Mary Tudor - Anna Whitelock [137]
Kneeling before the first of the poor women, Mary took the woman’s right foot in her hand, washed it and dried it, and, having signed it with the cross, kissed the foot with “reverence and solemnity.” To each of the women she did the same, moving one by one along each side of the hall, always on her knees, accompanied by one of the noblewomen attending her with basin and towel.
Rising to her feet, Mary went again to each of the poor women, this time with a large wooden platter filled with pieces of salted fish and two large loaves of bread. Having distributed the alms she returned with a wooden bowl filled with either wine or hippocras and then gave each of the women a piece of rich cloth and a leather purse containing forty-one pennies. Finally she presented to the women the apron and towel that each of the noblewomen had worn. She then left the hall to remove her purple gown. Half an hour later she returned, preceded by a servant carrying the gown. As the choristers sang, she went around the room, twice examining the women one by one; returning for the third time, she gave the gown to the woman she had deemed the poorest and oldest of them.
THE FOLLOWING DAY, Good Friday, the queen came down from her oratory for the Adoration of the Cross. Kneeling at a short distance from the cross, she moved toward it on her knees as she prayed and kissed it “with such devotion as greatly to edify all those who were present.” Then, reciting prayers and psalms, Mary began the ceremony of the benediction of the cramp rings and the touching for the “king’s evil,” a healing ritual for sufferers of scrofula. An enclosure had been formed to the right of the high altar with four benches placed in a square. Mary stood in the center and knelt down before two large, covered basins, each filled with gold and silver rings. One basin contained Mary’s own rings, the other those of private individuals, each labeled with its owner’s name.
After the basins were uncovered, Mary began reciting prayers and psalms, and then, taking the rings in her hand, she passed them from one hand to the other. She then withdrew to an altar in a private gallery. There she knelt, made her confession to and received absolution from Cardinal Pole, and then proceeded to bless the four scrofulous women who had gathered before her. The first sufferer was brought before her, and, still on her knees, Mary pressed her hands in the form of a cross on one of the woman’s sores “with such compassion and devotion as to be a marvel.” When all four sufferers had received the royal touch, Mary made the sign of the cross with a gold coin and placed it on a ribbon around their necks. After washing her hands, Mary returned to her oratory. As Marc Antonio Faitta, the secretary to Pole, concluded,
Having been present myself in person at all these ceremonies, her Majesty struck me as affording a great and rare example of goodness, performing all those acts with such humility and love for religion, offering up her prayers to God with so great devotion and affection, and enduring for so long a while and so patiently much fatigue; and seeing thus, that the more her Majesty advances in the rule of this kingdom, so does she daily afford fresh and greater opportunities for commending her extreme piety, I dare assert that there was never a Queen in Christendom of greater goodness than this one.1
By exercising her “healing power,” Mary had demonstrated once again that a female monarch could conduct the ceremonies previously prescribed only to a “divinely appointed” king.
CHAPTER 59
STOUT AND DEVILISH HEARTS
For many consecutive days a comet has been visible, as it still is, and with this opportunity a gang of rogues, some twelve in number … went about the city saying we should soon see the day of judgment, when everything would be