Thomas Browne - 1671 Knighthood To Death

1671 Knighthood To Death

In 1671 King Charles II, accompanied by the Royal Court, visited Norwich. The courtier John Evelyn, who had occasionally corresponded with Browne, took good use of the Royal visit to call upon the learned doctor of European fame and wrote of his visit: His whole house & garden is a paradise and Cabinet of rarieties & that of the best collection, amongst Medails, books, Plants, natural things.

During his visit to Norwich, King Charles II visited Browne's home. A banquet was held in the Civic Hall St. Andrews for the Royal visit. Obliged to honour a notable local, the name of the Mayor of Norwich was proposed to the King for knighthood. The Mayor, however, declined the honour and proposed the name of Browne instead.

Sir Thomas Browne died on 19 October 1682, his 77th birthday. His skull became the subject of dispute when in 1840 his lead coffin was accidentally re-opened by workmen. It was not re-interred until 4 July 1922 when it was registered in the church of Saint Peter Mancroft as aged 316 years.. Browne's coffin-plate, which was also stolen the same time as his skull, was eventually recovered, broken into two halves, one of which is on display at St. Peter Mancroft Church, alludes to the commonplace opus of alchemy reads- Amplissimus Vir,....hoc Lucuolo indormiens, Corporis spagyrcci pulvere plumbum in aurum Convertit - loosely translated from Latin reads -

Great Virtues,... sleeping here the dust of his spagyric/alchemic body converts the lead to gold.

The coffin-plate verse's authorship, in all probability, was Browne's eldest son, Edward Browne. The origin of the Paracelsian invented word spagyrici from the Greek: Spao, to tear open, + ageiro, to collect, is a neologism coined by Paracelsus to define his spagyric type of medical-orientated alchemy; the origins of iatrochemistry no less, being first advanced by the Swiss physician. This coffin-plate verse along with numerous Paracelsian authors in his library, are evidence that Browne was a follower, albeit, critically, of Paracelsian medicine.