Andrew Boorde

On a hill near Cuckfield bearing his family name was born a merry Andrew among writers, Andrew Boorde. About the year 1490 Andrew Boorde was born in the pleasant country round the village of Cuckfield. He was a very intelligent lad, was brought up at Oxford, and persuaded the Carthusian monks to admit him into their austere order before he had reached the regulation age.

In 1521 he was invited to become Suffragan Bishop of Chichester but he declined, and seven years later, after 20 years of semi-starvation under the hard rule of the monks, he could bear it no longer and secured his freedom from his vows.

Andrew then spent two years travelling from university to university in Europe learning all he could about medicine. He came back to cure the Duke of Norfolk, who introduced him to Henry the Eighth.

After another journey abroad he returned home to find his royal master in full fury against his old Order. He followed his prior's example, refused to bow to the King's will, and was sent to the Tower with him; but a few days later he submitted, and looked to Thomas Cromwell as his patron. Cromwell made use of him, sending him abroad to test the opinion of Europe on his king's actions.

 

He wrote home that only the French King favoured him. On this journey he sent from Spain the first seeds of rhubarb to come here, with directions for their cultivation. But not for another 200 years was rhubarb grown in this country.

In 1538 Andrew Boorde set out for the Holy Sepulchre, and on his way back settled at Montpelier to devote himself to the work by which he lives. There he wrote books on Health, but, most remarkable of all, he wrote the first printed guidebook to Europe. He called it the First Book of the Introduction of Knowledge, and in verse and prose tried to teach the languages, customs, and coinages of 39 countries.

 

Very witty are some of his lines, but mingled with sound sense and advice is much coarseness and ribaldry. The first printed example of gipsy language is in this book. Shakespeare knew the book, and the immortal lines in King John which end;

 

Nought shall make us rue If England to itself do rest but true echo Boorde's description of Englishmen as;
bold, strong and mighty, who if they were true within themselves need not to fear although all nations were set against them

 

The rest of the life of this cheerful and amusing man was spent in Winchester and London practising medicine and writing. He wrote a book on astronomy and another travel book, this time on England. But these books did not suffice as outlets for his sparkling vivacity, and so this merry Andrew compiled those Merry Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham which have delighted young and old to this day.

For some sad and forgotten offence Merry Andrew was put in the Fleet Prison, where he died in 1549. He was a man before his time, a curious link between the dying world of monasteries and the bold and gay Elizabethans.

 

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