The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

to ingratiate himself with Cecil and blaming the project‘s setbacks on Sir Humphrey
Gilbert. The letter she cites in support of this claim, however, was written over three years
before the end of the project. 58 Moreover, Dewar failed to uncover anything about
Medley‘s background or subsequent career in Cecil‘s service, and instead accepted Strype‘s
depiction of him as a deluded and marginal figure. Dewar and other historians have
emphasised Medley‘s imprisonment as a natural result of his ‗wild‘ schemes, ignoring the
evidence of a much more interesting and significant background struggle for alchemical
patronage. This evidence suggests that Medley was the victim of a campaign of subterfuge
set in motion by those jealous of his monopoly over alchemical patronage.
As biographers of Smith, Strype and Dewar naturally focussed on Smith‘s role in
the scheme, discussing Cecil only tangentially. Biographers of Cecil have relegated Medley
and the Society of the New Art to little more than a footnote. To Conyers Read the
project ―came of course to nothing‖ showing only ―that like all his fellows even Burghley
succumbed on occasion to the alluring promises of the alchemists‖. 59 B. W. Beckingsale‘s
mentions only that Cecil was a shareholder in the Society, a company ―concerned with new
techniques in mining and metallurgy‖. 60 Cecil‘s two most recent biographers, Michael
Graves and Stephen Alford, completely omit William Medley and the Society of the New
Art. 61
Medley‘s process has attracted more attention from historians of science and
industry. J. W. Gough‘s The Rise of the Entrepreneur (1969) briefly outlined the project and
put it into the context of the various schemes to created alum (hydrated aluminium
potassium sulphate). 62 Gough, however, was not interested in Cecil‘s involvement in the
scheme, and in fact misunderstood Medley‘s second ‗transmutational‘ process, believing it
58 Ibid., p. 155.
59 Read, Lord Burghley, p. 145.
60 Beckingsale, Burghley, p. 261.
61 Graves, Burghley; Alford, Burghley.
62 J. W. Gough, The Rise of the Entrepreneur, New York, 1969, pp. 181-183.
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