The royal touch: Scrofula and defining monarchy

English monarchs have claimed the ability to heal scrofula since the turn of the first millennium, long before the mycobacterial cause was identified in the late 19^th century. A disease with a self-limiting clinical course, scrofula helped to define a period of human political organization in Western Europe known as monarchy. Termed the royal touch, the practice of touching subjects and curing them of scrofula demonstrated that a monarch belonged to the legitimate dynasty. Despite this, James VI & I (1566-1625) was unenthusiastic about touching his subjects, when he ostensibly had the most to gain from its symbolism; he was fanatical about the absolute political power of monarchs. Shakespeare's (1564-1616) inclusion of the royal touch in Macbeth, written as King James I ascended the English throne after Queen Elizabeth I's (1533-1603) death, may be a subtle nod to the outsider Scottish king to recognize the political value of the tradition. In contrast to King James, his descendants intended to reinforce their affiliation with the royal touch, adapt the royal touch for a modern constitutional monarchy, and memorialize how those in their dynasty touched the skin of their most disfigured subjects.