Valentine Greatrakes (1628 - 1683)

Born 14 Feb 1628 in Affane, County Waterford, Ireland

Ancestors

Descendants

Died 28 Nov 1683 at age 55 in Affane, County Waterford, Ireland

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Bob Nichol [send private message]

Biography

Valentine Greatrakes (14 February 1628 – 28 November 1682), also known as "Greatorex" or "The Stroker", was an Irish faith healer who toured England in 1666, claiming to cure people by the laying on of hands.

Greatrakes was born on 14 February 1628, at Affane, County Waterford, Ireland. He was the son of William Greatrakes (c. 1600–1643) and Mary Harris (died c. 1656), daughter of Sir Edward Harris, Chief Justice of Munster. Both his parents were English Protestant settlers. He went to the free school at Lismore until he was 13 years of age and was designed for the college of Dublin. However, when the Irish Rebellion of 1641 broke out he and his mother fled to England, where he was received by his great uncle, Edmund Harris. After Harris died his mother placed him with John Daniel Getsius, a German minister, of Stoke Gabriel, in Devonshire.

After five or six years in England Greatrakes returned to his native country, which he found in a distracted state, and therefore spent a year in contemplation at the Castle of Cappoquin. In 1649 he was a lieutenant in Lord Broghill's regiment in the English Parliamentary army in Ireland, then campaigning in Munster against the Irish Royalists. In 1656, a great part of the army was disbanded, so Greatrakes retired to Affine, his native place, and was made clerk of the peace for County Cork, Register for transplantation, and a Justice of the Peace. However he lost these positions after the Restoration.

He seemed to have been very religious; his outlook was grave but simple. He said himself, that ever since that year 1662 he had felt a strange impulse or persuasion that he had the gift of curing the King's evil (scrofula); and this suggestion became so strong, that he stroked several persons, and cured them.

Three years after that, an epidemical fever was raging in the country, he was again persuaded that he could also cure that. He made the experiment, and he affirmed to his satisfaction that he cured all who came to him. At length, in April 1665, another kind of inspiration suggested to him, that he had the gift of healing wounds and ulcers; and experience, he also said, proved that he was not deceived. He even found that he cured convulsions, the dropsy, and many other distempers.

On 6 April 1665 Robert Phayre, a former Commonwealth Governor of County Cork, was living at Cahermore, in that county, when he was visited by Greatrakes (who had served in his regiment in 1649). Greatrakes cured Phayre in a few minutes of an acute ague. John Flamsteed, the famous Astronomer, (then aged 19) went over to Ireland, in August 1665, to be touched by Greatrakes for a natural weakness of constitution, but received no benefit. Crowds flocked to him from all parts, and he was reported to have performed such extraordinary cures, that he was summoned into the Bishop's court at Lismore, and, not having a licence for practising, was forbidden to lay hands on anyone else in Ireland.

In 1665 Greatrakes was invited to England by his old commander, Lord Broghill (now Earl of Orrery), to cure Anne, Viscountess Conway of an inveterate headache. He arrived in England in early 1666 but failed to cure the Viscountess. Undaunted, he travelled through the country, treating the sick.

King Charles II, being informed of it, summoned Greatrakes to Whitehall. While unpersuaded that Greatrakes had miraculous power, the king did not forbid him to continue his ministrations.

Greatrakes went every day to a place in London where many sick persons, of all ranks in society, assembled. Pains, gout, rheumatism, convulsions and so forth were allegedly driven by his touch from one body part to another. Upon reaching the extremities, reportedly, all symptoms of these ailments ceased. As the treatment consisted entirely of stroking, Greatrakes was called The Stroker. Greatrakes ascribed certain disorders to the work of evil spirits. When persons possessed by such spirits saw Greatrakes or heard his voice, the afflicted fell to the ground or into violent agitation. He then proceeded to cure them by the same method of stroking.

While many were sceptical, Greatrakes did find zealous advocates for the efficacy of his healing powers. He himself published, in 1666, a letter addressed to the celebrated Robert Boyle entitled A brief Account of Mr. Valentine Greatrakes and divers of the strange Cures by him performed &c. See also The Miraculous Conformist &c. by Henry Stubbe, M.D., a pamphlet printed at Oxford in 1666, wherein the author gives a succinct history of Greatrakes' life. Appended to the pamphlet were a number of certificates, signed by persons of known probity, attesting to the reality of Greatrakes' cures.

Greatrakes returned to Ireland in 1667, and resumed farming in 1668 on £1,000 a year. Although he lived for many years, he no longer kept up the reputation of performing those strange cures which have procured him a name. But in this his case is very singular, that on the strictest enquiry no sort of blemish was ever thrown upon his character, nor did any of those curious and learned persons, who espoused his cause, draw any imputation upon themselves.

Greatrakes died on 28 November 1682 at Affane, County Waterford. He may be buried in Lismore Church or under the aisle of the old Affane Church near to his father (sources vary).

In the early 1660s Greatrakes married Ruth (died 1678), daughter of Sir William Godolphin (1605–1663), and his first wife Ruth, daughter of Sir John Lambe. He married secondly Alice Tilson (died 1678 or 1684). He had three children:

• Williman (died 1686), who married Mary, daughter of Johah Wheeler.
• Edmund (died during 1691–1692), who married Anne, daughter of Thomas Wilcox.
• Mary, who married Edmund Browning.

Charles Mackay, in his Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds (1841), wrote that:

"Mr Valentine Greatraks, who, without mentioning magnetism, or laying claim to any theory, practised upon himself and others a deception much more akin to the animal magnetism of the present day than the mineral magnetism it was then so much the fashion to study."

James Randi, citing Mackay in his book The Faith Healers also considered Greatrakes to be a quack, who had deceived himself.^[1]

Note

Greatrakes flourished in the reign of Charles II born 1628 at Affane co Waterford and educ in the free school of Lismore, later in England at the house of a maternal uncle. Back in Ireland he sought seclusion in the Castle of Cappoquin; in 1649 he obtained a commission in Lord Broghill's regiment then on service in Munster and in 1656 on disbandment he returned to his estate at Affane and was shortly afterwards appointed JP. About 1662 he had the compulsion that he could cure the kings evil. In 1665 at the request of the Earl of Orrery, he went to England to try his hand on the head of Lady Conway of Ragley in Warwickshire. He failed to cure her, but is supposed to have cured others in the county.

See "The Miraculous Conformist or an account of several Miraculous Cures performed by Mr Greatrick" by Mr Foxcraft Publ Oxford 1666.

In Philosophical Transactions No 256 p 332 the celebrated Ralph Thoresby gives several instances of cures effected by Greatrakes, including Thoresby's own brother. [Source: From the Dublin Quarterly Journal of Medical Science 1847; Vol 04 551 pp at Wellcome Institute London. Originally From the Radford Library, St Mary's Hospital, Manchester, August and November 1847.]

From Tom Magness [professional genealogist]: We know that Valentine Greatlakes [as a boy of 12] and his mother were forced off their property in Co. Waterford during the rising of 1641. We also know that they left the county and went back to England for a time, until Cromwell came over and settled the Irish [situation], then came back and were listed as titleholders of New Assane, Co. Waterford in the Census c1659. An original paper still extant states that John and Robert Naylor, the uncles of Richard first Earl of Cork, followed him to Ireland. They were the brothers of Joan, the Earl's mother. The Earl of Cork gave his cousin, Margaret Naylor, in marriage to John Drew Esq, with an additional fortune and was a party to the settlement, as appears from a deed still extant. He died May 30th, 1672. Francis, second son of Barry Drew, the first of the Drewscourt family in the County Limerick, married first a daughter of Sir Francis Folkes, Knight, of Camphire, Co. Waterford, and, secondly, Ruth Nettles of Tourin, daughter of John Nettles, Esq, by Mary, sister of the celebrated Valentine Greatrakes of Affane Castle, in the same county. He possessed the extraordinary power of curing diseases by simply stroking the parts affected with his hands.

Robert Boyle, the great Christian Philosopher, frequently bore witness to the fact. His own life, written by himself, and printed in 1666, is still extant, and seems to have been with truth and candour. His memory is still fresh in the County of Waterford (see an account of him by Granger). The Nettles family get possession of Tourin Castle on the forfeiture of the Lord Roche in 1641.

Will

The original registered will was lost in the fire at the Public Records Office, Dublin in 1922. The following is the abstract made by Sir William Betham, Ulster King of Arms in the early 19th century. ^[2]

Valentine Greatrakes of New Affane, in co Waterford

Will dated 20 November 1683, proved 6 April 1684

Son - Edmund [also names Joh and Edwd on the same line]

Nephew - Will Gratrakes [son of Edward Greatrakes]

Nephew - Robert Nettles [son of his sister Mary Nettles]

Son - William

Wife - Alice

Kinsman - Owen Silow

Brother [in law] Wheeler

Brother [in Law] Thomas Tyson

Nieces - Browning, Oldfield

Niece - Grace Gratrakes

Sources

• Source: S140 Author: John H. M. Young Title: Royal Courtenays/Carew/Alcock/McDougall/Glines Abbreviation: Young, John Publication: RootsWeb/21 Oct 2003 Repository: #R65 Media: Electronic Paranthetical: Y

1. ↑ Wikipedia entry for Valentine Greatrakes, accessed 9 April 2023.
2. ↑ FindmyPast - Betham's Genealogical Abstracts Prerogative Wills. (Phillips Mss) G 1562-1699 H 1581-1699 Ij 1568-1699-1629

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Bob Nichol for creating WikiTree profile Greatrakes-9 through the import of Willis.ged on Mar 8, 2013.