The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

these examples it argues that Cecil was known by contemporaries to favour chemical
medicine.
Chapter three analyses Cecil‘s repeated attempts to use alchemy to relieve strained
Crown finances. It first examines the degree to which he encouraged and managed the
Dutch alchemist Cornelius de Lannoy‘s attempts to create alchemical riches in the 1560s.
Then it considers Cecil‘s involvement in two of the Elizabethan government‘s later
attempts to profit from alchemical knowledge. Firstly, his efforts to facilitate the return of
the alchemist Edward Kelley from Bohemia to England are reassessed in an attempt to
avoid the presentist interpretations of previous historians. Secondly, it analyses Cecil‘s role
in the Court‘s attempts to profit from the alchemical equipment of Roloff Peterson in the
1590s.
Chapter four discusses whether Cecil considered alchemy to be a potential method
for improving England‘s industrial competitiveness. It examines whether alchemy
encouraged the excessive investment in the second and third Frobisher voyages, and the
extent of Cecil‘s support for the venture. Then it presents a detailed analysis of his
patronage of the alchemist William Medley and their joint role in the Society of the New
Art‘s attempts to transmute iron into copper. By contextualising the patronage of
industrial alchemy within Cecil‘s already established policy of English economic expansion,
it presents a more complete picture of Cecil‘s economic patronage.
Through an examination of Cecil‘s alchemical patronage, this thesis adds to the
limited historiography of Elizabethan alchemy. It therefore hopes to shed light on a
number of questions regarding alchemy in the wider Elizabethan and European contexts.
Was Cecil a driver of Elizabethan alchemical patronage or did he merely reflect the attitude
of the rest of the Court? To what degree did Elizabethan views on alchemy mirror their
continental contemporaries? How had these attitudes shifted by the end of Elizabeth‘s
reign?
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