The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley
The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley
The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley
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led him to back a number <strong>of</strong> alchemical schemes designed to relieve strained Crown<br />
finances. When—amidst the financial crises <strong>of</strong> the 1560s—Cornelius de Lannoy wrote to<br />
<strong>Cecil</strong> promising alchemical riches, <strong>Cecil</strong> arranged for the alchemist to travel to England,<br />
obtained his alchemical equipment, and kept himself informed <strong>of</strong> every stage <strong>of</strong> the project.<br />
When de Lannoy attempted to flee the country, rather than assume him to be a fraud and<br />
abandon the project, <strong>Cecil</strong> instead assumed that the alchemist had succeeded in his aims.<br />
Once he had de Lannoy securely confined, <strong>Cecil</strong> again provided the expensive equipment<br />
needed for transmutation.<br />
Much later, in the 1580s and 1590s when war with Spain stretched royal resources<br />
to breaking point, <strong>Cecil</strong> again sought an alchemical solution. He went to enormous lengths<br />
to bring the alchemist Edward Kelley back to England. Not only did he and the Queen<br />
enter into correspondence with Kelley, <strong>of</strong>fering rich rewards for his alchemical skills, <strong>Cecil</strong><br />
also put the extensive resources <strong>of</strong> his European intelligence network behind an effort to<br />
unearth Kelley‘s secret. Belief in the alchemist‘s potential died hard, and <strong>Cecil</strong>‘s attempts to<br />
return Kelley to England continued long after the alchemist‘s imprisonment. In the<br />
aftermath <strong>of</strong> this failure, <strong>Cecil</strong> played a central role in the Elizabethan Court‘s attempts to<br />
pr<strong>of</strong>it from the alchemical equipment <strong>of</strong> Clement Oldfield and Rol<strong>of</strong>f Peterson, first<br />
coordinating attempts to evaluate the equipment‘s legitimacy, then attempts to sell it in<br />
Europe.<br />
To <strong>Cecil</strong>, alchemy also had the potential to aid in England‘s industrial growth.<br />
Unlike his patronage <strong>of</strong> attempts to transmute base metals into gold for the Crown<br />
Treasury, these projects played a coherent part in <strong>Cecil</strong>‘s economic policy. <strong>The</strong> bubble <strong>of</strong><br />
speculation surrounding Martin Frobisher‘s ore in 1577 centred around two alchemists,<br />
Giovanni Baptista Agnello and Burchard Kranich. <strong>Cecil</strong>, one <strong>of</strong> the key investors and<br />
administrators <strong>of</strong> the project, knew <strong>of</strong> both men‘s alchemical backgrounds, having been<br />
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