Dr. John Bastwick.

Date:
1924
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. John Bastwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Publication 3277 Place’ ,of .Desiel Dryer Ti ene carne eee ea ae 271th. .Sentamber.,.. 1924. Instructions: My. Ou dh Sy. Date of Issue... Poba et Uptera. DR. JOHN BASTWICK. Munx’s Roll of the London College of Physicians is perhaps more often used as a source of instruction than amusement, although it contains many good stories. Munk’s virtues are not very attractive to “most people, and his failings are, we suspect, repellent to the youth of this generation. Munk loved a scholar and a gentleman of the old school; he thought it was a pojnt in a physician’s favour to be able to write good Latin, and he had very little sympathy with rough, quarrelsome folk who did not behave like gentlemen and scholars. With a subject like Sir George Baker, Munk was at his best, but he was a little unhappy about and puzzled by Sydeaham’ s neglect to become an F.R.C.P., and he could see no redeeming features in the career of Dr. John Bastwick. Bastwick. was indeed no gentleman—in the Munkian sense. To begin with, although he was centered at Cam- bridge, he never took a degree there. Then, ‘‘ apparently not satisfied. with his progress in the profession,’? says our annalist, ‘‘and being a man of strong zeal and warm imagination, he applied himself to writing, more particu- larly against Popery.’’ This rude behaviour led to a fine of £1,000, excommunication, prison, and removal from the list of Licentiates. Even this did not crush the rebel. ‘His violent temper,’’ says Munk, ‘‘ would not permit him to be quiet.’’ He became even ruder than before, and in 1637, after arraignment in the Star Chamber, when, as Munk says, he expressed himself in ‘‘ extraordinary terms,’ he lost his ears and was packed off first to Launceston and then to the Scilly Isles to await the time when the proceedings against him were reviewed in the House of Commons—possibly in extraordinary terms—and in the College. “D. Presidens et Censores judicabant D. Bastwick in locum quem habuit in Collegio et ad libertatem praxios restituendum ; et amota superiorum censura pro restituto habendum et. accipi- dendum apud omnes Socios, Candidatos et Licentiatos.”’ This was in 1640. He was to have. had money com- pensation from the estates of the Archbishop of Canter- bury, but it does not appear that he ever received it; bis affairs were still under discussion in Parliament in 1648, ** What became of him after that is not known. It is generaily thought that he returned to Colchester. He died apparently in London. Smith records his burial on the 6th October, 1654.”’ Such was the career of Bastwick according to Munk. The facts are no doubt correct, but there seems something wanting in the interpretation. It seems incredible that a man, howevér violent his temper, would think that attacks on the best people would be a- professional recom- mendation in 1633; Bastwick was a college physician, not an empiric. So it is easier to believe that violent temper, rather than fewness of patients, was the motive, and charitable to think that some courage went with the violence of temper. An examination of the proceedings against Bastwick, Burton, and Prynne for several libels, in the State Trials, bears out this view. Bastwick was certainly ‘‘ no gentle- man,’’ but some of the ‘‘ extraordinary terms ’’ not quoted by Munk suggest that in addition to a violent temper he had both courage and wit. For instance, we find this dialogue: 1) Lord Keeper: ‘ What say you, Mr. Doctor, are you guilty or not guilty? Answer yea, or no: you needed not to have troubled yourself so much about so large an Answer.’’ Dr. Bastwick: “I know none of your Honours have read my Book; and can you with the Justice of the Court, condemn me before you know what is written in my Books?” This was a facer, because the court had certainly not read them (they seem to have been rather long), so the doetor was asked about an extract which had been read in court, and replied: ‘“My Lord, he that read it did so murder the sense of it, that had I not known, what UT had written, I could not tell what: to have made of it.” O a QB‘ After a few more exchanges, to take the case pro confesso, upon Bastwick said: ““My noble Lord of Arundel, I know you are a noble prince in Israel and a great Peer of this Realm; there are some honourable Lords in this Court, that have been forced out as Combatants in a single Duel; it is between the Prelates and us, at this time, as between two that have appointed the Field. The one being a Coward goes to the Magistrate, and by Virtue of his Authority which was allowed, where- ae challenges him to fight. If this be not base Cowardice I know not what belongs to a Soldier. This is the Case between the Prelates and us, they take away our Weapons (our Answers) by virtue of your Authority, by which we should defend ourselves 2 yet they bid us fight. My Lord, doth not this savour of a ase cowardly Spirit? I know, my Lord, there is a Decree gone forth , (for my Sentence was ‘passed long since) to cut off our Hiars.”” The Lord Keeper was much shocked ly this insinuation and asked, ‘‘ Do you prophesy of yourselves?’’ It was at least an accurate prognosis. Dr. Bastwick’s speech before torture is not so fully reported as that of his more famous fellow. sufferer Prynne, and is, for the most part, in common form, but there is a touch of rough humour in his addition to a criticism by Prynne of the writings of one Heylin. “There is another book of his licensed,’’ said the doctor, ‘wherein he rails against us three at his pleasure, and against the Martyrs that suffered in Queen Mary’s days, ’ calling “them Schismatical Hereticks; and there is another book of Pocklington’ g licensed : they be as full of Lyes as Dogs be full of Fleas; but were the Presses as open to us as they are to them, we would pay them, them with notorious Blasphemy.”’ The party of Bastwick won in the end, and the fore. shortening of historical perspective leads us to underestimate the courage needed to be on the winning side before it was the winning side. King and Archbishop lost the heads—and it is worse to lose one’s head than one’s ears. and the violent- epitaph than he But it is not pleasant.to lose one’s ears, tempered doctor deserved s kindlier received from Munk.
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