gerated “Turquett’s preferment,” some grants being merely promissory, to take effect on the Queen’s death, or replacing grants which had expired.[1] 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).[2]
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
- ↑ “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.”
