O ALMIGHTY God, who art a strong tower of defence unto thy servants against the face of their enemies; We yield thee praise and thanksgiving, for the wonderful deliverance of these Kingdoms from THE GREAT REBELLION and all the Miseries and Oppressions consequent thereupon, under which they had so long groaned. We acknowledge it thy goodness, that we were not utterly delivered over as a prey unto them; Beseeching thee still to continue such thy Mercies towards us; that all the World may know, That thou art our Saviour and Mighty Deliverer, through Iesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
AN ADMISSION: I don’t expect readers to incorporate this week’s prayer in its entirety into their daily devotions. Nor is it a feature of mine. I have chosen it, though, as a reminder of how prayer and politics have always been enmeshed; also as an example of a neglected aspect of Anglican establishment: that for centuries the State has expected the Church to uphold it in prayer.
The prayer was composed for the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, and appeared near the end, after a form of prayer with thanksgiving for the deliverance of King James I “from the most traitorous and bloody-intended Massacre by Gunpowder”; and a form of prayer with fasting to implore the mercy of God on the anniversary of “the martyrdom of the Blessed King Charles the First”.
It stands as the collect in “A FORM of PRAYER with THANKSGIVING to Almighty God, For having put an end to the great Rebellion, by the Restitution of the King and Royal Family, and the Restoration of the Government after many Years interruption; which unspeakable Mercies were wonderfully completed upon the Twenty-ninth of May, in the Year 1660.”
The introductory rubric continues: “And in Memory thereof, that Day in every Year is, by Act of Parliament, appointed to be for ever kept holy.”
Like Charles II, I was born on 29 May, and I remember during my childhood that adults would say “Oh, Oak Apple Day.” Like schoolchildren at that time — but probably not now? — I knew early the story of Charles hiding in an oak tree to evade the Roundhead search parties, and wrongly assumed that it was this event that took place on 29 May rather than the restoration of the monarchy.
If the Restoration had little about it to capture a young mind, it none the less lodged in the Church’s liturgical memory. I found this collect during an idle hour in a church vestry, where I turned it up in an leather-bound lectern edition of the Prayer Book, dated 1855, i.e. nearly 200 years after the end of the English Civil War. A modern equivalent would be if we held an annual service celebrating the defeat of Napoleon.
On the other hand, there was a contemporary reason to remind the early Victorians of the Miseries and Oppressions of the Civil War. Only seven years earlier, Europe had been riven by popular uprisings. England had escaped, but insurrection was feared, not least from among the Irish Catholic immigrants.
And this is the bigger picture: enemies exist in every age, and, although decades of domestic peace have seen them drop quietly from our corporate prayers, the proposed increases in defence spending bring home to us — literally — the existence of people who wish this country harm. The nature of modern enmity is such that this harm would most probably come in the form of economic interference, cyber attacks, and damage to the country’s infrastructure — all much closer to home than battles on a foreign field. At such a time, therefore, it is reassuring to remember past rescues, and to give God thanks for them.
The starting point for the composition of this thanksgiving was, no doubt, the one included in the 1604 Prayer Book, for “peace and victorie”, which can still be found in the 1662 Book, and on the C of E website, and might be applied to any of the perils of the recent past:
For Peace and Deliverance from our Enemies.
O Almighty God, who art a strong tower of defence unto thy servants against the face of their enemies: We yield thee praise and thanksgiving for our deliverance from those great and apparent dangers wherewith we were compassed: We acknowledge it thy goodness that we were not delivered over as a prey unto them; beseeching thee still to continue such thy mercies towards us, that all the world may know that thou art our Saviour and mighty Deliverer; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Paul Handley was Editor of the Church Times from 1995 to 2024.
