<P> Nicot sent leaves and seeds to Francis I and his mother Catherine of Medici, with instructions to use tobacco as snuff . The king's recurring headaches (perhaps sinus trouble) were reportedly "marvellously cured" by snuff . French cultivation of herbe de la Reine (the queen's herb) began in 1560 . By 1570 botanists referred to tobacco as Nicotiana, although André Thevet claimed that he, not Nicot, had introduced tobacco to France; historians believe that this is unlikely to be true, but Thevet was the first Frenchman to write about it . </P> <P> Swiss doctor Conrad Gesner in 1563 reported that chewing or smoking a tobacco leaf "has a wonderful power of producing a kind of peaceful drunkenness". In 1571, Spanish doctor Nicolas Monardes wrote a book about the history of medicinal plants of the new world . In this he claimed that tobacco could cure 36 health problems, and reported that the plant was first brought to Spain for its flowers, but "Now we use it to a greater extent for the sake of its virtues than for its beauty". </P> <P> John Hawkins was the first to bring tobacco seeds to England . William Harrison's English Chronology mentions tobacco smoking in the country as of 1573, before Sir Walter Raleigh brought the first "Virginia" tobacco to Europe from the Roanoke Colony, referring to it as tobah as early as 1578 . In 1595 Anthony Chute published Tabaco, which repeated earlier arguments about the benefits of the plant and emphasised the health - giving properties of pipe - smoking . </P> <P> The importation of tobacco into England was not without resistance and controversy . Stuart King James I wrote a famous polemic titled A Counterblaste to Tobacco in 1604, in which the king denounced tobacco use as "(a) custome lothsome to the eye, hatefull to the Nose, harmefull to the braine, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse ." That year, an English statute was enacted that placed a heavy protective tariff on tobacco imports . The duty rose from 2p per pound to 6s 10p, an increase of 4,000%, but English demand remained strong despite the high price; Barnabee Rych reported that 7,000 stores in London sold tobacco and calculated that at least 319,375 pound sterling were spent on tobacco annually . Because the Virginia and Bermuda colonies' economies were affected by the high duty, James in 1624 instead created a royal monopoly . No tobacco could be imported except from Virginia, and a royal license that cost 15 pounds per year was required to sell it . To help the colonies Charles II banned tobacco cultivation in England, but allowed herb gardens because doctors said it had medicinal purposes . </P>

Who is usually credited for the popularization of tobacco in england