That the
Church of England accepted the doctrine of the royal touch is
witnessed by the special service provided in the _Prayer-Book_ of
that period for occasions when the King exercised this gift.
The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity and pomp:
during the reading of the service and the laying on of the King's
hands, the attendant bishop or priest recited the words, "They
shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover";
afterward came special prayers, the Epistle and Gospel, with the
blessing, and finally his Majesty washed his royal hands in
golden vessels which high noblemen held for him.
In France, too, the royal touch continued, with similar testimony
to its efficacy. On a certain Easter Sunday, that pious king,
Louis XIV, touched about sixteen hundred persons at Versailles.
This curative power was, then, acknowledged far and wide, by
Catholics and Protestants alike, upon the Continent, in Great
Britain, and in America; and it descended not only in spite of
the transition of the English kings from Catholicism to
Protestantism, but in spite of the transition from the legitimate
sovereignty of the Stuarts to the illegitimate succession of the
House of Orange.
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