2-634-613 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Charles II touching a patient for the King's evil, c1680 (1903).The royal touch was a form of laying on of hands, whereby French and English monarchs would touch their subjects, to cure them of various diseases and conditions. It was a ritual most commonly applied to people suffering from tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis, known as scrofula, and exclusively to them from 16th century onwards. The frequency of the ritual reached its height during the reign of Charles II (c1660-1685), the only English monarch who applied royal touch more than French kings. Over 92,000 scrofulous people were touched by him, over 4,500 annually. From London in the Time of the Stuarts, by Sir Walter Besant. [Adam & Charles Black, London, 1903].