Before the civil wars, there was much talk of the Lady Anne Davys's
prophesies; for which she was kept prisoner in the tower of London.
She was sister to the Earl of Castle-heaven, and wife to Sir John
Davys, Lord Chief Justice in Ireland; I have heard his kinsman
(Counsellor Davys of Shaftesbury) say, that she being in London,
(I think in the tower) did tell the very time of her husband's death in
Ireland.
MIRANDA.
OUR English chronicles do record, that in the reign of King Henry III.
A child was born in Kent, that at two years old cured all diseases.
Several persons have been cured of the King's-evil by the touching, or
handling of a seventh son. It must be a seventh son, and no daughter
between, and in pure wedlock.
Samuel Scot, seventh son of Mr. William Scot of Hedington in
Wiltshire, did when a child wonderful cures by touching only, viz. as
to the King's-evil, wens, &c. but as he grew to be a man, the virtue
did decrease, and had he lived longer, perhaps might have been spent.
A servant boy of his father's was also a seventh son, but he could do
no cures at all. I am very well satisfied of the truth of this
relation, for I knew him very well, and his mother was my kinswoman.
'Tis certain, the touch of a dead hand, hath wrought wonderful
effects, e. g. - One(a painter) of Stowel in Somersetshire, near
Bridgewater, had a wen in the inside of his cheek, as big as a
pullet's egg, which by the advice of one was cured by once or twice
touching or rubbing with a dead woman's hand, (e contra, to cure a
woman, a dead man's hand) he was directed first to say the Lord's
prayer, and to beg a blessing. He was perfectly cured in a few weeks.
I was at the man's house who attested it to me, as also to the
reverend Mr. Andrew Paschal, who went with me.
Mr. Davys Mell, (the famous violinist and clock-maker) had a child
crook-backed, that was cured after the manner aforesaid, which Dr.
Ridgley, M.D. of the college of physicians, averred in my hearing.
The curing of the King's-evil by the touch of the King, does much
puzzle our philosophers: for whether our Kings were of the house of
York, or Lancaster, it did the cure (i. e.) for the most part. 'Tis
true indeed at the touching there are prayers read, but perhaps,
neither the King attends them nor his chaplains.
In Somersetshire, 'tis confidently reported, that some were cured of
the King's-evil, by the touch of the Duke of Monmouth: the Lord
Chancellor Bacon saith, "That imagination is next kin to miracle-
working faith."
When King Charles I. was prisoner at Carisbrook Castle, there was a
woman touched by him, who had the King's-evil in her eye, and had not
seen in a fortnight before, her eye-lids being glued together: as they
were at prayers, (after the touching) the woman's eyes opened. Mr
Seymer Bowman, with many others, were eye-witnesses of this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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