422 CURE BY Y E TOUCH. 



plish by stroking, but either through the influence of certain 

 rings, known as cramp rings, or through some occult emana- 

 tion of the kingly power, of which cramp rings were a token. 



For some reason, the explanation of which, so far as I 

 am aware, has never been vouchsafed, the kingly office of 

 stroking for the evil was not exercised by Edward VI. Mary 

 certainly practised it, though scant notices of her majesty's 

 successes in this line have been handed down to us, most 

 probably for the reason that all chroniclers of the royal gift 

 whose testimony is now available were Protestants, incapable 

 of doing justice to a queen, even in a matter of fact, whose 

 faith differed from their own. 



The reign of Elizabeth, considered in relation to the di- 

 vine gift of cure by the touch, is remarkable in several par- 

 ticulars. It is remarkable for the lack of faith on the part 

 of the virgin queen herself, in respect of a virtue which, 

 according to my testimony, she possessed in the highest ex- 

 altation of its excellence, and of which examples shall be set 

 forth by and by. 



Elizabeth's reign is remarkable for the appearance of 

 several books, all in defence and vindication of the royal pre- 

 rogative : books written not by ignorant men, but by authors 

 of high repute, such as divines and surgeons practised in the 

 cure of the very diseases operated upon by majesty. 



Thus, Dr. William Tooker, a divine* who wrote in this 

 reign, testifies, in language the most unequivocal, to the virgin 

 queen's salutary power, t This author, not content with re- 

 ferring the first example of cure by imposition of royal hands 

 with stroking to Edward the Confessor, carries the gift as 

 far back as Lucius, by some supposed to be the first of our 

 Christian kings. 



Perhaps the testimony to the Queen's power of cure by 



* Some time chaplain to Queen Elizabeth ; afterwards canon of Exeter 

 (place of his nativity) ; and later dean of Lichfield. 

 f Vide his book, Charisma, scu Donum Sanitatis. 



