Did James the First of England die from the effects of poison, or from natural causes? / by Norman Chevers.

  • Norman Chevers
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Did James the First of England die from the effects of poison, or from natural causes? / by Norman Chevers. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    with which it is fraught, however, afford sufficient motives for its publication at a time when the quarrel between the King and his Parliament was becoming deadly. Eglisham first sets forth the grounds upon which he accuses the Duke of Buckingham of poisoning the Marquis of Hamilton, in doing which he is, self-evidently, guilty of the grossest exaggeration,* and then takes up the case of justice that maintains Kings, and injustice that brings Kings and King- doms to destruction, to fall into misery, to die like asses in ditches, or a more beastly death, eternal infamy after death, as all histories from time to time do clearly manifest. What need hath mankind of Kings, but for justice ? Men were not born for them, but they for men,” &c. “ What greater, what more royal occasion in the world could he offered to your majesty, to show your impartial disposition in matters of justice, at the first entry of your reign, than this which I offer in my just complaint against Buckingham, by whom your majesty suffereth your- self so far to be led that your best subjects are in doubt whether he is your King, or you his ? ” It will scarcely be believed that one who would write in such a spirit would, as we shall see Eglisham asserted he did, refuse the written testimony of an inquest of physicians, to the effect that his patron and dearest friend had been poisoned, because he was confident that the author of the crime would be, providentially, discovered ! * Eglisham’s unprincipled exaggeration in describing the ap- pearances presented by the Duke of Hamilton’s body after death, must be particularly taken into account here. Where the medical details are so few, the safest course that we can take, at this distance of time, is to judge them by their internal evidence of probability. Discovering among them one palpably intentional misstatement, we are justified in believing that the whole narrative was heightened by falsehood. In a letter [published in Brewer’s Goodman, Yol. II., p. 406,] to Mr. Mead, dated March 4th, 1624-5, (immediately after the Marquis’s decease) we are told, “ On Tuesday, between one and two in the morning, died the Lord Marquis of Hamilton, not without suspicion of poison, as is said, because, after death, his whole body, with neck, face, and head, swelled exceedingly, and was strangely spotted.” This is, probably, a true contemporary account of what was observed. D’Ewes also, in speaking of the decease of Ludovic Stuart Duke of Richmond and Lennox, says “ His death was generally reported to be natural, by an apoplexy, though many suspected it to be violent, by poison ; which latter conjecture was the rather believed after the death of James Hamilton, Marquis of Hamilton, another Scotchman, a while after, in March ensuing, a little before King James deceased ; the manner of whose death, and the view of the dissected body upon his decease, much confirming men’s suspicions that he perished by a violent intoxi- cation” [drugging.] Let us see how these facts are rendered in Eglis- ham’s second pamphlet, eighteen years subsequently. Although he asserts that the Marquis would never suffer him to go out of his sight in his sickness, and although this sickness appears to have been e