Dr Martin Schöner or Schönerus (died 1611) was a German physician to James VI and I and Anne of Denmark.
Early years Schöner was born in Głogów in Lower Silesia, then a part of the Habsburg Empire, and was considered to be from Thuringia. He is said to have been a nephew of the German polymath Johannes Schöner. Some English sources render Martin's name as "Schoverus", in Scottish records the name appears as "Schoneir" and "Schonerz".George Fraser Black, The Surnames of Scotland: Their Origin, Meaning, and History (New York, 1943), p. 724. He used the title "Dr", but the university where he studied has not been identified.
Court physician in Scotland He became a physician to King James in 1581. On 22 July 1597 he was appointed "Master Medicinar" to Anne of Denmark, with a salary of £400 Scots, for a role he had performed for the previous three years, having been "ready day and night to attend upon that his office and service".Sabrina Juillet Garzón, Jacques Ier Stuart (Editions Ellipses, 2024): Raymond Lamont Brown, Royal Poxes and Potions: The Lives of Court Physicians, Surgeons and Apothecaries (Sutton, 2001), p. 76, see National Records of Scotland PS1/65 f. 245r and PS1/69 f. 143r.
Schöner was called to Falkland Palace on 1 August 1590, perhaps to see Anne of Denmark, who may have been pregnant and later miscarried.Maureen Meikle, 'Anna of Denmark's Coronation and Entry', Julian Goodare & Alasdair A. MacDonald, Sixteenth-Century Scotland (Brill, 2008), p. 293. On 10 February 1594 he was appointed to attend Anne of Denmark at Stirling Castle, where she gave birth to Prince Henry, with the physician Gilbert Moncreiff, the surgeon Gilbert Primrose, and the apothecary Alexander Barclay.HMC Mar & Kellie, vol. 1 (London, 1904), p. 42
In September 1595 he attended John Maitland of Thirlestane, who had a "tertian fever".Annie I. Cameron, Calendar of State Papers: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 687, 690, "fevar terse". Maitland could not be made to sleep and his mind and body suffered.Thomas Birch, Memoirs of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, vol. 1 (London, 1754), p. 295. At first his opinion was that Maitland would not recover, and Jean Fleming, Lady Thirlestane summoned the minister Robert Bruce to Thirlestane Castle. Then Maitland's condition improved and Schöner wrote to court that he was past his danger. Maitland had a relapse and died on 3 October.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 12 (Edinburgh, 1952), pp. 18, 23, 28, 33.
Schöner and John Naysmyth attended the infant Princess Margaret at Dalkeith Palace in 1598, and the births of Prince Charles and Prince Robert at Dunfermline Palace with the midwife Jonet Kinloch, the apothecary Alexander Barclay, and the laundress Margaret Douchall.Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts (Manchester, 2020), pp. 183-4: Letters to King James the Sixth from the Queen, Prince Henry, Prince Charles (Edinburgh, 1835), pp. lxxvi-lxxvii, lxxxi: Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, from the Norman Conquest, vol. 6 (London, 1857), p. 89 as "Martene Schenes".
Anne of Denmark and the incident at Stirling Castle In May 1603 Anne of Denmark came to Stirling Castle to try to get her son Prince Henry from the keeping of the Earl of Mar. On 9 May, Marie Stewart, Countess of Mar and her stepson, the Master of Mar, told Anne they could not release the Prince to her, and later that day she fell ill and fainted at dinner. Lady Argyll, Lady Mar, Jane Drummond and Marion Boyd, Mistress of Paisley carried her to bed where she had a miscarriage.Lesley Lawson, Out of the Shadows: The Life of Lucy, Countess, Countess of Bedford (London: Hambledon, 2007), p. 49. According to the lawyer, Thomas Hamilton, who was at the castle, the queen told Dr Martin, Margaret Seton, Lady Paisley, and others that she had taken "some balm water that hastened her abort."William Fraser, Memorials of the Earls of Haddington, vol. 2 (Edinburgh, 1889), p. 211
There were suggestions that this miscarriage or abortion was self-induced, perhaps by the use of the "balm water".Nadine Akkerman, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts (Oxford, 2021), pp. 26-7, 417 fn.54. The Venetian ambassador in London, Giovanni Carlo Scaramelli, heard that the Prince's governess (meaning the Countess of Mar) had refused to give her the Prince, claiming Catholics might seize him in a revolt. He was told that Anne was furious and had beat her own belly.John Leeds Barroll, Anna of Denmark, Queen of England (Philadelphia, 2001), p. 29: Horatio F. Brown, Calendar State Papers Venice, vol. 10 (London, 1900), p. 40 no. 66.
Alexander Seton, the queen's legal adviser, went to Stirling, and later described how the "best expedient was to comfort and encourage her majesty, to give her good heart; in sum, physick and medicine requireth then a greater place, than economic or politic".James Maidment, Letters and State Papers during the Reign of James the Sixth (Edinburgh, 1838), p. 55: Rosalind K. Marshall, Scottish Queens: 1034-1714 (John Donald: Edinburgh, 2007), p. 149.
The Earl of Montrose, heard there was "a full assurance of her majesty's preservation and full recovery of her wanted (customary) health".James Maidment, Letters and State Papers during the Reign of James the Sixth (Edinburgh, 1838), p. 50. As Lord Chancellor of Scotland, he made efforts to calm the controversy and help set Anne of Denmark on her way to England in June.James Maidment, Letters and State Papers during the Reign of James the Sixth (Edinburgh, 1838), pp. 48-51, 57-8. Anne of Denmark was soon well enough to travel, and arrived at Windsor Castle on 10 July 1603.Nadine Akkerman, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts (Oxford, 2022), p. 29. According to the French ambassador, the Marquess of Sully, when the Queen travelled to London, she "brought with her the body of the male child of which she had been delivered in Scotland, because endeavours had been used to persuade the public, that its death was only feigned".Nadine Akkerman, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Hearts (Oxford, 2021), pp. 29-30: Charlotte Lennox, Memoirs of Maximilian de Bethune, Duke of Sully, vol. 3 (London, 1763), p. 236.
England Schöner came to England and on 26 July 1603 James appointed him "ordinary" and "first doctor" to the queen with a salary of £100 Sterling.Thomas Rymer, Foedera, vol. 7 part 2 (Hague, 1739), p. 87 as "Martinus Schoverus" Another Scottish physician, John Craig had already been appointed "first doctor" on 20 June. Schöner may have delayed coming to London because his wife Christian Gibsoun was pregnant.Thomas Rymer, Foedera, vol. 16 (London, 1715), pp. 514-5, 537-8. He requested passes for four German gentleman to visit England.HMC Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 15 (London, 1930), p. 384.
On 24 April 1604 with Lancelot Browne he recommended the waters at Spa in Belgium to Henry Jerningham senior of Costessey for "all such griefs as he does complain of, namely the rheum, vertigo, convulsions, palsye, melancholia, hypochondriaca, obstructions, and the stone". This prescription was used by Jerningham to obtain a licence to travel abroad for his health. Schöner signed the document as, "Martinus Schonerus, Hir Maiesties Physicion".Robert Lemon & Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic James I: 1603-1610 (London, 1857), pp. 99, 102, citing TNA SP14/7/145.
Anne of Denmark's apothecaries in England were John Clavie, John Woolf, (or John Wolfgang Rumler), appointed on 26 November 1604 to provide sweet powders, waters, perfumes and other products, and later Gideon Delaune and Louis Lamere.HMC 2nd Report: Bromley-Davenport (London, 1874), p. 79: Elizabeth Lane Furdell, The Royal Doctors, 1485-1714: Medical Personnel at the Tudor and Stuart Courts (New York, 2001), pp. 115-6.
In 1605, Schöner with other royal doctors and members of the College of Physicians signed a testimonial recommendation for Matthias de l'Obel. He wrote his signature in Latin, "Martinus Schonerus, Britannia Reg[inae] Medicus Ordinarius".Robert Theodore Gunther, Early British botanists and their gardens (Oxford, 1922), p. 248 plate In August 1605 one of the queen's former ladies in waiting, Jean Stewart, Lady Bargany travelled to consult him in London but he could offer no hope, she died at Stilton on her way back to Scotland.Robert Pitcairn, Historical and Genealogical Account of the Principal Families of the Name of Kennedy (Edinburgh, 1830), pp. 67-86.
In 1607 King James asked the Earl of Dunbar to write to Lord Carew, the Queen's Vice-Chamberlain, to summon Schöner to attend the ailing infant Princess Mary.HMC 9 Salisbury Hatfield, vol. 19 (London, 1965), p. 247.
Schöner gave the king a New Year's gift of a box of confections in January 1606. The other physicians at court, John Craig, John Hammond, Henry Atkins, and Elvin, gave similar gifts.John Nichols, The Progesses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James the First, vol. 1 (London, 1828), pp. 596-7. Schöner certified a bill for perfumes and rosewater supplied to Prince Henry over the past three years invoiced by Rumler in 1606.Account by Rumler, 1603-1606 sold by Bonhams, 29 Mar 2011
At the baptism of one of his children on 30 January 1610, he was given a gift of £4 by David Murray of Gorthy, the keeper of the Privy Purse of Prince Henry.Privy purse account, TNA SP14/57 no.87 f.133.
Schöner was naturalized as an English citizen in July 1610 at the same time as other members of the queen's household; Dorothea Silking and her sister "Engella Seelken" from Gustrow, Katherine Benneken from Garlstorf, the apothecary John Wolfgang Rumler from Augsburg and his wife Anna de l'Obel from Middelburg, a daughter of Matthias de l'Obel.William Arthur Shaw, Letters of denization and acts of naturalization for aliens in England and Ireland (Lymington, 1911), pp. 15-6, 25.
He died in 1611, and in September 1611 his second wife and widow Christiana, or "Christian Schonero", was granted £150.Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar State Papers Domestic, James I: 1611-1618 (London, 1858), p. 73: John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, vol. 2 (London, 1828), p. 440. Prince Henry also gave her a small pension.Peter Cunningham, Extracts from the Revels Accounts (London, 1842), p. xviii.
Théodore de Mayerne was his successor as the queen's physician.Hugh Trevor-Roper & Blair Worden, Europe's Physician: The Various Life of Sir Theodore de Mayerne (Yale, 2006), pp. 101, 165.
Family His first wife was Lucretia or Lucres Betoun, said to be a daughter of the laird of "Cassgoure" or "Carsgonny" now called "Carsegownie" in the Parish of Aberlemno and Catherine Ogilvy.These names of Lucretia Betoun's parents derive from a biography of her son, Johannes Schöner. Their children included; Johannes Schöner was born in Edinburgh on 2 July 1597. He studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh, Wittenberg, Frankfurt, and Greifswald. He married Catherine Erskine and died at Stralsund in April 1657.Festschrift zur 500-Jahrfeier der Universität Greifswald (1956), p. 276. Edward, baptised 23 July 1598 with witnesses Edward Bruce, 1st Lord Kinloss and the surgeon Gilbert Primrose.David Agnew, Protestant Exiles from France: Refugees naturalized before 1681, vol. 1 (1886), p. 257: 'Extracts from the Register of Baptisms', Edinburgh', Scottish Antiquary, p. 90. Katherine, baptised 1 June 1600