# Protestant Exiles from France/Book First - Chapter 6 - Section II

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II. De Mayerne.
Louis Turquet, a learned Protestant of Lyons, with his wife, Louise, daughter of Antoine Le Maçon, fled from the St. Bartholomew massacre to Geneva. He called himself De Mayerne from a country house which he acquired in the neighbourhood of Geneva. His son Theodore (named after the great Beza) was born at Mayerne, 28th September 1573.
Theodore Turquet de Mayerne received his early education in Geneva, and then studied at Heidelberg. He chose the medical profession, for which he was educated at Montpellier, where he took his Bachelor’s degree (M.B.) in 1596, and the degree of M.D. in 1597. He is said to have come to Paris immediately thereafter. Certainly he obtained eminence in that metropolis at an early date as a physician and a lecturer. He was an accomplished chemist; and his introduction of chemical remedies into his medical practice brought upon him the enmity of the Faculty of Paris, who regarded him as an innovator and an empiric. He, however, obtained the countenance and possessed the confidence of a veteran reformer in medicine, Joseph Duchesne (known by the Latin name of Quercitanus), physician to Henri IV. The king favoured De Mayerne in spite of the Medical Faculty, and appointed him, in 1600, physician to the Due de Rohan, ambassador or envoy to Germany and Italy. In 1603 one of his opponents published a book entitled “Apologia pro medicinà Hippocratis et Galeni contra Mayernium et Quercitanum.” To this attack Mayerne, in the same year, printed a reply with the title, “Apologia in quâ videre est, inviolatis Hippocratis et Galeni legibus, remedia chemicè praeparata tutò usurpari posse.” The Faculty, by an interdict, now excluded him from their fraternity. He ceased to lecture but continued to practise, and was enrolled among the king’s physicians.
The office of First Physician (premier medecin) to the King was open to him on the death of Du Laurens. There was, however, a condition annexed, namely, that he should abjure the Protestant religion. Cardinal Du Perron undertook to convert him, but failed to make the slightest impression. Notwithstanding this, Henri IV., being convinced of his pre-eminent claims, would have given him the appointment, but was prevented by the Queen, Marie de Medicis. In 1606 Du Mayerne sold his office of physician-in-ordinary and came to England. He was immediately made physician to Anne, Queen Consort of England. He was invited to Oxford, and on 8th April 1606 was incorporated as M.D. “with more than ordinary solemnity.” But probably, too, he was induced to return to France, to a king who had already profited by his skill. On the assassination of the gallant monarch in 1610, our King James recalled him to England by letters under his own hand, and sent a messenger to conduct him. It is said that the widowed Queen of France endeavoured to change his religion and to retain his services, and, according to one authority, this was the date of Cardinal Du Perron’s attack upon his faith.
On his arrival in England, a new patent as royal physician was granted to him. Among our State papers there is a letter from Dr. Mayerne to Sir Thomas Windebank, dated 6th June 1611, in which he “asks what ceremonies there are on taking the oath — hopes there will be no expense thereon, his patent having cost him enough already.” On the following June 18, there is a memorandum of a grant of £200 to Dr. Th. Mayerne “for charges in removing himself and his family out of France.” His name appears pretty often in State Papers and Patent-Rolls, sometimes in grants of pensions for himself and his wife. The learned Casaubon, with whom he was intimate, spoke with envy of his fortune in money matters; but he ​exaggerated “Turquett’s preferment,” some grants being merely promissory, to take effect on the Queen’s death, or replacing grants which had expired. In 1612 De Mayerne was one of the physicians in attendance upon Henry, Prince of Wales.
King James, being fond of communicating with the French Protestants, sent the doctor to France in 1615 on a private negotiation. Some of his patients seem to have been nearly inconsolable, and he wrote to one of them from Paris on February 7: “In this frost, diseases make a truce with the body.” On April 7, a letter from London said, “Mayerne has returned from France and brought over the minister Du Moulin.” On 5th July 1616 he was admitted a Fellow of the College of Physicians of London, at an extraordinary meeting specially convened for the purpose. The college employed him in 1618 to write the dedicatory epistle to the King, which was prefixed to the first Pharmacopoeia. The Queen died in 1619, and De Mayerne became first physician to the King; on 13th September his own annuity was fixed at £600, besides £75 for house rent, and £300 a-year to his wife for twenty-one years after his death. In this year his father, a steadfast Protestant, who had obtained celebrity as a political and historical writer, died in Paris. Dr. De Mayerne was now joined by his mother, who spent the rest of her life in England.
In 1621 he acquired an old baronial property in the Canton de Vaud, within the environs of Aubon (now spelt Aubonne), the title of Baron d’Aubon coming to him along with the estate. On it he had a house or chateau, named Aspron or St. Aspre, where his sister, Madame Marie Bayon was living in 1655, and who continued in it after his death as liferentrix of the estate, with an additional annuity of £40. The King conferred on him the honour of knighthood at Theobalds, 14th July 1624. During that year Sir Theodore Turquet de Mayerne, Baron d'Aubon, received leave of absence, and wrote a letter of instructions to his majesty’s ordinary physicians; the King seems to have been rather an unruly patient. The doctor’s absence was probably of short duration.
In the next reign he was first physician to Charles I. and Henrietta Maria, and apparently enjoying Court favour, even to a greater extent than ever. Before the execution of the King he retired to Chelsea; and after the tragic event he received upon parchment an appointment as first physician to Charles II. This charge, however, he had no opportunity of exercising, for he spent the rest of his life in England, and did not survive the Commonwealth. He died at Chelsea, 15th (26th) March 1655, in his 82d year, “full of years, wealth, and reputation.” A week before his death he dictated his will, describing himself as “Theodore Mayerne of Chelsy in the countie of Middlesex, knight, being weak in body but of perfect memory and disposing understandirg, not knowing how soon it may please God to take me out of this valley of tears into His everlasting Kingdom. I” (he continued) “do cheerfully resign my soul into the hands of Jesus Christ my Saviour, and commit my body to the earth to be disposed of according to the mind of my executrixes, in such place and after such decent manner as they shall think fit, in hope and assurance of a joyful resurrection at the last day to eternal life.” In Richard Smyth’s Obituary (printed by the Camden Society) there is this entry: “1655, March 29, Sir Theodor. Mayern, the King’s physician, aged 82 years, buried.” He was buried in the chancel of the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, beside his mother, his first wife, his four sons, and a daughter. He seems to have adhered to simplicity of ritual, and to have worshipped with the Presbyterians, sometimes also with his own church in Threadneedle Street and with Monsieur D’Espagne. His funeral sermon was preached by Rev. Thomas Hodges, a Presbyterian divine, who during the Commonwealth was the parish minister of Kensington, and was the only witness to the execution of his will, 8th (19th) March 1654 (old style).
He was twice married. His first wife is called in our State Papers, Margaret Elburgh de Boetzler (the Messieurs Haag call her Marguerite de Boetslaer); she had two sons, who died young. His second wife had the Christian name of Isabella. By her he had two sons and three daughters, of whom only two daughters lived to marriageable age, namely, Elizabeth and Adriana.
Elizabeth (born 7th January 1633), was married in the Church of Kensington, on 23d March 1652, to Pierre, Marquis de Cugnac, son of Henri de Caumont, Marquis de Castelnauth, and grandson of Marshal, the Due de la Force; the marriage was ​performed by Mr. César Calandrin, and was registered in the Dutch Church of London. She died at Chelsea, 10th July 1653, and her maerens conjux erected a monument with the following epitaph:
D. O. M. S. Elizabethae, equitis Theodori de Mayerne Baronis Albonse filiae, Marchionis de Cugnac, patre Henrico de Caumont, Marchionis de Castel Nauth et avo Jacobo Nompar de Caumont, Duce de La Force (primo Franciae Marescalo, regiorum exercituum longum imperatore fortissimo fortunatissimo invictissimo), nati, Uxori dulcissimae lectissimae charissimae XVI$^{to}$ post nuptias mense acerbo ereptae fato. Conjux in amoris inconcussi et irruptae fidei monumentum moerens posuit. Obiit X$^{mo}$ Julii MDCLIII in pago Chelsey juxtà Londinum. Vixit annos XX., menses VI., dies III.
The youngest daughter, Adriana, was Sir Theodore’s only surviving child and heiress. She and her mother, Isabella de Mayerne, were appointed his executrixes, his nephew, John Colladon, M.D , being assured of the testator’s “confidence of his affection, assistance, and fidelity to my wife and daughter after my decease.” His wife had been provided for by the marriage settlement, as to which the will says:— “whereas by virtue of an agreement between me and my beloved wife, upon contract of marriage, there are many conditions I am engaged to keep and observe, it is my will and pleasure that all the said conditions in the said agreement, by me made and assented unto under my hand and seal, be to her inviolably kept and observed; and I will that no person or persons whatsoever, claiming anything under me or by virtue of any power derived from me, shall molest, trouble, question, or require any account of my said wife concerning the estate by her brought to me, or since fallen to her by the death of her father, of which I have not demanded any account during my life, nor will I that she give any account to any after my decease.” He mentions three nieces, Aymée Colladon (wife of John) _____ Lametaire, and _____ Windsor, and bequeaths £100 to the poor of the French Church in London, £40 to the poor of “Monsieur Espaigne’s” church, £50 to the poor of Chelsea, and £500 to be distributed among his servants. He seems to have been in the habit of laying up sums of money in a box, for charitable uses; for his Will says: “I give to the magistrates of the city of Geneva all the moneys that shall be found in the poor’s box at the time of my decease, towards the building of a pest-house for the benefit of the said city.” [The sum remitted to the hospital, according to the hospital authorities at Geneva, was £200 sterling.]
Sir Theodore was the greatest chemist in his generation, and a discoverer and patentee in the departments of distillation, artists’ colours, &c. On 24th March 1636 (n.s.), there was a grant of a patent to Sir Theodore De Mayerne and Dr. Cadiman, “for distilling strong waters and making vinegars out of cider, perry, and buck;” and on 4th August 1638, Sir William Brouncker was incorporated with them. On 23d September, in consequence of a complaint of the Company of Apothecaries, a petition was presented from Sir Theodore de Mayerne, first physician to the King and Queen, Sir William Brouncker, one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber, and Thomas Cadiman, physician to the Queen, praying that the apothecaries should be admonished by their lordships, “to content themselves with their proper trades, to speak with reverence of the Lords, to acknowledge their teachers and superiors — the physicians — after a more respective manner, to think of nothing more than to furnish their shops well, and to use diligence about their patients.” In 1660, Robert Phelipps petitioned Charles II. “for the place of Garbler of Spices and Seeds, as granted by the late King to Sir Theodore Mayerne, and void by his death.” The writings of Sir Theodore were collected in a folio volume, edited by Dr Joseph Browne, printed in 1701. Dr. Munk says, “The printing is extremely incorrect [let us hope it was rectified in the edition of 1703]; the work, however, is most amusing, and affords a good idea of the duties of a fashionable physician in the early part of the seventeenth century.”
In the chancel of St Martin-in-the-Fields, “a fair monument, with a flourishing ​and high-flown epitaph” was erected over his grave. So says Anthony a Wood. As to the epitaph, my readers can form their own opinion. Here it is:—
Ita semper valeas, lector! ejus venerare monumentum per quern tarn multi valuerunt. Qui nunc cinis est, hoc marmore conditus, nuper fuit ille ingens THEODORUS MAYERNUS magnum nomen — alter Hippocrates — orbi salutifer — saeculi sui decus — anteactorum pudor — futurorum exemplar. Peritiae in re medicâ incomparabili, scientiaeque naturae arcanorum profundissimae, accesserat incredibilis politicarum rerum usus, prudentia, facundia, ingenii lepos, usque ad miraculum. Erant vivi sermones merae gratiae, sentential gemmae, consilia oracula. Eminebat verò tenax sanioris pietatis professio et vindicatio. Non alius apud reges ingenua ΠAΡΡHΣIA felicior, aut proceribus meritò acceptior, aut tenuibus opem ferre paratior. Inter diversos personarum gradus et varias temporum vices, ubique idem sibique similis, sapiens, commodus, fortis, inconcussus, ut genio suo turn res turn homines ipsamque adeo fortunam subjecisse videatur. Quid de Mayernio plura? Mayernium dixeris, omnia dixeris. Anima coelo, ossa huic tumulo, nomen immortali famae relinquuntur. Lector! vive et vale. Qui sape in mortem, solers, sua tela retorsi — Morborum ad curas ipsa venena trahens — Vel, moriens, similem per Christum exerceo praxin, Qua-que est mors aliis est medicina mihi.
His portrait was prefixed to his Syntagma praxeos in morbis internis (printed by his godson, Sir Theodore de Vaux in 1690) with the following abridged epitaph:—
Theo : Turquet : De Mayerne, Eques Auratus, patriá Gallus, Religione Reformatus, Dignitate Baro, Professione alter Hippocrates, ac trium regum (exemplo rarissimo) Archiater Eruditione incomparabilis, experientiâ nulli secundus, et, quod ex his omnibus resultat, famâ latè vagante perillustris. Anno aetat : 82.
Adriana, his heiress, was married at Chelsea in 1659, to Armand de Caumont, Marquis de Monpouillan. The Messieurs Haag have memorialized a nobleman of these names and title, as a brother of the Marquis de Cugnac (husband of Elizabeth De Mayerne), and have stated that he was born in 1615, and died a refugee at the Hague, 16th May 1701. They name two wives, but not Adriana. As to this (probably his first) wife, there can be no doubt. In the register of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden, the intended marriage is published (after the Commonwealth form) for the last time on 18th January 1656-7, thus: — “Arnaunt de Chaumont Marquise of Mount Pelian, of this parish, and Adriana Demiyerne of Chelsea, singlewoman.” Two years and a half afterwards, the marriage is registered at Chelsea, thus: — “1659 July 21. The Right Hon. Armond de Coumond Lord Marquest of Mompolion and Mrs. Adriana de Miherne.” The long interval may be explained by his military campaigns under Turenne.
The married life of Adriana, Marchioness de Monpouillan, like her sister’s, was brief. She died at the Hague in 1661. Her husband visited England in that year, and was naturalized at Westminster on the 8th of August.
* ↑ See Wood’s “Athenae Oxon:” (Fasti), anno 1606; “The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London,” by William Munk, M.D., Vol. I.; and Haag, “La France Protestante.”
* ↑ “His greatest emulation or envy is at Turquett’s preferment, who hath £400 pension of the K., £200 of the Q., with a house provided him, and many other commodities, which he reckons at £1400 a-year.” — Jolin Chamberlain, Letter to Sir David Carleton, Knt., Ambassador at Venice, London, 20th November 1611. [His pension at this date was £400, to cease on the death of the Queen. He had also a grant of £200 a-year, to begin at the Queen’s death.]
* ↑ From the register of St. Peter’s, Cornhill: “1633, Julie 25, maried Mr. Thomas Hodges, minister, and Mris.' Elizabeth Turner of St. Martins in ye ffeilds.”
* ↑ Faulkner’s Chelsea, vol. i. p. 210.
* ↑ The same date is given in Pointer’s “Chronological History of England,” vol. i., published in 1714.
* ↑ Colonel Chester’s MSS.