Sir Walter Raleigh’s Nostrum

In 1603 Sir Walter Raleigh, under sentence of death, was brought from trial at Winchester to the Tower of London. The sentence, however, was not executed until fifteen years later, and contrary to custom, Raleigh was not held a close prisoner in a dungeon, but was allowed a certain amount of liberty and recreation.

Scientific visitors came to the Tower to see not only Sir Walter, but also the “Wizard-Earl” of Northumberland, and Raleigh received these visitors (among whom were Bacon, rare Ben Jonson, and Heriot), in a lath and plaster shed in the garden of the Lieutenant of the Tower. In this shed, known as “the Garden House,” Raleigh prepared his famous cordial, to which he gave the name of the “Balsam of Guiana.” This cordial was supposed to cure nearly every ill known to mankind, and contained twenty ingredients, including “pearl, musk, hartshorn, bezoar stone, mint, gentian, mace, red rose, aloes, sassafras, spirits of wine, and vipers’ hearts.’’

Sir Walter, before his imprisonment, had enjoyed a royal patent to make wines, which brought him a large income, but his patent was transferred to Lord Howard of Effingham. “The bread and food taken from me and my children,” said Lady Raleigh to King James, “will never augment my Lord of Effingham’s table, though it famish us.”

Raleigh’s generation, and the next, firmly believed in the efficacy of the balsam of Guiana, and it was drunk by Anne of Denmark, and Charles I. and II. Of Prince Henry it is recorded “after swallowing not more than two drops, he died.” In the Garden House, the “obscure parts of learning” such as astronomy, anatomy, and theology, were discussed in the reek of drugs and chemicals, and an unfriendly critic, Sir Thomas Wilson, who, strange to say, looked upon Sir Walter as an atheist, declared that the shed contained “all the spirits in the world except the Spirit of God.” The Prince said that no man but his father “would keep such a bird in such a cage.” However, the balsam was the means of Raleigh’s undoing, for one day one of his patients, the Countess of Beaumont, came to the Garden House for her favourite medicine, and brought with her as companion Captain Whitelocke, who was engaged in a conspiracy, and James I. affected to believe that Raleigh was also in the plot, and poor Sir Walter was closely confined, so that soon his left side became “numb,” his fingers “curled,” and his tongue “hardened.” His doctor, Peter Turner, after many entreaties, was given permission to remove the palsied man again to the Garden House, where he lived until his release. Then came his journey to South America, his return and imprisonment, and final execution. His last joke was not inappropriate to one who had dabbled in medicine—”Can’st thou give me any plaster to set on a man’s head when it is off?”

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