King of France. He came to England and was incorporated as M.D. of Oxford, “with more than ordinary solemnity,” 8th April, 1606. He was chief Physician to King James, and afterwards to Charles I. He was sent on a diplomatic mission to France in 1618, but was ordered by the French Government to depart. On 14th July 1624, he was knighted at Theobald’s. Sir Theodore was an author on medical subjects. He worshipped in the Presbyterian Church of Kensington. His mother resided in England, and was buried in the chancel of St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields; where also five of his children were buried, and beside them he himself was laid on 30th March, 1655. His Funeral Sermon was preached by Rev. Thomas Hodges of Kensington. He was twice married, and his second wife, Isabella, survived as his widow. Two daughters were married to cadets of the ducal house of Caumont de La Force. Elizabeth, Marquise de Cugnac, died in her father’s lifetime (see my Vol. II., p. 203, note). Adrienne, Baroness D’Aubon, became the wife of her sister’s husband’s brother, Armand de Caumont, Marquis de Mompouillan; the marriage proclamation is dated i8th January 1656-7 (Register of St. Paul’s, Covent Garden), but the marriage, as registered at Chelsea, bears the singularly remote date of 21st July 1659. Sir Theodore’s epitaph, alluded to by Anthony Wood, was probably the same as the following tribute inscribed below his engraved Portrait:—
Theo : Turquet : De Mayerne, Eques Auratus,
Patria Gallus, Religione Reforniatus, Dignitate Baro:,
Professione alter Hippocrates, ac trium regum (exemplo rarissimo) Archiater,
Eruditione incomparabilis, experientiâ nulli secundus,
et,
quod ex his omnibus resultat, famâ late vagante
perillustris.
Anno aetat : 82.
His works were (1) Medicinal Counsels and Advices. (2) A Treatise on the Gout. Both were in French, but were translated into Latin by Theoph. Bonet, Doctor of Physic. (3) Excellent and well approved receipts and experiments in Cookery, with the best way of preserving. 12mo., printed in 1658. (4) Praxeos in morbis internis, praecipuè gravioribus et chronicis, Syntagma. London, 1690, 8vo., with his picture before it, aged 82, published by his godson, Theodore de Vaux, which Sir Theodore de Vaux, being Fellow of the Royal Society at London, communicated to them (a.d. 1687) Sir Theodore de Mayerne’s Account of the Diseases of Dogs, and several receipts for the Cure of their Madness and of those bitten by them, which was published in the Philosophical Transactions, No. 191, 1687. . . . From the experiences also of the said Sir Theodore de Mayerne, and from those of Dr. Chamberlain and others, was written a book entitled “The Compleat Midwife’s Practice,” printed several times in octavo. Before he came into England he wrote Apologia, &c., Rupel. [La Rochelle] 1603, 8vo. Quercitan and several famous men of France and Germany did make honourable mention of him nearly sixty years before his death.
Nicholas Vignier, M.A. of Saumur, was incorporated as M.A. at Oxford on 14th Oct. 1623, and took the Degree of B.D. in 1624. This date brings us to the end of the reign of King James.
In the next reign the first French graduate is memorialized among Oxford Writers by Anthony Wood:— “John Verneuil was born in the city of Bordeaux in France, educated in the University of Montauban till he was M.A., flew from his country for religion’s sake, being a Protestant, and went into England where he had his wants supplied for a time by Sir Thomas Leigh. He retired to Oxford in 1608, and on 4th November, aged 25, he was matriculated in the University as a member of Magdalen College, from which House, as from others, he received relief. In 1625 (December 13) he was incorporated M.A., being the Second Keeper of Bodley’s Library, where he performed good service for that place, and wrote for the use of students there these things following:— (i) Catalogus Interpretum
