The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

eminently qualified to deal with the problem. 43 Russwurin agreed with the common
sixteenth century notion that sight ―cometh from the brayne‖, and that Jane Cecil‘s
cataracts were blocking these emanations. 44 Having allegedly restored around thirty
patients‘ sight, Russwurin offered to enact an unspecified cure. Cecil took great care of his
mother, now in her seventies and living in his manor in Stamford, and therefore must have
had some confidence in the Paracelsian to even consult with him on the matter. 45
Cecil‘s consultation is all the more remarkable given both Russwurin‘s background
and his bitter public struggles with London‘s medical establishment. Russwurin recalled
having recently cured in Hamburg ―one Richarde Turner that was lunaticus [a lunatic]‖,
and rather than receiving any reward he was accused of ―the selfe same that nowe I am
charged with‖. 46 While Russwurin did not specify the charges, along with his mention of
being maligned by ―superficially learned doctores‖, it suggests that Cecil‘s undated
consultation coincided with Russwurin‘s high profile trial on 22 April 1574 before the
London Court of Aldermen. 47 Just weeks after Russwurin was granted denizen status, the
Company of Barber-Surgeons accused Russwurin of numerous examples of medical
malpractice. Amongst the charges were the prescription of a chemical powder which
caused his patients internal blistering, and of blinding a man suffering from cataracts. They
claimed that Russwurin ―put out his eyes cleane, and so deprived him of all his sight‖. 48
In total Russwurin stood accused of causing the death of at least twenty three of his
patients ―by his rustical dealings‖. 49 The only account of the trial and Russwurin‘s supposed
crimes survives in A Briefe and Necessarie Treatise Touching the Cure of the Disease Called Morbus
Gallicus (1585), later published by one of the complainants, the surgeon William Clowes. 50
He portrayed Russwurin as an unskilled charlatan, lacking in medical knowledge, who
43 Ibid.
44 Ibid.
45 Alford, Burghley, p. 227.
46 Russwurin to Cecil, Lansdowne Vol. 101, No. 4.
47 Russwurin to Cecil, Lansdowne Vol. 101 no. 4; William Clowes, A Briefe and Necessarie Treatise Touching the
Cure of the Disease Called Morbus Gallicus, London, 1585, pp. 12-13.
48 Clowes, A Briefe and Necessarie Treatise, p. 11.
49 Ibid., p. 11.
50 Ibid.
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