Since the sixteenth century, the governments and established churches of the British Isles have summoned the nation to special acts of public worship during periods of anxiety and crisis, at times of celebration, or for annual commemoration and remembrance. These special prayers, special days of worship and anniversary commemorations were national events, reaching into every parish in England and Wales, in Scotland, and in Ireland. They had considerable religious, ecclesiastical, political, ideological, moral and social significance, and they produced important texts: proclamations, council orders, addresses and - in England and Wales, and in Ireland - prayers or complete liturgies which for specified periods supplemented or replaced the services in the Book of Common Prayer. Many of these acts of special worship and most of the texts have escaped historical notice. National Prayers. Special Worship since the Reformation, in three volumes, provides the edited texts, commentaries and source notes for each of the nearly nine hundred occasions of special worship, and for each of the annual commemorations.
The second volume, General Fasts, Thanksgivings and Special Prayers in the British Isles 1689-1870, contains the texts and commentaries for the numerous and frequent special prayers, fast days and thanksgivings during the wars which consolidated the 1688 revolution, through the long imperial wars of the eighteenth century, and the wars against revolutionary and Napoleonic France, as well as prayers and thanksgivings associated with Jacobite risings, epidemics, social unrest, and episodes in the lives of the kings and queens.
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