Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 10/Exploded Superstitions
EXPLODED SUPERSTITIONS.
It is a comfort to think that we are wiser than our ancestors. The mortification of knowing what fools they were is amply compensated by the sense of our own superior enlightenment. How long is it since we hung our last witch? It is said that there are obscure country districts where the schoolmaster has not yet penetrated—in which reputed witches may still be found. Are there yet haunted houses in the metropolis, gloomy and untenanted? There are still doubtless the remains, here and there, of the current and almost universal beliefs of an age whose departing shadows still linger.
One of the most general, cherished and persistent of English superstitions, was the belief in the supernatural power of our monarchs to cure certain diseases. For centuries few Englishmen, learned or ignorant, doubted that the touch of the hand of his king or queen was a sovereign remedy for the scrofula, which was therefore called the king's evil, it being the evil the king had most certain power to cure.
For a period of seven centuries—from Edward the Confessor to Queen Anne—the sovereigns of England were accustomed, at stated seasons and with solemn ceremonies, to heal their subjects of loathsome and otherwise often incurable diseases, by the laying on of hands and prayer; and the most distinguished physicians, far from being incredulous of the existence of this kingly power, were employed in sending proper patients to the sovereign, and in recording the marvellous cures. Are we to infer that kings, the greatest and best who ever ruled England, combined with her ablest physicians to gull an ignorant public, or must we come to the conclusion that all were alike deceived?
The early English writers, as may naturally be supposed, make frequent allusions to miracles. Shakespeare, from whose comprehensive genius and "copious industry" few things escaped, does not lose the opportunity to give a graphic description of this standing proof of the Divine right of kings. We have the modus operandi most accurately given in "Macbeth," act iv., scene 3:
Malcolm.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 call'd 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 golden stamp about their necks,
Put on with holy prayers; and 'tis spoken,
To the succeeding royalty he leaves
The healing benediction.
The monarchs of France claimed to exercise the same power, and there was once a great contest between the writers of the two countries as to the comparative powers of their respective sovereigns in the cure of disease, as earnest, perhaps, as the controversies of the present day about armies and navies.
Philip of Valeria is reported to have cured fourteen hundred persons. Gernell, the traveller, describes a ceremonial in which Louis XIV. touched sixteen hundred persons afflicted with scrofula on Easter Sunday, saying "Le Roi te touche, Dieu te guérisse." The French kings kept up the practice until 1770, when republican principles were beginning to interfere with many of the prerogatives of royalty.
King Edward the Confessor, we are informed in Collier's "Ecclesiastical History of Great Britain," was the first king of England who exercised this extraordinary power, and from him it has descended upon all his successors. "To dispute the matter of fact," says this grave historian, "is to go to the excesses of scepticism, to deny our senses, and be incredulous even to ridiculousness." The authority of Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice under Henry VI., is no less explicit. "The kings of England," he assures us, "at the time of unction, received such a divine power, that, by the touch of their hands, they can cleanse and cure those, who are otherwise considered incurable, of a certain disease, commonly called the king's evil."
The ceremony of touching, as described in Shakespeare, was accompanied by the gift of a small coin of gold, which was worn as a medal by the patient, and during some reigns, when the monarch was popular, or faith active, or scrofula prevalent, these coins amounted to 3000l. a-year. Henry VII.—to give the ceremony a greater solemnity—ordered a form of religious service to accompany it.
Queen Elizabeth is said to have been averse to the custom, as either superstitious or disgusting; but she practised it notwithstanding, and with great success. She was, however, more select than had been the practice of former sovereigns, either to save herself trouble, or expense to the treasury; for she required that every one who presented himself to be touched should bring a certificate from the Court surgeons that the disease was scrofula, and that it was incurable by the ordinary means; and one of Her Majesty's surgeons, William Clowes, testifies that "a mighty number of Her Majestie's subjects were daily cured and healed, which otherwise would have most miserably perished."
The historians of the reign of Charles I. do not neglect to inform us that he excelled all his predecessors in this divine gift; and so great were the numbers who came to be cured, that out of regard to economy, he used silver medals instead of gold; and when these failed, sometimes cured by mere praying, without even the laying on of hands. Among the State Papers of this reign, there is a proclamation "for the better ordering of those who repayre to the Court for their cure of the called the king's evill." Such proclamations were issued from time to time, during all those dark ages, of Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton, and Bacon, and were ordered to be posted up in every market town in the kingdom.
During the Protectorate of Cromwell—when there was no king to cure it—scrofula appears to have greatly increase, for no English monarch was ever called upon to touch so many as Charles II. after the restoration. After all the care of the surgeons to see that none but the really scrofulous, and those beyond their own power to cure, approached him, the numbers were almost incredible. A register was kept at Whitehall; and though one day in a week was appointed and the number limited, it is down in the record that the Merry Monarch in twenty years touched and prayed over more than 92,000 persons.
In Evelyn's Diary, March 28, 1684, a sad accident is recorded, as resulting from the crowds who to be cured, six or seven being crushed to death "by pressing at the chirurgeon's doore for tickets." At this time as 600 were touched in a day. Some were immediately relieved, others gradually, and few are reported as not benefited. The surgeon, whose scientific incredulity appears to have yielded only to the stubborn facts, confessed himself "nonplust," and asserted that "more souls have been healed by His Majestie's sacred hand in one year than have ever been cured by all the physicians and chirurgeons of his three kingdoms ever since his happy restoration." Wiseman, a writer on surgery, who declares that he was an eye-witness of hundreds of cases, and had accounts of others by letter from all parts of the kingdom, and also from Ireland, Scotland, and Guernsey, makes a similar declaration. In fact, the belief in this Royal power appears to have been almost universal, and persons who denied it were considered guilty of high treason. It may well be supposed that those who had any doubts kept them to themselves, when the penalty for expressing them was to be drawn and quartered.
We have placed this belief in the power of monarchs to cure a particular disease under the head of exploded superstitions; but it must be confessed that the recorded facts in the case are hard to get over. “Imagination,” says Lord Bacon, “is next akin to a miracle—a working faith.” The facts, so far as they must be admitted, are usually explained upon this hypothesis; but we submit that a somewhat different one is needed to account for the cure of infants at the breast, who were presented in full proportion of numbers, and were cured as often as adults. Perhaps some of our scientific men will take the trouble to offer us another and more universal explanation.
It must not be supposed, however, that our gracious sovereigns limited their healing powers to the cure of scrofula, They did not hesitate to grapple with cramps and epilepsy. The ancient chronicles inform us that they used “to halowe, every yere, crampe rynges.” They were worn on the finger, and held to be of sovereign efficacy. Many were hallowed by Henry VIII, and of these a number were sent to Rome, as very choice gifts, by Anne Boleyn, when she hoped to gain certain favours by such rare presents. A ring of this kind was for a long time preserved with great veneration in Westminster Abbey, and was touched by a great many persons for the cure of cramp or epilepsy. Of the efficacy of these applications we can find no authentic record.
That a “child’s caul” will protect its possessor from drowning is a superstition not wholly exploded, since many shipmasters and sailors are furnished with these curious articles, and they are sometimes advertised for sale in the newspapers. But these are only the vestiges of ancient beliefs. The “caul,” it should be noted, is supposed to have a double efficacy, or is as good a preservation against conflagrations as shipwrecks. What are a few pounds for a talisman good against two out of the four elements?
The belief in amulets, or charms, which had the power to preserve the wearer from danger, was once so universal, that persons going to fight a duel were obliged to make oath that they had no such supernatural protection. There was formerly, and perhaps is still, a considerable traffic in Africa in amulets warranted to preserve their possessors against thunderbolts and diseases, to procure many wives, avert shipwreck and slavery, and secure victory over enemies.
The precious stones were once believed to have great virtues, either when worn on the person, or taken as a powder internally. Even so famous a medical writer as Avicenna tells us that lapis armenius, and lapis lazuli, taken internally, are sovereign remedies for melancholy. The garnet, either hung about the neck, or taken inwardly, “much assists sorrow, and recreates the heart.” The chrysolite induces wisdom, and cures folly. It may have been observed even in our day that pearls and diamonds, properly administered, have cured some bad complaints, when other means have failed.
The old writers, either out of their own imaginations, or in accordance with the popular belief, give us curious accounts of precious stones, for some of which we should look in vain at the shops of our London jewellers.
Of the heliotropius they say,—“It stauncheth blood, driveth away poisons, and preserveth health; yea, and some write that it provoketh rain, and darkeneth the sunne, suffering not him that beareth it to be abused.” “A topaze healeth the lunaticke person of his passion of lunacie.” “Cornelian mitigateth the heat of the mind, and qualifieth malice. It stauncheth bloody fluxes.” “A sapphire preserveth the members, and maketh them livelie, and helpeth agues and gowts, and suffereth not the bearer to be afraid. It hath virtue against venome, and staieth bleeding at the nose, being often put thereto.”
These fancies are just now dying out. If stones or metals are now given as medicines, it is because they possess real, rather than mystical properties. Silver, mercury, antimony, and arsenic, are dealt out in prescriptions, and not worn as charms. The foot with which an elk scratches his ear, on being knocked down, would not now be considered a very certain cure for epilepsy. A ring made of silver collected at the communion service, or of three nails or screws of a coffin-lid, or of five sixpences collected of five bachelors, carried by a bachelor to a smith who is a bachelor, would not now, we may hope, in any part of England, be very confidently relied on to cure fits and convulsions. Grose, an author once of no mean repute, assures us that a halter wherewith one has been hanged, if tied about the head, will cure the headache; but he says, also, that moss, grown on a human skull, powdered and taken as snuff, is no less efficacious. In our enlightened age, though a few persons may be found who believe that the hangman’s rope, or his victim’s cold hand, will cure diseases, there are many more who have no faith in the halter, even for the cure of moral and social evils.