EDWARD THE CONFESSOR TOUCHES A SCROFULOUS WOMAN From La Estoire de Seint Edward le Rei. MS. Ee. iii. 59. (University Library, Cambridge.

rege morbus medicatus a crusta mollescit et solvitur, ducenteque manu e diversis foraminibus vermes plene cum sanie et sanguine egrediuntur. Item pius rex sancta dextera promens, et educens saniem, nec abhorret in infirma muliere hunc pati foetorem, donec medicante manu omnem illam noxiam elicuit pestem. Lubet deinde eam quotidie regia stipe ali, donec integrae restitueretur sanitati. Vix in curia perseptimanat, cum Dei gratia detersa omni obscenitate eam venusto decore informat. Et quae prius vel ob eandem vel aliam infirmitatem sterilis erat, eodem anno et marito fecunda extitit, et deinceps vixit cunctis cohabitantibus non iniocunda. Quod licet nobis novum videatur, hoc eum in adolescentia cum esset in Neustria quae nunc Normannia nuncupatur, saepius egisse Franci testantur.

[For as we have learnt by the testimony of good and trusty men, God glorified him in this corruptible life by these tokens following. A certain young woman, married but gladdened by no fruit of her marriage, came to be afflicted about her throat and beneath her jaws with glands, as they are called from their likeness to an acorn; the which had so spoilt her whole aspect with the excessive foulness of the disease, that she could scarce speak to any one without great mental torment. She is told in a dream, that if she were washed with water by King Edward, she would be healed of her most grievous disease. So, steadfast in faith, she reveals the bidding of her dream, and hearing it the King disdains not to succour her feeble sex. His disposition was of the kindest and ever easy of access to all petitioners. A vessel of water is brought, and the King dips his hand, and with outstretched fingers besprinkles the woman's face and the parts smitten with the contagion. This act he repeats again and again, signing her the while with the Cross. Now give credit to my tale of this wonder of wonders. At the King's anointing the diseased part softens, the scab is loosened, and as he draws back his hand, worms come out from several openings along with much bloody matter. So the devout King takes and draws out the matter with his holy hand, not shrinking to endure the foetor of this weak woman, till his healing hand has removed all the noxious plague. Thereafter it is his royal pleasure that she be maintained from day to day at his own cost, until she should be restored to full health. Scarce a week

does she stay at Court, ere the good God has wiped away all her unsightliness, and fashioned her with sweet comeliness. And she who for this or some other infirmity was aforetime barren, in the same year became fertile by her husband, and thenceforth lived a pleasant sight for all that shared her home to see. Now, strange though it may seem to us, the French say that he often did the same thing in his young days, when he was in Neustria, which is now called Normandy.]

The record continues with a description of the miraculous healing of certain blind men, together with an account of miracles performed at his tomb. William of Malmesbury' reproduces in his Chronicle the above passage with merely slight verbal alterations, and it is this which hitherto has been regarded as the first account of the Confessor touching for the Evil. He appends, however, a passage of no small importance, as follows:

Unde nostro tempore quidam falsam insinuant operam, qui asseverant istius morbi curationem non ex sanctitate, sed ex regalis prosapiae hereditate fluxisse.

[Wherefore it is a falsehood that some declare nowadays, who assert that the cure of that disease was derived not from his holiness, but by inheritance from his royal lineage.]

These passages establish beyond all doubt, that a few years before his death the Confessor healed by touch in his English kingdom a case of scrofula, as then conceived. That he was the first king to do so in England must also be conceded, if the words 'licet nobis novum videatur' are to carry any significance. Further, it is stated that he had often touched for scrofula, when living with his mother in exile at the Norman Court, before he was recalled to receive the crown. It is also clear that he bestowed his touch not only on scrofula but on cases of blindness; and finally, that in the time

1 De Gestis Regum Anglorum, lib. ii.

of William of Malmesbury controversy had already arisen as to whether Edward cured by reason of his own sanctity, or in virtue of a power bequeathed to him by former sovereigns. Now William of Malmesbury was born about 1095 A.D.; he received his education and spent his early years as a monk in the monastery of Malmesbury. There he would have conversed with monks whose memory went back to Canute. His Gesta Regum, originally finished by 1125 A. D., was taken up again later and revised and continued down to 1140 A. D.; he is believed to have died about 1145 A.D. From him then, who had actually lived in the reigns of William II, Henry I, and Stephen, we have no word of any one of these kings having touched for scrofula, but what he tells us is, that out of Edward's act of healing there had arisen a controversy as to whether he had wrought the cure in virtue of his inherent holiness, or in virtue of his kingly descent. And he expressly states that the power was not inherited from his predecessors. There would seem to be no escape from the conclusion, that the Confessor was the first English king to touch for scrofula, and all his chronicles agree that this was shortly before his death in 1066 A.D. We know, too, from the contemporary chronicle1 that between 1066 and 1074 A.D. this method of healing by touch was regarded as a novel thing in England, while from Guibert de Nogent we learn, that at an earlier period in France it was already regarded as an established custom.

William of Malmesbury and the unknown monk of Westminster each assert, that whereas the Confessor healed but one case of scrofula in England, he had healed many in Normandy during the period of his exile. Does this bespeak an Anglo-Saxon origin? Edward was a Saxon king only by reason of his 1 Harleian MS. 526, British Museum.