Audley End.
* * * * *
Replies to Minor Queries.
_Cromwell Poisoned_ (Vol. ii., p. 393.).--Your correspondent P. T. queries
if there be any other statement than that which he adduces respecting
Cromwell having been poisoned. I would refer him to the _Athenæ Oxoniensis_
of Anthony à Wood, vol. ii. p. 303.,[2] in which it is stated that Dr.
George Bate's friends gave him credit for having given a baneful dose to
the Protector, to ingratiate himself with Charles II. Amidst all the
mutations of those changeful times, and whether Charles I., Cromwell, or
Charles II. were in the ascendant, Dr. George Bate always contrived to be
the chief state physician. In Whitelock's _Memorials of the English
Affairs_ (1732), p. 494, it appears that the Parliament, in 1651, ordered
Dr. Bate to go into Scotland to attend the General (Cromwell), and to take
care of his health; he being his usual physician in London, and well
esteemed by him. He wrote a work styled _Elenchus Motuum nuperorum in
Angliâ_. This was severely scrutinised in another, entitled _Elenchus
Elenchi; sive Animadversiones in Georgii Batei, Cromwelli Paricidæ,
aliquando Protomedici, Elenchi Motuum nuperorum in Angliâ. Autore Robt.
Pugh; Parisiis, 1664_.
Dr. Bate, who died 19th April, 1669, was buried at Kingston upon Thames.
§ N.
Nov. 9. 1850.
[Footnote 2: I allude to the old edition, 2 vols. Lond. 1691-2, folio; not
having any other at hand.]
"_Never did Cardinal bring Good to England_" (Vol. ii., pp. 424,
450.).--BERUCHINO is right in his suggestion that Dr. Lingard may
accidentally have omitted a reference to the place from whence he really
derived this saying; for Hall tells us in his _Chronicle_ (ed. 1809, p.
758.), that
"Charles, Duke of Suffolke, seeing the delay, gave a great clappe on
the table with his hande and said, 'By the masse, now I see that the
olde saied sawe is true, _that there was never Legatt nor Cardinall
that did good in Englande_.'"
Whether Charles Brandon was a reader of _Piers Ploughman_, I know not; but
the following passage from that poem proves he was giving expression to a
feeling which had long been popular in this country. I quote from Mr.
Wright's edition, published by Pickering:
"I knew nevere Cardinal
That he ne cam fra the Pope;
And we clerkes, whan thei come,
For hir comunes paieth,
For hir pelure and hir palfreyes mete,
And pilours that hem folweth.
"The comune _clamat cotidie_
Ech a man til oother,
_The contree is the corseder_
_That Cardinals comme inne_;
And ther thei ligge and lenge moost,
Lecherie there regneth."