George Bate (1608–1668) was an English author and court physician to Charles I, Charles II and the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell, whose death he was suspected of hastening by administering a lethal medication. Bate is best known today for his published defence of Charles I in his The Regall Apology, or, The Declaration of the Commons, first published in 1648 under his pseudonym of Theodorus Veridicus.[1]
Bate was born in Maids Moreton, Buckinghamshire, the son of John Bate of Burton. He matriculated at New College, Oxford in 1624, before transferring to Queen’s College and then to St Edmund’s. He graduated BA in 1626 and MA and BA in 1629, the latter giving him licence to practise in and around Oxford, and Doctor of Medicine (DM) in 1637.[1]
In 1642, during the English Civil War, Charles I moved his court to Oxford,[2] and appointed Bate as his chief physician.[1] But as the tide of war turned against the Royalists, Bate retired to London, declaring his loyalty to Cromwell.[3]
Physician to Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland in 1650, and fell dangerously ill during the campaign. Parliament ordered Dr Lawrence Wright, Cromwell’s Physician-in-Ordinary, and Dr Bate to attend to him in Edinburgh, but by the time of their arrival his condition had greatly improved. Cromwell was profuse in his thanks to parliament for sending the two doctors, and in 1653, when he was installed as Protector of the Commonwealth, Bate was appointed his chief physician.[3]
Bate served as physician to Cromwell and his family for five years, until Cromwell’s death from what was diagnosed as a “bastard tertian ague” on 3 September 1658. More modern diagnoses favour septicaemia, probably caused by an impacted kidney stone.[3]
Restoration of the monarchy
Soon after the restoration of the monarchy, following Cromwell’s death, Bate succeeded in persuading King Charles II that he had always been a closet Royalist. To prove it, he implied that he had hastened Cromwell’s death during his fatal illness by administering a lethal dose of medicine, which was sufficient to secure him the position of physician to Charles II.[3]
Later life and death
Bate lectured on anatomy in London at the College of Physicians in 1666, and was an original fellow of the Royal Society. He died on 19 April 1668 at his home in Hatton Garden, London, and was buried at the church of All Saints at Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, alongside his wife Elizabeth, who had died the year before.[1]
A posthumous collection of Bate’s prescriptions, Pharmacopoeia Bateana, was published in 1688, detailing his various remedies including medicinal waters, spirits, oils, salts, electuaries, and infusions.[1]