Drawing on a considerable body of research Stephen Brogan charts the role and popularity of thaumaturgic healing from the medieval era to the eighteenth century. He argues that the ritual of the royal touch provided a nexus for the interaction of political, medical and religious ideas. The royal touch revises previously held notions about the ceremony by focusing on Tudor and Stuart England. It was during this period, he demonstrates, that the ceremony was modified to fit into the post-Reformation religious landscape. Brogan thus adds further weight to the argument that there was not a straightforward Weberian ‘disenchantment’ of early modern culture. Rather, traditional elements of religious and cultural life were reinterpreted and reshaped to fit with new Protestant ideas.

In chapter i Brogan traces the origins of sacral monarchy and the ritual of the royal touch. Early modern commentators often stated that Edward the Confessor was the first to touch for scrofula. Yet, although he was the first recorded monarch to heal a scrofula patient, he did not perform the ceremony of the royal touch. Instead of a definitive origin it appears that kings throughout the medieval period emulated Christ's healing by touching their sick subjects. Chapter ii considers the Tudor revival of the practice. Henry vii adopted the ceremony, introducing the liturgy and the gold Angel – the coin given to those who had received the royal touch. Brogan explains that despite Reformation dislike of thaumaturgic objects and ritual, the removal of other traditional healing strategies increased the popularity of the royal touch. A Catholic form of ceremony was preferred by Mary Tudor, as we would expect, while Elizabeth further Protestantised the ceremony, stressing that she was merely a conduit for God's power and reaffirming that faith was the key to healing.

Chapter iii heralds the beginning of the main focus of the book, the reign of the Stuart monarchs who, we are repeatedly told, touched for scrofula in far greater numbers than any of their predecessors. Charles ii, for example, touched 6,000 people in six months after the Restoration. As Brogan argues, claims that the regicide undermined the idea of sacral monarchy and the royal touch are unfounded. Rather the Stuart era marked a peak in demand for this form of healing. In response the monarchy tried to impose order on the ceremony and limit the number of people whom the monarch touched. The numbers of people seeking this treatment appear to coincide with moments of political turmoil. The royal touch and scrofula connected ideas about the health of the body politic with religion. Scrofula was seen as a divine punishment for the sins of the nation. It required moral regeneration, facilitated by the harmonious interaction of the monarch with his people to cure both the individual and the national body. Brogan also reveals that in moments when the Stuarts did not perform the royal touch pretenders like Valentine Greatrakes, the famous Irish ‘stroker’, appeared to fill the demand for divine healing.

Chapter iv draws together many elements already briefly mentioned to outline how scrofula patients were assessed, travelled to London, and waited to see the monarch and the process of the ritual itself. Chapter v explores the arguments of those who were sceptical about the efficacy and appropriateness of the royal touch. Sceptics pointed out that a miracle emulating Christ's healing should have immediate results, yet many patients experienced only a gradual improvement. Other commentators argued that the royal touch worked by nothing more than the power of suggestion. The imagination of the patient was so stirred by the mere presence of the monarch that it enlivened and revitalised his/her ailing body. Critics also emphasised that the practice was popish and was still performed by the French (Catholic) monarchs as well as by the Stuarts. Moreover, it was pointed out that the touch-pieces (originally called Angels) given to patients were worn continually – like an amulet – by patients to ward off the disease.

Chapter vi concludes the book by explaining the decline of the ceremony in the age of the Enlightenment. After the Glorious Revolution of 1688 William iii refused to perform the royal touch. In part his refusal was about his own background, having already been the leader of a country that did not have the royal touch, but was also about the ceremony's association with the exiled James ii. Anne was the last English monarch to practise the royal touch. She was a Stuart and High Anglican and may have used the ceremony to bolster her authority. Unlike previous monarchs she shaped her performance around the notion that she was a mother to the nation. After her death in 1714 the Lutheran George i did not take up the mantle and made no declarations explaining his decision. Jacobites claimed that the Hanoverians were afraid to perform the ritual because they could not risk its failure revealing their place as usurpers of the throne. Those seeking this form of cure, both Protestants and Catholics, now had to, and did, travel to Europe to be touched by James iii. The rejection of the ceremony by the Hanoverians coincided with the rise of mechanical philosophy and medicine which made little attempt to explain the spiritual realm and so fostered the separation of medicine and divine healing.

Brogan's Royal touch is successful in its intended aim of offering a detailed case study of the way in which one illness, and its most famous cure, provided a point of intersection for political and religious thinking. Medicine is less prominent as a theme throughout the book, but provides the background for the discussion presented. Occasionally the book feels a little repetitive; perhaps this is to be expected given its tight focus, yet its scope – tracing the ceremony from the medieval period to the eighteenth century – and attention to the relationship between the monarch and the people make it an engaging and lively read, particularly the chapters dealing with the Restoration era.