The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

home I have not seen‖. 120 Where Lock acquired this knowledge is unclear. Alchemy had
been a largely foreign concept in Russia, and is generally considered to have only become
influential from the early seventeeth century. 121 It is therefore likely that Lock would have
obtained any alchemical knowledge from his fellow Englishmen in Moscow. Lock‘s
position at the Tsar‘s Court certainly would have brought him into contact with Bomelius.
Perhaps this connection convinced Lock that a demonstration of his alchemical knowledge
would appeal to Cecil.
Humfrey Lock spent a considerable amount of time in compiling his ‗Collections
on Alchemy‘. At over forty dense pages, it was a significant alchemical work, and its many
contemporary copies show that it remained influential until the middle of the seventeenth
century. Lock clearly had a reasonable expectation that his compilation, coupled with his
epistle outlining the potential medical benefits of his return, would appeal to Cecil. From
his correspondence, both in England and from Russia, it is not unreasonable to assume
that Lock had developed a good understanding of the kind of service that would appeal to
Cecil.
The alchemist Samuel Norton‘s medical treatise ‗Summarie Collections of True
Natural Magick‘, dedicated to Cecil, is a significant example of an attempt to appeal to
Cecil utilising alchemical and Paracelsian knowledge. 122 Despite this, the manuscript
treatise has not previously been examined. Preserved in the Cambridge University Library,
‗Summarie Collections‘ is not mentioned in Norton‘s Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
entry, or any other lists of Norton‘s works. 123 Whilst the manuscript is undated, it was
certainly written after Cecil‘s ennoblement in February 1571. Norton‘s identification of
120 Lock, ‗Dedicatory Epistle‘.
121 N. A. Figurovski, ‗The alchemist and physician Arthur Dee: an episode in the history of chemistry and
medicine in Russia‘, Ambix, Vol. 13, 1965, p. 43.
122 Samuel Norton, ‗Summarie Collections of the True Natural Magick grounded upon Principles Divine and
from the Writinges of Hermes Trimegistus and others the Learned Auncients: conteining the true
Philosophie and Physick drawen into commune places‘, undated, Cambridge University Library MS KK1.3
No.2.
123 Scott Mandelbrote, ‗Norton, Samuel (1548–1621)‘, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford, Sept
2004; online edn, May 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20357].
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