The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

linked. It is, however, significant that Cecil chose to invest so heavily, and take such an
active role in the organisation of the scheme. He had extensive knowledge of both Agnello
and Kranich‘s alchemical interests and willingly ventured a significant portion of his own
fortune on the possibility of success. Cecil seems to have shared Philip Sidney‘s opinion
that Frobisher‘s discoveries ―seem very far to surpass the country of Peru‖ where the
Spanish obtained immense quantities of silver from Potosi. 52 Like so many others at the
Court, Cecil looked on the Frobisher voyages as a way of emulating the enormous wealth
accumulated by the Spanish in South and Central America. It seems that Cecil thought that
England, with the aid of a little alchemical coaxing, could also reap the profits of the New
World.
52 Sidney to Languet, in Sidney and Pears(eds.) The Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney, p. 119.
127