LITMIR.BIZ

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evidently saw smoking as a badge of the anti-authoritarianism that was to define his career, and it seems the two were combined into an intoxicating mix in his Cambridge days. However, it was another act of rebellion that was to have the most decisive influence on his forthcoming career.

      The story is related in the most melodramatic style in a short, anonymous memoir concerning Nicholas that appeared in the introduction to a posthumous edition of one of his works:

      One of the first Diversions that he had amongst some other smaller transactions and changes, none of his Life proving more unfortunate, was that he had engaged himself in the Love of a Beautiful Lady; I shall not name her for some reasons; her Father was reported to be one of the noblest and wealthiest in Sussex.⁵²

      The identity of the lady remains a mystery. She had a personal estate worth £2,000 and a private income of £500 a year, according to the memoir, figures consistent with the wealth of, say, the daughter of a rich baronet, such as Sir John Shurley (1569–1631). Sir John was the owner of the manor of Isfield, and had an extended family that included a few possible candidates.⁵³ If the lady belonged to the Shurley clan, it is easy to see why Nicholas kept the love affair secret. Sir John was William Attersoll’s patron. Attersoll dedicated two of his books to Sir John, and became a beneficiary of the baronet’s will in 1631 – the time that the adolescent intensities of Nicholas’s illicit love affair presumably came into flower in the woodlands around Isfield, and just before they were interrupted by his departure for Cambridge.

      Nicholas was no match for a rich member of one of the most ancient and respected families in the county. He may have been a Culpeper, but he was from an inferior branch. The very suggestion of such a relationship would have caused his grandfather great embarrassment. ‘Parents have often too severe eyes over their Children’, as the memoir observed, and Nicholas knew only too well that Attersoll would bring down the wrath of an Old Testament God upon such a union. So the couple decided upon their ‘Martyrdoms’ – an elopement. ‘By letters and otherwise’ they plotted to meet in Lewes, where they were to be married in secret ‘and afterwards for a season … live privately till the incensed parents were pacified’.

      On the appointed day, probably some time in 1633 or early 1634, the lady and one of her maids hid among their skirts ‘such Rich Jewels and other necessaries as might best appertain to a Journey’, while Nicholas pocketed the £200 left over from the money his mother had given him for his education at Cambridge. The Romeo set off by coach, the Juliet by foot, to rendezvous at the chapel in Lewes, where a priest waited to perform their secret nuptials.

      As he approached his destination, news reached Nicholas of a providential intervention. As his bride-to-be and her companion were making their way across the Downs they were ‘suddenly surprised with a dreadful storm, with fearful claps of Thunder surrounded with flames of Fire and flashes of Lightning, with some of which Mr Culpeper’s fair Mistress was so stricken, that she immediately fell down dead’. A family friend passed by Nicholas’s coach as he received the news and took the distraught young man to the rectory at Isfield. The unexpected appearance of her son filled Nicholas’s mother with joy, until she became aware of the circumstances that had brought him there. The shock, according to the memoir, struck her down with an illness from which she would never recover.⁵⁴

      Nicholas’s relationship with Attersoll was also terminally injured. It was yet more evidence of the young man’s irredeemable rebelliousness. ‘If we have warned them, and they would not be warned,’ Attersoll thundered in one of his biblical commentaries, ‘if we taught and trained them up in the fear of God, which is the beginning of wisdom, and they have broken the bands asunder, and cast the cords of duty and discipline from them, we may comfort our selves as the Minister doth, when he seeth his labour is spent in vain.’⁵⁵ Attersoll disinherited his ward, and gave up on his religious education.

      Nicholas left Cambridge in a state of ‘deep melancholy’. He could not stay in Sussex either; so, like many others who find themselves in need of a fresh start and a new life, he set off for that refuge of the dispossessed: London, where for a while he disappears from the historical record and our story, as others take centre stage.

      * This and the following extracts introducing each chapter are taken from Culpeper’s The English Physitian.

       BORAGE

       Borago officinalis

       These are very Cordial. The Leaves or Roots are to very good purpose used in putrid and Pestilential Fevers, to defend the Heart, and help to resist and expel the Poison, or the Venom of other Creatures.

      The Flowers candied, or made into a Conserve are … good for those that are weak with long sickness, and to consumptions, or troubled with often swoonings or passions of the Heart: The Distilled Water is no less effectual to all the purposes aforesaid, and helpeth the redness and inflamations of the Eyes being washed therewith: The dried Herb is never used, but the green; yet the Ashes therof boiled in Mead, or Honeyed Water is available against Inflammations and Ulcers in the Mouth or Throat, to wash and gargle it therewith. The Roots are effectual being made into a licking Electuary, for the Cough, and to condensate thin phlegm, and Rheumatic Distillations upon the Lungs.

       The Seed is of the like effect; and the Seed and Leaves are good to encrease Milk in Women’s Breasts: The Leaves, Flowers and Seed, all, or any of them are good to expel Pensiveness and Melancholy. It helpeth to clarify the Blood, and mitigate heat in Fevers. The Juice made into a Syrup prevaileth much to all the purposes aforesaid, and is put with other cooling, opening, cleansing Herbs, to open obstructions, and help the yellow-Jaundice, and mixed with Fumitory, to cool, cleans, and temper the Blood, thereby it helpeth the Itch, Ringworms, and Tetters, or other spreading Scabs or Sores.

       They are both Herbs of Jupiter, and under Leo, both great Cordials, great strengtheners of Nature.

      Borage is covered with a soft down, and has round, ‘succulent’ stems about 1½ feet tall. The leaves are large, wrinkled, and deep green. It produces a froth of brilliant blue flowers. The fresh herb tastes of cucumber and is cooling, hence the association with staying the passions of the heart. Mixed with lemon and sugar in wine, it makes a refreshing summer drink which, according to the Victorian naturalist Richard Jefferies, used to be doled out to thirsty travellers at London railway stations.¹ ‘A modern conceit,’ writes Richard Mabey, ‘is to freeze the blue flowers in ice-cubes.’² The leaves mixed in salad are also said to fend off despondency.

      In many herbals, Bugloss was considered to be the same plant, though Culpeper recognized them as different herbs with similar medicinal effects.

      According to some authorities, the name is a corruption of corago, from the Latin cor, the heart, and ago, I bring.

      In 1512, soon after the succession of Henry VIII, an act was passed by Parliament complaining about the ‘Science and Cunning of Physic and Surgery (to the perfect knowledge whereof be requisite both great Learning and ripe Experience)’ being ‘exercised by a great multitude of ignorant persons, of whom the greater part have no manner of insight in the same, nor in any other kind of learning’. Some of these ignorant persons were illiterate, others no better than ‘common Artificers, as Smiths, Weavers, and Women’ who ‘boldly and accustomably take upon them great Cures, and things of great Difficulty; in the which they partly use Sorcery and Witchcraft, partly apply such Medicines unto the disease

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