23d. By water with Mr. Hill towards my Lord's lodging and so to my Lord.
With him to Whitehall, where I left him and went to Mr. Holmes to deliver
him the horse of Dixwell's that had staid there fourteen days at the Bell.
So to my Lord's lodgings, where Tom Guy came to me, and there staid to see
the King touch people for the King's evil. But he did not come at all, it
rayned so; and the poor people were forced to stand all the morning in the
rain in the garden. Afterward he touched them in the Banquetting-house.

[This ceremony is usually traced to Edward the Confessor, but there
is no direct evidence of the early Norman kings having touched for
the evil. Sir John Fortescue, in his defence of the House of
Lancaster against that of York, argued that the crown could not
descend to a female, because the Queen is not qualified by the form
of anointing her, used at the coronation, to cure the disease called
the King's evil. Burn asserts, "History of Parish Registers," 1862,
p. 179, that "between 1660 and 1682, 92,107 persons were touched for
the evil." Everyone coming to the court for that purpose, brought a
certificate signed by the minister and churchwardens, that he had
not at any time been touched by His Majesty. The practice was
supposed to have expired with the Stuarts, but the point being
disputed, reference was made to the library of the Duke of Sussex,
and four several Oxford editions of the Book of Common Prayer were
found, all printed after the accession of the house of Hanover, and
all containing, as an integral part of the service, "The Office for
the Healing." The stamp of gold with which the King crossed the
sore of the sick person was called an angel, and of the value of ten
shillings. It had a hole bored through it, through which a ribbon
was drawn, and the angel was hanged about the patient's neck till
the cure was perfected. The stamp has the impression of St. Michael
the Archangel on one side, and a ship in full sail on the other.