High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Simon Forman (31 December 1552 – 5 or 12 September 1611) was arguably the most popular Elizabethan astrologer, occultist and herbalist active in London during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth I and James I of England. His reputation, however, was severely tarnished after his death when he was implicated in the plot to kill Sir Thomas Overbury. Writers from Ben Jonson to Nathaniel Hawthorne came to characterize him as either as a fool or an evil magician in league with the devil.