Note 538 — Chapter XXX · MEDICAL.
Reading edition
As has been said before, quackery was universal; nay, it had the sanction of being practised by royalty, for was not the Queen an arch quack when she touched for the 'evil'? She was the last of a long line of sovereigns, from Edward the Confessor, who exercised the supposed royal gift of healing; but this salutary efficacy was not confined to the royal touch alone, if we can believe a little story of Thoresby's[538]: 'Her Mother Mary Bailey of Deptford, after she had been twelve years blind by the Kings evil was miraculously cured by a handkerchief dipped in the blood of King Charles the First.'