Boorde, Andrew

Best known for his vernacular medical treatises and travel writings, Andrew Boorde (c.1490–1549) cuts a picaresque figure in English Tudor history. He began his professional life in 1515 as a Carthusian monk at the London Charterhouse, receiving permission in 1529 to travel to the Continent to study medicine. Upon his return he began practising medicine in England, caring for Thomas Howard, third duke of Norfolk, and possibly for Henry VIII. Having already distanced himself from the strict vegetarianism and austere lifestyle of the Carthusian order, he obtained a full release from his monastic vows after Henry VIII's split from Rome. In contrast to many Carthusians, who were well known for their enduring allegiance to the pope, Boorde took the oath of conformity as required under the Act of Succession of 1534. The following year Thomas Cromwell, Henry's chief reforming minister, employed him as a government informant in Continental Europe and later Scotland, where he reported on public feeling concerning the king and his divorce. During this time Boorde continued to pursue his medical studies, and in the late 1530s, with Cromwell's fall from favour, he began writing and publishing handbooks on the maintenance of health. Although in his writings he presented himself as a committed loyalist, he never fully escaped persecution for his Catholic past (Shrank 2000; 2004; Maslen 2003). In 1547 he was imprisoned, allegedly for engaging the services of prostitutes, and he died in prison in 1549.