Lent in Protestant England

Bryan Spinks summarizes some of the debates concerning the Book of Common Prayer in his essay in The Oxford History of Christian Worship . During 1549, Parliament considered the adoption of a uniform liturgy for the church of England, and this event was recorded by Charles Wriothesley: “at this session of Parliamente one uniforme booke was sett fourth of one sort of service with the ministration of the holie communion and other sacraments to be used in this realme of Englande and other the Kinges dominions whatsoeaver. To be observed after the feast of Pentecost next coming, as by an Act of Parliament against the transgresors of the same doeth appeare. Howbeit Poules quire, with divers parishes in London and other places in England, begane the use after the said booke in the beginning of Lent, and putt downe the private masses as by the acte of ordayned.”