The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

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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. 26
University in the period. 56 A high proportion of the books related to history, theology or medicine, all preoccupations of the Elizabethan elite, whilst others reflected his scholarly interest in law. Alongside Elizabethan best sellers such as his friend Richard Eden‘s The Art of Navigation (1561), were numerous books discussing alchemy, astrology, chemical medicine, and the occult. 57 The presence of works such as Cornelius Agrippa‘s De Occulta Philosophia (1533) in Smith‘s library indicates the particular mix of interests common amongst Elizabethan intellectuals. 58 Popular amongst many university trained scholars, including Smith‘s fellow Cambridge graduate John Dee, Agrippa‘s book dealt primarily with the occult correspondences of cabalistic cosmogony. 59 Also present was the supposedly Rosicrucian collection De Alchimia opuscula complura veterum philosophorum (1550), dedicated to the chemical physician Paracelsus, which included alchemical works attributed to Aristotle, alongside tracts by alchemical authorities such as Raymond Lull. 60 Works such as these cemented the association of humanist attempts to restore ancient knowledge with both philosophical and practical alchemy. Smith‘s possession of Georgius Agricola‘s influential metallurgical work De Re Metallica (1556) is suggestive of the scholar turned statesman‘s instinct to apply alchemical knowledge to financially beneficial practical endeavours. 61 Long after Smith‘s death in 1577 the eminent Elizabethan scholar Gabriel Harvey wrote to Cecil‘s son Robert, paying tribute to ―the true Chymique without imposture which I learned from Sir Thomas Smith not to condemn‖. 62 It is likely Smith, as Cecil‘s tutor and friend, taught the future Lord Treasurer the same distinction between true and counterfeit alchemy. 56 Smith‘s Library Catalogue printed in John Strype, The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith, Kt. D.C.L., Principal Secretary of State to King Edward the Sixth, and Queen Elizabeth, London, 1698, reprinted 1820, pp. 274- 81; David Stam, International Dictionary of Library Histories, Vol. 1, Chicago, 2001, pp. 810, 868. 57 Ibid., p. 279. 58 Ibid., p. 278. 59 Julian Roberts and Andrew G. Watson, John Dee’s Library Catalogue, London, 1990, p. 69; Yates, The Occult Philosophy, pp. 43-56. 60 Strype, The Life of the Learned Sir Thomas Smith, p. 279. 61 Ibid., p. 278. 62 Roberts, R. A. (ed.), CMS: 1598, London, 1899, p. 160. 27
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 and 32: accuracy of the Aristotelian texts.
Page 33: short-sighted match. 44 There is ev
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
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De Lannoy first came to the attenti
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god send it her majesty as trouly a
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perform alchemy. Rather, Waad belie
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and Leicester. 56 De Lannoy promise
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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
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By March 1589 Dee had left Bohemia
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entirely self centred‖. 117 Cecil
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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
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According to Page, Kelley had not i
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a number of attempts to convince Ke
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For the Queen and Cecil, Smith‘s
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£500 from the company, they were t
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payment. Peterson refused them; he
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Smith‘s plan, they must have been
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Chapter Four: Alchemy and Economic
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essays Meta Incognita: A Discourse
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y chance she threw and burned in th
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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
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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
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Image 3: An Elizabethan Map of the
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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
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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
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———, Calendar of Patent Rolls
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Bennet, Henry, A Famous and Godly H
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Szulakowska, Urszula, ‗The Pseudo
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Fiddler, Paul A., and Thomas J. May
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Matthews, John, (ed.), The Rosicruc
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———, The Life of the Learned
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The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

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