John Craig (died 1620) was a Scottish physician and astronomer. He was physician to King James. He corresponded with Tycho Brahe, and associated with John Napier.
Physician He was born in Scotland, the son of an Edinburgh tailor and merchant Robert Craig and Katherine Bellenden. The lawyer and poet Thomas Craig was his older brother. He graduated M.D. at the University of Basel. His 1580 thesis concerned the nature of the liver and was published as Diexodus Medica De Hepatis Dispositionibus.Alex Keller, "The Physical Nature of Man", John MacQueen, Humanism in Renaissance Scotland (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 110.
Craig came back in Scotland, after a decade and a half on the continent of Europe, and was a physician to the king.Brian Rice, Enrique González-Velasco, Alexander Corrigan, The Life and Works of John Napier (Springer, 2017), p. 32. He attended Agnes Keith, Countess of Moray in her final illness in Edinburgh in 1588, with the surgeon Gilbert Primose and the apothecary Thomas Diksoun.Alexander Macdonald, Letters to the Argyll Family (Edinburgh, 1839), pp. 85-6.
He accompanied King James to London on James's accession to the throne of England. On 20 June 1603, James made him first physician with an annual salary of £100. His long-serving German doctor Martin Schöner was also appointed first physician with the same salary on 6 July.Thomas Rymer, Foedera, vol. 16 (London, 1715), pp. 514–5, 537–8.
In 1604, he was admitted a member of the College of Physicians of London.
He was incorporated M.D. at the University of Oxford on 30 August 1605; was named an elect of the College of Physicians on 11 December the same year; was consiliarius in 1609 and 1617; and died before 10 April 1620, when John Argent was chosen an elect in his place.
John Craig, younger
John Craig had a brother Thomas Craig. His son, the younger John Craig (died 1655), was also a physician.John Henry, "Profile: The Importance of Marginalia", Emily Wingfield, Joseph Marshall, Alastair J. Mann, Daryl Green, Edinburgh History of the Book in Scotland, 1 (Edinburgh, 2026), p. 348. Thomas Overbury requested the services of "young Craig" (John Craig (died 1655)) as a physician when he was a prisoner in the Tower of London in April 1613. Jackie Watson, Epistolary Courtiership and Dramatic Letters: Thomas Overbury and the Jacobean Playhouse (Edinburgh University Press, 2024), pp. 115, 134–135. He attended the sick bed of King James in 1625. He criticised treatments suggested by Mary Villiers, Countess of Buckingham. For his speeches to the Countess, Craig was ordered to leave court.John Nichols, Progresses of James the First, vol. 4 (London, 1828), pp. 1033–1034.
Astronomy and mathematics Craig was an academic in Germany for an extended period. He was in Königsberg in 1569, and in 1570 as a medical student under Caspar Peucer. He was in Frankfurt-on-Oder in 1573, teaching mathematics and logic. Paul Wittich taught him astronomy at the University of Frankfurt (Oder) in 1576.Owen Gingerich, The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus, Penguin, , p. 106 John Craig owned a copy of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium (1566 edition). He made notes from the lectures of Paul Wittich in this book. It was later owned by James Douglas of Whittinghame and is now held by the University of Edinburgh. Aberdeen University has a similar volume with Duncan Liddel's notes from Wittich lectures.Alex Keller, "The Physical Nature of Man", John MacQueen, Humanism in Renaissance Scotland (Edinburgh, 1990), pp. 109–110.Edinburgh University Dd.3.44
After his return to Scotland, Craig wrote a manuscript "Capnuraniae seu Comet, in Aethera Sublimatio" addressed to Tycho Brahe. Some of their correspondence was printed by Rudolf August Nolten.Commercium litterarium clarorum virorum, 2 vols. (Brunswick, 1737-8). Craig's work was prompted by the Great Comet of 1577.Adam Mosley, Bearing the Heavens: Tycho Brahe and the astronomical community of the late sixteenth century (2007), p. 159. The contact with Brahe was set up by William Stewart of Houston, a diplomat who frequently visited Denmark.Andrew Pyle (editor), Dictionary of Seventeenth Century British Philosophers (2000), article on Craig, pp. 218–9. Brahe sent Craig a copy of his 1588 De Mundi Aetheri Recentioribus Phaenomenis, probably with William Stewart. Brahe dated the gift at Uraniborg 2 November 1588 and the book is also now in Edinburgh University's library.M. Russell, History of the Church of Scotland by John Spottiswoode, 3 (Edinburgh, 1851), p. 125: Mark Napier, De Arte Logistica (Edinburgh: Bannatyne Club, 1839), p. xxvii–xxix.Edinburgh University: Dd.5.50 However, Craig disagreed with Brahe's observations and conclusions.Alex Keller, "The Physical Nature of Man", John MacQueen, Humanism in Renaissance Scotland (Edinburgh, 1990), p. 111.
According to Richard A. Jarrell:
Craig may have been the person who gave John Napier of Merchiston the hint which led to his discovery of logarithms. Anthony à Wood wrote that Napier himself informed Tycho Brahe, via Craig, of his discovery, some twenty years before it was made public.
References Citations
Sources
Attribution