Queen Elizabeth I and Her “Queen’s Touch”

Queen Elizabeth I of England (d. 1603) ruled her country for decades through an era of extreme religious strife and against the will of many who thought, as the Protestant leader John Knox, that “It is more than a monstre in nature that a Woman shall reigne and have Empire above a Man . . . howe abominable, odious, and detestable is all such usurped authoritie”. There were many reasons for Elizabeth’s success, among them her keen appreciation for the role that pageantry and religious symbolism played. And that is where the Virgin Queen’s magical healings of the disease scrofula come into play.

Here you see a young Elizabeth in her coronation regalia. She holds the sceptre and globe with the cross to symbolize her authority over state and church, similar to kings of England’s past. But her long tresses and youthful figure played up her image of a virginal young woman — in many ways she appropriated the role of the Virgin Mary which had recently been taken out of the expressions of Protestant Christianity during the reformation.

Elizabeth further promoted an idea that she was a sacred ruler by publically curing people afflicted with a disease called “the King’s Evil”: what we today call scrofula. This malignancy (slide three – warning – it’s super gross) is caused when the same bacteria responsible for tuberculosis infects the lymph nodes of the neck and causes swelling and open tumors. In Medieval France and England, it was thought that kings could cure the disease with their own hands. (See second slide for an illustration).

Elizabeth went about granting the Queen’s touch, which gave her an aura of a leader who really cared about her subjects — and one that would use divine powers to serve them. “How often have I seen her most serene Majesty, prostrate on her knees
. .. how often have I seen her exquisite hands,” wrote Elizabeth’s chaplain, “whiter than whitest snow, boldly and without disgust, pressing sores and ulcers, and handling them to health . . . How often have I seen her worn with fatigue . . .

Pious or no, Elizabeth made her “Queen’s touch” public spectacles.