The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Cecil could not convince the Queen, as she would ―in no wise hear of any such offers,
which she thinketh are but chargeable without fruit‖. 69
The de Lannoy project from 1565-1567 demonstrates the close connection
between Crown finances and alchemical projects. When Cecil learnt of de Lannoy‘s escape
attempts, Waad assured him that the alchemist had already created the alchemical elixir and
intended to keep the benefit for himself. 70 Thus, when Cecil put de Lannoy in the Tower it
was not to punish failure, but to ensure that the Queen, rather than others, would profit
from a successful transmutation that Cecil continued to support and subsidise. To Cecil,
the collapse of the project was the fault of de Lannoy‘s dishonesty, arrogance and greed.
Therefore, Cecil‘s disgusted diary entries should not be taken as disillusionment with
alchemy, rather as anger against an alchemist who would dare deceive the Queen.
Edward Kelley
The two decades following the failure of de Lannoy‘s attempts at transmutation
were relatively prosperous for the Elizabethan treasury. In his opening speech to the 1576
parliament, Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir Walter Mildmay declared that the kingdom
had cleared the ―great and weighty debt‖ accumulated in the reigns of Henry, Edward and
Mary. 71 Whilst this was an exaggeration, the stabilisation of the English currency and the
absence of expensive Continental wars had eased the government‘s financial concerns.
Moreover, Elizabeth received unprecedented peacetime subsidies, and kept a tight rein on
expenditure, bringing stability to the Crown‘s finances. 72 The outbreak of war with Spain
in 1585 transformed the situation. Spain was a global empire, with wealth and resources far
beyond those of England, and the demands of war stretched government finances to their
69 William Cecil to Sir Henry Norris, 1568, in Anon., Cabala, Sive Scrinia Sacra: Mysteries of State and Government
in Letters, London, 1691, p. 139.
70 Waad to Cecil, SP 12/39/39.
71 Sir Walter Mildmay to the House of Commons, 1576, quoted in Nares, Memoirs of the Life and Administration,
Vol. 3, p. 64.
72 T. A. Morris, Tudor Government, London, 1999, pp. 131-32.
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