bishops prevailed herein against him," and again, "that the Scottish bishops (some of them) did often say to me, that the people would be better satisfied to have a Liturgy composed by their own bishops (as this was) than to have the Service - Book of England put upon them";2 he not only denies all knowledge of an alleged paper under the Archbishop of S. Andrews' own hand, and that of nine other Scottish bishops, urging that "somewhat might be abated of the English ceremonies, as the cross in baptism, the ring in marriage, and some other things," and says that, on the contrary, "when a deliberation was held whether it were better to keep close to the English Liturgy, or venture upon some additions, some of your Scottish bishops were very earnest to have some additions," giving "this for their reason, because if they did not then make that book as perfect as they could, they should never be able to get it perfected after"; but he mentions also several particulars—and these the most important of all the variations made as due to Scottish bishops. Among these Laud includes the interesting re-translations in the Athanasian Creed, the fine selection of sentences at the Offertory, the change in the order of the prayers in the Communion Office,5 the marginal rubrics directing the manual acts in the Prayer of Consecration, and the dropping of the second sentence at the delivery of the elements to the com2 Ibid., p. 342.

1 Laud, Works, iii. p. 356.

Ibid., pp. 337, 343.

4

4 See Laud's letter to the Bishop of Dunblane of Ap. 20th, 1636, in Prynne, Hidden Works,' ii. p. 152. (It is printed in full in Appendix to Introduction.)

5 Besides the details in the above letter, Laud tells us that "both they [the Scottish bishops] and we were of opinion that of the two this order came nearest to the Primitive Church

municants1-in short, everything which most distinguishes this Liturgy from the other Anglican Books of Common Prayer. All these features were of Scottish provenance; so that Dr Sprott was perfectly right in saying that the Book ought to be called "The Scottish Prayer-Book of 1637,' and not, as too commonly, Laud's Liturgy.'2 Certainly the great English Primate had a potent hand in it. Yet it was by way only of preliminary suggestion, and revision afterwards, not of actual composition. "The Scottish bishops were commanded," he says, by his Majesty to let me see from time to time what they did in the Service-Book ":3 he considered every proposal which they made, rejecting some, approving the final result, deeming the Book better in several respects than the English one-"though that," he adds, "I thank God, is well," and being heartily "sorry when his hopes of seeing it set up in Scotland failed-and that nation will one day," he goes on, "have more cause to be sorry for it than I."

On one point all concerned seem to have been from the first agreed Scottish prelates, English ('Works,' iii. 344). The cautious expression "of the two" evinces, perhaps, a knowledge of the strong consensus of the Ancient Liturgies in favour of a third order in which these prayers might be placed, an order which so commended itself to the learned Bishop Rattray that it was adopted in the Scottish (Episcopal) Communion Office of 1764.-See Bp. Dowden, 'Annotated Scottish Communion Office,' p. 38.

1 Laud, iii. p. 344.

2 In a speech at the annual meeting of the Church Service Society, 1903.

3 Laud, iii. p. 337. With the Archbishop were joined in the duty of revising the whole book Dr Juxon, Bishop of London, and Dr Wren, Bishop of Norwich. (Grub, 'Ecclesiastical History,' iii. 377.) Bishop Wren lived to take part in the revision of the English Prayer-Book under Charles II.

prelates, and, not least, the King. All the passages of Holy Scripture incorporated in the Service-Book, whether Sentences, Canticles, Psalms, Epistles, or Gospels, as well as the whole Psalter, were to be taken from that Translation of the Bible set forth in 1611 by authority of the late King James. There were other reasons, besides the excellence of that Version, which helped to recommend it. It could not but be more agreeable than any purely English Version to the Scots, who boasted that the first suggestion of it had been made in the General Assembly of their Church at Burntisland (1601) prior to the Union of the Crowns, and that the work appeared under the authority of their native-born prince; while to Charles himself, it at once harmonised with his general policy and gratified his filial affection. Still the fact remains that the compilers of the Scottish Liturgy of 1637 were among the earliest to recognise the incomparable merits of the Authorised Version.1

Other alterations, running through the whole Book, are the substitution of "Presbyter " for "Priest,” and the exclusion, from such services as the Church of Scotland used (she did not observe the Saints' Days), of Lessons or Sentences from the Apocrypha.

The Scottish bishops who took the chief part, with Laud, in the preparation of this Liturgy, were John Maxwell,2 Bishop of Ross, and James Wedderburn, Bishop of Dunblane. The former, of the family of Cavens in Nithsdale, graduated at S. Andrews in 1611. Presented in 1615 to the parish of Mortlach, he removed in 1622 to Edinburgh, and

1 Calderwood, History of the Kirk, vi. 124. The first Scottish edition of the Authorised Version appeared in 1633, and was printed by Young, the printer of this Liturgy.

2 Dictionary of National Biography.

soon distinguished himself as an advocate of liturgical improvement in the services of the Church of Scotland. By command of King Charles I. he waited on Laud (1629) to explain the views of the Scottish hierarchy in reference to the new Prayer - Book which had been for some time in contemplation, and urged, in opposition both to Charles and to Laud (who favoured bringing in the English Prayer-Book as it stood) that the Scottish prelates believed there would be less opposition to a Service-Book framed in Scotland, though on the English model.

Laud speaks of him as carrying back to Scotland a book containing the first series of alterations which had been accepted in England (see Appendix A, Introduction, p. xxix). As "elect of Ross" he took part (18th June 1633) in the coronation at Holyrood of his royal master, and he was consecrated before the King's return to England. When the lines on which the Liturgy for Scotland should be framed were at last determined on, Maxwell was "entrusted with the press,"1 and we find him writing to Juxon "to have from Canterbury an explanation of some passages in the Service-Book," "which, perhaps," says Laud, "were my additions and alterations in the book." "The press stayed," till the desired explanations came, and the Scots thought Maxwell had obtained the changes he desired. (Laud says only, "As if this could make me author of that book; which yet if I were, I would neither deny nor be ashamed of." 2) In his Cathedral at Fortrose,3 the Service-Book was in use 2 Ibid., p. 340.

1 Laud, iii. p. 339. 3 This beautiful Cathedral was entire, and in use, till Cromwell's time, when, along with the Abbey Church of Kinloss in Moray, it was deliberately pulled down and its materials employed for building a fort at Inverness. See Transactions of the Scottish Ecclesiological Society, 1904.

,

till the 11th of March 1638. He was one of the six Scottish archbishops and bishops to sign the "Declinator and Protest" against the "pretended General Assemblie holden at Glasgow, Novemb. 21, 1638," but he was nevertheless deposed and excommunicated (13th December 1638). He repaired to the English Court, and on the death of Archbishop Spottiswood (who recommended him for his successor in the see of S. Andrews) he gave the manuscript of that prelate's 'History of the Church of Scotland' into the King's hand at Whitehall; after that he went over to Ireland in 1640, and narrowly escaped with his life in the Irish Rebellion. In 1645 he was appointed Archbishop of Tuam; and at Dublin in 1647 heard of the surrender of the King by the Scottish army, whereupon "he retired to his closet, and was found dead on his knees." He was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin. Dr Grub considered him "the greatest Scottish prelate of the reign of Charles the First," and speaks of "his eminent ability, his devotion to the cause of his sovereign and the Church, the rectitude of his conduct, the dignity and consistency of his character." 2

To Bishop Wedderburn of Dunblane, it would seem, most of the liturgical features which characterise this Service-Book were due. A native of Dundee, a descendant of the authors of the 'Complaynt of Scotland' and the 'Gude and Godlie Ballates,' he passed from S. Andrews to an English

1 See the "Declinator," the charges against the Bishops, and the Form of their Excommunication in Peterkin, 'Records of the Kirk of Scotland.'

2 Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, iii. 89.

3 His descent is given in 'Wedderburne of Dundee's Compt Buik.'-Scottish History Society. The pedigree, like that of Spottiswood, is interesting from the evidence it affords that