had
not at any time been touched by His Majesty. The practice was
supposed to have expired with the Stuarts, but the point being
disputed, reference was made to the library of the Duke of Sussex,
and four several Oxford editions of the Book of Common Prayer were
found, all printed after the accession of the house of Hanover, and
all containing, as an integral part of the service, "The Office for
the Healing." The stamp of gold with which the King crossed the
sore of the sick person was called an angel, and of the value of ten
shillings. It had a hole bored through it, through which a ribbon
was drawn, and the angel was hanged about the patient's neck till
the cure was perfected. The stamp has the impression of St. Michael
the Archangel on one side, and a ship in full sail on the other.
"My Lord Anglesey had a daughter cured of the King's evil with three
others on Tuesday."--MS. Letter of William Greenhill to Lady Bacon,
dated December 31st, 1629, preserved at Audley End. Charles II.
"touched" before he came to the throne. "It is certain that the
King hath very often touched the sick, as well at Breda, where he
touched 260 from Saturday the 17 of April to Sunday the 23 of May,
as at Bruges and Bruxels, during the residence he made there; and
the English assure... it was not without success, since it was
the experience that drew thither every day, a great number of those
diseased even from the most remote provinces of Germany."--Sir
William Lower's Relation of the Voiage and Residence which Charles
the II. hath made in Holland, Hague, 1660, p. 78. Sir William Lower
gives a long account of the touching for the evil by Charles before
the Restoration.]

With my Lord, to my Lord Frezendorfe's, where he dined to-day. Where he
told me that he had obtained a promise of the Clerk of the Acts place
for me, at which I was glad. Met with Mr. Chetwind, and dined with him
at Hargrave's, the Cornchandler, in St. Martin's Lane, where a good
dinner, where he showed me some good pictures, and an instrument he
called an Angelique.

[An angelique is described as a species of guitar in Murray's "New
English Dictionary," and this passage from the Diary is given as a
quotation. The word appears as angelot in Phillips's "English
Dictionary" (1678), and is used in Browning's "Sordello,"