Dominique Bourgoing

[4] Mary wanted a new physician in her household in September 1578, as the post was held by an old man, Marguerin, known as the Sieur du Castil.

[5][6] The French diplomat Nicolas d'Angennes, sieur de Rambouillet, in London to discuss the Anjou Courtship, passed her request to Queen Elizabeth.

[7] Mary asked the resident French ambassador Michel de Castelnau (Mauvissière) to obtain a passport for the doctor's nephew to come to Sheffield and escort the veteran home.

[9] However, Mary was not allowed to have her choice of physician for several months, as Elizabeth and her ministers were suspicious of her servants as potential message carriers.

[15] Once in post, Bourgoing sent updates on Mary's health to Michel de Castelnau, the French ambassador in London.

[21] In March 1580, Mary wrote about her son's indigestion, saying she had discussed the illness with Bourgoing, and when she was a child about the same age, Lusgerie had treated her for the same.

[23] Mary was arrested on 11 August 1586 while out riding and hunting with a crossbow near Chartley Castle with her secretaries Gilbert Curle and Claude Nau, Bastian Pagez, Bourgoing and others.

Precious objects for medicinal purposes were usually kept in Mary's cabinet room, including the bezoar stone, an oval charm against melancholy, and sachets or boxes of powdered coral, pearl, mummia, and terre sigillée (a medicinal clay used as an antidote to poison).

[28][29] The clay and a piece of supposed unicorn horn, an antidote against poison, were sent from France by Mary's ally, the Archbishop of Glasgow.