(_To the Editor of the Mirror_.)
Having read an interesting paper from your ingenious correspondent
_P.T.W._ in your number of the 14th of November, respecting "Touching
for the Cure of the King's Evil," it occurred to me that some farther
information relative to the original of that "hereditary miracle," as
Mr. Collier is pleased to term it, might not be uninteresting to some
of your readers: I therefore send you the following:--
Stowe, in his _Annals_, accounts for the origin of touching for the
evil, in the following manner:--"A young woman who was afflicted with
this disorder in a very alarming manner, and to a most disgusting
degree, feeling uneasiness and pain consequent upon it in her sleep,
dreamt that she should be cured by the simple operation of having the
part washed with the king's hand. Application was consequently made
to Edward, by her friends, who very humanely consented to perform
the unpleasant request. A basin of water was brought, with which he
carefully softened the humours, till they broke, and the contents
discharged; the sign of the cross wound up the charm; and the female
retired, with the assurance of his protection during the remainder
of the cure, which was effected within a week." This is somewhat
differently related in _Ailred's History of the Life and Miracles of
Edward the Confessor_, an extract from which may be found in a note
to the first volume of Rapin's _History of England_.
The following curious advertisement was issued by the order of King
Charles II. for healing the people, on the 18th of May, 1664.
"Notice.
"His sacred majesty having declared it to be his royal will and purpose
to continue the healing of his people for the evil during the month of
May, and then give over till Michaelmas next; I am commanded to give
notice thereof, that the people may not come up to the town in the
interim, and lose their labour."
Thomas Mousewell was tried for high treason in 1684, for having spoken
with contempt of King Charles's pretensions to cure the scrofula.
In a manuscript account of the Restoration, written by Thomas Gumble,
D.D. Chaplain to General Monck, in the year 1662, is the following
description of the ceremony:--" There was a great chair placed for the
king, in a place somewhat distant from the people. As soon as the king
was sate, one of the clerks of the closet stood at the right side of his
chair, holding on his arm as many gold angels (every one tied in a
ribbon of white silk) as there were sick to be touched, which were in
number, forty-eight. Dr. Brown, the chaplain of the Princess of Aurange,
performed the place of the king's chaplain. The chaplain then read the
sixteenth chapter of St. Mark, from the fourteenth verse to the end; and
then the chirurgeon presented the sick, (having examined them to see
that it was the evil) after three reverences on their knees, before the
king, who, whilst the chaplain said these words in that gospel: 'They
shall lay their hands upon the sick, and they shall be healed,' layed
his hands on the two cheeks of the sick, saying, 'I touch thee, but
_God_ healeth thee!' The chaplain then began another gospel; and whilst
these words were pronounced out of the first chapter of St. John: 'This
was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,'
his majesty took the pieces of gold, and put them on the necks of the
diseased, the chaplain repeating the words as many times as there were
persons to receive them, concluding with a prayer, 'That Almighty God
would bless the ceremony;' then, after the reverences as before, they
retired. The Earls of Middlesex and St. Albans held the bason, ewer, and
towel, whilst the king washed."
Shakspeare, in his _Macbeth_, thus describes this royal, but now
exploded gift:--
"Strangely visited people,
All swollen 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."
In Nicholls's _Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century_, vol. ii.
p. 495, 505, many curious particulars relating to this ceremony are to
be found.
As the custom has now for some time been discontinued, and the credulity
of those who believed in its efficacy, laughed at, I hope it will not be
long ere that disgusting custom of allowing persons (of whom women in
general form by far the greater number) afflicted with the king's evil,
and different other disorders, to come on the scaffold immediately after
the execution of a criminal, for the purpose of touching the part
affected, with the hand of the _but just dead_ malefactor, will be put a
stop to; it being the very height of absurdity to imagine that it can be
productive of any good effect; but on the contrary, tending to divest
the minds of the surrounding multitude of that awe with which the
ignominious spectacle should impress them.
[Greek: S.G.]
In the trifling paper I sent you respecting "Cats," which you deemed
worthy of insertion in No. 398, you have it "by some merchants from the
Island of Cyprus, who came hither for _fur_," it should be _tin_--Fur
being an article of importation.
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