TURNER. 1129 labours for some time, he at length settled at Oxford, where he enjoyed the advantage of learned men and books. There he continued preaching, not without hopes of gaining learned men to espouse the reformation, till hewas cast into prison; and after close confinement for a considerable time, he was banished from the country. Such was the effect of bigotry and popish cruelty ! During his banishment, he travelled into Italy ; and at Ferrara, being much admired for his great learning, he was created doctor of physic. Towards the close of the reign of Henry VIII. he lived at Cologne and other places in Germany. In the reign of Edward VI. he returned home, when he was greatly esteemed among our pious and learned reformers. Upon his return he was made prebendary of York, canon of Windsor, and dean of Wells, and incor- porated doctor of physic at Oxford. Having obtained a license to preach, he renewed his former ministerial exer- cises ; and, at the same time, practised physic among the nobility and gentry, and was chosen both chaplain. and physician to the Duke of Somerset, lord protector. Upon the accession of Queen Mary, and the commencement of her bloody persecution, he fled from the storm, and retired first into Germany, then to Rome, and afterwards settled, with others of his fellow exiles, at Basil in Switzerland.t Upon the accession of Queen Elizabeth, he returned a second time to his native country, when he was restored to his deanery, being highly esteemed bothas a physician and divine, but especially on account of his numerous learned writings.f He was author of a work, entitled " A New Herbal," the first original work on the subject in the English lan- guage, and afterwards the foundation of Gerard's celebrated work on the same subject§ It is said, the first publisher of an original Herbal in our tongue, Dr. William Turner, informs us, that botany, or the knowledge of simpling, was fallen into such neglect, that in King Henry's reign, he foundnot a physician in the university of Cambridge,who could inform him of the Greek, Latin, or English names of any plants he produced, as he gathered them to compile Strype's Annals, vol. i. p. 136. + Bishop Ridley, during his imprisonment, writing to Grindal, then an exile at Frankfort, made the mostaffectionate and honourable mention of Turner, Lever, Sampson, and other worthy exiles.-Fox's Martyrs, vol. p. 374. Wood's Athena; Oxon. vol. i, p. 120, 121. Strype's Cranmer, p. 274. YOL. I.
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