The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

support for economic projects. Describing Cecil as ―the pre-eminent patron of projects
intended to improve and expand the economy of England‖, Heal and Holmes demonstrate
that Cecil‘s economic policies were designed to marry older concerns for stability and the
maintenance of authority with newer mercantilist reforms. 31 However, even Heal and
Holmes only briefly mention Cecil being ―seduced into support of unlikely ventures, such
as Cornelius de Lannoy‘s claims for the ‗new art‘, or alchemic transmutation‖. 32 They
consider such missteps essentially out of character. 33 They relegate Cecil‘s involvement in
the Society of the New Art to a footnote, in which they emphasise that ―Cecil was more
cautious than his colleague in advancing cash‖ and refer the reader to Dewar‘s account. 34
If Heal and Holmes had been less dismissive of alchemical patronage, they would have
found that the Society of the New Art matched some of their case studies of economic
patronage in both ambition and expense. If Cecil invested less in the project than the
governor of the Society, Sir Thomas Smith, he was certainly the last to give up on the
scheme, and would continue to patronise William Medley, the alchemist involved, for many
years afterwards. 35
Cecil‘s biographers‘ failure to differentiate alchemy from notions of popular magic
reflects a common misunderstanding of Renaissance alchemical concepts. To a large extent
this demonstrates the influence of nineteenth century occultists, such as Mary Anne
Atwood, on popular conceptions of alchemy. Her influential A Suggestive Inquiry into the
Hermetic Mystery (1850) interpreted alchemy as simply an allegorical expression of esoteric
spiritual knowledge. 36 Alchemy has therefore become overly associated with spiritualism,
witchcraft, and other forms of magical belief. This misinterpretation of alchemy, advanced
31 Felicity Heal and Clive Holmes, ‗The Economic Patronage of William Cecil‘ in Pauline Croft, Patronage,
Culture and Power: The Early Cecils 1558 – 1612, London, 2002, p. 223.
32 Ibid., p. 203.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid., p. 229n.
35 Edward Osborne and Wolstan Dixie to William Cecil, 12 September 1576, Cecil Papers, vol. 160, No.111.
36 Mary Anne Atwood, A Suggestive Inquiry into the Hermetic Mystery, London, 1850.
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