GERARD'S HERBAL 101 



my schoole-fellowes and likewise myselfe did eat our fils of the 

 berries of this tree and have not only slept under the shadow 

 thereof but among the branches also, without any hurt at all, 

 and that not one time but many times." 



It is supposed that at an early age he studied medicine. 

 In his Herbal he speaks of having travelled to Moscow, Denmark, 

 Sweden and Poland, and it is possible that he went abroad as 

 a ship's surgeon. This, however, is mere surmise. We know 

 that in 1562 he was apprenticed to Alexander Mason, who 

 evidently had a large practice, for he was twice warden of the 

 Barber-Surgeons' Company. Gerard was admitted to the free- 

 dom of the same company in 1569. 1 Before 1577 he must have 

 settled in London, for in his Herbal he tells us that for twenty 

 years he had superintended the gardens belonging to Lord Burleigh 

 in the Strand and at Theobalds in Hertfordshire. Hentzner, 

 in his Itinerarium, gives a lengthy account of the gardens at 

 Theobalds when Gerard was superintendent. 



Gerard's own house was in Holborn and, as already mentioned, 

 his garden, where he had over a thousand different herbs, was 

 in what is now Fetter Lane. 2 What a wonderful garden that 

 must have been, and how full it was of " rarities," ranging from 

 white thyme to the double-flowered peach. How often we read 

 of various plants, " these be strangers in England yet I have 

 them in my garden," sometimes with the triumphant addition, 

 " where they flourish as in their natural place of growing." In 



1 Gerard endeavoured to induce the Barber-Surgeons' Company to establish 

 a garden for the cultivation and study of medicinal plants, but nothing came 

 of the scheme. 



2 Formerly it was generally supposed that Gerard's garden was on the 

 northern side of Holborn, but this is unlikely, for during the latter part of 

 Elizabeth's reign the part which is now known as Ely Place and Hatton 

 Garden was an estate of forty acres belonging to the Bishopric of Ely. Holborn 

 was almost a village then, and Gerard tells us in his Herball that in Gray's Inn 

 Lane he gathered mallow, shepherd's purse, sweet woodruff, bugle and Paul's 

 betony, and in the meadows near red-flowered clary, white saxifrage, the sad- 

 coloured rocket, yarrow, lesser hawkweed and the curious strawberry-headed 

 trefoil. Wallflower and golden stonecrop grew on the houses. 



