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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    all the Kings Doctors of physic were at dinner (upon the Monday before the King died, without their knowledge or If his conscience had not been guilty, should not he have commanded the physicians to inquire by all means possible, and make it known, rather than to suppress the speech of poisoning so worthy a man F These physicians being come, your petitioner, with one hand leading Doctor More to the table, where the Marquis’s body was laid, and with the other hand throwing off the cloth from the body, said unto him, “ Look you here upon this spectacle.” At the sight whereof Doctor More, lifting up both his hands, heart, and eyes to the heavens, astonished, said, “ Jesus, bless me. I never saw the like ; I cannot dis- tinguish a face upon him and in the like manner all the rest of the doctors, and also the chirurgeons, affirmed that they never saw the like, albeit that they had travelled and practised through the greatest part of Europe. Only one, that said “ My Lord of Southampton was blistered all within the breast, as my Lord Marquis was.” Doctor Leceister, one of Buckingham’s creatures, seeing Doctor More and others so amazed at the sight of my Lord’s body, drew first him aside, and then the others, one after another, and whispered them in the ear to silence them.* “ Whereupon many went away, without speaking one word ; the others, who remained, acknowledged that these accidents of the dead body could not be without poison ; but they said, they could not know how such a subtle art of poisoning could be brought into England. Your petitioner replied, ‘ That money would bring both the art and the artist from the farthest part of the world into England ;’ from whence, since your petitioner’s departure, he hath conferred with the skil- fullest pest-masters that could be found, who visit the bodies of those that die of the venom of the pest. They all admire the description of my Lord Marquis’s body, and testify that never any of the pests have such accidents, but carbuncles, rubons” [bubons ?] “ or spots, no such huge blisters with waters, and such a huge uniform swelling to such dimensions, above six times the natural proportion. But he hath met with some who have practised the poisoning of dogs, to try the force of some antidotes ; and they have found that some poisons have made the dogs sick for a fortnight or more, without any swelling, until they were dead, and then they swelled above measure, and became blistered, with waters of divers colours ; and the hair came away with the skin, when it was touched.” “ The physicians, then, who remained” [why are they not named P] “were willing to certify, under their hands, that my Lord Marquis was poisoned” [which, if true, is a lamentable proof of their ignorance]. “ But your petitioner told them,—‘ It was not needful, seeing we must needs attend God’s leisure to discover the author, the manner being so apparent, and so many hundreds having seen the body, to witness it ; ’ for the doors were kept open for every man to behold and be witness if he would.” * A letter written by Catherine, Duchess of Buckingham, to her hnsband when he was in 8pain, shortly before this, reprinted in Brewer’s Goodman, Vol. II., page 309, shows that Dr. More was her Grace’s physician, and that he stood high in her confidence and esteem.