The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

emerged. 91 Whilst Grund provides useful biographical and sociohistorical context for the
‗Collections‘, he primarily focussed on the sources and linguistics of the treatise itself.
Grund demonstrated that ‗Collections on Alchemy‘ consists primarily of a compilation of
earlier alchemical texts, especially the writings of George Ripley. However, while Grund
has noted that both Cecil and Elizabeth were ―Two of the staunchest supporters of
alchemical experimentation‖ and that the treatise would have been written in this context,
an attempt to situate Lock within Cecil‘s alchemical patronage was outside his remit. 92
Lock‘s background still resists research. Apparently unrelated to the prominent
London family of poets, merchants and travellers of the same name, Lock first emerges in
1562 as the overseer, surveyor and chief carpenter at the construction of Upnor Castle in
Kent. 93 In a letter to Cecil of 18 June 1562 regarding progress on the castle, Lock
proposed that stone from the disused Rochester Castle could be used for the construction.
He had clearly been in correspondence with Cecil for some time. 94 Lock effectively
managed the construction project since it began in 1560, because the castle‘s designer, Sir
Richard Lee, the foremost English military engineer of the day, was preoccupied with the
construction of the fortress at Berwick upon Tweed. 95 However, according to the accounts
of the site manager Richard Watts, Lock‘s interest waned and he only visited the site twice
after 1564. 96
In 1567 Elizabeth sent Lock with others to Russia, in response to Tsar Ivan IV‘s
request for an English architect who could ―make castiles, townes, and palaces‖. 97 Lock
would later complain about his exile, and of false ―freendes [in England] that brought me
91 Peter Grund, ‗―Misticall Wordes and Names Infinite‖: An Edition of Humfrey Lock‘s Treatise on
Alchemy, with an Introduction, Explanatory Notes and Glossary‘, Unpublished PhD Thesis, Uppsala
University, 2004; Peter Grund, ―Misticall Wordes and Names Infinite‖ An Edition and Study of Humfrey Lock's
Treatise on Alchemy, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, Tempe, Forthcoming 2010.
92 Grund, "Misticall Wordes and Names Infinite".
93 Humfrey Lock to Cecil, 16 June 1562, TNA, SP 12/23/42.
94 Ibid.
95 Marcus Merriman, ‗Lee, Sir Richard (1501/2–1575)‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, 2004
[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/16303]
96 A. D. Saunders, Upnor Castle, London, 1967, pp. 6-7.
97 Quoted in Hamel, England and Russia, p 177, date of 1567 given in N. N. Rubtsov, History of Foundry Practice
in USSR, The Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (trans.), New Delhi, 1975, p. 44.
66