'The restoration of quietness and peace': the Prayer for the King's Majesty at Matins and Evensong

Loyalty to her king is the boast, and the glory of the Church of England. The spirit of Christian Loyalty breathes in her devotional offices, and has ever been displayed in the lives of her sons.

When, in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), John Shepherd opens his discussion of A Prayer for the King's Majesty with the comment above, we might assume that this reflection on the prayer will be a straightforward example of a stereotyped muscular Anglican High Toryism. Shepherd, however, presents a reading of the prayer much more nuanced than the stereotype. He notes how critics of Anglicanism and the Prayer Book misinterpret A Prayer for the King's Majesty:

By the enemies of the established church, this and similar passages in our Liturgy have been misrepresented, as recommending aggrandizement and conquest.

He goes on to provide a cautious, reserved reading of the prayer, emphasising that it seeks the "quietness and peace" of the realm", not the "aggrandizement" suggested by critics:

On Christian principles, the church must presuppose, that Christian princes will engage in no wars, which are not undertaken in just and necessary defence. She knows, that all war, excepting in cases of unjust aggression from abroad, or unnecessary resistance to the measures of government at home, is equally repugnant both to the letter and spirit of the religion taught by Jesus Christ. In her offices day by day she prays for peace. In her Litany, or general supplication, thrice a week, she deprecates war, and from "battle and murder" entreats deliverance. Whenever the prays for a blessing on the arms of her sovereign, and for victory over all his enemies, she must be understood to pray for the ends of victory: The preservation of the lawful and just rights of his Majesty, and of these Realms, deliverance from the power of enemies, and the restoration of quietness and peace

Shepherd, in other words, demonstrates the continued relevance of A Prayer for the King's Majesty for those of us in the realms of His Majesty the King in these decades of the 21st century, marked by unjust wars, threats and invasions, and by political movements and visions threatening our quietness and peace.

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