# Touch-pieces

*The royal touch; the king’s evil*

**Known today as.** Gold coins, the angel and its successors, pierced and hung on a ribbon, given by the monarch to each person touched for scrofula, the “king’s evil.”

Kind: Sacramental

## What was it used for?

Worn by the sufferer as the lasting pledge of the royal cure.

## What does modern science say?

Touch-pieces are kept in museums, Johnson’s among them.

## What lore surrounds it?

Charles II is said to have touched some ninety thousand people. Queen Anne, the last English monarch to touch, touched the infant Samuel Johnson in 1712. In France the rite lasted until 1825.

## Sources

- Bloch, M. (1924). *Les rois thaumaturges*. Strasbourg; in English as *The Royal Touch* (1973).
- Thomas, K. (1971). *Religion and the Decline of Magic*. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

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*Touch-pieces.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-09-28. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/touch-pieces

Historical description, not medical advice.