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“Would I Could Give You Help and Succour”: Elizabeth I and the Politics of Touch

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 July 2014

Carole Levin
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Extract

In 1462, in defense of the House of Lancaster, Sir John Fortescue wrote that Edward IV could not cure the king's evil, the disease scrofula, by touching the afflicted since to do so one must not only be a king but also a legitimate one. To touch one needed not only to be annointed with holy oil but the person must also be the legitimate heir. Lancastrians claimed that Edward IV could not touch since he was not the rightful king. Wrote Fortescue, he “wrongly claims to enjoy this wonderful privilege. Wrongly … [because] this unction is powerless because Edward had no right to receive it.” Sir John goes on to argue by analogy, and scornfully asks: “Would a woman who received ordination thereby become a priest?” Of course not. Continuing this line of argument, Fortescue adds that a usurper would not be the only one unable to cure by touch.

Many duties likewise are incumbent on the kings of England in virtue of the kingly office, which are inconsistent with a woman's nature, and kings of England are endowed with certain powers by special grace from heaven, wherewith queens in the same country are not endowed. The kings of England by touch of their annointed hands they cleanse and cure those inflected with a certain disease, that is commonly called the King's Evil, though they be pronounced otherwise incurable. This gift is not bestowed on Queens.

Type
Research Article
Information
Albion , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , Summer 1989 , pp. 191 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference on British Studies 1989

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References

1 The king's evil was the disease scrofula, a tubercular inflammation of the lymph glands of the neck. I am deeply grateful to Professor Clark Hulse and Professor Dennis Moore for their help when I began this project. Most of the research for this essay was accomplished when I was a Monticello Foundation Fellow at the Newberry Library, 1987 and I would like to express my appreciation to the Newberry Library for all their support. Professor Howard Solomon and Professor Retha Warnicke read this essay in draft. Their comments were most valuable. I would also like to thank Professor Elaine Kruse, Rozalyn Levin, Joseph Silvestri, and Beverly Behrman for their help in preparing this manuscript for publication.

2 Bloch, Marc, The Royal Touch: Sacred Monarchy and Scrofula in England and France, trans. by Anderson, J. E. (London, 1973), p. 130.Google Scholar

3 Crawfurd, Raymond, The King's Evil (Oxford, 1911), p. 45.Google Scholar

4 Larner, Christina, Witchcraft and Religion: the Politics of Popular Belief, McFarlane, Alan, ed. (Oxford and New York, 1984), p. 148Google Scholar; Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic (New York, 1971), pp. 192–200Google Scholar; Crawfurd, The King's Evil; Bloch, The Royal Touch; Meller, Walter Clifford, “The King's Healing,” in The Boy Bishop and Other Essays (London, 1923), pp. 81–94Google Scholar. Schramm, Percy Ernst, A History of the English Coronation, trans. Legg, Leopold G. Wickham (Oxford, 1937), pp. 125–26Google Scholar, Hazlitt, W. Carew, Faiths and Folklores of the British Isles, A Descriptive and Historical Dictionary (1905, reprnt. New York, 1965), pp. 354–56Google Scholar

5 The practice was popular in 15th century France. Louis XI touched for the Evil once a week, always after first going to confession (Crawfurd, , The King's Evil, p. 48Google Scholar).

6 Crawfurd, , The King's Evil, p. 47Google Scholar; Bloch, , The Royal Touch, pp. 92–107Google Scholar; Thomas, , Religion and the Decline of Magic, pp. 198–99Google Scholar. Ives discusses how valued were cramp rings in the reign of Henry VIII. Ives, Eric W., Anne Boleyn (Oxford, 1986), p. 138Google Scholar. Many amulets were used in this period to try and protect a pregnancy. See Eccles, Audrey, Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Tudor and Stuart England (Kent, Ohio, 1982)Google Scholar, Tucker, M. J., “The Child as Beginning and End: Fifteenth and Sixteenth Century English Childhood,” in DeMause, Lloyd, ed., The History of Childhood (New York, 1974), pp. 229–257Google Scholar, and McLaren, Angus, Reproductive Rituals: The perception of fertility in England from the Sixteenth to the Nineteenth Century (London and New York, 1984).Google Scholar

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8 Tillyard, E. M. W., Some Mythical Elements in English Literature (London, 1961), pp. 46–52Google Scholar. See also, Carole|Levin, “Most Christian King, Most British King: the Image of King Arthur in Tudor Tudor Propaganda,” Avalon to Camelot, forthcoming.

9 Robinson, Brian, The Royal Maundy (London, 1977)Google Scholar; Wright, Peter A., The Pictorial History of the Royal Maundy (London, 1981)Google Scholar, Howard, Alexander, Endless Cavalcade: A Diary of British Festivals and Customs (London, 1964), pp. 84–85Google Scholar; Hole, Christina, British Folk Customs (London, 1976)Google Scholar; Hazlitt, , Faiths and Folklores of the British Isles, pp. 395–96Google Scholar are useful on the topic of the monarchy's involvement in the Maundy. For a discussion of the Royal Maundy today, see Hayden, Use, Symbol and Privilege: The Ritual Context of British Royalty (Tucson, 1987), pp. 18–20.Google Scholar

10 Quoted in Robinson, , The Royal Maundy, pp. 23–24.Google Scholar

11 The New Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1967), 7: 105–07Google Scholar; 9: 146; Hole, , British Folk Customs, p. 169Google Scholar. See also, Charlton, William, “Maundy Thursday Observances: the Royal Maundy Money,” Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society (1916): 201–19.Google Scholar

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13 Bloch, , The Royal Touch, pp. 137–38.Google Scholar

14 Though others besides the king did it, including the Earl of Northumberland in 1511 and Cardinal Thomas Wolsey in 1530. Elizabeth of York and Catherine of Aragon both distributed money on Maundy Thursday. There is no evidence that they actually washed the feet of the poor (Robinson, , The Royal Maundy, p. 26Google Scholar). Catherine of Aragon struggled over this issue after the divorce, since Henry decreed she could only hold a Maundy as princess dowager, not queen. This is discussed in a letter from Sir William Fitzwilliam, Treasurer of Henry VIII's Household to Thomas Cromwell (Ellis, Henry, ed., Original Letters, Illustrative of English History, 2 vols. 2nd ed. (London, 1825), 2: 25–28Google Scholar).

15 Robinson, , The Royal Maundy, pp. 25–26.Google Scholar

16 Strong, Roy, Splendour at Court: Renaissance Spectacle and the Theater of Power (Boston, 1973), pp. 21–22Google Scholar. See also Strong, Roy, Art and Power: Renaissance Festivals, 1450–1650 (Woodbridge, Suffolk, 1984), p. 19.Google Scholar

17 James II was probably the last monarch to perform the footwashing, though some historians claim that William III performed a modified version of the ritual. Though the ritual is still carried out today, after the end of the 17th century monarchs did not distribute their own gifts of money, food, and clothing until George V restored the custom in 1932. Elizabeth II distributes to both men and women, each group numbering her age. The last monarch to touch for the king's evil was Queen Anne.

18 Crawfurd, , King's Evil, p. 64.Google Scholar

19 Greenblatt, Stephen, “Invisible bullets: Renaissance authority and its subversion, Henry IV and Henry V,” in Political Shakespeare: New Essays in Cultural Materialism, Dollimore, Jonathan and Sinfield, Alan, eds. (Manchester, 1985), p. 44Google Scholar. For a discussion of this issue in general, see Orgel, Stephen, The Illusion of Power: Political Theatre in the English Renaissance (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1975)Google Scholar, idem, “Making Greatness Familiar,” The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance, Stephen Greenblatt, ed. (Norman, Okla., 1982), pp. 41–47, Tennenhouse, Leonard, Power on Display: The Politics of Shakespeare's Genres (London and New York, 1986)Google Scholar, Mullaney, Steven, The Place of the Stage: Licence, Play, and Power in Renaissance England (Chicago and London, 1988)Google Scholar, and the works already cited by Strong. Some sociologists, of the school of Emile Durkheim, argue in a positive theory of ritual that “religious beliefs and practices not only create and sustain the fundamental social structure of a society, but maintain the members' sense of reality” (Scheff, T. J., Catharsis in Healing, Ritual, and Drama [Berkeley, 1979], p. 111Google Scholar).

20 Robinson, , The Royal Maundy, p. 16.Google Scholar

21 Feasey, Henry John, Ancient Holy Week Ceremonial (London, 1897), p. 127.Google Scholar

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23 I am indebted to Professor Dennis Moore for this reference.

24 Thomas, , Religion and the Decline of Magic, p. 199.Google Scholar

25 Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts Relating to English Affairs existing in the archives and collections of Venice and in other libraries of Northern Italy, Brown, Rawdon, ed. (London, 1877), 6: 428–37Google Scholar [Hereafter cited as CSP, Venetian].

26 Neale, J. E., Elizabeth I and Her Parliaments, 1584–1601 (London, 1957), p. 119.Google Scholar

27 Mullaney, , The Place of the Stage, p. 105.Google Scholar

28 Strong, , Art and Power, pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

29 Scot, Reginald, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, with an introduction by Rev.Summers, Montague (New York, 1972), p. 172.Google Scholar

30 This is another term for scrofula.

31 Crawfurd, , The King's Evil, p. 75.Google Scholar

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33 Robert Laneham's Letter: Describing a Part of the Entertainment unto Queen Elizabeth at the Castle of Kenilworth in 1575, edited with an introduction by Furnivall, F. J. (New York, 1907), p. 35.Google Scholar

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35 Tooker gives this testimony, see Crawfurd, , The King's Evil, pp. 75.Google Scholar

36 A colleague, anthropologist Karin Andriolo, has suggested that Elizabeth may have refused to touch because she might have been menstruating (see Delaney, Janice, Lupton, Mary Jane, and Toth, Emily, The Curse: A Cultural History of Menstruation [Urbana and Chicago, 1988], p. 42Google Scholar, and Eccles, , Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Tudor and Stuart England, pp. 49–51Google Scholar). For non-Western attitudes on menstruation, see Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York, 1966), pp. 147, 151, 176–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

37 Cited in Neale, , Elizabeth and Her Parliaments, p. 29.Google Scholar

38 Charlton, , “Maundy Thursday Observances,” p. 205.Google Scholar

39 Thomas, , Religious and the Decline of Magic, p. 195Google Scholar; Crawfurd, , The King's Evil, p. 70.Google Scholar

40 This description is taken from William Lambarde's eye witness account of Elizabeth's 1572–73 Maundy. Nichols, John, The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (London, 1823; new ed., 3 vols.; New York, n.d.), 2: 325–27.Google Scholar

41 Calvin, John, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Bailie, John, McNeill, John T., Van Dusen, Henry P., eds, trans. Battles, Ford Lewis (Philadelphia, 1960), p. 1322.Google Scholar

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43 Knox, John, Works, Laing, David, ed. (Edinburgh, 1895), 4: 366–67.Google Scholar

44 March 23, 1564: “Proclamation remitting the distribution of the Maundy by the Queen in person, in the present time of contagious sickness, but alms will be given to the poor of Windsor and Eton.” Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series of the Reign of Edward VI, Mary, Elizabeth, and James I (London, 1865–1872), 1: 236.Google Scholar

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46 Calendar of the Letters and State Papers Relating to English Affairs Preserved in, or originally belonging to, the Archives of Simancas, ed. Hume, Martin (London, 1899), 1: 419, 425Google Scholar [hereafter cited as CSP, Spain].

47 James had not touched while king of Scotland as the ceremony had never taken hold there. He may have performed a Maundy service, though it is doubtful since the Scots Presbyterians probably believed it too popish. His father, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, did perform a Maundy during the brief time he was king of Scotland after his marriage to Mary Stuart. De Silva mentions it in a letter of 29 April 1566 (CSP, Spain, 1: 546Google Scholar).

48 Mullaney, , The Place of the Stage, p. 105.Google Scholar

49 Clowes, , A right frutefull treatise for the artificial cure of struma, p. 50.Google Scholar

50 See Montrose, Louis, “The Elizabethan Subject and the Spenserian Text,” in Literary Theory/Renaissance Texts, Parker, Patricia and Quilts, David, eds. (Baltimore, 1986), pp. 303–40Google Scholar, and “Shaping Fantasies: Figurations of Gender and Power in Elizabethan Culture,” Representations 1, 2 (1983): 61–94Google Scholar. See also, Levin, Carole, “Queens and Claimants: Political Insecurity in Sixteenth Century England,” in Gender, Ideology, and Action: Women's Public Lives in Historical Perspective, Sharistanian, Janet, ed. (New York, 1986).Google Scholar