William of Malmesbury gives the origin of the royal touch in his account of the miracles of Edward the Confessor. "A young woman had married a husband of her own age, but having no issue by the union, the humours collecting abundantly about her neck, she had contracted a sore disorder, the glands swelling in a dreadful manner. Admonished in a dream to have the part affected washed by the king, she entered the palace, and the king himself fulfilled this labour of love, by rubbing the woman's neck with his fingers dipped in water. Joyous health followed his healing hand; the lurid skin opened, so that worms flowed out with the purulent matter, and the tumour subsided. But as the orifice of the ulcers was large and unsightly, he commanded her to be supported at the royal expense until she should be perfectly cured. However, before a week had expired, a fair new skin returned, and hid the scars so completely, that nothing of the original wound could be discovered; and within a year becoming the mother of twins, she increased the admiration of Edward's holiness. Those who knew him more intimately, affirm that he often cured this complaint in Normandy; whence appears how false is the notion, who in our times assert, that the cure of this disease does not proceed from personal sanctity, but from hereditary virtue in the royal line."[168] The fact that Edward was a saint as well as a king throws some light on the subject, for many miracles were attributed to him. Jeremy Collier maintained that the scrofula miracle is hereditary upon all his successors, but we find that not blood but royal prestige was the secret. He said "that this prince cured the king's evil is beyond dispute: and since the credit of this miracle is unquestionable, I see no reason why we should scruple believing the rest.... King Edward the Confessor was the first that cured this distemper, and from him it has descended as an hereditary miracle upon all his successors. To dispute the matter of fact, is to go to the excesses of skepticism, to deny our senses, and be incredulous even to ridiculousness."[169] The quotation given above from William of Malmesbury is the earliest mention of the gift of healing by the royal touch. No historian at or near the time of Edward has alluded to the supposed power vested in him. Not even the bull of Pope Alexander III, by which Edward was canonized about two centuries after his decease, makes any allusion whatever to the cures effected by him through the imposition of hands.