Note 101 — MANNINGHAM'S DIARY. (continued 2)
Reading edition
Antony Wood tells several strange tales about Nicholas Hill, who was one of the astrologers and alchemists whom the Earl of Northumberland gathered round him during his long imprisonment in the Tower. Ben Jonson laughed at
"those atomi ridiculous Whereof old Democrite and Hill Nicholas, One said, the other swore, the world consists;"
and the world at large seems to have entertained a very mean opinion of the modern upholder of those doctrines. His end, according to a hearsay commemorated by Wood, was very unhappy, and was connected with the other person mentioned in our text. It is said that he fell into a conspiracy with "one Hill of Umberley in Devonshire, descended from Arthur Plantagenet, Viscount Lisle, a natural son of King Edward IV., who pretended some right to the crown." Being forced to fly into Holland, Hill practised physic at Rotterdam, in conjunction with his son Laurence, on whose death he went into an apothecary's shop, swallowed poison, and died on the spot. (Ath. Oxon. ii. 86.)