Part 3 — SUPPLEMENT TO THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL TOUCH.
Reading edition
See page 326.
Since the section on the royal touch has been printed off, a paper has appeared in the Monthly Magazine, under the signature of I. Bannantine, which casts some further light upon that subject. As it is presumed it will not be unacceptable to the reader, we take the liberty of inserting here the substance of it.—
“It does not appear (says that writer) that any of the House of Brunswick have asserted this royal function; at least, it has not been publicly announced, as was formerly the practice: but were his present majesty to resume it, such faith is yet put in the assertion of a king, that all the courtiers and the great body of the ignorant multitude would not hesitate to believe its infallibility. The last sovereign who appears to have exercised this miraculous gift was queen Anne. In the royal gazette of Mar. 12. 1712. appears the following public notice: “It being her Majesiy’s royal intention to touch publicly for the Evil the 17th. of this instant March, and so to continue for sometime, it is her Majesty’s Command, that tickets be delivered the day before at Whitehall, and that all persons bring a certificate, signed by the minister and church-wardens of their respective parishes, that they never received the royal touch.”
He further adds, that Wiseman, Sergeant Surgeon to Chas. 2nd, in a treatise on the Evil, speaks of the royal touch in the following terms:
“I have myself been frequent eye witness of many hundreds of cures performed by his majesty’s touch alone, without the assistance of chirurgery, and those many of them such as had tired out the endeavours of able chirurgeons before they came thither. It were endless to relate what I myself have seen, and what I have received acknowledgement of by Letters, not only from the several parts of the nation, but also from Ireland, Scotland, Jersey, and Germany.”
It was the office of Wiseman, as Sergeant Surgeon, to select such afflicted objects as were proper to be presented for the royal touch.—Is it possible (I. Bunnantine here exclaims) to desire a more satisfactory testimony of these miraculous cures, than that of a man of science and respectability, under whose immediate inspection they were performed, and who had “himself been a frequent eye-witness of many hundreds of cures performed by his majesty’s touch alone!”—The late judge Barrington (he further observes) relates what he heard from an old man, a witness in a cause, with regard to this miraculous power of healing.
“He had by his evidence fixed the time of a fact, by queen Anne’s having been at Oxford, and touched him, whilst a child, for the Evil. When he had finished his evidence, I had an opportunity of asking him, whether he really was cured? Upon which he observed, 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.”
It seems to me (adds the judge) this piece of Gold, that was given to those who were touched, accounts for the great resort on this occasion, and the supposed afterwards miraculous cures.—Gimelli, the famous traveller, gives an account of 1600 persons offering themselves to be cured of the Evil by Lewis xiv. on Easter Sunday, 1686. Gimelli himself was present at the ceremony: every Frenchman received 15 Souce, and every foreigner 30. This power of healing assumed by the kings of France occasioned great resort to Francis I. while prisoner at Madrid, by the Spaniards, who had not such faith in their own king’s touch. It appears by a proclamation of Jas. I. Mar. 25, 1617, that the kings of England would not permit any resort to them for these miraculous cures in the summer-time. By another proclamation of June 18, 1626 it is ordered that no one shall apply for this purpose, who does not bring a proper certificate, that he has never been touched before: the same, it has been already seen, were the terms on which queen Anne granted her royal touch.—In a prayer-book printed in 1703, is a form of the Church-service for the occasion of the royal touch. After the Lord’s Prayer it is stated, “Then shall the infirm persons, one by one, be presented to the queen; while the queen is laying her hands upon them and is putting the Gold about their necks, the chaplain that officiates turning himself to her majesty shall say these words following: “God give a blessing to this work and grant that these sick persons on whom the queen lays her bands may recover through Jesus Christ our Lord!”—After some other prayers, the chaplain, standing with his face towards those come to be healed, shall say: “The Almighty God, who is a most strong tower to all them that put their trust in him, to whom all things in heaven, in earth, and under the earth, do bow and obey, be evermore your defence; and make you know and feel that there is no other name under heaven given to man, and through whom you may receives health and salvation, but only in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen!”—Mo. Mag. Mar. 1810.
END OF VOLUME 1.