ROYAL TOUCH
"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 convinces
The great assay of art; but at his touch,
Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,
They presently amend.
_Malcolm._ I thank you, doctor. [Exit _Doctor._
_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 leaves
The 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 the cures 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]
[Illustration: KING'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 the king, 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."[168] The 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
should scruple 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 down from 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
his _Introduction 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 anointing her 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 do so 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
sevenight." 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 the candle. 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 L130 _per 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.[172] It is instructive to note, however, that while
in no other reign were so many people touched for scrofula and 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 introduced in 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 L10,000. 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 entitled
_Adenochoiradelogia: or an Anatomick-Chirurgical Treatise on Glandules
and Strumaes, 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."[175] He 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 he
finding 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.'"[176] It 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 the
number 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 a boy 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 persons in
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 personages and 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 his _Diary_, 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 cause the 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, had not 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:
"The king applies his hand, diseases fly,
And though a captive, still the powers on high
Regard his touch. This striking proof is giv'n,
That they who bound him are the foes of Heav'n."
Concerning the touching by the kings of France, Pettigrew says: "In
the church of St. Maclou, in St. Denys, Heylin (_Cosmograph._, p. 184)
says the kings of France, with a fast of nine days and other penances,
used to receive the gift of healing the king's evil with nothing but a
touch. Philip de Comines states, that the king always confessed before
the cure of the king's evil. Butler (_Lives of the Saints_, vol. VIII,
p. 394) says, 'The French kings usually only perform this ceremony on
the day they have received the holy communion.' The historians who
write under the first two families of the French kings are altogether
silent as to the kings' curing the evil by the touching. (_Veyrard
Trav._, p. 109.) Philip of Valois is reported to have cured 1400 people
afflicted with the king's evil. Of Louis XIII, it was said that he had
assigned all his power to Cardinal Richelieu, except that of curing
the king's evil. Carte says, some of the French writers ascribe the
gift of healing to their king's devotion toward the relics of St.
Marculf, in the church of Corbigny, in Champagne: to which the kings
of France, immediately after their coronation at Rheims, used to go in
solemn procession. A veneration was also paid to this saint in
England, and a room in memory of him, in the palace of Westminster,
has frequently been mentioned in the Rolls of Parliament, and which
was called the Chamber of St. Marculf, being, as Carte conjectures,
probably the place where the kings used to touch for the evil. This
room was afterward called the Painted Chamber. The French kings
practised the touch extensively. Gemelli, the traveller, states, that
Louis XIV touched 1600 persons on Easter Sunday, 1686.[181] The words
he used were, 'Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guerisse.' Every Frenchman
received fifteen sous, and every foreigner thirty. The French kings
kept up the practice to 1776."[182]
"Servetus," says Hammond, "who was not of a credulous mind, says in
the first edition of his _Ptolemy_, published in 1535, that he had
seen the king touch many persons for the disease, but he had never
seen any that were cured thereby. But the last clause of this sentence
excited the ire of the censor, and in the next edition, published in
1541, the words '_an sanati fuerint non vidi_' were changed to
'_pluresque sanatos passim audivi_': 'I have heard of many that were
cured.' Testimony in support of miracles has often been manufactured,
but the natural obstinacy and truthfulness of Servetus would not admit
of his giving his personal endorsement at the expense of his
convictions."[183]
Within the last half-century we have had an example of the value of
the royal touch. When cholera was raging in Naples in 1865, and the
people were rushing from the city by thousands, King Victor Emmanuel
went the rounds of the hospitals in an endeavor to stimulate courage
in the hearts of his people. He lingered at the bedside of the
patients and spoke encouraging words to them. On a cot lay one man
already marked for death. The king stepped to his side, and pressing
his damp, icy hand, said, "Take courage, poor man, and try to recover
soon." That evening the physicians reported a diminution of the
disease in the course of the day, and the man marked for death out of
danger. The king had unconsciously worked a marvellous cure.[184]
It seems certain that there was not the efficacy in king's touch which
was claimed for it, or it would not have been discontinued after
having held sway for over seven hundred years. No doubt the
quasi-religious character of the office of the sovereign helped much
in the belief, and when such men as Charles II were able to heal,
little connection between religion and healing could longer be thought
possible, as far as the healing by king's touch was concerned.
The Hallowing of Cramp Rings was not unlike the king's touch. It is
described by Bishop Percy in his _Northumberland Household Book_,
where we have the following account: "And then the Usher to lay a
Carpett for the Kinge to Creepe to the Crosse upon. An that done,
there shal be a Forme sett upon the Carpett, before the Crucifix, and
a Cushion laid upon it for the King to kneale upon. And the Master of
the Jewell Howse ther to be ready with the Booke concerninge the
Hallowing of the Crampe Rings, and Amner (Almoner) muste kneele on
the right hand of the King, holdinge the sayde booke. When that is
done the King shall rise and goe to the Alter, wheare a Gent. Usher
shall be redie with a Cushion for the Kinge to kneele upon; and then
the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the Bason with the Rings
and beare them after the Kinge to offer."
In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Lord Chancellor
Hatton to Sir Thomas Smith, dated September 11, 158-, about a
prevailing epidemic, and enclosing a ring for Queen Elizabeth to wear
between her breasts, the said ring having "the virtue to expell
infectious airs."
Andrew Boorde, already quoted, says: "The Kynges of England doth
halowe euery yere crampe rynges, the whyche rynges, worne on ones
fynger, dothe helpe them the whyche hath the crampe."[185] Also, "The
kynges majesty hath a great help in this matter, in hallowynge crampe
rynges, and so given without money or petition."
In the account of the ceremony given by Hospinian, he states that "it
was performed upon Good Friday, and that it originated from a ring
which had been brought to King Edward by some persons from Jerusalem,
and one which he himself hath long before given privately to a poor
petitioner who asked alms of him for the love he bore to St. John the
Evangelist. This ring was preserved with great veneration in
Westminster Abbey, and whoever was touched by this relic was said to
be cured of the cramp or of the falling sickness." Burnet informs us
that Bishop Gardiner was at Rome in 1529, and that he wrote a letter
to Ann Boleyn, by which it appears that Henry VIII blessed the cramp
rings before as well as after the separation from Rome, and that she
sent them as great presents thither.
"Mr. Stephens, I send you here cramp rings for you and Mr. Gregory and
Mr. Peter, praying you to distribute them as you think best.--Ann
Boleyn."[186]
This ceremonial was practised by previous sovereigns and discontinued
by Edward VI. Queen Mary intended to revive it, and, indeed, the
office for it was written out, but she does not appear to have carried
her intentions into effect.
[167] T. J. Pettigrew, _Superstitions Connected with the
History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_, pp. 154
f.
[168] E. Berdoe, _The Origin and Growth of the Healing
Art_, p. 372.
[169] _Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain_, I, p.
225.
[170] Quoted by Berdoe, _ibid._, p. 371.
[171] J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, pp. 257 f.
[172] T. B. Macaulay, _History of England_, III, pp. 378
f.
[173] A. D. White, _History of the Warfare of Science
with Theology_, II, p. 47.
[174] J. Brand, _Popular Antiquities_, III, p. 256.
[175] T. J. Pettigrew, _Superstitions Connected with the
History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_, pp.
182-184.
[176] Quoted by H. Tuke, _Influence of the Mind upon the
Body_, pp. 359 f.
[177] _Life of Johnson_, I, p. 42.
[178] _History of England_, II, p. 302.
[179] Vol. I, p. 323.
[180] W. E. H. Lecky, _History of European Morals_, I,
p. 364.
[181] This was at Versailles.
[182] T. J. Pettigrew, _Superstitions Connected with the
History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery_, pp. 156
f.
[183] W. A. Hammond, _Spiritism and Nervous
Derangement_, p. 150.
[184] C. L. Tuckey, _Treatment by Hypnotism and
Suggestion_, p. 30.
[185] E. Berdoe, _The Origin and Growth of the Healing
Art_, p. 371.
[186] T. J. Pettigrew, _Superstitions Connected with ...
Medicine and Surgery_, p. 117.