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The English Thanksgiving Service for King James*
delivery from the Cowrie Conspiracy
r
I \HE form of Prayer with Thanksgiving for King James*
JL
delivery from the Gowrie Conspiracy on 5th August, 1600,
is among the rarest of the special forms of service issued for
use in England in the seventeenth century. Although the service
continued to be used upon the appointed day for many years
at least for a
quarter of a it century never found its way into
the Prayer Book like the corresponding service for 5th November
(Powder Treason), nor does it seem to have been even
Book like the Form for
occasionally printed with the Prayer
the anniversary of the Fire of London. No standard commen-
tator in the Book of Common Prayer, old or new, seems to
mention it, and the present writer has never seen it either
described or discussed. Although it is of little liturgical interest
and of no literary merit, it has sufficient peculiarity
to warrant
more notice than it has hitherto received.
Every student of Scottish history
will remember how the
Edinburgh ministers discredited the official report of the Con-
spiracy, refused to hold thanksgiving services at the bidding
of the Town Council, and were punished by being driven from
their churches ; how Dr. Lindsay, the Bishop of Ross, held a
service of thanksgiving and preached at the cross of Edinburgh,
and how the King attended a similar service at the same place on
his arrival the following week, when Patrick Galloway preached a
1
sermon upon psalm 124. Spottiswoode, referring apparently to
*
the subsequent meeting of the Privy Council, says that order
was taken for a publick and solemn Thanksgiving to be made
in all the Churches of the Kingdome, and the last Tuesday of
September with the Sunday following appointed
for that exercise.'
In connexion with the holding of Parliament at Edinburgh
on 1 5th November in the same year, he tells us that 'the
1
John Spotswood, History of the Church of Scotland, London, 1655, pp. 460, 461.