BCP Reference · Historical Note

The Withdrawn State Services of 1859

Four anniversaries removed from the English Prayer Book

The State Services occupied an unusual place in Anglican liturgical life. They were not part of the Prayer Book's calendar of holy days in the strict sense; they were political and dynastic observances bound up with particular reigns, particular crises, and particular acts of providence. Each was issued by Royal Warrant and could be amended or withdrawn by the same authority. By the middle of the nineteenth century, several had come to feel anachronistic, partisan, or simply obsolete — and in 1859 four were withdrawn together.

What remained, for a time, was the form of prayer for the Sovereign's Accession, which itself was thoroughly revised by Convocation and re-issued by Royal Warrant on the eighth of December, 1925. That revised form is now annexed to the English Prayer Book; the four below are not.

The Four Services Withdrawn

• Gunpowder Treason

  5 November

  A thanksgiving for the discovery in 1605 of the plot to destroy King James I and the Houses of Parliament by gunpowder. The service was first appointed by Act of Parliament in 1606 and observed annually thereafter. Its tone was strongly anti-Roman and combative, which by the nineteenth century had become an increasing pastoral and political embarrassment.

• Martyrdom of King Charles I

  30 January

  A solemn fast commemorating the execution of Charles I in 1649. Appointed shortly after the Restoration, the service treated the King as a martyr of the Church and used penitential and humiliation language for the nation. It remained one of the more theologically charged of the State Services, and its withdrawal in 1859 ended its official place in the English calendar — though private devotion to King Charles the Martyr has continued in some Anglican circles.

• Restoration of the Royal Family

  29 May

  A double thanksgiving: for the birth of Charles II (born 29 May 1630) and for his return to London on the same date in 1660, marking the restoration of the monarchy after the Interregnum. Often called “Royal Oak Day,” it celebrated both dynastic continuity and ecclesiastical re-establishment.

• Landing of King William III

  5 November

  A thanksgiving for the landing of William of Orange at Torbay on 5 November 1688, beginning the Glorious Revolution. Because it shared a date with the Gunpowder Treason service, the two were typically combined in a single composite observance — a happy coincidence for those who read both events as deliverances of Protestant England. (The Lay Folks' History gives this date as 4 November, which appears to be an editorial slip; the historical landing is 5 November 1688.)

The Surviving Form: Sovereign's Accession

Of the older body of State Services, the form for the Sovereign's Accession alone survived the 1859 reforms and was carried forward. It was substantially revised by Convocation and annexed to the Book of Common Prayer by Royal Warrant on 8 December 1925. From that date it has stood as the principal civil-religious observance in the English Prayer Book tradition, marking each anniversary of the reigning sovereign's accession to the throne.

For American Anglicans using the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, none of these forms appears. The American Prayer Book, drafted in a republican settlement, has never contained State Services in the English sense. The historical note is offered here as background for those who encounter references to these dates in older devotional and historical literature.