"1683 Dec{r}. Pd. for his Majestie's order for touching 00.00.06." A page in the register book of Bisley, Surrey, is headed thus, "Certificates for the Evill commonly called the kings Evill." Two entries occur as follow:-- "Elizabeth Collier and Thomas Collier the children of Thomas Collier, Senior, had a certificate from the minister and churchwardens of Bisley, August 7th 1686." "Sarah Massey, the daughter of Richard Massey, had a certificate from the minister and churchwardens of Bisley, 1st April 1688." Old parish accounts often contain entries similar to the following, from Ecclesfield, Yorkshire:-- "1641. Given to John Parkin wife towards her trauell to London to get cure of his Matie. for the disease called Euill which her soone Thom is visited withall 0. 6. 8." "The following extracts," says a contributor to _The Reliquary_ of January, 1894, "from the Minute Books of the Corporation of the city of York, show that general belief in the virtue of the touching by the King was unshaken at the end of the seventeenth century. It must be borne in mind that these Minutes do not record the acts of individuals, but were those of the Corporation of what was at that time one of the most important cities in the country, and that it was in administering Poor Law Relief that the grants were made. In Vol. 38 of the Corporation Records, fo. 74b, under the date of February 28th, 1671, is the following:-- "Ordered that Elizabeth Trevis haue x{s} given her for charges in carrying her daughter to London to be touched for the Evill." A few years later, on March 12th, 1678 (fo. 156b), occurs the following:-- "Anne Thornton to haue x{s} for goeing to London to be touched for the euill." And again on March 3, 1687 (fo. 249b), ten shillings was granted for "carrying of Judith Gibbons & her Child & one Dorothy Browne to London to be touched by his Majestie in order to be healed of the Kings Evil." The Records of the Corporation of Preston, Lancashire, contain at least two references to this matter. In the year 1682 the bailiffs were instructed to "pay unto James Harrison, bricklayer, 10s. towards carrying his son to London, in order to the procuring of His Majesty's touch." Five years later, when James II. was at Chester, the council passed a vote that "the Bailiff pay unto the persons undermentioned each of them 5s. towards their charge in going to Chester to get his Majesty's touch:--Anne, daughter of Abel Mope; ---- daughter Richard Letmore." It is recorded that James II. touched eight hundred persons in the choir of the Cathedral of Chester. The ceremony cost, we learn from Macaulay, about L10,000 a year, and the amount would have been much greater but for the vigilance of the royal surgeons, whose business it was to examine the applicants, and to distinguish those who came for the cure, and those who came for the gold.