The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Actes and Monuments (1563), ―fatally compromised his reputation amongst Protestants‖. 93
Whilst Dee rehabilitated himself in the early years of Elizabeth‘s reign, and succeeded in
concealing his actions under Mary, Cecil had a long memory. Cecil would show interest
and even enthusiasm for the more practical aspects of Dee‘s alchemical endeavours, but
did not exhibit the same amity as he held for the rest of his Cambridge colleagues.
During Elizabeth‘s reign Dee, like so many others, found that Cecil stood as the
gatekeeper to royal patronage, and that occult philosophy provided a key to open that gate.
In 1563 Dee, in Antwerp arranging the printing of his cabalistic work Monas Hieroglyphica,
wrote to Cecil reporting on his progress. 94 Dee appealed especially to Cecil ―among so
many other in place of high honor and governance‖ because of his ―approved wisdome‖
and ―naturall zeale‖. 95 His search to accumulate divine knowledge had led him to a work
―for which many a lerned man hath longe sowght, and dayly yet doth seeke‖: the German
occultist Johannes Trithemius‘ (1462–1516) magical and cryptographic book Steganographia
(c.1499). 96 It is significant that Dee thought that ―the name [of Trithemius] therof to you is
not unknowne‖. 97 Trithemius had a particularly dark reputation for communicating with
evil spirits, a notoriety reinforced by both Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon. 98
Steganographia, prefaced with a theoretical defence of the occult arts, contained a
complex system of magical spirit communication and described Pythagorean numerology
as the key to alchemy. 99 As the work has later been identified as primarily cryptography
disguised as magic, most historians have assumed that Dee was appealing to Cecil‘s interest
in disguising his communications. 100 However, the true nature of the first two books of
Steganographia remained unknown until the publication of the decryption key in 1606, with
93 Ibid.
94 John Dee to Cecil, 16 February 1563, TNA, SP 12/27/63.
95 Ibid.
96 Ibid.
97 Ibid.
98 Noel L. Bran, Trithemius and Magical Theology: a Chapter in the Controversy over Occult Studies in Early Modern
Europe, Albany, 1999, pp. 165-66.
99 Ibid., p. 178.
100 Charlotte Fell Smith, John Dee 1527 to 1608, London, 1909, p. 21.
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