In 1640, on his uncle's recommendation, Witherley was appointed
Master of
Sir John Gresham's Grammar School at
Holt in his native county.[1] In October 1642, it was reported to the
Fishmongers' Company, the school's trustees, that there had been a long outbreak of
smallpox in Holt and that the school had had "noe schollers since Midsomer last yett the schoolmaster hath attended..." However, in May 1643 the Fishmongers heard that Witherley had been "betaking himselfe to the studie and profession of phisick" when he asked for a six-month leave of absence to enable him to take a medical degree in the
Netherlands. This request appears to have been refused, as Witherley did not depart until after he had resigned his position as Master of the school in September 1644.[1]
Witherley took the degree of
doctor of medicine at the
University of Cambridge in 1655[2] and in December 1664 was elected an honorary
fellow of the
College of Physicians. By 1677 he had been appointed physician in ordinary to
King Charles II, and on 7 April of that year he became a fellow of the college. On 21 January 1678/79 he became an elect, was censor of the college (by now renamed the
Royal College of Physicians) in 1683 and president from 1684 to 1687.[3]
In 1688, at the time of the birth of
James Francis Edward Stuart, son and heir of
King James II, when the new prince was widely believed to have been smuggled into the Queen's bedchamber in a bed-pan, Witherley was Second Physician to the King and gave evidence that he had been present at the birth. He deposed that he "saw Mrs Labadie bring the child from the midwife, and carry him into the next room... and saw the child before he was cleaned..."[4] A strong
royalist, he was later accused by the
Whig historian Burnett of being complicit in a plot by King James to turn a changeling into
Prince of Wales so that there could be a
Roman Catholic heir to the throne.[1]
^
abcdS. G. G. Benson, Martin Crossley Evans, I Will Plant Me a Tree: an Illustrated History of Gresham's School (London: James & James, 2002), pp. 132-133