At the Reformation in England under Elizabeth, some of the Catholic priests who refused to conform to the new religion sought in other professions the means of living. In a curious old book, Tom of all Trades, or the Plaine Pathway to Preferment, by Thomas Powell (printed 1631), there is a story which no doubt was founded in fact. “And heere I remember me of an old tale following, viz., At the beginning of the happy raigne of our late good Queene Elizabeth, divers Commissioners of great place, being authorized to enquire of, and to displace, all such of the Clergie as would not conforme to the reformed Church, one amongst others was Conuented before them, who being asked whether he would subscribe or no, denied it, and so consequently was adiudged to lose his benefice and to be deprived his function; wherevpon, in his impatience, he said, ‘That if they (meaning the Commissioners) held this course it would cost many a man’s life.’ For which the Commissioners called him backe againe, and charged him that he had spoke treasonable and seditious words, tending to the raysing of a rebellion or some tumult in the Land; for which he should receive the reward of a Traytor. And being asked whether hee spake those words or no, he acknowledged it, and tooke vpon him the Iustification thereof; ‘for, said he, ‘yee have taken from me my liuing and profession of the Ministrie; Schollership is all my portion, and I have no other meanes now left for my maintenance but to turn Phisition; and before I shalbe absolute Master of that Misterie (God he knowes) how many mens lives it will cost. For few Phisitions vse to try experiments vpon their owne bodies.’
“With vs, it is a Profession can maintaine but a few. And diuers of those more indebted to opinion than learning, and (for the most part) better qualified in discoursing their travailes than in discerning their patients malladies. For it is growne to be a very huswiues trade, where fortune prevailes more than skill.”
A writer in Hood’s Every-Day Book, on the date February 25, says that the monks knew of more than three hundred species of medicinal plants which were used in general for medicines by the religious orders before the Reformation. The Protestants, the more efficiently to root out Popery, changed the Catholic names of many of these. Thus the virgin’s bower of the monastic physician was changed into flammula Jovis; the hedge hyssop into gratiola; St. John’s wort became hypericum; fleur de St. Louis was called iris; palma Christi became ricinus; Our Master wort was christened imperatona; sweet bay they called laurus; Our Lady’s smock was changed into cardamine; Solomon’s seal into convallaria; Our Lady’s hair into trichomanes; balm into melissa; marjoram into origanum; herb Trinity into viola tricolor; knee holy into rascus; rosemary into rosmarinus; marygold into calendula; and a hundred others. But the old Catholic names cling to the plants of the cottage garden, and Star of Bethlehem has not quite given place to ornithogalum; Star of Jerusalem to goat’s beard; nor Lent lily to daffodil.
The gullibility of mankind has never been exhibited in a clearer light than Johann Valentin Andreæ (1586-1654) succeeded in showing in his elaborate joke of the Society of the Rosy-Cross. In 1614 a famous but entirely fabulous secret society set the scholars of Europe discussing the pretensions of the Rosicrucians, who were said to have derived their origin from one Christian Rosenkreuz, two hundred years previously. This philosopher, it was said, had made a pilgrimage to the East, to learn its hidden wisdom, of which the art of making gold was a portion. The character of the society was Christian, but anti-Catholic, and its ostensible objects were the study of philosophy and the gratuitous healing of the sick. Its device was a cross, with four red roses. Andreæ was a learned man, but jocular withal; for no sooner had the public eagerly swallowed his story, than he confessed the whole was pure invention, and that he had originated the idea with the view of ridiculing the alchemists and Theosophists, whose opinions were dominating European society. The public, however, liked the idea so well that it developed and flourished, and a society was established called Fraternitas Rosæ Crucis. The most celebrated followers of the Rosicrucians were Valentine Wiegel, Jacob Boehm, Egidius Gutman, Michael Mayer, Oswald Crollius, and Robert Fludd.[856]
De Quincey has traced the connection between the Rosicrucians and Freemasons. “Rosicrucianism,” he says, “it is true, is not Freemasonry, but the latter borrowed its form from the first.”[857]
Scrofula was anciently treated in a superstitious manner by the sovereigns of England and France by imposition of hands. This ceremony is said to have been first performed by Edward the Confessor (1042-1066). A special “Service of Healing” was used in the English Church in the reign of Henry VIII. (1484-1509).
The ceremonies of blessing cramp-rings on Good Friday, called the Hallowing of the Cramp-Rings, is described by Bishop Percy in his Northumberland Household Book,[858] where we have the following account:—
“And then the Usher to lay a Carpett for the Kinge to Creepe to the Crosse upon. And that done, there shal be a Forme sett upon the Carpett, before the Crucifix, and a Cushion laid upon it for the King to kneale upon. And the Master of the Jewell Howse ther to be ready with the Booke concerninge the Hallowing of the Crampe Rings, and Amner (Almoner) muste kneele on the right hand of the Kinge, holdinge the sayde booke. When that is done the King shall rise and goe to the Alter, wheare a Gent. Usher shall be redie with a Cushion for the Kinge to kneele upon; and then the greatest Lords that shall be ther to take the Bason with the Rings and beare them after the Kinge to offer.”
In the Harleian Manuscripts there is a letter from Lord Chancellor Hatton to Sir Thomas Smith, dated Sept, 11th, 158-, about a prevailing epidemic, and enclosing a ring for Queen Elizabeth to wear between her breasts, the said ring having “the virtue to expell infectious airs.”[859]
Andrew Boorde, in his Introduction to Knowledge (1547-48), says: “The Kynges of England by the power that God hath gyuen to them, dothe make sicke men whole of a sickeness called the kynges euyll. The Kynges of England doth halowe euery yere crampe rynges, the whyche rynges, worne on ones fynger, dothe helpe them the whyche hath the crampe.”[860]