This distich is printed in the life of King James.
Before the civil wars, there was much talk of the Lady Anne Davys's
prophesies; for which she was kept prisoner in the tower of London.
She was sister to the Earl of Castle-heaven, and wife to Sir John
Davys, Lord Chief Justice in Ireland; I have heard his kinsman
(Counsellor Davys of Shaftesbury) say, that she being in London,
(I think in the tower) did tell the very time of her husband's death in
Ireland.
MIRANDA.
OUR English chronicles do record, that in the reign of King Henry III.
A child was born in Kent, that at two years old cured all diseases.
Several persons have been cured of the King's-evil by the touching, or
handling of a seventh son. It must be a seventh son, and no daughter
between, and in pure wedlock.
Samuel Scot, seventh son of Mr. William Scot of Hedington in
Wiltshire, did when a child wonderful cures by touching only, viz. as
to the King's-evil, wens, &c. but as he grew to be a man, the virtue
did decrease, and had he lived longer, perhaps might have been spent.
A servant boy of his father's was also a seventh son, but he could do
no cures at all. I am very well satisfied of the truth of this
relation, for I knew him very well, and his mother was my kinswoman.
'Tis certain, the touch of a dead hand, hath wrought wonderful
effects, e.
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