Members only: The Scottish Liturgy and the Anglican Doctrine of the Eucharist

The history of the Episcopal Church in Scotland is exceedingly complicated and has never had the degree of liturgical uniformity that was known in the Church of England from 1660 to the late 19th century. The first officially authorized Book of Common Prayer for the Scottish Episcopal Church is promulgated in – care to guess? – 1912! From 1712 until 1792, there were two distinct sorts of Episcopal churches in Scotland. The nonjurors, who refused to swear allegiance to the House of Hanover, and were subject to strict penalties (this is not a history paper, but I have prepared a timeline of the penal laws as an appendix to this paper if anyone wants to ask me about it during the Q&A). They were an all-but-outlawed church. Most of these were liturgically undistinguished from their neighbors in the Church of Scotland, though a growing number were beginning to use the English Prayer Book and a growing number of those were supplementing that with pamphlets – wee bookies –containing forms of the Scottish Communion Office – variations of the ill-fated 1637 Prayer Book Charles I attempted to impose on his northern Kingdom. The other Episcopalians were ‘qualified chapels’, swearing allegiance to the Hanoverian King, using only the English Book of Common Prayer, with incumbents ordained exclusively in England. In 1788, Charles Edward Stuart died in exile and the nonjurors would not recognize his brother the Cardinal Henry Benedict Stuart – a King of the Papal persuasion was one thing, but a Roman Cardinal! That was a bridge too far. They swore allegiance to George III and by 1792 most (though not all!) of the penal laws were removed. Gradually, the qualified chapels joined what had been the nonjuror church, particularly after it formally adopted the Thirty-Nine Articles at the 1804 Convocation of Laurencekirk. The last independent qualified chapel, St Peter’s in Montrose, Angus, finally joined in 1920.