Robert Means Lawrence

Malcolm. Well; more anon.—Comes the king forth, I pray you?

Doctor. Ay, sir; there are a crew of wretched souls

That stay his cure: their malady convinces

The great assay of art; but at his touch—

Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand—

They presently amend.

Malcolm. I thank you, doctor. [Exit Doctor.

Macduff. What's the disease he means?

Malcolm. 'Tis called the evil:

A most miraculous work in this good king;

Which often, since my here-remain in England,

I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven,

Himself best knows: but strangely visited people,

All swoln 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: and 'tis spoken,

To the succeeding royalty he leaves

The healing benediction. With this strange virtue,

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,

And sundry blessings hang about his throne,

That speak him full of grace.

Macbeth, Act iv, Scene 3.

The healing of physical ailments by laying-on of hands was in vogue in the earliest historic times. Certain Egyptian sculptures have been found, illustrative of this practice, wherein one of the healer's hands is represented as touching the patient's stomach, and the other as applied to his back.[74:1]

From numerous references to the subject in Holy Writ, three are here given: "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of hands of the Presbytery."[74:2] "They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." "And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them."[74:3]

We are told that Asclepiades of Bithynia, a famous Grecian physician of the second century b. c., who practised at Rome, systematically employed the "induced trance" in the treatment of certain affections. Probably he considered this method to conform with certain principles which he advocated. For he professed that a physician's duty consisted in healing his patients safely, speedily, and pleasantly; and as he met with considerable success, his system was naturally very popular. It seems certain that the physicians of old had no true conception of the psychological and physiological principles of healing by laying on of hands. It is probable, on the other hand, that they used this method in a haphazard way, relying largely on the confidence of their patients and the expectation of cure.[75:1]

Tacitus, in his "History," book iv, chapter 81, relates that at the instance of the God Serapis, a citizen of Alexandria, who had a maimed hand, entreated that he might be pressed by the foot and sole of Vespasian (a. d. 9-79). The Emperor at first ridiculed the request, and treated it with disdain. However, upon learning the opinion of physicians that a cure might be effected through the application of a healing power, and that it was the pleasure of the gods that he should be the one to make the attempt, Vespasian, with a cheerful countenance, did what was required of him, while the multitude that stood by awaited the event in all the confidence of anticipated success. Immediately, wrote the historian, the functions of the affected hand were restored.

The priests and magi of the ancient Druids possessed a wonderful faculty of healing. They were able to hypnotize their patients by the waving of a wand, and while under the spell of this procedure, the latter could tell what was happening afar off, being vested with the power of clairvoyance.

But the Druidic priests also effected cures by stroking with the hand, and this method was thought to be of special efficacy in rheumatic affections. They also employed other remedies which appealed to the imagination, such as various mesmeric charms and incantations.[76:1]

John Timbs remarks in "Doctors and Patients," that any person who claimed to possess the special gift of healing, was expected to demonstrate his ability by means of the touch; for this was the established method of testing the genuineness of any assumed or pretended curative powers. Among Eastern nations at the present time, European physicians are popularly credited with the faculty of healing by manual stroking or passes, and the same ideas prevail in remote communities of Great Britain. In the opinion of the author above mentioned, the belief in the transmission of remedial virtues by the hands is derived from the fact that these members are the usual agents in the bestowal of material benefits, as, for example, in almsgiving to the poor.

According to the popular view, royal personages were exalted above other people, "because they possessed a distinctive excellence, imparted to them at the hour of birth by the silent rulers of the night." In view of this belief, it was natural that sovereigns should be invested with extraordinary healing powers, and that they should be enabled, by a touch of the hand, to communicate to others an infinitesimal portion of the virtues with which they had been supernaturally endowed. These virtues dwelt also in the king's robes. Hence arose the belief in the miraculous power of healing by the imposition of royal hands.[77:1]

The treatment of scrofulous patients by the touch of a reigning sovereign's hand is believed to have originated in France. According to one authority, Clovis I (466-511) was the pioneer in employing this method of cure. Louis I (778-840) is reported to have added thereto the sign of the cross. The custom was in vogue during the reign of Philip I (1051-1108), but that monarch is said to have forfeited the power of healing, by reason of his immorality and profligacy.[77:2] During later medieval times the Royal Touch appears to have fallen into disuse in France, reappearing, however, in the reign of Louis IX (1215-1270), and we have the authority of Laurentius, physician to Henry IV, that Francis I, while a prisoner at Madrid after the battle of Pavia, in 1525, "cured multitudes of people daily of the Evil."

The Royal Touch was a prerogative of the kings of England from before the Norman Conquest until the beginning of the Hanoverian dynasty, a period of nearly seven hundred years, and the custom affords a striking example of the power of the imagination and of popular credulity. The English annalist, Raphael Holinshed, wrote in 1577 concerning King Edward the Confessor (1004-1066), that he had the gift of healing divers ailments, and that "he used to help those that were vexed with the King's Evil, and left that virtue, as it were, a portion of inheritance, unto his successors, the kings of this realm."

But the earliest reference to this king as a healer by the touch was made by the English historian, William of Malmesbury (1095-1143), in his work, "De Gestis Regum Anglorum." The story, wrote Joseph Frank Payne, M.D., in "English Medicine in the Anglo-Saxon Times," has the familiar features of the legends and miracles of healing by the early ecclesiastics, saints, or kings, as they are found in the histories and chronicles from the time of Bede, the Venerable (673-735). But there appears to be no real historical evidence that Edward the Confessor was the first royal personage who healed by laying on of hands.

John Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies," asserts, on the authority of certain English chronicles, that in the reign of King Henry III (1206-1272), there lived a child who was endowed with the gift of healing, and whose touch cured many diseases. Popular belief, as is well known, ascribed this prerogative also to a seventh son.

Pettigrew, in his "Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery," said that Gilbertus Anglicus, the author of a "Compendium MedicinÆ," and the first practical writer on medicine in Britain, who is believed to have flourished in the time of Edward I (1239-1307), asserted that the custom of healing by the Royal Touch was an ancient one.

In the opinion of William George Black ("Folk-Medicine," 1883), the subject belongs rather to the domain of history than to that of popular superstitions.

Thomas Bradwardin, an eminent English prelate of the fourteenth century, and Archbishop of Canterbury, described the usage in question as already long-established in his time; and Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of England, during Henry the Sixth's reign, declared that the English kings had exercised this privilege from time immemorial.

In a small tract published by His Majesty's command, entitled, "The Ceremonies for the Healing of them that be diseased with the King's Evil, used in the Time of King Henry VII" (1456-1509), we find that it was customary for the patients to kneel before the king during the religious exercises, which were conducted by the chaplain. After laying his hands upon them, the monarch crossed the affected portion of the body of each patient with an "Angel of Gold Noble." This coin bore as its device the archangel Michael, standing upon and piercing a dragon. In later reigns it was replaced by a small golden or silver medal, having the same emblem, and known as a touch-piece.

Andrew Borde, in his "Breviary of Health" (1547, the last year of the reign of Henry VIII), in reference to the King's Evil, wrote as follows: "For this matter, let every man make friendes to the Kynges Majestie, for it doth perteyne to a Kynge to helpe this infirmitie, by the grace of God, the which is geven to a king anoynted. But forasmuch as some men doth judge divers times a fystle or a French pocke to be the king's evill, in such matters it behoveth not a kynge to medle withall."

Queen Elizabeth, who reigned from 1558 to 1603, continued the practice, as we are informed by her chaplain, Rev. Dr. William Tooker, who published in 1590 a quarto volume on the subject, in which he claimed that the power of healing by touch had been exercised by royal personages from a very early period. He asserted that the Queen never refused touching any one who applied for relief, if, upon examination by her medical advisers, the applicant was found to be affected with the King's Evil. The Queen was especially disposed to touch indigent persons, who were unable to pay for private treatment. Although averse to the practice, Queen Elizabeth continued to exercise the prerogative, doubtless from philanthropic motives, and in deference to the popular wish. William Clowes, an eminent contemporary practitioner, and chief surgeon of Bartholomew's Hospital, London, in a monograph issued in 1602, wrote that the struma or evill was known to be "miraculously healed by the sacred hands of the Queene's most royall majesty, even by divine inspiration and wonderfull worke and power of God, above man's skill, arte and expectation."[81:1]

When, in 1603, on the death of Elizabeth, James VI of Scotland became King of England with the title of James I, he was sceptical regarding the efficacy of the Royal Touch. The Scotch ministers, whom he brought with him, urged its abandonment as a superstitious ceremony; while his English counsellors recommended its continuance, maintaining that a failure so to do would amount to a debasing of royalty. Unwillingly therefore he followed the advice of the latter.

We do not find many references to the prevalence of this custom in the reign of Charles I, but there is evidence that it was in use at that time. This is apparent in certain extracts from State Papers, relating chiefly to medicine and pharmacy, published under the direction of the Master of the Rolls, as follows:

The ceremony of the Royal Touch reached its height of popularity during the reign of Charles II (1630-1685). From the "Diary of John Evelyn," we learn that His Majesty began to touch for the King's Evil, July 6, 1660. The King sat in state, attended by the surgeons and the Lord Chamberlain. The opening prayers and the Gospel having been read, the patients knelt on the steps of the throne, and were stroked on either cheek by the King's hand, the chaplain saying: "He put his hands upon them and healed them." Then the King hung a gold "angel" around the neck of each one. On March 28, 1684, so great was the concourse of people, with their children, anxious to be cured, that six or seven were crushed to death "by pressing at the Chirurgeon's door for tickets."

Dr. Richard Wiseman, favorite surgeon of Charles II, wrote that a belief in the Royal Touch was evidently a party tenet. It was therefore encouraged by the sovereign, and upheld by all who were disposed to please the Court. In commenting on the alleged efficacy of this treatment, Dr. Wiseman expressed his conviction that the imagination of the patient was doubtless powerfully affected by the magnificence and splendor of the ceremony. Failure to receive benefit was ascribed to lack of faith. It was said that Charles once handled a scrofulous Quaker with such vigor, that he made him a healthy man and a sound Churchman in a moment.[83:1]

Women quacks were very numerous at this period, and throve exceedingly. Their resoluteness in thrusting their ignorant pretensions upon the public, gave evidence of the same dogged pertinacity which characterizes the modern suffragettes in their fanatical efforts to obtain redress for alleged wrongs.

Thus the psychic healing forces are ever potent, so long as the patient has faith in the treatment employed.

Dr. John Browne, a surgeon in ordinary to Charles II, published a treatise entitled "Charisma Basilicon, or the royal gift of healing strumas, or king's-evil swellings, by contact or imposition of the sacred hands of our kings of England and France, given them at their inaugurations."

The elaborate ceremonies and the presentation of gold pieces were regarded by the author as evidences of the great piety, charity, and humility of the sovereign. He comments moreover on the admirable results of this treatment among people of many nationalities.

Of the vast numbers of patients who repaired to the healing receptions of Charles II, doubtless many were attracted by curiosity, and others by the desire for gold.

In the Parliamentary Journal for July 2-9, 1660, it was stated that the kingdom having been for a long time troubled with the evil, by reason of His Majesty's absence, great numbers have lately flocked for cure.

The presentation of the gold was regarded as a token of the king's good will, and a pledge of his wish for the patient's recovery. Silver coins were sometimes used, but the sovereign power of gold was distinctly admitted, as the disease is reported to have returned, in some cases, upon the medal being lost. The presentation of a second golden touch-piece was alleged to be effective in subduing the scrofula.

The following announcement appeared in the "Public Intelligencer," under date of Whitehall, May 14, 1664:

"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 to give over till Michaelmas next, I am commanded to give notice thereof, that the people may not come up to Town in the interim and lose their labour."

Charles II is said to have found the practice extremely lucrative. It is not surprising that many practitioners in those days were credited with having wrought marvellous cures.

We know that the undoubted influence of the mind on the body, and the power of suggestion and expectant attention, apply only to subjective states and functional ailments. Thus it is intelligible why so many people of education and culture, on the principle that seeing is believing, were able to testify to miraculous cures in their own experience.[86:1]

William Andrews, in "Historic Romance," says that the records of the Town of Preston, Lancashire, show that the local Corporation voted grants of money to enable patients to make the journey to London, to be touched for the evil. In the year 1682 bailiffs were instructed to "pay unto James Harrison, bricklayer, ten shillings, towards carrying his son to London, in order to the procuring of His Majesty's touch." Again, in 1687, being the third year of James II, when the King was at Chester, the Preston Town Council passed a vote, ordering the payment to two young women, of five shillings each, "towards their charge in going to Chester to get His Majesty's touch."

Thomas Cartwright, Bishop of Chester, wrote in his diary, August 27, 1687: "I was at His Majesty's levee, from whence, at nine o'clock, I attended him into the closet, where he healed three hundred and fifty persons."

Queen Anne (1702-1714) was the last of the English sovereigns who exercised the royal prerogative of healing by laying-on of hands. She made an official announcement in the London "Gazette," March 12, 1712, of her intention to "touch publicly." Samuel Johnson, then a child of about three years of age, was one of the last who tested the efficacy of this superstitious rite, and without success. Acting upon the advice of Sir John Floyer, a noted physician of Lichfield, Mrs. Johnson took her son to London, where he was touched by the Queen. When asked in later years if he could remember the latter, he used to say that he had a "confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a lady in diamonds and a long black hood."[88:1] George I, the successor of Queen Anne, regarded the Royal Touch as a purely superstitious method of healing, and during his reign the practice fell into desuetude.

The English jurist, Daines Barrington (1727-1800), in his "Observations upon the Statutes," relates the case of an old man whom he was examining as a witness. This man stated that he had been touched for the evil by Queen Anne, when she was at Oxford. Upon being asked whether the treatment had been effective, he replied facetiously that he did not believe that he ever had the evil, but that his parents were poor, and did not object to the piece of gold.[88:2]

During the reign of George II, a writer of a speculative turn of mind queried whether the disuse of this long-established custom might be attributed to the sullenness of the reigning prince, who, as was generally known, had received many evidences of his subjects' displeasure; or whether the alleged divine power of healing by the Royal Touch had been withdrawn from him. And it was replied that the sovereign had as good a title as any of his predecessors to perform this holy operation. Moreover, he was so much in love with all sorts of pageantry and acts of power that he would willingly do his part. But the degeneracy and wickedness of the times, which tended to bring all pious and holy things into contempt, and then into disuse, was the reason for this neglect.[89:1]

In the year 1746, or thereabouts, one Christopher Lovel, a native of Wells, in Somersetshire, but afterwards a resident of Bristol, being sadly afflicted with the King's Evil, and having during many years made trial of all the remedies which medical science could suggest, and without any effect, decided to go abroad in search of a cure. Proceeding to France, he was touched at Avignon by the eldest lineal descendant of a race of kings, who had, for a long succession of ages, healed by exercising the royal prerogative. But this descendant and heir had not at that time been crowned. Notwithstanding this fact, however, the usual effects followed, and from the moment that the man was touched, and invested with the narrow ribbon, to which a small silver coin was pendant, according to the rites prescribed in the office appointed by the Church for that solemnity, he began to mend, and recovered strength daily, arriving at Bristol in good health, after an absence of some four months.

Such, briefly, is an account of this remarkable case, as given in Thomas Carte's "History of England," published about 1746. But a contributor to the "Gentleman's Magazine," January 13, 1747, who signed himself Amicus Veritatis, wrote in reference to the foregoing account, expressing surprise that sensible people should give credit to such a tale, which was calculated to support the old threadbare notion of the divine hereditary right of royal personages to cure by touch. The then reigning sovereign, George II, wrote he, despised such childish delusions.

The report of this alleged wonderful case made a great noise among the ignorant classes. But the sceptic writer above mentioned argued that Lovel's cure was but temporary, and that the benefit was due to change of air and a strict regimen, rather than to the touch of the Pretender's hand at Avignon. For, queried he, can any man with a grain of reason believe that such an idle, superstitious charm as the touch of a man's hand can convey a virtue sufficiently efficacious to heal so stubborn a disorder as the King's Evil?

French tradition ascribes the origin of the gift of healing by royal touch, to Saint Marculf, a monk whose Frankish ancestry is shown by his name, which signifies forest wolf. This personage was a native of Bayeux, and is reputed to have flourished in the sixth century a. d. His relics were preserved in an abbey at Corbigny, and thither the French monarchs were accustomed to resort, after their coronation at Rheims, to obtain the pretended power of curing the King's Evil, by touching the relics of this saint. But according to the historian, FranÇois Eudes de MÉzeray (1610-1683), the gift was bestowed upon King Clovis (466-511) at the time of his baptism.

In 1515, the year of his accession, Francis I laid his hands on a number of persons in the presence of the Pope, during the prevalence of an epidemic at Bologna, Italy. And in 1542 he issued the following statement: "On our return from Rheims, we went to Corbigny, where we and our predecessors have been accustomed to make oblations, and pay reverence to the precious relics of Saint Marculf for the admirable gift of healing the King's Evil, which he imparted miraculously to the kings of France, at the pleasure of the Creator. The grace we exercised in the usual way, by touching the parts affected, and signing them with the sign of the cross."

Louis XIII of France (1601-1643) is said to have bestowed upon Cardinal Richelieu all of his prerogatives, except the Royal Touch.

His successor, Louis the Great, is credited with having touched sixteen hundred people on Easter Sunday, 1686, using the words, "Le Roy te touche, Dieu te guÉrisse." Every French patient received a present of fifteen sous, while foreigners were given double that amount.[91:1]

According to the Swiss theologian, Samuel Werenfels (1657-1740), who published a treatise on "The Power of curing the King's Evil," this prerogative was shared by the members of the House of Hapsburg. And the same authority relates that the kings of Hungary were able to heal various affections by the Royal Touch, and to neutralize by this method the toxic effects of the bite of venomous creatures.

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