Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/444

 FORMAN, SIMON (1552–1611), astrologer and quack-doctor, was fifth son of the eight children of William Forman and his wife Mary, daughter of John Foster, by Marianna Hallam. Simon's grandfather, Richard Forman, was governor of Wilton Abbey before the suppression of the monasteries, and when the abbey was made over to William Herbert, earl of Pembroke, held some office about the park. Dying in 1556 Richard was buried at Foulson, Devonshire. Simon's father, William, born at Quidhampton, Wiltshire, in 1524, served as page to Lady Willoughby; married in 1544 Mary Foster, who came from the neighbourhood of Andover; was deprived of property which he should have inherited from his father, and died 1 Jan. 1564, being buried at Foulson. Simon's mother lived to the age of ninety-seven, dying in 1602, and being buried with her husband. She was vigorous to the last, walking two miles within a fortnight of her death. Simon, who paid much attention to the genealogy of his family, claimed descent from some apocryphal Richard Forman, earl of Devonshire in the time of William I, who is said to have built the church of St. James at Exeter. A Sir George Forman was created K.B. in 1485, and Sir William Forman, haberdasher, was lord mayor of London in 1538-9. With both of these Simon declared that he was connected.

Simon was born at Quidhampton, 30 Dec. 1552. Lilly's statement that he was son of a chandler, and was born in Westminster, is untrue. He suffered as a child from bad dreams, presaging 'the troubles of his riper years.' A clergyman of Salisbury, named Riddout, who had formerly been a cobbler, and who removed to Quidhampton, when the plague raged in Salisbury, first taught Simon his accidence. Afterwards he went for two years to a free school in the Close at Salisbury, under a master named Boole or Bowie, 'a severe and furious man,' and was thence removed to the care of one Minterne, prebendary of the cathedral, a person of unpleasantly frugal habits. The death of Simon's father in January 1563-4 left him destitute. His mother neglected him, and made him do menial work. On 8 Feb. 1567 he apprenticed himself to Matthew Comin, a general dealer, of Salisbury. His master treated him kindly, but his mistress had a violent temper, and he left after a serious quarrel with her (29 June 1572). He had Kept up his studies by getting a schoolboy who lodged with his master to teach him at night all he learned by day. He went through the Isle of Wight on his way home to Quidhampton. His mother still declined to maintain him; he became a schoolmaster near his native place, and received 40s. for half a year's work. On 20 May 1573 Simon made his way to Oxford with a friend, Thomas Ridear. He entered Magdalen College as a poor scholar, and studied at the school attached to the college. John Thornborough, a demy of the college (afterwards bishop of Limerick), and his friend Robert Pinkney of St. Mary's Hall, two pleasure-loving young gentlemen, took him into their service. He had to attend them on hunting expeditions to Shotover, and to walk to Cowley almost every day to assist them in the courtship of a young lady for whose hand they were both suitors. Forman left Oxford 12 Sept. 1574, and until midsummer 1578 found employment as an usher in several small schools at Wilton, Ashmore, and Salisbury. Early in 1579 he was lodging in the parsonage of Fisherton, and it was about that date that he discovered what he claimed to be his miraculous powers. 'I did prophesy,' he records in his diary, 'the truth of many things which afterwards came to pass, and the very spirits were subject to me.' In June he was robbed of his goods and books, and, on the information of one William Estcourt, was sent to gaol for sixty weeks, apparently on the ground of practising magic. This proved the first of a long series of similar experiences. He was set free 14 July 1580, begged his way to London, and obtained work as a carpenter at Greenwich. On 14 Aug. he first practised his healing arts, which cured one Henry Jonson of London of a pulmonary complaint. In September he accompanied his patient to Holland; stayed for a fortnight at the Hague, and largely increased his knowledge of astrology and medicine. He was home again in October, and went to Quidhampton for a year, 'curing sick and lame folk,' but the justices at the Lent assizes bound him over to abstain from his quackery, and he had often to 'thresh and dig and hedge' for his living. In the autumn of 1581 he hired a house at Salisbury, and renewed his practice of physic and surgery. In August 1582 he went to sea, and landed in Studland. On his return he travelled much, but finally set up in the next year (1583) in London as a doctor and astrologer. There he remained till the end of his life. He lived at different times in New Street, St. Thomas's Churchyard, Philpot Street, and elsewhere. The authorities invariably condemned his methods of gaining a livelihood, and he repeatedly suffered imprisonment, but gradually he acquired a lucrative practice, although for the most part a disreputable one. The Bishop of London summoned him in 1583; he was