19th January, 1530. A letter from De Augustinis, written from the palace at Esher, to Cromwell, desires that Dr. Butts or Dr. Walter Cromer may be sent to the Cardinal and requesting that Balthazar the physician, may be spoken to, to obtain some leeches; no time was to be lost and the doctors were to bring with them some vomitive electuary.
Dr. Butts was a personal friend of Henry’s, who, in 1537, granted him the manor and advowson of Thornage, in Norfolk. He died 17th November, 1545, and lies buried in Fulham Church, where there is (or was) a monument to his memory.
Next to Butts, and immediately to the King’s right, is Dr. John Chambre; he was physician to and a great favorite of Henry’s, holding several clerical preferments as well. He was a Fellow and Warden of Merton College, Oxon, where he was admitted Doctor of Physic, 29th October, 1531. In the list of persons to whom Wolsey, in 1526, assigned lodgings at the King’s house, when they should repair thither, occurs the name of Dr. Chambre. There is also a catalogue of the King’s new year’s gifts, in 1528, by which it appears that the Doctor had a piece of plate weighing 243⁄8 ozs., at the same time the Cardinal’s gift was 401⁄4 ozs., and that of the Archbishop 31 ozs.
In Brian Tuke’s letter (23rd June, 1528), before referred to, he tells Wolsey that when he called on the King with his letters, he found him in “secret communication with his physician, Mr. Chambre, in a tower, where he sometimes sups apart.”
Dr. Chambre was Dean of St. Stephen’s Chapel, Westminster, Canon of Windsor, Archdeacon of Bedford, Prebendary of Comb and Harnham in Salisbury Cathedral, Treasurer of Wells Cathedral, and beneficed in Somersetshire and Yorkshire. Truly the lines had fallen unto him in pleasant places!
He was one of the physicians in attendance on Queen Jane, at the birth of Edward VI, and in a letter written by him to the Privy Council, concerning the Queen’s critical state, he signs himself “priest.” He was also in attendance on Anne Boleyn, in her confinement with Elizabeth. His name is mentioned with that of Linacre and three others, in the Charter to the College of Physicians, in 1518.
Sir William Compton, K.G., in 1522, nominated Dr. Chambre one of his executors, in conjunction with the Bishop of Exeter, and Sir Henry Marney, Lord Privy Seal.
Dr. Chambre built a “very curious cloyster,” in St. Stephen’s Chapel, which cost him 11,000 marks, and he gave the canons of that chapel some lands. He died in 1549.
On the King’s left is, first, Thomas Vicary (sometimes Vicars and Vyccary), Master of the Barbers in 1530, and of the Barber-Surgeons in 1541, 1546, 1548 and 1557. He was a man of great eminence in his profession, having been Surgeon to St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, and Serjeant-Surgeon to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. He was the author of “The Profitable Treatise of Anatomy” in “The Englishman’s Treasure, with the true Anatomie of Man’s Body.” An account of Vicary will be found in D’Arcy Power, pp. 102, etc., and several particulars relating to his connection with St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, are recorded in a paper by Dr. Norman Moore (Hospital Reports, vol. xviii, pp. 333–358); see also Dr. Furnivall’s exhaustive account (Early English Text Society).