'^ CORNELL P3/ UNIVERSITY f-3\ LIBRARY Cornell University Library BF1598.D31 F31 John Dee (1527-1608) by Charlotte Fell S olin 3 1924 028 928 327 DATE DUE PRINTED IN U.B-A 1 ?l Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028928327 s JOHN DEE ^1 w ^;m^ 11 W h" 1 ^\A\ ^^mzy^-e^ JOHN DEE (1527 1608) BY CHARLOTTE FELL §MITH AUTHOR or " MABT BICH, COUNTESS OF WARWICK " With Portrait and Illustrations G LONDON nlli'lu ', \ CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD 1909 V. 7. ^^' \ S'-^ l^M- i _ v_, J\xii-*?^^V v;. /V >, ^ For the suggestion to write this book, and for valuable and kind assistance in reading the final proofs, I am greatly indebted to Professor Silvanus P. Thompson, D.Sc, F.R.S., etc, C. R S. London, July, 1909. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE BIRTH AND EDUCATION ........ 1 Tercentenary of Dee's death — No life of him — Persistent misunderstanding — Birth — Parentage — At Chehnsford Grammar School — St. John's College, Cambridge — Fellow of Trinity — Theatrical enterprise — In the Low Countries — M.A. of Cambridge — Louvain University — Paris — Readings in Euclid — Correspondents abroad — Return to England. CHAPTER II IMPRISONMENT AND AUTHORSHIP . . . . . .13 Books dedicated to Edward VI. — Upton Rectory— Long Leadenham — Books dedicated to Duchess of Northumberland — Ferrys informs against his "magic" — In prison — Handed over to Bonner — At Philpot's trial — Efforts to found a State Library — Astrology — Horoscopes — Choice of a day for Queen Elizabeth's coronation — Introduced to her by Dudley — Sympathetic magic — Bachelor of Divinity — In Antwerp — Monas Hiero^lyphica — Preface to Billingsley's Euclid — Called a conjurer. CHAPTER III MORTLAKE . . . . . . . . . .29 Proposedbenefices — PropaedevmataAphoristica — ^Alchemical secrets — Settled at Mortlake — Journey to Lorraine — Illness — The Queen's attentions — Mines and hidden treasure — Wigmore Castle — Marriage — Death of first wife — Literary correspondence — John Stow — Diary commenced — The viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Hexamerotfi Brytannicum — The British Complement — Slander and falsehood — A petty navy — The sea-power of Albion — Fisheries and foreign policy. CHAPTER IV JANE DEE .......... A comet or blazing star — Second marriage — Jane Fromond —Hurried journey abroad — Berlin and Frankfort — Birth of a son — Christening — Edward Dyer — Due d'Alengon — Michael Lock — His sons — The Queen's visit — Sir Humphrey Gilbert at Mortlake — Adrian Gilbert — John Davis — The Queen's Title Royall — Lord Treasurer Burleigh — Death of Dee's mother — The Queen's visit of condolence — Map of America — Visits to the Muscovy House— Frobisher and Hawkins — Birth of a daughter — Accident to Arthur. CHAPTER V THE SEARCH FOR A MEDIUM ....... Assistants — -Roger Cook — Magic and alchemy — Psychic powers — Crystal gazing — Dreams and mysteries — Vincent Murphy and a lawsuit — Jean Bodin visits England — Quarrel between Leicester and Sussex— Mary Herbert — Sir George Peckham — The stage at Paris Garden — Mr. Secretary Walsingham — -The Queen at Greenwich — Barnabas Saul as medium — Edward Talbot — Sight in the stone — The table of practice — The waxen seals. CHAPTER VI EDWARD KELLEY ......... Edward Kelley — An alias — His previous history — His mysterious powder — Marriage to Joan Cooper — Jane Dee's dislike of Kelley — The diary of the actions — How Ashmole obtained the MSS. — Book of Mysteries — ^The four angels — Dee's thirst for hidden knowledge — A crystal is brought — Medecina. TABLE OF CONTENTS ix CHAPTER VII PAGB THE CRYSTAL GAZERS 88 Kelley, the skryer — A third person — Adrian Gilbert — Kelley and an "illuder" — Dee employed to reform the Calendar — The Queen and Raleigh — Hidden treasure — Burleigh's library — Dee's precious books — Kelley rebellious — Threatens to depart — Pacified by Adrian Gilbert — His wife's letters — He goes to London — Becomes clairvoyant — Sees Mary Queen of Scots executed. CHAPTER VIII MADIMI ....... 97 Straits for lack of money — Count Albert Laski — Aspirations toward the Polish Crown — King Stephan Bd-thory — Dee introduced to him by Leicester — Laski at Oxford — At Mort- lake — Madimi — Galvah or Finis — Laski*s guardian angel — Madimi a linguist — Kelley threatens to leave — His salary of £50 — ^Thomas Kelley — Dee's suspicions — Kelley's tempers — His love of money. CHAPTER IX A FOREIGN JOURNEY . . . , . . . .115 Gifts from the Queen — Departure from Mortlake — Laski and the whole party sail from Gravesend — Queenborough — The Brill — Haarlem — Amsterdam — Harlingen — Dokkum — Instructions from Gabriel — Embden — Oldenberg — Bremen — IFs levity — Visions of England — Hamburg — Liibeck. CHAPTER X PROMISES AND VISIONS . . . . . . . .124: Promises of wealth — Dee's doubts — His books and library destroyed by the mob — Rostock — Stettin — Posen Cathedral — Severe winter weather — The table set up — Nalvage — Sir Harry Sidney — Madimi — The Queen's affection — At Lask — Cracow. TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XI CRACOW Cracow — The new Style — Dee's work on the Reformation of the Calendar — Kelley's discontent — Geographical lessons — Laski and King Stephan — Kesmark — Gabriers pleading — Kelley repentant — A vision of four castles — Ave — Dee's patience, CHAPTER XII FROM CRACOW TO PRAGUE ....... Rowland's illness — Dee sets out for Prague — Thomas Kelley ■ — Dr. Hageck's house — Rudolph II. — Simon's study — Inter- view with the Emperor — Kelley's outbursts — Dr. Jacob Curtius — Dee's natural history — The Spanish Ambassador — Jane Dee ill — A passport granted — Back to Prague — Kelley's doubts. CHAPTER XIII A DREAM OF GOLD ......... To Limburg — Michael baptised in Prague Cathedral — Easter — Poverty and distress — Kelley again restive — " Parabola de Nobis Duobus " — Return to Cracow — Mr. Tebaldo — Interviews with King Stephan— His death — Dr. Annibaldus — Back at Prague — Francisco Pucci — ^The Booh of Enoch — Claves Angelicoe — Banished by Papal edict — William Count Rosenberg — Dee at Leipsic — Letter to Walsingham — A new Nuncio — Invitation to Trebona. CHAPTER XIV THE CASTLE OF TREBONA Trebona Castle — Rosenberg Viceroy of Bohemia — Invita- tion to Russia — Projection with Kelley's powder — A gift to Jane Dee — Letter from Kelley — Jane to her husband — Joan Kelley — Dee's friends desert him for Kelley — Arthur to be TABLE OF CONTENTS xi PAGE the skryer — Kelley's pretended vision — A hard and impure doctrine — Dee's scruples overridden — A solemn pact — Kelley disowns blame — End of his clairvoyance — The spirits' diary closed. CHAPTER XV THE END OF THE PARTNERSHIP . . . . . ,190 Letters to Walsingham — A tutor for the children — Cold- ness and jealousy — Furnaces constructed — Rumours and reports — Book of Dunstan — Kelley's haughtiness — Accident to Michael — The great secret — Kelley steals the best work- man — Break-up of the Trebona family — Dee's letter to the Queen on the Armada — Gifts to Kelley — His departure — Coaches and horses provided — Dee quits Bohemia — Arrival in Bremen. CHAPTER XVI THE END OF KELLEY 201 Kelley in favour with Rudolph — Given a title — Corresponds with Dee — Fabulous stories of gold — Burleigh begs his return to England — A token to be sent — A prescription for his gout — Letter to Kelley — Kelley's fall from favour — Flight from arrest — Capture at Sobislaus — Imprisonment — ^Writings on alchemy — Letters to Dee — Attempted escape — Death. CHAPTER XVII RETURN TO ENGLAND ........ 214 Dee's life in Bremen — Letter of safe conduct from the Queen — Writes to Walsingham — Timon Coccius— Heinrich Khunrath — Departure for England — Dr. Pezel — Events in England since Dee left — Arrival at Court — Offers of friends — ^Madinia born — School for the children — Death of Walsing- ham — Richard Cavendish — Ann Frank — The Queen at Rich- mond — Christmas gifts. xii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XVIII A ROYAL COMMISSION ....-••• Loss of income — Hopes of a benefice — ^The Court at Nonsuch— Mary Herbert— Arthur sent to Westminster School— His disposition — Birth of Frances — Dr. WilHam Aubrey — Deferred hopes — The commissioners' visit — Gom- vendious Eehearsall — Dee^s half-himdred years — ^The blinded lady Fortune. CHAPTER XIX dee's library ......... The library at Mortlake — Books and instruments — Richard Chancellor's quadrant — A radius Astronomicus — Mercator's globes — A watch-clock by Dibbley — Boxes of MSS. — Seals and coats of arms — Records for the Tower — Autograph works — Recorders Ground of Artes — Catalogue of the books — Classic authors — English authors. CHAPTER XX ADIEU TO COURTS AND COURTING ..... The Queen's gift — Anne Countess of Warwick — Christmas at Tooting — Francis Nicholls — ^Visitors to Mortlake — The Lord Keeper — Elizabeth Kyrton — Messengers from Laski — • Mr. Webbe — Bartholomew Hickman — The Queen at Greenwich — Advantages of St. Cross — Archbishop Whitgift — ^The whole family to see the Queen — "Adieu to Courts and Courting '* — Michael's death — Chancellor of St. Paul's — Jane's supplication — A post at last — Manchester College — Birth of Margaret — Lord Derby — A move northward. CHAPTER XXI MANCHESTER .....-,.,. Collegiate Church of Manchester — The Byrons of Clayton — Cotton's servant — Titles of the college lands — Mr. Harry TABLE OF CONTENTS xiii PAGE Savile — Survey of the town — Christopher Saxton — A surprise visit — Governess for the girls — Witchcraft in Lancashire — Dee's library in request — Disputes among the Fellows — Perambulation of the bounds — Richard Hooker — Marking boundaries — Earl and Countess of Derby — College affairs — The Queen's sea sovereignty — Letter to Sir Edward Dyer — Humphrey Davenport — Sir Julius Caesar — Welcome gifts — Journey to London. CHAPTER XXn COLLEGE AFFAIRS ......... 280 Absence from Manchester — A special commission — Return to the north — Grammar School inspection — Dreams and sleepless nights — Trouble with the Fellows — Unsatisfactory curates — Borrowing money on plate — Crystal gazing again — Untrue visions — Return of Roger Cook — College property in Cheshire — Arthur the chapter clerk — End of the Diary. CHAPTER XXIII LAST DAYS 290 Death of Theodore — Arthur's marriage — His horoscope — Death of the Queen — James I. and his Demonologie — Act against witchcraft — Dee petitions Parliament and the King at Greenwich — Passionate protest — Offers to be burned — Pleads for an Act against slander — Neglected and alone — Death of Jane — The children ill — Dee in London — Katherine his mainstay — Cruel delusions — A journey to go — Failing memory — John Pontoys — The vision fades — Death — A grave at Mortlake — Garrulous reminiscences, APPENDICES I AND II I. dee's descendants ........ 307 11. BIBLIOGRAPHY 317 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. Portrait of John Dee. From the original (artist unknown) in the Ashmo- lean Museum, Oxford. It is inscribed on the face "Johannes Dee Anglus Londinensis Aet" suae 67." The portrait was acquired by Ashmole from Dr. John Dee's grandson Rowland, and was left by him to Oxford University with his collections. It has been engraved by Scheneker and W. P. Sherlock . Frontispiece 2. Title-page of Dee's " General and Rare Memorials pertaining to the Perfect Art of Navigation," printed by John Day, 1577. The motto "Plura latent quam patent" surrounds the title; above, the Queen's arms, a rose branch through a loop at each end. Allegorical drawing in a square; the date 1576 in Greek in the corners. The Queen seated at the helm of a "capital," *.e., first-class, ship; arms of England on the rudder; three noblemen standing in the waist. On the vessel's side Jupiter and Europa. Signs of famine on shore : a wheat ear upside down and a skull. A Dutch ship is anchored in the river ; four more lie at its mouth ; soldiers, a small boat, a man offering a purse, and in the comer a walled town. On the rock at the river's mouth stands Lady Opportunity ; the angel Raphael overhead with flaming sword, and shield bearing St. George's Cross. The sun, moon, and ten stars ; rays of glory proceeding from the name of Jehovah. (See Ames, Typographical Antiquities, ed. Herbert, voL i., p. 66l) .... To face 39 xvi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 3. Picture of an Alchemist with his assis- tant TENDING stills. From an engraving by Robert Vaughan in Ashmole's Theatrum Ghemicum Britomcm (l652), where it illus- trates the first English translation of Thomas Norton s Ordinall of Alohemy, a metrical treatise in Latin, which Dee transcribed in the year 1577. His copy, boxmd in purple velvet, and with the index made by himself, is now Ashmolean MS. 57 . .To face 4. Diagram of the Vision of Four Castles. Seen and drawn by Kelley at Cracow. From Casaubon's True Belation 5. Facsimile Photograph of Dee's Letter TO Queen Elizabeth on the defeat of THE Spanish Armada. From the original in Harleian MS. 6986, fo. 45 6. A PAGE FROM THE AlBUM OF TiMON Coccius, Bremen, 1589, Dee's contribution to his Thesaurus Armcorvm. From the original in Add. MSS. 19,065 7. Illustration to Norton's Ordtnall. Engraved by Vaughan in Ashmole's Theatrum. (See above, No. S) 8. Dee's Coat of Arms. From an illustration to his Letter and Apology, presented to the Archbishop of Canterbury 1599, second edition l603 ....... Life of Dr. John Dee CHAPTER I BIRTH AND EDUCATION '^ O Incredulities the wit of fooles That slovenly will spit on all thinges faire, The coward's castle and the sluggard's cradle, How easy 'tis to be an infidel ! " — Georgb Chapman. It seems remarkable that three hundred years should have been allowed to elapse since the death of John Dee in December, 1608, without producing any Life of an individual so conspicuous, so debatable, and so remarkably picturesque. There is perhaps no learned author in history who has been so persistently misjudged, nay, even slandered, by his posterity, and not a voice in all the three centuries uplifted even to claim for him a fair hearing. Surely it is time that the cause of all this universal condemnation should be examined in the light of reason and science ; and perhaps it will be found to exist mainly in the fact that he was too far advanced in speculative thought for his own age to understand. For more than fifty years out of the eighty-one of his life. Dee was famous, even if suspected and looked askance at as clever beyond human inter- pretation. Then his Queen died. With the narrow- J.D. B 2 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE minded Scotsman who succeeded her came a change in the fashion of men's minds. The reign of the devU and his handmaidens — the witches and possessed persons — was set up in order to be piously overthrown, and the very bigotry of the times gave birth to indepen- dent and rational thought — to Newton, Bacon, Locke. But Dee was already labelled once and for aU. Every succeeding writer who has touched upon his career, has followed the leaders bUndly, and has only cast another, and yet another, stone to the heap of obloquy piled upon his name. The fascination of his psychic projections has always led the critic to ignore his more solid achievements in the realms of history and science, while at the same time, these are only cited to be loudly condemned. The learned Dr. Meric Casaubon, who, fifty years after Dee's death, edited his Book of Mysteries — ^the absorbing recital of four out of the six or seven years of his crystal gazing — was perhaps the fairest critic he yet has had. Although he calls Dee's spiritual revelations a " sad record," and a " work of darkness," he con- fesses that he himself, and other learned and holy men (including an archbishop), read it with avidity to the end, and were eager to see it printed. He felt certain, as he remarks in his preface, that men's curiosity would lead them to devour what seems to him " not parallelled in that kind, by any book that hath been set out in any age to read." And yet on no account was he publishing it to satisfy curiosity, but only " to do good and promote Rehgion." For Dee, he is per- suaded, was a true, sincere Christian, his Relation made in the most absolute good faith, although BIRTH AND EDUCATION 3 undoubtedly he was imposed upon and deluded by the evil spirits whom he sometimes mistook for good ones. It may be well here to remark that this voluminous Book of MysterieSy or True and Faithful Relation (fol. 1659), from which in the following pages there will be found many extracts, abounds in tedious and unintelligible pages of what Casaubon calls " sermon- like stuff," interspersed with passages of extraordinary beauty. Some of the figures and parables, as well as the language used, are full of a rare poetic imagery, singularly free from any coarse or sensual symbolism. Like jewels embedded in dull settings, here and there a gem of loftiest reUgious thought shines and sparkles. There are descriptive touches of costume and appearance that possess considerable dramatic value. As the story is unfolded in a kind of spiritual drama, the sense of a gradual moving development, and the choice of a fitting vehicle in which to clothe it, is striking. The dramatis personce^ too, the " spiritual creatures " who, as Dee believed, influence the destinies of man, become living and real, as of course they were to the seer. In many respects these " actions " were an exact counterpart of the dealings inaugurated by psychical scientists 275 years later, if we omit the close investigation for fraud. Casaubon's successor in deaUng with the shxmned and avoided subject of John Dee was Thomas Smith, Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, who, in 1707, wrote the fiirst connected Life of him, in a book of the Lives of Learned Men.^ It was based upon some of Dee's autobiographical papers, and out of a total of a ^ Yitoe Quorwndwm, Eruditissimorwrn, et Illustrvwm Virorwm (1707). B 2 4 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE hundred pages, gave fifty to letters already printed by Casaubon. After this no sustained account of Dee's romantic career is to be found outside the pages of biographical dictionaries and magazine articles, or among writers upon necromancy, hermetic philosophy, and alchemy. Many of these decorate their collections with apocry- phal marvels culled from the well-worn traditional stories of Dee and his companion, Edward Kelley. Thus, throughout his lifetime and since, he has con- tinued to run the gauntlet of criticism. " Old impos- turing juggler," "fanatic," "quack," are mild terms: in the Biographia Britannica he is called " extremely credulous, extravagantly vain, and a most deluded enthusiast." Even the writer on Dee in the Dictionary of National Biography says his conferences with the angels are " such a tissue of blasphemy and absurdity that they might suggest insanity." Many more such summary* verdicts might be quoted, but these will suffice for the present. It has been said that no Life of Dee exists. And yet the materials for such a Life are so abundant that only a selection can be here used. His private diary, for instance, if properly edited, would supply much supplementary, useful, and interesting historical information. It is the object of this work to present the facts of John Dee's life as calmly and impartially as possible, and to let them speak for themselves. In the course of writing it, many false assertions have disentangled themselves from truth, many doubts have been resolved, and a mass of information sees the Ught BIRTH AND EDUCATION 5 for the first time. The subject is of course hedged about with innumerable difficulties ; but in spite of the temptations to stray into a hundred bypaths, an endeavour has been strictly made to do no more than throw a little dim light on the point where the paths break off from the main road. If, at the end of the way, any who have persevered so far, feel they have followed a magnetic and interesting personaUty, the labour expended will not have been in vain. With a word of apology to serious historical readers for the incorrigibly romantic tendency of much of the narra- tive, which, in spite of the stem sentinel of a literary conscience, would continually reassert itself, the story of our astrologer's strange life may now begin. John Dee was the son of Rowland Dee ; he was born in London, according to the horoscope of his own drawing, on July 13, 1527- His mother was Jane, daughter of WiUiam Wild. Various Welsh writers have assigned to Dee a genea- logical descent of the highest antiquity, and the pedigree ^ which he drew up for himself in later life traces back his family history from his grandfather, Bedo Dee, to Roderick the Great, Prince of Wales. All authorities agree that Radnor was the county from whence the Dees sprang. Rowland Dee, the father, held an appointment at Court, as gentleman server to Henry VIII., but was very indifferently treated by the King. This may partly account for the persistence with which Dee exhibited before Queen Elizabeth his claims to preferment at her hands. To be in habitual attendance at Court in those ^ Cotton Charter, xiv. I. 6 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE days, however, bred in men a great desire for place, and a courtier was but a mendicant on a grand scale. The boy, John Dee, was early bred in '' grammar learning," and was inured to Latin from his tender years. Perhaps he was not more than nine or ten when he was sent to Chelmsford, to the chantry school founded there seven years before the great school at Winchester came into existence. The master who presided over Dee's school hours in Essex was Peter Wilegh, whom the chantry com- missioners in 1548 reported as a man " of good con- versation " who had kept the school there for sixteen years. Dee has always been claimed by the Grammar School at Chelmsford as one of their most famous alumni, whose extraordinary career with its halo of mystery and marvel they perhaps feel httle quahfied to explore. Dee's testimony that at Chelmsford he was "metely well furnished with understanding of the Latin tongue " is an unconscious tribute to Peter Wilegh's teaching. In November, 1542, Dee, being then fifteen years and four months old, left Chelmsford to enter at St. John's College, Cambridge, where, as he tells us in his autobiography, he soon became a most assiduous student.^ "In the years 1543, 1544, 1545, I was so vehemently bent to studie, that for those years I did inviolably keep this order: only to sleep four houres every night; to allow to meate and drink (and some refreshing after) two houres every day; and of the other eighteen houres all (except the tyme ^ Compertdious RehearsalL " The Entrance and Ground Plat of my First Studies." Chetham Society, vol. i., p. 4. BIRTH AND EDUCATION 7 of going to and being at divine service) was spent in my studies and learning." Early in 1546 he graduated B.A. from St. John's College. At the close of the same year. Trinity College was founded by Henry VIII,, and Dee was selected one of the original Fellows. He was also appointed under- reader in Greek to Trinity CoUege, the principal Greek reader being then Robert Pember. The young Fellow created the first sensation of his sensational career soon after this by arranging some mechanism for a students' performance of the Elp'qvri (Eirene — Peace) of Aristophanes, in which he apparently acted as stage manager and carpenter. For this play he devised a clever mechanical and very spectacular effect. Trygaeus, the Attic vine- dresser, carrying a large basket of food for himself, and mounted on his gigantic beetle or scarab (which ate only dung), was seen ascending from his dwelling on the stage to enter the palace of Zeus in the clouds above. One has only to think of the scenic effects presented by Faust and Mephistopheles at Mr. Tree's theatre, for instance, to realise how crude and ineffective these attempts must have been ; but thirty or forty years before Shakespeare's plays were written, so unusual an exhibition was enough to excite wild rumours of supernatural powers. We hear no more of theatrical performances, although several references in his after-Hfe serve to show that his interest in the English drama, about to be born, lagged not far behind that of his greater contemporaries. He does mention, however, a Christmas pastime in St. John's CoUege, which seems to have been inspired by this 8 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE same dramatic spirit. Of details we are totally ignorant ; he only relates that the custom of electing a "Christmas Magistrate" was varied at his sugges- tion by crowning the chosen victim as Emperor. The first imperial president of the Christmas revels in St. John's CoUege " was one Mr. Thomas Dunne, a very goodly man of person, stature and complexion, and well learned also," evidently a presence fit for a throne. Dee adds : " They which yet five and were hearers and beholders, they can testifie more than is meete here to be written of these my boyish attempts and exploites scholasticall." He turned to sterner studies, and became a skilful astronomer, taking " thousands of observations (very many to the hour and minute) of the heavenly influences and operations actual in this elementall portion of the world." These he afterwards published in various "Ephemerides." In May, 1547, Dee made his first journey abroad, to confer with learned men of the Dutch Universities upon the science of mathematics, to which he had already begun to devote his serious attention. He spent several months in the Low Countries, formed close friendships with Gerard Mercator, Gemma Frisius, Joannes Caspar Myricasus, the Orientalist Antonius Gogava, and other philosophers of world- wide fame. Upon his return to Cambridge, he brought with him two great globes of Mercator's making, and an astronomer's armiUary ring and staff of brass, " such as Frisius had newly devised and was in the habit of using." These he afterwards gave to the Fellows and students of Trinity College ; he cites a BIRTH AND EDUCATION 9 letter of acknowledgment from John Christopherson (afterwards Bishop of Chichester), but upon search being made for the objects recently, through the kind- ness of the Master, it appears they are not now to be found. Dee returned to Cambridge in the year 1548 to take his degree of M.A,, and soon after went abroad. "And never after that was I any more student in Cambridge." Before he left, he obtained under the seal of the Vice-ChanceUor and Convocation, April 14, 1548, a testimonial to his learning and good conduct,^ which he proposed to take with him abroad. Many times did he prove it to be of some value. In Midsummer Term, 1548, he entered as a student at the University of Louvain, which had been founded more than a hundred years before in this quaint old Brabantian town of mediseval ramparts and textile industries. At Louvain, Dee continued his studies for two years, and here he soon acquired a reputation for learning quite beyond his years. It has been pre- sumed that he here graduated doctor, to account for the title that has always been given him.^ " Doctor Dee " certainly possesses an alhterative value not to be neglected. At Cambridge he was only M.A. Long after, when he had passed middle life, and when his remarkable genius in every branch of science had carried him so far beyond the dull wit of the people who surrounded him that they could only explain his manifestations by the old cry of " sorcery and magic," Dee made a passionate appeal to the Queen, his constant patron and employer, to send two ^ Autohiogr. Tracts of Br, John Dee, Chetham Society, vol. i., p. 82. 2 By the courtesy of M. le Secretaire del' University Catholique, at Louvain^ I am informed no such degree appears 10 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE emissaries of her own choosing to his house at Mort- lake, and bid them examine everything they could find, that his character might be cleared from the damaging charges laid against him. He prepared for these two commissioners, to whose visit we shall revert in its proper place, an autobiographical document of the greatest value, which he calls " The Compen- dious Rehearsal of John Dee : his dutiful declaration and proofe of the course and race of his studious hfe, for the space of half an hundred years, now (by God's favour and help) fully spent." ^ It is from this narra- tive that the facts of his early life are ascertainable. Perhaps we discern them through a faint mist of retrospective glorification for which the strange streak of vanity almost inseparable from attainments Hke Dee's was accountable. But there is every reason to rely upon the accuracy of the mathematician's story. " Beyond the seas, far and nere, was a good opinion conceived of my studies philosophicall and mathema- ticall." People of all ranks began to flock to see this wonderful young man. He gives the names of those who came to Louvain, a few hours' journey from Brussels, where the briUiant court of Charles V. was assembled, with evident pride. Italian and Spanish nobles ; the dukes of Mantua and Medina Celi ; the Danish king's mathematician, Mathias Hacus ; and his physician, Joannes Capito ; Bohemian students, all arrived to put his reputation to the test. A distinguished Englishman, Sir William Pickering, afterwards ambassador to France, came as his pupil, ^ The original, partly burned, is in Cotton MS,, Vitell, C. vii., ff. 1 — 14. Ashmole's copy was printed by Heame in Jokannis Glastoniensis Ckr on., Oxfords 17^6 ; and in Chetham Soc, vol. L (1851). BIRTH AND EDUCATION 11 to study astronomy " by the light of Mercator's globes, the astrolabe, and the astronomer's ring of brass that Frisius had invented." For his recreation, the teacher " looked into the method of civil law," and mastered easily the points of jurisprudence, even " those accounted very intricate and dark." It was at Louvain, no doubt, that his interest in the subject of alchemy became strengthened and fixed. Stories were rife of course of the famous alchemist, Henricus Cornelius Agrippa, who had died there, in the service of Margaret of Austria, only a dozen years or so before. Agrippa had been secretary to the Emperor MaximiUan, had Uved in France, London, and Italy, and Louvain, no doubt, was bursting with his extraordinary feats of magic. The two years soon came to an end, and a couple of days after his twenty-third birthday, young Dee left the Low Countries for Paris, where he arrived on July 20, 1550. His fame had preceded him, and within a few days, at the request of some English gentlemen and for the honour of his country, he began a course of free public lectures or readings in Euclid, " Mathematics, Physicd et PythagoricS," at the College of Rheims, in Paris, a thing, he says, which had never been done before in any university in Christendom. His audience (most of them older than himself) was so large that the mathematical schools would not hold them, and many of the students were forced in their eagerness to chmb up outside the windows, where, if they could not hear the lecturer, they could at least see him. He demonstrated upon every proposition, and gave dictation and exposition. 12 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE A greater astonishment was created, he says, than even at his scarabseus mounting up to the top of Trinity Hall in Cambridge. The members of the University in Parisat the time numbered over 4,000 students, who came from every part of the known world. He made many friends among the professors and graduates, friends of " all estates and professions," several of whose names he gives ; among them, the learned writers and theologians of the day, Orontius, Mizaldus, Petrus Montaureus, Ranconetus (Ran- connet), Femelius, and Francis Silvius. The fruit of these years spent in Louvain and Paris was that Dee afterwards maintained throughout his life a lively correspondence with professors and doctors in almost every university of note upon the Continent. He names especially his correspondents in the universities of Orleans, Cologne, Heidelberg, Stras- burg, Verona, Padua, Ferrara, Bologna, Urbino,Rome, and many others, whose letters lay open for the inspection of the commissioners on that later visit already alluded to. An offet was made him to become a King's Reader in mathematics in Paris University, with a stipend of two hundred French crowns yearly, but he had made up his mind to return to England, and nothing would tempt him to stay. He received other proposals, promising enough, to enter the service of M. Babeu, M. de Rohan, and M. de Monluc, who was starting as special ambassador to the Great Turk, but his thoughts turned back to England, and thither, in 1551, he bent his steps. CHAPTER II IMPRISONMENT AND AUTHORSHIP " A man is but what he knoweth." — Bacon. In December, 1551, Dee obtained, through the offices of Mr. (afterwards Sir) John Cheke, an intro- duction to Secretary Cecil and to King Edward VI. He had abeady written for and dedicated to the young King two books (in manuscript) : De usi Globi Ccelestis^ 1550, and De nubium, solis, lunce, ac reliquorum planetarum, etc, 1551. These perhaps had been sent to Cheke, the King's tutor, in the hope that they might prove useful lesson books. The pleasing result of the dedication was the gift of an annual royal pension of a himdred crowns. This allowance was afterwards exchanged for the rectory of Upton-upon- Severn, in Worcestershire, which Dee foimd an extremely bad bargain. From the Beacon Hill above West Malvern Priory, the visitor may turn from inspection of the ancient British camp of Caractacus to admire the magnificent view ; and across the level fields where the Severn winds, the tower of Upton church wiU be seen rising in the middle distance. Further west, if the day be clear, the more imposing towers of Tewkesbury and Gloucester may be discerned, while half a turn east- ward will show Worcester Cathedral, not far away. Dee never hved in this beautiful place, although he was presented to the living on May 19, 1553. Even 14 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE when the rectory of Long Leadenham, in Lincohi- shire/ was added to Upton, the two together were worth only about £80 a year. Next year he declined an invitation to become Lecturer on Mathematical Science at Oxford, conveyed to him through "Mr. Doctor Smith " (Richard, D,C.L., 1528, the reformer), of Oriel College, and "Mr. du Bruarne," of Christ Church. He was occupied with literary work, and in 1553 produced, among other things, a couple of works on The Cause of Floods and Ehbs^ and The Philosophical and Political Occasions and Names of the Heavenly Asterismes, both written at the request of Jane, Duchess of Northumberland. When Mary Tudor succeeded her young brother as queen in 1553, Dee was invited to calculate her nativity. He began soon after to open up a corre- spondence with the Princess Elizabeth, who was then living at Woodstock, and he cast her horoscope also. Before long he was arrested on the plea of an informant named George Ferrys, who alleged that one of his children had been struck blind and another killed by Dee's " magic. "^ Ferrys also declared that Dee was directing his enchantments against the Queen's life. Dee's lodgings in London were searched and sealed up, and he himself was sent to prison. He was examined before the Secretary of State, ^ Apparently he did sometimes visit Leadenham, for Lysons, Env. Lond,, 1796, gives an account of a stone found near the parsonage house there with the following inscription ; — MISERICORDIAS DOMINI IN jETERNA CANTABO JOANNES A DEE ^ He suggests, as an explanation, that Dee escaped when the house, as a tradition records, was burned by lightning. 2 CaL State Papers Dom.y 1547-1580, p. 67. IMPRISONMENT AND AUTHORSHIP 15 afterwards upon eighteen articles by the Privy Council, and at last brought into the Star Chamber for trial. There he was cleared of all suspicion of treason, and liberated by an Order in Council, August 29, 1555, but handed over to Bishop Bonner for examination in matters of religion. Bonner was apparently equally satisfied. Dee was certainly enjoined by him, at John Philpot's examination on November 19, 1555, to put questions as a test of his orthodoxy. He quoted St. Cyprian to Philpot, who replied : " Master Dee, you are too yoimg in divinity to teach me in the matters of my faith, though you be more learned in other things."^ Dee deserves well of all writers and students for time everlasting because of his most praiseworthy efforts to found a State National Library of books and manuscripts, with copies of foreign treasures- wherever they might be. On January 15, 1556, he presented to Queen Mary "a Supplication for the recovery and preservation of ancient writers and monuments."^ Within a few years he had seen the monasteries dissolved and the priceless collections of these houses lamentably dispersed, some burned and others buried. He drew up a very remarkable address to the Queen dwelling on the calamity of thus distributing "the treasure of all antiquity and the everlasting seeds of continual excellency within this your Grace's realm." Many precious jewels, he knows, have already utterly perished, but in time ^ Foxe, Acts and Momtments, 1847 ed., vol. vii., p. 638, et passim. Dee's name is suppressed after the first editions. ^ Autohiogr. Tracts, p. 46. A fragment of the original, saved i'rom fire, is in Cotton MS., Vitell, C. vii. 310. 16 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE there may be saved and recovered the remnants of a store of theological and scientific writings which are now being scattered up and down the kingdom, some in unlearned men's hands, some walled up or buried in the groimd. Dee uses powerful arguments to enforce his plea, choosing such as would make the most direct appeal to both Queen and people. She will build for herself a lasting name and monur ment ; they will be able all in common to enjoy what is now only the privilege of a few scholars, and even these have to depend on the goodwill of private owners. He proposes first that a commission shall be appointed to inquire what valuable manuscripts exist ; that those reported on shall be borrowed (on demand), a fair copy made, and if the owner will not relinquish it, the original be returned. Secondly, he points out that the commission should get to work at once, lest some owners, hearing of it, should hide or convey away their treasures, and so, he pithily adds, " prove by a certain token that they are not sincere lovers of good learning because they will not share them with others." The expenses of the commission and of the copying, etc., he proposed should be borne by the Lord Cardinal and the Synod of the province of Canterbury, who should also be charged to oversee the manuscripts and books collected untU a library " apt in all points " is made ready for their reception. Finally, Dee suggests that to him be committed the procuring of copies of many famous manuscript volumes to be found in the great libraries abroad: the Vatican Library at Rome, St. Mark's at Venice, and in Bologna, Florence, Vienna, etc. He offers to IMPRISONMENT AND AUTHORSHIP 17 set to work to obtain these, the expenses only of transcription and carriage to England to be charged to the State. As to printed books, they are to " be gotten in wonderfull abundance." In this generous offer of his life to be spent in transcribing crabbed manuscripts, we cannot see the restless genius of John Dee long satisfied, but at any rate he proved himself not seeking for private gain. Thus was the germ of a great National Library first started by the Cambridge mathematician, nearly fifty years before Thomas Bodley opened his unique collection at Oxford, and close upon 200 years before there was founded in the capital the vast and indis- pensable book-mine known to all scholars at home and abroad as the British Museum. The Historical Manuscripts Commission, whose labours in cataloguing private collections of archives are also foreshadowed in Dee's suppUcation, only came into being with the appointment of Keepers of the Public Records, by an Act signalising the first and second years of Queen Victoria's reign. It is needless to say that nothing came of Dee's very disinterested proposition. So he became the more industrious in collecting a Ubrary of his own, which soon consisted of more than 4,000 volumes, which were always at the disposal of the friends who came often to see him. They came, also for another reason. Astrology was a very essential part of astronomy in the sixteenth century, and the behef in the controlling power of the -stars over human destinies is almost as old as man himself. The relative positions of the J.D. C 18 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE planets in the firmament, their situations amongst the constellations, at the hour of a man's birth, were con- sidered by the ancients to be dominant factors and influences throughout his whole life. It is not too much to say that a behef in the truth of horoscopes cast by a skilled calculator still survives in our Western civilisation as well as in the East. Medical science to-day pays its due respect to astrology in the sign, little altered from the astrological figure for Jupiter, with which all prescriptions are still headed. Dee, as one of the foremost mathematicians and astronomers of the time, and one employed by the Queen, became continually in request to calculate the nativity and cast a horoscope for men and women in all ranks of life. He has left many notes of people's births ; his own children's are entered with the greatest precision, for which a biographer has to thank him. When Elizabeth mounted with firm steps the throne that her unhappy sister had found so pre- carious and uneasy a heritage, Dee was very quickly sought for at Court, His first commission was entirely sui generis. He was commanded by Robert Dudley to name an auspicious day for the coronation, and his astrological calculations thereupon seem to have impressed the Queen and all her courtiars. Whether or no we believe in the future auguries of such a combination of influences as presided over the selection of the 14th of January, 1559, for the day of crowning Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey, we must acknowledge that Dee's choice of a date was suc- ceeded by benign and happy destinies. He was then living in London. We do not know IMPRISONMENT AND AUTHORSHIP 19 where his lodging was, but several of the books belonging to his library have come down to us with his autograph, "Johannes Dee, Londini," and the dates of the years 1555, 1557, and 1558- Elizabeth sent for him soon after her accession, and invited him to her service at Whitehall with all fair promises. He was introduced by Dudley, then and long afterwards her first favourite ; so he was likely to stand well. " Where my brother hath given him a crown," she said to Dudley, or to Dee's other sponsor, the Earl of Pembroke, " I will give him a noble." This was the first of innumerable vague promises made, but it was long indeed before any real and tangible gift was conferred on the astrologer, although he was continually busied about one thing and another at the fancy of the Queen. TJxe reversion of the Mastership of St. Catherine's Hospital was promised him, but "Dr. Willson politickly prevented me," One morning the whole Court and the Privy Council were put into a terrible flutter by a simple piece of what was common enough in ancient times and in Egypt — sympathetic magic.^ A wax image of the Queen had been found lying in Lincoln's Inn Fields, with a great pin stuck through its breast, and it was supposed imdoubtedly to portend the wasting away and death of her Majesty, or some other dread- fiil omen. Messenger after messenger was despatched to summon Dee, and bid him make haste. He hurried off, satisfied himself apparently of the harmless 1 Cf. Daniel's Sonnet (1592)— " The sly enchanter when to work his will And secret wrong on some forspoken wight," etc., etc. c 2 20 LIFE OF DR. JOHN DEE nature of the practical joke, and repaired, with Mr, Secretary Wilson as a witness of the whole pro- ceedings and a proof of all good faith, to Richmond, where the Queen was. The Queen sat in that part of her private garden that sloped down to the river, near the steps of the royal landing-place at Hampton Court ; the Earl of Leicester (as Dudley had now become) was in attendance, gorgeous and insolent as ever ; the Lords of the Privy Council had also been summoned, when Dee and Mr. Secretary expounded the inner meaning of this untoward circumstance, and satisfied and allayed all their fears. Something about the calm attributes of this seasoned and travelled scholar seemed always to give moral support to the Queen and her household ; this is only the first of many occasions when he had to allay their super- stitious fright. That she felt it essential to keep him Avithin reach of herself may have been one reason for not giving him the appointments for which he, and others for him, constantly sued. Dee was not an easy person to fit into a living: he required one with no cure of souls attached ; for this, he says, " a cura animarum anneooa, did terrific me to deal with them." He is called a bachelor of divinity by Foxe in 1555, and as a matter of fact he does, both in 1558 and in 1564, add the letters S. D. T. to his name in his printed works.^ This degree also was not from Cambridge. At last he grew tired of waiting, and a certain restlessness in his character, not incompatible with the long patience of the true follower of science, 1 Prop