Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing, George Barton Cutten [crime books to read TXT] 📗

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 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 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 £130 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