ABSTRACT
Following Malcolm’s testing of Macduff’s loyalty in Act 4, Scene 3 of Macbeth, an English doctor informs the two that there is a “crew of wretched souls” suffering from some disease and awaiting the English king Edward the Confessor, at whose “touch,/ Such sanctity hath heaven given his hand,/ They presently amend” (4.3.143-45).1 Macduff inquires about this disease, and Malcolm responds with a description of a peculiar ceremony whereby Edward cures patients suffering from scrofula or “the king’s evil”:
’Tis call’d the evil: A most miraculous work in this good king, Which often, since my here-remain in England, I have seen him do. How he solicits heaven, Himself best knows; but strangely-visited people, All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye, The mere despair of surgery, he cures, Hanging a golden stamp about their necks, Put on with holy prayers, and ’tis spoken, To the succeeding royalty he leaves The healing benediction. With this strange virtue, He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy, And sundry blessings hang about his throne That speak him full of grace.
