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the well-being of royalty had encouraged a degree of intimacy between worshippers and royals (since 1549 the Book of Common Prayer had included prayers and suffrages for the sovereign, and prayers for the royal family were used from 1604). 4 The previous chapter noted that observances of prayer days in times of drought could be patchy, as for many the cause was distant. By contrast, special prayers on royal occasions marked relatable events in the lives of sovereigns, such as illnesses, recoveries and the birth of children
for epidemics, royal births and illnesses and, on two occasions, earthquakes. Notable causes of special worship in the nineteenth century included cholera, war and the condition of the harvest, and new styles of national worship associated with prayers for the sovereign and the royal family proliferated during the twentieth century. The ‘State Prayers’ project is an inspiration for this book, and the chapters that follow make extensive use of the analysis and descriptions of British events provided in the three National
M. Mulcahy, Hurricanes and Society in the Greater British Caribbean, 1624–1783 (Baltimore, MD, 2006) , pp. 38–9; Nova Scotia Gazette [Halifax], 11 October 1774; H. Alline, A Sermon, on a Day of Thanksgiving (Halifax, 1782) . 23 NP, II , p. cxxxvii. A 1764 New Hampshire proclamation called for prayers for the British royal family before moving to local reasons for fasting: www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.08701300/?sp=1 , accessed 14 April 2020. 24 Massachusetts