An Instance of the Fingerpost (103 page)

Valentine
GREATOREX
(aka Greatrakes). Irish faith-healer, who came
to England and used a technique of stroking to heal victims of scrofula and other ailments. Believed his ability to cure was a special gift from God. His success impressed Boyle and others, and he achieved some success among the English aristocracy. ‘A strange fellow, full of talk of devils and witches.’ Subsequently resumed career in Ireland as Justice of the Peace and landowner.

Robert
GROVE
(1610–63). Fellow and ‘amateur astrologer’ of New College, Oxford. ‘Mar 30, being Munday, Mr Robert Grove, senior fellow of New Coll., died. [He] was buried in the west cloister of that Coll.’ Anthony Wood,
Life and Times
, vol.1, p. 471. Previously expelled from his Fellowship in 1648 for Royalist sympathies and only returned in 1661.

Thomas
KEN
(1637–1711). Bishop of Bath and Wells, lecturer in logic and mathematics, New College, Oxford, 1661–3, then presented to living of Easton Parva by Lord Maynard and built up a reputation for piety and charity. A noted preacher, he was made a bishop in 1684. Opposed James II’s Catholic policies, then also opposed his deposition, for which he was deprived of his see by William III after the revolution of 1688.

John
LOCKE
(1632–1704). Probably the greatest philosopher in the English language, Locke’s work defined English political thought for more than a century. He was trained as a doctor, before becoming tutor in the family of the Earl of Shaftesbury – a man who was imprisoned for opposition to the government in the 1670s. Locke lived in Holland from 1683 to 1688, when the accession of William III made it safe for him to return. Author of
Essay Concerning Toleration, Essay on Human Understanding, Two Treatises on Government
.

Richard
LOWER
(1631–91). Physician and physiologist, friend of Anthony Wood and the most successful London doctor of his generation. One of the kernel of the Oxford group who founded the Royal Society but not a member until 1667. Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians 1675, but career damaged by his political
affiliations and did not recover properly until the revolution of 1688. Conducted experiments on transfusion in the 1660s, published
Tractatus de Corde
(1669).

Thomas
LOWER
(1633–1720). Brother of Richard and Quaker, married stepdaughter of George Fox; imprisoned 1673 and 1686, had interest in Quaker settlements and property in America.

Count
PATRICIODI MOLODI
, Spanish Ambassador to England 1662–7.

John
MORDAUNT
, Baron Mordaunt (1627–75). Second son of the first Earl of Peterborough, sent abroad for his education, then became leading Royalist conspirator. Arrested 1658 and acquitted at his trial. Appointed Constable of Windsor Castle at the Restoration, but was impeached in parliament in 1666 and never attained high government office. Spent his last years embroiled in a legal dispute with members of his family.

Sir Samuel
MORLAND
(1625–95). Diplomat and inventor, clerk to Secretary of State Thurloe 1654 and accredited by Cromwell to lead mission to Savoy in 1655. Switched sides in 1659 by identifying traitor in Royalist ranks, knighted on the Restoration. Made calculating machine in 1663 and experimented with pumps and early steam engines from the 1660s onwards. Consultant on water supply to Louis XIV at Versailles, 1681.

Jack
PRESTCOTT
– fictitious. His story, and that of his father, is based on the disgrace and exile of Sir Richard Willys for treason in 1660. Willys’s son later died insane.

Sir John
RUSSELL
(d.1687). Leading member of the ‘Sealed Knot’, a group of active Royalists in England which plotted ceaselessly and fruitlessly in the 1650s to overthrow Cromwell and bring back the king.

Peter
STAHL
(d.1675). ‘The noted chimist and Rosicrucian Peter Stahl of Strasburgh in Royal Prussia was a Lutheran and a great hater of
women, [and] a very useful man . . . he was brought to Oxon by Mr Robert Boyle, an. 1659 . . . About the beginning of the year 1663 he removed his elaboratory to a draper’s house in the parish of Allsaints. In the yeare following, he was called away to London, died there about 1675, and was buried in the church of St Clement Danes.’ Anthony Wood,
Life and Times
, vol.1, p.473.

John
THURLOE
(1616–68). Lawyer, secretary to the Cromwellian Council of State in 1652; thereafter organised Cromwell’s espionage system. Escaped all punishment on the Restoration and lived in Great Milton, Oxfordshire, until moving back to London shortly before his death. Hid all his state papers, which were discovered embedded in a plaster ceiling and published in 1742.

John
WALLIS
(1616–1703). Professor of Geometry, Oxford University, founder member of the Royal Society and the greatest English mathematician before Newton. A great xenophobe, who carried on lengthy and vitriolic disputes in print with (among others) Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, Fermat. Cryptographer for Parliament, 1643–60, for Charles II, James II and William III. Published
Arithmetica Infinitorum
(1655),
Mathesis Universalis
(1657),
Treatise of Algebra
(1685). Complete
Sermons
published 1791,
Essay on the Art of Decyphering
(1737).

Anthony
WOOD
(1632–95). Antiquary and historian, author of
Historia et Antiquitates Universitatis Oxonienses
(1674) and
Athenae Oxonienses
(1691). A bachelor who lived a hermit-like existence and gained a reputation for unsociability and rancour in his later years, although until the 1660s he had a wide range of friends and acquaintances. Chiefly known through his diaries and papers, which were not published until this century.

Michael
WOODWARD
(1599–1675). Warden of New College, Oxford, 1658–75; rector of Ash in Surrey and ‘a man of few scholarly attainments and fewer political or religious sentiments’. But tireless in restoring the college’s finances after the disastrous loss of revenues during the Civil War.

Sir Christopher
WREN
(1632–1723). Professor of Astronomy, Oxford University, Surveyor of the King’s Works and architect. Classed by Newton as Wallis’s equal as a geometer, worked on spherical trigonometry, produced a measured map of the moon, was a founder member of the Royal Society and performed important anatomical work with Lower and others of the Oxford circle. Mainly known for design of St Paul’s Cathedral, various London churches and Hampton Court Palace. His first building was the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.

With thanks to: Michael Benjamin, Cathy Crawford, Margaret Hunt, Karma Nabulsi, Lyndal Roper, Nick Stargardt, Felicity Bryan, Liz Cowen, Eric Christiansen, Dan Franklin, Anne Freedgood, Olwen Hufton, Maggie Pelling, Charles Webster and (most important of all) Ruth Harris.

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

Version 1.0

Epub ISBN 9781446466230

www.randomhouse.co.uk

Published by Vintage 1998

21

Copyright © Iain Pears 1997

The right of Iain Pears to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

First published in Great Britain by Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1997

Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA

www.vintage-books.co.uk

Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at:
www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm

The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
www.randomhouse.co.uk

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 9780099751816