2

A Biography of Edward Kelly, the

English Alchemist and Associate of

Dr. John Dee
Michael Wilding
The errors, distortions, fabrications, and defamations in existing accounts of the
life uf Edward Kelly arc too many for individual refutation. Even the most
responsible commentators and historians have, upon dealing with Kelly, repea ted these unsubstantiated and generally derogatory stories. In this article I
have sought to assemble most records of his Life that can be verified from
contemporary evidence, focussing for reasons of space on the documentary details of everyday life, rather than on the vuluminou:; dialogues with spirits that
he undertook for Dee.
Edward Kelly was born at Worcester on August l, 1555, at 4 P.M. His
surname is sometimes spelled Kelley (it is standardized toKdly thoughout this
article), and he also went under the name of Edward Talbot. John Dee recorded
Kelly's date of birth in the horoscope he drew up llf his nativity, 1 and in the
Kelly natus hora quana a meridie
margins of the almanac he used as a diary:
ut annotatum reliquit pater cjus."!
At some point Dcc gave Kelly a copy of an octavo bible printed by Robert
Stephens in 1555. It is the only book that Dec records giving to Kelly The
coincidence of its publication date and Kclly's birth date surely lay behindthe
gift, whatever other hope for moral guidance may have been implied. 3
Parish records show that Edward Kelly, son of PatrickKdly, was christened
on August 2, 1555, at St. Swithin's church, Worcester. He had a sister Elizabeth
bom in 1558, and a brother Thomas. Thomas later joined Dee's householdand
Dee records his birth date in the diary, October 17, 1565, also at Worcester at
four in the afternoon.4 And Dee records, too the birth date of Edward Kelly's
wife in his diary: June 23, 1563. "Jane Cooper, now Mystris Kelly, toward
evening" (PD, 1-2). She came from Chipping Norton . .
Not much is knownof Kdly before he met Dec. Detailsof his education
are unknown Neither the Royal Grammar School nor the King's Schooll
Worcester, has pupil records from this period. There is a story that hewas at
university at Oxford, but it has not been substantiateJ. Anthony aWoodrecords
in Atheru:e Oxoniensis that Kelly "being about 17 years of Age, at which time
he had attained to a competency of Grammar learning at Worcester and elsewhere, was sent to Oxford, but to what House I cannot tell. However I have

36

MYSTICALMETALOF

GOLD
and retained strongconnectionsthere, so the story may be aurhcnri..:. uthenticis the...:
tirst conuncntator to identify Kdly with Talbot; with no published records to
draw on, he nonetheless knew this detail.9
The cropping of ears was a standard judicial punishmentin Tudor
but no contemporary record hasbeen discovered ot what crime Kclly was alleged
to have committed, or of the execution of such a sentence.10ln Prague in 1593
Christopher Parkins was asked of Kellt "iin the Emperor's name, if I could give
any account of the diminishing of one of his ears.'' 11 Weever may haveexaggerated in having both ears lopped, just as later commentatorsexaggerate inhavmg
Kelly regularly digging up corpses Only one corpse is reported tll have bel.!n
disinterred, and only one car is here said to have been lopped.
In 1581 John Dee had begun looking foran assistant to help him consult
with spirits. Dce was tifry,tive, a distinguished mathematician, astrologcr, anJ
speculative thinker.ll He had the largest private library in Britain butit was not
enough, Now he wanted direct access to divine knowledge, mediated through
angels, of course. The voluminous records of the spiritual transactions that
resulted from Kdly's partnership with Dee are preserved in manuscripts in the
British Library. The major part arc recorded in MS Cotton Appendix XLVI
parts I and 2. This was transcribed and published by Mcric Casaubon, as A True

been informed by an ancient Bachelorut Di\'inity whu in his )uunger years had
been an Amanul!nsis to Mr. ThomasAllen ofGloucester Hall that he (Kelly)had
spent some time in that House whereuplm I, recurring to the matriculation,
could not finJ the nameof Kelly, only T albotoflrdand, three of which name
were students there in 1573, 74, &c .. . This relation being somewhat dubiously
delivered to me, I must tellyou rhar Kclly having an unsettled mind, left Oxon
abruptly, withoutbeing entered into the m.atricula."; Somewhere along the line
Kdly learned fluent Latin.
Elias Ashmolerecurded in 1675 that the astrologer "Mr Lilly toldme rhat
John Evans who first taught him astrology informedhim that he was acquainted
with Kdly's sister in Worcester and that she showed him some of the gold her
brother had transmuted and that Kdly was first an apothecary in Worcester.'>c>
Lengler du Fresnoy claimed that Kdly was a notary in London, specializing in
forging ancient title deeds, but nodocumentary evidence is known to exist.i
In his ANcientFunerallMonuments (1631) John Weever cites Lucan and
Chaucer onthe technique of raising the dead for spiritual prophecy. He then
tells a story of Kdly in Lancashire:
This dialbolical questioning of the dead for the knowledge of future
accidents was put in practice by the foresaid Kelly; who, upon a certain
night, in the park of Walton le Dale in the county of Lancaster,
with onePaul Waring (his fellow companil>n in such deeds of darkness)
invocated some one of the infernal regiment to know certain passages
in the life, as also what might be known by the devil's foresight, of the
manner and time of the death of a noble young gentleman, as then in
his wardship. The black ceremonies of that night being ended, Kelly
demanded of one of the gentleman's servants, what corpse was the last
buried in Law church,yard, a church thereunto adjoining, who told him
of a poor man that was buried there but the same day. He and the said
Waring entreated this foresaid servant to go with them to the grave of
the man so lately interred, which he did; and withal did help them to
dig up the carcase of the poor caitiff, whom by their incantations, they
made him (or rather some evil spirit through his organs) to speak, who
delivered strange predictions concerning the said gentleman.
I was told thus much by the said servingman, a secondary actor in
thatdismal abhorred business, and divers gentlemen, and othersare now
li ving in Lancashire tu whom he has related this story. And the gentle,
man himself (whose memory I am bound to honour) told me a little
before his death of this conjuration by Kelly; as he had it by relation
from his said servant and tenant; only some circumstances excepted,
which_he thought not fitting to come to his master's knowlcdge."8
W eeverbegins his accountKelly(otherwisecalled T albot) that famous English
alchemist of our times, who tlying out of his own country (after he had lost
hoth his cars at Lancaster) was entertained with Rudolf the second, and last of
that Christian name, Emperor of Germany." Weever was born in Lancashire

and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yl!ars Between Dr. )uhn Dee (.-\
Mathematician of Great Faml.! in Q. ELizabeth anJ King }ames their Reignes) and
Some Spirits: T cmding (hadit succeeded toa General Alteration ofMostStatesand
Kingdomes in the Wurld (London: Printed by D. Maxwell tor T. Garthwait,
1659). 13The records of the initial transactions had become separated from the

l
l

materials Casaubon transcribed, and were acquiredby Elias Ashmole in 1672.14

They are now preserved as British Library MS Sloane 3188. They were tran
scribcd and edited by ChristopherWhitby in a doctoralthesis at the University
of Binningham, 1981, John Dee's Actions with Spirir.s: 22 December 1581 to 23
May 1583. ' 5 A further episode, preserved in the BodleianLibrary (MS Ashmole
1790 art. 1), was discovered and translated by C. H. Jostenas "An Unknown
Chapter in the Life of John Dee," Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes
28 (1965): 223--57; EdwarJ Fenton in The Diaries of John Dee 185--89, draws
on a seventeenth-century translation llt this episode (British Library, MS Shxmc
3645, fols. 22-38). Some of the materials from the spiritual sessions were tran
scribcd and systematized into othermanuscript volumes. to
Dee's first spiritual experiments were unsatisfactory. He foundan assistant
Barnabas Saul, a preacher and master of arts. In February 1582 Saul was indicted
but released, "his indictment being by law found insifficient at Westminster
Hall," Dee records, though without specifying what the charge was (PD. 1-t;
Fenton, 24). If it involved summoning up spirits Dce was lucky not to have
been charged too.The project could easily have come to an end. But early in
March a new seer was introduced to Dee by a Mr. Clerkson. March 8 "Mr
Clerksonand his friend came to my house . .. .''The following day, "Friday at
dinner time, Mr Clerkson and Mr T albot declared a great deal of Barnabas'
naughty dealing toward me: as in telling Mr Clerkson ill things of me that J
should mak[Fenton: "mock" his friend, as that he was weary of me, thatI would

MYSTiCAL METAL l)F GOLD

~ tlatterhis friend the learned manthatI would borrow[Fenton:"bereave") him

or him. BU[ his friend toldme, before my wife and Mr Clerkson, that a spiritual
creature told him that Barnabas had censured [Femon: "cosened:] both Mr
Clerkson and me. The injuries which this Barnabas had done me divers ways
were very great, etc.(PD, 14-15; Fenton24) . Two lines partially erased in the
original arc restored in Fenton'stext: "This learned man after dinner promised
to do what he could to further my knowledge in magic ... with fairies ... A
monstrous and hl>rrible lie" (Fenton 25 ). Above the deleted entryis written,
"You that read this underwritten assure yourself that it is a shameful lie, for
Talbot neither studied for any such thing: nor showed himself dishonest in
anything."Above this Dce wrote, "This is Mr Talbot, or that learned man, his
own writing in my book, very unduly as he came by it" (Fenton, 26 n.l3).
Halliwdl remarked, "There are several other notices of Talbot erased, but
whetherby him or by the Doctor it is impossible to say, bur most probably the
tormcr (PD, 15n). The erased entriesrelate mainly to Talbot or to Dee's wife,
and are restored in Fenwn's text 44 45, 46, 47, 48, 51, 70 72). Two indicate
Dee's doubts about Talbot. May29, 1582, "I understood of EdTalbot his wicked
nature and his abominable lies, etc." July 16, 1582, "I have confirmed that
Talbotwas a cosener... " (Fenton, 45, 46). Yet whate\'er doubts Dee had, he
continued ro employ T albot and work with him for the next seven years. His
most serious doubtis expressed in a note to the recordof thespiritual transac,
tionsot March10, 1582, when he records that Talbot told him that originally
hts comingwas to entrap_me, it I had had any dealing with wicked spirits, as
he confessed often times afterand that he was set on, etc." 17 Who had set him
on is never recorded.
Sl

The new seer came underthe name l1f EdwardT albot, but after November
1582.he is knownas EJward Kclly (or Kellcy). JohnWeever, writing in 1631
ot Kelly (otherwise known as Talbot)," is the hrst commemator to identify
Talbot and Kdly. With no published records to draw on at this date Weever's
identification seems to be from some now unknown personal or anecdotal
source. 18
.

On Saturday, March 10, 1582, Dee and his new assistant began their con

sultations with spirits, which continued, with interruptions, for seven years.

Kelly looked intoa "show stone" and saw the spirits. Dee asked the questions.
Thespirits replied through Kelly Occasionally the spirits appeared outside the
stone, but there was more ofa risk of devilish impostors appearing outside the
stone than m u . As R. J. W. Evans writes of Kelly, "his performances at the
seances suggest at very least thorough familiarity with the technical procedures
of occultism."19 Nll description of the stone survives, but it seems that Dee had
more than one. Somedrawings in. the margin of the spiritual records suggest
that they weresphencal balls, and trom evidence in the records we can assume
they were ot crystal. In the British Museum there is a black obsidian mirror of
Mexican originwhich .is said to have belonged to Dee. h is doubtful, however
whetherthis was used in the scrying sessions. 10
. Dce himself does not seemto have seen or heard thespiritual creatures
directlyalthough the year bctore, May 25, 1581, he recorded in his diary that

"I had sight in crystallo oftered me, and I saw" (PD, 11; Fenton 13). But thatr
seems to have been a rare occasion. His practice now was to put his questions
and the spiritual creatures would answer through Kelly, who saw themin the
stone. Dee would then write down what was said. The notes were later transscribed, and the recordsof these sessionsbound up intobooks.Other manuscript
books were compiled which abstracted and collated the information given.
The spiritual dialogues with Uriel, Gabriel, Michael, Raphad, Nalvage,
Die Illis Mapsama, and other angels consist of lengthy instructions in angel
magic, warnings of apocalypse,explorations of genealogies,surveys ot the regions
of the world, rebukes to Kelly for privately practicingSatanic magic, and alchemical and spiritual parables. Some of the spirits, like the young girl MaJini (or
Madimi), are amazingly individuared. Kelly's mediumistic powers have been
doubted by many commentators, hut if these dialogues were a conscioushoax
then Kelly should be given due credit as a literary genius. !I
The spiritual explorations were often interrupted. On March 20, 1582
T albor was instructed, "He must go for the books else they will perish." Dee
explained in a note: "He meant that my partner EJ. Talbot should go tofetch
the books from Lancaster (or thereby) which were the LordMounteagle's books
which Mr Mortyet has." 22 William Stanley, third LL>rd Mounteagle, who had
died the previous year, is presumably meant. He was a member of oneofthose
powerful, Catholic aristocratic families, around whom plots and suspicions tl . . lurished. His grandson William had inherited the courtesy ride but he was only
seven, so the books are unlikely to have been his. The young Mounteagle was
later involved in the failed rebellion of rhe Earl of Essex. He escaped witha
fine and became an informer on Catholic conspiracies. It is generally believed
that it was he who revealed the Gunpowder plot. Whether or notT Talbotwent
to Lancaster is unknown. He left rwo days after rhe instruction(PD, 15; Fentlm,
40) and was back with Dce five weekslater, by April28, without havingobtained
the books.
Ar the end of April 1582, the angel MichaeltL)lJ Talbot that he should
get married. Talbot was very unhappy ar the instruction. "Very sore disquieted,"
Dee records. According to Talbot, "He said that I must betake myselt to the
world and forsake the wurlJ. That is that 1 should marry. Which thing todo I
have no natural inclination: neither with a safe conscience may I do it, contrary
to my vow and profession."23 On May 4, Talbot left (PD. 15; Femon, 4-l).
It is unclear what he meant by his vow and protession. Did he mean he
was forbidden to marry because he was a Catholic priest? What else could he
have meant? Was he operating underground in England, under an assumed name
perhaps, put into England from a seminary in Europe? Walsingham's intelligence
network had intercepted and turned a number of such priests and used them as
informers on other Catholics. Was Kelly/Talbot one of those? Lancashire, with
which he is associated in Weever's story and in his proposedvisit for Mounteagle's books, was at this time a strongholdof Catholic recusancy.
The date of the marriage is unknown. The earliest mention of Kelly's wife
is in the spiritual records on April 29, 1583, when Kelly received a letter from

MYSTICAL METALAL OF UOLD

her. At this point Kelly seemsnot to havebeen living with her but staying
with Dee at Mortlake.
On July 13, 1582, the name of Talbut appears in Dec's diary for the last
time: "Mr Talbur cameabout3 of thedock after noon with whom I had some
words of unkindness; we parted friendly; he saidrhat rhe LorJ Morleyhad rhe
LordMounteaglc his books He promised me some of Dr.Myniver's books" (PD,
16; _Fenton, 45, reads "with whom I had some words of bookdealing: who parted
in friendly terms"). Lord Mounteagle's daughter Elizabeth haJ married EJward
Parker, lOth baron Morley and it was presumably he who now had the books.
lr is not known who Dr. Mynivcr was, but later in the spiritual transactions
(June 2?, 1584: TFR, 185) Kdly told Dee that he had learned some magic
rituals from him. Possibly Mounteagle's books dealt with magic, too.
When rhc spiritual transactions resume, November 15, 1582, rhe scryeris
named EdwarJ Kelly.25 In a spiritual session on November 21, the angelsdelivereda stone, ""as big as an egg," which Dce found on the tlul)r of his study.26
Atrcr this gitr there arc no records of further spiritual conversations for four
months. The private diary records that rhe day after the gift Kelly set off to
London and rhe following Jay to Blockleyin the Cotswolds, to return within
ten days (PD, 17; Fenton, 51). But there is no indication that he did return
until March the following year, 1583.
Hereturned with a Mr. John Huscy of Blockley, with whom he said he
haJ founda_scrollwritten in strange characters, a powder, and a manuscript
consistingoftwoindividualbookson ditterent subjects, one of them the alchemical boll>k of Duns ran, and the other a bookof hieroglyphics. These were found,
he said, b)' spiritual directionat Nurthwick Hill near Blockley.27 The powder,
Dee and Kellylater establishedwas the alchemical elixir. Kdly did not immediatelyreveal ro Dee rhe tull extent ofthe items found
A number of manuscripts ascribed to St. Dunstan exist. A copy of the
"Tractatus Maximi DominiDunstani Episcopi Cantuarinsis, veri philosophi, Je
Lapide philosophorum in the hand ot Arrhur Dee survives in the British Library, bound with his "Area arcanorum (MS Sloane 1876). Anhur Dee was
John Dee's Slln, and ir is possible that this manuscript is a transcription of the
same \\'llrk that Kelly discovered, but since the present whereabouts of the
manuscript Kellydiscovered is notknown, it is impossible to be certain.28
It has been speculated thar the enigmatic Voynich "Roger Bacon" manuscriptonce. belonging ro the Emperor Rudolf and now preservedin the Beinecke
hbrary at Y ale Uni\'ersiry, was one of Kelly's Blockley discoveries. Dce's son
Arthur toldSirThomas Browne that in Bohemia Dee possessed a book, found
togetherwitha powder, "cnntaining nothing but hieroglyphics, which book his
father bestowed much time upon: but I could not hear that he could make it
out."Despite considerable effort and computer assisted decoding applied to the
Voynich manuscript, still noone has been able to make it out.291
In later yyearsvarious other accounts of the acquisition of the powder and
themanuscnpt circulated.Elias Ashmole wrote in Theatrum Chemicum Bric.annicum that Dee andKelly "were so strangelyfortunate, as ro find a very large
quantityof rhc elixirinsome parr ofthe ruins ofGlastonbury abbey."30) Bur this

was written beforeAshmolc haJ acquired the manuscriptofthe first part of the
spiritual records, in which the Blockley account is given. Nicolas Lenglet du
Fresnoy claimed in his Histoire de la Philosophie Hermetique (174 2) that Kelly
bought the powder and the manuscript for 1 in the _Welsh marchesfrom an
innkeeper who had acquired them from the robbers of the tomb ofa bishop in
a neighboring church. 31 There is nl) reason to credit either of these accounts.
Dee had alchemical laboratories at his house at Mortlake a few miles
upstream of London on the River Thames. He had been emperimentingthere
for twenty years. His library contained some ninety alchemical books andsixty
alchemical manuscripts, n.1any consisting of more rhan one work. 32 There is a
diary of his alchemical experiments for 1581 preserved in the Bodleian Library
(MS Rawlinson D 241; excerpt in Femon, 308-309), and his private diary indicates something of his continuing interest in the area in the 1580s. Itis not clear,
however, whether he was engaged in alchemical work with Kdly at this time.
Amongfrequent visitors to Mortlake at this time was AJrian Gilbert,halfbrother to Sir Waltcr Ralegh and assistant to Mary SiJncy in her alchcmical
experiments at Wilton House. Adrian and his brother Sir Humphrey Gilbert
were active in promoting voyages to the Americas, projects in which Dee was
involved. Adrian Gilbert was allowed some participation in rhe sessions wih
d1e spirits.33
Kelly quarrelled with Gilbert, as he did with another visitor, the informer
Charles Sled. "Serve God and take heed of nettles," a spiritual \'l)icc warned
on April 5, 1583. "This was spoken to Kelly in respect l)f a great anger he was
in yesternight, by reason that one had done him injury by speech at my table,"
Dee records, noting that the person who upset Kellywas Charles Sled. 34 Sled
was one of Walsingham's most effective and most treacherous secret agents. He
had operated as a spy in Rome in 1579, reponing back on Catholic priestswho
were beingprepared for undercover operations in England. He had compiled a
dossier on nearly three hundred priests, soldiers, merchants, and students he h aJ
met there. After his cover was blown he returned toEngland wherehe continued
his activities for Walsingham. He presented evidence for the state at the trial
of Edmund Campion. The evidence is widely believed tu have been fabricated.
Campion was sentenced to death and executed. Sled hung around Dee's world
for a number of years and was involved in the plundering of his library. Was
Kelly's rage a psychic recoil from him? Or did Kelly know what Sled was? Was
Sled there watching Dee, or Kdly, or both? Was Sled trying toundermine Kelly
in Dee's eyes by provoking him in some way? Or if Kelly as Tal bot haJ originally
been set to entrap Dee, did they know each other, Kelly and Sled, from working
together in the past, or prcsent?35
Kellyhad a tiery temper, and his relationship with Dee was often stormy..
He frequently refused to continue tu scry. Of one such occasion,April 20 1583
when the stone showedonly a dark cloud, Dce records:
This Saturday had been great and eager pangs between E. K.andm J me:
while he would utterly discredit the whole process ofour actionsas, to
be dune by evil and illuding spirits: seeking his destruction. Saying that

42

MYSTICAL METALOF GOLD

he has oftenheretofore been told things true, but of illuding devils: and
now, how can this he other, than a mockery, to have a cornered Jack
cloudtn be! showed him instead of the plain writing which hitherto he
had written l)llt l>f_? And that when they shl>uld do good in deed that
then they shrank from us. And that he was not thus to lose his time:
but that he is to study, to learn some knowledge, whereby he may live:
andthat he was a cumber tll my house, and that he dwelled here as in
a prison: that it were better for him to he near Corsall plain where he
might walk abroad, without danger tobe cumbered or vexed with such
slanderous fellowsas yesterday he was, with one little Ned dwelling at
theBlack Raven in Westminster: who railed at him for bearing witness
ofa bargain made between the same Ned (or Edward) and one Lush, a
surgeon, whowas nl>\\' fallen in poverty, a very honest man, etc. 30

Bll( forall Kelly'sdoubts and rages hismeJiumistic powers were extraordinary.

On May 5, 1583, Dce _asked the spirits about "the vision which yester night wa.s
presented (unlouked tor) to the sight of E. K. as he sat at supper with me, in
my hall, I mean:the appearing ofthe very sea, and many ships thereon, and
the cuttingot the head ofa woman, by a tall black man, what are we to imagine
thereof??" He wastold, "The one, did signify the provision of foreign powers
against the welfareof this land:. which they shall shortly pur in prdctice: the
other the death of the Queen ot Scots. It is not long unto it."37
Dee noted in the margin of his records, "The Queen of Scots to be beheaded." At some later date he added, "So she was, Anno 1587 at Fotheringhay
Castle.Andalsothe same year a great preparationof ships against England by
the King ofSpainm, the Pope and other princes called Catholic, etc." That was
the Spanish Armada of 1588. Kelly had seen into the future.
On May 1, 1583, Dee noted in his private diary the arrival in London of
the Polish lordOlbracht Laski--orAlbert a.s the English called him (PD, 20;
Fenton 78). Laski (1536-1605), the Palatine of Sieradz, a powerful figure in
the elections to the Polish throne, had been a major participant in the Polish
delegation toFranceafter the election of Henri de Valois. During his visit there
he_had married the daughter of the King, Sabine de Seve, his third, and last,
wife. An archetypal Renaissance aristocrat, he was the author of two books in
Latin,one a military treatise, the other on religion and politics. He had travelled
widely aroundtheEuropean courts. And he was known as a great patron of
alchenusts, spiritual retormers, and poets. In 1569 he had financed the first
editionof Pardcelsus's Archidoxae Philosophia, book X, annotated by his personal
physacaan John Gregory Macro and translated by the poet laureate of Silesia
Adam Schroeter3838
'
The English authorities were unable to establish why Laski was visiting
England, and indeed no certain explanatilln has ever been found. For all his
vastlandholdings,laski was impoverished and one theory is that he hoped for
financialbenefitfromDee and Kelly's alchemical expertise. The English watched
him carefully and provided him with a servant, William Herle, who had been
a crucial informerin the Ridolfi plot.39' Another spy called Henry Fagot (alleged

by JohnBossy tobe a covername forGiordano Brunu) liaised withHcrlc tokeep

Walsingham informed of Laski's activities.40 Yet another Walsingham agent,
the Catholic poet Thomas Watson, applied unsuccessfully to attach himself to
Laski's entourage."'41
Laski visited Dee within a fortnight of his arrival--avisit reported on by
Herle. laski had a particular interest in his own genealogy, and in his chances
of acquiring the elective crown of Poland. Dee and Kdly consulted the spints
on these topics for him and he participated with them in their spiritual transactions in June. The young spirit maiden Madimi informed them that Laski was
related to the Laceys, the Norman lords of the Welsh marches.42 Laski also
consulted with Sir John Feme about his genealogy, bur according to the account
in Feme's The Blazon of Gentrie (London, 1586) nothing satisfactory resulted.
Laski also approached the mathematician and magician Thomas Alien about
entering his service in Poland. Allendeclined the offer.43
On June 5, 1583, Dce recorded some disturbing news. "E. K. had been ever
since nine of the clock in the morning in a marvellous great disquietness ,,t
mind, fury, and rage by reason his brother Thomas had brought him news that
a commission was out to attach, and apprehend him as a felon for coining of
money. Secondly, that his wife was gone from Mistress Freeman's house at
Blockley, and how Mr. Husey had reported him to be a cozener, and had used
very bitter and grievous reports of him now of late; and that his wife was at
home with her mother at Chipping Norton. 44
Kelly's reaction is interesting. Wouldn't fear have been the most likely
response to the news of an impending arrest for coining money? Perhaps disquietness of mind implies fear. Bur Dee stresses fury and rage. Is that the reaction
of a man caught out? Or of a man who suspects thathe has been set up? Or is
it guilty bluster? It is not clear when the coining was supposed to have occurred.
Was it perhaps some old charge that had been helJ over him? The timing of
events is interesting: it occurred two weeks after Laski visited Dee. And the
incident itself has strange reverbemtions. Ten years later in Flushing, CHristopher Marlowe was similarly involved in a coining charge that was not all that
it seemed to be, that overlapped with the duplicities of the secret service world
around Catholic activists.45 Was this pressure on Kdly to get him to spy on
Laski? Coining was a serious charge, the sort of thing that might make a man
want to leave the country. Was the intention behind it to encourage Kelly to
commit himself to Laski and so get out of England? So that Burghley would
have his man in cenrral Europe? Laski had connections nl)[ only with Poland
but also with the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire. lt is the timing that
encourages the speculation, this dramatic event so soon after Laski had made
contact; the riming, and Kdly's rage, rage at entrapment rather than a fear
of arrest.
No arrest ever ensued. Were the charges dropped in exchange for a deal?
Was the story not true, just a false rumor that his brother Thomas haJ heard?
Or did Kelly invent the coining charge as a persuasive reason for joining himself
and Dee to Laski, seeing in Laski a more substantial form of patronage than
anything offering in England?46

44

MYSTICAL METALAL OF GOLD

_In_ the margin Deewrote of the charges: "a mere umruth in every part
thereof, anJ a malicious lie" (TFR, 6). It is not clear when he added that
comment noronwhat groundshe made it, whether that is Kdly's rebuttal, or
based on information Dce was able to obtain through official channels, or just
a personalconviction But this episode, which appears in the opening pages of
Meric Casaubon's 1659 publication of the spiritual transactions, is undoubtedly
thebasis tor the subsequent frequently repeated claims that Kelly was convicted
ot coining, and suffered ear-cropping as a punishmem. As far as the records go,
however, there is no evidence that there was any substance to the charge, or
that any trial or punishment ensued. It is most unlikely that Dee would not have
recorded a trial, conviction, orpunishmenr in either the spiritual transactions or
his private diary, if such had taken place.
On June 15, 1583, Laski, together with Lord Russell and Sir Philip Sidney,
called in on Dee on his return from his ceremonial visit to Oxford, where he
had been lavishly emertained and heard Bruno debate:47 Four days later, on
June 19 "the Lord Alhcrt Laski came to me and lay at my house all night" (PD,
20; Fenton 9 3 ). And now Dce and Kelly commiued themselves to Lask.i's
service. On September 21, 1583, Dee and his wife, family and servants, and
Kelly andhis wife leftwith Laski from Gravesendfor Europe. The departure "at
dead ot night" may have been motivated by a desire for secrecy. At one point
they nearly drowneJ when one of the dinghies was swamped "but in the meanwhile E. K. with a great gauntlet emptied most of the water out of the boat,
else it must needs havesunk, by all man's reason.'"45
No private diary entries of Dee's are known to survive for the next three
years, from the time oftheir leaving England until their arrival in T rebon in
September 1586, but the spiritual transactions continued unabated, and in their
records some of the eventsof everyday life are noted.
ll1ey spent four months travelling. Lmding at Brill they went by a small
coastal vessel to Haarlem and Amsterdam. Then they proceeded along the
northern edge ofEurope, never tar from the coast, by small boats and by coach
and cart. Fmm Dokkum they went to Anjum, Emden, Oldenburg, Bremen,
Harburg, Hamburg, Lubeck, Wismar, Rostock, and Szczecin, where they arrived
on Christmas morning and stayed for three weeks.
ll1e spiritual dialogues continued during their travels. In Lubcck, Novembc_r 15, Dee receiveda spirit message via Kelly: "Your brother is clapped in
prison,how do you like that? Your housekeeper, I mean." Dee's brother,in,law
NicholasFromond was looking after the house at Mordake. "They say that you
havehidden varioussecret things. As for your books, you may go look them at
leisure. It may be that your house may be burned fur a remembrance." Eight
monthslater in Prague August 27, 1584, Dee received letters telling "how Mr
Gilbert, Mr Sled, Mr Andreas Fremo_nshdm my bookseller, used me very ill"
andraided his library.Is it likely that it the raid had taken place by November no
onewouldhave writtento Dee before the following August? Is Kelly's spiritual
informationmost satistaaorily taken as a prevision? That the spirit in question
seems not to have been a divine one, so Dee suspected at the time, is nut
necessarily a problem; evil spirits could readily impart true information; rhe

problem was that they habitually intermingledit with disinformation. Another

possibility is that Kelly had prior knowledge that a raiJ was going tt> takeplace.
Already back in July 1583 he had delivered the spiritual warning to D~e that
his home would be searched. Did he have other sources of information?Or did
he need anything other than a realistic paranoia? Certainly, at some point, or
points, the Mordake house was raided and some five hundred books plus laboratory equipment stolen or damaged. Dee marked the stolen books in a copy ~Jt his
library catalogue, and described the losses in detail in his Compendious Rehearsal.
They arrived in Lasko on February 3, 1584 (TFR, 62) and the following
month settled in Krakow. The spiritual dialogues continued in Poland. They
were deeply involved in assembling a comprehensive table by which tosummon
up angels. The code words were dictated by spirit in reverse, anJ the whole
process was extremely complex and timc~consuming. lt is not known it they were
also engaged in alchemical experiments. Kellyalsll cuntinued, as in England, to
practice magic on his own, and the spirits often rebuke him for this in the
sessions with Dee. Kelly was also consulted by Laski separately from Dee. He
was to receive $400 a year from Laski, but Lasli, known in Poland as a bottomless
bucket, was short of funds and by 1584 was bankrupt. Dee and Kelly were then
directed by spirit to "go to the Emperor,"Rudolf II the Holy Roman Emperor.
They arrived in Prague on August 9, 1584, and foundaccommodations in
the house of DrT adeas Hajek, reputedly the senior alchemical adviser to the
Emperor RuJolf. 49 His house was used for alchemical work and rhe study was
adorned with alchemical hieroglyphs and verses. lnstructcd by spirit, Dee wrote
to Rudolf seeking an audience. On Sunday, September 2, the day before Deemet
Rudolf, Kelly got splendidly drunk. Dce recorded the occasion in the spiritual
transactions (TFR, 229-30):
Therewas

a great disquietnessin E. K. being comehomefrom ourhost's

house where he had lain all night upon a form, by reason he haJ been
suddenly overcome with wine, which he never was like that before,he
said. Yet intending with himself to take heedof beingovershotin drinking wine, being requested by the hostess to give her a quart of wineup,
the good bargain he had in a clockhe bought from her for fiveducats.
In this drinking company was Alexander, Lord Laski'sservanta nt, who
came with us to Prague to whom E. K., when the drink on rhc sudden
had overcome him, said he would cut offhis head, andwith his walking
staff touched him fair and softly on the neck, sitting in from ot him .
This Alexander being half drunk himself by and by took thesewords
in great snuff and went to defend himself and so took his weapon to him
and thereupon they caused Alexander to go down
It was supper time and that night l refrained from eating, and
waiting at my lodging and looking out saw Alexander sitting on the
great stone outside our lodging. I called to him and told him that they
were at supper. He came over tl) me and he had wept much. He complained ofKelly's fonner words and the touch ot the staff, how it was

46

~1\'STlC:\L

A Biugmphy uj EJuan.1 J:.:~Uy, eh..! En~lish Akh~mi:;c

METAL OF GOLD

against his credit to rake thatin good part, and spoke many soldiers'
terms ofstout words not worthy of recording.
1 thereuponwentto our host's house tofind out the truth and there
l found E. K. fast asleep ona form most soundly, for which1 was right
St orry And yet better pleased to perceive the words of E. K. which so
moved Alexander, being half drunk, to have been spoken by E. K. when
wine and not wit bore rule. And so I pleaded a long time with Alexander
that of words spoken so as they were, no such exact accounr was to be
given to him; anJ after two hours persuasion caused Alexander to go to
bed in our lodging where he used to lie, for he would have gone out to
llUr furmer inn in those raging half drunken pangs he was in, which I
thought was not good.
...
This Monday moming E. K. coming home and seeing Alexander
as he came in, said, "They say 1 spoke words which greatly offended you
last night, and that l touched you with my staff, etc. I know nothing of
it," and sh0l>k hands with Alexander in friendly fashion.
"Well," said Alexander, "si fuisset alius, etc."
E. K. came up to me. l told him how sorry I was fur this mischance
and told him of the watchman perceiving Alexander's disquietmind and
hearing his words, they came to me and charged me to have a care of
the peace-keeping, as they did indeed. And further said that Alexander
in his rage said that rather, or before he should cut off his head that he
would cut E. K. in pieces.
As soon as I had expressed that word of this drunken Alexander,
whlllll now I saw quiet and E. K. also quiet, suddenly E. K. fell into such
a mge that he would be revenged on him for so saying and for railing
on him in the street as he did, etc.
Much ado I, Emeric and his brotherhad to stop or hold him from
glling to Alexander with his weapon, etc. At length we let him go in
his doublet and hose without a cap or hat on his head, and into the street
he hasted with his brother's rapier drawn and challenged Alexander to
tight.
But Alexander went"tn.lm him and said, "l will not, Master Kelly,
1 will not."
At this E. K. tlli.Jk up a stoneand threw it after him as after a dog,
and so came into the house again in a most furious rage that he might
not fight with Alexander. The rage and fury was so great in worJs and
gestures as might plainly prove that the wicked enemy sought either E.
K.'s own destroying of himsdf, or of me, or his brother, etc.
This may suffice to notify the mighty temptation and vehement
working of the subtle spiritual enemy Satan wherewith God suffered E.
K. to be tempted and almost overcome, to my great grief, discomfort and
most great discredit if it should, as the truth was, havecome to the
Emperor's understanding, except he had known me well, etc.
I was in great doubt how God would take this offence and devised
with myself how 1 might with honesty be cleared from the shame and

danger that might arise it these two should fight, etc. At . the least it
would cross all good hope here with the Emperor, etcfor a time till God
redressed it.
After I had brl1ught E. K. to some quietness, by yielding much to
his humour etc. andsaying little, not long after came my messenger from
my wife at Krakow, and Hugh my servantwithhim, to my great comfort
through her letters, and the full satisfying ot me by Hugh myservant ;)
knowledge funher than conveniently could be written. Comfortin time
of need.

Dce met with RudolfonSeptember 3 (TFR230). Shortlyaitcrwards, following

spiritual instructions he wrote to RuJolf that hecouldmake the philosopher's
stone (TFR, 243, 246). There is no record llt any further meetmg. RuJl)lt
delegated his adviser, Dr. ]akob Kurz, to deal with Dee. When Kurz visited Dee,
September 26, "Mr Kelly had gotten him into his chamber, not willing to be
seen" (TFR, 247). Dee also came to know the Spanish ambassadllr, Don GUlllen
de San Clemenre, a descendant of RamonLull, as he told Dee. The spiritual
transactions continued unabated. Records of Dee and Kelly'sother activities for
this period are slight, but, R.]. W. _Evans stresses, "lt wouldbe false ..toinfer
from this that they necessanly remamed out ot touch wtth the court. They
retumed to Krakow in October and then in December came back t Prague
where Dee left Hajek's rooms and leased a house in Salt Street not far from the
market place in Old Prague (TFR, 354). In Aprill585they returned to Krak6w.
April 22, Easter Monday, Dee records that "very devoutly in St Stephen's
church, E. K. received the communion, to my unspeakable gladness and content,
being a thing so long and earnestly required and urged of him by our spiri[Ual
good friends." Laski arranged for Dee to meet the King l)f Poland, Step hen
Bathory, and Dee and Kelly held a seance with Stephcn on May 27 (TFR, 404).
But no patronage seems to have resulted from the encounter. Around this time
they met the theological controversialist Francesco Pucci, who had _followed
Socinus to Krakow, and now became a member of Dee's household.,' ln July
they returned to Prague.
.
Dee and Kelly's spirit raising activities had come to the attentilm of the
Catholic church, and on their return to Prague they were summoned to explain
themselves. They delayed responding as long as they could, but finally on March
21, 1586, they had an audience with the papal nuncio, Gennanico Malaspina,
bishop of San Severo. Dee handled the interview tactfully, but then Kelly suggested that one of the problems with the Catholic church was the poor conduct
of many of the priests. The nuncio was not amused. Dee was told by "rh~
secretary of a certain great king," who had been told by the nuncio himself,
that Kelly's speech had so enraged the nuncio that he was tempted tohavehad
him thrown out of the window. There was something of a tradition ot disposing
of people by defenestration in Prague. The church authorities had hearJ of the
volumes of spiritual records, and later endeavoredto get Kelly to produce them,
withholding confession from him when he refused. On AprillO Dee anJ Kelly
received a spiritual instructionto bum their entire records, and Dce recordsthe

..

~lYSTIC:\L ~IETAL OF

A Biob.,raphy of EJuLtrJ Kelly th e Ak:~mist

GOLD

occasion of the burning done in the presence l)f Pucci, in meticulous and
lengthy detail.52l.)n April 30 the records were miraculously restored, an episode
recorded in similar detail (TFR, 418-19).
Meanwhile Oce and Kellyfound a new patron anJ protector VilemRozmberk, llr William, Lord Rosenberg to give the Germanic form of his name that
Deegenerally used(TFR, 420). Rozmbcrk, born fifty-one years ea.rlier in 1535,
was head ofone of the most powerful Bohemian families. He was among Rudolf's
closest associates,and had carried the crown at Rudolf''s coronation in 1575.
He was the senior Bohemian official, the burgrave, rhe right hand man of rhe
monarch in Bohemian affairs. Rozmberkwas second only ro Rudolf as a patron
of alchemists, employing adepts both at his residence, which adjoined Rudolf's
on the Hradschinin Prague and in his extensive estates in southern Bohemia,
centered on CeskyKrumlO\'. He participated in a number of spiritual sessions
with Dee and Kelly, consulting on, among other matters, his aspimtions to the
Polish throneand his plans to marry again. His brother, Peter Vok Ro::mberk
also had alchemical interests. 53
Bur theCathtllic opposition tDee and Kdly continued. The new nuncio,
Filippo Sega Bishop ofPiacenza, reported on April 29 that Dee and Kelly were
importantand dangerous adversaries: "Giovanni Diiet il Zoppo suo compagno
sonoin questacortebuon pezofa, et vanno a camino di farsi autori d'una nuova
superstitione, per non dire heresia, sono noti all'imperatore et a tutta la corte."
("John Dee and his companion the lame one were at this court a good while
ago, and are on the., way to being the authors of a new superstition, not to say
heresy, and are known to the Emperorand all of the court,")54
This is the only reference to Kdly's being lame, although on May 23, 1587,
aspirit says "Kelly, I know it is uoublesome for thee to kneel. Sit.";;--55 Whether
it was a permanent or temporary condition, or whether Sega was writing metaphoricallyand comemptuously, is unclear.
May 29, 1586, succumbing to combined pressure from the papal nuncio,
Sega, his predecessor Malaspina and the High Steward of Bohemia, George
(Jiri) Popel LobL:ovic, Rudolf expelled Dee, Kdly, and their households from
theempire on the groundsof necromancy. 56 They stayed firstin Erfurt, but since
thesenators refused to let them lease a house there, they moved on to Kassel,
where the Landgrave of Hessc-Kassel had his court.57 Pucci attemptedto persuade them to follow the nuncio's request that they should go to Rome to be
questioned... They _refused, suspecting a trap from which they might not escape
and, suspicious of Pucci's role, henceforth began to distance themselves from
him. On August 8 Rodolf relented, and allowed them to return to the Bohemian
estatesand towns of CountVilem Rozmberk. Dee and Kelly arrived at T rebon
(also known as Wittingau) in southern Bohemia on September 14, 1586 (PD,
21; Fenton, 203; TFR, 444).
; They settled there for the next two years, though Dee's diary records that
Kelly made a number of trips to Poland to Linz, to Reichenstein in Silesia
(whereRo:mberk had laboratoriesin the castle), to Budweis (Ceske Budejovice
to give it its Czechname, 24 kilometres west of Trebon) and to Prague. They
4

receiveda number llf visitors in Trebon induding Laski on a numberof .. occa58

sions, Pucci, Christian Francken, and various emissaries fromEngland.
On December 19, 1586, Dee's diary records Kelly giving a demonstration
of gold production. It is the first account of his engaging in an alchemical
transmutation. "For the gratification of Mr Edward Garland and Francis, his
brother, which Edward was sent to me as messenger fromthe Emperor of Moscow
that I should come to him, E. K. made projection with his powder in the
proportion of one minim (upon an ounce and a quarter uf mercury) and produced
nearly an ounce of best gold; which gold was afterwards distributed from the
crucible and one part was given to Edward Garland."59
In later years Dee's son Arthur often told people about the alchemical
transmutations he had observedat this time. One of the people he told was Sir
Thomas Browne, his neighborin Norwich, andin 1674 Browne sent an account
of Anhur's recollections to Ashmole:

Dr Anhur Dce was a young man when he saw this projectionmade in

Bohemia, but he was s oinfluencedtherewith that he tell early upon that
study and read not much all his life but books of that subject.
I have heard the doctor say that he lived in Bohemia with hi:~
father both at Prague and other parts of Bohemia. That Prince or Count
Rozmberk. was their great patron who delighted much in alchemy. l have
often heard him affirm and sometimes with oaths that he had seenth
projection made and transmutation of pewter dishes and flagons into
silver which the goldsmiths at Prague bought of them. And that Count
Rozmberk played at quoitswith silver quoits made by projectionas be~
fore: that this transmutation was made by a small powdertheyhad which
was found in some old place and a book lying by it containing nothing
but hieroglyphics which book his father bestowed much time upl)n, but
1 could not hear that he could make it out.
InApril, 1587, Kelly announced that he was unwilling to scryan ylonger Dee
attempted to train his seven,year-old son, Arrhur, as a medium, but Arrhur saw
little of significance. Kelly joined them in one of these attempts, April 17,
and said,

I marvel if you had no apparitionhere, tor 1somewhatthinking ofArthur

and his proceeding in the feat of scrying, came here into the gallery, anJ
I heard you pray. And opening the window I looked out and I saw a
great number going in and out of this chapel at the little hole in the
glass window. 1 saw Madini, ll and many others that had dealt with us
heretofore, but they showed themselves in very tilthy order. And Urid
appeared and justified all to be of God, and good. And therefore I wonder
if here you have no show. Perhaps there is something, but Arrhur dL)n
not see it (TFR, 2nd pagination, 8).
Kdly then received a spiritual messagethat he and Deewere to hold their wives
in common (TFR, 2nd pagination, 11-12). The wives were unenthusiastic, and

50

~lYSTICAL METAL

OF GOLD

Kelly madea number of furtherconsultations with spirits. Ashmlllc writes that

the angels wc:re so "distasted" with Kelly's "vicious course of life" that they
"would discharge him from that employmem"-that is, scrying--but this inter~
pretation is not home out by the spiritual records. Kelly had frequently desired
to cease scrying, and had nllW once again proposed to end this activity. Ashmole
also wrote that "Kelly perceiving that he should be wholly set aside and become
useless in matter of scrying, he insinuates himself into their company one day
while they were at exercise, and Arthur waiting for a vision, Kelly pretended
to see something, llf which he there gives an account: and by this cunning
artificethat delusive and impure doctrine took place, from whence Or Dee and
Kelly were induced tl> mix with each others' wives."61 But the evidence of the
spiritual records is that Dee was eager for Kelly to help in training Arthur, who
was not proving a successful seer, and only too ready to have Kelly resume
scrying.
The "cross-matching" seems to have taken place on May 22, 1587, but was
nut repeatcd. 02 .The following Jay the last known spiritual consultations Dee
and Kelly held together are recorded. Years later, back in England, Dee was to
experiment with other scryers. But this is the last known consultation through
the medium of Kelly.
Fifty~three years later Arthur Dee gave one llf the crystals his father and
Kelly had used to the apothecary Nicholas Culpeper "as a reward for having
cured a li\'er complaint of his with the b'l'eatest rapidity, A.D. 1640." According
to Culpeper this was the crystal that had been given to Dee by an angel in 1582,
which Dee gave to Kelly, who gave it to Lord Rozmberk but then retrieved it.
Culpeper records, "I have USL~ this crystal in many ways and have thus
cured illnesses, but with its use a very great weakness always sets in and lethargy
of the body. And further a certain demoniacal apparition which exercised itself
to lewdness and other depravity with women and girls, used to tempt me, but
by making the sign of the cross and speaking these words, "Pah Adonai, by thy
strength am I fortified. Phorrh! Phorrh! Haricot! Gambalon!" the apparition
used to tly soon or instantly, with noise and evil smell. For these obscenities I
have given up the use of the crystal, and to witness these things I have written
them on this sheet on the 7th day of March in the year 1651."
William Lilly bought the crystal from Culpeper's widow and tried his own
experiments on it with Elias Ashmole. They conjured up "a female devil lewd
and monstrous," he records, February 10, 1658. The crystal is now in the Well~
cume collection in the Science Museum, South Kensington.65
The exchange of panners resulted in tensions between the two households,
alluded tl in Dee's diary. And then on February 28, 1588, nine months after
the cross-matchingJane Dee gave birth to a boy, who was bapti:ed the following
day. and named Theodorus T rehonianus Dee. Theodorus T rebonianus, the gift
of God at Trebon (PD, 26; Fenton, 233). Was this Dee's child or Kelly's? Did
anyone everknow for sure? The question is never raised in the diary let alone
answered. Could Kelly have children anyway? In the spiritual transactions of
April 4, 15tH. Kelly was told of his marriage, "barrenness dwells with you,"
which could be interpreted as meaning Kelly was sterile.

A Biography uf Edward Kellyeh~ Engli:;h Akh~mi:;c

51

April 10, Dee records in his diary (PD 27; Fenton 234), "1 writ toMrEJ
Kellyand to Mistress Kelly two charitable letters, requiring at theirhands mutual

chariry." April 12, "My wife churched, and we . received the communion."
TheoJorus Trebonianus was evidently being treated as Dee's child. And since
the four of them had vowed to tell nobody of the episode why would anyone
suspectotherwise? It is only Dee's spiritual records that break the vow of secrecy;
anJ Casaubon's transcription of them, followed by later commentators. On May
22, 1588, Dee records, "Mistress Kelly received the sacrament, and to me and
my wife gave her hand in charity; and we rushed not from her" (PD .. 27;
Femon, 235, reads "and we wished well to her"). It was the anniversary ot the
cross-matching.

On June 13, 1588, FrancisGarland arrived in T rebon with Edmond Cooper

Mrs. Kelly's brother (PD, 28; Fenton, 235). Had CllOper come to help resolve
the tensions, or to escort his sister hack to England? On October 17. Dee's diary
records, "Mistress Kelly and the rest rode toward Punchartz in the morning"
(PD, 29; Fenton, 237, reads "Mistress Kelly and the rest rode toward Prachatke
to the marriage"). It is the last mention of her in any of Dee's records. But
whether she now left for England, or for Prague, is unknown.
Passages of three letters written by Kelly during this period (j une 20 and
August 9, 1587, and November 15, 1589) survive.64 They deal with alchemy,
but it is not known to whom they were addressed. The alchemical activities
continued. To what degree Kelly and Dee were working separately or together
now is unclear. There was certainly some cooperation: September 28, 1587, Dee
recorded, "I delivered to Mr Ed. Kelly, (earnestly requiring it as his part) the
half of all the animal . which was made. lt is to weigh [Fenton, "to wit"] 20
ounces: he weighed it himself in my chamber. He bought [Fenton: "brought"]
his weights purposely for it. My Lord had spoken to me before for some, but Mr
Kelly had not spoken" (PD, 24; Fenton, 230). Fenton notes the inclusilm l)t
the symbol for mercury before "animal."
On December 12, 1587 there was one
those
that alchemical
experimenters often suffered. "After noon somewhat, Mr Ed. Kelly his lamp
overthrow [Fenton: "overthrew"), the spirit of wine long [Fenton: "being") spent
too near, and the glass being not stayed with books [Fenton: "bricks") about it,
as it was wont [Fenton: "meant") to be; and the same glass so tlitting on on.:
side, the spirit was spilled out, and burnt all that was on the table whl!rc it
stood, linen and written books--as the book of Zacharias with the alkanln
[Fenton: "athanor"] that I translated out of French for some by spiritual could
not [Fenton: "for him by spiritual commandment"]; Rowlaschy his third bouk
of waters philosophical; the book called Angdicum Opus, all in pictures o fth
eworkfrom the beginning to the end; the copy of the man of Budweis's Conclusions for the Transmutation [Fenton has the symbol for mercury;. not "T ransmu
ration"] of metals; and 40 leaves in quarto, entitled Extractiones Dunstani. which
he himself extracted and noted out of Dunstan his book, and the very book of
Dunstan was but cast on the bed hard by from the table" (PD. 25; Fenton
231-2).65

~lYSTlCAL ~lETAL L)f

GOLD

h was lllll all \\'llrk anJ ndtensionJanuary 13, 1588, Dce recorded"At dinner
rime Mr EdwardKelly senthisbrotherMr Th. K. to me with these words, 'My
brothersays that you study so much, and therefore, seeing it is too late to go
today to Krumlov, he wishes you to come to pass the rime with him at play. I
went after dinner and played, he ;.md I against Mr F. GorelFenton: "Garland"]
and Mr. Rob [Fenton: ''Robert Garland,] till supper time, in his diniRg room:
and after supper he came and the others, anJ we played there two or three
hours, and friendly departed. This was then after the great and wonderful un~
kindness used toward me in taking [Fenton: "bcating'').my man" (PD, 25-6;
,_
Fcnton, 232-3 ).
The alchemical iKtivirics continued thmugK 1588. February 8, ~'lr. E. K.
cU nine of the clock after noon sem t~n me to his laboratory over the gate to
sec how he distilled sericon according as in time past and of late he heard of
me out ofRipley." :March 24, "Mr. K. put the glass in dung." May 10, "E. K.
diJ open the great secret to me, God be thanked!, August 24, (in Latin) "I
saw the divine water, hy rhe demonstration of the magnificent master and my
incomparablefriend Mr Ed Kelly before midday: in the space of three hours."
December 7, (in Greek characters) "Great friendship pmmised for money and
two ounces ofthe thing." December 18, "Mr Edward Kelly gave me the water,
mercury, all 30 oz. Water, earth anJ all" (PD, 26-30; Fenton, 233-7).
- In November 1587 Francis Garland had brought a letter fur Dee from
EJward Dyer in England (PD, 24; Fenton, 231 ). The courtier and poet Edward
Dyer, knighted in 1596 but at this time still plain Mr. Dyer, had stood as
godfather to Arthur Dee in 1579. He had studied alchemy under Dee with
Philip Sidney.61 He had retained his interest in the subject, and in the mid
1570s he had assayed fur Walsingham a sample of the ore Frobisher had brought
back from NorthAmerica, bdieving it was gold. Dyer had demonstrated that
it was not. In Europe in 1588, Sargent writes, "he could not resist the temptation
tu continue his joumey and investigate the alchemical labours of Kelly in per~
sun ...67 Was it simple temptation, or was he under instructions from Elizabeth,
or Burghley, or Walsingham? He arrived in Prague, paid an official visit to the
Emperor RuJolf, and then came to Trebon on July 20. Two days later Dee
records, in a mixture of Latin, English, and Greek characters, that "Oyer did
injure me unkindly," bur the following Jay reconciliation was effected by the
mediation of Kdly. Dyer left on August 9 (PD, 27-8; Fenton, 235-6).
In Nu\'embcr 1588 Dee wrote to Queen Elizabeth, congratulating her l>n
the English victory over the Spanish armada, and promising to return. He writes
of "finding our duty concurrent with a most secret beck of the said gracious
Princess L'lJy Opportunity, now to embrace, and enjoy, your most excellent
royal Majesty's high favour, anJ gracious great clemency, of calling me, Mr
Kdly, and our families hllme, intoyour British earthly paradiseand monarchy
incomparahle.''NI Was Eli:abeth summoning them back so that their alchemical
experiments could proceedin England, and supplement the English coffers? Had
Garland reported the alchemical transmutation he had observed on his previous
visit? Had Dyer been sent on a mission?

and his family left Trebon on March 11, 1589. On April 11 9they
reached Bremen where they stayed for seven months before departing from
Stadeon November 19, finally arriving back in England on November 22, 1589
{PD, 30-2; Fenton, 239-46). Dce gives an accountof this return journeyin his
CompendiousRehearsal

Kelly remained in Bohemia. While underthe patronage ofRozmberk, Kelly

had begun working with some of Rudolf's alchemical projects. Rudulf was as
enthusiastic an alchemical experimenter as Ro:mberk. R. J. W. Evans cites a
letterfrom the Emperor tu Rozmhcrk, dated October 27, hut with noyear given,
which "requests'-in friendly terms-rhar 'Eduardus' he temporarily released
from his service thereto come to PragueanJ supervise a great alchemicalwork
which is in progress. RuJolf will nor detain him ('will in nit langer autho.1hcn,
als er sdbst begem wird'), but the operation is a difficultone which nceJs expert
assistance: 'das Hocchststuck dar.:u mangdt, Jer mercurius Sl)lis, an dem die sa(h
nit kan vertertigt werden, halt derhalhcn fur guet das der EJuard dersdhst hie her
khamb, disem manglen zu helffen.' " 70
Kelly now gained the Empcmr Rudolf'sfavur, was accepted as a citizenof
Bohemia and granted a patent of Imperial nubility, equires aurari. He became
Sir Edward Kelly. Dce wrote to Walsingham on August 20, 1589, that Kelly
was "now in most favourable manner created a Baron of the kingdum of Bohemmia; with the grant of a coat ofarms: as I have seen in a large seal, being a lion
rampant with [the lion of England] in a bordure, with the year on the seal, vi
1573, and a motto round it. According tothe records Kdly claimed relationship to the ancient Irish nobiliry: "Edward Kelly, bornan Englishman, of the
knightly kin and house called lmamyi in the county of Cunaghaku in the
kingdom of lreland."72This claim has generally beendiscounted as a fabrication
by Kelly. But drawing on the Irish geneal,lgical compilationAn Leabhar Muinhn~ach, Liam Mac Coil has shown that these genealogies "make the Ui Chcallaigh
(O'Kelly, Kelly) descendants of Maine. The Ui Mhainc {Hy~Many, lm.any) held
territory in Connaught, more precisely in east Galway and south Roscommon. h
would have been quite normal and proper, therefore-orthography and phrasing
aside-for someone called Kelly to say that he was uf the noble 'house of lmamyi
in the countyof Conneghaku' and only a little exhibitionistic. "il
The Bohemian ennoblement occurred some time after Dee's departure but
before the end of June, 1589. Ro:mherk is said to have given Kelly two fiefs
with their villages near Jilove-Libcrice and Nova Liben.i-4 Vladimir Karpenko
writes that while at T rebon, Kdly "received or purchased 'me small castle, nin~
villages, and two houses in Prague. " 71
In June 1589 Kelly wrote to LorJ Burghlcy about alleged treason by CHristopher Parkins. The British Library preserves Kelly's letter (MS Lansduwnc 61,
fol. 64)16 and a letter from Dee on the same topic (MS Lansdowne 61 art. SS,
ful. 159).
Kelly reported "That fourteen Jays befme-the feast l>f Pentacost last, that
oneParkins, born in England and now a Jesuit came from Rome tll the city of
Prague in Bohemia. And there coming into an inn, where the saiJ Sir E. K.

~IYSTlCAL METAL

OF GOLD

was, anJ uttering Jivers novelties among others he plainly (but as it were in
great secrecy) opened tl) the said Sir E. K. this horrible conspiracy against
her Majesty:
1. That therewere now seven such ways l)r means, concluded and
agreed upon by the Pope and his confederates for the murdering of the
Queen, that if the first, second, third, fourth and fifth failed, yet were
the (plots] ere. in such sort to be executed, that the sixth or seventh
should take effect: yes, if all the devils in hell thereunto say nay.
2. And further Parkins declared, that those ways and means were
by him and his cohercnts to be .executed against her Majesty's own
person, for the performance whereof he declared also, that he would
funhwith go into England by the way of D.mzig. And so from thence,
in the habit of a merchant, into England.
3. That when the said Sir E. K. d~larl!d the same strange news to
the Lord Ro:mhcrk, Viceroy of Bohemia, the said Rozmberk told Sir
Edward d1at the said Parkins was the right hand, or chief man ro rhe
King of Spain and rhe Pope, in all their treacherous l!nterprises against
England.
4. Ar rhe same rime anJ instant the said Rozmberk showed unto
Sir E. K. a letter, written by one of the chief of the states of the Low
Countries with the Emperor, requesting the Emperor to be a means to
take up the matter between them and the King ofSpain. And also
requesting this Emperor to send them some aid to help them away with
the English that were in those provinces.
5. That the said Sir Edward at his faithful disclosing those things
(thus by divine providence come to his knowledge) to these subscribed
gentlemen, did funherml>re much marvel and wonder, how it was possi#
ble that the stmngers of the Low Countries, dwelling in England, would
or could lend and send untothe Emperor or King of Spain a million of
gold at any time or times, to his or their helps: which he of his certain
knowledge assured to be done. But he well hoped, that the treason
therein by this time was come to the knowledge of some of her Majesty's
most honourableprivy council.
We Roben Tatton and George Leicester, gentlemen, do witness
these anicles and the effect of every part of them to have been declared
unto us, and Edmond Hilton, servant to the right worshipful John Dee,
Esq, by the within named Sir E. K. at our being with him at T rebon in
Bohemia in the end of June last, 1589.
Leicesterwas presumably the Georgc Leicester who was victualler l)f her Majesty's garrisons in the Low Countries.
Parkins wrote to Walsingham May 12, 1590, complaining about the trouble
Kclly's report cau~d him. "Right hlmorablc Sir, it has ht!en some comfort unto
me tu understand by your letter, that my trouble is prolonged, by looking for
an answer from Sir Edward Kclly, who has been conjured to deal hereinsincerely.

So if Kelly deal Christianly wid1 time all will be well. Bur if he be a nevil il
meaningman as common fame reportswhat conjuring will be sufficienttomake
him deal sincerely: specially if he follow the counsel of his friends and ghostly
fathers the Jesuits, who have vowed their endeavour to trouble this estate and
all well#wishers" (Public Record Office, SP 12/231, fol. 22).
Parkins had been at school at Winchester with Thomas Watslm, the Walsingham agent who had offered his services to Laski. ln 1566, aged 19, Parkins
had entered the Society of Jesus at Rome. He had been an eminent professor
among the Jesuits for many years, bur gradually became distanced from them
In the mid-1580s he proved himself useful to Burghley, intervening to save
Burghley's grandson from trouble after some indiscreet expression of Protestant
opinions on a visit to Rome. Parkins is said to have returned toEngland with
the young William Cecil, who recommended him to his grandtather. In 1:>b I
Parkins was still described in the government's list of recusants abroad as a
Jesuit, resident in Prague. What inspired Kelly's letter is unknown. Had he been
fed misinformation? Was he trying to present himself as usefulto the government? Or was he trying to pre-empt any reports Parkins may have made about
him? Parkins seems to have been imprisoned on his return to England, but was
rcgularly employed on diplomatic missions after this, and in 1591 was made
ambassador to Denmark and given an annuity of 100 marks. Whether he had
been an English agent beforehandor whether he was recruited after a softening
up spell in prison is unclear.
Dee had expected Kelly to meet him in Bremen and return toEngland
with him. He wrote to Mr. justice Young, August 20, 1589, that he feared he
would have .. w endure this Breamish habitation this winter, because I hear no
word of Sir EJ Kelly's approaching" (SP 15/31, fol. 35). Nuvember 3, old style
he records in his diary, "I resolved to go into England, hoping to meetMr
Edward Kelly ar Stade going also into England; and that I suspected upon Mr
Secretary Walsingham's letters" (PD, 32; Fenton, 241). Back at MortlakeJanuary 23, 1590, (Fenton, 247, has December 23, 1589), Oee wrote, MrThomas
Kelly came from Brainford;put me in good hope of Sir Edward Kelly's returning"
(PD, 32). But he never saw Kelly again.
And now Sir Edward flourishedas one of Rudolf's favorites. His alchemical
transmutations were widely reported. Ashmole records in Thearrum Chemicum
Brirannicum: "I have received it from a credible person, that one Broomfield
and Alexander Robertstold him they had often seenSirEd Kelly make projection, and in particular upon a piece of metal cut out of a warming pan, and
without SirEdward's touching or handling it, or melting the metal (only warming it in the fire) the elixir being put thereon, it was transmuted into pure
silver: the warming-pan and this piece of it was sent to Queen Elizabeth by her
ambassador who then lay at Prague, that by fitting the piece intl) the place
whence it was cut out, it might exactly appear to be one part of that warmmgpan. The aforesaid person has likewise seen in the hands of one Mr Frye and
Scroope, rings of Sir Edward Kdly's gold, the fashion of which was only gold
wire, twisted thrice about the finger; and of these fashioned rings, hc gaveaway.\ '\ ,
to the value of 4000 at the marriage of one of his servant maids. This was

56

~lYSTlC.-\L METAL

A Biogrl.lphy

OF GOLD

'

your mind draws )'l)U toward your gracious sovereign; whom above. . \~ al
worldly Majesties you desire ltoserve and please which intent you also1
desire me to further .... And yet nevertheless, l would not haveyou
ignorant, that sundry men, being not acquainted with these your faithful
offers and purposes, let not in some sort, since it is seen that you came
not with Mr Dyer, to divine variously of your stay, some saying that you
do forbear to come, because you cannot performthat indeed whichhas
been reported of you. Some that you are enticed (by such as bearnot
the Queen nor this realm any good will), not to come tu beneht her
Majesty. Some allege that your own profession tl"t religion dues not &.~gr&.:~
with ours here. Yea smue that malicillusly are Jispllsed, say, that )'tlU . m.:
an impostor [and a deceiver-dek~d) with your sophistications.

highly generous hur t say truth he was openly profuse, beyond the modest
limits ,,t a sober philosopher. Wund repeats the story in Athenae Oconiensis
adding the derail that the ambassador was Lord Willoughby.77
R. J. W. Evans cites other reports that circulated through Europe The
Bohemian adept Matthias Erbinaus von Brandau wrote around 1630 that he
had seen Kelly's tincture, and that Kelly could produce the Mercurius Solis in
no more than fifteen minutes. Another occasion is reported by Gasscndus at
Dr.Hajek's house, where with the infusion of a single small drop of red liquid,
Kelly transmuted a pound of mercury into gold. Rudolf used Hajek to test out
the credentials ofalchemists before taking them into his service. This occasion
may have been such a test, one which Kelly passed successfully. Nicolas Bamaud,
who was living at Hajek's house is variously reported to have observed or
participated in one of Kelly's transmutations. A number of Bohemian manuscripts of the sixteenth and seventt.!enth century contail1 alchemical recipes
which an: ~scribed !o Kellyi and a Hungarian alchemist claimed to be reiterating
the true wtsJmn ot Sr. Dunstan which Kelly had rediscovered and transmitted
.
throughRudolf.1:1
On October I, 1589 Edward Dyer left London on a secret mission to
persuade Kelly to rerum to England with his alchemical expertise. Burghley
received reports on Dyer's progress from Thomas Bodley at The Hague (SP 84/
35, f,)ls. 27-28) and William Milwardeat Stade (SP 82/3, tol. 116). On March
7, 1590, an English merchant at Hamburg, William Fowler, reported to Burghley
"upon my late travel in the countries of Deutschland and Bohemia for her
Majesty's .service":
And comingunto the city ofPrague met with the worshipful Mr Kelly
whomafterhis triendly entertainmentand at my departure from thence,
delivered unto me a box with the ore and order of the silver mines, for
to deliver unttl ynur honour with this letter here enclosed ... not
dtlubting with God's help but that he himself will be here very shortly,
as he fully intended at my coming away. Mr Dyer is gone unto him, and
has been now there a month from Stade, and is looked for daily. I hope
they will come together, God grant they may, tor he is a good subject
and to be accounted of.
The letteris preservedin Ashmole's papers in the Bodleian Library (MS Ashlllt>lc 1788, t~1b. 159-60). According to Dee's diary, Dyer had returned to London by March 14; Dee received a letter from Kelly March 17 (PD, 33i
Fenton, 247).
Queen Elizabeth's most senior statesman, William Cecil, lord Burghley,
the lord treasurer, now wmte directly to Sir Edward. An undated dmft of a letter
survives in the British Library (MS Lansdowne 103 no. 73, fol. 211). 79 He
thanked Kelly ft>r his letter received via Dyer and noted
that you Cllllfess t.t desire to return to ynur native countl)'i which is very
commendable in you. Ipercei\'e also by your own words, expressly, that

uJ EdwarJ ~dly, thl.! Engli.sh .~lh~mi.st

r.

lt is clear from Burghley's letter that QueenEli:abeth had requestedhim to write

to Kelly, and that she herself had already written. "lam expressly commandedby
her Majesty to require you to have regard to her honour and according to the
tenor of her former letters, to assure yourself, to be singularly favouredj yea. in
respect, of the benefits that ynu may, by the gifts that God has given, bring to
her Majesty, to be honoured, to the comfort o yourself and all yours." He
concluded with thanks to Kclly "for the mnuntain, or rock that you sent .and
was safely brought to me from Stade which I will place in my house where I
do bestow other rare things of workmanship, and shall be a memorial of your
kindness. Wishing I might enjoy some small receipt from you, that might comfort
my spirits in mine age, rather than my coffers with any wealth: for l esteem
health above wealth."
The "mountain or rock" that Kelly sent to Burghlc)' was probably a German
Handsteine, a model of a mountain madt.! up of assays of ore, stone and crystals
showing in section the layout of the mine workings with miners at their different
tasks. Burghley was known to have an interest in mechanical devices andnovelties, which he kept, together with an exhaustive collection of maps, in the
cabinets in his studies and gallt.!ries.~
Burghley's letter to Kelly scrupulously avoiJs mentioning alchl;!my. Presumably this was in case the letter was intercepted. The matter was judgcd to be;t
sensmve one. Burghley was certainly deeply interested and followed up his
inquiries through other means. The British Library document uf February 223
1590 (MS Lansdowne 846, fols. 216-17) containing the copy ot a patent ur
knighthood granted by Rudolph to Kelly may well bt! a resplmse to such in~uiries. On March 8, 1590, at the end of a long letter to Sir Horati\., Palavicin-.
Burghley writes, again unspecifically, "l pray you learn what you can,h\)\\. Sir
Edwd. Kelly's profession may be credited" (SP 81/6, fols. 7-8).
Palavicino was a financier whose fortune was based on the Europea. m ndum
monopoly. From 1580 to 1592 he was the English government's fiancial agent
in European dealings. He worked closely with Burghley, providing a conduit.. ;!
finance for diplomatic, t!spionage, and other expenditures, and he was a hi~hlevel source of infonnation for Burghley and Walsingham.~1

58

~IYSTlCAL ~tETAL OF

GOLD

July 13, 1590, Dee records in his diary "l went to the Archbishnp llf
Canterbury: talked with him boldly ofmy right to the parsonages; and to the
treatise ofSir Edward Kdly's Alchemy" (PD, 35; Fenton, 249). Was Dee claim,
ing some rights to a work of Kelly's, or was it a matter of ownership of a
manuscript? l11e following year Raph Rabbards organized the publication of the
first edition of GeorgeRipley's The Cumpound of Alchemy. Among the prefatory
essays and verses ..of other notablewriters" appeared the poem "Sir E. K. Con,
cerningthe Philosopher'sStone written to his especial good friend, G.S. Gent."
Dce also contributed a prefatory poem to the hook, "J. D. Gem: in praise of the
author and his work ... so he may well have been involved in arranging the
publication of the poem hy Kdly. Kelly's"especial good friend G. S. Genthas
not been identified.
Kellyrepliedto Burghley from Prague, July 24, 1590 (SP 81/6, tols. 56-7).
Kellyrefuted "whatsoever has been spoken of me and by whom l know not but
am assured that no man has commission to repeat any words formally from me
in England to that pretended effect, Mr Dyer I!XCepted who has done the! part
of a faithful subject and told a truth such as none of these blabbers shall ever
overthrow." He went on to add that
such as reward me t~,r my faithful service are not to he counted enticers
neither is my discretion so Wl!ak as to apply any service! to the enl!mies
of her Majesty or my native country which hitherto l doubt not but that
I have well avoided ... I protest before God the true and sincere love,
Jury and o~.Jience that l do and always shall bear to her sacred Majesty
and the honour of my country; and so an end for this.
Wdl a word or two with those that find fault with my rdigion. lf
they be such as love God themselves, care for honesty, hate pride and
covetousness and the filthy sin of lechery: if they prefer not the court
before their conscience and Machiavd's doctrine before the word of God
then am I of them. And hope shall well conform with their religion, etc.
But now I sing of amts and the man. And under your correction my
good lord say whatsoever he be in England that is not ashamed to report
that I am an imposter I will not be abashed to say that he is a knave
and that he lies in his throat and will maintain it with my sword upon
his carcase wheresoever I can or shall tind it abroad. will gladly and
maliciously tread it Jown at home.
(He went on to explain his situation in Bohemia.] Being in security,
and that in a country full of peace and liberty. seised in lands of inheri,
ranee yielding 1500 yearly, incorporated to the kingdom in the second
order, of some expectation and use more than vulgar, of his Majesrys
privy council (notwithstanding not yet sworn for the love I bear unto
my sacred Queen and country), chief regent in and over all the lands
anJ affairs of the Prince Ro:mherk: I cannot see how 1 might easily or
honestly depart, much less so steal away, for why such properties belong
to a paltry minded man and to him that knows not the use of honour.

A Biography of EJwurJ Kdly, tll!! Engli.sh Akh!!mi.st

A knight I am and sworn to promote virtue and chivalry which I will &11_
perform by all endeavour {God helping me) to the uttermost.
But if it may please my most gracious sovercign and country to
redress the injuries done against me heretofore and to call me home to
the like honour; assuring me of so much lands of inheritance by year h,
serve her, as I shall leave behind me in Bohemia for her; then will 1
declare myself openly. take lea\e of his Majesty and kingdom andrcr . . tr
home to her highness.
KellyJoes not specify the! "injuries done against me heretofore but they could
be the ear lopping or the coining charge.
On August 10, 1590, Kelly wrote replying taturthcr letterfrom Burghley
"I am not so mad to run away from my present honour and lands toshow for
a new. Satis est per virtutem moxi qua per dedeam vincere.: . . To deal plainly
I find myself wdl at ease. And can well content myself withmypresent state
and will not remove but upon greater reasons than I yet find (SP 81_/6_. fol. b_' ).
Sir Horatio Palavicino responded to Burghley s request for information.
about Kelly by forwarding a long, rambling letter Puc.ci had sent him from
Prague on August 25. 1590 (SP 81/6, fols. 68tt). Puccireported thath haJ
broken with Kelly, finding him "ever more inconstant m matters ot religionanJ .
piety and knowing him in matters of friendship long in promisesand. word:. but
short in deeds, finding him over long months and years vain and intolerably
haughty." Pucci went on to complain that Kelly owed him money, and to
describe a quarrd that haJ developed between Kelly and Count Scotto.The
quarrel, he reported, had been started by Kelly"who wrotethat hehad it from
trustworthy persons that Scotto was speaking untlattenngly ot him an was
threatening to beat him up, whereby if such was the casehe ordered .hun to
indicate the place and the time so that he might respond with weaponin hand
. . . . Suffice it to know for the moment that the quarrd in my opinioncannot
have an early end without bloodshed, and that all in all I don't believe there i
much to chose between them. s
Count Scotto, the Italian alchemist, was a sinister figure Also knownn as
Scoto or Scota or Scotta or Scotti, and variously given the first name Geronimo
or Alessandro or Giovanni, he had arrived in Prague earlier that year. 1590,
and seems to have played a part in the events that precipitatedKdly's downfall
in 1591.11 }
.
Once again Edward Dyer was sent to deal directly with Kelly. He. arrived~.:..l
in Prague early in October 1590. He presented his papers to the ministers of
state, but the political climate was uneasy and he lett rap1Jly. He wrote tt
Burghley October 31, .. 1 used all my best means to h.ave gotten .some medicine
to have satisfied her Majesty by her own blisstul sight: but Sir EJ feared to
consent thereto, lest the report thereof being blown over, it migh,t he an occasion
to kindle jealousy here, whereof he being now of the Emperors pnvy council
he has more regard than in time past" (SP 82/3, tol. 134).
.) .
The same day, October 31, Kelly wrote to Burghley fwm Prague (S1 ~ i 1
6, fol. 76):

60

l\IYSTICAL l\IETAL OF GOLD

Vcry gla~l I am rhat her royal Majesty has seen anJ likcJ these my lasr
lerrcrs. AnJ am wdl pleased also, that you account yourself therein fully
saristieJ. Bur whereas you move me (as from her Majesty) to make some
demonstration in the principal point (as it pleases you to term it) of my
science, to the end her Majesty might be rhe better satisfied, and for the
so doing promise me (in her Majesty's behalt) gracious favour, increase
of honour and living, I thus answer: if her highness had specified any
particular by her gracious own direct or indirect lcner, wherein her
satisfactionhad consisted it should have taken such performance as the
desires of so great a Majesty, and the show of my real love and loyalty
towards her might any way require. But because your lordship's letters
are too weak in that behalf, and for that the proceedings are so entangled
with the tossing of some worthy man's well known and unstainable
credit, I thought it tit to take a pause until I learn from her Majesty
t~>rmally wherein I might honourably serve and satisfy her gracious high
ness abrtlad, being settled and contented already with sufficient reputa
tion and living.

Dyer returnedto Prague in November. Accordingto Sargent, Dyer found Kelly

so deeply involved with the Emperor that he could not have left the Empire
even had he wished to. "Whence came the original suggestion one cannot say,
but between the two, Kdly and Dyer, they hit upon an ingenious solution. Since
Kclly could not carry away his secret, it was proposed that Dyer should enter
into collaboration on the experimems, with the expectation that Dyer should
eventually learn the method of tr.msmutatiun for himself. Dyer was delighted
with the pruspect. Edward Dyer accordingly established himself in Kelly's house
hnld, and under Kdly's tutelage plunged into the mysteries of alchemical labour.
TI1c whole winter was given 0\"er to the pursuit. " 114
h seems unlikely that Kclly would have shared his secrets. But they cer
tainly did work together. Kelly later recalled this period in a letter to Dyer,
September 14, 1595 (Bodlcian LibratyMS Ashmole 1420, p. 328): "Yea, honor
able sir, you know very well, what delight we took together, when fmm the
metals simply calcined into powder after the usual manner, distilling the liquor
so prepared with the same we convened appropriate bodies (as our astronomy
infcritlr teaches) into mercury their first matter."
Dyer's invohemcnt with Kelly is the subject of lllle of Francis Bacun's
Apophthegms:
Sir Edward Oyer, a grave and wise gentlemandid much believe in Kelly
the alchemist that he did indeed the work, and made gold: insomuch
tha he wcm into Germany where Kdly then was, to inform himself
fully thereof. After his rerum, he dined with my lord of Canterbury,
where at that timewas at the table Dr Brown the physician. They fell
in talk of Kclly. Sir Edward Dyer, turning to the archbishop said, "l do
assure your grace, that that I shall rdl you is truth, I am an eyewitness
thereof; and if I had not seen it, I should nor have believed it. I saw Mr

A Biugmphy uf EJuarJ Kdly,

th~ En~li.sll :\ldt~mist

ol

Kdly put of the base metal into the crucibleandafter it was se a little
upon the fire and a very small quantity ot medicineput in andstirred
with a stick of wood, it came fllrth in great proportion perfectgold to
the touchto the hammer, tothe test.
My lord archbishop said, "You had need take heed what you say,
Sir Edward Dyer, for here is an infidel at the board."
.
Sir Edward Dyer said again pleasantly, "I would have looked for an
infidel soonerin any place than at your grace's table."
"What say you, Dr Brown?" says the bishop.
.
Dr Brown answered, after his blunt and huddlmg manner, "The
gentleman has spoken enough for me."
"Why," says the bishllp, "What has he said?"
.
.
"Marry," says Dr Brown, "he said, he. would not havebelieved it.
except he had seen it, as no more will I."
February 18, 1591, Kdly wrote to Burghlcy, mentioning "I had forgottenh
let you understand in my last letter that I wouldshortly send youthatsome
good thing you desired tor you[r) health (Bnush Library MS Lan~do~\tk. bb,
~o. 58, fols. 164--65). In May 1591 Burghley ~wte agam tu Kdly: a Jratr ot the
letter survives (MS Lansdownc 103, no. 72):

1Jn

I have cause to thank you, and so I do very heartily for your good, kind
letter sent to me by our countryman, Mr Roydon: who makes suchgo od
report of you, (as dues every other man that has had a conversation\nrh
you), as that I am comforted to hear their reports. Ye~ I have the same
mingled with some grief, that none of them can g1vc me .any good
assurance of your return hither; the thing most earnestly desired of all
well disposed persons to the Queen's Majesty, and to theircountrymen
. .. And I hope to hear from you to have something ot your approbationill ,
to strengthen me afore the next winter against my old enemythe gout
which is .ratherfed by a cold humour than a hot, and principally by a
rheumatic head, which l also think receives his imperfection from a
stomach not fully digesting the food received. But to affirm whatI take
to be the most direct cause is, oppression with attairs and lack ot liberty
against thwhich no medicinal receipt canserve. And yet I will beglad
to make use of any you will send me, wtth your assurance that lt shall
do me no harm.
Matthew Roydon, who had delivered Kelly's letter fromPrague was likeDyer
a poet and a member of the Sidncy circle. He wroteanelegy o.n Sidney's:~ death,
"A Friend's Passion for his Astrophel." He was a tricnd of ChristopherMarlowe
and Gcorge Chapman, he was linked with Lord Strange and Ralegh's "School
of Night," and he is generally believed to have been part of Walsingham':~ an
Burghley's dintelligencenetworks. 87
.
.
.
.
,
Was Elizabeth's senior statesman really discussing his gout with Kelly?
Would a political figure reveal a disabling sickness by letter, so readily interceptible, to an expatriate alchemist who refused to return home? Or is the

~lYSTICAL METAL OF GOLD

letter offering codedpolitical speculations? Is the rheumatic head Rudolf, rhe

impertecdy digesting stomachRudolf's advisers, and rhe lack of liberty a comment onBohemian attairs? And does that imply rhar Kelly was operatingas an
agent for Burghley in Prague, "a highly-placed asset in the courr of Emperor
Rudolf,"as Charles Nicholl asserts, with rhe known agent Roydon acting as

courier?89

RobertHookecertainly thoughtso. He speculated that Dee'sentirespiritual

records were coded accounts ot political events: "And when he returned, he left
Kelly with the Emperor who for several years after kept correspondence with
Dr_ Dce here, which might possibly continue to execute the same design; Kdly
beingnowgrownSir Edward Kelly, and thEmperor's chymist. And in probabile Or Dee mighthave sufficiently furnished him wirh cryptography enough to
send what intelligences he pleased, without suspicion, which was easily conceivedunder any other feigned story." In probability, perhaps; but Hooke never
offers~ny examplesof thealleged cryptographs decoded. Nonetheless, the speculauon _1s not an 1mposs1ble one. _The third volume ofTrithemius' Steganographia,
ostensibly a sequence of tables tllr summoning up spirits, has now been revealed
to be a work of cryptobrraphy. This was the book rhat Dee had tried to acquire
in 1563 forBurghley (SP 12/27 fol. 63).1i'l
On May 12, 1591, Burghley wrote at length to Dyer:~
I have received your two letters; the one of the 15th, the other ut the
16th. By both which I perceiveyou hold fast your first opinion of Sir
Edward Kelly, namely, as you write, forthat worthy truth in him at the
highest point that has been before you reported: and rherero you add in
the same letter, that for his pertect love towards her Majesty you think
rhere cannot be found better in any man; move me to expect cerrainly
by your meansa perfect resolution in Sir Edward K. wirhour all scruples
to return to h1s nativecountry; to honour her Majesty, as a loyal natural
subject, with the fruits of such great knowledge as God has given him.
Burghlcy

was

at pains tll refute some

light and very false rumours carried thither; the falsehouJ ofsome of
them beingbyme even at rhis present discovered, that my Lord Chancdlor [SirChnstopher Hatton] showed me in a letter from you brought
with mine wherein you wrote, that Sir Edw. K is informed that my
LordChancellor has utteredJivers reproachful speeches even afore her
MaJesty: whereot my lord is notably wronged. For on my faith I never
heard my lorduse any evil words of him: and he himself, upon the receipt
of your letterhas and does avow it upon his faith and honour, and so
has protested aforeher Majesty; and that he never uttered any reproachful words, e1thcr atore her Majesty or out of her presence. Which also her
Majesty in my hearing has confirmed, never to have heard his lordship to
havedepravedhim.

63

But Burghley did concede that doubts had beenexpressed.Somepeople

hewrote, "seeming to think the actionimpossible to pertorm, wh1ch is reported
of Sir Edw. K., conceive that they which make report of their own excellence
by settingtransmutation of metals into gold by him Jll notwithstandingcontend
with the reporters that they are deceived; and so may be to us." And Burghley

concludedthat, if Dyer was unable to persuade Kellyto return, "I must certainly
think that he cannot perform that which you conceive of him, but that by some
cunning, or, as they say, legerdemain, both you and all others have been deceived, as the wisest in Venice were the las! year: or else 1 must in my heart
(which I would be most loth to do) condemn him, as an unnatural bom man
to his country, and a very disloyal subject to a most virtuous godly lady, his
sovereign." And he concluded with the request that "if you cannut obtainSir
Edw. Kelly's rerum personally, yet that you would, tor maintenance l>t your
credit, procure some small, though very small portion of thepowderto make
demonstration in her Majesty's own sight ot the perfecnon ot h1s knowledge .... I wish he would, in some secret box, send toher Majestyfor a token
some such portion as might be to her a sum reasonable to detray her. charges
for rhis swnmer for her navy which is now preparing to the sea to withstand
rhc strong navy of Spain, discovered upon rhe coasts between Britanny anJ
Cornwall within these tw days. But wishers oand woulders were never good
householders."
There are various highly colored though unauthenticated Czech storiesof
Kelly at the height of his success. Josef Svatek, writing in the 1890s, has him
buying a brewery, mill,and property in Kilove andgradually gaining a monopoly
over rhe food trade in the district, raising prices, ignoringthe protestingpopulace. When he was not on his estates he was in Prague; indulging in orgies of
wine and women. lvan Svitak attributes Kclly's undoubted wealth to his reprocessing waste from the J ilove mines, retrieving gold by the use of mercury
Reputedly Kelly bought a house in Dobytcitrh, the _Cattle Market, in which
none other than Dr. Faust was supposed to have hved. He is said to have
been less thanenthusiastic about the various other travelling alchemists who
converged on Prague. Mamugnano he kept at a distance. Similarly, when Michael Sendivogius arrived in 1590, Kelly is said to have lodged him in one of
his houses at Jilove to prevent his becoming a rival for Rudolf's patronage."
Events now took a dramatic turn as Rudolf ordered Kelly's arrest. The
earliest report is in "The true copy of a letter written from Frankfurt, the l 5th
of May," 1591, now in the British Library.'13 John Strype attributed it tn "an
English merchant, as it seems, at Frankfurt, ""~ presumably becausetheopening
paragraph declares, "To Prague I came on the 28th Apnl, makingmy journey
so as I might fall in with the end of the Leipzig mart because of the occasion
for Frankfurt with the merchants of Cologneand Strasbourg." This attribution
has never been disputed. However the letter is most probably fmm HenryWotton. lr is written to Edward Wotton, his half brother, with whom he frequently
corresponded, and the rderence in it to Boughton House shows a familiaril)
with that family hume ofthe Wottons, where Henry and Edward were brought
up. The known timetable of Wouon's travels supports the conjecture. Logan

~IYSTlC.-\L ~lETAL OF

GOLD

Pearsall Smith writes rhar "at rh~ end ofApril, 1591, Wottonleft Viennaand
wenttu Prague; andin June ofthis yearwe finJ him again at Frankfurt, where
he seemsto have arrived before the end of May, and where,as he writes to
Bllltius, he haJ sufferredfrom a severeand expensive illness of a month's dura~
tion." Thelatest biographer llf Wotton,GeraldCurzon,accepts my identification of Wottonas the author.'~;
At my first coming, I W<lS advertised that there were many English in
the town. Upon which I meant not to discovermyself, till I had sounded
out what they were, the state they bore, and what course they took.
Word was givenme that oneMr Dyer was in Sir Edward Kelly's house,
andanother page with one of the Lees in the town and two or three
other captains which departed,(as I was informed)that Jay to Ni.irnberg:
I did think the next day to offer my duty to Mr Dyer, in mean while
happened this alteration. His Majesty on the last of April about twdve
of the clock sent the most part of the gentlemen of the guard and
the other down from thecourt castle to Sir EdwarJ Kelly's house with
commandment to bring him up bound, the cause concealed, the house
chosenas it was thought that he might be taken at dinner. And because
it seemed somewhat a hard proceeding to enter the house of a councillor
l,f estate with the guard alone they had joined unto them the captain
and lieutenant of the castle, provost of the town, and secretary in the
star~ of Bohemia.
The officerscoming in found him not therebut as somesaid upon
intelligence from a secret friend in the court departeda little before,
which by reason of the little distance between thecourt and Sir Edward's
lodging (being no further than from Boughtonhouse to the vineyard)
was unprovable,especially being not able to go, so that some time must
be spent in the preparation of a horse or coach. Others said, that he was
departed the night before which indeed was theright truth though done
so secretly as his own family was kept from it. The officer finding not
theprincipal seized on the accessories, boundhis servants and led them
up to prison in sight uf the whole town, sealed up the doors of every
chamber, used chief extremity on his brother, not without speech that
he was tortured which yet was false. Mr Dyer with his servants was
commanded to keep the house rill further hearing of his Majesty's plea,
sureSome say, he kept in upon his own wisdom and judgement which
the secretary -o f Bohemia told me himself, but I dare not affirmit, because
I hear of persons in great authority the contrary. It may be he was only
admonished without commandment or charge and thence it arose.
His Majesty aJvertised that he was gone is said to have cursed in
the Dutch manner, gave forth present order to have the highways set,
places suspected to harbour him were searched in the town, a post dis~
patched toward the Earl Rozmberk his patron with a letterfrl)m the
Emperor of these contents that if hecame unto him, he should deliver
him upon his allegiance to thecrownof Bohemia.

65

The tumult being ovt:r, what should be the cause was the next
question. To be weighty and heinous it was Clmj~ctur~J. beca~se it was
contrary ro the Emperor's humour and course ot the house of Austria
to proceed in criminal matterseither so violently or so generally,That
it touched the Emperor's own person was manifestedby keeping it close
at least by interpretation received no otherwise. The causesgiven forth
were these. Some said it was for debt, which though it were probably
spoken because I find the suppuration of his debtin the town to arise to
rhirry~rwo thousand dollars, which he owesto two Cologne merchants
that trade with jewels, yet did two reasons make evidently against ir.
First because he was known tohave much more in present moneyand
lands than his debts -came unto and no entry or distrainmentheardon
upon his unmovables which according to the pmcess of that crown ought
to have been in the case of debt. Secondly to the Emperorhe was known
to have owed nothing nor ever to have put him in any charge savefor
coals and house room, and it was nL)t his Majesty's manner to follow th
actions of his own subjects, ebeingprince and procurator of his people.
Others said that the Dukeof Bavaria examining the goldmaker of
Venice (whom he executed at Munich the 25 of April) he confessed
unto him that he was sworn .in one league with Mr Kelly which the
Duke signifying to the Emperorshould desire in his letter to have him
imprisoned. Of this 1 can neither find the falsehood nor truth.
A third gave forth that Mr Dyer had broughtunto him the Queen's
letters to call him home, which coming to the Emperor's ears andhi
Majesty seeking to hinder it, imprisonment was thought for the present
time a good means to stay his departure and afterward he might be talked
further withal. This 1 take to have been some of his friends' invention
to still the people from speaking the wors'C of him. Whether Mr Dyer
brought them or no, I cannot say. TheFrenchagent has affirmeditmost
constantly unto me as likewise that the Emperor was certified of it. A
doctor's son in the town told me, he knew the Queen's hand anJ read
the letters having served Sir Philip Sidney sometime in England by
whose means he came to the sight of such things. I dare not hasten to
believe it, till I hear further grounds of truth, because being letters of
secrecy, Mr Dyer a gentleman of rare discretion would have handled it
so as they should not have come forth, at leastbeen known that heJiJ
bring them which might endanger himself. Till certain advice 1 will hulJ
the opinion that Sir Edward Kdly has at some time or other vaunteda
his table or in his tconversationwith others, that the Queen has sentfor
him (as he is a man who takes as I hear a pleasur~ in speaking that
princes desire him.) Howsoever it be it is likely in this case much to
hurt him, the Emperorbeing assuredly informed that he is sent tor.
The fourth cause alleged was that he had at his table spokenperil, oud
words against the Emperor, and the Poples which is thesecond family
of Bohemia who being the old enemies of the Rozmberks and being this
present the principal officers of that state as one a privy counciller

66

~lYSTIC:\L METAL

OF GOLD

<Hlllth~r masterofthe court, a third land officer, a fourth ofthem president in the appellation, have prevailed with the Emperor tu have him
imprisoned; so under pretence of public justice, to revenge their own
private quarrels upon the Rozmberk.s who have been both the setters up
of Sir EJward Kelly and the principal maintainers of him hitherto.
The fifth report was that his Majesty having long had a throbbing
of the heart (as it were an hereditary disease from his father who died
of it) by which he often falls into a swoon, Sir EdwarJ Kelly distilled an
oil for it which being sent unto the Emperor and Sir Edward's enemies
being by persuaded his Majesty it was appointed to poison him. Proof
was made of the force in it and it wrought the effect of poison. Some
said, the throbbing of the heart was given forth for a colour to hide a
more infamous disease which I leave in doubt. The circumstances beat
shrewdly about it, for the oil is said to have had the virtue of acting in
favour, or otherwise, according to the quantity, which fur an inward
disease sounds somewhat improbably.
The last reason of his imprisonment which I could by any means
receive was that his Majesty three days before his departure should have
sent for him to male proof of his art at the court which one Scotto an
Italian had disabled him in. Mr Kelly returned answer he was sick and
not long after tled. He was taken on the second of May at Sobeslav,
twelve miles from Prague, a town belonging to Peter, Earl of Rozmberk.,
as he was in his journey toward William, Earl of Rozmberk.. At first he
resisted the officer making answer he was a citizen of Bohemia and a
councillor of state. His flightwas objected to him which he denied and
called it only a visiting of his patron the Earl which he might do either
secretly or otherwise. A courier was despatched in post to the court to
know the Emperor's will who commanded him to be brought to his
Castle Purglitz situate three miles from Prague. Mr Dyer was, as I take
it, on the 2 of May sent for up to the court with the secretary and
anothercouncillor that conducted him in good convenient sort home
again. The secretary I spake withal afterwards who commended him for
his grave behaviour and answers and added this praise of him that he
had so great a grace in courtesy, as non pocuimus ullo modo par referre.
Those were his words.
What will be the conclusion I know not. The action is lese-majesty
whichthe Emperor inrends. To have him openly executed there is no
fear, because the Earl of Ro:mberk. will earnestly interpose himself, and
in Bohemia it is a rule that his Majesty dares do nothing without the
Earl's consent being burgraveof Prague, the immediate person and officer
under the crown. If difference should arise between them, the Emperor
has cause to think upon his own security, matters going not so as the
people would, in the regiment who wait upon such an occasion to work
a change in the stare. Secretly in the castle it may be done and the Earl
notknow otherwise than that he lives or is dead by diseasealmost grown
now to be a common practice in the Empire, and the Palatine specially

noted that way. This I tear

is eitherdone
already
or
will bedone. His
servanrs shall no
doubt be set
at liberty,
one
of
them
I hear was
racked.
Mr Dyer at his return from
the
court where he made his answer before
the councillors
was not
fully free
as far as I could
hear
by the French
agent's means.
lr was a great
cross that kept
me
trom Mr
Dyer, Sir
Edward
Kelly,
and the rest
of the English. The action
being
treason
drew
the whole
nation
into jealousy and for my part I had rather
be spectator
llf a tragedy
than an actor. Neither indeed
could I well come after
the apprehensionn
to either the sight or speech
of that honourable gentleman. In Prague
l
found the
state of the Emperor's court otherwise quiet
and
still, no
speech
of any marriage with Spain
which was
stirring inAustria, many otheres
void by death of great men lately as the
Earl ot T rivulse, master
of
the
privy chamber,
the Ll1rJ
horse, the Lord ofTrentiane a councillor of the
of Dietrichstein, master of the court, the
vice-chancellor
and
others,
great way for preferment
and
whole suit made fllr it and
one
reason
tllf
all, his Majesty is no good
paymaster which
makes
men
weary
llt the
constitution of
the
Emperor's body
is lately
changed
and
he
time. The
is
grown
very fat though
as it seemed unto me rather puffed
up than firm
tlesh howsoever they call it at the court.

The
arrest created a
sensation, and
news
of
it spread
rapidly. Burghlcy
received
a report from Robert Sidney,
the governor of Flushing, dated May 22 1591.
"I
had letters lately from Augsburg that the
great Italian alchemist Bragadini
had
about a month ago his head cut off at Munich by the
Duke of
Bavaria's commandmenr and that about the same time Kelly had
thought
to
have fled
bur
was brought back
and it is thought
there he will run the same
race that
the
84/42, fol. 68).
other did"
(SP
June
4, 1591, a report came from
Matthew
Greensmith:

I wrote
you that a
frienJ of
mine wrote
me
from
Prague
In my last letter
that Kelly and Mr E. Dyer, or
as he wrote an English
gentleman,
being
suddenly departed
from
there was post hasted
after and stayed
twelve
miles from
Prague
where remaining three days the
Emperor's pleasure
were brought from there and carried to
a castle
prisoners
in Bohemia.
Kelly's cunning being doubted and
his practicelongsuspected.
The 2nd of this month I had news trom a triend at Cologne
that
at Prague
an Englishman sometimeof
the 29th April last was hanged
great
reputation by the Emperor ... accused
and condemned for
divers
matters of treachery. So that I camlllt judge
it nobody but Kelly.
There
was also
another hanged
with him on a new pair of gallows
of
great
at
height and the chain wherewith
the principal was hanged
after
he
was
strangled was
over all gilded;
and over the gallows copper gold
chains
hanged and
buttons,
rings with such like nailed on the gallows,\\ whether
they were made of purpose
or of Kelly's counterfeiting I know not.
(SP
81/7, fol. 28)

t..lYSTICAL
METAL OF
GOLD

It
turned outto be a false report. Whoeverwas hanged, it was nor Kdly. Bur

the threat ot such a fate remainedfor him.

Thomas Webbe was despatched with letters from Queen Elizabeth to
ensure the release of Dyer, who was said to be under house arrest.97 Webbc
reportedback to Burghley, June 26 (British Library, MS Lansdowne 68, no. 93,
tols. 210-11)):

It is for a truth reported thatSir EJward Kelly was accused by one Scotto
to the Emperor.The effect ofhis accusation is uncertain, yet some report
was that he should practice to poison the Emperor, and others rhar it
was for debt. Upon which his accusation the Emperor sent for him thrice,
Sir EdwardKelly always excusing himself that he was not well, and went
not. Bur that night he had word at midnight that he was to be apprehended the next morning, and so instantly departed with one man towards the LordRozmberk. Thenext day somewhat early the Emperor
sent his guard forhim in great number who brought with them not only
chains or fetters but irons of torture. And findingthat he was departed
they searched his house, broke open his doors, thrust their halberds
through his beds or in any place where it might be supposed he might
be hid, apprehending his brother and using much violence, in leading
him to prison pinnacled like a thief, and there left in chains with all the
rest of his servants. And a great guard was left over the Lady Kelly and
Mr Dyer, who since has answered such objections as has been laid to .
him Jivers times and as I hear thrice in one day, yet now I hear that Mr
Dyer is more favoumbly entreated and is in another lodging where he
goes not out: neither can I certify unto your honour that he is restrained
neither shall I be able to certify unto your honour of the particularities
of Mr Dyer's trouble until I shall have spoken with himself.
Bur to proceed with Sir Edward Kdly's apprehension, as I do certainly understand more thus. Departing early he went six Dutch miles
towards the Lord Rozmberk to a certain town under his jurisdiction
where he being weary and without suspect he reposed himself after dinner
ona bed and slept. In which time the Emperor's guards entered, rook
himentreated him very ill, cur his doublet open with a knife, searching
himand toldhim they were by the Emperor's commandment to carry
hun back agam, dead or alive, which they cared nor, and so prisonered
he was carriedback again to a castle about of tive miles from Prague,
wherehe ts closely L:ept, without any manner of access to him. But he
proved that he was going to th~ Lord Rozmberkand that the Lord
Rozmberksent for him and that hewas expected at thesame rime by
theLord Rozmberk. At which time theLord Rozmberk was sick which
caused him to be somewhat long ere he came to the castle in which
time all Sir EdwardKelly's lands and goods were seized totheEmperor's
behalf:but since the Lord Ro:mberk's coming all his men were enlarged,
hunself better entreated, only deprivedof his liberty and fri~nds.

Since which time as I Jl) learn Scottohimselfis fledsoas no perso.n

can say how or whither. Farther at this time I cannot write. But J\) send
this lerr~r to your lordship by a gentleman one of Sir Edward Kelly's
men and was prisoner amongst therest for the same and who perhaps
can certify your honour moreat large of all courses hitherto passed.

There is more information in a letter from Thomas Page, catalogued in the

Public RecordOffice under July 2, 1576, though from the events described the
year is clearly 1591 (SP 12/108.fol. 119). From this account it emerges [h . t
therehad been attempts to involve"Sir Edward Kdly for the working him to
be a favourer of theattemptof a true discovery for China or the Nonh and
East part thereof otherwise called Cathay, which enterpriseof him greatlycommended, but nor allowing the weakness of theauempr, persuaded rhe contrary,,
and it became to be suspendedupon betterdeliberation, as also his own secret
business, somethingfor the better furthering thereof in rime." It was one ul
those schemes of explorationand trade in which Dce had been involved. Perhaps
the English hoped to draw on Kelly'snew found wealth to invest in it. Rudolf's
suspicions that Kelly was still dealing with the English is confirmed, and the
speed with which Pagegot out of Praguesuggests things may not have been
utterly above board. Page offers another account of the reason for Kelly'sarrest.
"Lies here verytit matter to allege for his going to the Lord RozmberL: concerning
a cozening practised by a Portingal [a Portuguese) with certain cups of polished
horn resembling agate, and sold for agate by this same Portingal to Sir E. K. td
the value of 14 thousand dollars, th~ one half whereof Sir E. K. paid him, the
rest to be paid within a short space, which timeexpiredthePortingal demanded
payment bur Sir E. K. deferred him, for rhar h~ perceived theplot laid to deceive
him, which nor yet ripe would nor fear to prove it, expecting the coming ofthe
Lord Rozmberk to the town, who in respect he is viceroydoes determine all
controversies in the kingdom, the Portingal importuned his payment. Sir E. K.
delayed him, still expecting the Lord Rozmberk coming, for that their term wa~
then to be holden, who falling sick came not. This payment was urged still by
the Portingal in theend by the meansof theSpanish ambassador anJ the papal
legate. The Emperor was possessedwith the Portingal's plaint, and as Sir E. K
was certified, had grantedto send for him with summons, it should seemhe
prevented by departing before it came hastening to the Lord Rozmberk to
complain him of his wrong, but this the least of many practised against him
contrary whereof the Lord Rozmberk had promised by oath when he tirsr estab. lished him with the Emperor."
Page goes on to give assurance that Rudolf haJ indeed created Kelly
his subject, a lnighr of the Empire anJ one of his privy council, the
truth whereofis nor receivedalmost with any in EnglanJ, bur l have
this reason ro leadme that it is true by an incident that happenedat d
banquet whither it pleased Sir E. K. to carry me with him, Mr Dyer,,also
present, by the secretary uf the Emperor,who coming in rhe latter end
thereof, saluted all thecompany but not Sir E. K., but began to take

70

~lYSTlCAL l\IETAL l1F GL)LD

exception that he deserved to be lllllrc regarded with Sir E. K. in that

hehaddone.him afavour in the quick dispatch uf a matterwhich passed

his place bcmg secretary whereto Sir E. K. answered that . in that he
sought tu teach him manners, he could not be spared, but must tell him
he did but his duty to the Emperor. The matter still aggravated with
many other words by the secretary, Sir E. K. bade him remember he
spakc to a councillorof the Emperor, with such other dignities before
named, .if notheshould knowit with the price of his life in these express
words (ifnot) per deum actum est dete, whereupon the secretary fled
led the table. The Emperor acquainted herewith, the secretary was
chastised and reconciledhimself to Sir E. K., all which I write in confirmation of the truth that the Emperor has gracedhim with these dignities
uf hunuur. But yet within this business there was, as after appeared,
purposedpracticeby the secretary to drawhim within compass uf treason,
informing.as it is by their laws treason for any of them to report the
meetmg ot each otherin council, and the secretary asked him at his first
meeting if he knew him not, who knew him no otherwise but by meeting
him in council, which, if he had expressed, he had beenwithin compass,
but this not growing current it should seem they have practiced some
other course_to bring him within breach of their laws, by colour whereof
they might torce from him what God has blessed him with, I mean the
philosopher'sstone which_ he possesses without question to the contrary,
withwhich knowledge, it Godshould permit, he is able to perfect all
the imperfectmetal in theworld, which for my part I do not at all marvel
at but hold it asnaturalsecret which God has reserved to be imparted
unto the true faithfullabourers and delighted in his work not delighting
the world but contemplating his divinity and unsearchable works.
The Fuggcr banking house also carefully monitored the case. Gold manufacturing touched un their professional interests. May 8, 1591, a correspondent reported Kdly's arrest and imprisonment: "He was not evenalloweda bread knife
everythingwas taken away. His servants are still here under restraint. But his
wifeand otherwomenare L:ept under arrest at home. It would appear that there
IS somethmg behindall this, we do not yet know what." A letter on May 14
reported"The English akhemist who has recently been taken to Purglitz as a
prisoner appeared to be in the depthsof despair these latter days and refused
to partake of food, so that it was teared he might die." There were further letters
on
May21_, June 30, andJuly 2, the latter reporting that Kdly was imprisoned
with no airbut that whichcomes through a hole, through which he can reach
forhis food bit by bit ... . On examining the accounts of Rozmberk it was found
that the Englishman had cost him over three hundred thousand florins. It is
amazingthat . thesenoblemen have allowed themselves to be duped in such a
fashion. He is said to have cost the Emperor near on a thousand Rhenish
guilders."
Dyer was allowed toreturn toEngland with Webbein July 1591. Dee notes
in his diary, July 28, "Mr Dyer sent me 20 angels by Mr Thomas Webbe," and

Biography

of Edward Kelly, the EnglishAlchemist

July 30, "reconciliation betweenMr Dyer and me solemnized the afternoon on

Friday, and on Saturday (the 31st) all day till my going by [Fenton: "to"] ...
at Mr Webbe's lodging at Rochester House" (PD, 38-9; Fenton, 253).
Meanwhile Kelly languished in prison. In 1592 Vilem Rozmbcrk died. Kelly
was now without his prime protector. The English government continued to
maintain an interest in the case. Christupher Parkins reponed back to Sir Robert
Cecil, Burghley's second son, who was now running intelligence operations,in
leuers of July 18 and 20, 1593 (SP 81/7, fols. 140, 143-4):
Of Kelly's skill I tind here in Prague three opinions. The tirst is that he
makes neither gold, neither in truth transmutation of metals, but only
that he has a new r.ue kind of juggling, whereby he seduces some wise
men to believe what is not, as common jugglers deceive common people.
Others think this opinion too austere, esteeming that he makestrue
transmutation of metals yet in such sort that he has thereby loss anJ no
commodity. The ground of this opinion is that he has been apprehended
for debt, whereby he is esteemed to want and have need.
Others also think this opinion of little belief, and they esteem that
Kelly can do what he will. And that this show of need and want is
unto him voluntary and not necessary, standing upon general point of
reputation and comempt of dross. Men of this opinion be accounted
simple. And those best men about the Emperor be uf the second opinion.
This much of his opinion.
This is his state. After he had been proved t dally with jewels of
great importance showing that he had will tu buy now uf one, and now
of another, taking them upon credit, and pawning them to the Jews for
present money, and redeeming sometimes the jewels of one with the
jewels of another as each one urged him, and thereby giving some content to each one at sundry times, by seeing their jewels in his hands
forthcoming, at the length some got their jewels from him again, others
whose jewels lay irredeemable with the Jews, urged him tu their uttermost, and at the length being altogether without satisfaction they complained to the Emperor who called Kelly before him. He excused himself
by sickness, yet in the night he hurried toward Rozmberk, anJ it is
thought to seek some remedy to uphold his creditors.
The Emperor forthwith had intelligence that his excuse of sickness
was not sincere, whereupon adjoining some offences that had passed
before, the Emperor sent to apprehend him in his voyage, the which w as
performed accordingly. And Kelly apprehended was by the Emperor's
order led to the castle called Purglitz four miles from Prague where he
is now detained.
The former offence is this. Kelly having made many petty proofs ll
no gain, had made a solemn promise long since of a grand proofthe
which should be with Caesar's great advantage, but delaying from time
to time about the effect it was agreed of a peremptory day, and thatmore
than once, Kelly ever failing and finding some general sleeveless excuse,

MYSTICAL~lETAL OF GOLD

yet Caesar in the mean season cherished and countenanced him well,
daily more and more by this good dealing encouraged to stand upon
points ot reputationyet nothing was performed of him accordingly, so
that this order of offence joined with the suit of his creditors, and his
declining has been the cause of his imprisonment. And now Caesar
otters him his enlargement prescntly when he has made his grand proof.
He standing upon his reputation, answers that he will not so disgrace
his cunning tomake any proof until he be fully at liberty. So he remains
in hllld upon these terms.
Parkins reported that his informationcame from the emperor'scouncillors.The
also showed him a letter Kelly
said her Majesty wrote untohim, whereinhe was required to come home
and advance his own country with his skill, with divers promises. In the
same letterthey said there were certain words written with her Majesty's
own hand, thewhich they showed unto me, and required of me if I could
givejudgement of them, signifying if Kelly did interpret them too much
to his advantage. And at length they required of me in the Emperor's
name,if I could give any account of the diminishing of one of his ears,
or ofhis good or evil behaviour in England. Whereunto I answered, that
I might seem an unfitman to talk of Kellywithout some affection, who
has so grievously and falsely oftended me, yet setting aside all passion,
being required in the name of such a monarch, I would refer what I
knew only upon the ground of common report. And so I did.
Unfortunately Parkins does not report what he said in response to the emperor's enquiries.
Back _in England, Parkins wrote enigmatically to Sir Robert Cecil, November 20, 1593, "For that I think her Majesty will have no mention made of
Kclly's matter that is now dead, I will attend the occasion well to bury it."99
_
Kelly'sdealings with the Portuguese jewellers are also reported in a letter
from Seth Cockes, July 28, 159.3 (SP 8011, fol. 154) who says he passed on the
informationto Parkins: "I find by those that were thoroughly acquainted with
many ot his shifts, that the philosopher's stone has been nothing else than the
provision of 6,000 ducats of the Baron of Rozmberk, together with an extraction
ofcertainjewels which by the credit he had by the Lord Rozmberk he took up
ofa Portingaland French jewellerout of thc which being pawned to the Jews
he distilled to the value of 16,000 ducats, whereof he melted many and sent
the wedges to be sold to the goldsmith, which gave such opinion of his skill
that it was _thought therc would nor be lead enough in the country for the
operation ot his powder, and rhus he lived for a while in liberty."
Czechaccountsby]osef Svatek and Vaclav Kaplicky, havc Kelly imprisoned for killing an officialof Rudolf'scourt, Georg or ]an or ]iri Hunkler, in a
duel in 1591. Hunkler had been inquiring about the cropping of Kelly's ears.

A Biography

of Edward Kellythe EnglishAlchemist

73
)

But Kaplicky's novel is a work ofromantic fictiun and not generally historically reliable. 100
Kelly now begins to feature in the literary rccord. 1l 11 GabrielHarveywrites
ii1 Pierce's Supen.rogation (1593), "I wondered tohear that Kelly had gottenthe
Golden Fleece, and by virtue thereof was suddenly advancedinto so honourable
reputation with the Emperor's Majesty; but would have wonderedmoreto have
seen a work of supererogarion from Nashe: whose wit must not enter the lists
of comparison with Kelly's alchemy: howsoever he would seem to have the
green lion, and the tlying eagle in a box. Bur Kelly will bid him look to the
swollen toad and the dancing fool. Kelly knows his luteof wisdom, and uses his
renns of art. "102 Thomas Nashe himself refers to Kdly in Have With You to
Saffron-Walden (1596). Lull and Paracelsusare called upon, which provokesthe
response, "Let him call upon Kelly,who is better than them both; and for the
spirits and souls of the ancient alchemists,he has them so close imprisonedin
the fiery purgatory of his furnace, that tor the wealth ofthe King ot Spain':;:,
lndies, it is not possible to release or gct the third part ot a nit of any one of
them to help any but himself." 101 In Ben Jonson's TheAlchemist (1610)_Sir
Epicure Mammon refers to Subtle as ''A man, the emperor/Has courted, above
Kelly: sent his medals, I And chains, to invite him" (Act 4scene 1, 89-91) _. ..,
In Hudibras (1663), the Worcestershire poet Samuel Butler cites the intrigues
between Dee and "Kelly, I Lescus and th'Emperor" (2. 3. 237-8).1"105
Kelly was finally rdeased by Rudolf. Edward Suliarde reported back to
England from Padua, July 3, 1593 (SP 8511, fol. 158) "there_is now news that
Kelly is set at liberty and in great favour again, but not of sufficientcredit until
the next post." Suliarde's infonnation may havebeen premature. September 9,
Abraham Faulkon wrote from Bohemia to Richard Hesketh in Lancashire.,"As
concerning Sir Edward Kelly, his delivery has been the 16th day of October
new style, and is in good health, both fat and merry. Thomas Kdly took me
along with him at Leben, where I was three days by his honour, and received
me very couneously, and must sit at table, both dinner and supper, what guests
soever his honour had, and promiscd whatsoever has not been done his honour
would do .. At my being at Lebcn, his honour did fish a pond, and gave me good
store of fish home with me likewise. "106
Puzzlingly, this letter dated September refers to Kdly's releasein October
But Dee also gives an October release date: his diary records "the news of Sir
Edward Kelly's liberty" on Decembcr 5, and he noted it retrospectivdy for
October 4, 1593, old style, which correlates closely with Faulkon's October16
new style (PD, 46--7; Fenron, 262-3). December 9, 1593 Seth Cocks reported
from Padua, "Mr Kdly is discharged of his long imprisonment and in great credit
with the Emperor" (SP 8511. tol. 163).
On August 28, 1593, Burghley had despatched a letter to Kellyby J courier
called William Hall. The record of the despatch survives in the Cecil collection
at Hatfield, but the contents of the letter are unknown. It has been suggested
that William Hall was an alias used by none other than William Shakespeare
on secret service work, and that the message involvedcommunications to Kelly

74

~lYSTlCAL METAL OF GOLD

in connectiun with the Heskcth conspiracy, anotherdoomed attempttu create

a Catholic uprising in Britain. 107
Sir RobertCecil_ had devised a scheme to test the loyalty of Lord Strange,
who was suspected ut Roman Catholic sympathies. A letter was to be sent to
him by one of the exiled English papists living in Prague, calling fur a Catholic
insurrection. If Strange failed tu report the letter, his treachery could be assumed.
RichardHesketh had been living in Prague for three years; returning to England
m September 1593, he stopped at the White Lion Inn in Islington on his way
from Prague to Strange's seat in Lancashire, and was given the letter by "Mr
Hickman," possibly Dee's formershyer, Bartholomew Hickman, or his brother.
Hesketh delivered it to Strange who reported it to the Queen. Hesketh was
arrested in October, and hanged, drawn, and quartered at St Albans on Novem,

bcr 29.

Since Kdly had been under arrest and in jail frum May 1591 until mid,
October 1593, his activeparticipation in the Hesketh affair, whether as conspira,
tor, provocateur or informer, is unlikely. The names of Kelly Lady Kelly, and
his brother Thomas certainly recur in letters intercepted in the ensuing investi,
gation They were clearly acquainted with participants in the conspiracy. But
there is nothing to suggest any direct involvement by them in the affair.
October 15, 1593, Richard Hesketh wrote from imprisonment to Lord
Cobhamor Sir Rubert Cecil: "Besides it were convenient to understand whether
Mr Dyerunderstand of my imprisonment or not, for if it be bruited amongst his
menor followers, they will straight write to my Lady Kdly or Mr ThomasKelly,
in respect of that I toldyour honour the other day, and then the goldsmith wiJl
know it, anJ he will tell the Father Jesuit, and the Jesuit the Cardinal, so shall
your honour never have them, which would be a great hindrance to the satisfac,
tion of )'our honour in my behalf. If Mr Dyer, nor his, have written nothing, it
were good they should not, under your Honour's favours." 1()!
On December 8, 1593, a Jesuit priest in PragueThomas Stephenson, wrote
to Richard Hesketh. In the course of his letter he remarked, "Our Lord send us
a King, and some more comfort after so many surging waves. Mr Thomas is in
health. I have been with him twice. Sir Edward is at Leben, not yet in his
tlower. Mr Hammon is become a new man, and I hope will continue. Commend
me to your good bedfellow, though unacquainted. I beseech you deliver my
letter ll> Mr leigh. "ll'IY Mr. Thomas may have been Thomas Kelly, Mr. Hammon
may be John Hammond, (see note 130 inf.), and Sir Edward is certainly Kelly,
now at liberty on his Leben estate.
. Stephenson wrote to Henry Leigh the same day. "Courtesy compels me to
wnre, and our old acquaintance moves me continually to remember you: I
marvelled ofyour so sudden departure from us, without any further notifying
your meaningbut you, I doubt not, did all for the best, and so, as I understand,
lt has fallenout, and wrote of you from London, that you were become a good
subject for the current time. However it be, no tales, nor talk nor flying words
shall make my will to shrink, so longas I live I will not leave dearly on you to
think. I desire heartily to see you. Sir Edward is at Leben, and was delivered
(WO mt.mths ago." 110
.

A Biugruphy

<:>f

EJU>arJ Kdly,

eh~

English Akhl.!misL

75

Henry Lcigh had served as a courier for leners between Burghlcy and Kelly
anJ Dyer in August and October 1590. "His lodging was wont to be about
Holborn bridge;" the Earl of Huntingdon infonued Sir Robert Cecil. 111 He m.ay
well be the Harry Lee who offered Kelly an annuity of forty pounds a year,
referred to in Kelly's argument with Dce, June 29, 1583 (TFR, 28). Being
mentioned in Stephenson's intercepted correspondence caused Leigh considerable trouble, and in December 1593 he wrote the earl of Hunringdon an account
of his acquaintance with Kelly and Stephenson at the time of Kelly's arrest:
First, I, the said Henry, do confess that after I had overspent my whole
estate in Her Majesty's service, without any recompense, and by the
cause of my fortune was driven to go to Prague, to seek some favt.lur of
Sir Edward Kelly, I did there see the said Thomas Stephenson in the
company of one Richard Tankard, an Englishman, who did Jivers time:!
resort to Sir Edward Kelly's house. And not long after the surprising of
Sir Edward Kelly and all the Englishmen that were then at Prague, it
was my chance to meet the said Stephenson upon Prague bridge, where
he began to dissuade me from that melancholy wherewith it seemed to
him I was oppressed, offering unto me all love and service to steal me
in that so dangerous a time for all Englishmen.... All which his courtesy and offers of friendship at that time I was content to accept ot, the
rather for that Mr Dyer was then closeprisoner, with whom l could
have no conference, nor receive direction what I might best doforthe
furtherance of Her Majesty's service in that behalf. And I thought ir not
amiss to entertain him at that time, as well for my own safety and liberty,
as also to understand by him from time to time the proceedings in Sir
Edward Kelly's case with the Emperor, for that one Methur and one
Aquensis, which were in the college with him, were confessors and
special intlamers of the Poples, the great family of Bohemia, against Sir
Edward Kelly, and the said Poples were as it were in sinu Caesaris; so as l
purposed by that means to await the best opportunity to do Her Majesty's
service ... I was almost in despair of any comfort in mine own counrry.
and as it were plunged in the depths of desolation abroad by the change
of Sir Edward Kelly's fortune, having then neither money nllr means to
maintain me, yet even at that time when all Englishmen in Prague were
in prison and none durst speak ....
As touching the contents of the letter sent frum Stephenson to me,
which it has pleased your Honour to show me, I trust to discharge myself,
for though I cannot let or prevent any man to write to me, yet doesthe
very first part give testimony to the world that he had nut any way
bewitched or entangled me with any covenants of secret love l)f intercourse of friendship, for that he seems to complain I left him suddenly
and unsatisfied, without taking my leave of him, which is a sound argument of the little account and small regard I gave to his charming, for
in very truth when I had wrought him so far as I could in Sir Edward

76

~lY~TlCAL ~IETAL OF

GOLD

Kelly'scase I lefthim and all his 'accomplices' with theirtrash to them,

selves; and according to my Jury I returned to serve my natural prince
anJ my country.
Leigh wentonto conclude,"And whereas the said Stcphcnson does open his
pack ot occurents as to Sir Edward Kdly's liberty he and all men know it was
the only matter I managed or dealt in, in those parts." 112
Leigh wrote a further letter February 21, 1594, protesting his innocence,
to Sir Robcrt Cecil. In a postscripthe remarks, "In the very last of Stephenson's
letter mention is made of a letter he received from Mr H. from his house in
Lancashire, which I forgot to explain in my answer delivered to my lord of
HumingJon. It seems to me that the letter came from one Mr Hesketh, a
Lancashire man, which was at Prague the same time that I was there, and was
familiar with Stephensonbut I have not seen him these two years almost."113
Leigh admits to having "seen" Hesketh in Praguethough does not indicate
whether he ever spoke to him. He met the priest Stephenson through Richard
Tankard, a goldsmith, whu knew Kdly. But there is no evidence that Kelly ever
met Hcsketh, or, indeed, Stephenson. Kelly was in jail for most of the period
ot Hesketh'sresidence in Prague.The mentions of him in the imercepted corre,
spondence need suggest no more than his imprisonment had been a cause celebre
and his release a matter of continued interest to the English community in
Prague. There is no substantiation to Charles Nichull's claim that "this dac,
monic tigure [E. K.] was undoubtedly involved with the Catholic plotters in
Prague."114

Dce's correspondencewith Kdly resumed now Kclly had been set at liberty,
and his diary records letters to Kelly lln March 28 and September 18, 1594, and
from Kelly on November24, 1594 (PD, 48, 50, 51; Fenton, 265, 267, 268). He
also records, May 18, 1594, "Her Majesty sent me again the copy of the letter
of E. K. with thanks" (Fenton, 265; PD, 49, has "G. K."); it is unclear whether
this is the copy of a letter from Kelly to the Queen or to Dee. The contents of
these letters arc not disclosed and Kelly's activities Juring this time are un,
known. According to lvan Svitak, however, Kelly, released from imprisonment,
was hghting in Peter Rozmberk's anny against the T urksin the summer of 1594
near Komarno.115
English intelligence continuedto monitor Kelly. Scth Cocks wrote to Sir
RobertCecil from Krakow April 8, 1595, "I am now within these two Jays to
depart hence and mean to pass by Pmgue, because I will see Sir Edward Kelly,
who they say enjoys his formerfavour with the Emperor" (SP 88/1, fol. 221).
In May 1595 another English secret agent was in Prague. He went under the
name of John Snowden, but he had been born John Cecil in Worcester in 1558,
three years after Kelly was born there. 116 Was this a childhood acquaintance of
Kelly's sent to make contact?Or someone with a shared background which he
could use to ingratiate himself? Or someone on an entirely separate operation?
On August 12, 1595, Dee records "I received Sir Edward Kelly's letters of
the Emperor's, inviting me to his service again, (PD, 53; Fenton, 275). Kclly,
it appears, was accepted by the Emperor once more. Was he now able to offer

A Biugral'hy of EJuurJ J..:dly,

th~

English Ak:h&:misc

7 7

patronagehimself? Or was he in need of assistance? Scptemhcr 14,Kelly wrote

to Oyer, recalling their experiments: "Yea, honorahlc sir, you know very well,
what delight we took together" (MS Ashmolc 1420, p. 328}.
But Kelly was soon imprisoned a second time. His offence, according to
IvanSvitak, was that on November l, 1596, back in court, he woundedthough
did not kill, George Hunkler, assistant of the alchemist SchalJ Schwerter. This
was "the immediate cause, of the arrest: but Svitak at the same time has Kelly
imprisoncdfor debt and his estate confiscated by "a corrupt anJ influentialman
Krystof Zelinsky zc Sebuzina ... 117
He was imprisoned at Most (also known as Brux), andJuring this period
composed his alchemical treatise The Stone of the Philosophers, which he wrote
in Latin and dedicated to RuJolf; the opening refers to having "already twice
suffered chains and imprisonment in Bohemia."118 The alchemist Oswald visited
him in jail "apparently in the hope of some enlightenment over the Secretum
solutionis. , 119 Michael Scndivogius is said to have bought one ofhis estates which
Lady Kelly sold to raise money. 110 Some details of Kelly's finances and the
disposal of his property at this time survive in Czech archives.1121
The end, like the beginning, remains obscure. Dee's diary recordsNovember 25, 1595, "news that Sir EJward Kdly was slain" (PD. 54; Fenton, 277).
But the modem historianof the emperor's court, R. J. W. Evans, cites a document indicating that Kellywas definitely alive on May 22, 1597, at the castle
of Most. Borbonius thought he was still active in I 598. 12! A number of stories
record that trying to escape from the castle he fell and broke his leg; some
accounts say he died from his injuries; Kaplicky writes that, badly injured he
took poison and died on November 1, 1597.
According toJohn Weever, Queen Elizabeth sent "Captain Peter Gwynne
with some others, to persuade him to return back to his own nati\'e home,
which he was willing to do: and thinking to escape away in the night, by stealth,
as he was clambering over a wall in his own house in Prague (which hears his
name to this day, and which sometime was an old sanctuary), he fell downfrom
the battlements, broke his legs, and bruised his body; of which hurts a while
after he departed this world."123
Ashmole records in 1652 that Kdly "was clapped up again into prison and
attempting to make his escape out of a high window, by the tearing of his sheets,
which were tied together to let him Jown, he (being a weighty man) fell and
broke his leg anJ thereof died, (TCB, 483). Arrhur Dee gave a more detailed
account to Sir Thomas Brownc, who conuuunicated it to Ashmole in 1674:
He said also that Kdly dealt not jusdy by his .father and that he went
away with the greatest part of the powder and was afterward imprisoned
by the Emperor in a castle from whence attempting an escape down the
wall he fell and broke his leg and was imprisoned again. That his father
Or John Dee presented Queen Eli:abcth with a little of the powder, who
having made trial thereof attempted to get Kelly out of prison. Andsent
some to that purpose who giving opium in drink unto the kccpcrs, land
them so fast asleep that Kelly found opportunity to attemptan escape and

A Bioj.'lujJhy uf EJlmrJ Kdly, th.: Engli.sh .-\kh.:mi.st

t..IYSTIC.-\L METAL OF GOLD

therewere horses ready lll carry him away! But the business unhappily

succeededas is before

declared.124

Kelly was survived by his wife, Lady Joanna Kdly (d. 1606) and two stepchildren, a son Jllhn Francis Wcston (1580-1600) and a daughter, Elizabeth
Weston (1582-l612). Elizabeth achieved considerable fame as the Latin poet
Westonia.125

In the spiritual transactionsof April 4, 1587, the lack of children in Kdly's

marriage to )oan Cooper is discussed. Kdly was tolJ "barrenness dwells with
you, because you did neglect me and take a wife to yourself contrary to my
commandment .... Therefore you shall have the womb which you have barren
and fruitless to you because you have transgressed that which I commanded
you." Nowhere in Dee's private Jiary or in the spiritual transactions is there
any reference tl> JoanCooperhaving been married before or having any children,
either by Kelly or by any previousrelationship. The step-children are never mentioned.
However, the editl>rs of Elizabeth Weston's Collected Writings accept that
Kelly'swife Juan Cooper had been previously married.
Parish recordsshow that John Wessone and Joane Cowper were married
on 29 June 1579 at Chipping Nonon, Oxfordshire.... A son of this
unil1n, John, was christened on 23 July 1580, and Elizabeth, daughter of
"John Weston," was christened some time later, seemingly between 4
March and 31 October 1581. John Weston, "clark," was buried on 6
May 1582.
A week before Weston's burial, Edward Kelley ... reportedthat the
Archangel Michael had told him that he must marry; this injunction
was repeated on May 4th. Shortly thereafter, Kelley married the recently
widowed )ane Cooper Weston.
The following year, Dee and Kelley left with their wives (but apparenrly without the two young Weston children, who are not mentioned
in Dee's diary account of the voyage, and who presumablystayed behind
with their maternaland paternal grandmothers for the time being, as
Weston'ss elegy forher mother would suggest) ... it seems likely that the
frequentclaims by her admirers that Westonia came from a glorious and
noble family were based on the grandeur and pretensions ofthe Kelley
houshold in its heyday, and not on any family connexions of "John
Weston, dark" whose memory had died with him in Chipping Nonon. 116
ElizabethWestonrefers to Kellyin a Latin poem, published in Prague in 1606,
that she wrote on the death of her mother,127 "Upon the death of the noble
and high-born woman Lady )oanna, widow of Sir Edward Kelly of Imany, distinguished and well-born knight, councillor of his sacred imperial Majesty, a most
honoured and beloved mother, her daughter poured fonh the following elegy":
When I was an infant uf barely six months, 1 suffered the wound of my
father's loss; and shortly afterwards the loss of my two grandmothers,

whose special care 1 h<1J been. Heaven gave me a step-father,. and him
I loved as a second father, but death took him. A brother remainedh
me; yet insatiable death cut him down in the flower ofyouth.
Anepitaph by Nicolaus Maius onLady Joanna's deathalso

referstoherm.lrn . ; ...:
making it clear he was the "philosopher," and confirms that shewas
ofEnglish birth.

to Kelly,

I, Joanna, who had been wife to the philosopherKelly,

Buffeted by the changing fortunes of the world rest here.
The greater the cross I bore, the greater the patient endurance,
The greater the glory in Heaven.
.
1
England gaveme a native land, Bohemian soil a grave ... , "

Maiusalso wrote an enitanh on Westonia herself. He was one of a number of

W
.
members of the Dee and Kelly world who were known to estonia.
he .1 :.
knew Edward Dyer and she wrote two name day poems for Jindrich: Pisnice, a
powerful political tigure, the deputy chancellor, whose nieceLudmillahad married Kelly's brother Thomas in 1587. Another connectionwtth Deeand Kelly
is a poem Elizabeth wrote to one of her teachers, John Hammond. She also
wrote verses to Peter Vok Rozmberk and to the alchenust Oswald Croll, who..
asked her to compose a poem which he included in his Basilica Chymica .
Of Kelly's own writinbrs, the poem, "Sir E. K. Concerningthe Philosophers
Stone written to his especial good friend, G.S. Gent.," tirst published among
the prefatory essays and verses to Raph Rabbards' edition of George. Ripley's
The Compound of Alchemy (London: Thomas Orwin, 1591) was reprintedtogether _with a longer poem, "Sir Edward Kelle's Worke," i~1 Elias Ashmole's
Theatrum Chemicum Britannict'm (London, 1652). Excerpts from Kdly s letters
appear in Tractatus Duo Chemici Singulares et Breves (Geismar, 1647).1~1 The:
most substantial collection of work ascribed to Kelly is Edouandi Kellaei Angle
Tractatus Duo Egregii De IApide Philosophorum, Una Cum Theatro Astronomiae
Terrestri, published posthumously in Hamburg in 1676 "per Gothotredum Schultzen It contains, in Latin, The Stone of the Philosophers, The HumiJ Path ur
Discourse on the Vegetable Menstruum of Satum, and The Theatre of Terrestrial. .d
Astronomy, and brief excerpts from three letters of 1587 and 1589. The editor
J. L. M. C., has not been identitied._132 A translation of the volume by A . E.
Waite was published in 1893 and frequently reprinted as Edward Kelly The
Englishman's Two Excellent Treatises On The Philosopher's Stone Together With
The Theatre of Terrestrial Astronomy. 1H
I

Notes
1. Oxford,BodleianLibrary, MS Ashmole 1788 fol.~4_0. Reproducedby Elias
in Theatrum Chemicum Brittannicum (London:J. Grismondfor Nash Broooke, lt))_ .
facsimile repr., New York: Johnson Reprint Corp., 1967}, 479.

~lYSTICAL ~lETAL

OF GOLD

2. Jam.:s l )r~har\1 Halliwdl, ..:J., Th.: Pril'UU Diury uf Dr John D.:.: ~.mJ eh.: Cacalogue uf
his Library ofM.nut:icrifts (lonJl1n: Camd~n Sllcicry, 1ti42), l. Rd~rrcd tu henceforth

as PD . Dc~'s Jiary ~mries arc found in the margins of two almanacs pr~servcd in
the BuJI~ian Library: the Eph..>tn..>ric.ks of Stadius for 1554-1600 (Cologne, 1570)
(MS Ashmole 487), anJ the Epli4.'1lk.'1W of Magius f\,r 1581-1620 (Vcnic~ 1582)
(MS Ashmule 488). A new tra~ription by EJward Fenton, The Diuries of John Dee
( Charlbury: D.ty Buuks, 1998), restores material omitted by Halliwell anJ corrects
mistranscripriuns he maJc; it is referred to hencefonh as Fenton.
3. Se~ ]ulian Robcns and Andrew G. Watson, John Dee's Library Cacalogue (London:
The Bibliugr.Iphical Society, 1990), item 1099, and p. 96n.
-l. PD. 2. The parish records are reptlned in Susan Bassnctt, "Revising a Biogmphy: A
New Interpretation of the Life of Elizabeth Jane Weston (Wcstonia), Based on her
Autubingmphical Poems on the Occasion of the Death of her Mother, "Cahit.>rs
Elisubt?rhains 37 (April1990): 3. Tcn miles south of Worcester is Upton,upon,Sevcm.
Dce was gin!n the reclllry there in 1553, and it was one of his basic sources of
incumc. There is nll reCllrd that he ever went there; the parish providt:d a living,
but he felt nu lhligation to live in it. Ht: may have visitl..J Worcester. His library
contain~ a Clrv of At:thicus lsh:r's Cusmographia given him, he noted inside it, by
Juhn Pt..Jder, a Jean at Worcester Cathedml, on February 21, 1566. But there is no
evidence that he L:nt:w Kdly from Worcester.
). Wl1lld, Arhenae Oxon~nsis. 2 vob. (London: R. Knapkx:L:, D. Midwinter and J.
TonSl1n, 1721), 1: 279. A misreading of Anthony a Wotld's text seems to lie behind
the claim that Kdly h..J ~n an arnanuensis to Thomas Allen. It was Wood's
informant who was the amanuensis. Gloucester Hall is now Worcester College.
b. Bodldan Libmry, MS Ashmole 1790, fol. 58, printed in C. H. josten, ed., Elias
Aslunule 1617-1692: His AurobiugrL!fJhical and Hisrorical Notes, His Correspondence
and otht.>r CmltL>tnpumry Soam:es Rdating w his Life and Work, 5 vols. (Oxford:
Clart:ndun Press, 1968), 4:1436.
7. Nicolas lenglct Ju Frc:;noy, Histoire de la Philusop~ H~'Tlllicique, 1 vols. (Paris: Cous,
telier, 1742; facsimile repr. Hildcshdm: George Olrns, 1975), 1:306-07.
8. Jolm Wcever, And4?nt Fun'->r.aU ~lonum~'lllS (London, 163 l), 45-46. AccorJing to
Graham Phillips and Manin Kcatman, The! Shthspeare Conspiracy (London: Arrow,
1995), 151, for this oft'i!nce "Kdly was hauk.J before the local squire Thomas lang,
tun. Fortunately, langton was a friend of Lord Strange, whose father, as Earl of
~rby, was lord Lieutenant of the County. Strange intervened to free Kdly and the
two men lx-came llCcult colleagues. Strange was infatuated by KcUy's unholy activi,
ties, and SlJ\lll the pair were experimenting with alchemy." No evidence is given for
this claim, and it is unlikely that Weever would not have mentioned a court appear,
ance if there haJ been one. On langton's friendship with Strange, and funher
unsuppt,ncd S(X>culariuns about Kelly in Lancashire, see Charles Nicholl, A Cup of
Neus: The! Life ufThutnas Naslk! (wndon: Roudedge and Kcgan Paul, 1984), 193-4.
9. On W~ver's Lancashire conncailms, see E. A. J. Honigman, Shakespeare: The Lose
\'e41rs (Manchester: Manchester Uni\'. Press, 1985), 6-7, 50-58.
10. T. R. Nash, Hiswry and Antiquities of Worcestc!Tshire, 2 vols. (London, 17ti1 ), 2: H6,
_ has Kelly in the pillory at Lancaster tor forging some ancient title det:Js. Lenglt:t du
Fresnoy has him lnsing his ears in London on a similar charge (1:307). Others claim
he was convicted of coining. No c\idcncc has been adduced for any of these assertions.
11 . Parkins's lener rt:(ll1rting this inyuil)' is in tht: State Papers in the Public Record
Office, Kew (SP 81/7, t'l"lls. 143-4).

A Biugruphy of EJU'urJ 1-..:t!Uy, [he English :\k:lu!mi.lC

~1

12. On Dec sec Charkmc Fdl Smith,Jolm D~c 1527-1608 (LlmJlm: Cunst.1bl..:, b~ :Ji .
r~rcr ]. French, John Dce: The World of an Eli:~akchan M.:tgu.s (Lo~\dlm: R.~utldt:..
and Kcgan Paul, 1972); Nicholas H. Clulce, John D&:/.s Natunll Phi~up~y: ~t.!t;. .:.;~.
Science and Religion (LonJon and New York: Routledg~. 19~8); BcnJanun \\~>ull..:') .
The Queen's Conjuror: the Science anJ Magic of Dr. D~.: (LonJ\m: Hlrp~:rLullu~ .

2000). to henceforth as TFR. Elias

ll Referred

- l lx k . h l .
Cllp) llt t 1is ~ ll1- Wlt 1t:.,ann, l,,tions and corrections is prcserv~d in rh~ Bodlcian Libra[)', ~tS Ashmulc SoO.
H. Josten, Ashrnok, 1:185.
.
. , ._
_
, _
_1,
,
1i Christuphcr Whitby, John o~cs Acuons w&th SJmm: 22 D.:L~IIlb&!r l)dl tu --' ~L)
1583. 2 vols. (New YorL:: Garland Publishing, 191:)8)
.
.
_
16. These are the Liber mystc!Tiurum, sextus et sancms; 48 Ck.a&:s 1.mgdlCLU!; L&bl!r ~~l..:ll[l~
auxilij & victoriae rerrc.stris; De heprarchia mystica; T ulmla bonorum angdurum; Flllilimenta' in\'Ocationum. (British Library, MS Sloane 78, 2575, 2599, 318ti, Jlti?, 3t;>l ,
3678, MS Add. 36674, fols. 167-88; Bodlcian Libr~ry, ~~~ Aslunulc 1790, t(1l:.. '-t56 422; 1790, art. 2) Som~ of the mat~rial is pubhshcd m Robert ~umcr, eJ., Th ..
H~pcarchia Mystica of John Dce (Edinburgh: Magnum Opus... He_~mcuc Sourccw,.rk ,
1983; 2nd ed., Wdlinglxuough: Ayuarian Press, 191:)6); Gcottrcy Jamcs, cJ., Th~
Enochian Magic of Dr John Dce (1984; St Paul, MN: Llewdyn, 1994), a_n~l ,n...~IJ
C. LaycocL:, The Compfe[e Enochian Dictionary: A Dictiunary of the Ang.:~c Lln~l~o.t.~..:
as Revealed tu Dr John Dee and Eduard Kdky (1978; York Beach, ME: W~tser, 1994) .
See Clulee,John Dee's Natural Philosophy, 204, 296-7,306-7.
1i . British Library, MS Sloan~ 3188, fol. 9r; Whitby, 2:18.
_
ld. It is possible to deduce from Dce's diary and spiritual rr.msac_u ..,ns that T albut \\.1~
Kdly but Dee's diary was not published until 1842. Whcn Menc Cal)aulx~n publl:.h..:J
a large pan uf the spiritual transactions in 1659 he was not aware ot _t~e earl~..:~
materials dealing with the scryer unJcr the name nf T albut; those manul)cnptl) \H:r\:
lost from view until Elias Ashml1le acquired them in 1672.
.
__ _
,
19. R. J. W. Evans, RuJolf 11 and his World: A Study in lncdkctual HISWT)' 1)/()-loL.
corr. eJ. (Oxford: ClarcnJon Press, 1984). 226.
,
..
20. On the show stones, see Hugh Tait, "'The Devil's L(lllking-Glass : The ~l :~.:~~ - 1
Speculum of Dr John Dce," in Warren Hunting Smith, cd.~ H~~.~e~ \X-~a~~~ : - \\ m..:r
Politician, Connoisseur (New Haven anJ London: Yall! Umverstty Pr~:,:,, .19o7_). ~),,
. C L Wht.tby "]llhn Det: and Renaissance Scrying," Bulleun oj eh.: So.:-ld:
scrymg sec . .
,
-'~
.
. j
of Renaissance Studies 3 (1985): 25-35; Thcodore ~ste~man, Crysuu _azmg: ~ ~[u :
in the History, Distribution, Theory anJ Practice oj Skrymg (London: Rtd~r~ 1-J.i).
21 . For discussions of the sessil1ns, see E. M. Butler, The M1ch uf ~ Maglt:i ( ~amh:J.;..:
Cambridge University Press, 194ti}; E. M. Butler, Ricual Magu: (CarnbnJ~c: C..im bridge University Press, 1949), 258-81; I. R. F. CalJcr, "John ~e SruJ1cJ a:. .m
English Neoplatonist," 2 vols. (Ph. D. thesis, The Warburg _ lnsut~te, ~. hu_\c~~lt)
of London, 1952); Waync Shurnaker, "John Dcc's Convcr~atlll_ns wtth :,pm:., m
Renaissance Curiosa, Medieval and Renaissance T cxts anJ Studlcs, 8 (Bmghamt- ~n.
NY: MRTS, 1982), 15-51; Clulce, John Di.!~'s Natural Philosophy, 203-30; Dd:<~ub
E. Harkness, "Shows in the Showstllnc: A Theatre of Alchemy and Arl-..:alyr3..: u-,
the Angel Conversatinns of John Dce ( 1527-1608/9)," ~e~sanc&: Qu.. tr~rl; 4'J
(1996): 707-37; Stephen Clucas, "'Non e:,t le~endum st:~ tns~tcenJum M.llutn ;. ln:
spectival Knowledge and the Visual Logic ot John Dee s Uba ~l)sr.:nurum .. u.
Alison Adan1S and Stanton J. Lindcn, eJs., Emblems unJ Alchemy. Ula:.gll\\. EmH.:~H
Studies, 3 (Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies, 1998), 109-32; De~r;.th l-iar~_,_,..: ,.
John Dee's Conversations with Angels : Cubalu, Alchemy and the EnJ oJ Nucurl! (L.ioll
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
Ashmol~'s

o.

o2
11

~lYSTIC.-\L ~lETAL

Briri~h Library, ~IS Sh!n~ Htiti, 1~,1. 24v,25r; Whitby, 2: 7ti-9.

~IS Shutc 31t>d, t~1l. 39v; Whitby, 2:126.

23.
H. MS S1uanc 3188, ti.1l. 98v; Whitby, 2:367.
25.
26.
27.
28.

OF GOLD

MS Sluane 3188, t'l1l. -Hr; Whitby, 2:138.

MS Sluanc 3188, fol. 59v; Whitby, 2:218.
MS Sloane 3188, ti.1l. 61r; Whitby, 2:220.
LynJy Abraham, cJ., :\nhur ~l!, f.lSckulu.\ Chemi(US, ur Ch~mi..tll Culk(tiuns, trans.
Elias Ashmult:, English Rt:naissanct: Hermcticism, 6 (New \'ork and London: Oar,
land Publishing, 1997), lxi,lxii.
29. See Robcn S. Brumbaugh, "The Vtlynil:h 'R~_lgcr Bacon' Cipher Manuscript: DeLiph,
erL.J Maps nf Stars," Joumal of the \\:'arburg and Courtduld lnstitur.:s 39 ( 1976): 139-50.
Arrhur's comments are in :\shmole's papers in the BoJlcian Library, MS Ashmole
1788, tols. 151 r-v. They arc primt:d in Josten, Ashmole, 4:1372 and in Geoffrey
Kcyn~s. cd., The ~'orks uf Sir Thomas Brourne, 4 vols. (1928; London: Faber and
Falxr, 1964 ), 4:296-8.
10. Thearrwn Ch.:micum Brilunni(lllll, 4til. Ashm~..1lc recorded a highly cok1red srory ot
Kclly's receiving the elixir frum a mystt:rit..lus friar, told him by William Backhouse
(MS Ashmnle 1790, t~1ls. 60-1, primed in Justt:n 2:603-5). Another version told
him hy William Lilly is r~::wrded in MS Ashmole 421, fols. 220v,22l, and published
in William Lilly, History of His Lij~ and Tinll!s (London, 1822), 225--6. Ashmole
anached no credence hl the stories, nor need we.
ll . Lcnglct du fresnuy, 1:307-10. The story is repeated in Louis figuicr, L'Alchimic et
b AL:himis~s. 3rd cd. (Pari:., 1860), 232ff. and in A. E. Waite, ed., Edward KeUy,
Th<! Ent,~ishnwn's Tuoo EXA:dkm Tretuises on the Philosopher's Ston.!, Togethc..>r with Th.!
Theutre of TL'TTl!srriul Astronomy (1893; rcpr., larbrs: Banton Press, 1991), xvii-xix.
12. Sec Julian Rohcns and Andrew G. Watson, John Dee's Library Cutalogue, 34-5.
33. On Adrian Gilhcrr and Mary Sidney, see John Aubrcy, Aubn.ry's Brief Li\'I!S, cd.
Olher LaWSlln Dick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), 220. Dee had instructed
Mary's brother, Philip Sydney, in alchemy; see Thomas Moffet, Nobilis, ar A View
oj tlk! Lije and Ol!ath of a Sidn'"'Y, cd. and trans. Virgil B. Hdtzel and Hoyt H.
Huds.1n (San t.larino: Huntingtun Libr<1ry, 1940), 75. Ralegh, as Aubrey and Lucy
Hutchins.ln n ..-cord, was actively involved in alchemical experiments; see Lyndy
Abraham, ManeU und Al-henty (Ald~::rshot: Sctllar, 1990), 2-3. On Humphrcy Gil,
ben's rropllSC!d American scttlt:mcnt see R. B. Merriman, "Some Notes on the
T rcatment uf dtc English Catholics in the Reib'll of Elizabeth," American HistoricaJ
Rcvieu, 13 (1907--8): 480-500. On Ralcgh's acquaintanceship with Dee, see Wool,
ley, The l,Ja!L'n's Conjuror, 309-11, and Ralt:igh Trevelyan, Sir Walrer Rakigh (Lon,
don: Pcnb'ltin, 2003), passim.
H . MS S1uanc 3188, fol. 77v; Whitby, 2:294.
35. On Sl\..J sec Rohcns and Wats.1n, John Dce's Ubrury, 51-2; Alan Haynes, lmisibk
Ptm'L'T: The Eli~c:tbl!chan Sct.Ter &nkc 157~1603 (Struud, UK: Alan Sutton, 1992),
37, 3~; Evclyn Waugh, EJmunJ Campion, 3rd ed. (Ltmdon: L.1nb'11\ans, 1961),
108, lt\8. On Walsingham's intelligence operations, see Curtis Breight, Sunoeillana,
Milir.,rism unJ Drama in rh.: Eli~ab.?chan Era (London: Macmillan; Nt:w York: St
Martin's Pre:,:;, 1996), 24-25, 101-10, 278. Brdght argues that Wabingham was
Burghl!!y's protege, selcctul tu run the surveillance operations established by Bur,
ghley, and that Burghll!y resumL.J Ctlntrnl after Walsingham's death in 1590. Dee
was aS!olx:iateJ with buth Burghlcy anJ Walsingham. On WalsinJ!ham's connections
with [lL"t:, see C.myers RcaJ, Mr s~lTetury \t'alsingham and rh.: Pulic~ of Quet.>n Efiza,
b.:th, 3 \'ob. (Cambridg~: HarvarJ University Pr~ss. 1925), 3:4Q.k15, 434-35.

)6. ~IS Shme 3l8ti, tol. 91r; Whitby, 2:339-40. ''CL)t:.all plain" is pn.:sumably th~ Cd ~
wolds.

37. MS Sloane 3188, ful. l04r; Whitby, 2:389-90.

38. On La:;ki St:e Konstanty Zantuan, "Olbracht Laski in Eli:ahdhan EngbnJ: :\n EpsoJe in the Hiswry of Culture," Polish Retieu 13,4 {1968): 3-22; Evans, Ri.LiJ

u.

219-20.
,-.
H. On Herle, see Haym:s, hwisibk Puuer, 5-9, 16; Jnhn Bu:,:;y, Giunlano Bruno .mJ th..:
Embassy Affair (New Haven and London: Yalt: University Prt:ss, 1991), 26-H .
101-04; Alison Plowden, The Eli~ubt!than Sc.:cret &nic.! (Hemel Ht:mpsteaJ: Harvester Wheatsheaf; New York: St Martin's Press, 1991), 25-29; Curtis C. Brcight.
Suweillance. 106--{)7, 242, 256, 277 .
.;J. Bossy, Giordano Bru1w, 22-7. The ptlSSibility th<lt Brun" anJ fagllt may lltlt h.l\....
been the same pt:rson is allowed in John Bossy, Un~L.~r
MukhiU: Llll Eu~.J~_UWll
Spy Swry (New Haven and Lnndlm: Yale Uni,crsity Prt:ss, 2001 ).
.
~1. Zantuan, "Oibracht Laski," 15, citing Watson's letter to Laski, British Library, ~b
Sloane 3731. WatSlm had spent Sllllle time at !Xluai, tht: seminary ltlr trainmg
Catholic pri~sts to be st:nt secretly into England, and he formed a connt:ctit..lll \\ iLh
Walsingham when the latter was ambassador in Paris. His pllt:lll lvldilxcus i~ an ckgy
for Walsingham. Jailt:d for killing an inn-keeper's son who was having a hglu with
Christopher Marlowe, he was acquittt:d on the gwunds of sdf-deti::nce. His as:.o.R:ia.tion wilh Marlowe and Walsingham is generally tak~::n tll indicate that he was u111.:
of the lauds secret agents. Se~ Charles Nicholl, The R.:dwning: The Munlor u]
Chriswp/k..>r ~tirwe (London: ]onarhan Cape, 1992).
42. MS Sloane 3188, fl)b. 107r,10Mv; Whitby, 403--6; TFR, 1, 22, 25.
-43. On Laski's approach to Allen SI!\! Anthony a Wt..M.ld, Ath ...'llcl4: Oxonicnsis, \'1..11. l.
cols. 574-5.
44- TFR, 5-6. The name llt Freman and Frccman(s) recurs in sixtt:t:nth-cemury Bl, 'ckl..y
records. See H. E. M. lcdy, Bh:kky Through Twdw Centuries: Amwls of u CucsuuiJ
Parish (Aldburgh, Norfl>lk: Erskine Press, 1988), 27, .35-37, 43, 48, 51, 56.
45. See Nicholl, A Cup of Neus, 194-98, and Th.! Reckoning, 234-39.
46. Clulee, John Ol!e's Natural Philosophy, argues thar Kdly manipulated the spiritu.Jl
dialob'Ues "to draw Dee away from England, breaking his ties with his llltUC ~l>b..:r
scientific work.. The key clement in this was the appearance of Albrecht Laski" ( 1';)7) .
4 7. For an account of LasL:i's visit to Oxford see Raphad Holinshed, Holinshed' s ChrtJJ.ides of England, Scotland und lrdand, 6 vols. (London: J. JohnSlm, 1808), 4:j07--6 .
anJ J. G. Nichols, Th.! Prugrcssl!s and Processimu of Queen Elizah.!th, 2 vols. (Lund .. n ,
1823), 2:398-411. On Bruno's Oxford debates, set: Robert McNulty, "Brunl) .1t Ox
ford," R~..>naissancc News, 13 (1960): 300-5; on Bruntl's ac4uaintanct: with SiJn~:y,
to whom he dedicated a number of bt.M.1ks, see Frances Yates, Giordanu Bnmo i.mJ th.:
Hennetic Tradition (L.md~..m: Ruuti~:Jgt: & Kegan Paul, 1964). Despite their sim1l.u
interests, there is nu rt:cord that Bruno ever met Dt:e or Kdly, t:ither in Engl.mJ ..11
this time or later in Europe.
48. PO, 21; Fenton, 100; TFR, 33. Kdly's departure trnm England may bt: an '~~pr.pr<.itl
point to note d1at the various grotesque acti\ities in Lundnn attributed tu Kd~y 111
P~ter Ackroyd's ntlVd Th.! HoUS\! of Doctor Dee (Llltdtm: Hamish Hanulton, I ':N))
are without any basis in the historical record. Nll l~:ss fantastic is the ~ummlming
of Kelly's spirit in Umht:rto Eco's novel, Foucault' s Pendulum ( 1988; Lmdt~n: Ph.:.!J, ,r.
1990), 591-92 (chapter 113).
~9. TFR, 212. On Haj~:k, see Evans, Rudolj 11, 152, 203-04, 222.
50. Evans, Rudolf ll, 223.

me

ur

1 !

~lYSTIC.-\L ~lETAL

l)f Gl)LD

51. Un Pu.:.:i :.~~ LJN ll; Fr;m.:~:.-= 1 l'u.:(i, L!u.:r.:, JtJ~:wn.:nci .:c c.:scimoniun~.:, cJ. L. Firpo
anJ R. Piartuli, 2 \ul:.. (Flnrcncc, 1')55-59); L. Firpo, "John Dcc, ~i\!n:iatu, n\!gromanrc e av\cnrurier,,," Rin,zsdm.:mo 3 (1952): 25~i; anJ Miriam Eliav-FdJon,
"Sc.:rer S,lCit:lies, Uwpias anJ Pea.:c Plans: The CaS\! of Fmnccsco Pucci," Juumal
uf M.:Ji.:ml unJ R.:nuis.SUJ'II:'l! .Studies l4 (1984 ): 13'}-58.
52. The vi\id accmmr ut this exrra,,rJinary episode, prescrvcJ in the &x.lleian Library
(MS A~hmulc 17')0 art. 1, t~1b. l-19), was discover~ anJ u-.mslatcd from rhe Latin
hy C. H. Jostcn as "An Unknnwn Chapter in the Lite of John Dee," Joumal of db!
\Vurburg and Courc.mfd lnscinucs 28 ( 1965): 223-57. A sewntL-emh-cemury translari,m is prescrvcJ in the British Library, MS Sluane 36i5, fuls. 12-38, and is drawn
,,n h)' Fenton, 1ti5-'Jl.
5 ). On Vilc!m Ru:mbcrL:, sec hans, RuJolf 11, 64-8, 212-16. On Peter VoL: Ro:mbcrk,
ibiJ, H0-43. LlsL:i al~, aspirnl hl the p,,li:.h thwne. Neither Will> succ\!ssful.
H. Ev<ms, Rudvlf 11, 223. (1 am inJebted tu Su::anne Kkman t~>r the tr.ms1ation. )
55. TFR, 26(2nJ paginatinnJ.
56. TFR, 4N; E,ans, RuJulf 11, 223.
57. TFR. 42'), 434. Further Jetai1s in l]ulcc, John D.:/s Nucur,ll Phi~Jsuphy, 226, 300 n.
78. The Landgravc at rhis time w~ Wilhdm. His sun Morit: had srrong alchcmkal
inrcrc:.ts. See Bru.:c T. ~lumn, Th.: Alch.:Jni,d World of the Gt."nlUJil Court: Occult
PIUlosoph:y und Chl.'lnil:al Medicine in tit.? Cirtk uj Moritz of HesSL'll ( 1572-1632) (Stuttgart: Fr-.m: Sreincr Verlag, 1991 ). On Dce and the Landgtave see Abraham, ed.,
Arrhur Dce, Fczsciculus Chcmicus, lxiii.
5~ . Evans, Ra.dtdf ll, 216, 225; PD, 21-.30; Fem,,n, 203-39. Fcnron's transcription of
the Jiary renJcr:, rhe names of visitnrs more accur.udy than Halliwdl.
5'). PD, 22; Femon, 204. Translation fr,,m the Latin in Ra1ph Sargem, At the Coun uj
Qu.:l?n Eli~dbcch : Thc Lij~ anJ Lyrics of Sir Edu:ard Dy.:r (New YorL:: Oxt"l1rd Unin:rsity
Press, 1935), 102. Dce refers tu the Tsar's invitation in hi:. Com~nJious Rehcarsul,
printed in Jamcs Crossley, eJ., Aucobiugraphicul Tracts of Dr John De.: (Manchester:
Chetham &x:icty, 1851 ), ~'). The text of the invitation is primcJ in Richard
HaL:luyt, Jlrindpul Nul'iguciuns, 12 ,.l>ls. (Glasg,>w, 1903), 3:+15--48.
<lll BoJlcian Library, MS Ashmule 1768, tl.lls. 15lr-15l\', primed in ]l>sren, Ashmuk,
4:1371-73 anJ in Keynes, Brou1te, 4:29~. Other accounts by Arrhur Oee arc in
MS Aslunl>le 1768, ti.1l. 153, printl..J in Josten, 2:755 and Kcynes, 4:293; ;md in
BoJidan Library MS Ballard 14, fuls. 13-14v, primed in Josten, 4:1757. On Arrhur
Dec, S\!e LynJy Abr..iliam, "Arthur Dce, 1579-1651: A Life," Cauda Pal'Onis, n.s.,
13,2 (l9'Ji): 1-14 (rcprimcJ in this cnllection), and rhe intwducrion to Lyndy
Ahraham, eJ., Arthur ~c. Fusciculus Ch.?micus.
ol. MS BallarJ H. ti.1ls. 13-l4v, primeJ in Jnsten, Ashnwle, 4:1758.
62 . Fcnwn, 223; Sllllle passage:, fmm the spiritual records omiueJ by Ca:.aub,m are
primeJ in Fcnton, 224. Fcnron 241 n . I, suggests that the "cross-matching" was
rerx:areJ. The epis.~e has ~en uSt:J as the subject tor a play, The Alchemical Wcdding
by Stcphcn L,,we, hrst pcrt,rmcd in Britain at the Salisbury Playhouse in May 1998.
(RcvieweJ in The \X'e.:kly Tckgraph, 356 (May 20-May 26, 1998): 24.)
6 3. Culpcpcr's anJ Lilly's accuunts of experiments with Dee's crystal are r..:puneJ in
John Applcby, "Anhur L"\.-e and Johann\!s Banfy Hunyades: Further lnfunnatilm on
rht:ir Alchemical and Pn,fcssional Activities," Ambix, 24 (1977): 96-109.
b4. They arc primed in EJuudrJi Kdlci Angli Tractatus Daw Egregii De I...apidc Philosophomm, Unu Cum The.um Asrrunimia! TL'TTcstri, ed. J. L. M. C. (Hamburg: GorhotreJus
Schulr:en, 1676), 40-42; translatcJ in Waire, Eduurd K.:Uy, 51-53.

A Bio&rruJ>hy of EJm.trJ Kdly,

h~

Engli:sl1 .-\l.:h~mis

65. Ft:ntllll idl!ntities Rlm:laschy as Philippus Rouilla~~hus (242 n. 15). D\!c's t,h_,, ,
catalugue lists a copy of the tirsr Frt:nch eJitillll ut Dcnis Za..:airc's OpttS(ul.: TldEXLelknt de la vraye PhilusupM! nuturclk J.:s Mecuux (Antwerp, 1567), and a mmu
script also in French. (See Rubcrts and Wats.m, John Dee's Librury Cacalugu.:, ih.:m,

oo.
67.

66.

o9.

7u.

71.

i2.

73.
H.
75.
76.
77.

1546, M50.) Possibly it was this larrer manuscript that was d\:stroyeJ. In hi:. Ji.tr~
fur July 31, 1590, Dee recorJs "I gan: Mr Richard CanJish the wpy of Zach..1nu:.
twdve leners, wrinen in French with my own hanJ; and he promisd me, bd.or.:
my wife, never tu Jisclusc to any that he harh it; anJ that if h!.! dil.! bctorl! m~: hl
will restore it again tu me: bur if I die before him, that he shall Jdivcr it tll l1l1t: I
my sons, most tit [Fenwn: "apt") amung them to have it" (PD, 35; Fcmun, 252;
Halliwell's text has "Paracdsus" f,.,r "Zacharius").
See Moffet, Nobilis, or A Vicu. uJ the Life and D.:ai.h of a SiJll.:). 7 5.
Sargenr, DyL'T, 102.

The lener is prt:S\!rn:J in the British Library (~IS Harkian bY86 art . 2~) an~l rul
lished in Henry Ellis, ed., Ori&rinul l...:tc..!rs of Emin.:m Uc.:rary M.:n oJ Ut.: 16m. 17!1~
and 18th Cencurk!s (LonJon, 1843), 45-46.
In Crossley, Auwbiogruphiad Tracts, 32-34.
Evans, Rudolf 11. 226.
Public RecorJ Otlice, SP 15/31, td. i5, primcJ in j,1hn Stryp~:, .-\JilL.Ih uJ rlt.: R.:J .. nn..
tion, 4 vols. (OxforJ, 1824), vol. 3, pr. 2, 133. Strype ( 132-33) yu,,tc:. Sl.)nlc ..:.)m
ments of Dee's earlier in this letter whkh he raL:cs as rderring ru Kelly, bur they in
fact refer to an unidentitieJ person in the Luw Countries whnm Dl!c haJ sp..mcJ a ~
a potential agent for Walsingham. See als.1 British Library, MS LmsJ,>wnc 846. l,,b
216-7, containing the copy of a patent of L:nightholx.l grantcJ by RuJolph to 1-:cll) .
in a letter of February 23, 1590.
Snemy C.:skt od kta 1526 (Prague, 1877-1910), 7, n~l. 412 (158')), .:ilcJ in h . n'
Rudolf 11, 226n.
Liam Mac COil, "Kdley of lmamyi," LmlJ,m Reti.:u uJ lluuks 2J, 10 (May 24, 2~\~l)
4. My colleague the late B. K. Martin came tu a similar Clmclusi.m fwm lu:. examm.ltion of the Irish recorJs.
Angdo Maria Ripdlino, Mugic Pr,~guc, rrans. D.aviJ Ncwt,ln t-.brindli, cJ. ~1~-:h.,~l
Henry Hdm (London: Picador, 1995), 97.
Vladimir Karpenko, "Bohemian Nobiliry anJ .A.khcmy in the Sc~unJ Half , I 'L~
Sixteenth Century: Wilhdm of Rosenberg anJ T w,, Akhcmi:.t:.," Cwult.1 P.,l ll iO..l
n.s. 15,2 (1996): 14.
Published in Strype, Annals, Vl>l. 4, 1-2. For ParL:ins, :.cc DNll.
Theanum Ch&!micum Britanninmt, 4814i2; Arh.:JW4: Oxonk!nsis, l:2o0. :\nhur 1 \.: ~
in a letter to Mr. A1Jrich in Norwich, l6i9, also Lites Ll>rJ Willoughby a:. a \l.llll.:> ~
of transmutations in Bohemia (information from Stcphcn Clucas, Birkbcd.
,ll..:~.: ,
London University). Dee's assistam Barthol,uncw HicL:man, who rcp1a.:cJ Kdl; "
Dee's scrycr back in England, ldt Dec's M:rvkc tor Lord Willnughby on l.k(clllh.:r
2, 1594 (PD, 51; Fenron, 268).
Evaru;, Rudolf Jl, 226; Waite, EJu,,rJ J.;dl), xxxv; Ja.:yucs van Lcnncp. Alr.-i; .. ~
ContriblCtion a l'hiswire de l'arc alchimique (Brussd:.: CreJit Cummunal, I Yl:l5 ), 22-t.
Published in Srrype, Annals, vol. 4, 4-6. Burghlcy's corresponJt:nce with Kdl , ,..
discussed brietly in Cunycrs R..:aJ, Lord Burghky unJ (Ju.:cn Elizabcth (L~mJ,lt1: J li.l
than Cape, 1960), 474-76.
See B. W. Bt:ckingsale, Burghl.:y: Tudor Swtcsmun 1520-15')8 (Ll1nJun: ~l.i..:n.tiL .
New York: Sr Manin's Press, 1967), 261.
On Palavidn,>, see Lawrence Stone, An Eli~ub.:[lwn : Sir Hmuio PuLLt.:m., l'-):.;1. rJ
Clarendon Press, 1956 ).

c.

7ti.
79.

8u.
81.

bo

MYSTlC.-\L l\IETAL OF GOLD

8 I am grardul h1 Su:anne Ki~rno.m tur the tran:.lation trom the Italian.

83. o,~ s~olto, sec ~ipd~inu, 1vL:lgic Pragt~. 103; Tl4! FuggL"T N!!WS,UttL"TS (s!!..:onJ Sl!rics)
lJl!mg Ll Furdh.or Sd.:cuon from llu: F1tgga Papers SpeciaUy R4t..>rring to Qul!t!ll Eliz~ch
w~ ;\lattt!r.s Rdu~~ng to England ~Uling ~ Years 1568- 1605, Here Published for the
Flr.st Tnnt!, cd. \ 1ctnr von Klarv.1ll, trans. l. S. R. Bym~ (Londlm: John Lan~. The
~odlc\:,Hcad, 1926), 203, 208. R. J. W. E\'an.s, RuJulf 11, speculates about "Odoardus
Sclltus. ~he aud~ur of th~ Vienna ~anuscript, Speculum Alcl4!mit-.e, dedicated to
Rudl>lt:_ Scl>tus 1s another unidcntiheJ, tleeting figure-his Christian name seems
most ohcn tn be rcclrd~d as Alessandro and his origins as halian" (210); "there are
two scparmc qucstim1s h~re: whether Kdly and the so-call~d 'Scono' were one and
the :.<nne; anJ whether Kdly wrote the treatise" (227). From Pucci's lencr cited here
and Wehhc's uf June 26, 1591 (British Library MS Lansdllwne 68 no. 93, fob.
2.1 0-1 ~) citcJ later, there is nu duubt that a Count Scotlll, distinct frum Kelly,
J1d ~XIS( .
:-;~ . Sargent, Dyt!r, lll-12.
85. Fr.mcis Baclln, "A~_'J'~Hhcg~ns," in T14! 'X-'urk.s uJ Fnmcis Btk:on, ~J. Basil ~lllntague,
3 vol~. (lundon: Wllham P1clering, 1823), 1:122.
86. Puhlislu:d in Stl')pe, Annuls, vol. 4, 3-4.
87. &-c Phillips and Keatman, Tl4! Shak.:.spcart! Cmspir,ll.')', 105, 119-121, 152.
~8. ~ic~l>ll, T_l4! Reckoning, 259. Nkholl Ji:.cusses Roydon's gll\'crnm~m work and assuClatll.ms wuh Marluwe, ibid., passim.
. 89. R ~rt Hnuke, Tl4! Postlucmow; Wurk.s (lonJun: Richard Wailer, 1705; facsimile
r~rr., London: ~rank Cass, 1971 ), 206. I have modernized the spelling. Whitby
(1:1~) e~a~uncs the cryptugraphic claims and is sceptical. So was lsaac D'lsr.Jdi,
Am~JUUt!s ~J Uf4.'Ttltlcrc (1840; London and New Yorl: Georgc Roudedge, n.d.), "The
~c~lr Philosopher, Or Dee," 343-4. Secret service work by Dee and Kelly is assumed
m. R1chard Deacon, John Det!: &ientist, Geograph.."T, Astrologt."T and SeLTet Agem w
Eli~~rh I (L.~nJl,n: ~reJ~rick Muller, 1968.) Finn evidence is ine\'itably lacking.
For ~~e decl"'ldlll~ ot Sc.:ganographia, see Thomas Ernst, "Schwar:weissc Magie. Der
~hlusscl zum dntten Buch der Steganugraphia des Tritht!mius," Dt.qllmis 25,1 ( 1996);
J u~ Reeds, "S...lveJ: The Ciphers in Bool Ill ofTrithemius' Sc.:ganographia," Crypw.~Jgkl 22.4 (1998); W.>~.lllt!y, The Q1~en's Conjuror, 72-81.
\)0. (British Lihr.Jry, MS Cl[tun Lib. Titus ll). Published in Stn'J"lt! Annuls ,0 1 3 pt
2, 617-20.
.,

. .
91. The reference fll V~nicc is hl the acti\'itics there of the alchemist Mamug,
n~nn-Marco AnhlniO Br.Ji-:adini-which were later bclie\'ed lll be fr.Judulent. Sec
R1pdlino, MLlgic PrLJg~~, 103; Th.! Fu~"T Neu.skfk."TS, Being a St!k.:tion of Unpubli.sl4!d
Lt!tter~ from
Correspondents of~ House of Fuggcr During the Years 1568-1605,
ed. Victor \'on Klarwill, trans. Pauline de Chary (London: John Lme, The BoJley
Head, 1924), 140-43, 146, l4M, 149-50.
lJ2. Joscf Svatek, "Anglicly alchymista Kdly v Cedkich," in Obru::zy z kulumlkh dijin
~e~kyL~ (Pr-4,rttc, . 189.1), 1.:142-47, and "Akh}mie v Cechach :a doby Rudolfa 11,"
ibiJ ... :48-51, cueJ m R1pellino, Magk: Prague, 97, 99, 103. lvan Svitak, "John Dce
and Edward Kclley," Kusmus (T~ Journal of Cz!!chslolak und Cmtral European Studies)
5 (1986): 134. lvan Svitcik, Kou~dnik z Lmdyna: John Dee " Cecach, 1584-1598
(Prabrue, 1994); lvan Svitak, Sir Edu.ourd Kellry: ct!sky rytir 1555-1598 (Pra ue
1994), cirL.J in Wnulley, The Qu.:en's Conjuror. On Sc:ndivo~ius in Prague see ~1~
hans, Rudolf 11, 211.
'
'} l. MS LansJuwne 68 nu. 85, l~>ls. 192-5, publi:.heJ in Stl')pc, Annuls, Vl)l. 3, pt.
2, 621-25.

me

Srryp.:, Annals, vol. 3, pr. 2, l.H.

Logan Pcarsall Smith, cd., The Lif!! u1ld L:u.:rs of Sir Henry \X ouun, 2 ,ub. (Oxr . rJ:
Clarendon Press, 1907), 1:16-17. (The lcucr under JiscussiHl is ndt induJcJ i11
this collection.) Gerc1ld Cur:on, \t-'uttun and His ~'orlJs: Spying, Sci.:n.:t! ..nul Vent:ti..41l
Intrigues (Philadelphia: Xlibris, 2004 ), H .
'io . Webbe was one of Burghley's couriers. In 1593 he was ~hargLJ with wining, i.inJ
pardoned in 1594; set! Nichull, Th.! ReLkuning, 259, 387n, ciring PRO SP l2/2.H
no. 20. This is presumably the Mr. Webbe who, l"ke lll)tes, was commirreJ h) rh~
Marchelsea, December 24, 1593, whom ht! visits there janual') 26, 1594 and of wl1lllll
he writes March 10, "upon a tlight l)f fear because of Mr Wcbhc's sending inr me t.>
come to him to the Marchdsca, now when he looked to be c~.mdcmneJ on rh~:
Monday or Tuesday ncxt"(PD, 47-48; Femun, 263-64).
':ii . Webbe's instructions are published in Strypc, Annals, vol. J, pt. 2, 115-36. Th.:
Public Record Office hulds Queen Elizabcrh 's letters to Ruduli ll (SP 80/1, t(ll. 13 3)
and the Elector of Saxony (SP 81/7, fol. 31).
~::l .. The FuggL"T Neu,s-L?U4."TS, first scri~s. 160-61, 162-63; scconJ :.cries, 121-21, 221 .
:N. Historical ManUSL.Iipts Commission: Calendar of eh.: ~lanuscriprs of t#4! Must Hun . Tik'
Marquis of Salisbury, K. G., &c. &c. &c. pr!!St.'Tl'ed ac Hutfidd Houst!, Hertfonl.shir.:.
Part IV (London: Her Majcsry's Stationery Otiice, 1892).
JJ0. Joscf Svarek, "Anglicky akhymisra Kdly v Cecha~h." in Obra-v ~ kulwmi.:h .l.;J"'
-ceskych (Prague, 1891) 1:147-48, drcd in Ripdlino, 98; Vadav Kaplicly, :llul
Alch:Ytnisucv, IT14! Life uf an Alchemist} (Pra~uc, 1980). I am grateful tu VlaJium
Klima for locating anJ translating material frum Kaplicly's text.
101. Sec Stantlm J. LinJcn, Darkt! HiL."Tugliphi.:ks: Alchemy in English Lir.:r.uur~ jimn Cf4.,,.
ea w the Re.storlltion (lt!xington: Univ. Press of Kcntucly, 1996), ti7, 88, 126, 2;,5 .
287,290,311 n. 42.
101. Alexander B. Gmsart, ed., Tht! 'X-'ork.s ufGubrid Hart't!Y, 3 , .,1ls. (lllnJnn: Th~ Hurh
Library, 1884). 2:6t)-69.
103. The Works of Thomas NtlSh.:, cd. Runald B. ~kKcrr.>w, 5 nls. (lllnJ.m: SiJ~w~..:k
and jacks.)n, 1905), 3:52. Nichnll suggests in Tl4! Rt!..:kouing (Jti6n) that "there ,trc
allusions to Kdly in Nashe's burlc~ue of the 'cunning man' in Tenors uj llu: !\i;_;hr
(Nashe, I: 363-67)."
IJ4. G. A. Wilkcs, ed., Tl4! Compb.: Plays oj B.:n )onson, 4 vnls. (Oxt~1rJ : CbrenJ .. n
Press, 1982), 3:307. John RcaJ suggcsrcd that "the characters of Subrl~..> and Fa.:~:
may have het!n a reflection uf Or Dee and his as::.ociate, Edward Kclly, whl1sc J.:~.-:..1:
and deaths wt!re frt!sh in men's memories at the time when Jonson was writing d1c
play" Oohn Rt!ad, The Alcl4!mist in Life, Liu.-,uturt! utld Art (194 7; repr. Largs: B.ltH<~la
Press, 19901, 42. H(>wcver, in his later study Through Akh..!my to Ch.!misrry (I )57;
repr. -Kila, MT: Kessing~r Publishing, n.d.) Read remarkcJ, "Ot the thr~..>~ hkd}
originals, jllhn Dee, EJward Kdly, and Simon Forman ... all the cviJcncc l' -' inr ~
to Fonnan as the 'akhemist' whom Jnnson had in: mind" (75).
105. Samuel Butler, HuJWras, ed. John Wilder:. (Oxt~nd: Clarendon Prc~:.. 19oi ). ~..:...:
Linden, Darke Hk"Togliphicks, 285, 287, 90.
106. Historical MamlS4..Tipts Commissiun: Cakndar oJ llu: .\lunu.sl.TiJ>t.s oi Th.: .\L.11.1... : ";
Salisbury presen,ed at Harfidd Huus.:, Part IV, 366.
107. Phillips and Keatman, The ShukesJ>eare Con.spir~y. 158ft. Wllulky, Th . : )....;:- :
Conjuror, 315-17.
108. Historical M .musniJJt.s Commission: CaknJur of dta.: fo.lwut.soipts uJ Th..: .\t_.r+' ;
Salisbury pres.!n'cd ac HutfidJ Hmt.st!, Parr IV, .3&9.
.
109. Ibid .. 424.

':1~ .
~S .

~lYSTIC.-\L

110.
111.
112.
113.
1H .

METAL OF GOLD

lhiJ., -!24-25.
lhiJ., -!98, -lit-~-7').
lhiJ. , -!50--51.
lbiJ. , 481.
Nichull, A Ci1j1 11i N~u s, 192-9-!. Se~ als,, Nidhlll, Th.: N!!Lkuning, 258-60, 386~7 .
Woullt:y, Th.: (Ju..:~!n's Cmjurur, lhJtcs how members of the conspiracy were knl.lWn
tll Lnnh Kdly anJ Occ, 315-17.
115. S\'it;ik, "j.-1hn Del anJ EJwarJ Kdley,"l37.
116. Haynt:s, lnl'isili! PoU'I.!T, 1.33-.H.
117. Svit<ik, "John Dec anJ EJwarJ Kdl.:y,"l37 . Thi:. :..,unJs like a versim,,frhe Jud
JareJ I 591 rhat resulteJ in his firsr arrest in the acc.nmrs by Josci Svatck anJ V,idav
Kaplil:ky (n.nc 98, sup.). Ripcllin1, Magic Pmg~. 98, has Jcbt as the "pretext" t~1r
RuJolt\ scconJ impris,Jnmcm nf Kdly.
llti. Trucuuus Duu Egr..:gii, 3; Wait~:, Edumd J.:dly, 5.
119. Evans, Rudullll. 228.
120. Ripdlino, Ml1gic Pmgu.:, lOO.
121. Charlc:. Nichnll, "The Last Year:. ,,f EJwarJ .Kdlcy," LuruJm H..Ticu of Bouks, 23,8
(19 April 2001 ): 3-8. I ha\'e not cxamincJ the originals ut this material. Nicholl
pro\'iJcs no Jucumcmatiun.
122. E\'ans, RuJulf 11, 227.
123. Wccwr, Anci~m Funcr<1ll MuiiUIIk'IICs, 45-46.
12-l. MS Ashmole 1788, t~1ls. 151r- 152; josten, Aslunt,l..:, 4:1372-73 anJ 1-:cyn~.:s,
Brouon.:, -!:296-98.
12 5. Sec Susan Bassnett, "Re,i:.ing a Bi,1graphy: :\ New inrerpr~.:tati~m ut the lite ,1t
Eli:aheth Jane Wcstlln," (n,ltl! 4), 3. L.mise Schldner, "Eli:ahl!th Westllll, Akhl!mist's Step#D.lUght~r anJ Published Poet," Cauda Patmlis: Sucdi.!:s in HL'11nl.!ticism,
n.s., 10 (1991): 9, 14. anJ Louisc Schlciner, Tudor and SuUin Wum~n Writers
(Bh)mington: Indiana Uni\l!rsiry Press, 1994). On Wcswnia's poems, see also j.
W. Binns, lmelkcu"-'l Culcuro? in Eli~abethan and)ucobean England: The Latin \t'rirings
of Ute Age (LeeJs: Francis Caims, 1990), 110--14.
12b. Eli::abeth Jane Weston, Collecccd Writings, eJ. DonalJ Chcncy anJ BrcnJa M.
Hnsington, with the assistance of D. K. Money (Tomnro: University of Toronto
Press, 2000), xii. The sources Citl..J are W. P. W. Phillmore, ed., Ol.ford Parish
RcgistL-rs. Marriag.:s, ml. 1 (LonJun, 1909), 4; Jack Howard#Drake, Ol.ford Church
<?utt.n s Vo?pusitions !542-1550 (Oxford, 1991), item 3; Chipping N.mon History
~1\::h.!ty anJ the M1sses Meadcs, cht!cked against an anonymous copy of ea. 1790.
12 7 Weswn, CoUecto?d W'rirings, 336-4 I. I am grateful tu Susan Bassnctt for Cllpies of
~he original publication of Wcswn's poems anJ to B. K. Manin for the translations
trl1m the Latin.
12::i. Wcstun, CuUec..t.:d \X 'ritings, 34~l.
129. Wcstun, Collected ~'ricings, 376-79. r\:e corrcsponJcJ with Maius, anJ was visitcJ
by him in Trebon (FI.!nton, 204, 238).
130. Ad Nobikm et litc..-r.num trirum Dn IOANNEM HAMMUNIUM amicwn :s1mm cokn#
dum. ~L Magismnn olim studiuis.simum, gratiumm actiunis ergo (Collecr.:d W'1icings,
3!2-13). He has been iJ~nrificJ with rhe man Dee hireJ iri Trebon on August 7,
b88 (PD. 28, 31, 32; Fenton, 236, 240).
131. I ha\'e not seen rhis \'ulume. My information is fwm juhn Fcrguson, Bibliotheca
Ch.!miLll: a Caralogu.! of the Alchcmici.Jl, Chemical and PhanTWCeurical Books in the
Culkction ultheLJtc!}llmo?s YoungofKdly and Durris, Esq, LL. D . , F. R. S., F . R.
S. E., 2 \'ols. (Kila, MT: Kcssinger, 1991), 1:454, 2:463.

A Biogruphy uf Etltmrtl

~dly , rh~

English .-\kh(!mist

132. The tide page of Waite, EJuurJ Kclly, rcaJs "N,l\v tlr:.t publi:.hl!d t1r rh..: bcn~tu
of the sons of Hermes by]. L M. C. (That is, John Lilly anJ Mcric Casauhon)."
This iJentification has n.-, crellibility. Ferguson suggests jllhann Langc McJicina~.:
CanJiJatus (Bibliotheca Ch!.!mk:a, 2: 8). The treatise on the Philosllpher's Swnc
which Kdly deJicateJ to Rud,,1f first appeareJ in a collectinn cditeJ by Pcrrxu.s,
Drey V ortreffliche und nvch nit! im Druck geu..'t.!sclll? Ch)'misch.! Bikh.!r a1s . . . (Ill) D.:..s
Weltberilhm~n Engelliitu.l-'fs Edoardi Kella.d aussfuhrlicher Trw:uu &m Ku)SL'T Rudolphu
tugeschriebc...>Jl, publisheJ in Hamburg by juhan Nauni.an, 1670, reprinted by Gonfried Liebe:t!it, 1691 (Bibliutheca Chemicu, 1:226-27, 437-38; Ev ..m:., Rud,llf 11 ,
227 n.2).
1H. First publisheJ LnnJ,,n: Elli,,n, 1893; reprints induJc Llm..iun: Stuan anJ Watkin;,,
1970; New York: Samud Weiscr, 1970; Lugs: Bam,m Press, 1991. For c.muncntary,
see Lyndy Abr..tham, "EJwarJ Kelly's Hieruglyph," in Adams anJ LinJen, eJ~ .
Emblems and Alchemy, 95-108. I have been unabll.! to locate J. Gibson, "An lnt~r
preration of Alchemical Symbolism with Reference to the Writings uf E..iwarJ
Kdly," }ounud of the Alchemical Society 3,15 (December 1914): 17-25, cited in Alan
PritcharJ, Alchemy: A Bibliography of English-lun~'1Wgl! W'ricings (London:
RoudeJge & Kegan Paul, 1980).
I have moJcmi:ed spelling anJ standarJi:~J names in the J,x:ument:> cxcapkJ
in this ankle; the full texts are given in my Raising Spirits, Making GulJ, Su;apping
Wives: Tit.! Tr~ Adwmures oJ Dr John D~e and Sir Edu:urd K.:Uy (Nottingham:
Shoestring Press, 1999). Texts anJ digests uf the State Papers can be f,,un..i in
CalendaT of Sea~ Papers Dom~stk:.&.'Ties, of the Rcigns of Edward VJ, Mary, Eli~ab.:ch .
1547-1580, ed. Robert Lemon (lonJon, 1856) ; Cul'ltdar of Swcc Paf>L'TS Dun~ttstk:
Series, Elizubeth and }an~tts I, Addcnda 1580-1625, ed. Mary Ann Everen Grt!cn
(Lond,ln, 1872); Calendar oJ Scare Papers Forei&Tfl Serics, of the Reign oJ Eli~(Weth .
vol. 21, pt. I, )lH~tt 1586-)ul~tt 1588, ed. Sophie Crawford L,1mas (londm1, 1927) ;
Cakndar of Scat~ Pc!pers Foreign &Tics of the Reign of Eliz.ubcth, vol. 23, January-) aJ)
1589, ed. Richard Bruc~ W emham ( LonJon, 19 50); List and Anuly:sis of Swtl.! Pap.:r~
Foreign Sc..-ries Elizabeth I Prcsert.'o?d in the Public Record Office, vol. 1 , AII&'11Sl
1589-}une 1590; vol. 2, July 1590--May 1591, eJ. Richard Bruce Wemham (llm
don, 1964, 1969). Crown copyright material fwm the Public Rccllrd Ofu~c.
Kew-(SP 81/6, t~1ls. 7-8), (SP 81/7, ttll. 140), (SP 81/7, fllls. 143-4) anJ (SP
82/3, fol. 134 )-is rcpmJuceJ by permission of the Conrr.,ller of Her Majc:.ry'~
Stationery Office.