Note 48 — Chapter XV · THE SEMAPHORE—IMMUTABLE TIDES—THE CORAL-REEF—SPEARING FISH—NETTING—CATCHING SHARKS—A ROYAL MAUSOLEUM—SUPERSTITIONS OF EAST AND WEST—CENTIPEDES—INTOXICATING DRINKS—INFLUENZA—DEATH OF MRS SIMPSON.

Let not the nations of the West sneer at these superstitions of the East. Faith in the efficacy of the king’s touch as a cure for scrofula was implicit both in France and England for many a long year. So early as A.D. 481 it was practised by Clovis. And it is recorded that on Easter Day, 1686, Louis XIV. touched 1600 persons, saying to each, “Le roy te touche, Dieu te guérisse!” This singular divine right was first claimed in England by Edward the Confessor in 1058, and his successors carried it on. Charles I. did, on St John’s Day, 1633, visit Holyrood Chapel, where “he heallit 100 persons, young and old, of the cruelles or king’s evil.” Charles II. actually touched 92,107 such patients—being an average of 12 per diem for twenty years. His exchequer must have suffered by this kingly privilege, as he presented a broad gold piece to each sufferer. The touch of Queen Elizabeth was declared “a sure relief when all other methods have failed.” Henry VIII., not content with miraculously curing all scrofula patients, also healed those afflicted with cruel cramps. Dr Johnson speaks of his earliest recollections of Queen Anne, into whose awful presence he had been ushered in his infancy, that by her royal touch she might cure him of his sore disease! The office appointed by the Church to be said on these occasions was actually retained in the English liturgy till 1719, when it was omitted by command of George I. But so late as 1745 many of the Jacobite party came secretly to Charles Edward, to crave his healing touch. See ‘From the Hebrides to the Himalayas’ (C. F. Gordon Cumming), vol. i. p. 264.