The Herbalist: Nicholas Culpeper and the Fight for Medical Freedom. Benjamin Woolley

to James Hamilton, the Earl of Abercorn. Eglisham also claimed to have treated the King on various occasions over the previous ten years. He was not apparently in attendance during the King’s final days, though he may have been at Theobalds in mid-March. He alleged that Villiers, having seen that ‘the King’s mind was beginning to alter towards him’, decided it was time for James to ‘be at rest’ so his son could inherit. When the King fell sick ‘of a certain ague, and in that spring [infection], was of itself never found deadly, the Duke took his opportunity when all the king’s Doctors of Physic were at dinner, upon the Monday before the King died, without their knowledge and consent, offered him a white powder to take: the which he a long time refused; but overcome with his flattering importunity at length took it in wine, and immediately became worse and worse, falling into many swoonings and pains, and violent fluxes of the belly so tormented, that his Majesty cried out aloud of this white powder, would to God I had never taken it, it will cost me my life’. The following Friday, Villiers’ mother was involved in ‘applying a plaster to the King’s heart and breast, whereupon he grew faint, short breathed, and in a great agony’. The smell of the plaster attracted the attention of the physicians, who, returning to the King’s chamber, found ‘something to be about him hurtful unto him and searched what it should be, found it out, and exclaimed that the King was poisoned’. Buckingham himself then intervened, threatening all the physicians with exile from the court ‘if they kept not good tongues in their heads’. ‘But in the mean time,’ Eglisham added, ‘the King’s body and head swelled above measure, his hair with the skin of his head stuck to the pillow, his nails became loose upon his fingers and toes’ – signs, perhaps, of poisoning by white arsenic or sublimate of mercury, substances implicated in another courtly scandal fresh in the public mind, the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury in 1613. As to the source of the poison, Eglisham’s finger pointed straight at Buckingham’s astrologer, ‘Dr’ John Lambe. Lambe had become a figure almost as hated as his master, accused of performing ‘diabolical and execrable arts called Witchcrafts, Enchantments, Charmers and Sorcerers’, and in 1623 of raping an eleven-year-old girl. He also practised medicine, which in 1627 led to him being referred to the College of Physicians by the Bishop of Durham.¹⁰

      The poisoning allegations were ignored by the new king and his ministers, but taken up by a number of the Duke’s enemies in Parliament. Relations between Charles and Parliament soured within weeks of his accession, as the matter of his subsidy, the amount of tax revenue to be paid into the royal exchequer, was debated. Villiers’ influence over the new king became one of the main points of contention, and it soon emerged that a number of MPs were planning to bring charges against the Duke for his role in instigating a number of extravagant and disastrous policies. The primary role of Parliament was supposed to be debating laws and raising taxes, not sitting in judgement over the court, and the King was outraged by its presumption.

      Meanwhile, a terrible epidemic of the plague had broken out in London, forcing the King to take refuge at Hampton Court. Charles wanted Parliament to continue sitting, to ensure it voted the subsidy he desperately needed, so he forced both houses to reconvene in Oxford – a precursor of the government in exile that Charles set up during the Civil War. The reassembled MPs were in no mood to be compliant, and after an angry debate one of them, Sir George Goring, demanded that Villiers be summoned ‘to clear himself’ – in other words, account for the policies he had advised the King to adopt. This produced a furious response from Charles. He summoned his Council and, according to the snippets picked up by the Venetian ambassador, told his ministers he could not tolerate his ‘servants to be molested’ in this manner. ‘All deliberations were made by his command and consent, notably convoking Parliament; he exculpated the Duke of Buckingham; complained that Parliament had wished to touch his own sovereignty; his condition would be too miserable if he could not command and be obeyed.’ These complaints, made within six months of his succession, would set the tone of his entire reign.¹¹

      Parliament, however, continued to touch the King’s sovereignty, which became increasingly tender. In the spring of 1626, as Charles still impatiently awaited a settlement on his subsidy, the Commons passed a motion that it would ‘proceed in the business in hand concerning the Duke of Buckingham, forenoon and afternoon, setting all other businesses aside till that be done’. As part of this business, a select committee was appointed to hear the evidence that the Duke had poisoned James.

      Only a garbled account of the proceedings survives.¹² Several, but not all, of the King’s physicians were called to give evidence. Craig was notably absent, as was Sir William Paddy, the most senior member of the College to have attended the King, and Sir Theodore de Mayerne, James’s principal physician, who had been abroad since 1624. Those who did attend include Dr Alexander Ramsay, one of James’s Scottish doctors; Dr John Moore, a licentiate of the College (i.e. granted a licence to practise) but never admitted as a Fellow because he was publicly identified as a Catholic; Dr Henry Atkins, the current President of the College; Dr David Beton, another Scottish physician; a Dr Chambers, a ‘sworn’ royal physician but not a Fellow of the College; Dr Edward Lister, a veteran of the College and a Censor at the time of Harvey’s admission; and William Harvey. The King’s surgeon Hayes was also called, together with Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel, a courtier who was in attendance throughout most of the King’s illness.

      All agreed that the Duke had persuaded the King to take a medicine in the form of a posset and a plaster. They also admitted that, soon after the King’s death, they had been asked to endorse a ‘bill’ that was purported to contain the recipe for that medicine. Thereafter, confusion and obfuscation abounded. No one could recall what was in the bill presented to them after the King’s death, or confirm that the recipe was for the medicine given to the King, which implied that they did not know what was in the medicine. Various justifications were offered as to why they allowed an unknown substance to be given to a patient under their care: that they were absent when it was administered, that the King had ordered it to be administered, that they believed it to be safe because it smelt of a theriac or ‘treacle’, specifically Mithridate, an elaborate but familiar medicinal compound which, the doctors reassured the committee, would not have caused any harm in this case.

      As to who prepared the medicine, there was little agreement. Some said it was the Duke himself, some that it was the King’s apothecary, one Woolfe. When asked who had been present when the medicine was given, fingers started pointing in many directions, but mostly towards the royal surgeon, Hayes, and the physician in closest attendance at the crucial stages of the King’s illness, William Harvey.

      Dr Moore claimed that Harvey had been in attendance when the plaster was first brought in and should have prevented it from being applied. Moore had been identified from the beginning of the inquiry as a Catholic and, as Dr Atkins put it, ‘not sworn’, in other words not officially recognized as a royal physician. He was also forced to admit that it was he who presented the physicians with the supposed recipe for the medicine for their endorsement after the King’s death. This made him more vulnerable than any of the other doctors, and probably explains why he tried to deflect blame in the direction of Harvey.¹³

      Harvey, however, was serene. He admitted to being present when the plaster was applied, the surgeon Hayes performing the operation. He ‘gave way’ to the procedure because it was ‘commended by [the] Duke as good for [the King]’. Furthermore, since it was an external treatment, he could safely monitor its effects from the King’s bedside. Trying to spread the responsibility a little, he pointed out that Dr Lister had been there at the time the plaster was first applied, a claim Dr Lister later denied. As for the posset, Harvey had allowed it to be administered as ‘the King desired it, because the Duke and [Earl of] Warwick had used it’. The select committee notes also add the words ‘He commended the posset’, though whether the commendation was Harvey’s or the King’s is unclear. Harvey confirmed that a recipe had been presented to the physicians soon after James’s death, brought in by Sir William Paddy. However, alone of all the physicians questioned, he suggested that the physicians had ‘approved’ it. Unlike some of his colleagues, Harvey appears not to have questioned whether the recipe