Before Easter 1570 he was ‘an open prisoner’ of the king's bench, and in April 1570 Parker ‘was minded to have taken bond of Bomelius shortly to have departed the realm,’ but Bomelius temporarily frustrated this purpose by announcing in a letter to Parker that he had knowledge of a terrible danger hanging over England. The archbishop sent the letter to Cecil and urged him to examine Bomelius in the privy council. But Cecil entered into private correspondence with the doctor in the expectation of discovering a conspiracy. All, however, that Bomelius communicated to Cecil was a statement as to the queen's nativity and a portion of a book ‘De Utilitate Astrologiæ,’ in which he tried to prove that great revolutions take place every 500 years, and that as rather more than 500 years had elapsed since the Norman conquest, England must be in imminent peril. Cecil treated Bomelius's announcements with deserved contempt, and Bomelius therefore resolved to quit the country. An ambassador from Russia named Ssavin, who was in London at the time, offered to take him to Russia, and with that offer Bomelius closed. The English government did not hinder his departure, and late in 1570 Bomelius, who had promised to supply Cecil with political information and to send him small presents yearly, was settled in Russia. When Sir Jerome Horsey began his travels in that country (1572), he frequently met Bomelius at Moscow, and he writes that Bomelius was then living in great pomp at the court of Ivan (Vassilovitch) IV, was in high favour with the czar as a magician, and was holding an official position in the household of the czar's son. He is said by Horsey to have amassed great wealth, which he transmitted by way of England to his native town of Wesel, and to have encouraged the czar, by his astrological calculations, to persist in an absurd project of marrying Queen Elizabeth. But he habitually behaved (according to Horsey) as ‘an enymie to our nation,’ and falsely represented that Elizabeth was a young girl. After a few years of prosperity, Bomelius was charged (about 1574) with intriguing with the kings of Poland and Sweden against the czar. He was arrested with others and cruelly racked, but he refused to incriminate himself. He was subsequently subjected to diabolical tortures and died in a loathsome dungeon. Horsey, who gives a full description of his death, characterises him as ‘a skilful mathematician, a wicked man, and practiser of much mischief.’ In 1583 Bomelius's widow returned to England with Sir Jerome Bowes.
No books of Bomelius are now known, but Henry Bennet of Calais, when speaking of his ‘erudicion and godlynes’ in his ‘Life of Œcolampadius,’ adds: ‘Albeit hys learned workes published geve due testimony thereof.’ The prescriptions in Gervase Markham's ‘English Housewife’ (1631) are taken (see p. 5) from a manuscript by Bomelius and Dr. Burket.
[Tanner's Biblioth. Brit.; Horsey's Travels in Russia (ed. E. A. Bond for the Hakluyt Soc.), xxxii, 187; Cal. State Papers, 1547–80; Strype's Life of Parker, ii. 1–5, iii. 176; Parker's Correspondence (Parker Soc.), 363–4; Hist. MSS. Comm. 9th Rep. 227a; Hamel's Russia and England (transl. by J. S. Leigh), pp. 202–6.]
BONAR, ARCHIBALD (1753–1816), divine, fifth son of John Bonar [q. v.], minister first at Cockpen and then at Perth, was born at Cockpen on 23 Feb. 1753, and educated at the high school and university of Edinburgh. He was licensed to preach an 29 Oct. 1777, ordained minister of the parish of Newburn, Fife, on 31 March 1779, and translated to the North-west Church, Glasgow, on 17 July 1783. His health compelled him to resign this charge, and on 19 April 1785 he was settled in the parish of Cramond, where he died on 8 April 1810. He was twice married: (1) on 15 Aug. 1782 to Bridget, eldest daughter of the Rev. Mr. Black, minister of Perth, who died on 4 Jan. 1787: and (2) on 16 Aug. 1792 to Ann, daughter of Andrew Bonar, and had issue two sons and three daughters. He wrote: 1. 'Genuine Religion the best Friend of the People,' 1787; and 2. 'Two Volumes of Sermons,' 1815-17: the second volume was published after his death, to which a memoir by his brother James [q. v.] is prefixed.
[Family papers in possession of Horatius Bonar, W.S., Edinburgh; Memoir pref. to Sermons, vol. ii. 1817; Scott's Fasti Eccl. Scot. pt. i. 135.]
BONAR, JAMES (1767–1821), solicitor of excise, eighth son of John Bonar (1722-1761) [q. v.], minister of Cockpen and afterwards at Perth, was born on 29 Sept. 1757. He was educated at the high school of Edinburgh, and attended the university. He early entered the excise office, but found time to become a distinguished scholar. He was a member of the Speculative Society of Edinburgh university, being admitted 9 Dec. 1777, and elected an extraordinary member on 24 Dec. 1781, and was for several years treasurer of the Royal Society, Edinburgh. He was one of the original promoters of the Astronomical Institution, and one of the founders of the Edinburgh Subscription
