Sheppard's vernacular music has suffered seriously from the loss of manuscript sources. Since he died only a month after Queen Mary, his settings for the Protestant services must have been composed during the reign of Edward VI, who, after some experimental services in 1548, imposed the first Book of Common Prayer in 1549. Some of Sheppard's English-texted music, such as his setting of the Lord's Prayer and his cycle of metrical psalms by Thomas Sternhold (in GB-Lbl Add. MS 15166) may have been composed for domestic recreation rather than for church use.
