The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

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among students and teachers, with a number of related topics approved for formal university debates, including a debate on the possibility of alchemical transmutation. 40 Historians have largely ignored those aspects of university learning outside the official curriculum and pursued through private discussion. The careers of Cecil‘s friends and fellow scholars suggest these encompassed elements of the alchemical and occult learning advocated by humanist scholars such as Cornelius Agrippa. Alford argues that Cecil shared the interests of ―a club of young, energetic and clever men who loved scholarship and learned from one another‖ and that this gave him ―friends for life‖. 41 However, he fails to explore the implication of many of these friends‘ fascination, and even obsession, with both the philosophy and practice of alchemy. It seems unlikely that Cecil shared so much with his intellectual contemporaries but stopped short of alchemy. In fact, the letters Cecil later exchanged with his former classmates and tutors clearly reflected their shared enthusiasm for alchemy. Cecil had a close association with both of the leading lights of the Cambridge humanist movements, John Cheke and Thomas Smith. Students and later lecturers at Cambridge, Cheke and Smith had a devoted following, and in championing the new, more authentic, but controversial, pronunciation of Greek, they exemplified the new humanist attitude towards knowledge. 42 Less evident from the historiography, however, is both men‘s interest in alchemy. Initially acting as Cecil‘s tutor, John Cheke became a close friend of his student. Such was Cecil‘s familiarity with the Cheke family, that in 1541 he made the uncharacteristically impulsive decision to marry Cheke‘s younger sister, Mary. 43 The family were not wealthy or influential and, to Cecil‘s father‘s mind at least, it was a disastrously 40 Feingold, ‗The Occult Tradition‘, p. 78. 41 Alford, Burghley, p. 18. 42 Nauert, Humanism and the Culture, p. 187. 43 Read, Mr Secretary, p.27. 24
short-sighted match. 44 There is evidence that Cheke also introduced Cecil to alchemical concepts. In 1562 Richard Eden, informing Cecil of the success of his latest alchemical experiments, was sure, that if the floure of learning of our tyme, and sumtyme Tutor and brother in lawe unto your L[ordship], Mr Cheeke, had seene any of these two secreats, he wolde greatly have rejoysed: As I knowe the divine sparke of knowledge that is in your L[ordship] partely receaved of hym, wyll move you to doo the like 45 Cecil‘s marriage with Mary Cheke was short lived. Mary died in 1543 shortly after giving birth to Cecil‘s first son, Thomas. 46 Cecil, who left university in 1541, without taking a degree, stayed in close contact with his former brother in law. Both men moved from Cambridge to the Court in London and both acted as secretaries to King Edward VI. 47 Cheke, however, did not live to see the accession of Queen Elizabeth. He died in 1557, shortly after being kidnapped during his exile in the Netherlands and forcibly converted to Catholicism. 48 Cecil‘s other tutor Thomas Smith also importantly shaped Cecil‘s intellectual development, and they remained in close contact long after leaving Cambridge. The second son of a poor Essex sheep farmer, Smith rose to the prestigious rank of Regis Professor on the back of a precocious intellect and enormous ambition. 49 As an acknowledged leader of the humanist intellectuals, Smith was an enormously influential figure at Cambridge. While Smith‘s later political career would never match the heights of his intellectual reputation, he did hold a number of important positions within the Edwardian and Elizabethan 44 Ibid., p.29. 45 Richard Eden to Cecil, 1 August 1562, BL, Lansdowne, Vol. 101, no. 5. 46 Read, Mr Secretary, p. 29. 47 Alan Bryson, ‗Cheke, Sir John (1514–1557)‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/5211]. 48 Ibid. 49 Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith, pp. 9-25. 25
Page 1 and 2: The Alchemical Patronage of Sir Wil
Page 3 and 4: Abstract This thesis examines the a
Page 5 and 6: Acknowledgements Thanks must first
Page 7 and 8: List of Abbreviations APC Acts of t
Page 9 and 10: Introduction William Cecil, through
Page 11 and 12: late seventeenth and early eighteen
Page 13 and 14: economic policy, only cursory exami
Page 15 and 16: otherwise. The dull, elderly, burea
Page 17 and 18: y such prolific authors as A. E. Wa
Page 19 and 20: marginalised the importance of alch
Page 21 and 22: Many of the distortions in the hist
Page 23 and 24: difficult to access with microfilm
Page 25 and 26: Chapter 1: Cecil and Alchemical Phi
Page 27 and 28: other aspects of medieval knowledge
Page 29 and 30: explain why alchemy made sense in t
Page 31: accuracy of the Aristotelian texts.
Page 35 and 36: University in the period. 56 A high
Page 37 and 38: some tentative conclusions about Ce
Page 39 and 40: Cecil tended to favour more practic
Page 41 and 42: Actes and Monuments (1563), ―fata
Page 43 and 44: Dee and Cecil‘s relationship over
Page 45 and 46: symbolism, seems tenuous. It ignore
Page 47 and 48: great pleasure in the workes of Nat
Page 49 and 50: demonstrated the divine spirit of l
Page 51 and 52: alchemical knowledge than his geogr
Page 53 and 54: eports to Cecil are almost exclusiv
Page 55 and 56: Thynne also affirmed the importance
Page 57 and 58: From Longleat Thynne wrote for Ceci
Page 59 and 60: his desperate financial situation.
Page 61 and 62: no significant records of their pra
Page 63 and 64: such as John Dee and country gentle
Page 65 and 66: The late 1560s saw the first signif
Page 67 and 68: eminently qualified to deal with th
Page 69 and 70: the patronage of James Blount, Lord
Page 71 and 72: medicines. Amongst the collection o
Page 73 and 74: gold into France to fund Catholic e
Page 75 and 76: in distayne‖. 98 However, it is n
Page 77 and 78: of a dedicatory epistle to Cecil, f
Page 79 and 80: home I have not seen‖. 120 Where
Page 81 and 82: of yeeres before Paracelsus time‖
Page 83 and 84:
Henry Bossevyle suggested practical
Page 85 and 86:
metal and European currencies, furt
Page 87 and 88:
De Lannoy first came to the attenti
Page 89 and 90:
god send it her majesty as trouly a
Page 91 and 92:
perform alchemy. Rather, Waad belie
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and Leicester. 56 De Lannoy promise
Page 95 and 96:
Cecil could not convince the Queen,
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the accounts of Elias Ashmole and S
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context of Dee‘s failed English C
Page 101 and 102:
By March 1589 Dee had left Bohemia
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entirely self centred‖. 117 Cecil
Page 105 and 106:
Cecil and the Queen‘s demands tha
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love and honor vertue and knolledge
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Kelley‘s demise. 148 Wotton repor
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depryved of his libertye and frends
Page 113 and 114:
According to Page, Kelley had not i
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a number of attempts to convince Ke
Page 117 and 118:
For the Queen and Cecil, Smith‘s
Page 119 and 120:
£500 from the company, they were t
Page 121 and 122:
payment. Peterson refused them; he
Page 123 and 124:
Smith‘s plan, they must have been
Page 125 and 126:
Chapter Four: Alchemy and Economic
Page 127 and 128:
essays Meta Incognita: A Discourse
Page 129 and 130:
y chance she threw and burned in th
Page 131 and 132:
y others without trewthe‖. 25 Wal
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work did not make this link, and ne
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linked. It is, however, significant
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laming betrayal, setbacks and decep
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to involve cementation rather than
Page 141 and 142:
Clearly aware of Cecil‘s rising i
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certainly the practical expert, who
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new process which ―my Lord Burghl
Page 147 and 148:
Image 3: An Elizabethan Map of the
Page 149 and 150:
was the potential benefit for the C
Page 151 and 152:
Medley ―by commaundement mencyone
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thanked Wotton for his letter detai
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intention to have medled with any c
Page 157 and 158:
and to have received through his fa
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again imprisoned, this time almost
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was a key investor, attempted to ut
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understanding of nature. John Dee,
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promised ―an ounce or so of powde
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conviction regarding the reality of
Page 169 and 170:
———, Calendar of Patent Rolls
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Bennet, Henry, A Famous and Godly H
Page 173 and 174:
Szulakowska, Urszula, ‗The Pseudo
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Fiddler, Paul A., and Thomas J. May
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Matthews, John, (ed.), The Rosicruc
Page 179 and 180:
———, The Life of the Learned
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The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

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