The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Nineteenth century biographers of Cecil, such as Edward Nares, were concerned
almost entirely with the narrative history of his political career, and gave little thought to
either Cecil‘s ideas or patronage. 8 Nares, famously derided by Thomas Macaulay as being
―so utterly incompetent to arrange the materials which he has collected, that he might as
well have left them in their original repositories‖, ignores alchemy completely. 9 Later
biographies such as Martin Hume‘s The Great Lord Burghley; a Study in Elizabethan Statecraft
(1898) did much the same, with neither alchemy, nor any of Cecil‘s alchemical projects,
warranting a mention. 10
Not until the political historian Conyers Read‘s twin volumes, Mr Secretary Cecil and
Queen Elizabeth (1955) and Lord Burghley and Queen Elizabeth (1960), was a thoroughly
scholarly account of Cecil‘s life produced. 11 Read was the first to recognise the inherent
problems of studying Cecil: the lack of Cecil‘s own voice in the sources; the complicated
relationship between Cecil and the Queen; and the constant fluctuation of fortunes at
Court that affected even the Queen‘s closest advisors. In doing so he produced a far more
nuanced view of Cecil‘s political motivations and actions. Read recognised that while Cecil
was not, as Thomas Macaulay described him, ―by nature and habit one of those who
follow, not one of those who lead‖, neither was he, as J. A. Froude had it, solely
responsible for the glories of Elizabethan policy, which the ineffectual Queen ―starved and
mutilated when energy and completeness were most needed‖. 12
For all its strengths, Read‘s work contains a number of flaws. Attempting to deal
with the vast number of relevant records, Read inevitably concentrated on that part of
Cecil‘s life in which he was most interested: his political career, especially in relation to
foreign policy. Read gave Cecil‘s private life, personal interests, patronage, and even
8 Edward Nares, Memoirs of the Life and Administration.
9 Macaulay, Thomas, R. H. Horne (ed.), Scenes and Characters from the Writings of Thomas Babington Macaulay,
Oxford, 1846, p. 206.
10 Martin Hume, The Great Lord Burghley- Study In Elizabethan Statecraft, London, 1898.
11 Conyers Read, Mr Secretary Cecil and Queen Elizabeth, London, 1955; Conyers Read, Lord Burghley and Queen
Elizabeth, London, 1960.
12 Thomas Macaulay, R. H. Horne (ed.), Scenes and Characters, p. 206; J. A. Froude, History of England from the
Fall of Wolsey to the Defeat of the Spanish Armada, Vol. 12, London, 1881, p. 508.
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