William of Burntoft was a physician living in Newcastle Upon Tyne. In 1312 he was summoned to Newcastle Castle by the command of none other than King Edward II himself! He was to attend the King’s favourite, the handsome Gascon knight Sir Piers Gaveston, who suffered from what sources call a “secret illness”. He was paid over £6 in a few days, an extravagant sum in a day and age when the average wage was only 2 pence per day! Who was William Burntoft, and what did being a medieval physician entail?