The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

governments. Cecil made sure his friend succeeded him as Principal Secretary to Elizabeth,
although Smith did not retain the influence on policy that his predecessor enjoyed. 50
Described as being of ―singular learnynge in all sciences‖ and ―the flower of the
University of Cambridge‖, Smith maintained an almost obsessive interest in alchemy,
building alchemical laboratories in both his London and Essex homes. 51 However, Smith‘s
alchemical interests have been ignored, down played and derided by subsequent historians.
Their failure to appreciate that his understanding of the world necessitated belief in
alchemy has given them a conflicted historical assessment of Smith. Mary Dewer‘s
biography of Smith allowed that his ―chemical experiments with his precious ‗stills‘ were an
abiding interest, at times almost a ludicrous preoccupation in later years‖. 52 While this
assessment fit her view of Smith as ―mercurial in temperament, rash and impetuous‖,
Dewar struggled to relate his alchemical interests to his more scholarly enquiries. 53 His
correspondence with another Cambridge educated scholar, Richard Eden, reveals their
common alchemical interests. Smith replied rhetorically to an offer of an alchemical
demonstration, asking
who can be more desirous to see the unlooked for and incredible privities
of nature than I am and have ever been. Yet that there can by that art be
made and brought to pass most strange, wondrous and incredible things,
both have I had experience myself and I have read much more. 54
Smith‘s interest in alchemy was partly inspired by his chronic ill health. He claimed that
―for my health, I have found more help in [alchemy] than in all the physic hitherto in my
life essayed‖. 55
Smith‘s library provides further evidence of the occult and alchemical knowledge he
encountered and taught while at Cambridge. A 1566 catalogue numbered his collection at
around four hundred works, more than the holdings of either Cambridge or Oxford
50 Ibid., pp. 171-84.
51 Preface by Richard Eden to Martin Cortez, The Art of Navigation, Richard Eden (trans.), London, 1561, p.
viii; Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith, p. 15.
52 Dewar, Sir Thomas Smith, p. 15.
53 Ibid., p. 6.
54 Thomas Smith to Richard Eden, 9 March 1572, TNA, SP 70/146 f.56v.
55 Ibid.
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