Miracles of King Charles The Martyr
Miracles in His Life & Martyrdom
On the night before his beheading, he made his confession to Juxon, the Bishop of London, and on the day itself, spent an hour in prayer, and then received the Viaticum, after which, we are told, "he rose up from his knees with a cheerful and steady countenance". On the scaffold he forgave his murderers and declared that he died as a martyr for his people. Kneeling to the block as to a prayer-desk, he stretched out his hands for a sign that he was ready. With one blow the execution severed his head from [4/5] his body. Andrew Marvell, the Puritan poet, thus described the martyr's death:
"He nothing common did or mean
Upon that memorable scene
But with his keener eye
The axe's edge did try;
Nor called the gods with vulgar spite
To vindicate his helpless right,
But bow'd his comely head
Down, as upon a bed."
The boys of Westminster School are said to have spent the time of the martyrdom in prayer for the King. Strange doves flew about the scaffold, which was erected against the Banqueting House in Whitehall, and at the moment his head was severed from his body, devout persons rushed forward to dip handkerchiefs in his blood, to preserve them as relics.
Even in his lifetime, King Charles had effected miraculous cures, apart from the touching for the King's Evil. The most famous was that of John Cole of Winchester, as related to King Charles II by John Nicholas, Warden of Winchester College. Many cures are said to have been wrought by handkerchiefs and cloths dipped in the blood of the martyr, "proving that his late Majestie is now a Blessed Saint in Heaven". In 1685, the diarist Evelyn heard Bishop Ken speaking to King Charles II of the "salutary effect of King Charles his Majesty's father's blood, in healing one that was blind".
In 1725 a woman advertised a handkerchief dipped in the blood of King Charles I for the King's Evil. As recently as 1860 a child was brought to Ashburnham to touch the relics there; at one time they were kept in the chancel of the Church, but for many years they have been kept in Ashburnham House.
Strange sign and portents had accompanied the King from birth, when an angel appeared over his cradle holding [5/6] a blood-stained pall. At his trial in Westminster Hall the head of his cane suddenly fell to the ground. On the morning of his martyrdom it happened that the second lesson at Morning Prayer related the Passion of our Saviour, "which the King was much affected with".
Source: “King Charles the Martyr ” 2009, http://anglicanhistory.org/charles/skcm_pamphlet.html.
A Miraclous Restoration of Eyesight
It hapned, by Gods appointment, that one Master, John Lane; now living in London in the old Change, a Woollen Draper by profession, hearing of the misery that Mrss Baylies daughter was in, he having a Handkircher about him which had been dipped in the Kinds blood on the day that he was beheaded. This Mr. Lane gave her a piece of the same Handkircher, which the mayd tooke, and applied to her sores, and wiping her eyes with the bloody side of the Handkircher, hath through Heavens providence recovered her eyesight; and is become lusty and strong, and able to doe any thing both abroad and at home, as is fitting for one of her age and growth to doe, and many hundreds of people come daily to see her both from London and other places; and all that ever saw her in her sicknesse, and sees her now in health, do confesse that it is a work the Lord hath done; whereby, his Name might be glorified, and the Kings death thought upon. And those that desire to know further of the matter, may both see and talke with the Mayd at her mothers house at Detford.
Source: “A Miracle of Miracles,” 1649, http://anglicanhistory.org/charles/miracle.html.
