Healing the Nation's Wounds: Royal Ritual and Experimental Philosophy in Restoration England

Middleton W. E. Knowles , “What did Charles II call the Fellows of the Royal Society?”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, xxxii (1977), 13–16, p. 15.

James I, however, appears on p. 228. Shapin Steven , A social history of truth: Civility and science in seventeenth century England (Chicago, 1994); Hunter Michael , Science and society in Restoration England (Cambridge, 1981), 131.

Biagioli Mario , Galileo, courtier: The practice of science in the Age of Absolutism (Chicago, 1993).

Biagioli Mario , “Etiquette, interdependence, and sociability in seventeenth century science”, Critical inquiry, xxii (1996), 193–238, p. 230. See also his “Scientific Revolution, social bricolage and etiquette”, in Porter Roy Teich Mikuláš (eds). The Scientific Revolution in national context (Cambridge, 1992), 11–54.

On gentlemanly conduct, see Shapin , Social history of truth (ref. 2); on the House of Commons, see Shapin Steven , “The House of Experiment in seventeenth century England”, Isis, lxix (1988), 373–404, pp. 392–3; on legal trials, see Shapiro Barbara , Probability and certainty in seventeenth century England: A study of the relationships between natural science, religion, history, law and literature (Princeton, 1983).

For instance, Biagioli , Galileo, courtier (ref. 3); Findlen Paula , Possessing nature: Museums, collecting, and scientific culture in early modern Italy (Berkeley, 1994) on the Medici; and on Louis XIV, Stroup Alice , A company of scientists (Berkeley, 1990); Lux David , Patronage and royal science in seventeenth century France (Ithaca, 1989); and Rubin David L. (ed.), Sun King: The ascendancy of French culture during the reign of Louis XIV (London, 1992).

Biagioli , Galileo, courtier (ref. 3), 139–57.

Wintroub Michael , “Taking stock at the end of the world: Rites of distinction and practices of collecting in early modern Europe”, Studies in history and philosophy of science, xxx (1999), 395–424; Findlen Paula , “Controlling the experiment: Rhetoric, court patronage and the experimental method of Francesco Redi”, History of science, xxxi (1993), 35–64. Jay Tribby examines the way Redi's experiments also helped define social boundaries of court society in Tuscany, contributing to a culture of ‘imagineering’, a peaceful conception of the state through the violation of its Others. Tribby also considers the complex interactions between Redi's apparently ‘bric-a-brac’ experimentation on vipers and the semantic and ritual order of the Medici spezieria. Tribby Jay , “Cooking (with) Clio and Cleo: Eloquence and experiment in seventeenth century Florence”, Journal of the history of ideas, lii (1991), 417–39; “Club Medici: Natural experiment and the imagineering of ‘Tuscany”’, Configurations, ii (1994), 215–35.

On doctrines of the divine right of kings prior to the Civil War, see Sommerville J. P. , Royalists & patriots: Politics and ideology in England, 1603–1640 (London, 1999), 9–54; Burgess Glenn , Absolute monarchy and the Stuart constitution (New Haven, 1996); Henshall Nicholas , The myth of absolutism: Change and continuity in early modern European monarchy (London, 1992); Figgis J. Neville , The Divine Right of Kings (Cambridge, 1914).

A good introduction to anthropological and sociological studies of royal ritual is Cannadine David Price Simon (eds), Rituals of royalty: Power and ceremonial in traditional societies (Cambridge, 1987); also Geertz Clifford , “Centres, kings and charisma: Reflections on the symbolics of power”, in Wilentz S. (ed.), Rites of power: Symbolism, ritual and politics since the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1985), 13–38. On courtly festivals, see Strong Roy , Art and power: Renaissance festivals 1450–1650 (Suffolk, 1984).

See Hay Douglas (ed.), Albion's fatal tree: Crime and society in eighteenth century England (London, 1988); Linebaugh Peter , The London hanged: Crime and civil society in the eighteenth century (London, 1991); Laurence John , A history of capital punishment (London, 1932), 177–80.

Bloch Marc , The royal touch: Monarchy and miracles in France and England (New York, 1989), 42. The only other significant studies of the royal touch are Farquhar Helen , “Royal charities”, British numismatic journal, xii (1916), 39–135, xiii (1917), 95–163, xiv (1918), 89–120, and xv (1919), 141–84; Crawfurd Raymond , The King's Evil (Oxford, 1911).

Fortescue John Sir , The works of Sir John Fortescue, Knight, Chief Justice of England and Lord Chancellor to King Henry the Sixth now first collected and arranged by Thomas Lord Clermont (2 vols, London, 1869), i, 70.

John Browne identified Charles with “the first and last, the best and greatest Recoverer of all Diseases … our Saviour Christ” in his Charisma basilicon, the third part of Browne's Adenochoiradelogia (London, 1684); the first parts, Adenographia and Chaeradelogia, deal with the medical treatment of scrofula, whilst the third deals with the King's Touch. Born in Norwich, Browne arrived in London in 1678 and was appointed surgeon at St Thomas's Hospital in 1683. He served as Surgeon in Ordinary to Charles II, James II and William III, and died about 1710. See Power D'Arcy , “John Browne”, The British medical journal , 31 August 1895, 7. See also Jonathan Sawday's discussion of Holbein's portrait of Henry VIII portraying the King as Christ-physician, in The body emblazoned: Dissection and the human body in Renaissance culture (London, 1995), 190.

The complete liturgy is reprinted from The Book of Common Prayer in Crawfurd, King's Evil (ref. 12), 114–16; Lorenzo Magalotti provides the best description of the ceremony in Charles II's time, see Douglas David C. (ed.), English historical documents (6 vols, London, 1996), vi, 70. On the Banqueting House, see Charlton John , The Banqueting House, Whitehall Palace (London, 1964); Strong Roy , Britannia triumphans: Inigo Jones, Rubens and Whitehall Palace (London, 1980).

Bird John , Ostenta Carolina, or the late calamities of England with the authors of them (London, 1661), 45.

On London executions, see McLynn Frank , Crime and punishment in 18th century England (Oxford, 1991); Marks Alfred , Tyburn Tree: Its history and annals (London, 1909); Timbs Mark , Curiosities of London and Tyburn Gallows (London, 1909); and more generally, Foucault Michel , Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (London, 1977), 32–69.

Hammond Paul , “The King's two bodies: Representations of Charles II”, in Black Jeremy Gregory Jeremy (eds), Culture, politics and society in Britain, 1660–1800 (Manchester, 1991), 13–48. On the body as political representation in the Civil War, see also William Tamsyn , “Magnetic figures: Polemical prints of the English Revolution”, in Gent Lucy Llewellyn Nigel (eds), Renaissance bodies: The human figure in English culture, c. 1540–1660 (London, 1990), 86–110.

Lockyer Nicholas , England faithfully watched (London, 1645), 164; Crawford Patricia , “Charles Stuart, that man of blood”, Journal of British studies, xvi (1977), 41–61. See also Baskerville Stephen , “Blood guilt in the English Revolution”, The seventeenth century, viii (1993), 181–202.

Bloch , Royal touch (ref. 12), 210; Gardiner S. R. , History of the great Civil War, 1642–1649 (4 vols, London, 1893), iii, 242; Browne , Adenochoiradelogia (ref. 14), 181.

Burroughs Jeremiah , Gospel worship (London, 1647), 268.

Richard Sibbes quoted in Baskerville, “Blood guilt” (ref. 19), 193.

Hammond , “The King's two bodies” (ref. 18), 16–17. On radical threats during Charles's reign, see Greaves Richard L. , Enemies under his feet: Radicals and Non-conformists in Britain, 1664–1677 (Stanford, Calif., 1990). On reinventing Stuart monarchy, see Reedy Gerard , “Mystical politics: The imagery of Charles II's coronation”, in Korshin Paul (ed.), Studies in change and revolution: Aspects of English intellectual history 1640–1800 (New York, 1972), 19–42.

“The Declaration of Breda”, reprinted in Douglas David C. (ed.), English historical documents (London, 1996), vi, 57.

Bird , Ostenta Carolina (ref. 16), 51.

Sancroft William , A sermon preached at St. Peter's, Westminister on the first Sunday in Advent (London, 1660), 33.

See Crawfurd , King's Evil (ref. 12), 106.

Latham R. Matthews W. (eds), The diary of Samuel Pepys (11 vols, London, 1970–83), ii, 83.

See Harris Tim , London crowds in the reign of Charles II: Propaganda and politics from the Restoration until the exclusion crisis (Cambridge, 1987), 39.

Laqueur Thomas , “Crowds, carnival and the state in English executions, 1604–1868”, in Beier A. L. Cannadine David Rosenheim James M. (eds), The first modern society (Cambridge, 1989), 305–55.

Foucault , Discipline and punish (ref. 17), 52.

A Proclamation for the better ordering of those who wish to repayre to the court, for their cure of the disease called the King's Evill. June 18th 1626 , reprinted in Crawfurd , King's Evil (ref. 12), 164–5.

A Proclamation appointing the times for His Majesties healing of the disease called the King's Evill. July 1st 1638, ibid., 183–4.

Ordinance for the management of the Royal Household, quoted in ibid., 107.

Mercurius publicus , no. 30, 19–26 July 1660, 465. Knight John , Sergeant-Surgeon to Charles II from 1661, had served the King on his journey from the Hague to Dover at the Restoration. He was assisted by numerous other surgeons, Humphrey Painter, Sergeant-Surgeon from 1661 to 1670, and then his successor, Richard Wiseman, from 1670 to 1676, at his home, also in Covent Garden. On Knight, see Calvert E. M. , Sergeant-Surgeon John Knight 1664–1680 (London, 1939); on Wiseman, Longmore Thomas Sir , Richard Wiseman, Surgeon and Sergeant-Surgeon to Charles II (London, 1891) and Dictionary of national biography, xxi, 717–18. Painter's name appears sporadically in the Calendar of Treasury papers between 1667 and 1670, but nothing is known of him otherwise. The King's other surgeons were Richard Pile, c. 1671, and Sackville Whittle; see Farquhar , “Royal charities” (ref. 12), xiii (1917), 126–7.

Bray William (ed.), The diary of John Evelyn (2 vols, London, 1952), ii, 199 (28 March 1684).

Howard quoted in Cadogan Edward , The roots of evil (London, 1937), 122.

An exact narrative of the bloody murder and robbery committed by Stephen Eaton (London, 1669), 8. See Sharpe J. A. , “Last dying speeches: Religion, ideology and public execution in seventeenth century England”, Past and present, cvii (1985), 144–67.

Sprat Thomas , History of the Royal Society of London, for the Improving of Natural Knowledge (London, 1667), 58–59.

Shapin , “The House of Experiment” (ref. 5), 401.

On witnessing, see Shapin Steven Schaffer Simon , Leviathan and the air-pump: Hobbes, Boyle and the experimental life (Princeton, 1985), 55–60; on demonstration, see Hankins Thomas L. Silverman Robert J. , Instruments and the imagination (Princeton, 1995), 37–71.

Michael Lynch notes this strategy of achieving transcendent knowledge in experimental ‘sacrifices’ of laboratory animals. See Lynch Michael E. , “Sacrifice and the transformation of the animal body into a scientific object: Laboratory culture and ritual practice in the nuerosciences”, Social studies of science, xviii (1988), 265–89.

Golinski Jan , “A noble spectacle: Phosphorous and the public cultures of science in the early Royal Society”, Isis, lxxx (1989), 11–39. See also Schaffer Simon , “Natural philosophy and public spectacle in the eighteenth century”, History of science, xxi (1983), 1–43, and idem, “The consuming flame: Electrical showmen and Tory mystics in the world of goods”, in Brewer John Porter Roy (eds), Consumption and the world of goods (London, 1993), 489–526.

Boas Marie , Robert Boyle and seventeenth-century chemistry (Cambridge, 1958), 207.

Michael Hunter notes courtiers and politicians made up the majority group (25%) of Fellows in 1660–64: The Royal Society and its Fellows 1660–1700: The morphology of an early scientific institution (Oxford, 1994), 126.

On Moray, see Martin D. C. , “Sir Robert Moray, F.R.S.”, in Hartley Harold Sir (ed.), The Royal Society: Its origins and founders (London, 1960), 239–50; Robertson A. , The life of Sir Robert Moray (London, 1922).

See Shapin , “House of Experiment” (ref. 5), 392–3.

Sawday , The body emblazoned (ref. 14), 54–84; see also idem, “The fate of Marsyas: Dissecting the Renaissance body”, in Gent Llewellyn , Renaissance bodies (ref. 18), 111–35; Rupp Jan C. “Matters of life and death: The social and cultural conditions of the rise of anatomical theatres, with special reference to seventeenth century Holland”, History of science, xxxviii (1990), 263–87.

On dissection at the Royal Society, see Gunther R. T. , Early science in Oxford (Oxford, 1930), iii, 86–88. On physiological experiment see Frank Robert G. Jr , Harvey and the Oxford physiologists (California, 1980).

Schaffer Simon , “Piety, physic and prodigious abstinence”, in Grell Ole Peter Cunningham Andrew (eds), Religio Medici: Medicine and religion in seventeenth century England (Aldershot, 1996), 171–203, pp. 195–6.

Pointing to a case of swelling caused by a fall, Wiseman noted “This was the case … Dr. Needham and myself were lately consulted about and such are frequently seen at our public Healings”. Wiseman Richard , Severall chirurgical treatises (London, 1676), 295–6. On Wiseman's connections, see ibid. , 252, 291. On Ent, see Cook Harold J. , The decline of the old medical regime in Stuart London (Ithaca, 1986), 145. Thomas Sprat later acted as Clerk of the Closet to James II. See Wood Anthony À , Athenae Oxonienses (5 vols, London, 1813), iv, 727–30.

Schaffer Simon , “Regeneration: The body of natural philosophers in Restoration England”, in Lawrence Christopher Shapin Steven (eds), Science incarnate: Historical embodiments of natural knowledge (Chicago, 1998), 105–16. On Greatrakes see Duffy Eamon , “Valentine Greatrakes, the Irish stroker: Miracles, science and orthodoxy in Restoration England”, Studies in Church history, xvii (1981), 251–73; Kaplan Barbara B. , “Greatrakes the stroker: The interpretations of his contemporaries”, Isis, lxxiii (1982), 155–78.

Lloyd David , Wonders no miracles (London, 1666), 14. Joseph Glanvill forwarded similar arguments — See his A praefatory answer to Mr. Henry Stubbe (London, 1671), 60–61.

Browne , Adenochoiradelogia (ref. 14), 78–79.

Fuller Thomas , The appeal of injured innocence (London, 1659), quoted in Bloch , Royal touch (ref. 12), 415, n. 37.

Heylyn Peter , Examen historicum or a discovery and examination of the mistakes … in some modern histories (London, 1659), 47–50.

Rust George to Glanvill Joseph (undated), Conway letters: The correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More and their friends, 1642–1684 (London, 1930), 274.

More Henry to Conway Anne , 18 June 1654, ibid., 103.

Stubbe Henry , The miraculous conformist (Oxford, 1666), 9.

See Pinkus Steven , “Republicanism, absolutism and universal monarchy: English popular sentiment during the third Dutch war”, in Maclean Gerald (ed.), Culture and society in the Stuart Restoration: Literature, drama, history (Cambridge, 1995), 241–66.

On the Test Act, see Journal of the House of Commons, ix, 276–81; Parliamentary history of England (London, 1808), iv, 559–62; Miller John , Popery and politics in England 1660–1688 (Cambridge, 1973), 55–56; Harris , London crowds (ref. 29), 91–93.

Spurr John , The Restoration Church of England (New Haven, 1991), 65. For an overview of religious politics in the period, Seward Paul , The Restoration, 1660–1688 (London, 1991), 40–69, and essays in Haris Tim Seward Paul Goldie Mark (eds), The politics of religion in Restoration England (Oxford, 1990).

Ashcraft Richard , Revolutionary politics & Locke's two Treatises of Government (Princeton, 1986), 17.

Montaño John , “The quest for consensus: The Lord Mayor's Day shows in the 1670s”, in Maclean , Culture and society (ref. 60), 31–51, p. 43.

For attacks on the Royal Society, see Hunter , Science and society (ref. 2), 136–61; Syfret R. H. , “Some early critics of the Royal Society”, Notes and records of the Royal Society, viii (1950), 20–64; Jacob James R. , Henry Stubbe, radical Protestantism and the early Enlightenment (Cambridge, 1983), 80–108.

Quoted in Cook Harold J. , “The Society of Chemical Physicians, the new philosophy, and the Restoration court”, Bulletin of the history of medicine, lxi (1987), 61–77, p. 75. See also Cook , Decline of the old medical regime (ref. 51), 133–59; Thomas Henry Sir “The Society of Chemical Physicians: An echo of the Great Plague of London, 1665”, in Underwood E. Ashworth (ed.), Sciences, medicine and history (2 vols, London, 1953), ii, 56–71.

My italics. Johnson quoted in Thomas , “Society of Chemical Physicians” (ref. 66), 67–68.

Johnson quoted in Cook , “Society of Chemical Physicians” (ref. 66), 75.

Quoted in Hunter , Science and society (ref. 2), 45. On Stubbe and physick, see Cook , Decline of the old medical regime (ref. 51), 172–6; Jacob , Henry Stubbe (ref. 65), 107.

Glanvill Joseph , Plus ultra; or the progress and advancement of knowledge since the days of Aristotle (London, 1668), 7–8. On Stubbe at court, see Jacob , Henry Stubbe (ref. 65), 109–28.

The letter was printed in English translation in the Philosophical transactions, no. 94 (1673), 6039. The complete letter and an account of experiments with the styptic liquor in France are given in Denis Jean-Baptiste , Recueil des mémoires et conferences de l'Académie des Sciences (Paris, 1672–74), 277–316. See also Hall A. Rupert Hall M. B. (eds), The correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (Madison, Wisc., 1965–), ix, 612–14, 642, and x, 21–25. On Denis's transfusion experiments, see Brown Harcourt , “Jean Denis and the transfusion of blood”, Isis, xxxix, 15–29.

The trials are described in a report, written by Needham, and read to the Society on 4 June by Sir Robert Moray. See Philosophical transactions , no. 95 (1673), 6052–3, and Birch Thomas , History of the Royal Society of London (London, 1756–57), iii, 91–92. For Wiseman's account of the trials, see his Severall chirurgical treatises (ref. 51), 272–3.

Birch , History of the Royal Society (ref. 72), iii, 91.

Philosophical transactions, no. 95 (1673), 6053.

Niceron Jean P. , Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire des hommes illustrés (Paris, 1737), 77–78.

See Christie W. D. (ed.), Letters addressed from London to Sir Joseph Williamson while Plenipotentiary at the Congress of Cologne (London, 1874), 67.

Philosophical transactions, no. 95 (1673), 6053–4.

Ibid., 6078–9.

Christie (ed.), Letters … to Sir Joseph Williamson (ref. 76), 67.

Haley K. H. D. , The first Earl of Shaftesbury (Oxford, 1968), 331.

Philosophical transactions, no. 95 (1673), 6079.

Denis, assisted by the royal surgeon Elian, did perform experiments with the liquor before the Dauphin and his court at Chateau St Germain in June 1673, but the King was not present. See Denis , Recueil des mémoirs (ref. 71), 294.

Ibid., 294.

Sprat , History of the Royal Society (ref. 39), 352.

Dear Peter , “Miracles, experiments and the ordinary course of nature”, Isis, lxxxi (1990), 663–83.

Biagioli , “Etiquette, interdependence and sociability” (ref. 4), 216–25. On Reason of State, see ibid., 204.

On the laboratory, see Gunther , Early science in Oxford (ref. 49), i, 41–42; Bryant Arthur , King Charles II (London, 1964), 82. On the apothecaries, see Matthews Leslie G. , The royal apothecaries (London, 1967), 113–14.

Hall Hall (eds), Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (ref. 71), x, 210–12.

London gazette, no. 804, 31 July 1673. See also Hall Hall (eds), Correspondence of Henry Oldenburg (ref. 71), x, 136–7.

Douglas John , The criterion or miracles examined with a view to expose the pretentions of pagans and papists (London, 1752), 200. David Hume likewise suggested the touch “was attended with ridicule by all men of understanding”, History of England (London, 1792), iii, 179. See also French Roger , “Surgery and scrofula”, in Lawrence Christopher (ed.), Medical theory, surgical practice: Studies in the history of surgery (London, 1992), 85–100. On the end of the English healing rite, see Bloch , Royal touch (ref. 12), 219–23.

Dryden John , “Threnodia Augustalis”, in The poetical works of John Dryden … with notes by the Rev. Joseph Warton (London, 1862), 97.