventeenth-century England (Toronto, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Prayers and thankesgiuing to be vsed by all the kings maiesties louing subiects, for the happy deliuerance of his maiestie, the queene, prince, and states of parliament, from the most traiterous and bloody intended massacre by gunpowder, the 5 of Nouember 1605 (n.d.; STC 16494). All the surviving reprints of this form to 1640 were issued as separate publications. Strictly, the form was never, as is sometimes stated, part of or included in the prayer book. Although from 1662 the revised text was printed and bound with the BCP, it was not contained within the text of the prayer book as authorized by parliament in the Act of Uniformity. Instead, it was subsequently ‘annexed’ to the BCP by a royal warrant, together with the forms for the other royal anniversaries. Continued publication of all the anniversary forms with the BCP required the issue of a fresh warrant early in each new reign.
3 The first known appearances are as ‘Papists cons.’ in 1607: see The Book of Common Prayer (STC 16332), sig. A3r, and [Henry Alleyn], A double almanacke & prognostication…for this year…1607, sig. A8r.
4 In 1690, the form of prayer annexed to the BCP was revised to include commemoration of the ‘happy arrival’ of William of Orange at Torbay on 5 November 1688 ‘for the deliverance of our church and nation’.
5 E.g. Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. 203–6; McConville, Brendan, revisited, ‘Pope's day, “popular” culture reconsidered’, Explorations in Early American Culture, 4 (2000), pp. 258–80Google Scholar; Kevin Q. Doyle, ‘“Rage and fury which only hell could inspire”: the rhetoric and the ritual of Gunpowder treason in early America’ (Ph.D. thesis, Brandeis University, 2013); Records of Fort St George: diary and consultation book of 1678–1679 (Madras, 1911), p. 135; Sydney Free Press [New South Wales], 6 Nov. 1841; Natal Witness, 27 Nov. 1863.
6 See Tilley, H. T. and Walters, H. B., The church bells of Warwickshire (Birmingham, 1910), p. 90Google Scholar, and other volumes of the county ‘Church bells’ series.
7 E.g. Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. 141–2 (and 229 n. 2), 145; Hutton, Merry England, pp. 182–3; Sharpe, Remember, remember, pp. 79, 84, 89.
8 STC 9503, and 3 Jac. I, c. 1 in Statutes of the realm (12 vols., London, 1810–28), iv/2, pp. 1067–8. The act was passed by the House of Lords on 30 January 1606, and received royal assent on 27 May: Journals of the House of Lords (London, 1767– ) (LJ), ii, pp. 365, 445–6.
9 To assist ministers, the act appears in some cases to have been bound with (and after) the form of prayer (see 1620 and 1623 edns, STC 16496, 16496.5), before becoming integral to it in most printings from 1628 to 1640, placed between the title page and the text of the service: see e.g. STC 16497.1 (1628). The act was not republished after 1660, and the revised form of 1662 contained no reference to its terms; in consequence, reading the act during church services probably lapsed. But a new rubric added to the form from 1728 (for as yet unknown reasons) restated the statutory requirements to give notice of the anniversary and to read out the act of ‘the third year of King James the First’. This rubric was retained until 1859, though with, it appears, little and declining effect.
10 See National prayers: special worship since the Reformation, i: Special prayers, fasts and thanksgivings in the British Isles, 1533–1688, ed. Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, Stephen Taylor, and Philip Williamson with Lucy Bates (Boydell/Church of England Record Society, 20, Woodbridge, 2013), pp. xciv–xcv, c, ciii.
11 See Jenny Wormald's numerous articles and essays on the king, notably ‘James VI and I: two kings or one?’, History, 68 (1983), pp. 187–209.
12 Mears, Natalie and Williamson, Philip, ‘The “holy days” of Queen Elizabeth I’, History, 105 (2020), pp. 201–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which also notes (p. 209) that an episcopal synod in 1555–6 had ordered an anniversary commemoration of the Marian reconciliation with the papacy.
13 Undated entry in Journals of the Common Council of the Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives (LMA), COL/CC/01/01/28, fo. 4r. Reginald Sharpe, London and the kingdom (London, 3 vols., 1894–5), ii, pp. 14–15, dated this entry as 8 November, presumably because it is located between copies of documents dated 7 and 8 November. But the entries and documents are not in strict date order, and further evidence supports a dating of 5 November. [Edmund Howes], An abridgement or summarie of the English chronicle, by…John Stowe,…continued…vnto this present yeare (London, 1607), pp. 582–3, reports a ‘proclamation’ concerning the treason on the afternoon of the 5th, resulting that night in as ‘many bonefires in and around London, as the streetes could permit’. The letters of John Chamberlain, ed. Norman McClure (2 vols., Philadelphia, PA, 1939), i, p. 213, describes ‘great ringing and…great store of bonfires’ the same night. For bell ringing on this date, see also churchwardens’ accounts, St John the Baptist, Walbrook, LMA, P69/JNB/B/006/MS00577/001, fo. 22r; The account book of St Bartholomew in the City of London, 1596–1698, ed. Edwin Freshfield (London, 1895), p. 29; and McKenzie, Walcott, The history of the parish church of St Margaret's Westminster (London, 1847), p. 62Google Scholar.
14 Hoby to Edmondes, 19 Nov. 1605, in [Thomas Birch], The court and times of James the first (London, 2 vols., 1848), i, p. 40; Jupp, Edward, An historical account of the Worshipful Company of Carpenters in the City of London (London, 1877), p. 71Google Scholar (where ‘fformes’ refers to purchase of seats); and Sherwell, John, A descriptive and historical account of the Guild of Saddlers of the City of London (London, 1889), p. 71Google Scholar, for attendance of livery companies at St Paul's; Barlow, William, The sermon preached at Pavles Cross, the tenth day of Nouember being the Sunday after the discouerie of this late horrible treason (London, 1606)Google Scholar.
15 Episcopal registers vary considerably in character and content, and few of them record orders for special prayers and services: see the documents and commentaries in National prayers, i.
16 Records of the old archdeaconry of St Albans: a calendar of papers 1575 to 1637, ed. H. R. Wilton Hall (St Albans, 1908), p. 131 (a summary, misdating the order as 12 November), and National prayers, i, pp. 261–2 (incorrectly ascribing the order to Richard Bancroft, rather than Richard Vaughan).
17 National prayers, i, pp. xcv, cv, 191–2, 193, 216, 220–1, and for an earlier anniversary thanksgiving (marking the Gowrie conspiracy), Whitgift to Bancroft (then bishop of London), 14 July 1603, in Concilia Magnae Britanniae et Hiberniae, ed. David Wilkins (4 vols., London, 1737), iv, p. 370.
18 For rapid production of such forms and the methods of distribution, see Mears, Natalie, ‘Brought to book: purchases of special forms of prayer in English parishes, 1558–1640’, in Langham, Pete, ed., Negotiating the Jacobean printed book (Farnham, 2011), pp. 35–40Google Scholar; and National prayers, i, pp. xcix–civ.
19 E.g. St Dunstan-in-the-West (London), LMA, P69/DUN2/B/011/MS02968/001, fo. 514r; Account book of St Bartholomew, London, ed. Freshfield, p. 29; St Peter (St Albans), Hertfordshire Archives and Library Services, Hertford (HALS), D/P93/5/1, fo. 66r; Peacock, Edward, ‘Extracts from the churchwardens’ accounts of…Leverton, in the county of Lincoln’, Archaeologia, 41 (1868), p. 368Google Scholar; and Northill, Bedfordshire, in Cressy, Bonfires & bells, p. 145.
20 Historical Manuscripts Commission, Calendar of the manuscripts of…the marquess of Salisbury (HMC, Salisbury), xvii (London, 1938), pp. 485, 553.
21 For the accession days of Elizabeth and James, and for James's escape from the Gowrie conspiracy.
22 See National prayers, i, p. 261.
23 Bancroft also referred to the form of prayer for 5 August (Gowrie day) as already printed: this had been published in 1604. Additional evidence for early publication of the form of thanksgiving during late 1605 is that Barlow, Sermon preached at Pavles Cross, sig. E4r, reports its inclusion of a prayer of his own composition which he had recited at the end of his sermon on 10 November. Although copies of the Sermon are dated 1606, it was registered for publication on 11 December 1605: A transcript of the registers of the company of stationers of London, 1554–1640, ed. Edward Arber (3 vols., London, 1875–7), iii, p. 132.
24 James Rolfe (archdeacon's official), to ministers and churchwardens of St Albans archdeaconry, 10 Dec. 1605, HALS, archdeaconry of St Albans records (ASA), 5/4/189, p. 833. Mears, ‘Brought to book’, pp. 38–40, explains that distribution of forms of prayer depended partly on the ability and willingness of parishes to purchase copies. For those with available funds, having two copies allowed the parish clerk to lead the congregation in singing psalms and in responses to prayers.
25 The privy council registers 1602 to 1618 were destroyed in a fire in 1619 (Acts of the privy council of England, 1613–1614 (London, 1921), pp. v–vi) and thanksgivings were not noted in contemporary abstracts, in British Library, Add. MSS 11402. Nor do Bancroft's and Vaughan's episcopal registers provide evidence.
26 [Howes], English chronicle, p. 582, and see n. 13 above.
27 Barlow, Sermon preached at Pavles Cross, sig. A4r.
28 National prayers, i, p. 233; Records of the parliaments of Scotland to 1707, www.rps.ac.uk, 1600/11/12, and see National prayers since the Reformation, iv: Anniversary commemorations with appendices and indices, 1533–2016, ed. Philip Williamson, Natalie Mears, Alasdair Raffe, and Stephen Taylor (Boydell/Church of England Record Society, Woodbridge, forthcoming).
29 Lake to Salisbury, 27 Nov. 1605, Hatfield House Archives, Hertfordshire (HH), CP 113/48.
30 For this ancient duty of the bishop of London (which is still current), see also Whitgift to Bancroft, 14 July 1603, in Concilia Magnae, ed. Wilkins, iv, p. 370.
31 HALS, ASA, 5/4/189, pp. 831–3; and Records of the old archdeaconry of St Albans, ed. Wilton Hall, pp. 131–3. After reciting the archbishop's letter, Vaughan ordered that instructions be sent to churches to ensure its ‘execution in every particular poynte’, the more so because the London diocese, as the nearest to the intended explosion, should set an example to the more remote dioceses.
32 ‘Collectanea sive Registrum Vagum continenta fragmenta consuta tangentis episcopale negotium tempore reverend in Christo patria, domini Johannis Jegon, Episcopi Norwicensis, collecta par Anthonium Harison, notorium publicum, clericum’, Norwich diocesan archives, Norfolk Record Office, DN/HAR 1, fos. 141r–142r.
33 The Registrum vagum of Anthony Harison, ed. Thomas Barton (2 vols., Norfolk Record Society, 32–3, Norwich, 1963–4), ii, pp. 215–17. Barton (p. 17) describes the ‘Registrum’ as consisting largely of copies made by Harison, but Vaughan's letter is evidently the original document (even though Barton did not report it as being among the ‘one or two original letters’ in the collection). This can be established by how the paper was folded, and by the presence of four different hands: the text by a secretary, Vaughan's signature, and, on the outside, not a single endorsement as Barton stated (p. 217), but two elements: the address written by another secretary, and Jegon's record of receipt and his instructions (misdated as ‘17 of November’, i.e. December).
34 Tanner MSS 75/44. This copy was probably obtained by Thomas Tanner during his period as chancellor and archdeacon of Norwich, 1701–7. That it is a copy of the Registrum text seems clear from its shared features (recorded in the notes for Document B), notably its omission of a phrase that is included in all the other texts. The catalogue of the MSS describes Vaughan's letter as containing a ‘circular letter’ from Bancroft, without reference to the king's instructions: Catalogi codicum manuscriptorum bibliothecae Bodleianae pars quarta codices viri admodum reverendi Thomae Tanneri, ed. Alfred Hackman (Oxford, 1860), col. 388.
35 Chaderton episcopal register, Reg. 30, fos. 205v–207r. Vaughan's letters to bishops ended differently to the letter sent to Archdeacon Bill, in exhorting them to implement the king's order rapidly, and explaining why they should do so (see below).
36 See esp. Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. xii–xiii, 124–5, 128, 142–3, 145, 149–52; Walsham, Alexandra, Providence in early modern England (Oxford, 1999), pp. 245–66Google Scholar, 288; James, Poets, players, pp. 18–19, 28, 69–70 and passim.
37 McCullough, Peter, Sermons at court: politics and religion in Elizabethan and Jacobean preaching (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 117–22Google Scholar; Morrissey, Mary, ‘Presenting James VI and I to the public: preaching on political anniversaries at Paul's Cross’, in Houlbrooke, Ralph, ed., James VI and I (Aldershot, 2006), pp. 109, 115–21Google Scholar, and idem, Politics and the Paul's Cross sermons, 1558–1642 (Oxford, 2011), pp. 145–7; James, Poets, players, pp. 28, 29, 33–6, 47–8, 53–4.
38 Privy council to Whitgift, 12 July 1603, in Concilia Magnae, ed. Wilkins, iv, pp. 370–1.
39 Accession day had been described as a ‘holiday’ only in the sense of a ‘holy day’, meaning a day for special church services, not a day without work, although the services were commonly accompanied by civic and popular festivities in the evenings: see Mears and Williamson, ‘The “holy days” of Queen Elizabeth’, pp. 220–1.
40 His maiesties speach in this last session of parliament (1605), reprinted in King James VI and I: political writings, ed. Johann P. Sommerville (Cambridge, 1994), p. 157, and see James, Poets, players, p. 59.
41 Fincham, Kenneth and Lake, Peter, ‘The ecclesiastical policy of King James I’, Journal of British Studies, 24 (1985), pp. 182–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Patterson, W. B., King James VI and I and the reunion of Christendom (Cambridge, 1997)Google Scholar.
42 Stuart royal proclamations, ed. James Larkin and Paul Hughes (2 vols., Oxford, 1973–83), i, pp. 124–6; King James: political writings, ed. Sommerville, pp. 152–3; and see e.g. Nicholls, Mark, Investigating Gunpowder plot (Manchester, 1991), pp. 25, 47–8Google Scholar, 62; Ferrell, Lori Anne, Government by polemic: James I, the king's preachers, and the rhetoric of conformity, 1603–1625 (Stanford, CA, 1998), pp. 67–9Google Scholar; Okines, A. W. R. E., ‘Why was there so little government reaction to Gunpowder plot?’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 55 (2004), pp. 275–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morrissey, Politics and the Paul's Cross sermons, p. 149.
43 Privy council to Whitgift, 12 July 1603, in Concilia Magnae, ed. Wilkins, iv, p. 370.
44 Order of 30 Oct. 1628, reciting a letter from Charles I, 10 Oct. 1628, in The register of the privy council of Scotland, 2nd ser., ed. D. Masson and P. Hume Brown (8 vols., Edinburgh, 1899–1908), ii, pp. 473–4.
45 The register of the privy council of Scotland, 1st ser., ed. John H. Burton et al. (14 vols., Edinburgh, 1877–98), vi, p. iv.
46 John Spottiswoode, The history of the Church of Scotland, ed. Michael Russell and Mark Napier (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1847–51), iii, p. 174; and see David Calderwood, The history of the Kirk of Scotland [1640s], ed. Thomas Thomson and David Laing (6 vols., Edinburgh, 1842–9), vi, p. 367.
47 Extracts from the records of the burgh of Edinburgh, 1604–1626, ed. Marguerite Wood (Edinburgh, 1931), p. 18 (12 Nov. 1605); Joseph Irving, The history of Dumbartonshire (Dumbarton, 1860), p. 172 (12 Nov.); Henderson, Ebenezer, Annals of Dunfermline (Glasgow, 1879)Google Scholar, p. 263 (13 Nov.); presbytery of Paisley minutes, 14 Nov. 1605, National Records of Scotland, CH2/291/1/124; Extracts from the council register of the burgh of Aberdeen, ed. John Stuart (2 vols., Aberdeen, 1844–8), ii, pp. 278–9 (15 Nov.).
48 E.g. Edinburgh records, 1604–1626, ed. Wood, pp. 46, 332, 394 (1608, 1619, 1625); Pitcairn, Robert, Criminal trials in Scotland (3 vols., Edinburgh, 1833)Google Scholar, ii, p. 243 (Perth burgh council in 1608, on the day being ‘perpetualie kepit heireftir’, as the king desired); The records of Elgin, ed. William Cramond (2 vols., Aberdeen, 1903–8), ii, pp. 152, 161, 167 (1617, 1619, 1622); and see Todd, Margo, The culture of Protestantism in early modern Scotland (New Haven, CT, 2002), pp. 225, 344Google Scholar.
49 ‘A Scottish liturgy of the reign of James VI’, ed. Gordon Donaldson, in Miscellany of the Scottish History Society, 10 (Edinburgh, 1965), p. 102.
50 The life and death of…William Cowper, bishop of Galloway (1619), sigs. C4r–D2r; Lindsay, David, A true narration of all the passages of the proceedings in the general assembly…holden at Perth (London, 1621)Google Scholar, pp. 24, 30–1, 69, 89.
51 The booke of common prayer…for the use of the Church of Scotland (Edinburgh, [1637]), sig. b7r.
52 Journals of the House of Commons of Ireland (19 vols., Dublin, 1796–1800), i, pp. 20, 25; Carte, Thomas, An history of the life of James, duke of Ormonde (3 vols., London, 1735–6)Google Scholar, i, p. 22; and see McConnel, James, ‘Remembering the 1605 gunpowder plot in Ireland, 1605–1920’, Journal of British Studies, 50 (2011), p. 867CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
53 For the date of the ‘delivery’ from the gunpowder treason as a ceremonial day, see Calendar of state papers relating to Ireland, 1615–1625 (London, 1880), p. 246.
54 STC 16358, sig. A7r, and STC 16407, sig. A7r.
55 The vestry records of the parish of St John the evangelist, Dublin, 1595–1658, ed. Raymond Gillespie (Dublin, 2002), p. 38.
56 For details, see National prayers, iv.
57 McCullough, Sermons at court, p. 117. Anthony Rudd's comment on Tuesday thanksgivings in June 1603 which prompted this question evidently referred to court sermons and possibly to the king's earlier orders for Scotland (see below), although he was conceivably aware of the king's desires for England.
58 James's order was issued with the concurrence of the commission of the general assembly of the church: Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, vi, p. 76.
59 McMillan, William, The worship of the Scottish reformed church, 1550–1638 (Dunfermline, 1931), pp. 146–8Google Scholar; Todd, Culture of Protestantism, p. 30.
60 Usher, Roland, The reconstruction of the English church (2 vols., London, 1910), ii, p. 347Google Scholar. Midweek sermons were delivered in London and other English town parishes through lay-funded lectureships, but in sometimes uneasy relationships with the ecclesiastical authorities: Owen, H. Gareth, ‘Lecturers and lectureships in Tudor London’, Quarterly Review, 162 (1961), pp. 63–76Google Scholar.
61 For the difficulties of presentation, see Morrissey, ‘Presenting James’, pp. 115–18; idem, Politics and the Paul's Cross Sermons, pp. 145–7; James, Poets, players, pp. 52–4.
62 King James: political writings, ed. Sommerville, p. 157.
63 Lake to Salisbury, 27 Nov. 1605, HH, CP113/48 (also in HMC, Salisbury, xvii, p. 516).
64 Ibid. Sometimes even dates of special fast days were altered to avoid market days: for cases in 1625, see National prayers, i, p. 310.
65 See canon 15 in the church canons, given royal assent on 6 Sept. 1604, in The Anglican canons, 1529–1947, ed. Gerald Bray (Church of England Record Society, 6, Woodbridge, 1998), pp. 284–5.
66 Vaughan to Chaderton, 30 Nov. 1605, Chaderton episcopal register, Reg. 30, fo. 207r, and similarly to Jegon, Tanner MSS 75/40, fo. 223r, and Registrum vagum, ed. Barton, ii, p. 217.
67 Churchwardens’ accounts for St Peter, St Albans, Apr. 1605–Apr. 1606, HALS, D/P93/5/1, fo. 67r.
68 Articles to be enquired of within the archdeaconrie of Norwich, by the church-wardens (London, 1606), sigs. A3r–A3v. The archdeacon was Bishop Jegon's brother, Thomas. The implication, which exceeded the instructions of the king and archbishop, was that the form of prayer issued by the order of 8 November 1605 (Document A) was to continue in regular use, with parts read out in an additional weekly service. However, while other printed archdeacons’ articles for this period (e.g. for Nottingham, Colchester, Worcester) contained the standard enquiry about use of the litany on Wednesdays and Fridays, no mention was made of observances on Tuesdays.
69 Heylyn, Peter, Cyprianus anglicus (London, 1668), p. 333Google Scholar; Wood, Anthony, The history and antiquities of the University of Oxford [1660s], ed. Gutch, John (3 vols., Oxford, 1792–6), ii, pp. 283–4Google Scholar. Both were unaware of Bancroft's order of November 1605, and ascribed the Tuesday sermons to the example of the court sermons for the Gowrie episode.
70 E.g. Rawlinson, John, The Romish Juda, a sermon preached…the Fifth of Nouember 1610 (London, 1611), p. 25Google Scholar; Lancelot Andrewes, 1618, in McCullough, Sermons at court, p. 118.
71 The chief source for parish arrangements, the accounts of churchwardens, cannot help as they do not record activities which were part of a minister's normal duties. Kenneth Fincham's impression from his examination of many diocesan act books is that references to Tuesday observances are at best scarce.
72 See Visitation articles and injunctions of the early Stuart church, ed. Kenneth Fincham (2 vols., London, 1994–8).
73 Act of 6 Nov. 1602, in Calderwood, History of the Kirk of Scotland, vi, pp. 184–5.
74 McMillan, Worship of the Scottish reformed church, pp. 299–305.
75 The form of prayer for this occasion, first published in 1604, was a substantial revision of the form that had been used for Elizabeth's accession day. Lack of council registers for this period and patchy records in episcopal registers make it impossible to establish who ordered the composition and use of this new form.
76 Morrissey, ‘Presenting James’, pp. 108–10; James, Poets, players, pp. 30–6; and see National prayers, i, especially the English precedents, following plots against Elizabeth from 1585 to 1601, pp. 153–6, 167–72, 206–12, 226–30, 234–8.
77 See the 1604 edition of the BCP, STC 16327, sig. B5r, and canon 55 in The Anglican canons, 1529 –1947, ed. Bray, pp. 342–3.
78 MacDonald, Alan, The Jacobean Kirk, 1567–1625 (Aldershot, 1995), ch. 4Google Scholar.
79 For the nervousness of these months and efforts to counteract it, see Richards, Judith, ‘The English accession of James VI: “national” identity, gender and the personal monarchy of England’, English Historical Review, 117 (2002), pp. 514–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
80 Calendar of state papers Venetian, 1603–1607 (London, 1900), p. 258; and see Galloway, Bruce, The union of England and Scotland, 1603–1608 (Edinburgh, 1986)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 4 and pp. 79–81; and Wormald, Jenny, ‘James VI, James I and the identity of Britain’, in Bradshaw, Brendan and Morrill, John, eds., The British problem, c. 1534–1707 (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 148–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81 As is also suggested in James, Poets, players, pp. 14–15, 25, 70.
82 LJ, ii, pp. 362–3 (25, 28 Jan. 1606).
83 Newton, Diana, The making of the Jacobean regime: James VI and I and the government of England, 1603–1605 (Woodbridge, 2005), ch. 4Google Scholar; Cope, Esher S., The life of a public man: Edward, first baron Montagu of Boughton, 1562–1644 (Philadelphia, PA, 1981), pp. 40–6Google Scholar.
84 Journals of the House of Commons (London, 1803– ) (CJ), i, p. 258; The parliamentary diary of Robert Bowyer, 1606–1607, ed. David Harris Willson (Minneapolis, MN, 1931), p. 4; King James: political writings, ed. Sommerville, p. 148.
85 Ten of the twenty members of the committee to consider Montagu's draft (listed in CJ, i, p. 258) were obvious puritans: see their biographies in The history of parliament: the House of Commons, 1604–1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John Ferris (6 vols., Cambridge, 2010), iii; and for Hastings, see also Newton, Making of the Jacobean regime, pp. 80–97.
86 CJ, i, pp. 257–8.
87 Act for a publique thankesgiuing, p. 2.
88 Hoby to Edwardes, 10 Feb. 1606, in [Birch], Court and times of James the first, i, p. 46; CJ, i, p. 258; Parliamentary diary of Bowyer, ed. Willson, p. 4.
89 Act for a publique thankesgiuing, pp. 2–3.
90 Parliamentary diary of Bowyer, ed. Willson, p. 8; Cope, Life of a public man, p. 46.
91 CJ, i, pp. 258, 259, 260; Parliamentary diary of Bowyer, ed. Willson, pp. 4–5, 7, 8; Cope, Life of a public man, pp. 45–6. The bill was sent on 25 January to the House of Lords, which gave it formal readings (without changes) on the 28th and 30th: LJ, ii, pp. 363, 364, 365.
92 ‘[T]he most great, learned and Religious King that euer raigned…, enriched with a most hopefull and plentiful Progenie, proceeding out of his Royal loynes, promising continuance of [the kingdom's] happiness and [its religious] profession to all posteritie’: Act for a publique thankesgiuing, pp. 1–2.
93 This is clear from the disappearance of the thanksgiving from English churchwardens’ accounts and episcopal visitation enquiries, and from Scottish burgh and church records. No orders for its discontinuance seem to have been issued; it was evidently regarded as personal to James, not as a celebration of the Stuart dynasty.
94 In Scotland, the Gowrie anniversary had been established by an act of parliament, but Charles I issued no Scottish order for its continuance; in contrast, although Gunpowder treason day had not been ordered by the Scottish parliament, he did in 1628 order its continuance. The difference may have been a strong awareness of the English act at the court in London, connected with renewed efforts to achieve greater consistency between the English and Scottish churches.
95 For divergent interpretations of the anniversary yet shared commitment to its observance from 1618 to the 1660s, see Cressy, Bonfires & bells, pp. 150–70, 173–4.
96 This phrase is included in the letter to Archdeacon Bill in HALS (initially omitted, but added, by the same hand, above the line), and in the copy in the Chaderton register. The copy in the Tanner MSS follows the Registrum text in not having the phrase.
97 Brackets also given in the Tanner copy (though beginning at ‘beinge’), but not in the HALS letter or Chaderton copy.
98 The copy in the Tanner MSS has ‘dyd beare’; the Chaderton copy omits ‘did’ and has ‘bare’.
99 The Tanner copy omits ‘the’.
100 The Tanner copy omits ‘the’.
101 The Chaderton copy omits ‘bloudie’.
102 Registrum vagum, ed. Barton, i, p. 215, misread ‘two’ as ‘sixe’.
103 The Chaderton copy has the word ‘day’ written and crossed out here.
104 The HALS text has ‘prayer’.
105 A new paragraph begins here in this text and in the Tanner copy, but not in the HALS letter or Chaderton copy.
106 Registrum vagum, ed. Barton, i, p. 216, omitted ‘this’ in his transcription.
107 The Chaderton text has ‘vnto’.
108 The Chaderton text omits ‘the’.
109 This word was initially omitted by the clerk, and then squeezed in.
110 The HALS letter and Chaderton copy have ‘Lambeth’.