CUKE BY Y E TOUCH. 421 



accompanied the stroking with the substantial token of a fair 

 rose-noble, the coin being suspended from the neck by a piece 

 of white ribbon. Evil-disposed people are never at a loss for 

 pretexts for venting their malevolence ; accordingly, the like 

 have urged that this royal dotation of a piece of gold was 

 nothing else than a bribe for testimony, an inducement for 

 a patient to swear he was cured, whereas without the gold 

 he might not have seemed to see it. As if an English cripple, 

 chastened by disease, temp. Henry VII., would have given 

 false testimony for a paltry bit of gold ! or, for the matter 

 of that, any other cripple ! 



The curative strokings of Henry VII. are worthy a phi- 

 losopher's deepest consideration, both as regards the royal 

 person and the outward ceremonies he vouchsafed to use in 

 performing his cures. The point is thoroughly well made out 

 that God, in recognising kings, does what mankind are now 

 wont to do i. 6. recognises them de facto. Richmond could 

 advance no claim to what certain weak-minded people call 

 legitimacy. Pooh! pooh! Richard being out of the way, 

 Richmond put the crown on his own head, and thenceforth 

 before the eyes of man he stood a king. Of man, did I write ? 

 ay, and of Heaven too ; how else could he have cured the evil 

 as well as any other king 1 



Treating the subject-matter in hand historically, we next 

 come to our British Bluebeard of divine succession ; divine 

 inasmuch as Henry VII. had been permitted to display, 

 through the gift of healing, his acceptance by Heaven. As a 

 medical and chirurgical stroker, Henry VIII. was even more 

 renowned than his royal father; and to some the cures 

 effected by this king will appear the more extraordinary that 

 they were performed in despite of the anathemas and ful- 

 minations of Rome. Not only was Henry VIII. most power- 

 ful in the cure of scrofula, or king's evil, by imposition of 

 hands with stroking, but he also acquired much celebrity for 

 the cure of cramps. The latter operation he did not accom- 



