John Wolfgang Rumler

John Wolfgang Rumler (died circa 1650) was a German apothecary who served the English royal family.

Rumler was a son of an Augsburg schoolmaster Macharius Rumler and Anna Gasser, a daughter of the physician and astrologer Achilles Gasser.[1] The physician and writer Johann Udalric Rumler was his brother.[2]

Rumler's middle name was sometimes written as "Wolf" and he was sometimes known as "Master Wolf".

He became a founder member of the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries.

He received a royal patent on 24 July 1604 as apothecary to Prince of Wales.[3] He was appointed on 26 November 1604 to provide sweet powders, waters, perfumes and other products to Anne of Denmark. He became apothecary to the king and queen with an annual fee of £40 for each post.[4][5] Rumler's 1606 bill for perfumes and rosewater supplied to Prince Henry over the past three years was certified by the queen's physician Martin Schöner.[6]

Rumler married Anna de l'Obel from Middelburg, a daughter of the Flemish physician and botanist Matthias de l'Obel, in London on 25 June 1609 in the Huguenot French church.[7]

Rumler and his wife were naturalized as English denizens in July 1610 at the same time as other members of the queen's household; Dorothea Silking and her sister "Engella Seelken" from Gustrow, Katherine Benneken from Garlstorf, and Martin Schöner.[8] Anna Rumler (1576-1661), who married the queen's page Pierre Hugon may have been his sister. She attended the funeral of Anne of Denmark, listed as "Mrs Ann Rubellow" with the ladies of the Privy Chamber.[9]

After the death of Thomas Overbury in 1613, Rumler was questioned and testified that his brother-in-law Paul de l'Obel (1570-1621) had been appointed to make physic for Théodore de Mayerne because he lived on Lime Street near the Tower of London, at Mayerne's suggestion, and he had not recommended Paul L'Obel to the king for Overbury's physic.[10]

In 1617 Rumler visited Scotland with the king, and went as far as Aberdeen where he and other courtiers including Edward Zouch, George Goring and Archibald Armstrong were made burgesses of the town.[11]

In 1621 he petitioned for relief on a bond on £300 contracted with the jeweler John Spilman and Elizabeth Weston, the wife of William Ripplingham.[12]

In her final illness, Anne of Denmark sent a print of her portrait by Crispijn van de Passe to his brother the Augsburg physician Johann Udalricus Rumler, with a letter in Italian soliciting medical advice, and a miniature medical cabinet called a "pharmothecium".[13] John Wolf Rumler took part in Anne of Denmark's funeral procession in 1619.[14] Anna Rumler, or the queen's "Danish Anna", and Piero Hugon were sent to the Tower of London for stealing the late queen's jewels.[15]

On 20 August 1624 Rumler and Dr James Chambers or Chalmers, a Scottish court physician, went to an inn called the Red Lion on the green by Kenilworth Castle. They were angry to find no food and drink and left saying they might as well burn the inn's sign. A bystander called Gilbert Tonckes joined in and criticised hospitality in Scotland, where it was thought there were few inns offering hospitality on the English model. Chambers and Rumler, as servants of the Scottish King James took exception to this. The argument was renewed in the evening. Tonckes' speech against the Scots was considered seditious and he was examined by a magistrate and begged for the king's mercy for himself and his wife.[16] Rumler and Chambers had come to Kenilworth in the retinue of Prince Charles during his progress when Ben Jonson's, Masque of Owls was performed.[17]

Rumler supplied perfumes and waters to Charles I, Henrietta Maria and their children.[18]

The Gypsies Metamorphosed

In the text of the "Windsor Epilogue" of Ben Jonson's 1621 masque, The Gypsies Metamorphosed, Rumler is said to have provided make-up to darken the actors' faces.[19] He is described as "Master Wolf", the court "lycanthropos" or werewolf, and as a "mere barber".[20]

The masque was produced by George Villiers, Marquess of Buckingham in celebration of his marriage to Lady Katherine Manners, first staged at Burley-on-the-Hill, and again at Belvoir Castle and Windsor Castle. The Gypsies of the masque are inhabitants of the Scottish borders.[21] Rumler's innovative "ointment" was washed from the faces of the courtly masquers to reveal their true and stable noble identities.[22] This theatrical makeup may also be considered as a contribution to the development of blackface.[23]

References
  1. William John Charles Moens, The registers of the French Church, Threadneedle Street, London (Lymington, 1896), p. 10, as Jan Wolf
  2. J. O. Leibowitz, 'Johann Udalric Rumler and a letter of Vesalius', Medical History, 8:4 (October, 1964), pp. 377-8
  3. Thomas Rymer, Foedera, vol. 16 (London, 1715), pp. 582-3.
  4. HMC 2nd Report: Bromley-Davenport (London, 1874), p. 79: Elizabeth Lane Furdell, The Royal Doctors, 1485-1714: Medical Personnel at the Tudor and Stuart Courts (New York, 2001), pp. 115-6.
  5. Michael Sparke, Narrative History of King James, for the First Fourteen Years (London, 1651), p. 50.
  6. Account by Rumler, 1603-1606 sold by Bonhams, 29 Mar 2011
  7. William John Charles Moens, The registers of the French Church, Threadneedle Street, London (Lymington, 1896), p. 10.
  8. William Arthur Shaw, Letters of denization and acts of naturalization for aliens in England and Ireland (Lymington, 1911), pp. 15-6, 25
  9. John Nichols, Progresses of James First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), p. 541.
  10. Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of State Papers Domestic James I: 1611-1618, vol. 2 (London, 1858), p. 313, TNA SP14/82 f.42.
  11. John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, vol. 3 (London, 1828), p. 330.
  12. HMC 4th Report: De La Warr (London, 1874), p. 316.
  13. J. O. Leibowitz, 'Johann Udalric Rumler and a letter of Vesalius', Medical History, 8:4 (October, 1964), pp. 377-8 citing Georgius Hieronymus Velschius, Sylloge curationum et observationum medicinalium (Augsburg, 1668), p. 3, the image was Anne of Denmark by Crispijn de Passe the Elder
  14. Jemma Field, Anna of Denmark: The Material and Visual Culture of the Stuart Courts, 1589-1619 (Manchester, 2020), p. 215.
  15. Norman Egbert McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 240.
  16. Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of State Papers Domestic, James I, 1623-1625, vol. 4 (London, 1859), p. 349, TNA SP14/173 ff.21-2.
  17. John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities of King James the First, vol. 4 (London, 1828), pp. 996-1000.
  18. William Douglas Hamilton, Calendar State Papers Domestic, Charles I: 1639-1640 (London, 1877), p. 269: Journals of the House of Lords, vol. 5, p. 503.
  19. Andrea Ria Stevens, Inventions of the Skin: The Painted Body in Early English Drama (Edinburgh, 2013), pp. 103-4.
  20. Sujata Iyengar, Shades of Difference: Mythologies of Skin Color in Early Modern England (Philadelphia, 2005), p. 190.
  21. Mark Netzloff, '"Counterfeit Egyptians" and Imagined Borders: Jonson's "The Gypsies Metamorphosed"', ELH, 68:4 (Winter 2001), pp. 763-793.
  22. Andrea Stevens, 'Mastering Masques of Blackness: Jonson's "Masque of Blackness", The Windsor text of "The Gypsies Metamorphosed", and Brome's "The English Moor"', English Literary Renaissance, 39:2 (Spring 2009), pp. 396-426 , 414-420.
  23. Andrea Stevens,'Assisted by a barber: the court apothecary, special effects, and The Gypsies Metamorphosed', Theatre Notebook, 61:1 (2007).
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