The Booke of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England (London: Robert Barker, 1615)
A gift twice over: from King James I to William Paddy and from Paddy to St John’s College
This book was bequeathed to St John’s by its alumnus William Paddy (1554–1634), who had also given the ‘Caxton Chaucer’ to the College. After receiving his BA in 1573, he pursued a medical career that would eventually lead him to the Elizabethan court. From 1594 to 1602, Paddy served William Cecil, Lord Burghley, the renowned chief adviser of Elizabeth I, one of the most powerful
men in Elizabethan England. In July 1603, shortly after the accession of James I (1566–1625), Paddy was appointed the king’s personal physician.
William Paddy was present at the king’s deathbed, having been summoned to court two days earlier. Bound in with the Book of Common Prayer are several manuscript leaves listing the prayers said during the king’s final hours. After these Paddy added his own note, recording the event: ‘Being sent for to Theobalds [Hertfordshire] but two days before the death of my sovereign Lord and master King James: I held it my Christian duty to prepare him, telling him that there was nothing left for me to do (in the afternoon before his death the next day at noon) but to pray for his soul’.
Paddy likely received the book either as a gift during the lifetime of James I of England or as a bequest after the king’s death. The royal coat of arms is stamped in gilt at the centre of both covers.
A partial digitization of this volume is available at the Digital Bodleian.