The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

demonstrated the divine spirit of life that moved all nature, which ―seemeth to agre with
that Cornelius Agrippa hathe written in his second booke De occulta philosopia‖. 149
Eden then claimed to have completed a similar work himself when patronised by
Richard Whalley. He gave Cecil a full account of his alchemical experiment, in which he
created, through transmutation, ―a hundreth sylver trees about an ynche high, so perfectly
formed with trunkes, stalkes and leaves‖. 150 The seventeenth century alchemist Eirenaeus
Philalethes in, Secrets Reveal’d: or, an Open Entrance to the Shut-Palace of the King (1669) also
described an experiment that created ―tiny silver trees, with twigs and leaves‖. 151 Rather
than a ―wishful fantasy of territorial acquisition‖, they were in fact observing a legitimate
chemical process. Nineteenth century chemists such as Johann Wilhelm Ritter
experimented with what they called ―Diana‘s silver tree‖. 152 The precipitation of nitrate of
silver by means of mercury created ―the form of a tree, producing a very beautiful
appearance‖. 153 To alchemists the growth of the tree was ―evidence of a vital spirit or ‗seed
of gold‘ at work ... the tree was a step in the process for making the Philosophers‘
Stone‖. 154 It was Cecil‘s education that made Eden sure that he would be fascinated by the
experiment, especially because Cecil had received the ―divine spark of knowledge‖ from
John Cheke. 155 Eden was sure that anyone educated in the same intellectual traditions as
himself would agree that ―there is nothing so delectable as to beholde the infinite powre
and wysdome of god in his creatures‖. 156
Throughout Eden‘s 1562 letter he referred to a number of authors in a manner
suggesting Cecil‘s familiarity with their works. Some of these, such as Aristotle, Philo,
149 Ibid.
150 Ibid.
151 Eirenaeus Philalethes, Secrets Reveal’d: or, an Open Entrance to the Shut-Palace of the King, London, 1669, p. 28.
152 Roberto De Andrade Martins, ‗Orsted, Ritter, and Magnetochemisty‘, in Robert Michael Brain, Robert
Sonne Cohen, Ole Knudsen(eds.), Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science: Ideas, Disciplines,
Practices, Dordrecht, 2007, pp. 347-349.
153 John Comstock, A Grammar of Chemistry, Cambridge, Mass., 1825, p. 93.
154 John C. Powers, ‗‗Ars Sine Arte:‘ Nicholas Lemery and the End of Alchemy in Eighteenth-Century
France‘ in Allen G. Debus (ed.), Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry: Papers from Ambix, Huddersfield, 2004, pp.
525-526.
155 Eden to Cecil, Lansdowne, Vol. 101. No 5.
156 Ibid.
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