Part 18

Anstis[223] cites the following entry from the last chapter of the _Constitutions of the Household of Edward II_: ‘Item le Roi doit offrer de certein le jour de grant vendredi a crouce. v _s._ queux il est acustumez receivre devers lui a la mene le chapelein afair ent anulx a donner pur medicine az divers gentz’: the language, however, of the entry leaves little room to doubt that the custom was already an established one. At his coronation, too, Edward II offered a pound of gold wrought into a figure representing St. Edward holding a ring, and a mark of gold, or eight ounces, worked into the figure of a pilgrim putting forth his hand to receive the ring: and the presumption is that this gold was to be converted into cramp-rings.

We have detailed accounts of the manner of this ceremony of hallowing cramp-rings dating from early Tudor times, and there is sufficient evidence in the brief notices of earlier date to show that the ceremonial observed by the Plantagenet kings was essentially similar. On Good Friday, when the king went to adore the cross, he used to make an offering of money, which was redeemed by a sum of equivalent value: the money so received was converted into rings, which were subsequently hallowed by the king. In Tudor times the hallowing of the rings took place on Good Friday, so that the offering of the money must have been made at some previous time, or this part of the ritual may have actually become obsolete. The change of custom was effected some time between 9 Edward IV (1470-1) and 13 Henry VIII (1521-2), and was probably therefore the work of Henry VII, who, as we know, materially altered the kindred ceremonial of Touching for the Evil.

A MS. copy of the Orders of the King of England’s Household, 13 Henry VIII, preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris,[224] contains, ‘The Order of the Kynge, on Good Friday, touching the cominge to Service, Hallowinge of the Crampe Rings, and Offeringe and Creepinge to the Crosse’. It is quoted _in extenso_ in the Northumberland Household Book,[225] and also by Mansell in his _Monumenta Ritualia_.[226] It runs as follows:

‘First the king to come to the closett or to the chappell with the lords and noblemen wayting on him, without any sword to bee borne before him on that day, and there to tarry in his travers till the bishop and deane have brought forth the crucifix out of the vestry (the almoner reading the service of the cramp rings) layd upon a cushion before the high altar, and then the huishers shall lay a carpet before y^t for ye king to creepe to the crosse upon: and y^t done, there shall be a fourme set upon the carpet before the crucifix, and a cushion layd before it for the king to kneele on; and the Master of the jewell house shal be ther ready with the crampe rings in a basin or basins of silver: the king shall kneele upon the sayd cushion before the fourme, and then must the clerke of the closett bee ready with the booke conteyninge ye service of the hallowing of the said rings, and the almoner must kneel upon the right hand of the king, holding of the sayd booke, and when y^t is done the king shall rise and go to the high altar, where an huisher must be ready with a cushion to lay for his grace to kneele upon, and the greatest Lord or Lords being then present shall take the basin or basins with the rings and bear them after the king, and then deliver them to the king to offer; and this done the queen shall come down out of her closett or travers into the chappell with ladies and gentlewomen wayters on her, and creepe to the crosse; and that done she shall returne againe into her closett or travers, and then the ladies shall come downe and creepe to the crosse, and when they have done, the Lords and noblemen shall in likewise.’

Creeping to the Cross seems to have been practised in noble households as well as in that of the king. The following entry is found in the Northumberland Household Book[227] (_temp._ Henry VIII):

‘Item my Lord useth and accustometh yerely when his Lordship is at home to cause to be delyveride for the Offerings of my Lordis Sone and Heire the Lord Percy upon the said Good Friday When he crepith the Crosse ij_d_. Ande for every of my Yonge Maisters my Lords Yonger Sonnes after j_d_. to every of them for their Offerings when they Crepe the Cross the said Good Friday iiij_d_.’

Many of the entries in the accounts of the Plantagenet kings show that the homage was paid to the Gneyth Cross. This cross was held in great veneration, and, according to tradition, was made of wood from the true Cross presented by a pilgrim to Richard Cœur de Lion: no satisfactory explanation of its name is forthcoming. It seems to have been transferred from place to place. Under Edward I we find it in the royal chapel of the Priory of Plympton: under Edward II in the royal chapel within the Tower: under Edward III in the private chapel of the royal Manor of Clipstone, and later in the same reign in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor, where it was in the time of Henry VII. The purpose of the ceremony is set forth in a Proclamation of February 26, 30 Henry VIII, now in the possession of the Society of Antiquaries: ‘On Good Friday it shall be declared howe creepyng of the Crosse signifyeth an humblynge of ourselfe to Christe before the Crosse, and the kyssynge of it a memorie of our redemption made upon the Crosse.’ When Convocation, in A.D. 1536, abolished some of the old ceremonies, on the ground that they were superstitious, this of Creeping to the Cross was retained as a laudable and edifying custom.

The following records, taken from the Household Books and Account Rolls of the times, serve to establish the continuity of the ceremonial subsequent to its first mention in the time of Edward II.

In the Eleemosyna Roll of 9 Edward III[228] occurs the following entry:

‘In oblacione domini Regis ad crucem de Gneythe die parasceues in capella sua, infra mannerium suum de Clipstone, in precium duorum florencium de Florencia, xiiii die Aprilis, vi_s._ viij_d._, et in denariis quos posuit pro dictis florenciis reassumptis pro annulis medicinalibus inde faciendis, eodem die, vi_s._: summa xii_s._ viii_d._’ [For the offering of the lord King to the Gneythe Cross on Good Friday in his chapel, in his manor of Clipstone, to the value of two florins, on the 14th day of April, vi_s._ viii_d._, and for the pence bestowed in redemption of the said florins for the making of medicinal rings, on the same day, vi_s._: total xii_s._ viii_d._]

Again, in the Eleemosyna Roll of the following year, 10 Edward III:[229]

‘In oblacione domini Regis ad crucem de Gneyth in die parasceues apud Eltham, ̅x̅x̅i̅x̅ die Marcii, v_s._, et pro iisdem denariis reassumptis pro annulis inde faciendis per manus Iohannis de Crokeford eodem die, x_s._’

In this entry the name of the almoner is introduced, and the form of the account is abbreviated by omitting repetition of the substituted v_s._

And in 11 Edward III:[230]

‘In oblacione domini regis ad crucem de Gneyth in capella sua in pcħo de Wyndesore die parasceues, v_s._, et pro totidem denariis reassumptis pro annulis inde faciendis v_s._’

Here the sum total is omitted: the three entries, though mutually explanatory, show how puzzling becomes a too strict economy of words.

Entries substantially the same as these may be seen in the Wardrobe Accounts of 12-14 Edward III.[231]

One more entry from the Account Books of John de Ypres, 44 Edward III, is perhaps worth quoting, as it seems to point definitely to the rings being made in this instance of both gold and silver:

‘In oblacionibus Regis factis adorando crucem in capella sua infra castrum suum de Wyndesore die parasceues in pretio trium nobilium auri et quinque solidorum sterling xxv_s._--In denariis solutis pro iisdem oblacionibus reassumptis pro annulis medicinalibus inde faciendis, eodem die xxv.’

The offering of both gold and silver money would seem to bear out the suggestion as to the material of the rings, as we know that in later times both metals were used. It is, of course, arguable that the larger sum of money indicates only a greater demand for the rings.

Richard II’s Account Books[232] show that he maintained the practice of his grandfather. The following is from an account of the Controller of the Wardrobe in his reign:

‘in dena͞r solu͞t decano capelle Regis pro eisdem oblacionibus reassump͞t pro anulis medicinaƚ inde faciendis, xxv_s._’

The substituted money seems to have been actually laid on the altar, and removed thence to be made into rings: this will explain payment being made in this case to the Dean of the Chapel Royal.

Henry IV could ill afford to dispense with any of the prerogatives of royalty, and we find him offering 25 shillings in the chapel of the palace of Eltham for the making of medicinal rings.[233]

It is no matter for surprise that no mention should be forthcoming of cramp-rings in the reign of Henry V, most of which was spent beyond the shores of England, and in the propagation rather than in the relief of disease. A passage, however, in the literary remains of Sir John Fortescue[234] taken from a tract entitled _Defensio Iuris Domus Lancastriae_, now to be seen in the Cotton Collection at the British Museum, and referable to the year A.D. 1462, seems to show that the practice had not been allowed to lapse during his memory, which ranged over the reigns of Henry IV, V, and VI. The translated passage runs thus:

‘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 at their very anointing receive such an infusion of grace from heaven, that by touch of their anointed hands they cleanse and cure those infected with a certain disease, that is commonly called the King’s Evil, though they be pronounced otherwise incurable. Epileptics too, and persons subject to the falling sickness, are cured by means of gold and silver devoutly touched and offered by the sacred anointed hands of the kings of England upon Good Friday, during divine service (according to the ancient custom of the Kings of England); as has been proved by frequent trial of rings, made of the said gold and silver and placed on the fingers of sick persons in many parts of the world. The gift is not bestowed on Queens, as they are not anointed on the hands.’

The passage also brings out the fact that the use of both gold and silver rings had long been customary.

We have abundant evidence of the maintenance of the ceremony under Edward IV in a number of separate entries. Thus in an Eleemosyna Roll of 8 Edward IV is the following: ‘Pro eleemosyna in die parasceves c. marc. et pro annulis de auro et argento pro eleemosyna Regis eodem die.’ And in a Liber Niger Domus Regis Edwardi IV: ‘Item, to the Kynge’s offerings to the crosse on Good Friday, out from the counting-house for medycinable rings of gold and silver, delyvered to the jewell house xxv_s._’ And again in a Privy Seal Account of 9 Edward IV: ‘Item, paid for the King’s Good Fryday rings of gold and silver xxxiii_l._ vi_s._ viii_d._’ Edward IV seems to have aimed at fortifying himself upon the throne by a liberal use of the Royal Gift of Healing, and I have elsewhere expressed my belief, in the absence of any written evidence, that it was in his reign, and not in that of Henry VII, as commonly believed, that the dole of the angel to those touched by the King for the Evil was instituted. Cramp-rings are mentioned in the Comptroller’s Accounts of 20 Henry VII, but the Tudors certainly devoted their healing powers chiefly to sufferers from the Evil.

There is a passage in the _Historia Anglicana_ of Polydore Vergil,[235] the Italian, who came to live in England in A.D. 1502, and wrote his history during the reigns of Henry VII and VIII, which shows the nature of the patients for whom these sacred rings were used.

‘Iste annulus in eodem templo (scil. Westmonasterii), multâ veneratione perdiu est servatus, quod salutaris esset membris stupentibus valeretque adversus comitialem morbum, cum tangeretur ab illis, qui eiusmodi tentarentur morbis. Hinc natum, ut reges postea Angliae consueverint in die Parasceues, multâ coeremoniâ sacrare annulos, quos qui induunt, hisce in morbis omnino nunquam sunt.’

Besides true epileptics, they were used for those who had palsied limbs: this is interesting as suggesting the inclusion of Jacksonian epilepsy, and perhaps hemiplegia, and the resulting contractures in these conditions may have contributed to the confusion with contractures from other causes, such as chronic rheumatism. We have to bridge over in some such way the gap between their conception of ‘cramp’ and ours.

In the will of John Baret of Bury St. Edmunds,[236] dated 1463, is a bequest to ‘my lady Walgrave’ of a ‘rowund ryng of the Kynges silver’; and also to ‘Thomais Brews, esquiyer, my crampe ryng with blak innamel, and a part silvir and gilt.’ And in 1535 Edmund Lee bequeaths to ‘my nece Thwartow my gold ryng w^t a turkes, and a crampe ryng of gold w^t all.’

There are even earlier bequests than this of healing-rings,[237] but not specifically termed cramp-rings: they are simply spoken of as ‘vertuosi’. Thus Thomas de Hoton, rector of Kyrkebymisperton, in 1351, bequeathed to his chaplain ‘j. zonam de serico, j. bonam bursam, j. firmaculum, et j. anulum vertuosum. Item, domino Thome de Bouthum j. par de bedes de corall, j. anulum vertuosum.’ Talismanic rings, inscribed with the names of the three Magi, Caspar, Melchior, Balthazar, were used as preservatives from epilepsy in Plantagenet times.

The royal cramp-rings enjoyed no monopoly in the cure of epilepsy, as is shown by an extract from a medical treatise written in the fourteenth century:[238]

‘For the Crampe. Tak and ger gedine on Gude Friday, at fyfe parriche kirkes, fife of the first penyes that is offerd at the crosse, of ilk a kirk the first penye: than tak them al and ga before the crosse and say V. pater nosters in the worschip of fife wondes, and bere thaim on the V. dais, and say ilk a day als mekyl on the same wyse: and then gar mak a ryng thar of with owten alay of other metel, and writ with in Jasper, Batasar, Altrapa, and writ with outen Ih’ c. nazarenus; and sithen tak it fra the goldsmyth upon a Fridai, and say V. pater nosters als thu did before and use it alway afterward.’

The ‘fife wondes’ are, of course, the five wounds of the crucified Jesus.

A silver ring, made of five sixpences contributed by five different bachelors, conveyed by a bachelor to the hand of a smith that was also a bachelor, was another reputed remedy for epilepsy; and its virtue was enhanced, if none of the bachelors knew for what purpose or to whom it was given.[239]

In Berkshire, rings made from a piece of silver collected at the Communion found favour, and they were more efficacious if collected on Easter Sunday. Devonshire preferred a ring made of three nails or screws that had been used to fasten a coffin, and that had been dug out of a churchyard.[240]

Cramp-rings hallowed by the King of England enjoyed repute beyond the shores of England.[241] Lord Berners, the translator of Froissart, when ambassador to Charles V, writing to ‘my Lorde Cardinall’s grace from Saragoza, the xxi daie of June, 1510’, says: ‘If your grace remember me with some crampe rynges ye shall do a thynge muche looked for, and I trust to bestow thaym well, with Godd’s grace, who evermor preserve and encrease your moste reverent astate.’ Among various charms that Charles V carried about with him were ‘gold rings from England against cramp’.[242]

In A.D. 1518 we find the President of the College of Physicians lending his patronage to the royal cramp-rings. In a letter to the Parisian scholar, Guillaume Budé,[243] Thomas Linacre writes that he ‘has sent him some rings consecrated by the King as a charm against Spasms’: and on July 10, 1518, Budé replies to him from Paris that he has ‘received his letter with the rings on July 6’, and has distributed among the wives of his relatives and friends the eighteen rings of silver and one of gold he received from Linacre, telling them that they were amulets against slander and calumny.

Even the hard-headed Scot was not proof against the magnetism of the royal rings. A letter from Dr. Thomas Magnus, Warden of Sibthorpe College, Nottinghamshire, to Cardinal Wolsey,[244] written in A.D. 1526 says:

‘Pleas it your Grace to write that M. Wiat of his goodnes sent unto me for a present certaine cramp ringges, which I distributed and gave to sondery myne acquaintaunce at Edinburghe, amonges other to M. Adame Otterbourne, who, with oone of thayme, releved a mann lying in the falling sekenes, in the sight of myche people: sethenne which tyme many requestes have been made unto me for cramp ringges, at my departing there, and also sethenne my comyng from thennes. May it pleas your Grace therefore to show your gracious pleasure to the said M. Wyat, that some ringges may be kept and sent into Scottelande; whiche after my poore oppyniyoun shulde be a good dede, remembering the power and operacion of thaym is knowne and proved in Edinburgh, and that they be gretly required for the same cause both by grete personnages and other.’

When Bishop Gardiner was in Rome in A.D. 1529, Anne Boleyn wrote him the following letter:[245]

Master Stephyns,

I thank you for my letter, wherein I perceive the willing and faithful mind that you have to do me pleasure, not doubting, but as much as is possible for man’s wit to imagine, you will do. I pray God to send you well to speed in all your matters, so that you would put me to the study, how to reward your high service: I do trust in God you shall not repent it, and that the end of this journey shall be more pleasant to me than your first, for that was but a rejoicing hope, which causing the like of it, does put me to the more pain, and they that are partakers with me, as you do know: and therefore I do trust that this hard beginning shall make the better ending.

Master Stephyns, I send you here cramp-rings for you and Master Gregory, and Mr. Peter, praying you to distribute them as you think best. And have me kindly recommended to them both, as she that you may assure them, will be glad to do them any pleasure, which shall be in my power. And thus I make an end, praying God send you good health.

Written at Grenwiche, the 4th day of April,

By your assured friend, Anne Boleyn.

[To Master Stephyns this be delivered.]

Burnet[246] refers to this letter, as follows:

‘When he [Gardiner] went to Rome, in the year 1529, Anne Boleyn writ a very kind letter to him, which I have put in the Collection (Records No. 24). By it, the reader will clearly perceive that he was then in the secret of the King’s designing to marry her as soon as the divorce was obtained. There is another particular in that letter, which corrects a conjecture which I had set down in the beginning of the former book concerning the cramp rings that were blessed by King Henry, which I thought might have been done by him after he was declared head of the Church.[247] That part was printed before I saw this letter: but this letter shows they were used to be blessed before the separation from Rome: for Anne Boleyn sent them as great presents thither. This use of them had been (it seems) discontinued in King Edward’s time: but now, under Queen Mary, it was designed to be revived, and the office for it was written out in a fair MS. yet extant, of which I have put a copy in the Collection (No. 25). But the silence in the writers of that time makes me think it was seldom if ever practised.’

Queen Mary’s Manual, of which we shall have more to say later, seems to have been the source from which Burnet transcribed the Office. In his time it was in the library of R. Smith, titular Bishop of Chalcedon.

Numerous allusions in the records of the De Lisle family bear testimony to the popularity of cramp-rings in the reign of Henry VIII.[248] Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and afterwards Duke of Somerset, writes to Lady Lisle, in 1537:

‘Hussey told me you were very desirous to have some cramp-rings against the time that you should be brought a bedd.... I send by the present messenger 18 cramp-rings, which you should have had long ago.’[249]

John Husee writes from London on April 17, 1535, to his mistress, Lady Lisle: ‘I send you by Mr. Degory Gramefilld 59 cramp rings of silver, that Christofer Morys giveth you, and one of gold’;[250] and again, on May 2, 1538: ‘Cramp-rings I can get none out of the jewel-house. Mr. Wyll^{m}s says the King had the most part of gold, but has promised me twelve silver.’[251]

In a letter of May 13, 1536, John Husee combines denunciation of Anne Boleyn with a promise of cramp-rings to Lady Lisle:

‘Madam, I think verily that if all the books and cronycles were totally revolved and to the uttermost proscuted and tried, which against wymen hath been pennyd, contryvyd, and wryten, syns Adam and Eve, these same were I think verily nothing in comparison with that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen.... I think not the contrary but she and all they shall suffre. John Williams hath promised me some cramp rings for your Ladyship’;[252]

and again, six days after:

‘Your ladyship shall receive of this berer 9 cramp-rings of silver. John Williams says he never had so few of gold as this year. The king had the most part himself: but next year he will make you amends.’[253]

This day, May 19, 1536, was the day of Anne Boleyn’s execution.

Margaret Mylynton, in 1516, bequeaths to ‘my dame Croche my best gown and a kercheve, and my cramp-ring’.[254] There is nothing, however, to show that it had received the royal benediction.

Andrew Boorde, in his _Introduction of Knowledge_, says, ‘the kynges of Englande doth halowe every yere crampe rynges, ye which rynges worne on ones fynger doth help them whych hath the crampe’; and again, in his _Breviarie of Health_, published in 1547, but written during the lifetime of Henry VIII: ‘The kynges majesty hath a great helpe in this matter, in hallowing crampe rynges, and so given without money or petition.’ Boorde was medical attendant to Thomas, eighth Duke of Norfolk, Lord President of the Council and uncle of Anne Boleyn, and by him was recommended to the notice of Henry VIII, who employed him much in State business, but not, so far as is known, in a medical capacity. His testimony therefore is peculiarly reliable, and shows that Henry VIII maintained the ceremony throughout his reign, as is borne out by the scattered references we have adduced from other contemporary sources.

In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, Gardiner sent a letter to Ridley, which contains the following passage: