Wise and good men, especially Divines and lawyers, clung as firmly as ever to the old belief of the power of necromancy. Baxter pursued his inquiries into the subject; and Sir Matthew Hale, at the Bury Assizes, in March, 1664, observed, touching a witch case, that he made no doubt there were such creatures, and appealed to Scripture in proof of the fact.[318] On that occasion, Sir Thomas Browne, gave it as his opinion, that the parties named in the indictment as sufferers, were really bewitched. It is proper to remember, with respect to such superstitions, that, at that time, things were worse in France than in England. Witchcraft, divination, raising apparitions, and consulting the stars, were so common there in 1679, that a Commission was appointed, called the “Chambre Ardente,” to inquire into such cases. The Royal touch for curing the King’s Evil was again sought and bestowed. A minute religious ceremonial, almost incredible to us, accompanied the act. His Majesty sat in a chair of state. One of the Clerks of the Closet stood on his right hand, holding as many gold angels, everyone tied to a riband of white silk, as there were patients to be touched. A chaplain read in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Mark from the 14th verse to the end. The _chirurgeon_ presented the diseased; and making three reverences, they knelt down together before the King, the chaplain repeating the words: “They shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall be healed.” His Majesty then touched the cheeks of the persons brought to be cured; after which, the chaplain read the first chapter of John as far as the 15th verse; and, as the words were pronounced, “That was the true light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world,” the King suspended round the neck of each person one of the gold angels, handed to him by the clerk. Other passages of Scripture followed, a prayer was offered, and the ceremony ended with the King’s washing his hands.[319] Numerous were the applications made for the Royal touch, to which, no doubt, the obtaining of a gold angel operated as a motive, no less than the hope of receiving a sovereign cure. [Sidenote: SUPERSTITION.]