Bruges in 1568. His parents, though much impoverished by the exactions of Alva, sent him to the university of Leyden, where he graduated M.D. Soon after, in 1592, he was nominated by the university physician to the czar of Muscovy, Theodore Ivanovitz, in accordance with a request for a distinguished physician sent to the rector by that emperor. In 1598 he obtained leave, with difficulty, to resign his post in Russia and returned to Holland, where he married, at Amsterdam, Sara Oeils, and in the same year settled in London, where he was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians on 12 Jan. 1610, and practised with success till his death, of a pestilential fever, 10 Nov. 1640. He was buried on the north side of the church of All Hallows Barking, near the Tower of London, 12 Nov. 1640, and his three children erected a monument in the church to his memory. His eldest son, Baldwin [q. v.], became a physician, his second son a merchant in London, and his daughter married Mr. Palmer, whose descendants possessed Hamey's portrait by Cornelius Jansen. He bequeathed 20l. to the College of Physicians.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. i. 153; Hamey's Bustorum Aliquot Reliquiæ, in manuscript at the College of Physicians (copy), pp. 15–36; Palmer's Life of the most eminent Dr. Baldwin Hamey, in manuscript at the College of Physicians.]
HAMEY, BALDWIN, the younger, M.D. (1600–1676), physician, eldest son of Baldwin Hamey [q. v.], M.D., was born in London 24 April 1600, and entered at the university of Leyden as a student of philosophy in May 1617. He visited Oxford for a time in 1621, and studied in the public library there. In August 1625 he went to Hastings, intending to sail thence to Holland. He supped with the mayor, and was to sail next morning; but the mayor, perhaps excited to suspicion by Hamey's learned conversation, dreamed that the stranger ought to be detained, and accordingly set a guard at the inn, which prevented his sailing with sixty other passengers, who were all lost in a storm which arose less than an hour after the ship sailed. When the mayor, who could not explain why he had prevented Hamey's embarkation, found that his life had thus been saved, he caressed him as the darling of heaven. Another vessel conveyed him to Holland, and he graduated M.D. at Leyden 12 Aug. 1626, writing a thesis ‘De Angina.’ He then visited the universities of Paris, Montpelier, and Padua; and after travels in Germany, France, and Italy, was incorporated M.D. at Oxford 4 Feb. 1629. He was admitted a fellow of the College of Physicians of London 10 Jan. 1633, was eight times censor, from 1640 to 1654, was registrar in 1646 and 1650 to 1654, and treasurer 1664–6. In 1647 he delivered the Gulstonian lectures. He married Ann Petin of Rotterdam, and settled in practice in the parish of St. Clement's, Eastcheap. Dr. Pearson's sermons on the Creed were preached in the parish church, and he became one of Hamey's friends. During the great rebellion he at one time thought of leaving London; but an attack of inflammation of the lungs changed his intention. The day he was convalescent a roundhead general consulted him, and, delighted with his promise of cure, handed him a bag of gold. Hamey thought the fee too great, and handed it back; whereupon the puritan took a handful of gold pieces from the bag, put them into the physician's pocket, and went away. Hamey's wife was waiting dinner, and he handed his fee of thirty-six broad pieces to her. She was pleased, and told him how, during his illness, she had paid away that very sum to a state exaction rather than trouble him with discussion. Hamey thought this incident an omen against migration, remained in London, and soon had many patients among the parliament men. He complied with the times so far as to go and hear the sermons of the sectaries, but used to take with him either an octavo Aldine Virgil in vellum, or a duodecimo Aristophanes in red leather with clasps. The unlearned crowd took them for Bible and Greek Testament, and lost in their study he was saved the annoyance of the sermon. He must have earned many fees, for he bought a diamond ring of Charles I bearing the royal arms for 500l., and several times sent gifts to Charles II. The ring he gave to Charles II at the Restoration. The king would have knighted him, but he declined the honour. He retired from practice in 1665, and went to live at Chelsea, where he died, 14 May 1676. He was buried in the chancel of the parish church, wrapped in linen, without coffin, and ten feet deep, and with no monument but a black marble slab bearing his name, the date of his death, and the sentence: ‘When the breath goeth out of a man he returneth unto his earth.’ The longer gilt inscription, with his arms, which is still visible, was put up some years after, and has recently been restored by the College of Physicians. He had no children, and as he had a good inheritance as well as a lucrative practice he was always well off, and used his wealth with generosity throughout life. When only thirty-three he paid the expenses of the education at school and at Oxford of a deserving scholar, John Sigismund Clewer (Palmer, Life, p. 20). He gave 100l. towards
