Author: Elizabeth Lane Furdell<br />File Type: pdf<br />Drawing upon a myriad of primary and secondary historical sources, The Royal Doctors Medical Personnel at the Tudor and Stuart Courts investigates the influential individuals who attended Englands most important patients during a pivotal epoch in the evolution of the state and the medical profession. Over three hundred men (and a handful of women), heretofore unexamined as a group, made up the medical staff of the Tudor and Stuart kings and queens of England (as well as the Lord Protectorships of Oliver and Richard Cromwell). The royal doctors faced enormous challenges in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries from diseases that respected no rank and threatened the very security of the realm. Moreover, they had to weather political and religious upheavals that led to regicide and revolution, as well as cope with sharp theoretical and jurisdictional divisions within English medicine. The rulers often interceded in medical controversies at the behest of their royal doctors, bringing sovereign authority to bear on the condition of medicine. Elizabeth Lane Furdell is Professor of History at the University of North Florida.ReviewFurdells new book is a surprising offering, one that may well, because it doesnt quite fit into conventional categories, slip below the radar of scholars and general readers alike. This would be unfortunate, since Royal Doctors is also an excellent and rewarding piece of work, and especially valuable for English historians who wish to know more about the diversity of medicine and its practitioners in the Tudor and Stuart periods. Royal Doctors remains an intelligent, informative, and vastly entertaining study, and a valuable contribution to English history. ALBIONFurdell presents an amazing treasury of biographical facts on royal medical practitioners, including physicians, surgeons, apothecaries, and midwives. The Royal Doctors is an excellent reference book. SEVENTEETH CENTURY NEWS Vol 61 This is an excellently researched, suspenseful presentation...this book is an inestimable source of information on an aspect of English cultural and medical history that is vital in every sense of the word. ARCHIV About the AuthorElizabeth Lane Furdell is Professor of History at the University of North Florida.