t that
they were now in position to demand a larger measure of liturgical
reform than that monarch and her advisers had been willing to
concede to them.

King James convened his conference at Hampton Court, near London,
and he himself was good enough to preside. Very little came of the
debate. The Puritans had demanded the discontinuance of the sign of
the cross in Baptism, of bowing at the name of Jesus, of the ring
in marriage, and of the rite of confirmation. The words "priest"
and "absolution" they sought to have expunged from the Prayer Book,
and they desired that the wearing of the surplice should be made
optional.

Almost nothing was conceded to them. The words "or Remission of
Sins" were added to the title of the Absolution, certain Prayers
and Thanksgivings were introduced, and that portion of the Catechism
which deals with the Sacraments was for the first time set forth.
And thus the English Prayer Book started out upon its fourth lease
of life destined in this form to endure unchanged, though by no
means unassailed, for more than half a century.

A stirring half century it was. The Puritan defeat at Hampton Court
was redressed at Naseby. With the coming in of the Long Parliament
the Book of Common Prayer went out, and to all appearances the
triumph of the Commonwealth meant the final extinction of the usage
of liturgical worship on English soil. The book, under its various
forms, had lasted just a hundred years when he who

Nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene

suffered at Whitehall.

They buried him in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, and no single word
of the Prayer Book he had loved and for which he had fought was
said over his grave.

On January 3, 1645, Parliament repealed the statutes of Edward VI.
and of Elizabeth that had enjoined the use of the Book of Common
Prayer, and took order that thereafter only such divine service
should be lawful as accorded with what was called the _Directory_,
a manual of suggestions with respect to public worship adopted by
the Presbyterian party as a substitute for the ancient liturgy.

With the restoration of the Stuarts in 1660 came naturally the
restoration of the Prayer Book, and with equal naturalness a
revision of it. But of what sort should the revision be, and under
whose auspices conducted? This was an anxious question for the
advisers, civil and ecclesiastical, of the restored king. Should
the second Charles take up the book just a