Simon Forman | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 31 December 1552 |
| Died | 5 or 12 September 1611 (aged 58) |
| Resting place | St Mary, Lambeth |
| Education | Salisbury grammar school |
| Alma mater | Magdalen College, Oxford |
| Occupation(s) | astrologer alchemist medical practitioner |
| Known for | Extensive records of astrological practice, Eye-witness accounts of plays byWilliam Shakespeare Alleged complicity inmurder ofSir Thomas Overbury |
| Spouse | Jean Baker |
Simon Forman (31 December 1552 – 5 or 12 September 1611) was anElizabethanastrologer,occultist andherbalist active inLondon during the reigns of QueenElizabeth I andJames I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnished after his death when he was implicated in the plot to killThomas Overbury. Astrologers continued to revere him, while writers fromBen Jonson toNathaniel Hawthorne came to characterize him as either a fool or an evil magician in league withthe Devil.
Forman was born inQuidhampton,Fugglestone St Peter, nearSalisbury,Wiltshire, on 31 December 1552.[1][2] At the age of nine he went to a local free school,[3] theCity Grammar School, Salisbury,[4] but was forced to leave after two years following the death of his father on 31 December 1563. For the next ten years of his life he was apprenticed to Matthew Commin, a local merchant. Commin traded in cloth, salt and herbal medicines, and it was during his time as a young apprentice that Forman started to learn about herbal remedies. After arguments with Mrs Commin, Simon found his apprenticeship terminated, and he eventually went to study atOxford as a poor scholar. He then spent a year and a half atMagdalen College,Oxford, where he may have become interested inmedicine and astrology.[3]
Through the 1570s and 1580s Forman worked as a teacher while studying the occult arts. In his diary for 1582 he recorded that he fell into the hands of the men-of-war atStudland in Dorset, a base for pirates, and returned home 6 weeks later.[5]
In the early 1590s he moved to London starting up a practice as aphysician inPhilpot Lane. Having survived an outbreak of the plague in 1592 his medical reputation began to spread. In 1597 aBuckinghamshire clergyman namedRichard Napier (1559–1634) became his protégé. In the 1590s Forman began to develop a more serious interest in the occult,[6] eventually setting up a thriving practice as an astrologer physician, documented in his detailed casebooks of his clients' questions about illness, pregnancy, stolen goods, career opportunities and marriage prospects. His success and his methods attracted the attention of theCollege of Physicians (now the Royal College of Physicians) who attempted to ban him from medical practice. He eventually obtained a licence to practise from theUniversity of Cambridge in 1603.
With a notable sexual appetite, Forman pursued numerous women. He wrote of his conquests in his diaries, showing as little regard for the background of his inamoratas as for the location of consummation. Many of his clients provided brief affairs. He wrote of having his first sex with his "beloved" on "15/12/1593, 5:00 PM, London." Then writing after "She died 13/6/1597." On 22 July 1599, Forman wed seventeen-year-old Jane Baker. Having never been content with just one woman, the marriage "did not make much difference to [his] way of life, except that he had an inexperienced girl now as mistress of the house; he continued to be master".[7] In 1611, he accurately predicted his own death on theRiver Thames. Another astrologer,William Lilly, reports that one warm Sunday afternoon in September of that year, Forman told his wife that he would die the following Thursday night (12 September):
Monday came, all was well. Tuesday came, he not sick. Wednesday came, and still he was well; with which his impertinent wife did much twit him in his teeth. Thursday came, and dinner was ended, he very well: he went down to the water-side, and took a pair of oars to go to some buildings he was in hand with in Puddle-dock. Being in the middle of the Thames, he presently fell down, only saying, 'An impost, an impost,' and so died. A most sad storm of wind immediately following.[8]
Five years after his death he was implicated in the murder ofThomas Overbury when two of his patients, LadyFrances Howard andMrs Anne Turner, were found guilty of the crime. During the testimony of Howard's trial, lawyers hurled accusations at Forman, saying he had given Lady Essex the potion with which she plotted to kill Overbury. During the trial he was described bySir Edward Coke,Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, as the "Devil Forman"; the result being that his reputation was severely tarnished.
Forman's papers have proven to be a treasure trove of rare, odd, unusual data on one of the most studied periods of cultural history. They include autobiographies, guides to astrology, plague tracts, alchemicalcommonplace books and notes on biblical and historical subjects. They also contain his disputes with the College of Physicians and his largely unsuccessful magical experiments. At one time he possessed the copy of thePicatrix currently in theBritish Library. Forman left behind a large body of manuscripts dealing with his patients and with all the subjects that interested him, from astronomy and astrology to medicine, mathematics and magic. HisCasebooks are the most famous of these resources. They, like his diaries and autobiographies, contain extensive details of his life. His only printed work was a pamphlet advertising a bogus method for divining longitude while at sea.
His intimate knowledge of Shakespeare's circle makes him especially attractive to literary historians. Modern scholars—A. L. Rowse is one prominent example,[a] and others have followed his lead—have exploited Forman's manuscripts for the manifold lights they throw on the less-exposed private lives ofElizabethan andJacobean men and women. One of Forman's patients was the poetEmilia Lanier, Rowse's candidate to have beenShakespeare'sDark Lady; another patient wasMrs Mountjoy, Shakespeare's landlady. Sixty-four volumes of his manuscripts were collected byElias Ashmole in the seventeenth century, and are now held in theBodleian Library, Oxford. His records have been digitised by a team led by ProfessorLauren Kassell of theUniversity of Cambridge.[9]
Among Forman's manuscripts is a section titled the "Bocke of Plaies", which records Forman's descriptions of four plays he saw in 1610–11 and the morals he drew from them. The document is noteworthy for the listing of three Shakespearean performances:Macbeth at theGlobe Theatre on 20 April 1610;[10]The Winter's Tale at the Globe on 15 May 1611; andCymbeline, date and theatre not specified. The fourth play described by Forman is aRichard II acted at the Globe on 30 April 1611; but from the description it is clearly not Shakespeare'sRichard II. The manuscript was first described byJohn Payne Collier in 1836, and in the 20th century it was suspected as one of his forgeries.[11] Most modern scholars now accept the section as authentic,[12] but some still suspect it could be a forgery.[13]
Simon Forman is the protagonist of the Elizabethan mystery series byJudith Cook,The Casebook of Dr Simon Forman—Elizabethan doctor and solver of mysteries. The novels are based on the original casebook manuscripts, and contain a mix of historical and fictional characters.[14]
Dr Moth, a role loosely based on Forman, is played byAntony Sher in the 1998 filmShakespeare in Love.[15]
Forman's life and work form the basis of the 2019 video gameAstrologaster[16] in which he is voiced byDave Jones.
