First  Book  of  Edwaed  vi.,  1549. — In  the
autumn  of  1548  it  was  made  known  that  the
preparation  of  an  English  service-book  was
already  in  hand.  '  Certain  bishops  and
notable  learned  men,'  '  some  favouring  the
old,  some  the  new  learning,'  were  assembled
at  Windsor  and  then  at  Chertsey  for  the  settle-
ment of  '  a  uniform  order  of  prayer.'  It  is
unknown  precisely  who  they  were.  It  is
probable  that  much  of  the  book  was  already
in  existence,  and  it  is  possible  that  it  had  been
used  in  the  English  services  already  men-
tioned. Cranmer  had  long  been  busy.  As
we  have  seen  above,  in  1544  he  had  experi-
mented on  an  English  Processional,  and  in
the  following  years  he  composed  two  experi-
mental schemes  for  a  reformed  Breviary.  In
any  case  some  part  of  the  new  book,  and  in
particular  the  Canon  of  the  Mass,  was  ready
apparently  in  October,  and  was  discussed
and  signed,  with  reservations,  by  all  the
bishops  but  one ;  and  the  whole  book  was
ready  by  the  middle  of  December.  It  was
read  to  the  Commons  on  19th  December ;  and
the  Act  of  Uniformity  (q.v.)  enforcing  it  was
passed  in  the  Lords  on  15th  January,  in  the
Commons  on  21st  January,  and  received  the
royal  assent  on  14th  March.  The  records  of
Convocation  for  these  years  have  perished,
and  there  is  some  conflict  of  evidence  as  to
whether  the  book  received  the  consent  of
Convocation,  but  it  is  more  probable  that
it  did  not.  The  '  First  Book  of  Edward  vi.'
was  quite  new  in  two  respects :  first,  that  it
was  wholly  in  English ;  and  secondly,  that  it
combined  in  a  single  volume  the  '  Common
Prayer '  which  had  hitherto  been  contained
in  separate  volumes,  the  Breviary,  the  Pro-
cessional, and  the  Missal,  and  the  '  other  rites
and  ceremonies  of  the  Church,'  contained
in  the  Manual  and  part  of  the  Pontifical,
'  according  to  the  use  of  the  Church  of
England,'  which  thus  becomes  one  and  the
same  everywhere.  The  basis  of  the  whole
is  the  Roman  rite  according  to  the  Sarum
use ;  but  it  includes  contributions  from  the
Greek  rite  of  Constantinople,  from  the  Moz-
arabic  rite,  and  from   the  Lutheran,  while


avoiding  distinctively  Lutheran  doctrine.
