‘In oblacione domini regis ad crucem de Gneyth in capella sua in
pcħo de Wyndesore die parasceues, v_s._, et pro totidem denariis
reassumptis pro annulis inde faciendis v_s._’
Here the sum total is omitted: the three entries, though mutually
explanatory, show how puzzling becomes a too strict economy of words.
Entries substantially the same as these may be seen in the Wardrobe
Accounts of 12-14 Edward III.[231]
One more entry from the Account Books of John de Ypres, 44 Edward III,
is perhaps worth quoting, as it seems to point definitely to the rings
being made in this instance of both gold and silver:
‘In oblacionibus Regis factis adorando crucem in capella sua infra
castrum suum de Wyndesore die parasceues in pretio trium nobilium
auri et quinque solidorum sterling xxv_s._--In denariis solutis
pro iisdem oblacionibus reassumptis pro annulis medicinalibus inde
faciendis, eodem die xxv.’
The offering of both gold and silver money would seem to bear out the
suggestion as to the material of the rings, as we know that in later
times both metals were used. It is, of course, arguable that the larger
sum of money indicates only a greater demand for the rings.
Richard II’s Account Books[232] show that he maintained the practice of
his grandfather. The following is from an account of the Controller of
the Wardrobe in his reign:
‘in dena͞r solu͞t decano capelle Regis pro eisdem oblacionibus
reassump͞t pro anulis medicinaƚ inde faciendis, xxv_s._’
The substituted money seems to have been actually laid on the altar,
and removed thence to be made into rings: this will explain payment
being made in this case to the Dean of the Chapel Royal.
Henry IV could ill afford to dispense with any of the prerogatives of
royalty, and we find him offering 25 shillings in the chapel of the
palace of Eltham for the making of medicinal rings.[233]
It is no matter for surprise that no mention should be forthcoming of
cramp-rings in the reign of Henry V, most of which was spent beyond
the shores of England, and in the propagation rather than in the
relief of disease. A passage, however, in the literary remains of Sir
John Fortescue[234] taken from a tract entitled _Defensio Iuris Domus
Lancastriae_, now to be seen in the Cotton Collection at the British
Museum, and referable to the year A.D. 1462, seems to show that the
practice had not been allowed to lapse during his memory, which ranged
over the reigns of Henry IV, V, and VI. The translated passage runs
thus:
‘Many duties likewise are incumbent on the Kings of England in
virtue of the kingly office, which are inconsistent with a woman’s
nature, and Kings of England are endowed with certain powers by
special grace from heaven, wherewith Queens in the same country are
not endowed. The Kings of England at their very anointing receive
such an infusion of grace from heaven, that by touch of their
anointed hands they cleanse and cure those infected with a certain
disease, that is commonly called the King’s Evil, though they be
pronounced otherwise incurable. Epileptics too, and persons subject
to the falling sickness, are cured by means of gold and silver
devoutly touched and offered by the sacred anointed hands of the
kings of England upon Good Friday, during divine service (according
to the ancient custom of the Kings of England); as has been proved
by frequent trial of rings, made of the said gold and silver and
placed on the fingers of sick persons in many parts of the world.
The gift is not bestowed on Queens, as they are not anointed on the
hands.’
The passage also brings out the fact that the use of both gold and
silver rings had long been customary.
We have abundant evidence of the maintenance of the ceremony under
Edward IV in a number of separate entries. Thus in an Eleemosyna Roll
of 8 Edward IV is the following: ‘Pro eleemosyna in die parasceves
c. marc. et pro annulis de auro et argento pro eleemosyna Regis
eodem die.’ And in a Liber Niger Domus Regis Edwardi IV: ‘Item, to
the Kynge’s offerings to the crosse on Good Friday, out from the
counting-house for medycinable rings of gold and silver, delyvered to
the jewell house xxv_s._’ And again in a Privy Seal Account of 9 Edward
IV: ‘Item, paid for the King’s Good Fryday rings of gold and silver
xxxiii_l._ vi_s._ viii_d._’ Edward IV seems to have aimed at fortifying
himself upon the throne by a liberal use of the Royal Gift of Healing,
and I have elsewhere expressed my belief, in the absence of any written
evidence, that it was in his reign, and not in that of Henry VII,
as commonly believed, that the dole of the angel to those touched by
the King for the Evil was instituted. Cramp-rings are mentioned in
the Comptroller’s Accounts of 20 Henry VII, but the Tudors certainly
devoted their healing powers chiefly to sufferers from the Evil.
There is a passage in the _Historia Anglicana_ of Polydore Vergil,[235]
the Italian, who came to live in England in A.D. 1502, and wrote his
history during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII, which shows the nature
of the patients for whom these sacred rings were used.
‘Iste annulus in eodem templo (scil. Westmonasterii), multâ
veneratione perdiu est servatus, quod salutaris esset membris
stupentibus valeretque adversus comitialem morbum, cum tangeretur
ab illis, qui eiusmodi tentarentur morbis. Hinc natum, ut reges
postea Angliae consueverint in die Parasceues, multâ coeremoniâ
sacrare annulos, quos qui induunt, hisce in morbis omnino nunquam
sunt.’
Besides true epileptics, they were used for those who had palsied
limbs: this is interesting as suggesting the inclusion of Jacksonian
epilepsy, and perhaps hemiplegia, and the resulting contractures
in these conditions may have contributed to the confusion with
contractures from other causes, such as chronic rheumatism. We have
to bridge over in some such way the gap between their conception of
‘cramp’ and ours.
In the will of John Baret of Bury St. Edmunds,[236] dated 1463, is a
bequest to ‘my lady Walgrave’ of a ‘rowund ryng of the Kynges silver’;
and also to ‘Thomais Brews, esquiyer, my crampe ryng with blak innamel,
and a part silvir and gilt.’ And in 1535 Edmund Lee bequeaths to ‘my
nece Thwartow my gold ryng w^t a turkes, and a crampe ryng of gold w^t
all.’
There are even earlier bequests than this of healing-rings,[237]
but not specifically termed cramp-rings: they are simply spoken of
as ‘vertuosi’. Thus Thomas de Hoton, rector of Kyrkebymisperton,
in 1351, bequeathed to his chaplain ‘j. zonam de serico, j. bonam
bursam, j. firmaculum, et j. anulum vertuosum. Item, domino Thome de
Bouthum j. par de bedes de corall, j. anulum vertuosum.’ Talismanic
rings, inscribed with the names of the three Magi, Caspar, Melchior,
Balthazar, were used as preservatives from epilepsy in Plantagenet
times.
The royal cramp-rings enjoyed no monopoly in the cure of epilepsy,
as is shown by an extract from a medical treatise written in the
fourteenth century:[238]
‘For the Crampe. Tak and ger gedine on Gude Friday, at fyfe
parriche kirkes, fife of the first penyes that is offerd at the
crosse, of ilk a kirk the first penye: than tak them al and ga
before the crosse and say V. pater nosters in the worschip of fife
wondes, and bere thaim on the V. dais, and say ilk a day als mekyl
on the same wyse: and then gar mak a ryng thar of with owten alay
of other metel, and writ with in Jasper, Batasar, Altrapa, and writ
with outen Ih’ c. nazarenus; and sithen tak it fra the goldsmyth
upon a Fridai, and say V. pater nosters als thu did before and use
it alway afterward.’
The ‘fife wondes’ are, of course, the five wounds of the crucified
Jesus.
A silver ring, made of five sixpences contributed by five different
bachelors, conveyed by a bachelor to the hand of a smith that was also
a bachelor, was another reputed remedy for epilepsy; and its virtue was
enhanced, if none of the bachelors knew for what purpose or to whom it
was given.[239]
In Berkshire, rings made from a piece of silver collected at the
Communion found favour, and they were more efficacious if collected
on Easter Sunday. Devonshire preferred a ring made of three nails or
screws that had been used to fasten a coffin, and that had been dug out
of a churchyard.[240]
Cramp-rings hallowed by the King of England enjoyed repute beyond the
shores of England.[241] Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, when
ambassador to Charles V, writing to ‘my Lorde Cardinall’s grace from
Saragoza, the xxi daie of June, 1510’, says: ‘If your grace remember
me with some crampe rynges ye shall do a thynge muche looked for, and
I trust to bestow thaym well, with Godd’s grace, who evermor preserve
and encrease your moste reverent astate.’ Among various charms that
Charles V carried about with him were ‘gold rings from England against
cramp’.[242]
In A.D. 1518 we find the President of the College of Physicians lending
his patronage to the royal cramp-rings. In a letter to the Parisian
scholar, Guillaume Budé,[243] Thomas Linacre writes that he ‘has sent
him some rings consecrated by the King as a charm against Spasms’: and
on July 10, 1518, Budé replies to him from Paris that he has ‘received
his letter with the rings on July 6’, and has distributed among the
wives of his relatives and friends the eighteen rings of silver and one
of gold he received from Linacre, telling them that they were amulets
against slander and calumny.
Even the hard-headed Scot was not proof against the magnetism of the
royal rings. A letter from Dr. Thomas Magnus, Warden of Sibthorpe
College, Nottinghamshire, to Cardinal Wolsey,[244] written in A.D. 1526
says:
‘Pleas it your Grace to write that M. Wiat of his goodnes sent
unto me for a present certaine cramp ringges, which I distributed
and gave to sondery myne acquaintaunce at Edinburghe, amonges
other to M. Adame Otterbourne, who, with oone of thayme, releved a
mann lying in the falling sekenes, in the sight of myche people:
sethenne which tyme many requestes have been made unto me for cramp
ringges, at my departing there, and also sethenne my comyng from
thennes. May it pleas your Grace therefore to show your gracious
pleasure to the said M. Wyat, that some ringges may be kept and
sent into Scottelande; whiche after my poore oppyniyoun shulde be a
good dede, remembering the power and operacion of thaym is knowne
and proved in Edinburgh, and that they be gretly required for the
same cause both by grete personnages and other.’
When Bishop Gardiner was in Rome in A.D. 1529, Anne Boleyn wrote him
the following letter:[245]
Master Stephyns,
I thank you for my letter, wherein I perceive the willing and
faithful mind that you have to do me pleasure, not doubting, but
as much as is possible for man’s wit to imagine, you will do. I
pray God to send you well to speed in all your matters, so that
you would put me to the study, how to reward your high service: I
do trust in God you shall not repent it, and that the end of this
journey shall be more pleasant to me than your first, for that was
but a rejoicing hope, which causing the like of it, does put me to
the more pain, and they that are partakers with me, as you do know:
and therefore I do trust that this hard beginning shall make the
better ending.
Master Stephyns, I send you here cramp-rings for you and Master
Gregory, and Mr. Peter, praying you to distribute them as you think
best. And have me kindly recommended to them both, as she that you
may assure them, will be glad to do them any pleasure, which shall
be in my power. And thus I make an end, praying God send you good
health.
Written at Grenwiche, the 4th day of April,
By your assured friend,
Anne Boleyn.
[To Master Stephyns this be delivered.]
Burnet[246] refers to this letter, as follows:
‘When he [Gardiner] went to Rome, in the year 1529, Anne Boleyn
writ a very kind letter to him, which I have put in the Collection
(Records No. 24). By it, the reader will clearly perceive that he
was then in the secret of the King’s designing to marry her as
soon as the divorce was obtained. There is another particular in
that letter, which corrects a conjecture which I had set down in
the beginning of the former book concerning the cramp rings that
were blessed by King Henry, which I thought might have been done by
him after he was declared head of the Church.[247] That part was
printed before I saw this letter: but this letter shows they were
used to be blessed before the separation from Rome: for Anne Boleyn
sent them as great presents thither. This use of them had been (it
seems) discontinued in King Edward’s time: but now, under Queen
Mary, it was designed to be revived, and the office for it was
written out in a fair MS. yet extant, of which I have put a copy
in the Collection (No. 25). But the silence in the writers of that
time makes me think it was seldom if ever practised.’
Queen Mary’s Manual, of which we shall have more to say later, seems to
have been the source from which Burnet transcribed the Office. In his
time it was in the library of R. Smith, titular Bishop of Chalcedon.
Numerous allusions in the records of the De Lisle family bear testimony
to the popularity of cramp-rings in the reign of Henry VIII.[248]
Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and afterwards Duke of Somerset,
writes to Lady Lisle, in 1537:
‘Hussey told me you were very desirous to have some cramp-rings
against the time that you should be brought a bedd.... I send by
the present messenger 18 cramp-rings, which you should have had
long ago.’[249]
John Husee writes from London on April 17, 1535, to his mistress, Lady
Lisle: ‘I send you by Mr. Degory Gramefilld 59 cramp rings of silver,
that Christofer Morys giveth you, and one of gold’;[250] and again, on
May 2, 1538: ‘Cramp-rings I can get none out of the jewel-house. Mr.
Wyll^{m}s says the King had the most part of gold, but has promised me
twelve silver.’[251]
In a letter of May 13, 1536, John Husee combines denunciation of Anne
Boleyn with a promise of cramp-rings to Lady Lisle:
‘Madam, I think verily that if all the books and cronycles were
totally revolved and to the uttermost proscuted and tried, which
against wymen hath been pennyd, contryvyd, and wryten, syns Adam
and Eve, these same were I think verily nothing in comparison with
that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen.... I
think not the contrary but she and all they shall suffre. John
Williams hath promised me some cramp rings for your Ladyship’;[252]
and again, six days after:
‘Your ladyship shall receive of this berer 9 cramp-rings of silver.
John Williams says he never had so few of gold as this year. The
king had the most part himself: but next year he will make you
amends.’[253]
This day, May 19, 1536, was the day of Anne Boleyn’s execution.
Margaret Mylynton, in 1516, bequeaths to ‘my dame Croche my best gown
and a kercheve, and my cramp-ring’.[254] There is nothing, however, to
show that it had received the royal benediction.
Andrew Boorde, in his _Introduction of Knowledge_, says, ‘the kynges
of Englande doth halowe every yere crampe rynges, ye which rynges
worne on ones fynger doth help them whych hath the crampe’; and again,
in his _Breviarie of Health_, published in 1547, but written during
the lifetime of Henry VIII: ‘The kynges majesty hath a great helpe in
this matter, in hallowing crampe rynges, and so given without money
or petition.’ Boorde was medical attendant to Thomas, eighth Duke of
Norfolk, Lord President of the Council and uncle of Anne Boleyn, and by
him was recommended to the notice of Henry VIII, who employed him much
in State business, but not, so far as is known, in a medical capacity.
His testimony therefore is peculiarly reliable, and shows that Henry
VIII maintained the ceremony throughout his reign, as is borne out
by the scattered references we have adduced from other contemporary
sources.
In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, Gardiner sent a letter to
Ridley, which contains the following passage:
‘The late king used to bless cramp rings both of gold and silver,
which were much esteemed everywhere, and when he was abroad they
were often desired from him. The gift he hoped the young king
would not neglect. He believed the invocation of the name of God
might give such a virtue to holy water as well as to the water of
baptism,’ and further he speaks of the rings as endued ‘by the
special gift of curation ministered to the king of this realm’.[255]
That Edward VI did not relinquish the practice of blessing cramp-rings,
as has been supposed, and as Burnet submits, is conclusively proved
by an entry in the Household Accounts of the year 1553, before his
death. Under the heading ‘Oblations’ is 25 shillings for the redemption
of rings commonly called medicine rings, to be made of gold and
silver.[256]
It was little likely that Mary would allow a Catholic ceremonial to
lapse for want of royal patronage. In the Appendix to _Illustrations
of the manners and expences of antient times in England, in the 15th,
16th, and 17th centuries, deduced from the accompts of churchwardens
and other authentic documents, London, 1797, 4to_, printed in the same
year, is a list of the New Year’s gifts presented by Queen Mary in
1556, among which we find:
‘Item, deliuerid by the queins commandement--to the said Robert
Raynes, in broken golde, to make crampe rings, etc. Item, more
deliuerid the same time, to make cramp ringes, in broke plate of
silu’ theise parcelles,’ &c.
[Illustration: Plate XL. QUEEN MARY TUDOR BLESSING CRAMP-RINGS