A formal deed, attesting the truth of this ridiculous story, was drawn up and subscribed by bishop Peregrine, the successor of Hubert, A.D. 1013. [283] William of Malmsbury also, the most sensible of our old historians, appears to have given it full credit. In short, it seems very certain that it was long, in common with abundance of other similar tales, universally believed; which shews how well established the authority of the priesthood, and the popular reverence for that order, must then have been in this country, and here at Lynn, as well as in other places.
Next to the priests and monks, the magicians and fortunetellers appear to have then possessed the largest share of the public confidence and veneration; and very probably with equal worthiness. Strange tales have been related by historians of the ascendancy which these sorts of people long had over the infatuated inhabitants, and even over those of the highest orders among them. These things give but an unfavourable idea of our national character in those times. It would but ill become us, however, to think very contemptuously of those foibles in our poor ancestors, while we ourselves with all our boasted advantages and wisdom, have not yet entirely left off consulting fortunetellers and conjurers: to say nothing of the multitude of other impostors, of different sorts, that are daily countenanced and caressed among us.
Section VII.
Of the Heptarchy and its history—remarks on Egbert, Alfred, and their most renowned successors—character of Canute, and of Edward the Confessor: the latter the first of our monarchs that touched for the Evil—remarks on that circumstance, and on the prevalence of that complaint in the parts about Lynn.
During a good part of the period from the Saxon invasion to the conquest, England was divided into seven petty states, or kingdoms, usually denominated, the Heptarchy, [285] the history of which is exceedingly uninteresting; being, as Granger observes, a series of violence, wars, and massacres, among petty tyrants, most of whom were a disgrace to the human species.—Under the famous Egbert those states were consolidated, and formed into one kingdom, under the name of England, which it has borne ever since. The kings who have ruled it, from Egbert to the Norman conqueror, were, for the most part, like their predecessors in the days of the Heptarchy, very disreputable and worthless characters. There were however, some exceptions, among which Alfred was far the most conspicuous, and outshone the rest, as the sun does all the other luminaries.
Among the most renowned and respectable of the other English sovereigns of that period, beside Egbert, already mentioned, were Edward the elder, Athelstan, Edgar the peaceable, Edmund ironside, Canute the great, and Harold the second. Of Edgar we are told, that he styled himself King of Great Britain, as Edred, it seems, had done before him; but that title was afterward discontinued, and not used by any succeeding monarch, till the reign of James the first. The most potent among these crowned heads was Canute, being the sovereign of Denmark and Norway as well as of England. That he possessed great talents is allowed on all hands; and though he was cruel here at first, he gradually became mild, devout, and popular. Though an usurper and a foreigner, he was, perhaps, next to Alfred, the wisest of our ancient kings, if not also the most virtuous and enlightened, especially towards the close of his reign: of which his memorable adventure, or experiment with the tide, and with the miserable sycophants of his court, on the seashore, seems a pretty strong indication. That he was also superstitious, and an admirer of relics, must not be denied: but it was likewise the case with all the most eminent of the princes of those days, the great Alfred himself not excepted. There is a remarkable air of honest simplicity in the reason given by Canute for undertaking a voyage, or journey to Rome, which he did a few years before he died:—“I had been told (said he) that the apostle Peter had received great authority from the Lord, and carried the keys of heaven: therefore I thought it absolutely necessary to secure his favour by a pilgrimage to Rome.”—How many of our modern visionaries and devotees would appear more respectable than Canute, were they as honestly to avow their motives, or give the reason of their proceedings?
In adverting to the princes, or sovereigns of this period, to whom the town of Lynn was in subjection, Edward, called the Confessor, must not be left unnoticed: not so much for any shining qualities, or great respectability of character which he possessed, for there he appears to have been very deficient, as for certain incidents or events which distinguished his reign, independent of any personal worth or merit of his own. With the monks and ecclesiastics he was certainly a great favourite, but what made him so redounded not at all to his honour, but may be said to be a disgrace, rather than any credit to his memory.
The most important and laudable occurrence of his reign was the reformation of the law of the land. Before his time different parts of the kingdom were governed by different laws: Wessex, by the West Saxon; Mercia, by the Mercian; and Northumberland, by the Danish laws. In his reign they were reduced into one body, by the name of the laws of Edward the confessor, which then became common to all England. This together with the abolition of that odious tax called Danegelt, seem to have been his best and most commendable deeds, though probably to be ascribed to his counsellors, such as Goodwin, Leofric, and Siward, rather than to himself. It is said, however, that he was humane, temperate, and charitable, and gave much alms: and, moreover, that he had visions and revelations, the gift of prophecy, and even that of working miracles, his extensive fame for which continued long, and procured him, about two hundred years after his death, from pope Alexander III. the high honour of canonization, under the name of Saint Edward the Confessor, an appellation that must have been very oddly and unaccountably applied.
But of all his memorable achievements, or traits of character, his touching for the Evil, or Scrofula, and pretending to the gift or power of miraculously healing that complaint, are the most remarkable. As this pretended gift or power is supposed to have originated with him, [288a] and to have descended from him to all his legitimate successors on the English throne, a sketch of the history of the practice, from first to last, it is presumed, would not prove unacceptable or unentertaining to the reader. And as the disorder, for whose cure this practice was introduced, is said to be nowhere more common, or prevalent, than at and about Lynn, [288b] which is supposed to have been also the case for many generations, it may naturally and safely be concluded that frequent applications to the throne for a cure would be made, time after time, from these parts, while every body believed that the sovereign’s touch would infallibly remove the malady. Myriads and myriads, labouring under scrofulous complaints, have certainly applied to the throne for relief during the long interval between the time of the Confessor, when the said practice commenced, and the accession of George I. when it was finally laid aside. Even in the single reign of that most religious prince (as he has been called) Charles II. the number, it is said, amounted to above ninety thousand; and it is morally certain that not a few of that multitude, and of the rest, who resorted, before and since, to our different sovereigns, for relief in the same case, were Norfolk and Lynn patients. The insertion therefore, in this volume, of the proposed Sketch of this notable affair, or practice of the royal touch, cannot, it is presumed, be deemed any material deviation from propriety:—so it shall appear in the last section of this chapter, at the conclusion of this second part of the work.