Jan. 22. 1853.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



89 



Good Friday was the day appointed for the bless- 

 ing of the rings. They were often called " medij- 

 cinable rings," and were made both of gold and 

 silver ; and as we learn from the household books 

 of Henry IV. and Edward IV., the metal they 

 were composed of was what formed the king's 

 offering to the cross on Good Friday. The follow- 

 ing entry occurs in the accounts of the 7th and 

 8 th years of Henry IV. (1406) : " In oblacionibus 

 Domini Regis factis adorando Crucem in capella 

 infra manerium suum de Eltham, die Parascevis, 

 in precio trium nobilium auri et v solidorum 

 sterlyng, xxv s, 



"In denariis solutis pro eisdem oblacionibus 

 reassumptis, pro annulis medicinalibus inde faci- 

 endis, xxv s." 



The prayers used at the ceremony of blessing 

 the rings on Good Friday are published in Wal- 

 dron's Literary Museum. Cardinal Wiseman has 

 in his possession a MS. containing both the cere- 

 mony for the blessing the cramp rings, and the 

 ceremony for the touching for the king's evil. At 

 the commencement of the MS. are emblazoned 

 the arms of Philip and Mary : the first ceremony 

 is headed, " Certain prayers to be used by the 

 queues heignes in the consecration of the crampe 

 rynges." Accompanying it is an illumination re- 

 presenting the queen kneeling, with a dish, con- 

 taining the rings to be blessed, on each side of her. 

 The second ceremony is entitled, " The ceremonye 

 for y*-' heling of them that be diseased with the 

 kynges evill;" and has its illumination of Mary 

 kneeling and placing her hands upon the neck of 

 the diseased person, who is presented to her by 

 the clerk ; while the chaplain, in alb and stole, 

 kneels on the other side. The MS. was exhibited 

 at a meeting of the Archa3ological Institute on 

 6th June, 1851. Hearne, in one of his manuscript 

 diaries in the Bodleian, Iv. 190., mentions having 

 seen certain prayers to be used by Queen Mary at 

 the blessing of cramp rings. May not this be the 

 identical MS. alluded to ? 



But, to come to W. C. T.'s immediate question, 

 " When did the use of these blest rings by our 

 sovereigns cease ? " The use never ceased till the 

 change of religion. In addition to the evidence 

 already given of the custom in the fifteenth cen- 

 tury, may be added several testimonies of its 

 continuance all through the sixteenth century. 

 Lord Berners,. when ambassador to the Emperor 

 Charles V., writing " to my Lord Cardinal's grace" 

 from Saragossa, June 31, 1518, says, "If your 

 grace remember me with some crampe ryngs, ye 

 shall doo a thing muclie looked for ; and I trust to 

 bestowe thaym well with goddes grace." (Harl.MS. 

 295. f. 119. See also Polydore Virgil, Hist I 8. ; 

 and Harpsfield.) Andrew Boorde, in his Introduc- 

 tion to Knowledge, mentions the blessing of these 

 rings : " The kynges of England doth halow every 

 yerc crampe rynges, j° which rynges worne on 



one's finger doth helpe them whych hath the 

 crampe : " and again, in his Breviary of Healthy 

 1557, f. 166., mentions as a remedy against the 

 cramp, " The kynge's majestic hath a great helpe 

 in this matter, in halowing crampe ringes, and so 

 given without money or petition." 



A curious remnant or corruption of the use of 

 cramp rings is given by Mr. G. Rokewode, who 

 says that in Suffolk " the use of cramp rings, as a 

 preservative against fits, is not entirely abandoned. 

 Instances occur where nine young men of a parish 

 each subscribe a crooked sixpence, to be moulded 

 into a ring, for a young woman afflicted with this 

 malady." {History, Sfc, 1838, Introd. p. xxvi.) 



Ceyrep, 



TURNERS VIEW OT LAMBETH PALACE. 

 (Vol.vii., p. 15.) 



L. E. X. inquires respecting the first work exr 

 hibited by the late J. M. AV. Turner, Il.A. The 

 statement of the newspaper referred to was correct. 

 The first work exhibited by Turner was a water- 

 colour drawing of Lambeth Palace, and afterwards 

 presented by him to a gentleman of this city, long 

 since deceased. It is now in the possession of that 

 gentleman's daughter, an elderly lady, who attaches 

 no little importance to it. The fact is, that Mr. 

 Turner, when young, was a frequent visitor at her 

 father's house, and on such terms that her father 

 lent Mr. Turner a horse to go on a sketching tour 

 through South Wales. This lady has also three 

 or four other drawings made at that time by 

 Turner, — one a view of Stoke Bishop, near Bristol, 

 then the seat of Sir Henry Lippincott, Bart., which 

 he made as a companion to the Lambeth Palace ; 

 another is a small portrait of Turner by himself, of 

 course when a youth. As the early indications of 

 so great an artist, these drawings are very curious 

 and interesting ; but no person that knows any- 

 thing of the state of water-colour painting at that 

 period, and previous to the era when Turner, 

 Girtin, and others began to shine out in that new 

 and glorious style, that has since brought water- 

 colour works to their present style of splendour, 

 excellence, and value, will expect anything ap- 

 proaching the perfection of latter days. 



J. Walter, 

 Marine Painter. 



28. Trinity Street, Bristol. 



Whether or not the work deemed by L. E. X. 

 to be the first exhibited by Turner may have been 

 in water-colours, or be still in existence, I leave 

 to other replicants, availing myself of the occasion 

 to ask him or you, whether in 1787 two works of 

 W. Turner, at Mr. G. Turner's, Walthamstow, 

 " No. 471. Dover Castle," " No. 601. Wanstead 

 House," were not, in fact, his first tilt in that arena 

 of which he was the champion at the hour of his 



