CHAPTER IX

"Some the night-mare hath prestWith that weight on their brest,No returnes of their breath can passe,But to us the tale is addle,We can take off her saddle,And turn out the night-mare to grasse."

Insomnia.—In the Loseley MSS. we find a receipt "For hym that may not slepe. Take and wryte yese wordes into leves of lether: Ismael! Ismael! adjuro te per Angelum Michaelum ut soporetur homo iste; and lay this under his bed, so yt he wot not yerof and use it allway lytell, and lytell, as he have nede yerto."

Jaundice.—This disease was sometimes cured by transplantation, and Paracelsus gives us a methodfor carrying this out. Make seven or nine—it must be an odd number—cakes of the newly emitted and warm urine of the patient with the ashes of ash wood, and bury them for some days in a dunghill.

In the journal of Dr. Edward Browne, transmitted to his father, Sir Thomas Browne, we read of a magical cure for jaundice: "Burne wood under a leaden vessel filled with water; take the ashes of that wood, and boyle it with the patient's urine; then lay nine long heaps of the boyled ashes upon a board in a ranke, and upon every heap lay nine spears of crocus: it hath greater effects than is credible to any one that shall barely read this receipt without experiencing."153

Madness.—The early inhabitants of Cornwall used "to place the disordered in mind on the brink of a square pool, filled with water from St. Nun's well. The patient, having no intimation of what was intended, was, by a sudden blow on the breast, tumbled into the pool, where he was tossed up and down by some persons of superior strength till, being quite debilitated, his fury forsook him; he was then carried to church, and certain masses were sung over him. A similar practice of the people of Perthshire is noticed by Sir Walter Scott inMarmion.

"Thence to St. Fillan's blessed well,Whose spring can frenzied dreams dispel,And the crazed brain restore."

Marasmus.—Mr. Boyle relates the case of a physician whose wan face betokened a marasmus, and who was induced to try a method not unlike the sympathetic cures. "He took an egg and boiled it hard in his own warm urine; he then with a bodkin perforated the shell in many places, and buried it in an ant-hill, where it was kept to be devoured by the emmets; and as they wasted the egg, he found his distemper to abate and his strength to increase, insomuch that his disease left him."154

Rickets.—The most common method of dealing with this disease was by drawing the children through a split tree. The tree was afterward bound up and, as it healed and grew together, the children acquired strength; at least, so 'twas said. Sir John Cullum saw the operation performed and says that the ash tree was selected as most preferable for the purpose. "It was split longitudinally about five feet: the fissure was kept open by the gardener, whilst the friend of the child, having first stripped him naked, passed him thrice through it, almost head foremost. This accomplished, the tree was bound up with packthread, and as the bark healed, so it was said the child would recover. One of the cases was of rickets, the other a rupture." Drawing the children through a perforated stone was also a cure for rickets, providing that two brasspins were carefully laid across each other on the top edge of this stone.155

Sciatica.—Sleeping on stones on a particular night was formerly practised in Cornwall to cure all forms of lameness. Boneshave was the term used for sciatica in Exmoor, where the following charm was used for its cure: The patient must lie on his back on the bank of a river or brook, having a straight staff lying by his side between him and the water, and must have the following words repeated over him:

"Boneshave right,Boneshave straight.As the water runs by the staveGood for Boneshave."156

Scrofula.—Scrofula, or "king's-evil," was best cured by the touch of the sovereign, but, if this could not be accomplished, a naked virgin could cure it, especially if she spit three times upon it. Stroking the affected parts nine times with the hand of a dead man, particularly of one who had suffered a violent death as a penalty of his crime, especially if it be murder, was long practised, and was said to be efficacious in curing scrofula.

Sweating Sickness.—Aubrey157gives a selection of the favorite prescriptions in use against the sweating sickness. Among them was the following: "Another very true medicine.—For to say everyday at seven parts of your body, seven paternosters, and seven Ave Marias, with one Credo at the last. Ye shall begyn at the ryght syde, under the right ere, saying the 'paternoster qui es in coelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum,' with a cross made there with your thumb, and so say the paternoster full complete, and one Ave Maria, and then under the left ere, and then under the left armhole, and then under the left hole, and then the last at the heart, with one paternoster, Ave Maria with one Credo; and these thus said daily, with the grace of God is there no manner drede hym."

Thorns.—Three metrical charms have been used for troubles of this kind.Pepys' Diaryrecords "A charme for a thorne":

"Jesus, that was of a Virgin Born,Was pricked both with nail and thorn;It neither wealed, nor belled, rankled nor boned;In the name of Jesus no more shall this."

Another form of the same is this:

"Christ was of a Virgin born,And he was pricked with a thorn;It did neither bell, nor swell;And I trust in Jesus this never will."

Brand gives another thus:

"Unto the Virgin Mary our Saviour was born,And on his head he wore the crown of thorn;If you believe this true and mind it well,This hurt will never fester, nor yet swell."158

Toothache.—King in his interesting article recites this cure: "Seeth as many little green frogges sitting upon trees as thou canst get, in water: take the fat flowynge from them, and when nede is, anoynt the teth therwyth. The graye worms breathing under wood or stone, having many fete, these perced through with a bodken and then put into the toth, alayeth the payne."159A nail driven into an oak tree is reported to be a cure for this pain, and bones from a church-yard have from ancient times been used as charms against this disease.

An early idea was that toothache was caused by a worm and that henbane seed roasted would cure it. The following from "The School of Salerne" formulates this superstition:

"If in your teeth you hap to be tormented,By meane some little wormes therein do breed,Which pain (if heed be tane) may be prevented,Be keeping cleane your teeth, when as you feede;Burne Francomsence (a gum not evil sented),Put Henbane unto this, and Onyon seed,And with a tunnel to the tooth that's hollow,Convey the smoke thereof, and ease shall follow."

Even to-day, I suppose, druggists sell henbane seed for this purpose. The seed is used by sprinkling it on hot cinders and holding the open mouth over the rising smoke. The heat causes the seed tosprout, and thus there appears something similar to a maggot, which is ignorantly supposed by the sufferer to have dropped from the tooth.160

Warts.—The cures for warts are many and varied. There have been many charms devised for their removal. Grose gives directions to "Steal a piece of beef from a butcher's shop, and rub your wart with it, then throw it down the necessary house, or bury it, and as the beef rots, your warts will decay."161Some have great faith in having a vagrant count them, mark the number on the inside of his hat, and then when he leaves the neighborhood he takes the warts with him. Coffin water was also considered good for them.

"For warts," says Sir Thomas Browne, "we rub our hands before the moon, and commit any magulated part to the touch of the dead. Old Women were always famous for curing warts; they were so in Lucian's time."162

Sir Kenelm Digby, in a work already referred to, says: "One would think that it were folly that one should offer to wash his hands in a well-polished silver basin, wherein there is not a drop of water, yet this may be done by the reflection of the moonbeams only, which will afford it a competent humidity to do it; but they who have tried it, have foundtheir hands, after they are wiped, to be much moister than usually; but this is an infallible way to take away warts from the hands, if it be often used."

Black gives us several ways of charming away warts. He says: "Lancashire wise men tell us for warts to rub them with a cinder, and this tied up in paper, and dropped where four roads meet, will transfer the warts to whoever opens the parcel. Another mode of transferring warts is to touch each wart with a pebble, and place the pebbles in a bag, which should be lost on the way to church; whoever finds the bag gets the warts." A common Warwickshire custom was to rub the warts with a black snail, stick the snail on a thorn bush, and then, say the folks, as the snail dies so will the wart disappear.163

Warts, on the other hand, seem in certain cases to be considered lucky. In "Syr Gyles Goosecappe, Knight," a play of 1606, Lord Momford is made to say: "The Creses here are excellent good: the proportion of the chin good; the little aptnes of it to sticke out; good. And the wart aboue it most exceeding good."

Wen.—A newspaper of 1777 reports: "After he (Doctor Dodd) had hung about ten minutes, a very decently dressed young woman went up to the gallows in order to have a wen in her face stroked by the Doctor's hand; it being a received opinionamong the vulgar that it is a certain cure for such a disorder. The executioner, having untied the Doctor's hand, stroked the part affected several times therewith."

At the execution of Crowley, a murderer of Warwick, in 1845, a similar scene is described in the newspapers: "At least five thousand persons of the lowest of the low were mustered on this occasion to witness the dying moments of the unhappy culprit.... As is usual in such cases (to their shame be it spoken) a number of females were present, and scarcely had the soul of the deceased taken its farewell flight from its earthly tabernacle, than the scaffold was crowded with members of the 'gentler sex' afflicted with wens in the neck, with white swellings in the knees, &c., upon whose afflictions the cold clammy hand of the sufferer was passed to and fro for the benefit of his executioner."164

Whooping-Cough.—It was a common belief in Devonshire, Cornwall, and some other parts of England, that if one inquired of any one riding on a piebald horse of a remedy for this complaint, whatever he named was regarded as an infallible cure. In Suffolk and Norfolk, a favorite remedy was to put the head of a suffering child for a few minutes into a hole made in a meadow. It must be done in the evening with only the father and mother to witness it.

A child in Cornwall received the following treatment: "If afflicted with the hooping cough, it is fed with the bread and butter of a family, the heads of which bear respectively the names of John and Joan. In the time of an epidemic, so numerous are the applications, that the poor couple have little reason to be grateful to their godfathers and godmothers for their gift of these particular names. Or, if a piebald horse is to be found in the neighbourhood, the child is taken to it, and passed thrice under the belly of the animal; the mere possession of such a beast confers the power of curing the disease."

We have an account of a cure for whooping-cough in a Monmouthshire paper about the middle of the nineteenth century. "A few days since an unusual circumstance was observed at Pillgwenlly, which caused no small degree of astonishment to one or two enlightened beholders. A patient ass stood near a house, and a family of not much more rational animals was grouped around it. A father was passing his little son under the donkey, and lifting him over its back a certain number of times, with as much solemnity and precision as if engaged in the performance of a sacred duty. This done, the father took a piece of bread, cut from an untasted loaf, which he offered the animal to bite at. Nothing loath, the Jerusalem poney laid hold of the piece of bread with his teeth, and instantly thefather severed the outer portion of the slice from that in the donkey's mouth. He next clipped off some hairs from the neck of the animal, which he cut up into minute particles, and then mixed them with the bread which he had crumbled. This very tasty food was then offered to the boy who had been passed round the donkey so mysteriously, and the little fellow having eaten thereof, the donkey was removed by his owners. The father, his son, and other members of his family were moving off, when a bystander inquired what all these 'goings on' had been adopted for? The father stared at the ignorance of the inquirer, and then in a half contemptuous, half condescending tone, informed him that 'it was to cure his poor son's whooping-cough, to be sure!' Extraordinary as this may appear, in days when the schoolmaster is so much in request, it is nevertheless true."

There is a belief in Cheshire that, if a toad is held for a moment within the mouth of the patient, it is apt to catch the disease, and so cure the person suffering from it. A correspondent ofNotes and Queriesspeaks of a case in which such a phenomenon actually occurred; but the experiment is one which would not be very willingly tried. Brand informs us that "Roasted mice were formerly held in Norfolk a sure remedy for this complaint; nor is it certain that the belief is extinct even now. A poor woman's son once foundhimself greatly relieved after eating three roast mice!"165

Worms.—A Scotch writer in the last half of the seventeenth century observed: "In the Miscellaneous MSS. ... written by Baillie Dundee, among several medicinal receipts I find an exorcism against all kinds of worms in the body, in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to be repeated three mornings, as a certain remedy."166

122S. B. Gould,Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 273.

123H. Morley,Life of Cornelius Agrippa, I, p. 165.

124M. Thiers,Traité des Superstitions, p. 436.

125E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine,"Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.

126G. F. Fort,History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 72.

127J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 229 f.

128Ibid., III, pp. 228 and 237.

129T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 94 f.

130J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 252 f.

131E. Berdoe,Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 416.

132T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Surgery and Medicine, pp. 104-106.

133Pepys' Diary, I, p. 323.

134T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 113-115.

135History of Moray, p. 248.

136History of Medicine, p. 159.

137J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 240 and 248.

138I, p. 324.

139E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine,"Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 149.

140T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 77.

141E. Berdoe,Origin and Growth of the Medical Art, pp. 397 and 414.

142E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine,"Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 147.

143E. Berdoe,Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, p. 327.

144T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, pp. 84 f

145G. F. Fort,History of Medical Economy During the Middle Ages, p. 196.

146J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, p. 237.

147T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 92.

148II, p. 139.

149Ibid., pp. 112 f.

150J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 237, 241, and 268.

151Diseases of the Skin, p. 82.

152II, p. 139.

153T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 103.

154Ibid., p. 102.

155J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, pp. 249 f.

156Ibid., p. 245.

157History of England, II, p. 296.

158J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, p. 264.

159E. A. King, "Medieval Medicine,"Nineteenth Century, XXXIV, p. 148.

160E. Berdoe,Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 414 f.

161T. J. Pettigrew,Superstitions Connected with ... Medicine and Surgery, p. 108.

162J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.

163Berdoe,Origin and Growth of the Healing Art, pp. 415 f.

164J. Brand,Popular Antiquities, III, p. 241.

165Ibid., p. 239.

166Ibid., p. 240.

"Men may die of imagination,So depe may impression be take."—Chaucer.

"When time shall once have laid his lenient hand on the passions and pursuits of the present moment, they too shall lose that imaginary value which heated fancy now bestows upon them."—Blair."The king is but a man, as I am; the violet smells to him as it does to me; the element shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions; his ceremonies laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing."—Shakespeare.

Malcolm.Comes the king forth, I pray you?Doctor.Ay, sir: there are a crew of wretched souls,That stay his cure: their malady convincesThe great assay of art; but at his touch,Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,They presently amend.Malcolm.I thank you, doctor. [ExitDoctor.Macduff.What's the disease he means?Malcolm.'Tis call'd the evil:A most miraculous work in this good king,Which often, since my here remain in England,I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people,All swoln and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,The mere despair of surgery, he cures;Hanging a golden stamp about their necks,Put on with holy prayers: and 'tis spoken,To the succeeding royalty he leavesThe healing benediction.—Macbeth, Act iv, Sc. 3.

Perhaps we have no better example of the effect of the belief in healers than that presented by what was known as "king's touch." It is typical of thecures performed by healers, and on that account I shall give a rather full account of the phenomenon.

Touching by the sovereign for the amelioration of sundry diseases was a currently accepted therapeutic measure. The royal touch was especially efficacious in epilepsy and scrofula, the latter being consequently known as "king's-evil." So far as we are able to trace this practice in history, it began with Edward the Confessor in England and St. Louis in France. There has been not a little dispute concerning its real origin. "Laurentius, first physician to Henry IV, of France, who is indignant at the attempt made to derive its origin from Edward the Confessor, asserts the power to have commenced with Clovis I, A. D. 481, and says that Louis I, A. D. 814, added to the ceremonial of touching, the sign of the cross. Mezeray also says, that St. Louis, through humility, first added the sign of the cross in touching for the king's evil."167

KING'S TOUCH-PIECESKING'S TOUCH-PIECES

William of Malmesbury gives the origin of the royal touch in his account of the miracles of Edward the Confessor. "A young woman had married a husband of her own age, but having no issue by the union, the humours collecting abundantly about her neck, she had contracted a sore disorder, the glands swelling in a dreadful manner. Admonished in a dream to have the part affected washed by theking, she entered the palace, and the king himself fulfilled this labour of love, by rubbing the woman's neck with his fingers dipped in water. Joyous health followed his healing hand; the lurid skin opened, so that worms flowed out with the purulent matter, and the tumour subsided. But as the orifice of the ulcers was large and unsightly, he commanded her to be supported at the royal expense until she should be perfectly cured. However, before a week had expired, a fair new skin returned, and hid the scars so completely, that nothing of the original wound could be discovered; and within a year becoming the mother of twins, she increased the admiration of Edward's holiness. Those who knew him more intimately, affirm that he often cured this complaint in Normandy; whence appears how false is the notion, who in our times assert, that the cure of this disease does not proceed from personal sanctity, but from hereditary virtue in the royal line."168The fact that Edward was a saint as well as a king throws some light on the subject, for many miracles were attributed to him. Jeremy Collier maintained that the scrofula miracle is hereditary upon all his successors, but we find that not blood but royal prestige was the secret. He said "that this prince cured the king's evil is beyond dispute: and since the credit of this miracle is unquestionable, I see no reason why we shouldscruple believing the rest.... King Edward the Confessor was the first that cured this distemper, and from him it has descended as an hereditary miracle upon all his successors. To dispute the matter of fact, is to go to the excesses of skepticism, to deny our senses, and be incredulous even to ridiculousness."169

The quotation given above from William of Malmesbury is the earliest mention of the gift of healing by the royal touch. No historian at or near the time of Edward has alluded to the supposed power vested in him. Not even the bull of Pope Alexander III, by which Edward was canonized about two centuries after his decease, makes any allusion whatever to the cures effected by him through the imposition of hands.

English and French writers have disagreed not only regarding the origin, but also regarding the real possession of the power, the English denying it to the French kings and the French with equal vigor restricting it to their own sovereigns. There seems to be little doubt that the sovereigns of both nations made cures, but the healing was confined to these two royal families; the intermarriages in the two families probably account for the belief in the transmission of the gift, regardless of the origin.

The ability to heal certain diseases passed downfrom reign to reign notwithstanding the religious belief, the character, or the legitimate succession of the sovereign, to the time of Queen Anne. It must not be supposed that the practice was continuous for the seven centuries from Edward the Confessor to Anne: we have no record whatever of the first four Norman kings attempting to cure any one by the imposition of hands, and we know that William III refused to attempt healing. Andrew Boorde defines king's-evil as an "euyl sickenes or impediment," and advises as follows: "For this matter let euery man make frendes to the Kynges maiestie, for it doth pertayne to a Kynge to helpe this infirmitie by the grace the whiche is geuen to a Kynge anoynted." In hisIntroduction to Knowledge(1547-1548) he continues: "The Kynges of England by the power that God hath gyuen to them, dothe make sicke men whole of a sickeness called the kynges euyll."170

There is a curious passage in Aubrey in which he says: "The curing of the King's Evil by the touch of the king, does much puzzle our philosophers, for whether our kings were of the house of York or Lancaster, it did the cure for the most part." Sir John Fortescue, in defending the House of Lancaster against the House of York, claimed that the crown could not descend to a female because the Queen was not qualified by the form of anointingher to cure the disease called the king's-evil. It must have been very comforting to all concerned to find that the power to cure disease by the royal touch had not been affected by the change of sex of the reigning sovereign.

The gift was not impaired by the Reformation, and an obdurate Roman Catholic was converted on finding that Elizabeth, after the Pope's excommunication, could cure his scrofula. Elizabeth, however, could not bring herself fully to accept the reality of these cures. She continued the practice on account of the pressure of public opinion, but upon one occasion she told a multitude of afflicted ones who had applied to her for relief, "God alone can cure your diseases." Dr. Tooker, the Queen's chaplain, though, certified freely to his own knowledge of the cures wrought by her, as did also William Cowles, the Queen's surgeon. Robert Laneham's letter, concerning the Queen's visit to Kenilworth Castle, relates how, on July 18, 1575, her Majesty touched for the evil, and that it was a "day of grace." "By her highnes accustumed mercy and charitee, nyne cured of the peynfull and daungerous diseaz, called the king's euill; for that Kings and Queenz of this Realm withoout oother medsin (saue only by handling and prayerz) only doo cure it."

James I wished to drop it as a worn-out superstition, but was warned by his advisers that to doso would be to abate a prerogative of the crown; the practice therefore continued, and good testimony exists as to the cures wrought by him. The following is an extract from a letter from John Chamberlain to Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassador at The Hague, dated London, 14th November, 1618: "The Turkish Chiaus is shortly coming for the Hagh. On Tuesday last he took leave of the king, and thanked his majesty for healing his sonne of the kinges evill; which his majesty performed with all solemnity at Whitehall on Thursday was seve-night." Charles I also enjoyed the same power, notwithstanding the public declaration by Parliament "to inform the people of the superstition of being touched by the king for the evil." When a prisoner he cured a man by simply saying, "God bless thee and grant thee thy desire," the Puritans not permitting him to touch the patient. Whereupon it is asserted by Dr. John Nicholas on his own knowledge, the blotches and humors disappeared from the patient's body and appeared in the bottle of medicine which he held in his hand. Charles's blood had the same efficacy. This sovereign substituted in some cases the giving of a piece of silver instead of the gold, which was usually presented to the patient. Badger says that this king "excelled all his predecessors in the divine gift; for it is manifest beyond all contradiction, that he not only cured by his sacred touch, both with and without gold,but likewise perfectly effected the same cure by his prayer and benediction only." In his reign the gift was exercised at certain seasons of the year, Easter and Michaelmas being at first set apart for this purpose. A further regulation, which is quite suggestive, was that the patient must present a certificate to the effect that he had never before been touched for the disease.

The following incident is related concerning Charles I: "A young gentlewoman of about sixteen years of age, Elizabeth Stevens, of Winchester, came (7 October, 1648) into the presence-chamber to be touched for the evill, which she was supposed to have; and therewith one of her eyes (that namely on the left side) was so much indisposed, that by her owne and her mother's testimony (who was then also present), she had not seene with that eye of above a month before. After prayers, read by Dr. Sanderson, the maide kneeled downe among others, likewise to be touched. And his majestie touched her, and put a ribbon, with a piece of money at it, in usuall manner, about her neck. Which done, his majesty turned to the lords (viz., the duke of Richmond, the earl of Southampton, and the earl of Lindsey) to discourse with them. And the said young gentlewoman of her own accord said openly: 'Now, God be praised! I can see of this fore eye.' And afterwards declared she did see more and more by it, & could, by degrees, endure the light of thecandle. All which his majestie, in the presence of the said lords & many others, examined himself, & found to be true. And it hath since been discovered that, some months agone, the said young gentlewoman professed that, as soon as she was come of age sufficient, she would convey over to the king's use all her land; which to the valew of about £130per annum, her father deceased had left her sole heyre unto."171

Charles II, perhaps the most unworthy of English monarchs, was by far the busiest healer, and even while in exile in the Netherlands he retained the power to cure. In one month he touched two hundred and sixty at Breda, and Lower said: "It was not without success, since it was the experience that drew thither every day a great number of those diseased even from the most remote provinces of Germany." An official register of the persons touched was kept for every month in his reign, but about two and a half years appear to be wanting. The smallest number he touched in one year was 2,983; that was in 1669. In 1682 he touched 8,500 persons. In 1684 the throng was such that six or seven of the sick were trampled to death. The total number touched in his reign was 92,107.172It is instructive to note, however, that while in no other reign were so many people touched for scrofulaand so many cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many people die of that disease.173

John Browne, surgeon in ordinary to his majesty and to St. Thomas's Hospital, and author of many learned works on surgery and anatomy, published accounts of sixty cures due to this monarch. He says a surgeon attested the reality of the disease before the miracle was performed, to exclude impostors who were seeking the gold, for, in addition to the regular formula, the king hung about the neck of the person touched a ribbon to which was attached a gold coin. Notwithstanding these stringent measures, some were able to impose on the king, for the coins were often found in the shops, having been sold by the recipients. Says Brand: "Barrington tells us of an old man who was a witness in a cause, and averred that when Queen Anne was at Oxford, she touched him whilst a child for the evil. Barrington, when he had finished his evidence, 'asked him whether he was really cured? upon which he answered with a significant smile, that he believed himself never to have had a complaint that deserved to be considered as the Evil, but that his parents were poor, and had no objection to the bit of gold.'"174

While it was not unknown before, the presentation of a piece of gold was first generally introducedin the reign of Henry VII. It probably descended from a practice common in the time of Edward III, whose coin, the rose-noble, is said to have been worn as an amulet to preserve from danger in battle. The angel-noble of Henry VII, valued at ten shillings, appears to have been the coin given; it was in common use and not made especially for this purpose. It had the figure of the Archangel Michael on one side and a ship in full sail on the other. Before hanging it on the patient's neck the monarch always crossed the sore with it. The outlay for gold coins presented to the afflicted on these occasions rose in some years as high as £10,000. So great was the expense that after the reign of Elizabeth the size of the coin was reduced. Touching pieces of the time of Charles II are not rare even now.

In 1684 Surgeon John Browne published a curious work entitledAdenochoiradelogia: or an Anatomick-Chirurgical Treatise on Glandules and Strumæs, or King's Evil Swellings. In this the author traces the gift of healing from our Saviour to the apostles, and thence by a continuous line of Christian kings and governors, and holy men, commencing with Edward the Confessor, whom he regards as the first curer of scrofula by contact or imposition of hands. After referring to his majesty in most flattering terms, he continues concerning "the admirable effects and wonderful events of his royal cure throughout all nations, where not only English,Dutch, Scotch, and Irish have reaped ease and cure, but French, Germans, and all countreyes whatsoever, far and near, have abundantly seen and received the same: and none ever, hitherto, I am certain, mist thereof, unless their little faith and incredulity starved their merits, or they received his gracious hand for curing another disease, which was not really evermore allowed to be cured by him; and as bright evidences hereof, I have presumed to offer that some have immediately upon the very touch been cured; others not so easily quitted from their swellings till the favor of a second repetition thereof. Some also, losing their gold, their diseases have seized them afresh, and no sooner have these obtained a second touch, and new gold, but their diseases have been seen to vanish, as being afraid of his majesties presence; wherein also have been cured many without gold; and this may contradict such who must needs have the king give them gold as well as his touch, supposing one invalid without the gift of both. Others seem also as ready for a second change of gold as a second touch, whereas their first being newly strung upon white riband, may work as well (by their favour). The tying the Almighty to set times and particular days is also another great fault of those who can by no means be brought to believe but at Good Friday and the like seasons this healing faculty is of more vigour and efficacy than at any other time,although performed by the same hand. As to the giving of gold, this only shows his majesties royal well-wishes towards the recovery of those who come thus to be healed."175He refers to some "Atheists, Sadducees, and ill-conditioned Pharisees" who disbelieved, and he gives the letter of one who went, a complete sceptic, to satisfy his friends, and came away cured and converted.

Browne includes the following case which seems to him conclusive: "A Nonconformist child, in Norfolk, being troubled with scrofulous swellings, the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, being consulted about the same, his majesty being then at Breda or Bruges, he advised the parents of the child to have it carried over to the king (his own method being used ineffectively); the father seemed very strange at this advice, and utterly denied it, saying the touch of the king was of no greater efficacy than any other man's. The mother of the child, adhering to the doctor's advice, studied all imaginable means to have it over, and at last prevailed with her husband to let it change the air for three weeks or a month; this being granted, the friends of the child that went with it, unknown to the father, carried it to Breda, where the king touched it, and she returned home perfectly healed. The child being come to its father's house, and hefinding so great an alteration, inquires how his daughter arrived at this health. The friends thereof assured him, that if he would not be angry with them, they would relate the whole truth; they, having his promise for the same, assured him they had the child to be touched at Breda, whereby they apparently let him see the great benefit his child received thereby. Hereupon the father became so amazed that he threw off his Nonconformity, and expressed his thanks in this manner: 'Farewell to all dissenters, and to all nonconformists; if God can put so much virtue into the king's hand as to heal my child, I'll serve that God and that king so long as I live, with all thankfulness.'"176It is unfortunate that we have a change of air and food to consider in this case, else we might have a good example of a real miracle.

Friday was usually set apart in this reign as the regular day for healing, but, in addition to this, special portions of the church year were reserved for the exercise of this gift. Very careful examinations were made by the surgeons, and those who were found to be suffering from the evil were presented with a ticket by the surgeon which entitled them to receive the healing touch of the king. If the king's touch were really efficacious, one might think that the disease should have been wholly exterminated during this reign, so great were thenumber touched. On the contrary, the deaths were more numerous, and on account of the neglect of medical and surgical means it spread very widely.

James II, it is said by Dr. Heylin, also wrought cures upon babes in their mothers' arms, and the fame of these cures was so great that the year before James was dethroned, a pauper of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, petitioned the general assembly to enable him to make the voyage to England to be healed by the royal touch. In one of his progresses James touched eight hundred persons in Chester Cathedral.

William III evidently thought of the matter as a superstition, and on one occasion he touched a patient, saying to him, "God give you better health and more sense"; notwithstanding the incredulity of the sovereign, Whiston assures us that the person was healed. With honest good sense, however, William refused to exercise the power which most of his subjects undoubtedly thought he possessed, and many protests were made, and much proof was adduced concerning "the balsamic virtues of the royal hand." This refusal to continue the practice of touching brought upon him the charge of cruelty from the parents of scrofulous children, while bigots lifted up their hands and eyes in holy horror at his impiety.

Dr. Samuel Johnson was one of the last persons to receive the imposition of royal hands; when aboy of four and a half years, he was touched by Queen Anne, together with about two hundred others, on March 30, 1712. In his case at least the touch was inefficacious, for he was subject to scrofula all his life. Boswell says:177"His mother, yielding to the superstitious notion, which, it is wonderful to think, prevailed so long in this country, as to the virtue of the royal touch; a notion which our kings encouraged, and to which a man of such inquiry and such judgment as Carte could give credit, carried him to London, where he was actually touched by Queen Anne. Mrs. Johnson, indeed, as Mr. Hector informed me, acted by the advice of the celebrated Sir John Floyer, then a physician in Litchfield." At this time few persons but Jacobites believed in king's touch as a miracle. Dr. Daniel Turner, though, relates that several cases of scrofula which had been unsuccessfully treated by himself and Dr. Charles Bernard, sergeant-surgeon to her majesty, yielded afterwards to the efficacy of the queen's touch.

During the reign of Anne the sceptics outnumbered the believers and at her death the practice was discontinued. Among the unbelievers was the above-mentioned Dr. Charles Bernard, an account of whose conversion is given by Oldmixon as follows: "Yesterday the queen was graciously pleased to touch for the King's evil some particular personsin private; and three weeks after, December 19, yesterday, about twelve at noon her majesty was pleased to touch, at St. James', about twenty persons afflicted with the King's evil. The more ludicrous sort of skeptics, in this case, asked why it was not called the queen's evil, as the chief court of justice was called the Queen's Bench. But Charles Bernard, the surgeon who had made this touching the subject of his raillery all his lifetime till he became body surgeon at court, and found it a good perquisite, solved all difficulties by telling his companions with a fleer 'Really one could not have thought it, if one had not seen it.' A friend of mine heard him say it, and knew well his opinion of it."178

In 1745 there was an attempted revival of the practice when Prince Charles Edward exercised this prerogative of royalty.

Henry VII was the first monarch to establish a particular ceremony to be observed at the healings. He probably derived this from an old form of exorcism used for the dispossessing of evil spirits. This was altered at various times but may still be found in the prayer-book of the reign of Queen Anne. Indeed, it was not until some time after the accession of George I that the University of Oxford ceased to reprint the office of healing, together with the Liturgy.

The routes to be travelled by royal personagesand the days on which the miracle was to be wrought were fixed at sittings of the Privy Council, and the clergy of all the parish churches of the realm were solemnly notified. They, in turn, informed the people, and the sufferers along the way had many days in which to cherish the expectation of healing, in itself so beneficial. The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity and pomp. It has been vividly described by Macaulay as follows: "When the appointed time came, several divines in full canonicals stood round the canopy of state. The surgeon of the royal household introduced the sick. A passage of Mark 16. was read. When the words 'They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover,' had been pronounced, there was a pause and one of the sick was brought to the king. His Majesty stroked the ulcers and swellings, and hung round the patient's neck a white ribbon to which was fastened a gold coin. The other sufferers were led up in succession; and as each was touched the chaplain repeated the incantation, 'They shall lay their hands on the sick and they shall recover.' Then came the epistle, prayers, antiphonies, and a benediction."

Evelyn, in hisDiary, gives us the form employed by Charles II in July, 1660, as follows: "His Majestie first began to touch for evil according to costume, thus—His majestie sitting under his state in the Banquetting House, the Chirurgeons causethe sick to be brought or led up to the throne, where they kneeling, the King strokes their faces or cheekes with both his hands at once, at which instant a Chaplaine in his formalities says: 'He put his hands on them and he healed them.' This is sayed to every one in particular. When they have all been touched they come up againe in the same order; and the other Chaplaine kneeling, and having angel-gold strung on white ribbon on his arme, delivers them one by one to his Majestie, who puts them about the necks of the touched as they passe, whilst the first Chaplaine repeats: 'That is the true light who came into the world.' Then follows an Epistle (as at first, a Gospel) with the Liturgy, prayers for the sick with some alteration, lastly the blessing: and the Lo. Chamberlaine and Comptroller of the Household, bring a basin, ewer, and towel for his Majestie to wash."179

The belief in the efficacy of the king's touch was general, and Lecky tells us its genuineness "was asserted by the privy council, by the bishops of two religions, by the general voice of the clergy in the palmiest days of the English Church, by the University of Oxford, and by the enthusiastic assent of the people. It survived the ages of the Reformation, of Bacon, of Milton, and of Hobbes. It was by no means extinct at the age of Locke, and would probably have lasted still longer, hadnot the change of dynasty at the Revolution assisted the tardy scepticism."180

In France there was the same belief in the efficacy of the royal touch. Philip I exercised the gift, but the French historians say that he was deprived of the power on account of the irregularity of his life. Laurentius reports that Francis I, when a prisoner in Spain, cured a great number of people of struma (scrofula). A paraphrase of the Latin verse which Lascaris wrote concerning this event is as follows:

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