The present volume comprises two Litanies, the English Prayer Book of 1559, the Godly Prayers, the Ordinal of 1559, the Latin Prayer Book of 1560, the New Calendar of 1561, and many Occasional Forms of Prayer set forth, chiefly by public authority, in the latter portion of the sixteenth century.
1. The peculiarity of the first Litany is its having Elizabeth's name, as queen, conjointly with the entreaty for deliverance ' from the tyranny of the bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities.' See pp. 4, 12, 70. It was apparently an unauthorised publication of the Protestants, solicitous, after the death of Mary, to recover (if possible) their lost ground. For the petition ' Pitifully behold the dolour of our hart,' and the collects which arc appended, prove that the Litany was not taken, as on any other supposition it undoubtedly would have been taken, from either of Edward s Prayer Books; but, most probably, with duo omissions, from his Primer of 1547, or from Henry's Primer of 1545. The following passage out of the Proclamation, prefixed in the king's name to the Order of the Communion, shews a similar desire of anticipating public measures respecting religion to have existed in Edward's time: - 'Whiche thing wee (by the help of God) mooste ernestly entende to bryng to effeete: Willyng all our louing subiectes in the meanetyme, to stay and quyet them selfes wyth this our direction, as men content to followe aucthoritic (accordyng to the bounden duety of subiectes) and not enterprisyng to roune afore, and so by their rashenes become the greatest hynderers of such thynges, as they more arrogantly then godly wolde seme (by their awne privat auethoritie) mooste hotly to set forwarde.'
