John Argentine

John Argentine (died 1507) was an English physician who attended Edward V of England and later Arthur, Prince of Wales, and was Provost of King's College, Cambridge.

Life

He was the son of John d'Argentine, of Great Wymondley in Hertfordshire. The Argentines had been settled in Cambridgeshire since the Norman conquest of England. He was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge.[1]

Argentine was the last known attendant of the Princes in the Tower; he noted that the princes took daily confession and penance, believing that their deaths were near.[note 1] Argentine's evidence was also the basis for French declarations that the Princes in the Tower of London had been murdered and their assassin crowned as King Richard III.

Later he became physician to Prince Arthur. He ended his life as Provost of King's College, Cambridge and is buried there in the Chantry Chapel.

Argentine is a major character in the Channel 4 drama The Princes in the Tower in which he interrogates Perkin Warbeck to test the veracity of his claim to being Richard of Shrewsbury, 1st Duke of York. He is portrayed in the show by John Castle.

References
  1. "Argentine, John (ARGN457J)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  2. Rhodes, D.E. (April 1962). "The Princes in the Tower and Their Doctor". The English Historical Review. Oxford University Press. 77 (303): 304–306. doi:10.1093/ehr/lxxvii.ccciii.304.
  3. Klaassen, Frank (2013). The Transformations of Magic: Illicit Learned Magic in the Later Middle Ages and Renaissance. Penn State University Press. p. 227. ISBN 9780271056265.
  4. Rhodes, D.E. (1956). "Provost Argentine of King's and his Books". Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society. Cambridge Bibliographical Society. 2 (3): 205–209.

Notes
  1. The original Latin wording "Argentinus medicus" has been alternatively translated as "a Strasbourg doctor", Argentoratum being the Latin name for Strasbourg, but more likely refers to Argentine.[2][3] The suggestion that Argentine himself was a Strasbourg doctor is a misidentification,[3] and Anthony Allen connected the Argentine family name to an unrelated location in Normandy.[4]


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