e these
obtained a second touch, and new gold, but their diseases have been
seen to vanish, as being afraid of his majesties presence; wherein
also have been cured many without gold; and this may contradict such
who must needs have the king give them gold as well as his touch,
supposing one invalid without the gift of both. Others seem also as
ready for a second change of gold as a second touch, whereas their
first being newly strung upon white riband, may work as well (by their
favour). The tying the Almighty to set times and particular days is
also another great fault of those who can by no means be brought to
believe but at Good Friday and the like seasons this healing faculty
is of more vigour and efficacy than at any other time, although
performed by the same hand. As to the giving of gold, this only shows
his majesties royal well-wishes towards the recovery of those who come
thus to be healed."[175] He refers to some "Atheists, Sadducees, and
ill-conditioned Pharisees" who disbelieved, and he gives the letter of
one who went, a complete sceptic, to satisfy his friends, and came
away cured and converted.

Browne includes the following case which seems to him conclusive: "A
Nonconformist child, in Norfolk, being troubled with scrofulous
swellings, the late deceased Sir Thomas Browne, of Norwich, being
consulted about the same, his majesty being then at Breda or Bruges,
he advised the parents of the child to have it carried over to the
king (his own method being used ineffectively); the father seemed very
strange at this advice, and utterly denied it, saying the touch of the
king was of no greater efficacy than any other man's. The mother of
the child, adhering to the doctor's advice, studied all imaginable
means to have it over, and at last prevailed with her husband to let
it change the air for three weeks or a month; this being granted, the
friends of the child that went with it, unknown to the father, carried
it to Breda, where the king touched it, and she returned home
perfectly healed. The child being come to its father's house, and he
finding so great an alteration, inquires how his daughter arrived at
this health. The friends thereof assured him, that if he would not be
angry with them, they would relate the whole truth; they, having his
promise for the same, assured him they had the child to be touched at
Breda, whereby they apparently let him see the great benefit his child
received thereby. Hereupon the f