Part 35

Even the hard-headed Scot was not proof against the magnetism of the royal rings. A letter from Dr. Thomas Magnus, Warden of Sibthorpe College, Nottinghamshire, to Cardinal Wolsey, written in A.D. 1526 says:

‘Pleas it your Grace to write that M. Wiat of his goodnes sent unto me for a present certaine cramp ringges, which I distributed and gave to sondery myne acquaintaunce at Edinburghe, amonges other to M. Adame Otterbourne, who, with oone of thayme, releved a mann lying in the falling sekenes, in the sight of myche people: sethenne which tyme many requestes have been made unto me for cramp ringges, at my departing there, and also sethenne my comyng from thennes. May it pleas your Grace therefore to show your gracious pleasure to the said M. Wyat, that some ringges may be kept and sent into Scottelande; whiche after my poore oppyniyoun shulde be a good dede, remembering the power and operacion of thaym is knowne and proved in Edinburgh, and that they be gretly required for the same cause both by grete personnages and other.’

When Bishop Gardiner was in Rome in A.D. 1529, Anne Boleyn wrote him the following letter:

Master Stephyns,

I thank you for my letter, wherein I perceive the willing and faithful mind that you have to do me pleasure, not doubting, but as much as is possible for man’s wit to imagine, you will do. I pray God to send you well to speed in all your matters, so that you would put me to the study, how to reward your high service: I do trust in God you shall not repent it, and that the end of this journey shall be more pleasant to me than your first, for that was but a rejoicing hope, which causing the like of it, does put me to the more pain, and they that are partakers with me, as you do know: and therefore I do trust that this hard beginning shall make the better ending.

Master Stephyns, I send you here cramp-rings for you and Master Gregory, and Mr. Peter, praying you to distribute them as you think best. And have me kindly recommended to them both, as she that you may assure them, will be glad to do them any pleasure, which shall be in my power. And thus I make an end, praying God send you good health.

Written at Grenwiche, the 4th day of April,

By your assured friend, Anne Boleyn.

Burnet refers to this letter, as follows:

‘When he [Gardiner] went to Rome, in the year 1529, Anne Boleyn writ a very kind letter to him, which I have put in the Collection (Records No. 24). By it, the reader will clearly perceive that he was then in the secret of the King’s designing to marry her as soon as the divorce was obtained. There is another particular in that letter, which corrects a conjecture which I had set down in the beginning of the former book concerning the cramp rings that were blessed by King Henry, which I thought might have been done by him after he was declared head of the Church. That part was printed before I saw this letter: but this letter shows they were used to be blessed before the separation from Rome: for Anne Boleyn sent them as great presents thither. This use of them had been (it seems) discontinued in King Edward’s time: but now, under Queen Mary, it was designed to be revived, and the office for it was written out in a fair MS. yet extant, of which I have put a copy in the Collection (No. 25). But the silence in the writers of that time makes me think it was seldom if ever practised.’

Queen Mary’s Manual, of which we shall have more to say later, seems to have been the source from which Burnet transcribed the Office. In his time it was in the library of R. Smith, titular Bishop of Chalcedon.

Numerous allusions in the records of the De Lisle family bear testimony to the popularity of cramp-rings in the reign of Henry VIII. Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford and afterwards Duke of Somerset, writes to Lady Lisle, in 1537:

‘Hussey told me you were very desirous to have some cramp-rings against the time that you should be brought a bedd.... I send by the present messenger 18 cramp-rings, which you should have had long ago.’

John Husee writes from London on April 17, 1535, to his mistress, Lady Lisle: ‘I send you by Mr. Degory Gramefilld 59 cramp rings of silver, that Christofer Morys giveth you, and one of gold’; and again, on May 2, 1538: ‘Cramp-rings I can get none out of the jewel-house. Mr. Wyll^{m}s says the King had the most part of gold, but has promised me twelve silver.’

In a letter of May 13, 1536, John Husee combines denunciation of Anne Boleyn with a promise of cramp-rings to Lady Lisle:

‘Madam, I think verily that if all the books and cronycles were totally revolved and to the uttermost proscuted and tried, which against wymen hath been pennyd, contryvyd, and wryten, syns Adam and Eve, these same were I think verily nothing in comparison with that which hath been done and committed by Anne the Queen.... I think not the contrary but she and all they shall suffre. John Williams hath promised me some cramp rings for your Ladyship’;

and again, six days after:

‘Your ladyship shall receive of this berer 9 cramp-rings of silver. John Williams says he never had so few of gold as this year. The king had the most part himself: but next year he will make you amends.’

This day, May 19, 1536, was the day of Anne Boleyn’s execution.

Margaret Mylynton, in 1516, bequeaths to ‘my dame Croche my best gown and a kercheve, and my cramp-ring’. There is nothing, however, to show that it had received the royal benediction.

Andrew Boorde, in his Introduction of Knowledge, says, ‘the kynges of Englande doth halowe every yere crampe rynges, ye which rynges worne on ones fynger doth help them whych hath the crampe’; and again, in his Breviarie of Health, published in 1547, but written during the lifetime of Henry VIII: ‘The kynges majesty hath a great helpe in this matter, in hallowing crampe rynges, and so given without money or petition.’ Boorde was medical attendant to Thomas, eighth Duke of Norfolk, Lord President of the Council and uncle of Anne Boleyn, and by him was recommended to the notice of Henry VIII, who employed him much in State business, but not, so far as is known, in a medical capacity. His testimony therefore is peculiarly reliable, and shows that Henry VIII maintained the ceremony throughout his reign, as is borne out by the scattered references we have adduced from other contemporary sources.

In 1547, after the death of Henry VIII, Gardiner sent a letter to Ridley, which contains the following passage:

‘The late king used to bless cramp rings both of gold and silver, which were much esteemed everywhere, and when he was abroad they were often desired from him. The gift he hoped the young king would not neglect. He believed the invocation of the name of God might give such a virtue to holy water as well as to the water of baptism,’ and further he speaks of the rings as endued ‘by the special gift of curation ministered to the king of this realm’.

That Edward VI did not relinquish the practice of blessing cramp-rings, as has been supposed, and as Burnet submits, is conclusively proved by an entry in the Household Accounts of the year 1553, before his death. Under the heading ‘Oblations’ is 25 shillings for the redemption of rings commonly called medicine rings, to be made of gold and silver.

It was little likely that Mary would allow a Catholic ceremonial to lapse for want of royal patronage. In the Appendix to Illustrations of the manners and expences of antient times in England, in the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, deduced from the accompts of churchwardens and other authentic documents, London, 1797, 4to, printed in the same year, is a list of the New Year’s gifts presented by Queen Mary in 1556, among which we find:

‘Item, deliuerid by the queins commandement--to the said Robert Raynes, in broken golde, to make crampe rings, etc. Item, more deliuerid the same time, to make cramp ringes, in broke plate of silu’ theise parcelles,’ &c.

From QUEEN MARY’S MS. MANUAL fo. iv

Library of the Roman Catholic Cathedral at WESTMINSTER]