Prayer was regarded as an essential arm of the State and even as a method of 'thought control' in early modern Britain. In the 17th Century period covered by this study, common prayer dominated everyday lives at a national level - in communities and congregations - as well as privately in households. At a time when Britain was struggling to come to terms with the political and social turbulence triggered by the violence of the Civil War, unease over the Commonwealth and uncertainties of the Restoration, prayer represented the search for pattern, order and purpose in and between these...