The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Cecil ―had clear general aims in his desire to strengthen and stabilize the realm and make it
more wealthy‖. 2
This chapter argues that, whilst Heal and Holmes‘ conclusions are convincing, they
did not accord sufficient importance to Cecil‘s patronage of alchemical schemes. To do so
it examines the role of alchemy in two of Cecil‘s economic projects. Firstly it considers the
role of two alchemists in promoting the Frobisher Voyages, and Cecil and the Elizabethan
Court‘s responses to their alchemical methods. Secondly it examines in depth Cecil‘s
lengthy patronage of the industrial alchemist William Medley, including an analysis of the
Society of the New Art‘s attempts to establish an English copper industry using
transmutation. Neither of these episodes has been properly explained by historians.
The Frobisher Ores
The curious alchemical connotations of the Frobisher voyages between 1576 and
1578 provide a significant example of the link between alchemy and state sponsored
industrial development. On his first voyage to the far north of the New World, Martin
Frobisher‘s discovery of ore supposedly rich in gold and silver created a frenzy of
speculation at the English Court. Two alchemists, Giovanni Baptista Agnello and
Burchard Kranich, were integral to the promotion of Frobisher‘s speculative second
voyage, the first to attract substantial Court investment. The evidence shows that not only
was Cecil, one of the lead investors, aware of the alchemical practices of the project‘s two
lead chemists, but that their alchemical skills would have made the economics of the
scheme more palatable for the Lord Treasurer.
Historians have not previously understood the connection between alchemy and
the assaying of the Frobisher ore. It has only been in the last fifty years that the project has
garnered any scholarly attention. Much recent work, such as the two-volume collection of
2 Heal and Holmes, ‗The Economic Patronage of William Cecil‘, p. 223.
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