Peter Marshall

From 'The Philosopher's Stone'

.....Norton could not prevent himself from telling the cautionary tale of Thomas Daulton. He led a peaceful life in Gloucester Abbey but had in his possession the Red Medicine - 'neer English man had more'. The word spread and he was summoned by the courtier Thomas Herbert to go before King Edward IV. Daulton confessed that he had the elixir which would have been enough to equip and maintain 20,000 Crusaders in the Holy Land but since it had caused him much worry he had thrown it into a muddy lake near the River Severn. The King asked him to make some more, but Daulton insisted that he had been given it by a canon of Lichfield. Although he was freed by the King, Thomas Herbert had him seized in the streets of London and carried off to Gloucester Castle. Herbert put him in jail in order to make him reveal his secrets. After four years, he even threatened him with the scaffold. When Daulton finally accepted his end cheerfully, his jailer repented and set him free, deeply impressed by his refusal to divulge the Hermetic mystery.