 Henry VII touched seven or eight infected people annually , and there were intervals lasting several years during which he did not perform the ritual at all . Henry VIII ( r . 1509 – 1547 ) touched 59 people between early January 1530 and late December 1532 . The Protestant Edward VI ( r . 1547 – 1553 ) apparently did not perform the ritual , but the Catholic Mary I ( r . 1553 – 1558 ) took it somewhat more seriously . Early in her reign , the Protestant Elizabeth I was reluctant to participate in a ritual whose efficacy she probably doubted . Although she resumed the practice in 1570 , after the Roman Catholic Church excommunicated her and alleged that she had lost her healing power , Elizabeth decisively downplayed her own role in the miraculous healing . The Elizabethan surgeon William Clowes , who asserted that the royal touch proved her legitimacy , claimed that Elizabeth could also heal foreigners , citing a Dutchman as an example . 
