ABSTRACT
Between the death of Oliver Cromwell and the Act of Uniformity of 1662, government and worship in the Church of England were in flux. Episcopacy was restored, but worship was still officially conducted according to the Westminster Directory for Public Worship of 1644, and the Book of Common Prayer was technically illegal. In 1660 many churches immediately reverted to the Prayer Book, but even with the rescinding of the legislation of the Interregnum, the ‘lawful’ forms of worship were still far from being settled. I.M. Green noted that at the proclamations of Charles II as king, in only one place outside London – Lowestoft – do we hear of the Book of Common Prayer being used in a thanksgiving service.1 In the 1660 Declaration of Breda, Charles II had promised liberty to those of tender consciences, and a number of the Presbyterian-minded clergy presented him with an address in which they asked him not to restore the Book of Common Prayer without modification of some of its text, particularly, the ceremonies which had been disputed from the time of Elizabeth. In his reply, His Majesty’s Declaration to all his living subjects of his kingdom of England and dominion of Wales, concerning ecclesiastical affairs (25 October 1660), also known as the Worcester House Declaration, Charles stated that the Book of Common Prayer was ‘the best we have seen’. However, he nevertheless undertook to appoint an equal number of divines from the Presbyterian and Episcopal parties to review the liturgy, and ‘to make such Alterations as shall be thought most necessary; and some additional Forms … and that it be left to the Minister’s Choice, to use one or other at his Discretion’. Barry Till notes,
This offer of alternative liturgies, if it had ever been implemented, would have been a significant contribution to comprehension. The provision of alternative liturgy, with the power of the minister to choose, had been the [Presbyterian] ministers’ suggestion.2
