I02 The Botanical Renaissance [ch. 



He explains that while waiting to complete his herbal, he 

 has been advised to publish this little book in which he has 

 set forth the names of plants. He adds, " and because 

 men should not thynke that I write of that I never sawe, 

 and that Poticaries shoulde be excuselesse when as the 

 ryghte herbes are required of them, I have shewed in what 

 places of Englande, Germany, and Italy the herbes growe 

 and maye be had for laboure and money." 



Turner's ckef-cT oeuvre was his ' Herball,' published in 

 three instalments, the first in London in 1551, the first and 

 second together at Cologne in 1562, during his exile in the 

 reign of Mary, and the third part, together with the pre- 

 ceding, in 1568. The title of the first part runs as follows, 

 ' A new Herball, wherin are conteyned the names of 

 Herbes... with the properties degrees and naturall places 

 of the same, gathered and made by Wylliam Turner, 

 Physicion unto the Duke of Somersettes Grace.' The 

 figures illustrating the herbal are, for the most part, the 

 same as those in the octavo edition of Fuchs' work, pub- 

 lished in 1545. 



The dedication of the herbal, in its completed form, to 

 Queen Elizabeth, throws some light on Turner's life, and 

 incidentally on that illustrious lady herself The doctor 

 recalls, with pardonable pride and perhaps a touch of 

 blarney, an occasion on which the Princess Elizabeth, as 

 she then was, had conversed with him in Latin. "As for 

 your knowledge in the Latin tonge," he writes, "xviii yeares 

 ago or more, I had in the Duke of Somersettes house 

 (beynge his Physition at that tyme) a good tryal thereof, 

 when as it pleased your grace to speake Latin unto me : 

 for although I have both in England, lowe and highe 

 Germanye, and other places of my longe traveil and 

 pelgrimage, never spake with any noble or gentle woman, 

 that spake so wel and so much congrue fyne and pure 

 Latin, as your grace did unto me so longe ago." 



Turner defends himself against the insinuation that 

 " a booke intreatinge onelye of trees, herbes and wedes, 

 and shrubbes, is not a mete present for a prince," and 

 certainly, if we accept his account of the state of knowledge 

 at the time, the need for such a book must have been most 

 urgent. He explains that, while he was still at Pembroke 



