The belief prevailed in France so lately as the coronation of Louis XVI., who is reported to have touched 2000 persons afflicted with scrofula. Indeed, this gift of healing was dispensed by the early French kings, and Laurentius, first physician to Henry IV. of France, asserts the power to have commenced with Clovis I. Bishop Elphinston, the founder of King’s College, Aberdeen, before his elevation to the episcopal dignity, while on an embassy from James III., King of Scots, to Louis XI., in a complimentary speech to the French monarch, congratulated him as the only prince to whom God had granted the peculiar gift of healing by the touch.
Evil omens with regard to rings have been occasionally the source of alarm to royalty. Thus Atkinson, in his “Memoirs of the Queen of Prussia,” writes: “The betrothal of the young couple—Frederick and Sophia Charlotte, King and Queen of Prussia—speedily followed. I believe it was during the festivities attendant upon this occasion that a ring worn by Frederick, in memory of his deceased wife, with the device of clasped hands, and the motto ‘à jamais,’ suddenly broke, which was looked upon as an omen that this union was to be of short duration.” And Queen Elizabeth’s coronation ring, which she had worn constantly since her inauguration, having grown into her finger, necessitated the ring being filed off, an incident which was regarded as an unfavourable omen by many. Few, too, were more credulous in such matters than Elizabeth herself, who appears to have been a firm believer in the popular superstition of “good luck.”
It has oftentimes been a matter of surprise that a person of so strong a mind as Charles V. of Spain should have yielded to the popular superstition of his day as to put faith in amulets and talismans. But that he did so is evident, writes Prescott,[176] “from the care with which he preserved certain amulets, and from his sending one of them—a bezoar stone—to his Chamberlain, Van Male, when supposed to be ill of the plague.” In his jewelled coffers were stones set in gold, sure styptics for stopping blood; nine English rings, a specific against cramp; a blue stone richly chased, for expelling the gout; four bezoar stones in gold settings, of singular efficacy in curing the plague; and other charms of the same kind. He also collected certain relics, among which was a bit of the true Cross, which was afterwards passed as a precious legacy to Philip, as also did the contents of a casket, and a crucifix which his mother, the Empress Isabella, had in her hands at the hour of death, and which was afterwards to solace the last moments of her husband and her son.
In days gone by the unicorn’s horn was considered an amulet of singular virtue, although it is now known that the object shown as such in various museums is the horn of the rhinoceros. Such an amulet was sold at six thousand ducats, and was thought to be an infallible test of poison, like Venetian glass and certain sorts of jewels. The Dukes of Burgundy kept pieces of them in their wine jugs, and used others to touch the meat they tasted. And Holinshed tells us how King John, observing a moisture on some precious stones he wore, thought that to be an indication “of some pears he was about to eat containing poison.”
Again, in the dark ages, when magic was publicly professed in the universities, we read of a sovereign who entered boldly into the cheat. Eric XIV. of Sweden, surnamed “Windy Cap,” had his enchanted cap, and pretended by the additional assistance of some magical jargon to be able to command spirits to trouble the air, and to turn the winds themselves; so that, when a great storm arose, his ignorant subjects believed that the King had got his conjuring cap on; and from this fact, it is said, originated the custom of mountebanks and conjurers playing their tricks in a conjuring cap. But it would seem that this strange and eccentric monarch, who looked upon every man with suspicion, and “interpreted the most natural and insignificant of gestures as some dreadful telegraphing of hideous treason,” rarely appeared in public, and never without a superstitious dread of impending calamity.
The Emperor Basil, who was originally a Macedonian groom, and whose fortune had been assured by the prophecy of crafty and acute monks, anticipated one of the foolish superstitions of later times by applying to the spirit of a deceased son to know how it went with him after death.
Indeed, under a variety of forms, the history of most countries affords many a curious instance of monarchs seeking, or deriving, information by supernatural agency. Thus Louis, eldest son of King Philip III. of France by his first wife, Isabel of Aragon, having died somewhat suddenly, his death was attributed to poison. Peter de la Brosse, whom the King had made a confidant, advancing him to high dignities, did not shrink from insinuating that the Queen—Maria of Brabant—was guilty of this act, and that she was capable of inflicting the same fate upon all the King’s children by Isabel. Accordingly, the King resolved to consult a soothsayer, and of the two or three persons who were mentioned to him as possessing the gift of what nowadays is popularly designated clairvoyance, a kind of beguine, or begging nun, from Flanders was selected as having most reputation. Philip sent the Abbot of St. Denis to question her, but her answers he considered too serious to repeat, excusing himself that what he had heard was under the secret of the confessional. The King, in a fit of anger, sent further messengers, who informed the beguine that they came from the King of France, and they received from her the best possible character of the Queen. The King was satisfied, and lost much of his trust and friendship for Peter de la Brosse. Some time was allowed to elapse, when the grandees, who were bent on his ruin, discovered, or pretended to discover, a treasonable correspondence of his which caused him to be hanged.[177]
The astonishing success of Baptiste Bernadotte, Prince of Ponte Corvo, who was selected as heir-presumptive to the crown of Sweden, which he wore—not without dignity—as Charles XIV., is said to have been foretold to him by the same celebrated fortune-teller who predicted that of Bonaparte, and who so fully possessed the superstitious confidence of the Empress Josephine. In a biography of his life, published at Pau, we are told that Bernadotte believed in his special and independent destiny, and in a kind of tutelar divinity, who vouchsafed to him a special protection. An ancient traditionary chronicle is reported to have contained the prediction of a certain fairy, who had married one of his ancestors, that an illustrious king should spring from her race. Bernadotte never forgot this legend, which had charmed his early days, and possibly it was not without its influence on his future destiny. And how greatly the supernatural guided him is illustrated by the following event. Wishing to overcome the difficulties he encountered in Norway by means of the sword, he proposed to despatch his son Oscar at the head of an army, for the purpose of reducing the rebels, a proceeding which was strongly opposed by the Council of State. One day, after an animated discussion on the subject, he mounted his horse and galloped some distance from the capital, when suddenly he beheld an old woman, strangely clad. “What do you want?” asked the King. To which the apparition replied, “If Oscar goes to the war you meditate, he will not give but receive the first blow.” The next day, bearing in his countenance the traces of a sleepless night, he presented himself at the Council, and said, “I have changed my mind; we will negotiate for peace, but I must have honourable terms.”
Amongst some of the cases recorded in this country of royalty consulting supposed prophets, or being brought into their contact, may be mentioned that of Matilda of Flanders, who, hearing that a German hermit was possessed of the gift of prophecy, requested his prayers for the reconciliation of her jarring son and husband, and his opinion as to what would be the result of their feud. But William was just as sceptical in such matters, and, when he accidentally put on his hauberk the hind part before, he quickly changed it, and said to those who stood by, “I never believed in omens, nor have I ever put my faith in fortune-tellers, or divinations of any kind, for my trust is in God.” And he added, “Let not this mischance discourage you,” knowing full well how easily frightened even the bravest of his followers were by ill-omens.
Richard I. was hunting in one of his Norman forests when he was met by a hermit, who prophesied that, unless he repented, his end was close at hand. The King made light of the warning and went his way, but ere long he was seized with an illness which threatened to prove fatal, when, remembering the words of the hermit-prophet, he made public confession of his sins, and vowed to be reconciled to his queen Berengaria.