The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

work did not make this link, and neither have John Bennel‘s Oxford Dictionary of National
Biography entry for Kranich, or M. B. Donald‘s article, ‗Burchard Kranich (c. 1515–1578),
Miner and Queen‘s Physician, Cornish Mining Stamps, Stamps, Antimony and Frobisher‘s
Gold‘ (1950). 38
Widely differing in both technique and attitude, Kranich and his fellow German,
Schutz, began exchanging insults almost straight away. Kranich accused Schutz of
―ingnorance and unskylfulnes‖ and Shutz accused Kranich of using additives to artificially
inflate his results. 39 Within a few weeks they refused to have anything to do with one
another. 40 Their initial assays did, however, prove to be reasonably successful, prompting
the funding of a third voyage. 41
With relatively successful results from the initial small scale assays, and another
voyage planned, Cecil arranged for a major smelting works to be built in Dartford, Kent.
He employed Thomas Fludd, father of the occultist Robert Fludd, as surveyor of the
works, which were completed by November 1578. 42 By this time Kranich had died and
Frobisher‘s third voyage had returned with another 1100 tons of ore. 43 This, however, was
the point at which the project began to take a turn for the worse. Schutz‘s first bulk assay
at Dartford, on 13 November 1578, revealed no significant amounts of either gold or
silver. 44 Blaming first his equipment, then the ore itself, Schutz made another four
assessments—all returned similar results—the ore was worthless. 45 According to Lok, at
this time ―the Ewre brought home by Captain Furbisher grewe into great discredit‖. 46
38 M. B. Donald, ‗Burchard Kranich (c. 1515-1578), Miner and Queen‘s Physician, Cornish Mining Stamps,
Antimony and Frobisher‘s Gold‘, Annals of Science, Vol. 6, No. 3, 1950, pp. 308-22.; Bennell, ‗Kranich,
Burchard (d. 1578)‘; Stanton J. Linden, Dark Hierogliphicks: Alchemy in English literature from Chaucer to the
Restoration, Lexington, 1996, p. 83.
39 Burchard Kranich to Francis Walsingham, 27 February 1578, TNA, SP 12/122/61.
40 Kranich to Walsingham, SP 12/122/61; Jonas Schutz, February 1578, TNA, SP 12/122/62.
41 Hogarth, Boreham, Mitchell, Mines, Minerals & Metallurgy, pp. 74-75.
42 Thomas Fludd to Cecil, 7 January 1578, TNA, SP 12/122/4.
43 Hogarth, Boreham, Mitchell, Mines, Minerals & Metallurgy, pp. 47.
44 Ibid., pp. 74-75.
45 Ibid.
46 Lok., SP 12/131/20.
125