abstract:The royal touch (also known as the king's touch) was a form of laying on of hands, whereby French and English monarchs would touch their subjects, regardless of social classes, with the intent to cure them of various diseases and conditions. The thaumaturgic touch was most commonly applied to people suffering from tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis (better known as scrofula or the King's Evil), and exclusively to them from 16th century onwards.
At the same time, the royal family does touch the real world, albeit the part of it inhabited by what remains of the landed upper classes: a life of moors and deer-stalking, of summers under Scottish rain, dogs and horses, the church, the armed forces, the same few boarding schools and the right sort of nightclubs.
Until March 30th 2008, visitors to the Royal Botanic Gardens can touch, walk round and peer through (polite notices discourage climbing over) the massive bronzes and one white fibreglass created by Moore in the last 30 years of his life.