The king's evil and the royal touch / by Hector A. Colwell.
- Colwell, Hector A. (Hector Alfred), 1875-
- Date:
- 1910
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The king's evil and the royal touch / by Hector A. Colwell. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.
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![legitimate sovereign, he did not dare to arrogate to himself the power which belonged to such alone. This pamphlet was deemed of sufficient political import- ance to warrant a rejoinder by William Beckett, surgeon and Fellow of the Royal Society. That staunch old Jacobite, Thomas Hearne, has preserved a note upon the subject in his diaries: “Aug. 3, 1728. Yesterday Mr. Gilman, of St. Peter’s parish in the East, Oxford (a lusty, heartick [sic], thick, short man), told me that he is in the 85th year of his age, and that at the restoration of K. Charles II., being much affected with the King’s Evil, he rode up to London behind his father, was touched on a Wednesday morning by that King, was in a very good condition by that night, and by the Sunday night immediately following was perfectly recovered, and hath so continued ever since. He hath constantly worn the piece of gold about his neck that he received of the King, and he had it on yesterday when I met him.” In this, as in some other cases, the zeal of the Jacobites carried them further than discretion warranted. One of these gentlemen published a description of a gold piece which had been dug up, and, on the strength of a perforation and the letters E. C. upon the coin, he came to the con- clusion that it had been used by Edward the Confessor— a somewhat rash statement, since the first English king to issue a gold coin was Henry III., and gold was not coined regularly till the reign of Edward III. It is refreshing- in such a connection to find that Pepys—who, from his close association with James II. as Duke of York, thought it his duty to resign his office at the Admiralty on the accession of William III.—records his opinion of the ceremony as “ an ugly office and a simple one.” In 1745 Prince Charles Edward “touched” a child at Holyrood. This was the last occasion upon which it was done on British soil. After his death, however, his brother Cardinal Henry Benedict, who styled himself Henry IX. of England, continued the practice on the continent, and as a token of his reverse of fortune issued touch-pieces bearing- on the reverse a ship with her sails “ taken aback.”](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b22445456_0019.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
