John Aubrey, in his "Miscellanies," asserts, on the authority of certain English chronicles, that in the reign of King Henry III (1206-1272), there lived a child who was endowed with the gift of healing, and whose touch cured many diseases. Popular belief, as is well known, ascribed this prerogative also to a seventh son. Pettigrew, in his "Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and Surgery," said that Gilbertus Anglicus, the author of a "Compendium Medicinæ," and the first practical writer on medicine in Britain, who is believed to have flourished in the time of Edward I (1239-1307), asserted that the custom of healing by the Royal Touch was an ancient one. In the opinion of William George Black ("Folk-Medicine," 1883), the subject belongs rather to the domain of history than to that of popular superstitions. Thomas Bradwardin, an eminent English prelate of the fourteenth century, and Archbishop of Canterbury, described the usage in question as already long-established in his time; and Sir John Fortescue, Lord Chief Justice of England, during Henry the Sixth's reign, declared that the English kings had exercised this privilege from time immemorial. In a small tract published by His Majesty's command, entitled, "The Ceremonies for the Healing of them that be diseased with the King's Evil, used in the Time of King Henry VII" (1456-1509), we find that it was customary for the patients to kneel before the king during the religious exercises, which were conducted by the chaplain. After laying his hands upon them, the monarch crossed the affected portion of the body of each patient with an "Angel of Gold Noble." This coin bore as its device the archangel Michael, standing upon and piercing a dragon. In later reigns it was replaced by a small golden or silver medal, having the same emblem, and known as a _touch-piece_. Andrew Borde, in his "Breviary of Health" (1547, the last year of the reign of Henry VIII), in reference to the King's Evil, wrote as follows: "For this matter, let every man make friendes to the Kynges Majestie, for it doth perteyne to a Kynge to helpe this infirmitie, by the grace of God, the which is geven to a king anoynted. But forasmuch as some men doth judge divers times a fystle or a French pocke to be the king's evill, in such matters it behoveth not a kynge to medle withall."