Turner wrote the first part of his Herbal when he was abroad, but he delayed publication until the conclusion of his wanderings. On his return to England he became chaplain and physician to the Duke of Somerset, and it is generally believed that he sat in the House of Commons.[63] He was promised the prebend of Botevant in York, and in a letter written to thank Cecil for the promise we find the remark, “My chylder have bene fed so long with hope that they are very leane, i wold fayne have thē fatter if it were possible.”
Turner held this appointment for little more than two years, and after failing to obtain either the provostship of Oriel College, Oxford, or the presidency of Magdalen, he seems to have become despondent. He wanted a house “where i may studie in and have sū place to lay my bookes in,” and in another letter he complains of “being pened up in a chamber with all my ho[use] holde seruantes and children as shepe in a pyndfolde.... i can not go to my booke for ye crying of childer and noyse yt is made in my chamber.” Finally he begged leave to go abroad, “where I will also finishe my great herball and my bookes of fishes, stones and metalles if God send me lyfe and helthe.” He was subsequently made Dean of Wells, but he lost this office on the accession of Mary, and, like so many of the Protestant divines, he went abroad. He stayed at Bonn, Frankfort, Freiburg, Lauterburg [? Lauenburg], Mainz, Rodekirche, Strasburg, Speyer, Worms, Cologne and Weissenburg. At Cologne and Weissenburg he had gardens, and it was from Cologne that he published the second part of his Herbal. His works were proclaimed heretical for the second time in 1555, and the Wardens of every Company had to give notice of any copy they had in order that they might be destroyed. It is not surprising that Turner’s works are rare!
On the accession of Elizabeth he returned to England and was reinstated in the deanery of Wells.[64] His diocesan seems to have found him troublesome, for in 1559 the Bishop of Bath and Wells wrote:
“I am much encombred with mr. Doctor Turner Deane of Welles for his indiscreete behavior in the pulpit where he medleth wth all matters.... I have advertised him by wrytynges and have admonished secretly by his owne frendes: notwithstanding he persisteth still in his follie: he conten̄eth all Bishopps and calleth thē white coats, typpett gentlemē, with other wordes of reproche [mu]che more unsemlie and asketh ‘who gave them autoritie more ouer me then I ouer them’?
“Gilbert Bath and Wells.”
January 24,
1559-60.
There is a story told that Turner trained his dog at a given sign to snatch the bishop’s square cap off his head when the prelate was dining with him. If this is true, possibly it accounts for the fact that he was subsequently suspended for Nonconformity, after which, being precluded from clerical duties, he left Wells and returned to London. He lived in Crutched Friars and, like the two other Elizabethan herbalists, had a famous garden. He was in failing health when he completed his herbal, and there is extant a pathetic letter (the greater part of it written by an amanuensis) to his staunch patron Lord Burleigh, which is signed “Your old and seikly client
wllm turner doctor of physic.”
Turner died in 1568, and was buried in S. Olave’s, Crutched Friars, where the tablet to his memory can still be seen.