The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

yields of the Cumberland copper mines of the Company of Mines Royal, in which he was a
major investor. Humfrey‘s pessimistic assessment of those mines had proved to be
incorrect, forcing him to ―certify your honor how small credit was to be given to the yield
[of his assay]‖, and to admit his inferiority to the Company‘s German miners. 119 The
backwardness of English metallurgical knowledge, as illustrated by Humfrey‘s ignorance of
continental metal working techniques, makes Medley‘s expertise all the more remarkable.
The results of Medley‘s process mystified Humfrey. Medley insisted, reported
Humfrey, that using his secret technique a hundredweight of iron could be ―transmuted by
the water drawn from that earth‖ into a greater weight of copper. Humfrey, who had
―neyther redd nor proved of any feasible knowledge that in anything coulde deliver a
greater weight than himself and of a better substance then himself‖, skeptically declared the
―matter is beyond the reason of all‖. 120 The explanation for this mystery is that the copper
precipitated by Medley‘s process, had a greater atomic weight than the dissolved scrap
iron. 121 Medley, as usual, did not help matters: he initially refused an inspection of the
Parys Mountain works, fearing that Humfrey would ―depryve him of his arte and
laboures‖. 122
Within a few weeks Cecil had calmed the alchemist‘s fears. Medley allowed
Humfrey to monitor a demonstration. Humfrey remained at first sceptical about the
possibility of multiplying metals and had ―not therfor looked with creadit into such
wourke‖. 123 However, Medley‘s demonstration of the efficacy of his technique convinced
Humfrey that ―so honorable & marveilouse a wourke ought to be gardid and garnerd to
the end that by your great wysdome it might be ordered to unspeakable benyfit‖. 124 Such
119 William Humfrey to Cecil, 23 May 1565, TNA, SP 12/36/58.
120 Lansdowne Vol. 18, f101-2.
121 John Henry Pepper‘s The Playbook of Metals describes water being collected in ponds, scrap iron being cast
into the pond, and ―when the usual change of places occurs‖ it dissolves with copper precipitating ―in a dark
powdery mass‖. According to Pepper the process was ―conducted with profit at the Paris Mountain Mine, in
the island of Anglesea‖, when he was writing in 1846. See John Henry Pepper, The Playbook of Metals: Including
Personal Narratives of Visits to Coal, Lead, Copper, and Tin Mines, London, 1861, p. 274.
122 Humfrey to Cecil, Lansdowne Vol. 18, No. 47.
123 William Humfrey to Cecil, 22 December 1574, BL, Lansdowne Vol. 18, No. 48.
124 Ibid.
140