One may well wonder what St Evurtius is doing in the BCP since he
is so obscure. There is an interesting reason (the following is taken 
from the Oxford Companion to the Year; apologies because it is a 
bit long):

Heortius, whose name is commonly corrupted to 'Enurchus' or 
'Evurtius', a fourth-century bishop of Orlêans of whom very little is 
known, despite an account printed by the Bollandists under the 
heading Vita fabulis foedata, 'a life defiled by fables', which tells 
us that he put out a fire and found a treasure. But it was not for 
such achievements, not even for his election by the Holy Ghost, 
signified (as in many other cases) by a dove's perching on his head, 
that since 1604 he has been commemorated in the Book of Common
Prayer: his inclusion was a subterfuge to enable the birthday of 
Queen Elizabeth I in 1533 to be celebrated under her successor 
James I.
	The devotion that Elizabeth inspired towards the end of her 
reign is expresssed in language too strong for the most loyal 
monarchist to use in our tongue-tied age:

What shall we write further of triumphes and of natiuities: But our 
day began the seuenth of September, the most happy and blessed 
day of Queene Elizas natiuitie, of whome wee haue triumphed 
20295 daies, euery day being a triumphant day, sithence her 
Maiesties byrth vnto this present time.

This flourish was composed (if the days are reckoned inclusively) 
on 31 March 1589, soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, by 
Lodowick Lloyd, the Queen's serjeant-at-arms; it was published in 
The Triplicitie of Triumphes (1591), an anniversary celebration of 
Elizabeth's birth (7 Sept. 1533), her accession (17 Nov. 1558), and 
coronation (15 Jan. 1559), cast as a study of the honours paid on 
such occasions to foreign princes (but also on their funerals, a topic 
not dear to the Queen). Lloyd, ever the loyalist, honoured James I 
no less effusively in atrocious verse; but Good Queen Bess's 
memory was preserved, not only in public. The Bodleian Library 
copy is bound together with one of Lloyd's Diall of Daies (see *8 
May) containing copious manuscript notes by one Robert 
Nicholson, those for September being dated 1608; under this day 
we read:

7. The rare, faire and farre renowmed and admirable, ELIZABETH, 
Queene of England, France, Ireland, & Virginia: daughter of King 
Henry the viijth and Queen Anne Bulleine his wife: was borne at 
Greenwich in Kent, on Sonday the vijth day of September Ao Do 
1533; 24o Hen: 8; betwene .3. & .4. of the clock in the afternoone: to 
the great ioy, & perpetuall honour of England.

These were private notes, written under King James, who would 
not have been pleased to see them, knowing that praise of Elizabeth
was all too often dispraise of himself; indeed, popular as she had 
been in her lifetime, she became even more popular under the 
Stuarts (and a far less ambiguous champion of Protestantism than 
she had been in her lifetime).

Bonnie Blackburn
-------------------
Bonnie Blackburn
67 St Bernard's Road
Oxford OX2 6EJ
tel. +44 (0)1865 552808
fax  +44 (0)1865 512237
e-mail: [log in to unmask]





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