mantile a Nobili quodam sibi traditum offerebat Middlesexiensis.1

[After the service was ended the Earl of Middlesex and the Earl of St. Albans, approaching the King with the same ceremony as did the sick, offered him a basin and ewer. The Earl of St. Albans poured water on the King's hands, and the Earl of Middlesex presented a towel that was handed to him by another nobleman.]

Charles had almost certainly adopted this detail from the French practice, which he must have frequently seen performed, when Louis XIV touched for the Evil at Versailles. No allusion to it is forthcoming till the reign of Louis XVI, but as it did not form part of the actual ceremonial, such a detail may well have escaped mention. Edward the Confessor had used water, so had Charles VI of France, but in each case the water of purification was used for the washing of the sick man. Then it was a religious rite, now it has become a sanitary precaution.

Sir Thomas Browne was one of those who remained faithful to Charles, even in exile. John Browne 2 gives details of a patient-the child of a Nonconformist-sent by Sir Thomas Browne to Breda to be touched. Nor was this a solitary recommendation of the Royal touch by this learned physician, for several letters to his son Dr. Edward Browne survive, in which mention is made of patients availing themselves of the ceremony, and in none of these is there the slightest suspicion of incredulity. It is, perhaps, surprising to find the author of Inquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors doing homage to superstitious fancy; but, after all, it is less surprising than the indubitable fact that the same man was also author of the Religio Medici. Two works of

1 Princeps Medicus.

2 Charisma, ch. x.

3 Wilkin, Sir Thomas Browne's Works. Letters: May 29, 1679; Oct. 2, 1679; Sept. 22, 1680; June 6, 1681.

one pen more essentially antagonistic, more completely irreconcilable, it is difficult to imagine.

Charles, even in exile, seems to have found some means of supplying the sick with a dole of money, for Caesius says that the coin, whatever its nature, was slung on a white ribbon, and the rubrics of L'Estrange's Form of Healing used in exile assign it the dignity of gold.

More precise information on this head may be derived from a journal of the sojourn of Charles II in Holland, in the spring of 1660, printed in the same year (Relation, en forme de journal, du voyage et sejour du Roy de la Grande Bretagne, etc. à La Haye, chez Adrian Vlacy, 1660). It is there stated that Charles used half Caroluses, gold coins of the value of ten shillings. Probably these would have been coins of Charles I, and in confirmation of this the British Museum possesses a bored half Carolus of Charles I.

The steady and gradual increase in the number of applicants for healing, that had its origin seemingly in the economic conditions induced by the dissolution of the monasteries, reached a climax in the years immediately following the Restoration. Several secondary causes contributed also to the same end. The long civil wars must have done much to swell the roll of the destitute and sick. No doubt, too, the King himself would endeavour to encourage the popularity of a ceremonial, the very performance of which asserted that the King's authority was derived from God. It stamped the King at once as the Lord's Anointed, as king by the grace of God and not by the will of his subjects. The successful exercise of the divinely given power by Henry VIII and Charles II showed at least that no degree of personal immorality, however gross, could annul the royal faculty. The religious vicissitudes of

the reigns of Edward VI, of Mary, and of Elizabeth proved that it possessed a vitality superior to that of either creed. And, above all, in the persons of Charles I and Charles II, as in that of Francis I of France, it was made manifest that no deprivation of political power could rob the sovereignty of its hereditary gift. Only a few weeks after the Restoration an entry in the Parliamentary Journal1 throws some light on another cause of the exceptional increase. It runs :

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. His sacred majesty, on Monday last, touched 250 in the banquetting House: among whom, when His Majesty was delivering the gold, one shuffled himself in, out of an hope of profit, which had not been stroked, but His Majesty quickly discovered him, saying, 'This man hath not yet been touched.'

No less than 600 men were touched at a single healing in the month of June in Restoration year. The great increase of applicants led to considerable amplification of the regulations controlling the ceremonial. The Parliamentary Journal3 announced that 'His Majesty hath for the future appointed Every Friday for the cure, at which 200 and no more are to be presented to him': but neither was this restriction of numbers nor the appointment of special days ever respected from the first. As a matter of fact, Sunday after Morning Service continued, as in Tudor times, to be the most frequent time of healing. Prior to the reign of Charles II, the medical examination seems to have taken place at the same time as the ceremony, and consequently must frequently have been made within the precincts of the Court. The Ordinances for the management of the household of

1 July 2-9, 1660.

3

? Mercurius Politicus, June 21-28, 1660. July 2-9, 1660.