Another account, kept by Mr. Thomas Donkley, Keeper of his Majesty's Closet belonging to the Chapel Royal, continues the Numbers as follows:
| 1667 | 3078 | |
| 1668 | 3543 | |
| 1669 | 2983 | |
| 1670 | 3377 | |
| 1671 | 3568 | |
| 1672 | 3771 | |
| 1673 | 4457 | |
| 1674 | 5079 | |
| 1675 | 3471 | |
| 1676 | 4454 | |
| 1677 | 4607 | |
| 1678 | 3456 | |
| 1679 | 3752 | |
| 1680 | 3796 | |
| 1681 | 2461 | |
| 1682 | 8577 | |
| Summa Totalis | 92,107 |
QUEEN ANNE.
It appears by the Newspapers of the time, that on the 30th of March, 1714, two hundred persons were touched by Queen Anne[217]. Amongst these was Samuel Johnson, afterwards the justly celebrated Moral Writer. He was sent by the advice of Sir John Floyer, then a Physician at Lichfield; and many years afterwards, being asked if he could remember Queen Anne, said, "he had a confused, but somehow a sort of solemn recollection of a Lady in diamonds, and a long black hood."
The Honourable Daines Barrington[218] has preserved an anecdote, which he heard from an old man who was witness in a cause with respect to this supposed miraculous power of Healing. "He had, by his evidence, fixed the time of a fact, by Queen Anne's having been at Oxford, and touched him, whilst a child, for the Evil. When he had finished his evidence, I had an opportunity of asking him, whether he was really cured? Upon which he answered, with a significant smile, "that he believed himself to have never had any complaint that deserved to be considered as the Evil; but that his parents were poor, and had no objection to the bit of gold."
The learned and honourable Writer very properly observes on this occasion, "that this piece of gold, which was given to those who were touched, accounts for the great resort upon this occasion, and the supposed afterwards miraculous cures."
GEORGE I.
Although this Monarch, who succeeded to the Crown in 1714, had the good sense not to pretend to this miraculous Gift, it was assumed by the Descendants of the race of Stuarts. And it is well recollected, that Mr. Carte's (in other respects very excellent) "History of England" fell into almost immediate disrepute, on his making, in one of his notes, a bold assertion, the substance of which shall be here given:
"Whatever is to be said in favour of its being appropriated to the eldest Descendant of the first branch of the Royal Line of the Kings of France, England, &c. I have myself seen a very remarkable instance of such a cure, which could not possibly be ascribed to the Royal Unction. One Christopher Lovel, born at Wells in Somersetshire, but when he grew up residing in the City of Bristol, where he got his living by labour, was extremely afflicted for many years with that distemper, and such a flow of the scrophulous humour, that, though it found a vent by five running sores about his breast, neck, and arms, there was such a tumour on one side of his neck, as left no hollow between his cheek and the upper part of his left shoulder, and forced him to keep his head always awry. The young man was reduced, by the virulence of the humour, to the lowest state of weakness; appeared a miserable object in the eyes of all the inhabitants of that populous city; and, having for many years tried all the remedies which the art of physic could administer, without receiving any benefit, resolved at last to go abroad to be touched. He had an uncle in the place, who was an old seaman, and carried him from Bristol, at the end of August, A. D. 1716, along with him to Cork in Ireland, where he put him on board a ship that was bound to St. Martin's in the Isle of Ree. From thence Christopher made his way first to Paris, and thence to the place where he was touched, in the beginning of November following, by the eldest lineal Descendant of a race of Kings, who had, indeed, for a long succession of ages, cured that distemper by the Royal Touch. But this descendant and next heir of their blood had not, at least at that time, been crowned or anointed. The usual effect, however, followed: from the moment that the man was touched and invested with the narrow riband, to which a small piece of silver was pendant, according to the rites prescribed in the office appointed by the Church for that solemnity, the humour dispersed insensibly, his sores healed up, and he recovered strength daily, till he arrived in perfect health, in the beginning of January following, at Bristol, having spent only four months and some few days in his voyage. There it was, and in the week preceding St. Paul's fair, that I saw the man, in his recovered vigour of body, without any remains of his complaint, but what were to be seen in the red scars then left upon the five places where the sharp humour had found a vent, but which were otherwise entirely healed, and as sound as any other part of his body. Dr. Lane, an eminent physician in the place, whom I visited on my arrival, told me of this cure, as the most wonderful thing that ever happened; and pressed me as well to see the man upon whom it was performed, as to talk about his case with Mr. Samuel Pye, a very skilful surgeon, and I believe still living in that city, who had tried in vain, for three years together, to cure the man by physical remedies. I had an opportunity of doing both; and Mr. Pye, after dining together, carrying me to the man, I examined and informed myself fully of all particulars, relating as well to his illness as his cure; and found upon the whole, that if it is not to be deemed miraculous, it at least deserved the character given it by Dr. Lane, of being one of the most wonderful events that has ever happened."