After the beheading of King Charles, the outlawing of the Prayer Book and the removal of bishops, priests and deacons from their posts across the country, the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, was convinced the Anglican Church had been “throughly purged” from the land. In the churches of England, Altars were burned, communion rails hacked to pieces, paintings of Christ and the Saints defaced (wander through Westminster Abbey—the results of Puritan vandalism can still be seen), vestments were cut into table napkins, chalices smashed, crosses from the Altars hammered into bits and bridles. The Book of Common Prayer disappeared from the churches; in 1645 Parliament passed a series of laws banning the use of the Prayer Book either publicly or privately. To own a copy was a criminal offense.
The Puritans congratulated themselves. The Prayer Book they so despised, “culled and picked out of the popish dunghill, the Mass booke full of all abominations,” was dead. But what to take its place? Puritanism, it turned out, was a catchword for all sorts and conditions of opinions, and united men mainly in its hatred of Anglicanism. At one in loathing “Prayer Book and Prelate Religion,” they found themselves at odds about how to replace it and what to replace it with. “Far easier,” Cicero said many centuries earlier, “to say what you are against than what you are for.”
Some wanted no books of prayers at all, claiming all written or liturgical prayer “casts out true prayer,” which must be extemporaneous to be “true.” Their heretofore Presbyterian allies, though, distrusted extemporaneous public prayer and insisted on a book. Even those who agreed about the permissibility of a book, however, disagreed about what it should say. Some wanted specific prayers with options left to the minister as to how and when they should be used, others wanted a book of general directions only with no set forms—it seemed there were more suggestions than suggestors.
In the end, Parliament did authorize a book. Use of A Directory for the Publique Worship of God throughout the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland was required in every church of the realm. To satisfy the Presbyterians, set orders and forms of services were given, with prayers. To satisfy the more rigid Puritans, no one was required to use the prayers and services of the Directory except as guides and models. The one prayer the Presbyterians held out for, the Lord’s Prayer, was rejected by the Puritans as not being a real prayer, since it had a set form. The Directory ended up “strongly favoring and commending”—but not requiring—its use.
In 1658, the Lord Protector died. His son tried to rule in his stead, but was forced to resign within a few months. Attempts of various factions of the Army or Parliament to seize power all collapsed for lack of support. The people wanted “the old King, the old Church, the old ways.” On May 25, 1660, Charles II, son of the Royal Martyr, landed at Dover from his long exile in France. His chaplain publicly carried with him the Book of Common Prayer as the royal party traveled to London. The King met with a group of Puritan ministers during his journey. When one protested the presence of the forbidden book, Charles answered, “Sir, I believe it to be one of the best of books!”
It was a foretaste of things to come.
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