George Garden’s Prayer Book
Revd George Garden’s Prayer Book
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PROVENANCE
Revd George Garden was the incumbent in Stonehaven from 1793 until 1834. He was involved in setting up the Scotch Chapel in Cameron Street, and indeed bought the land for it.
Since he was setting up a new chapel, he needed a Prayer Book with which to conduct services, and so he bought this copy of the authorised 1662 Book of Common Prayer.
Revd Garden signed the flyleaf, showing that the minister had a duty to provide the items needed for worship.
One of the characteristics of Episcopalian tradition is the use of set prayers, approved by the Bishops (rather than the free format preferred by the Presbyterians).
This Prayer Book started out as a copy of the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer, and Revd Garden would have used most of the services set out in it, such as Morning Prayer (Matins) and Evensong.
HISTORY of this VOLUME
The pages of those services are very well worn, and falling apart, and needing a later repair which, by referring to Queen Victoria, must have been done after 1837.
A closer look at the ornate title page, shows that it too has frayed and has been repaired.
The date shown on this old page looks like 1707, which would have the date of the original engraving.
But on the page in the Book of Common Prayer relating to the prayers at the end of Evensong, the original printed text shows:
The Princess Sophia mentioned is:
Sophia of Hanover (born Sophia of the Palatinate; 14 October 1630 – 8 June 1714) was the Electress of Hanover from 1692 to 1698. As a granddaughter of James VI and I, she became heir presumptive to the crowns of the Kingdom of England and the Kingdom of Ireland under the Act of Settlement 1701. After the Acts of Union 1707, she became heir presumptive to the unified throne of the Kingdom of Great Britain. She died less than two months before she would have become queen succeeding her first cousin once removed, Queen Anne, and her claim to the throne passed on to her eldest son, George Louis, Elector of Hanover, who ascended as George I on 1 August 1714.
This dates the book as between 1707 and 1714.
NOTABLE CONTENTS
Interestingly, at the back of this edition of the original Book of Common Prayer are a series of special ‘Forms of Prayer’, to be used:
• At sea, and to be used in Her Majesty’s Navy every day. In addition, this section has the prayers to be used for burial at sea.
• On November 5th ‘for the happy deliverance of King James I from the most traitorous and bloody intended massacre by gunpowder
• With fasting on 13th January, being the day of martyrdom of the Blessed King Charles I.
• On the 8th May with thanksgiving, on the day on which Her Majesty (Queen Anne) began her happy reign.
In those days, following the Reformist tradition, Communion was only celebrated on major feast days (e.g. Easter, Christmas, Whitsun). The priests and congregation of Scotch Chapel will also have favoured the liturgy in the Scottish Prayer Books (sometimes called the ‘wee bookies’, and which were not authorised in the same way as the 1662 Prayer Book).
So, the Scottish Eucharistic liturgy was added (on a slightly smaller page size and much more elaborate two-colour printing), and bound in when the book was repaired much later.
THE SCOTTISH LITURGY
This Scottish section of the book is just the Scottish Communion Liturgy and contains, in the beautifully inscribed Prayer of Consecration, the section entitled “Invocation” which was to become the centre of controversy. Nothing like this appears in the English 1662 Communion service.
The prayer invokes the Holy Spirit to make the bread and wine ‘become the Body and Blood of Thy dearly beloved Son’. This controversy came to a head in the mid 1800s, with Bishop Penrose (of Brechin) being arraigned before the Episcopal Synod leading to his censure and admonition.
So, this book was in the main originally printed between 1710 and 1714, and acquired by Revd George Garden in 1808.
He probably arranged for the Scottish Liturgy (clearly from a different printer) to be inserted, and the book was eventually rebound. It was then used regularly in worship at least until the 1860s, possibly much later.
INTRODUCTORY PAGES
These show that this Prayer Book was acquired by Revd George Garden (whilst at the non-juring Episcopal Chapel) in 1808. It must have part of the general movement to accept ‘English services and communion with the Church of England. It was almost certainly printed much earlier, and so possibly bought second-hand.
New Opening PagesMORNING and EVENING PRAYER
When this book was introduced, Communion Services were held only infrequently, so Morning and Evening Prayer (Matins and Evensong) were the main staple. It is, of course, one of a priests’s priestly obligtions is to say Mortning and Evening Prayer every day.
M and E PrayerSCOTTISH COMMUNION SERVICE
Clearly a separate publication, probably printed around 1840, and then bound into the Prayer Book to make one volume in about 1850. This version and its rebinding looks very similar to that of the 1716 Prayer Book also displayed in this Exhibition.
New CommunionKING’S PRAYERS
Given the Jacobite antipathy to anything to do with the Hanoverian Kings of England, sympathies must have moved on for this book even to be allowed into the Episcopal Chapel.
New Kings PrayersSPECIAL PRAYERS
By the time this book was received in Stonehaven, most of these ‘Special Prayers’ would have been outdated, and were probably never used, but this was the book approved by law, and so could not be changed.
New Communion