and devotion as appertaineth, for as much as heretofore the people partly for lack of good instruction and calling, partly for that they understood no part of such prayers and suffrages as were used to be said and sung, have used to come very slackly to the processions, where the same have been commanded heretofore, we have set forth certain godly prayers and suffrages in our native English tongue, which we send you herewith; signifying unto you that, for the especial trust and confidence we have of your godly mind and earnest desire to the setting forward of the glory of God and the true worshipping of his most holy name, within that province committed by us unto you, we have sent unto you these suffrages, not to be for a month or two observed and after slenderly considered, as our other injunctions have, to our no little marvel, been used; but to the intent, as well the same as other our injunctions, may earnestly be set forth by preaching, good exhortation, and otherwise, to the people, in such sort as they, feeling the godly taste thereof, may godly and joyously, with thanks, embrace the same as appertaineth.'[1]
In the year following a collection of English prayers was added to the Litany, a service for morning and evening, and for the burial of the dead;[2] and the King, in a general proclamation, directed that they should be used in all churches and chapels in the place of the Breviary. It was the duty of the sovereign, he
- ↑ Henry VIII. to the Archbishop of Canterbury: Wilkins's Concilia, vol. iii. p. 869.
- ↑ See Primers put forth in the Reign of Henry VIII. Oxford. 1834.
