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Ron Heisler - Robert Fludd: A Picture in Need of ExpansionArticle originally published in The Hermetic Journal, 1989.Robert Fludd: A Picture in Need of Expansion
Ron Heisler ©
There are key identities that Huffman has not clarified. The most significant of these is that of 'Jean Balthasar Ursin Bayerius'. Quite inexplicably, Huffman indexes a 'Jean Balthasar', whilst inconsistently not indexing 'Ursin Bayerius'. Fludd quotes this individual in Declaratio Brevis, which was prepared at the request of James I, as commending his work. The letter is dated February 3rd 1618 and was sent from Vienna, the author (who is better known in Germany as Johann Bayer) signing himself off as "Your most obliged friend and servant". Huffman has missed the very important letters, one signed 'Janus Balthasar Ursinum Bayerius', Bayer sent to William Camden, the doyen of the Society of Antiquaries and encourager of Fludd's friends, John Selden and Sir Robert Cotton. Bayer's letter to Camden, dated January 1618 and emanating from Vienna, discusses the Bohemian political scene and refers to the London based apothecaries, Paul de Lobell and Wolfgang Rumbler, the latter being the King's own servant. He mentions Fludd, and Thomas Davies of the College of Physicians, in discussing the planned Pharmacopoeia Londinensis , which the King was to allude to in his 1618 proclamation of the Apothecaries' Charter. 2 There are two letters by Bayer addressed from London, one dated September 1615, the other December 1616. 3 In an undated letter, which seems to belong to early 1618, Bayer makes several references to Fludd and his 'Microcosmo'. 4 That Bayerus was the same man as Bayer can be gauged from the fact that Fludd mentioned his friend was "a certain Doctor of Law" and Bayer is known to have been a professional lawyer in Augsburg. The only town Fludd is known to have visited for certain in Germany happens to have been Augsburg. 5 Bayer, I suspect, carried Fludd's early manuscripts to their Continental publishers. Bayer (1572-1625), who had spent time in Hungary, produced a landmark in the history of astronomical chart-making in the great Uranometria of 1603, which clarified the mapping of the stars. The British Library has another book in which Bayer was involved, of the greatest rarity: a small but epoch making logarithmic tract by John Napier of Merchiston, which was published at Strasbourg in German translation in 1618, the year after Napier's death. The frontispiece tells the work was brought to completion by 'Frantz Keszlern' under the 'inspiration' [encouragement] of Bayer. 6 The prospect of a Fludd link with Napier is alluring. Of course, Dr John Craig, Napier's personal friend, was a fellow colleague of Fludd's in the London College of Physicians to begin with. Then there are the conferences Napier had in 1607 and 1608 with the alchemist Dr Daniel Mueller in Edinburgh. His son Robert referred to him as 'D.D. Mollierus'. 7 Gregor Horst, a notable physician in attendance on the Landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt, was a Fludd enthusiast, whose commendatory letter Fludd quoted to James I. Now it happens that in 1607, at Wittenberg, was published a medical disputation under the presidency of Horst; it included a certain 'Mollerus Lub-Saxo' responding on 'De venae Sectione'. In the 1609 reprint of the disputation, this person became 'Daniel Mollero Lubecensis'. 8 The chances of Fludd having known Napier, who visited London, are quite high. Interestingly enough, Shakespeare's son-in-law, Dr John Hall, whose patients included Michael Drayton the poet, recorded Horst's vessicatory remedy for an eye condition in his manuscript notes. Another of Hall's patients was John Thornborough, Bishop of Worcester, Fludd's particular friend. 9 Who actually wrote Summum Bonum, allegedly from the pen of 'Joachimus Frizius', which was published at Frankfurt in 1629, and which many have assumed to be by Fludd himself? As Huffman points out, Fludd stated on page 26 of Clavis Philosophiae & Alchymiae (1633) that he had translated part of the Frizius book from the Scottish into the Latin and made some minor additions of his own. Fludd actually says it was by a Scot. But Huffman does not pursue the point apparently unaware of the existence of a letter written by Henry Oldenburg, secretary of the Royal Society, to Georg Franck von Franchenau on the 9th August 1677: "As for your question about the Maxwell manuscript, I wish you to know that by our more sound philosophies there are judged to be things of greater worth than those are, which were produced by him and by Fludd". 10 Thus we learn the allegation of written collaboration between Maxwell and Fludd. Franck von Franckenau published William Maxwell's De medicina magnetica libra III at Frankfurt in 1679. Huffman makes no mention of this book, in which Maxwell is described as 'Scoto-Britano' and as the friend of Robert Fludd. The manuscript had come to the editor through the agency of Stephanus Polier, 'Dominus de Botans'. In the preface, apparently composed by Maxwell, there is a reference to Sir Edmund Stafford, of Mount Stafford in Ireland. Elias Ashmole knew Fludd's nephew, Dr Levin Fludd, quite well, and records that he met Levin with Sir Edmund Stafford on one occasion. The book is regarded today as a forerunner of the theories of Dr Mesmer. The British Library has some medical recipes provided to a Dr 'Maxwell' by the apothecary Joseph Hall in 1652. 11 Huffman is totally foxed by the commendatory letter Fludd quotes from 'Justus Helt', who reported on the reaction of the Jesuits at the Frankfurt book fair to Fludd's Macrocosmus. It is a pity, by the way, that Huffman has not picked up the fact that Utriusque Cosmi Maioris… (1617-23) was placed on the Papal Index. 12 I have encountered only two references to Helt. The Wellcome Medical Library owns the liber amicorum of Johann Elichmann. There are two entries for Frankfurt for the 7th April 1626, one being Helt's. His companion (assuming they signed in the same room at the same time) was the scandalous Weigelian Rosicrucian 'Henricus Philippus Homag[i]us, alias Morius (Gottlieb)', who had created furore at Geissen university three years earlier. 13 The album amicorum of Christopher Conrad Nithardi of Augsburg has some resonance in our context. Homagius signed it in 1591. Daniel Moegling, the author of the Rosicrucian classic, Speculum sophicum Rhodo-Stauroticum, for which he used the pseudonym of Theophilus Schweighardt (of which three illuminated manuscript copies exist in Britain), signed the album in 1593. In 1609, presumably during a London visit, Paul de Lobell the apothecary signed it; on the reverse of the leaf with Lobell's inscription is the signature of the apothecary Wolfgang Rumbler. 14 Thus Nithardi's circle took in two prominent Rosicrucians and perhaps the two most esteemed apothecaries in London in the reign of James I. The other Helt reference is to be found in the diary of the distinguished German poet, Georg Rudolf Weckherlin, who had dealings with Fludd in the 1630's. On the 14th December 1636 Weckherlin wrote to "Mons. Helt, at Hamburg". 15 Jacobus Aretius will mean little even to the most thorough reader of Fludd's works, or even to Jacobean literary specialists, so Huffman is to be pardoned for not mentioning him. However, Sophiae cum Moria Certamen (1629) has verses supportative of Fludd, which savagely attack his critic Mersenne. One is signed 'Jacobus Aretius, Oxoniensis', the other 'I.M. Cantabrigiensis'. Aretius was the pen-name of James Martin, who styled himself 'Germano-Britannus', and I suspect that 'I.M.' was Aretius's alter ego, since he was a member of both English Universities. An intimate friend of Dr Prideaux, the head of the Calvanist Exeter College, Oxford, Aretius had dealings with Isaac Casaubon, and there is a letter to William Camden with a note to indicate that it was written in 'Mr Selden's Study'. 16 His other friends included Sir Kenelm Digby, the Roman Catholic Rosicrucian, and Patrick Junius (Young). After Fludd's death, he started up a correspondence with Mersenne. 17 In the British Library, one of the most important verse compilations of the 1620s-1630s has the inscription on the cover 'J.A. Christ Church'. In view of the fact that Aretius matriculated from Christ Church, Oxford, in 1604, and the political attitudes in the poetry - which are plentifully expressed - are so consistent with his known beliefs, I don't doubt for one moment that he was the volume's owner at some stage. The name of 'Robert Killigrew' is written on the book, 18 and Aretius probably inherited it from Sir Robert Killigrew, who died in 1633 and whose name is attached to a 1613 letter mentioning Michael Maier (Mayerus). Aretius presented a book he published in 1613 to Robert Burton, whom I believe was of the Rosicrucian enthusiasm, and he appears to have been married to the niece of the poet Michael Drayton. 19 Fludd, in his defence to James I, invoked the names of 'my worthy freinds Mr Dr Andrew and … Mr Seldein', claiming that 'Andrews' had read his macrocosmical history four or five years before news of the Rosicrucian Fraternity had pierced his ears. Huffman, in considering the identity of 'Dr Andrews', has uncritically assumed it was Richard Andrews the physician. The evidence points strongly to it being the distinguished theologian and translator of the Bible, Dr Lancelot Andrewes, successively Bishop of Chichester, Ely and Winchester, a man highly esteemed by the King. Michael Maier presented the Bishop with a copy of Arcana arcanissima , with a unique printed dedication leaf, which implies that Andrewes was his financial patron. 20 Francis Bacon mentions that Andrewes engaged in chemical 'experiments'. Andrewes was a close friend, and ardent protector, of Fludd's intimate, John Selden, and was wont to discuss his Bible translations with Selden. 21 Intriguingly, Andrewes paid for the expenses of William Bedwell whilst he lodged in Leiden in 1612 at the house of the Familist printer-publisher, Thomas Basson - the Basson house published Fludd's Apologia (1616) and Tractatus (1617). 22 Selden lent books to Bedwell. Thomas Basson's son, Frederick, incidentally, was described as a 'Doctor of Medicine in London' in 1617. 23 In his will, Andrewes named William Backhouse, Elias Ashmole's alchemical 'father', as one of the beneficiaries at Pembroke College, Cambridge. An important source of information on Fludd's latter years overlooked by Huffman is the diary of Georg Rudolf Weckherlin, an under-secretary of state at Whitehall concerned with foreign correspondence. 24 His dealings with Lewis Ziegler, the agent of Lord Craven, principal financial backer of the Queen of Bohemia, are noteworthy. On the 1st December 1636 the under-secretary drew the Rosicrucian sign above Ziegler's name. In February 1634 he had written, 'To Mr Ziegler sending him gloves'. This last gesture seems undecipherable until we realise that Robert Plot, in a work published in 1686, said it was the freemasons' custom that a new initiate sent gloves to all the members of a lodge. 25 We are probably detecting here indications of Weckherlin's initiation into a Rosicrucian society; he certainly permitted books intended for Sir Kenelm Digby, the well-known Rosicrucian, to be left at his home. I have come across three references to Fludd. On the 27th January 1636 Weckherlin noted down, "I wrote an answer to Mr Cliff, to accept of Mr Fludds house for 3 years - paying present money 50 St. or else the most 20 St. p. anm." On the 12th October 1636 he noted, "I did write a letter to Mr Cliff, giving him notice that I had bargained with Mr Flud (as I did the day before in the presence of his brother Mr. Hamlet), to give him near 20 St. p. an. for his house…" On the 27th May 1637 Weckherlin commented, "I received a letter from Mr Fludd with the enclosed from one Barthol: Nigrinus from Danzig, with commendation from Martin Opitius". Opitius is better known as Martin Opitz, the best German poet of the age, who lodged with Bartholomaeus Nigrinus (1595-1646), pastor of the St Peter and Paul Church in Danzig. The pastor had worked with Comenius in Elbing on the Czech's 'pansophie'; on occasion he acted as a diplomatic agent for King Wladislaus IV of Poland. 26 At the end of Summum Bonum a letter is appended written by a member of the order of the Rosy Cross. This must have been Fludd's addition. There is an explanatory note to the effect that the letter had been "written and sent by ye Brethren of R.C. to a certain Germaine, a coppy whereof Dr. Flud obtained of a Polander of Dantziche, his friend". Almost certainly this is a reference to Nigrinus. A little more ought to be said about Opitz, who in 1627 had been enrolled as a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft (fruit bearing Society) at Koethen.When Opitz died in 1639, Nigrinus with two collaborators, including the Socinian Martin Ruar, who had visited England over twenty years before, edited Opitz poetry in an edition published by Andreas Huenefeld. Huenefeld had published the Danzig editions of the Rosicrucian manifestos. Opitz's chief patron and employer in the 1620's had been the great nobleman Karl Hannibal von Dohna. Dohna had signed the album amicorum of Selden's friend, William Bedwell, on the 18th August 1606. A relative, Burgrave Achaz Dohna, the Bohemian envoy, signed the album amicorum of the Rosicrucian enthusiast Joachim Morsius whilst in London on the 25th January 1620. Fludd's Baltic links must have extended beyond the Nigrinus circle. At Rostock, Joachim Jungius founded the most distinguished German scientific society, the Gelehrte Gesellschaft, in 1622. Jungius, who associated with J.V. Andreae, and who was rumoured decades later to have had a hand in the Rosicrucian manifestos, has left us extensive papers discussing Fludd's theories. Among the membership lists of his society is to be found the name 'Joh. Seldener' - surely none other than Fludd's intimate, John Selden. 27 Weckherlin's father-in-law was William Trumbull, who served in the English embassy at Brussels from c. 1605 to 1625, where he rose to become envoy. A friendship between him and Moritz of Hessen-Kassel seems to have existed by January 1610. A further friend of his was Thomas Floyde, the secretary to the English ambassador at Paris 1611-13. On December 15th 1609, Floyde wrote to Trumbull that "Dr. Lloyd, my brother Jeffreys and my cousin Yonge have often remembered you". And on February 23rd 1609-10 Floyde wrote "My good friend and yours, my brother Jeffreys, Doctor Floud, my cousin Floud, my cousin Yonge and myself… kiss your hands". 28 A music lover, Trumbull's music manuscripts included 'The George Aloe' theme by John Dowland, taken from what I argue elsewhere to be the Rosicrucian play by Shakespeare and John Fletcher, The Two Noble Kinsmen. 29 One of Huffman's most interesting oversights relates to the duel on the 21st April 1610 in which James Egerton, son of the Lord Keeper Egerton, was killed by Edward Morgan. A demand for a trial for murder arose. Fludd was interrogated on the 26th April by Henry Spyller. His servant, John Nicholas, was also examined. This scandal may have been the origin of the malicious jibe at Fludd being an 'armigerous' physician, i.e. one entitled to bear arms. 30 It is a pity that Huffman does not recount the story of how Fludd took the penniless orphan Robert Wright into his household, where he learned some philosophy and pharmacy. Wright was responsible for the tale that when sick Fludd relied on the advice of the Galenist Dr Goulston. 31 Huffman, whilst detailing Fludd's success with the steel patent, misses the complaint of the widow of John Rocher, "the inventor of transmuting iron into steel", on May 23rd 1625. She claimed he had died of grief, being defrauded of the third part of the benefit of his patent by Fludd and Caleb Rawlins. 32 Huffman speculates at length on the likelihood that Fludd had recourse to the library of his friend, Sir Robert Cotton. An inspection of Harleian Ms 6018 f.180 in the British Library would have confirmed the fact. There we learn that Fludd had borrowed a 'History of Asia and Tartary' as well as 'A book on Arabian Astronomy'. Rather more irritating an omission on Huffman's part is his failure to make any reference to 'A Breife Treatise or hipothesis of one Booke called Speculum Universi or Universall Mirror', and eighteen page manuscript, long owned by the Wellcome Medical Library. Whether or not it was composed by Fludd is worth serious consideration. Ending with, "And thus committing the rest to the industrie of the speculator, I abruptly concluded this analiticall abstract, untill the publication of the volume itself…", it has marginal references to what was obviously a much larger manuscript. The tenor of Ms 147 is much in line with Fludd's published writings. Written in a mixture of English, Latin and occasional Greek, there is even a Hebrew quotation. The superabundant biblical references in the margins, including some for the Book of Genesis, have the familiar Fludd stamp to them. The manuscript reveals a sort of ur-text, from which the overall schema of Fludd's macrocosmical and microcosmical works developed. Much is said about 'analogy'. Nothing comparable by other English writers of the period springs to mind. The transcript probably belongs to the 1600's. 33 Another well-known manuscript which Huffman, almost unforgivably, overlooks completely is Sloane Ms 870 in the British Library: twenty seven pages on 'De Instrumentis et Machinis', which are to be found in the Macrocosmus. With its numerous diagrams and illustrations, this is almost certainly done in Fludd's own hand. Huffman glosses over the comment by Anthony à Wood in Athenae Oxonienses regarding the physician necromancer Simon Forman (died 1611), that "the latter used much tautology, as you may see if you'll read a great book of Dr Robert Flood [in Musaeo Ashmoleano], who had it all from the MSS of Forman". 34 À Wood is not always reliable, but was less credulous than John Aubrey; and this claim is worth pursuing. To start with, it is indisputable that Fludd's sister-in-law, the nymphomaniac Jane Fludd, was a client of Forman. 35 Forman had once been the servant of John Thornborough, Fludd's friend. Dr Richard Napier of Lynford had been an assistant of Forman's, and according to William Lilly acquired the "rarities, secret manuscripts, of what quality soever", left by the scandalous physician. 36 Ms 1380 in the Ashmole collection is a pocket-book of Sir Robert Napier, the nephew of Richard Napier, containing the recipe "Dr Fluds d: of dr.- Pilulae proprietatis Mynsichti - Pil. rosatae Myns". In the same collection, Ms 1492 contains "Exact Notices of 32 Latin alchemical tracts contained in 'Dr Flood's Ms' ". Bound with these are letters of Richard Napier. We can't be sure on what principle these papers were bound together, yet they do imply some sort of association between Fludd and the Napier family. Sir Richard had been bequeathed his uncle's books. In Ms 1492 there is also a letter from Dr Edmund Deane directed "To his loveing brother Mr Theodorus Gravius, at Mr Rich. Napierus, at Linford". Gravius was Napier's assistant. Deane probably belonged to Fludd's circle we can deduce, if only for the fact that the eight quarto pamphlets of works written by the alchemist Samuel Norton, which he edited were brought out by William Fitzer, Fludd's publisher at Frankfurt on Main. 37 Fitzer published Tractatus de natura elementorum (1628), written by the English based Dutch Rosicrucian Cornelius Drebbel. The finest thing in Fitzer's rather small list was the epoch-making work on the circulation of the blood, De motu cordis (1628), written by Fludd's close friend, Dr William Harvey. Fitzer turns up in the English State Papers; he evidently was an English intelligence agent. In 1632 the whole edition of Fludd's Clavis Philosophiae & Alchymiae was destroyed at Frankfurt by the militia. On July 31st that year Fitzer wrote to Vane pleading, "I pray your Lordship that you will remember me about Heidelberg and that I may have a note, under the secretary's hand, for bookselling and printing books…" The Clavis Philosophiae… was reprinted in 1633; Fitzer still had 300 copies in stock in 1639. It is a fascinating possibility that the publication of Fludd's later works were financed by the English government. Towards the end of May 1633 John Dury told Sir Thomas Roe that he had sent a letter by means of Fitzer, which he hoped Roe would show to Samuel Hartlib. Fitzer is notable in one other regard. He published the second impression of the complete theological works - anathema to the Calvinists - of the Remonstrant Arminius. The first edition had been brought out in the greatest secrecy at Leiden by Govaert Basson, Robert Fludd's first publisher. 38 Huffman deal quite inadequately with the Mss left by Dr Levin Fludd, who died in 1678, although observing that "Since Levin received his uncle's library and was a graduate of Trinity, it is possible that he donated the 'Philosophical Key' Ms to his alma mater". 39 Levin's generosity to his old college can be in no doubt. Two Mss there have his inscription on them: 'Le: Fludd'. 40 Ms 1376 is noteworthy for sustaining the claim that Fludd had access to the Mss of Simon Forman the necromancer, for it binds together an alchemical note-book described as 'Notae Roberti Fludd' and a 'Dream' of Forman's. The college library also owns an astrological Ms of Forman's, some notes and receipts attributed to him, and Ms 1419 Magica Simonis Forman is definitely in the magician's own hand. 41 The remainder of Levin's Mss appear to have ended up in the collection of Elias Ashmole, who is unlikely to have ever met Robert Fludd, Fludd dying when Asmole was but twenty years of age. In fact, Ashmole's interest in alchemy and the occult seems to have been born in the late 1640's. The Ashmole collection has not only Robert Fludd's 'Truth's Golden Harrow' in his autograph, but also a 13th century Ms with 'Edward Grovely' written on it several times, as well as the inscription 'Robert Fludd 1612'. 42 In the margins of various other Mss Ashmole wrote 'Dr Flood', it rarely being clear whether he was referring to the uncle or the nephew. Ashmole had numerous Simon Forman papers, some of which were probably in the possession of Robert Fludd at one stage. In a way, the most fascinating relationship that Huffman has missed is that between Fludd and Dr John Everard. There are three letters from Everard to Sir Robert Cotton amid the Cotton papers in the British Library, which none of the several recent writers on this dissident clergyman (often sent to goal by James I) have stumbled upon. Everard, in a letter dated 23rd December 1626, told Cotton that he was sending a messenger to locate 'Mr Harrison' to obtain "that Booke whereof I have so often spoken to you". In a letter dated merely 'Jan 15' Everard announced to Cotton that "though a stranger I shall be troublesome unto you. There is a Manuscript wch is entitled the way to Bliss". It belonged to a Mr Harrison "who was lately a Schoolmaister in Red-crofse street (for as Dr Floud of the Black-friars assureth me, he hath it)". Everard wanted Cotton to use his influence with Harrison to allow Everard to copy the manuscript. The third, undated letter reports that "Doctor Floud assured me yesterday of Mr Harrisons being in town & withal that he told him that he hath the booke…". 43 The Way to Bliss, written by an anonymous English alchemist probably between 1600 and 1620, is a classic that has somehow become annexed to the Rosicrucian tradition through being (a) plundered by the Rosicrucian charlatan John Heydon and (b) being published in an excellent edition by Elias Ashmole in 1658 as a conscious riposte to Heydon's effrontery. Ashmole's preface explained that the marginal notes he printed alongside the text were by Everard. Ashmole had "obtained those Notes (they being added to a transcript of this Work, and both fairly written with the Doctor's hand) from a very intimate Friend… [Thomas Henshaw, the patron of Thomas Vaughan]…". 44 In his notes, Everard quotes both Michael Maier and Fludd. In fact, Everard's copy of The Way to Bliss in the British Library is bound with several of his papers, including his translation of a section of Maier's Themis Aurea (1618), which is dated August 8 1623. 45 Everard's notoriety was accumulative. His cardinal sin under Archbishop Laud's regime was to be perceived as a central focus for the activities of the Family of Love, even if it has not been proved to this day that he was an actual member. He certainly was the most distinguished and learned energiser of this remarkable underground movement, with its mystical and spiritualistic tendency, whose supporters, like the Rosicrucians, were directed to deny their membership. Everard, like Fludd and the Familists, believed the Bible was to be interpreted allegorically and figuratively. 46 Now we should be careful not to read too much into the association of Fludd and Everard. However, we should recall that in Declaratio Brevis Fludd felt impelled to repudiate allegations of sexual license. He declared the Rosicrucians were "batchelors of avowed virginity" and was still rebutting allegations of libertinism in Clavis Philosophiae & Alchymiae in 1633. 47 One of the popular assumptions about the Familists was that they practised free love. Fludd also felt impelled in Declaratio Brevis to affirm his religious orthodoxy. He was no Calvinist, he claimed, but a loyal Anglican. The problem was, members of the Family of Love were known to be enjoined to outwardly maintain membership of the official church whilst secretly attending their Familist conventicles. In 1623 there were allegations of Familist activity among the staff, primarily musicians, of the Chapel Royal. Fludd boasted of his links with the musicians, English and French, at the court. 48 That the Rosicrucians evolved out of the Family of Love has been argued before. Finally, I find it a trifle disappointing that Huffman does not throw
any new light on Craven's well-known but uncorroborated assertion that
Michael Maier got on well with Robert Fludd. In fact, Huffman is content
to perpetuate the mystification by claiming "Another tie between Landgrave
Moritz [of Hessen-Kassel] and Fludd was the physician and fellow mystical
philosopher Michael Maier". 49 I am not alone in observing
that in their published works neither eminent writer ever directly refers
to the other. Bruce T. Moran's researches in the Kassel archives have uncovered
a letter by Maier, dated April 17th 1618, addressed to Moritz the Landgrave,
which refers to Fludd. Moran's translation reads: "I see that the
author [Fludd] is pretty insolent in his censure concerning nations… while
tractate 2, part 6, book 3 on the organisation of the army in the field
makes German princes… out to be sluggards, negligent and slow men, but
portrays the English as magnaminous, brave, but not squeamish etc. Indeed
I would like to take the stick to these immature censors and show them
who, of what sort and how many are the Germans". 50 I am grateful
to Professor Dr. Karin Figala for pointing out in a private communication
that Maier's Verum Inventum was "a sort of response to the derogatory
allegations of Fludd and others about the Holy [Roman] Empire". 52
Fludd's congenital insensitivity, it would seem, had created yet another
bitter critic in the shape of Michael Maier, who, like so many, would have
liked "to take the stick" to him.
Notes
1. Routledge & Kegan Paul (1988). W.H. Huffman & R.A. Seelinger,
Jr "Robert Fludd's 'Declaratio Brevis' to James I" Ambix xxv
(1978).
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