The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

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Image 2: Labelled ‗Burchart‘s furnice‘ in Cecil‘s hand. William Medley and the Society of the New Art 128 Source: Anon., Undated, TNA, SP 12/122/63. Cecil‘s patronage of the industrial alchemist William Medley provides the most important example of his use of alchemy as a legitimate tool to improve England‘s industrial competitiveness. With the backing of a number of prominent courtiers and politicians—including Cecil—Medley attempted to transmute cheap and abundant iron into valuable copper from 1571 until 1576. Incorporating themselves as the Society of the New Art, Medley‘s powerful patrons obtained a patent for the process. On two occasions,
laming betrayal, setbacks and deception, Medley failed to produce a return on their investment, and was eventually imprisoned. Historians of the Society have seen it is as the inevitable end of a charlatan, echoing the assessment of John Strype‘s The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith (1698). 53 Strype‘s very broad account glossed over many of the project‘s details, and provided no analysis of its importance. He relied on two letters written by Thomas Smith and William Medley to Cecil explaining their role in the scheme, both of which omit significant elements of the project. 54 Because he overlooked the extensive correspondence between these men, Strype neither grasped the true size and scope of the project, nor the amount of support and financing it garnered from the Elizabethan Court. Strype also ignored William Medley‘s biographical background, and assumed that the alchemist met his just ends imprisoned for debt. 55 As an early enlightenment intellectual Strype struggled to reconcile the intellectual ability of men like Smith and Cecil with their support for such an irrational scheme. He concluded that the project‘s main achievement was to teach otherwise wise and admirable men ―to trust little to words and promises, nor to experiments made afar off, nor to the accounts of men of that faculty [alchemy]‖. 56 Strype‘s analysis, weighed down with all the scientific age‘s derision for an age of superstition, depicted the project as an embarrassing example of the lingering ignorance that pervaded Elizabethan society. Modern political historians have paid little real attention to the Society of the New Art and have been largely content to follow Strype in castigating it as a transparent fraud. Mary Dewar‘s biography of Sir Thomas Smith provides probably the most thorough examination of the project to date. 57 Using a much wider range of sources than Strype, Dewar‘s account goes into greater detail, but essentially tells the same story. Her chronology of events is generally correct, but Dewar ends her account with Medley trying 53 John Strype, The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith. 54 It seems that Strype‘s two sources for his account were: William Medley to William Cecil, 19 April 1572 TNA SP12/86/14; and Thomas Smith to William Cecil, 15 December 1574, Lansdowne Vol. 19, No. 45. 55 Strype, The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith, p. 105. 56 Ibid., p. 105. 57 Mary Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith, London, 1964, pp. 149-55. 129
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The Alchemical Patronage of Sir Wil
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Abstract This thesis examines the a
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Acknowledgements Thanks must first
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List of Abbreviations APC Acts of t
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Introduction William Cecil, through
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late seventeenth and early eighteen
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economic policy, only cursory exami
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otherwise. The dull, elderly, burea
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y such prolific authors as A. E. Wa
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marginalised the importance of alch
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Many of the distortions in the hist
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difficult to access with microfilm
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Chapter 1: Cecil and Alchemical Phi
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other aspects of medieval knowledge
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explain why alchemy made sense in t
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accuracy of the Aristotelian texts.
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short-sighted match. 44 There is ev
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University in the period. 56 A high
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some tentative conclusions about Ce
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Cecil tended to favour more practic
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Actes and Monuments (1563), ―fata
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Dee and Cecil‘s relationship over
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symbolism, seems tenuous. It ignore
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great pleasure in the workes of Nat
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demonstrated the divine spirit of l
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alchemical knowledge than his geogr
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eports to Cecil are almost exclusiv
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Thynne also affirmed the importance
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From Longleat Thynne wrote for Ceci
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his desperate financial situation.
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no significant records of their pra
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such as John Dee and country gentle
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The late 1560s saw the first signif
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eminently qualified to deal with th
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the patronage of James Blount, Lord
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medicines. Amongst the collection o
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gold into France to fund Catholic e
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in distayne‖. 98 However, it is n
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of a dedicatory epistle to Cecil, f
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home I have not seen‖. 120 Where
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of yeeres before Paracelsus time‖
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Henry Bossevyle suggested practical
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Page 87 and 88: De Lannoy first came to the attenti
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Page 91 and 92: perform alchemy. Rather, Waad belie
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Page 95 and 96: Cecil could not convince the Queen,
Page 97 and 98: the accounts of Elias Ashmole and S
Page 99 and 100: context of Dee‘s failed English C
Page 101 and 102: By March 1589 Dee had left Bohemia
Page 103 and 104: entirely self centred‖. 117 Cecil
Page 105 and 106: Cecil and the Queen‘s demands tha
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Page 109 and 110: Kelley‘s demise. 148 Wotton repor
Page 111 and 112: depryved of his libertye and frends
Page 113 and 114: According to Page, Kelley had not i
Page 115 and 116: a number of attempts to convince Ke
Page 117 and 118: For the Queen and Cecil, Smith‘s
Page 119 and 120: £500 from the company, they were t
Page 121 and 122: payment. Peterson refused them; he
Page 123 and 124: Smith‘s plan, they must have been
Page 125 and 126: Chapter Four: Alchemy and Economic
Page 127 and 128: essays Meta Incognita: A Discourse
Page 129 and 130: y chance she threw and burned in th
Page 131 and 132: y others without trewthe‖. 25 Wal
Page 133 and 134: work did not make this link, and ne
Page 135: linked. It is, however, significant
Page 139 and 140: to involve cementation rather than
Page 141 and 142: Clearly aware of Cecil‘s rising i
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Page 145 and 146: new process which ―my Lord Burghl
Page 147 and 148: Image 3: An Elizabethan Map of the
Page 149 and 150: was the potential benefit for the C
Page 151 and 152: Medley ―by commaundement mencyone
Page 153 and 154: thanked Wotton for his letter detai
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Page 157 and 158: and to have received through his fa
Page 159 and 160: again imprisoned, this time almost
Page 161 and 162: was a key investor, attempted to ut
Page 163 and 164: understanding of nature. John Dee,
Page 165 and 166: promised ―an ounce or so of powde
Page 167 and 168: conviction regarding the reality of
Page 169 and 170: ———, Calendar of Patent Rolls
Page 171 and 172: Bennet, Henry, A Famous and Godly H
Page 173 and 174: Szulakowska, Urszula, ‗The Pseudo
Page 175 and 176: Fiddler, Paul A., and Thomas J. May
Page 177 and 178: Matthews, John, (ed.), The Rosicruc
Page 179 and 180: ———, The Life of the Learned
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The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

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