Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 47.djvu/119

 edition appeared in 1722 and a twelfth in 1749, contains a complete account of the materia medica and of therapeutics, and many of the prescriptions contained in it were long popular. He studied mathematics and the philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, and received the degree of M.D. from the university of Edinburgh for his ‘Medicina Statica Britannica’ (1712), a translation of the ‘Aphorisms’ of Sanctorius, of which a second edition appeared in 1720. In 1719 he published a scurrilous ‘Examination’ of Woodward's ‘State of Physick and Diseases.’ A reply, entitled ‘An Account of Dr. Quincy's Examination, by N. N. of the Middle Temple,’ speaks of him as a bankrupt apothecary, a charge to which he makes no reply in the second edition of his ‘Examination’ published, with a further ‘letter to Dr. Woodward,’ in 1720. In the same year he published an edition of the Loimologia of Nathaniel Hodges [q. v.], and a collection of ‘Medico-physical Essays’ on ague, fevers, gout, leprosy, king's evil, and other diseases, which shows that he knew little of clinical medicine, and was only skilful in the arrangement of drugs in prescriptions. He considered dried millipedes good for tuberculous lymphatic glands, but esteemed the royal touch a method ‘that can take place only on a deluded imagination,’ and ‘justly banished with the superstition and bigotry that introduced it.’ Joseph Collet, governor of Fort St. George, was one of his patrons, and Quincy printed in 1713 a laudatory poem on their common friend, the Rev. Joseph Stennett [q. v.] He died in 1722, and in 1723 his ‘Prælectiones Pharmaceuticæ,’ lectures which had been delivered at his own house, were published with a preface by Dr. Peter Shaw.

[Works; Dr. Peter Shaw's Preface.] 

QUINCY, QUENCY, or QUENCI, SAER, SAHER, or SEER, first (d. 1219), is believed to have been the son of Robert FitzRichard, by Orabilis, daughter of Ness, lord of Leuchars. The latter is described as Countess of Mar, though there seems to be some difficulty in establishing her right to the title (Registrum Prioratus S. Andreæ, pp. 254–5, 287, 290; Genealogist, new ser. iv. 179; but cf., Baronage, i. 686, Monasticon, vi. 148;  ap. Addit. MS. 31939, f. 103). An elder Saer de Quincy, a staunch adherent of Henry II, who was lord of Buckby in Northamptonshire, seems to have been Quincy's uncle.

Quincy was one of the knights who in 1173 attended the young king Henry, on his withdrawing from his father, Henry II, to the court of Louis VII of France, and took part in his rebellion, the elder Saer remaining faithful to the old king, and being a witness to the formal treaty between him and his sons at Falaise on 11 Oct. 1173 (Fœdera, i. 30). Saer the younger was at this time called ‘juvenis’ (Gesta Henrici II, i. 46). In 1180–4 he appears to have been castellan of Nonancourt on the Aure (, Norman Exchequer Rolls, i. Introd. pp. cxiv, cxxxv). He was with King Richard at Roche d'Orval in August 1198 (Ancient Charters, p. 112), and was present when William of Scotland did homage to John at Lincoln in November 1200 ( iv. 142). In 1202 he witnessed a charter of John to the abbey of Bec. At this time he seems to have been comparatively poor, and received a quittance for 260l. owed to the king, and for money owed to the Jews, and in 1203 a quittance for three hundred marks owed to the Jews of Norwich (Rotuli Normanniæ, i. 61; Rotuli de Liberate, p. 38). Being in that year joint castellan with Robert Fitzwalter of the strong castle of Vaudreuil when the army of Philip of France came against it, he surrendered the place before an assault was made, on the ground of John's inaction; he was imprisoned by the French king at Compiègne until he and Robert were redeemed by a payment of 5,000l. [see under ].

Some time between 1168 and 1173 Saer seems to have married Margaret, daughter of Robert III, earl of Leicester [see under, (d. 1190)]. In 1204 his fortunes were suddenly changed by the death without issue of his wife's brother, Robert IV, earl of Leicester, called FitzParnel; Leicester's joint heiresses were his two sisters, the elder, Amicia, wife of Simon de Montfort III [see under ], and the younger, Margaret, Saer's wife. An equal division of the earl's lands was accordingly made between Saer and his wife's nephew, Simon de Montfort IV, whose father was then dead. This arrangement was sanctioned by the king and his barons in 1207, and Saer was created earl of Winchester, or of the county of Southampton (, ii. 197;, Official Baronage, iii. 693; Close Rolls, i. 24, 29). From 1205 he seems to have held the office of the king's steward, or steward of England, in virtue of having the custody of the earldom of Leicester; but by the award of 1207 this office passed to the new earl of Leicester, Simon de Montfort (Hist. MSS. Comm. 8th Rep. p. 421 b;, Baronage, i. 687). In 1209 Saer was engaged in a quarrel with the priory of St. Andrews, Scotland, about the right of patronage of the church of Leuchars; he gained his case before the king's