UK historical case · England · January–May 1666; contemporary pamphlets published 1666
In 1666, an Irish visitor drew English crowds by passing his hands over people who hoped to be healed. His journey brought him into contact with Anne Conway, Henry More, Robert Boyle and the court, while pamphlets argued about what his reported successes meant. This case follows Valentine Greatrakes’s English tour, especially the London period, through a substantial historical biography and the surviving titles of the contemporary debate.
Location: Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London, and the English tour of 1666
Map note: Broad Lincoln’s Inn Fields area, where the historical biography places his London stay. No precise treatment address is asserted.
From a private conviction to a public reputation
The Dictionary of National Biography describes Greatrakes becoming convinced in 1662 that he could relieve the king’s evil, the condition historically called scrofula. His first reported attempt involved a local boy, encouraged by a conversation with his wife.
Accounts of benefit spread, and the number of people seeking him grew. Before the English journey, his activities had already attracted both support and objections. The biography records disagreement with church authorities over practising without a licence.
This background explains why the 1666 arrival generated interest. He was not presenting an unknown method to a single patient. Stories about him travelled ahead, and the invitation to England came through a network of patrons, religious thinkers and people looking for relief from longstanding illness.
The invitation to Anne Conway
Sir George Rawdon conveyed an invitation from Viscount Conway to visit his wife at Ragley, near Alcester. Anne Conway suffered persistent headaches, and the proposed visit was supported by Henry More and George Rust.
According to the historical biography, Greatrakes reached Ragley on 24 January 1666 after landing at Bristol. He remained about three weeks. The central purpose was not achieved: Anne did not obtain the hoped-for relief. Other people in the neighbourhood were nevertheless reported to have benefited.
That mixed result matters. The English story was never simply an uninterrupted progress of cures. Failure in the case that prompted the journey appears within the same historical account that describes his wider reputation and the willingness of learned observers to take him seriously.
Worcester before London
The biography dates Greatrakes’s invitation to Worcester to 13 February. It cites an entry in the city accounts recording expenditure on his entertainment, a different kind of trace from a personal claim of healing.
The English tour therefore has an administrative as well as a narrative history. Payments, invitations and printed publications help establish that the visits occurred and attracted organised attention, even when a particular patient’s experience survives only through a testimonial.
Greatrakes then went to London, encouraged by Lord Arlington and Sir Edmund Bury Godfrey. The biography places his stay in Lincoln’s Inn Fields for several months. Our map uses that broad location, rather than guessing which present doorway corresponds to an unverified seventeenth-century address.
Crowds, touch and prayer
The descriptions collected by the biography present his procedure as physical contact accompanied by religious language. Greatrakes passed or stroked his hands over an affected part and asked that any benefit be credited to God.
Observers described sensations of discomfort moving towards the extremities before disappearing. Those were their interpretations of what patients said and did. They were not measurements produced by a modern clinical trial, and the historical terms for the illnesses do not map neatly onto present diagnoses.
The London treatments were generally described as free. The biography makes a specific exception for the expense allowance connected with the Conway journey. Its account of support, failure and personal costs is more useful than either a blanket claim that every encounter succeeded or an assumption that the enterprise was simply a ticketed show.
An unsuccessful demonstration at court
The London period also included an appearance before the king and courtiers at Whitehall. The Dictionary of National Biography records failure on that occasion, alongside the varied outcomes among the wider public.
This is a particularly important contrast because Greatrakes’s reputation intersected with the traditional royal touch. A private individual claiming an exceptional gift operated in a culture where a monarch’s touch already carried religious and political significance.
The surviving account does not justify assigning a precise mechanism to either practice. It does show that the same action could be discussed as personal spiritual endowment, a medical possibility or a challenge to established authority. The disagreement was present among contemporaries rather than introduced only by later commentators.
The argument moves into print
Henry Stubbe’s The Miraculous Conformist appeared during the early part of the English visit. David Lloyd answered with Wonders no Miracles, challenging Greatrakes and the interpretation of his activities.
Greatrakes responded through A Brief Account, published in London in 1666 as a letter addressed to Robert Boyle. The historical biography says fifty-three testimonials accompanied it, naming contributors including Boyle, Andrew Marvell, Ralph Cudworth, John Wilkins and Benjamin Whichcote.
The catalogue records linked below establish the pamphlets’ titles and publication. This case’s narrative of their contents follows the older biography; UKPX has not presented the undigitised original ninety-six-page volume as though its complete text had been read for this article.
What his supporters thought they were seeing
The biography reports Greatrakes resisting a simple description of his work as miraculous while accepting the possibility of an exceptional divine gift. Henry More considered whether a beneficial influence might be transmitted between bodies, just as harmful influences were thought to pass between people.
These explanations belong to the intellectual setting of the time. They show observers trying to fit striking experiences into their existing understanding of bodies, religion and nature.
The printed testimonials should be approached individually where the originals become available. A distinguished name on a list does not tell us which session that person saw, which patient was involved or how long any reported improvement lasted. The value of the collection lies in the possibility of following those particulars, rather than using the contributors’ reputations as a substitute for them.
The English tour’s place in the library
Greatrakes returned to Ireland near the end of May 1666, according to the biography, and the concentrated English episode ended. This UK case file concerns that journey, not a relocation of his birthplace or Irish activities onto the UK map.
The main historical entry is public domain and provides an unusually full route through the English chronology. Its nineteenth-century conclusions and its conflicting-looking biographical dates should be distinguished from the dates of the contemporary pamphlets themselves.
The portrait is a historical depiction of his practice, not an illustration of a current medical service. The case belongs to the history of spiritual healing and extraordinary personal reputations. Its most interesting feature is the range of contemporary responses—hopeful patients, learned witnesses, unsuccessful demonstrations and an immediate argument in print.
Timeline
1662 — the historical biography dates Greatrakes’s conviction about his gift to this year.
24 January 1666 — arrival at Ragley to attend Anne Conway.
13 February — the Worcester invitation is dated.
February–spring 1666 — the English pamphlet debate develops.
Spring 1666 — London stay, public treatments and a reported unsuccessful Whitehall demonstration.
End of May 1666 — the biography dates his return to Ireland.
Sources and further reading
Dictionary of National Biography: Valentine Greatrakes
Public-domain historical biography; principal source for the English sequence and quoted contemporary interpretations.
Eton Collections: A Brief Account, 1666
Catalogue record for the book, its reply to Lloyd and its engraved frontispiece.
Wellcome Collection: A Brief Account
Bibliographical record; not a claim that the complete restricted facsimile was read.
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