On
the only occasion when he was importuned into laying his hand on a
patient, he said to him, "God give you better health and more
sense." However, the practice was continued, as might have been
expected, by the dull bigot James the Second and his dull daughter
Queen Anne.
The kings of France also claimed to possess the same gift of healing
by touch, which they are said to have derived from Clovis or from
St. Louis, while our English kings inherited it from Edward the
Confessor. Similarly the savage chiefs of Tonga were believed to
heal scrofula and cases of indurated liver by the touch of their
feet; and the cure was strictly homoeopathic, for the disease as
well as the cure was thought to be caused by contact with the royal
person or with anything that belonged to it.
On the whole, then, we seem to be justified in inferring that in
many parts of the world the king is the lineal successor of the old
magician or medicine-man. When once a special class of sorcerers has
been segregated from the community and entrusted by it with the
discharge of duties on which the public safety and welfare are
believed to depend, these men gradually rise to wealth and power,
till their leaders blossom out into sacred kings.
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