This edition brings together the core texts for all occasions of special national worship observed in the constituent parts of the British Isles from the beginning of the reformation in England to recent times. It also includes a number of texts that were concerned with special worship throughout the overseas British empire, as well as in Britain. Commentaries and lists of sources are provided for each occasion of special worship, together with related supplementary and contextual information, and a general explanatory introduction.

The phrase ‘special national worship’ is used for editorial convenience. In strict terms, it is problematic for several reasons, not least the differences between an early modern kingdom and a modern nation, and the changing relationships of the political units. For the purposes of this edition, the term ‘national’ refers both to the separate historic kingdoms of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, and to the subsequent consolidated kingdoms of Great Britain and the United Kingdom of Britain and Ireland. During the period covered in this volume, relationships between the governments and the established churches of the original three kingdoms of the British Isles continued to change, as did the territory of the United Kingdom. The number and scope of established churches – which are the focus of this edition – was reduced, with the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland in 1871, and the Church in Wales in 1920. The partition of Ireland in 1921 created the Irish Free State as a selfgoverning dominion of the British commonwealth (until it left on becoming a republic in 1949), and the main territory was renamed as the United Kingdom of Britain and Northern Ireland. Yet in another sense, some acts of special worship became more ‘national’ than in the past, whether through co-operation among the main churches, both established and non-established, by appeals from the sovereign or by assistance of the proclamation of public holidays or days of mourning, creating occasions for the whole of the United Kingdom.

The term ‘special worship’ is taken to include both particular occasions of special worship, those appointed for one day or for short periods, and anniversary (or annual) religious commemorations, those appointed for general observance on a specific date each year over long periods. The commentaries and texts for the religious anniversary occasions are presented in volume 4 of this edition.