It was his practice to raise the dead by incantations, and to consult the corpse for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge, as he pretended, of the fate of the living. Weever, in his “Ancient Funeral Monuments” (p. 45), says that upon a certain night in the park of Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, with one Paul Wareing, of Clayton Brook, he invoked one of the infernal regiment to know certain passages in the life, as also what might be known of the devil’s foresight of the manner and time of the death, of a young nobleman in Wareing’s wardship. The ceremony being ended, Kelly and his companion repaired to the church of Walton, where they dug up the body of a man recently interred, and whom, by their incantations, they made to deliver strange predictions concerning the same gentleman, who was probably present and anxious to read a page in the book of futurity. This feat, which was no doubt performed by a kind of ventriloquism, is also mentioned by Casaubon. It is not said when the circumstance occurred, but a local historian, anxious to supply the omission, gives the date August 12, 1560, and says that Dee was present. This, however, must be an error, for Kelly could then have been only five years of age, and Dee did not make his acquaintance until long afterwards.
Kelly was a notorious alchemist and necromancer long before Dee became associated with him, and after the unfortunate intimacy commenced he acted as his amanuensis, and performed for him the office of “seer,” by looking into the doctor’s magic crystal,[23] a faculty he himself did not possess, and hence he was obliged to have recourse to Kelly for the revelations from the spirit world. It would seem, therefore, that “mediums” are by no means a modern invention. Dee says he was brought into unison with him by the mediation of the Angel Uriel, and their dealings and daily conferences with the spirits are fully recorded in Casaubon’s work, entitled, “A True and Faithful Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits.” They had a black spectrum or crystal—a piece of polished cannel coal, in which Kelly affirmed the Angels Gabriel and Raphael, and the whole Rosicrucian hierarchy, appeared at their invocation—and hence the author of “Hudibras” says,—
When an incantation was to take place, “The sacred crystal was placed on a sort of altar before a crucifix, with lighted candles on either side, and an open Psalter before it,” and prayers and ejaculations of the most fervid description were intermingled with the account taken down at Kelly’s dictation of the dress and hair, as well as the sayings and movements, of the angels. Dee was infatuated with his new acquaintance, and every experiment he suggested was tried, at whatever cost, and hence it was not long before Kelly’s weak and credulous dupe found himself in straitened circumstances. It was at this time that the Earl of Leicester, the Queen’s favourite, proposed dining with him at Mortlake and bringing Albert Lasque, the Palatine of Sieradz, who was then in England, with him, when Dee had to explain that he could not give them a suitable dinner without selling some of his plate or pewter to procure it. Leicester mentioned the circumstance to the Queen, who speedily helped her old favourite out of the difficulty by sending him “forty angells of gold.” He thus relates the circumstance:—
Her Majestie (A. 1583 Julii ultimo) being informed by the right honourable Earle of Leicester, that whereas the same day in the morning he had told me, that his Honour and Lord Laskey would dyne with me within two daies after, I confessed sincerely unto him, that I was not able to prepaire them a convenient dinner, unless I should presently sell some of my plate or some of my pewter for it. Whereupon her Majestie sent unto me very royally, within one hour after, forty angells of gold, from Syon, whither her Majestie was new come by water from Greenewich.
At the same time he makes the following entry in his “Diary”:—
Mr. Rawlegh his letter unto me of hir Majestie’s good disposition unto me.
the writer being Sir Walter Raleigh, who was then in great favour with Elizabeth, and himself a patron of Dee’s.
The visit of Count Lasque was an important event in Dee’s career. The Polish noble was accounted of great learning, and fond of “occult studies.” He paid frequent visits to the house at Mortlake, where he was admitted to the séances of the English magician, and became much impressed with his learning and professed knowledge of the mystical world. When the time came for Lasque to return he suggested that Dee should go out with him to Poland, with his wife and children, accompanied by Kelly and his wife and brother, and their servants. When in his castle at Sieradz they could make their experiments in undisturbed seclusion. Seeing no prospect of the fulfilment of the promises made to him at home, and being hampered with debt, Dee, who was then in his 57th year, was nothing loth to try his fortune abroad once more. They left in September, and it was six years before any of them again set foot on English soil. The departure is thus recorded in the “Diary”:—
Sept. 21st (1583).—We went from Mortlake, and so to the Lord Albert Lasky, I, Mr. E. Kelly, our wives, my children and familie, we went toward our two ships attending for us, seven or eight myle below Gravessende.
The period of their residence abroad was a chequered one, and many and extraordinary were their adventures and experiences, alternating between honour and discredit—between luxury and distress. For many months they were hospitably entertained by Count Lasque while engaged in their researches for the Philosopher’s Stone, but finding that they spent more gold than they were able to produce he got tired, and persuaded them to pay a visit to Rudolph, King of Bohemia, who, though a weak and credulous man, soon became conscious of the imposture that was being practised, and passed them on to Stephen, King of Poland, at Cracow, but he declined to have anything to do with them, and the Emperor Rudolph refused to pay their expenses, or further encourage their experiments, though he permitted them to reside at Prague, and occasionally to appear at Court, until they were banished from the country at the instigation of the Pope’s Nuncio, who stigmatised them as “notorious magicians.” Dee lamented the “subtill devises and plotts” laid against him, and pathetically added, “God best knoweth how I was very ungodly dealt withall, when I meant all truth, sincerity, fidelity, and piety towardes God, and my Queene, and country.”
The old man had surrendered himself entirely to Kelly. Under his iniquitous influence he degenerated into a mere necromancer, and was sinking more and more into discredit. On leaving Bohemia the two adventurers found an asylum in the Castle of Trebona, whither the Count of Rosenberg had invited them, and where, for a time, they were maintained in great affluence, owing, as they affirmed, to their discovery of the secret of transmuting the baser metals into gold. Kelly would seem to have learned some secrets from the German chemists which he did not reveal to his employer, but by their possession contrived to increase his influence over him, while he himself had recourse to the worst species of the magic art for the purposes of avarice and fraud. It was while at Trebona that Kelly produced the wonderful elixir, or Philosopher’s Stone, in the form of a powder, which Lilly, in his “Memoirs,” says he obtained from a friar who came to Dee’s door. With this “powder of projection,” or “salt of metals,” as it was variously called, they were enabled to coat the baser metals with silver or gold, and would seem to have hit upon the process which, a century and a half later, Joseph Hancock introduced into Sheffield—that of electro-plating. Among other transmutations they converted a piece of an old iron warming pan, by warming it at the fire, into (or covered it with) silver, and sent it to Queen Elizabeth.[24] Why, when they were about it, they did not “transmute” the whole pan is not stated, but it would seem they were not able to work the discovery easily or quickly enough to make it pay, for heart-burnings, jealousies, and disputations arose, and quarrels became of frequent occurrence. At one time Kelly got such a hold upon his dupe as to persuade him that it was the Divine will that they should have their wives in common; then a rupture occurred between the ladies, who, however, became reconciled to each other, and we have the entries in the Diary—
April 10th (1588).—I writ to Mr. Edward Kelly and to Mistress Kelly ij charitable letters requiring at theyr hands mutual charity.
And—
May 22nd.—Mistris Kelly received the sacrament and to me and my wife gave her hand in charity; and we rushed not from her.
Peace was restored, but it must have been of short duration, for we find a few months later—
July 17th.—Mr. Thomas Southwell of his own courteous nature did labor with Mr. Edmond Cowper, and indirectly with Mistress Kelly, for to furder charity and friendship among us.
True to his sordid and scheming nature, Kelly, who had become a full-blown knight, contrived to possess himself of the greater part of Dee’s treasures—“the powder, the bokes, the glass, and the bone”—and then, having no longer any need of the old man’s co-operation, took himself off to earn elsewhere a success that, however, proved only very short-lived, for it was not long before, being detected in some knavery, he fell into disgrace, and was immured by the Emperor Rudolph in one of the prisons of Prague. Queen Elizabeth hearing of him, sent a messenger—Captain Peter Gwinne—secretly for him to return; but he was doomed to end his days in a foreign land, for in an attempt to escape from one of the windows of the castle he fell to the ground, and was so bruised and shattered that he died in a few hours—his elixir, it would seem, not being sufficient to communicate immortality to its possessor.
Forsaken by his companion, Dee resolved on returning to England. Elizabeth, who had heard of the doings of the two adventurers, and being, moreover, much impressed with the silvered piece of the warming pan, sent the doctor friendly messages desiring his return, with letters of safe conduct, and Lord Rosenberg, who had welcomed the coming, was now no less hearty in speeding his parting guests, an attention that is not surprising when it is remembered that for two years or more he had had quartered upon him two families who maintained somewhat questionable relations, and lived upon anything but friendly terms with each other—two quarrelsome women, a whole bevy of turbulent and unruly children, and a staff of servants that were continually causing disquiet by their “unthankfulnesse” and discontent; to say nothing of a brace of conjurors who crowded his castle, or, at least, were believed to, with imps, hobgoblins, and ghostly visitants of various kinds, and who there practised all sorts of diablerie. The count made him magnificent promises, and gave him a present of money; and we can quite believe that he and those about him were not very much overcome when Dee and his household divinities left Trebona Castle and turned their faces homewards. They travelled with great pomp and state, having “three new coaches made purposely for my foresaid journey,” “twelve coach horses,” “two and sometymes three waines,” with “twenty-four soldiers,” and “four Swart-Ruiters,” as a guard of honour; the “total summe of money spent” being £796—well-nigh sufficient for a royal progress. On November 19, 1589, the Dees “toke ship by the Vineyard,” and December 2nd “came into the Tems to Gravesende.” They landed the following day, and on the 19th the doctor was “at Richemond with the Queen’s Majestie,” when, according to Aubrey, who received the information from Lilly, he was very favourably received.
Though Dee and his family “cam into the Tems” on the 2nd December, it was not until Christmas Day that they again entered upon possession of the old home at Mortlake. And a comfortless coming home and a sorrowful Christmas Day must have been that 25th of December, 1589. Courted by “Christian Emperors,” Dee had lived long enough to realise the value of the aphorism which says “Put not your trust in princes!” Feeble with years, broken in health, and overwhelmed by his losses and disappointments, the old man chafed and became fretful; while his comparatively youthful spouse—for Jane Dee was then in the prime of womanhood—was becoming increasingly irritable under the increasing cares of a growing family, and the difficulties she experienced in obtaining even decent food and raiment for them.
On reaching their once pleasant abode on the banks of the Thames, they found it dismantled and in part dilapidated. While abroad, silvering his old warming-pan and dreaming dreams of inexhaustible wealth, Dee had little dreamed of what was going on at home. Scarcely had he and his quondam associate reached the castle of Count Lasque than Nicholas Fromonds, his brother-in-law, who had been left in charge of the old house, and was to occupy it as tenant, “imbezeled,” sold, and “unduly made away” his furniture and “household stuff;” and a noisy rabble, believing that the old man had dealings with the devil, broke in, ransacked the whole place, and destroyed nearly everything that remained. Scarcely anything was left. 4,000 volumes, including the precious manuscripts, that had taken more than 40 years to get together, and had cost him £2,000, an enormous sum if we consider the value of money at that time, were scattered; though, through the efforts of his friends, some of them were afterwards recovered, as he said, “in manner out of a dunghill, in the corner of a church, wherein very many were utterly spoyled by rotting, through the raine continually for many years before falling on them, through the decayed roof of that church, lying desolate and wast at this houre.” The “rare and exquisitely-made instruments mathematicall,” the “strong and faire quadrant of five foote semi-diameter;” the two globes, on one of which “were set down divers comettes, their places and motions;” the sea compasses; the magnet-stone “of great vertue;” the “watch clock,” which measured the “360th part of an hour,” were all purloined, “piecemeal divided,” or “barbarously spoyled and with hammers smit in pieces.” Harland and Wilkinson, in their “Lancashire Folk-Lore,” say that when the house was attacked, “it was with difficulty Dee and his family escaped the fury of the rabble;” but this is a mistake, for, as previously stated, they were at the time beyond the seas, and in blissful ignorance of what was taking place.
Dee’s affairs were now in a deplorable condition. The destruction of his library was a terrible calamity. He was involved in debt, his creditors were becoming clamorous, and, as he laments, “the usury devoureth me, and the score, talley, and booke debts doe dayly put me to shame in many places and with many men.” His old friend and patron, the Queen, who had not yet lost faith in his astrological powers and discoveries, sent him in the year following his return “fiftie poundes to keep Christmas with,” and promised him another “fiftie poundes” out of her “prevy purse.” Many other friends sent him presents, in all about £500; but he was still struggling in poverty, and craving for some lucrative office, that he might free himself from his difficulties. In his distress he memorialised the Queen, through the Countess of Warwick, earnestly requesting that commissioners might be appointed to inquire into and decide upon his claims. His indebtedness then amounted to nearly £4,000, and the story he tells of the shifts he had recourse to, to save his family from “hunger starving,” is truly pathetic. He had been constrained, he says, “now and then to send parcells of furniture and plate to pawne upon usury,” and when these were gone, “after the same manner went my wife’s jewells of gold, rings, braceletts, chaines, and other our rarities, under thraldom of the usurer’s gripes, till non plus was written upon the boxes at home.” Upon the report the Queen “willed the Lady Howard to write some words of comfort to his wife, and send some friendly tokens beside;” she further sent through Mr. Candish (Cavendish) her “warrant by word of mowth to assure him to do what he would in philosophie and alchemie, and none shold chek, controll, or molest him,” and as a mark of her regard, on two occasions, “called for him at his door” as she rode by.
About this time a domestic difficulty of a different nature occurred. Dee’s nurse became “possessed,” and he had to try his skill in exorcising what he believed to be the evil spirit, though, as the result showed, with indifferent success. The incident is thus referred to in his “Diary”:—
Aug. 2nd, 1590.—Nurs her great affliction of mynde.
Aug. 22nd.—Ann my nurse had long byn tempted by a wycked spirit: but this day it was evident how she was possessed of him. God is, hath byn, and shall be her protector and deliverer! Amen.
Aug. 25th.—Anne Frank was sorowful, well comforted, and stayed in God’s mercyes acknowledging.
Aug. 26th.—At night I anoynted (in the name of Jesus) Anne Frank, her brest with the holy oyle.
Aug. 30th.—In the morning she required to be anoynted, and I did very devowtly prepare myself, and pray for vertue and powr, and Christ his blessing of the oyle to the expulsion of the wycked; and then twyse anoynted, the wycked one did resest a while.
Sep. 8th.—Nurse Anne Frank wold have drowned hirself in my well, but by divine Providence I cam to take her up befor she was overcome of the water.
Sep. 29th.—Nurse Anne Frank most miserably did cut her owne throte, afternone abowt four of the clok, pretending to be in prayer before her keeper, and suddenly and very quickly rising from prayer, and going toward her chamber, as the mayden her keeper thowt, but indede straight way down the stayrs into the hall of the other howse, behinde the doore did that horrible act; and the mayden who wayted on her at the stayr fote followed her, and missed to fynd her in three or fowr places, tyll at length she hard her rattle in her owne blud.
Dee tried hard to regain the parsonages and endowments of Upton and Long Leadenham, of which Bonner had many years previously dispossessed him, but he was “utterly put owt of hope for recovering them by the Lord Archbishop and the Lord Threasorer.” Elizabeth had, on one occasion, promised him the deanery of Gloucester, but objection was raised on the ground of his not being in Holy Orders; subsequently he had the promise of some small advowsons in the diocese of St David’s; but the promise which was pleasant to the bear was roken to the hope. Failing these, he applied for reversion of the mastership of the Hospital of St. Cross, at Winchester. The Queen and the Lord Treasurer were favourably disposed, and Mr. J. Eglinton Bailey, in his admirable notes, to which we have before made reference, cites a Latin document which he found among the State Papers, dated May, 1594, being a grant to Wm. Brooke, Lord Cobham, K.G., of the next advowson of the hospital of Holyrood, near Winchester, of the Queen’s gift, by the vacancy of the See, to present John Dee, M.A., on the death or resignation of Dr. Robert Bennett, the then incumbent. Bennett, however, did not die, or did not resign in reasonable time, for Dee never got installed; or it may be that the Archbishop (Whitgift) had interposed, for a month after the “grant” just mentioned, we find in the “Diary” an entry in which he thus gives vent to his feeling of mortification and disappointment, after an interview with the Primate:—
June 29th, 1594.—After I had hard the Archbishop his answers and discourses, and that after he had byn the last Sonday at Tybald’s (Theobald’s) with the Quene and Lord Threaserer, I take myself confounded for all suing or hoping for anything that was. And so adieu to the court and courting tyll God direct me otherwise! The Archbishop gave me a payre of sufferings to drinke. God be my help as he is my refuge! Amen.
When Dee ceased to supplicate, his wife took up the parable, and with much more satisfactory results. On the 7th of December, in the same year, we read:—
Jane, my wife, delivered her supplication to the Quene’s Majestie, as she passed out of the privy garden at Somerset House to go to diner to the Savoy, to Syr Thomas Henedge. The Lord Admirall toke it of the Quene. Her Majestie toke the bill agayn, and kept (it) uppon her cushen; and on the 8th day, by the chief motion of the Lord Admirall, and somewhat of the Lord Buckhurst, the Quene’s wish was to the Lord Archbishop presently that I should have Dr. Day his place in Powles (i.e., the Chancellorship of St. Paul’s).
Possibly the Queen or the Archbishop, or both, were getting wearied with the constant appeals of their tedious and egotistical suitor, for a month later occurs the entry:—
1595. Jan. 8th.—The Wardenship of Manchester spoken of by the Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.
Feb. 5th.—My bill of Manchester offered to the Quene afore dynner by Sir John Wolly to signe, but she deferred it.
April 18th.—My bill for Manchester Wardenship signed by the Quene, Mr. Herbert offring it her.
And so the magician of Mortlake was commissioned to minister among the Lancashire witches, and an exceedingly unpleasant time he had of it, as we shall presently see.
Though the appointment was made, the patent was not yet sealed. Dr. Chadderton did not actually relinquish the wardenship of Manchester until the confirmation of his election to the see of Lincoln, May 24, 1595. Immediately after appears the entry in the “Diary”:—
May 25th, 26th, 27th.—The Signet, Privy Seale, and the Great Seale of the Wardenship.
The old man was evidently too poverty-stricken to pay the fees, for he significantly adds, “£3 12s. 0d. borrowed of my brother Arnold.”
At last the long-hoped-for preferment was secured, and the Warden elect at once began to prepare for removal to his new sphere of duty. Though, as before stated, the building of the College had been acquired by the Earls of Derby, under the Confiscating Act of Edward VI., the Wardens continued to reside there. On the 11th June Dee “wrote to the Erle of Derby his secretary abowt Manchester College;” and on the 21st June he makes the entry:—
The Erle of Derby his letter to Mr. Warren for the Colledge.
Mr. Warren being apparently the agent of the Earl, and the “secretary” previously mentioned. Having thus put matters in train for the occupation of his new home, he set about the letting or disposal of the old one, for we read:—
July 1st.—The two brothers, Master Willemots, of Oxfordshere, cam to talk of my howse-hyring. Master Baynton cam with Mistress Katharyn Hazelwood, wife to Mr. Fuller.
Meantime the Manchester people, and more especially the fellows of the College, were curious to know something about the new Warden, of whom rumour had said so many strange things. On the 12th July he records that “Mr. Goodier, of Manchester, cam to me;” and on the 28th July he received “a letter from Mr. Oliver Carter, Fellow of Manchester College,” of whom we shall have more to say by-and-by. Mr. Goodier, it may be presumed, was not altogether uninfluenced by worldly considerations in thus paying his respects at Mortlake. The worthy burgher was a man of some consequence in his way, and much given, it is said, to the improvement of his temporal estate. He resided at the “Ould Clough House,” a building adjacent to the College, “over anendst the church,” as the Court Rolls of the day describe it, had served as senior constable, and had also filled the more important office of borough-reeve. He had, moreover, farmed the tithes of the Warden and Fellows, and seems to have made a somewhat wide interpretation of his lease, for shortly before he had prosecuted one of the Fellows for withholding the surplice fees, which he claimed to have of right. It is not unlikely, therefore, he had an ulterior object in journeying to London and offering his civilities to Dee. A year or two before, he had married a rich widow, Katharine, the relict of Ralph Sorrocold, and the mother of John Sorrocold, at whose house, the Eagle and Child, opposite Smithy Door, John Taylor, the “water poet,” when on his “Pennyless Pilgrimage,” lodged, and whose wife he immortalised in his homely rhymes—
On the 31st July, the “very virtuous” Countess of Warwick, who had proved her friendship for Dee by urging his claims upon the consideration of the Queen, did this evening, as he says—
Thank her Matie in my name and for me for her gift of the Wardenship of Manchester. She took it gratiously, and was sorry that it was so far from hers; but that some better thing neer hand shall be ffownd for me; and if opportunitie of tyme wold serve, her Matie wold speak with me herself.
It is significantly added that “the firstfruits were forgiving by her Matie,” which was fortunate, as it saved him the necessity of borrowing money to pay them. Her Majesty, however, never found the “opportunitie of tyme” to speak with her aged protégé, and Dee eventually left without the satisfaction of a parting interview.
Dee’s prospects were now brightening, and, though late in the evening of life, there was again a prospect of sunny weather. Misfortunes, it is proverbially said, seldom come singly—the same rule, it would seem, holds good in regard to prosperity—for scarcely had Dee obtained his preferment when Providence added to his domestic bliss. A daughter was born unto him (he was now in his 69th year), and the christening, as may be supposed, was a great affair, the sponsors, who by the way, all appeared by deputy, being the Lord Keeper—Sir Christopher Hatton, it has been said, but more probably another Cheshire man, Sir Thomas Egerton, afterwards Lord Chancellor, for Hatton had been in his grave four years or more—Lady Mary Russell, Countess of Cumberland, the mother of the stout-hearted Lady Anne Clifford, Dowager Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery, of famous memory; and the Lady Frances Walsingham, widow of Sir Philip Sidney, and the wife of the unfortunate Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, whom Elizabeth, in 1601, beheaded.
The time of the new Warden was now much occupied in visiting and receiving visits. On the 13th, and again on the 22nd of September, he was the guest of the Earl of Derby at Russell House, and on the 9th Oct. he “dyned with Syr Walter Rawlegh, at Durham House,” in the Strand. On the 25th Oct. we find him urging “Mr. Brofelde, Atturny-General, for som land deteyned from the Coll.” (ege). Then come the entries,—
Nov. 8th.—My goods sent by Percival toward Manchester.
Nov. 26th.—My wife and children all by coach toward Coventry.
Coventry was on the road towards Manchester. Finally, we have the great mathematician himself following in their wake—
1595–6. Feb. 15.—I cam to Manchester a meridie nova 5.
The severance from old scenes and old associations must have been a painful one. It could only have been dire necessity that induced the vain and pedantic philosopher to forsake the pleasant vicinity of Richmond; to leave the courtly gallants and the staid and erudite savants who had frequented his modest “mansion” to settle down among the hard-headed, but uncultured and unappreciative people of Manchester—to immure himself in a place that must have been even less attractive then than it was a century or more after when Brummell’s regiment was ordered there, and the Beau sold out rather than submit to the infliction of being quartered in it. Abroad Dee had been welcomed wherever he had gone, and received with all the state and courtly ceremonial due to one of such prodigious learning. At Mortlake he had enjoyed the sunshine of royal favour, had been honoured with the frequent visits of the Queen and her Ministers, and accustomed to the friendship and society of such polished wits as Walsingham and Raleigh, and Cavendish and Sir Philip Sidney—
And whom Spenser, in his “Shepheards’ Calendar,” named—
At Manchester he had to deal with a rude, boisterous, and uncultivated people, who openly reviled him—a rough metal that all his incantations and alchemical skill could not transform into refined gold; and withal he had to contend with a body of clergy who abhorred the unlawful arts he was supposed to practice, and who treated him in consequence with implacable hatred. Of a truth his position was not an enviable one.
Lancashire was at that time the great scene of religious conflict—the battle-ground of angry polemics and fiercely-contending factions. It was accounted as more given to Romanism than any other county in England, and in the rural districts the Protestant cause seemed rather declining than advancing. Dr. Chadderton, who preceded Dee in the Wardenship, had carried on a vigorous persecution of those who still adhered to the unreformed religion, the more obstinate of whom he imprisoned in the New Fleet, a building adjoining his residence in the College. He had further hit upon an ingenious way of convincing these recusants of the error of their ways—as they would not attend church to hear the sermons preached by the Puritanical Fellows he gave orders to his clergy to read prayers in the apartments where they were confined, especially at meal times, so that they had the pleasant alternative of taking theological nourishment with their food or going without victuals altogether. Chadderton’s Protestantism had been intensified by his exile during the Marian persecutions, and as Dee had been deprived of his rectories of Upton and Long Leadenham, and had suffered imprisonment at the hands of Bonner, it was not unreasonably believed that he would follow in the steps of his predecessor, and be no less zealous in hunting up seminary priests, and punishing those who resorted to their secret masses. But Dee’s church principles were not particularly pronounced. Devoted to mathematical and scientific pursuits, he did not greatly concern himself with either Popish or Puritan theology; preaching was not in his line, and he cared little for those controversial sermons which only provoked strife between the professors of the old and the new faith, and excited bitterness in the minds of all. He was content to leave the Papists to the watchful care of the powerful Earl of Derby and their opponents to do as they pleased, provided they gave him no trouble. His colleagues were greatly angered at his lack of zeal, and interminable quarrels were the consequence.
Saturday, the 20th of February, 1596, was a great day in Manchester, and one to be held in remembrance. The church bells filled the air with their clanging melodies, and the groups of curious onlookers at the church stile and in the grass-grown graveyard denoted that something unusual was astir. And there was, for the great philosopher whose marvellous skill had astonished half the Courts of Europe, and about whom rumour had told so many curious tales, was come to preside over the ancient College, and direct the ecclesiastical affairs of the parish, and on that raw February morning was to be installed in his office. Manchester had never seen such a Warden before, and has not seen such another since. The ceremony, we are told, was gone through with “great pomp and solemnity.” Of those assisting at it were Edmund Prestwich, of Hulme; Richard Massey, the representative of a family of some consequence living “in the Milnegate, neere unto a street comonly called Toad-lane;” George Birch, of Birch, in Rusholme, the brother of Robert Birch, one of the Fellows, and nephew of William Birch, who at one time had been the Warden of the College; Ralph Byrom and Thomas Byrom, wealthy traders of the Kersal stock; Ralph Houghton, another trader; Henry Hardy, and Richard Nugent, who afterwards became a benefactor to the town, but whose bequest, through the negligence of trustees, has long since been lost. Dr. Hibbert mentions these names, though he does not give his authority. Dee, however, was fond of ostentation and display, and we may be sure would omit nothing that would impart dignity and importance to the proceedings. We are not told which of the Fellows were present. Nowell, who was then in his 90th year, would be too old and infirm to undertake the toil of a journey from London; but the bold and outspoken Puritan divine, Oliver Carter, would of a certainty be in his place; and probably with him would be his equally zealous coadjutor, Thomas Williamson; though both must have been greatly exercised in spirit at the thought of God’s heritage being lorded over by one of such questionable antecedents. Humphrey Chetham had not then amassed a fortune, and acquired fame as a reformer of ecclesiastical abuses. He was only in his sixteenth year; but he may have been, and very likely was, among the spectators, and in his young mind may have wondered how and by what mysterious influences so valuable a preferment had fallen to one who, not having obtained ordination, had not even received authority to preach.
The Manchester as Dee saw it must have presented a very different aspect to the Manchester of to-day. Leland, who had visited the place sixty years previously, described it, in his “Itinerary,” as “the fairest, best builded, quickest, and most populous town in Lancashire,” which, by the way, was not saying very much, seeing that, as compared with other parts of the kingdom, the county was thinly-peopled and ill-cultivated, and the neighbourhood of the town little else than extensive moors, mosses, and quagmires, where the stranger rarely adventured himself, and so “very wild and dangerous” that Bishop Downham pleaded its inaccessibility as a reason for seldom or never visiting it. The extent of the town proper could have been little more than that of an inconsiderable village of the present day, for though, unfortunately, there is no plan of it as then existing, the enumeration of the streets in the old Court Rolls of the manor enables us to form a tolerably accurate estimate of its limits. Within a few hundred yards of the Church the whole of the business of the place was located, and what was then town was but a congeries of crooked lanes and devious by-ways, with quaint black and white half-timbered dwellings standing on either side in an irregular, in-and-out, haphazard sort of way, and some very much inclined to “stand-at-ease,” yet rendered picturesque by their very irregularity and their innumerable architectural caprices and fantasies, their queer-looking and curiously-carved gables, their oddly-projecting oriels and cunningly-devised recesses, and the varied and broken sky-lines of their roofs, so different to those dull, dreary uniformities of brick the present generation is compelled to gaze upon. Deansgate, Market Sted Lane, and Long Millgate were the principal streets. These stretched irregularly towards the open country, and from them a few narrow intricate lanes branched off in the direction of the Church and the College. On the east and south sides of the churchyard were then, as now, several public-houses, where the bride ales and wedding feasts were held, and to restrain the extravagances of which numerous sumptuary laws had to be enacted. Round the Market Sted were the shops and “stallings” of the principal traders, who, clad in their own fustian, measured out their manufactured wares and sent out their pack-horsemen, with tingling bells, to sell them wherever and whenever they could find a buyer. Here also were located the “booths” in which the Portmotes and the Courts Leet and Baron of the manorial lords were held, and contiguous thereto were the Pillory, the Whipping Post, and the Stocks, where rogues and dishonest and drunk and disorderly townsmen were punished. On the north side of the church—Back o’th’ Church, as it was called—between the churchyard and the College gates, stood the bull oak, where bulls were usually baited. The butts for archery practice, where every man between 16 and 60 had to exercise himself in the use of the good yew bow, were on the outskirts of the town, one being on the south side, where Deansgate merged into Aldport Lane, and the other, at Collyhurst, on the north. The cockpit stood on what was then called the “lord’s waste,” the vacant land in the rear of the Market Sted, which still retains the name of Cockpit Hill. Hanging Ditch was, as its name implied, a ditch, part of the old moat or fosse connecting the Irwell and the Irk, down which the water still flowed at a considerable depth below the footway, Toad Lane and Cateaton Street being but a continuation of it. Over this old and then disused watercourse was a stone bridge, the arch of which may still be seen—the Hanging Bridge, so named from the drawbridge which had preceded it, where officers were stationed to see that horses and cows did not pass over into the churchyard. Near the bridge was the smithy, which gave the name to Smithy Door and Smithy Bank. In Smithy Door, near the entrance to the Market Sted, was the town pump or conduit, fed from a natural spring, near the top of the present Spring Gardens, where the good wives of the town went for their water, and waited their “cale” till they got it, gossiping and quarrelling with each other the while. At the foot of Smithy Bank was Salford Bridge—the only bridge over the Irwell connecting the two towns—a structure of three arches, and so narrow that foot-passengers had occasionally to take refuge in little recesses while vehicles passed along. In the centre of it was the dungeon, which in earlier days had served the purpose of a chapel. Withy Grove was in truth a group of withies, the old “Seven Stars,” and a few other dwellings, being all that existed to give the character of street. At the higher end was Withingreave Hall, the town house of the Hulmes of Reddish, progenitors of William “Hulme the Founder,” with its gardens, orchard, and outbuilding, and beyond a pleasant rural lane led on to Shudehill. Market Sted Lane, a narrow and tortuous thoroughfare, extended no further than the present Brown Street, Mr. Lever’s house, which occupied the site of the White Bear, standing in what was then the open country. The picturesque old black and white houses that bordered each side had their pleasant gardens in rear; and beyond, towards Withy Grove in one direction and Deansgate in the other, were meadows and pasture fields. In one of those fields, on the south side, was the mansion of the Radcliffes, surrounded by a moat that gave the name to Pool Fold, and which was oftentimes the scene of much mob-justice and very much misery, for here was placed the ducking-stool for the punishment of scolds and disorderly women,—
From its frequent use we may suppose that in those days the female portion of the community were neither very amiable nor very virtuous. Long Millgate ran parallel with the Irk, an irregular line of houses with little plots of garden behind forming the boundary on each side, and a little way up a rural lane, shaded with hedgerow trees, branched off on the right, known as the Milner’s Lane—the present Miller Street. The Irk, a pure and sparkling stream, was noted for its “luscious eels.” The Masters of the Grammar School had the exclusive fishery rights from Ashley Lane to Hunt’s Bank, and the Warden and Fellows of the College might have envied them their monopoly had they not themselves been able to obtain their Lenten fare from the equally clear and well-stocked waters of the Irwell, which then glided pleasantly by, innocent of dyes and manufacturing refuse. Altogether the place presented more the semi-rural aspect of a country village than an important town, as Leland represented it to be. Picturesque, it is true, yet it possessed many unpleasant features withal. The streets and lanes were ill-paved and full of deep ruts and claypits, for every man who wanted daub to repair his dwelling dug a hole before his door to obtain it. The eye, too, was offended by unsightly cesspools and dunghills that were to be seen against the Church walls, on the bridges, and, in fact, at every turn.
Though some of the more remote parts of the parish were barren and uncultivated, the immediate environments of the town were characterised by much that was exceedingly beautiful, with a wilder sort of loveliness, increased by the natural irregularities of the surface, and the great masses of foliage, part of the old forest of Arden, that extended far away. On the north, Strangeways Park, with its umbraged heights, its sunny glades, and shady dingles, stretched away towards Broughton, Cheetham, and Red Bank. Near thereto was Collyhurst Park, with the common, on which the townsmen had the right to pasture their pigs, and where the town swine-herd daily attended to his porcine charge; and the deep sequestered clough through which the Irk wound its sinuous course, its surface chequered by the shadows of the overhanging hazels and brushwood; and beyond, the extensive chase of Blackley, with its deer leaps, and its aërie of eagles, of herons, and of hawks. On the south was the stately old mansion of Aldport, standing in a park of 95 acres, occupying the site of Campfield and Castlefield, and reaching down to the banks of the Irwell, with the great parks of Ordsal and Hulme on the one side and those of Garratt and Ancoats on the other.
It can hardly be said that among the inhabitants a very high state of civilisation prevailed. If thrifty and industrious, they were certainly not very refined, nor blessed with “pregnant wits,” as good Hugh Oldham affirmed, nor yet remarkable for their moral excellence. Boisterous and laughter-loving, they delighted in outdoor games and uproarious sports,—the wild merriment of the day being oftentimes followed by the wilder merriment of the evening. Bull-baiting, wrestling, and cock-fighting were the leading diversions, “unlawful gaming” and “lewdness” were frequently complained of, and the ale-houses, to which the more dissolute resorted, were the scenes of riots and feuds that not only caused annoyance and scandal to the more well-disposed, but endangered the public peace to a greater degree than we can now easily conceive. Under such circumstances it is hardly surprising that they should have entertained little reverence for their spiritual pastors, many of whom, by the way, were only a degree less ignorant and disorderly than themselves, for in those days the curate of Stretford kept an ale-house, the rector of Chorlton eked out a scanty subsistence by doing a little private pawnbroking, while the parson of Blackley was “passing rich” on a stipend of £2 3s. 4d. a year.
Such was the Manchester of which Dee had become the ecclesiastical head. However apathetic he may have been as to the spiritual affairs of the parishioners committed to his care, he was by no means wanting in energy when his own temporal interests were concerned. Scarcely had he taken up his abode at the College than we find him entertaining at dinner two influential tenants—Sir John Byron, of Clayton, and his son, and bargaining with them about the price of hay before the grass was actually grown. A month later he records the “possession taking in Salford,” and he quickly found himself in litigation with the College tenants of some of the lands there. The tenants were a source of trouble, and oftentimes disturbed the even tenor of his way, while the collecting of his tithes was not unfrequently a cause of anxiety also. He complains of being “occupied with low controversies, as with Holden of Salford, and the tenants of Sir John Biron, of Faylsworth,” of “much disquietnes and controversy about the tythe-corn of Hulme,” of the “Cromsall corne-tyth” being “dowted of and half denyed,” and then “utterly denyed,” and of his riding to Sir John Byron “for a quietnes,” and “to talk with him abowt the controversy between the Colledg and his tenants.” Notwithstanding these unhappy disputations he had some pleasant days. Thus, on the 26th June (1596), as he tells us—
The Erle of Derby, with the Lady Gerard, Sir (Richard) Molynox and his lady, dawghter to the Lady Gerard, Master Hawghton, and others, cam suddenly uppon (me), after three of the clok. I made them a skoler’s collation, and it was taken in good part. I browght his honor and the ladyes to Ardwyk grene toward Lyme, as Mr. Legh his howse, 12 myles of, &c.
Dee was eager for sympathy and approval of his favourite schemes and pursuits, and, being a man of the world, he knew the value of such friendships. As he was, moreover, given to hospitality, there is little doubt the “skoler’s collation” would be as sumptuous as the College larder would afford. A few days later (July 5) he was visited by Mr. Harry Savill, the antiquary, and Mr. Christopher Saxton, the eminent chorographer, who had come to make a survey of the town; and on the following day, Dee, with Saxton and some others, rode over to Hough Hall, in Withington, the mansion of Sir Nicholas Mosley, who had in the same year become the purchaser of the manor of Manchester. The survey was completed on the 10th July, and on the 14th Saxton “rode away.” It is much to be regretted that no copy of Saxton’s work, so far as is known, has been preserved; for an authentic plan of the town in Elizabeth’s reign would be a valuable addition to the topographical records of Manchester, and would enable us to see exactly what progress was made in the extension of the town between that time and the Commonwealth period, when another survey—the earliest reliable one extant—was taken.
Before the close of the first year of his Wardenship, Dee was invited to exercise the power he was commonly believed to possess of casting out devils; but he prudently declined. About two years previously five members of the household of Mr. Nicholas Starkey, of Cleworth, in Leigh parish, became demoniacally possessed, through the influence, as was said, of a conjuror named Hartley. Margaret Byrom, of Salford, who happened to be on a visit at Cleworth, became infected with the malady. This occurred on the 9th January, 1596–7; and at the end of the month she returned to her friends at Salford, when Dee was importuned to deliver her from the evil spirit which tormented her. The Warden, however, refused, telling her friends he would practise no such unlawful arts as they desired; but, instead, advised they should “call for some godlye preachers, with whom he should consult concerning a public or private fast,” and at the same time he sharply rebuked Hartley for following his contraband calling. Possibly the failure of his previous attempt to exorcise the spirit in the case of “Nurse Anne Frank” had induced a wholesome prudence on his part, though his refusal made him unpopular with his parishioners, who were offended at his withholding the relief they believed it was in his power to give, and his Puritan colleagues took advantage of his unpopularity to make his life miserable. Oliver Carter, who had held his fellowship for more than a quarter of a century, and had become the recognised head of the Presbyterian faction in the district, was chief among the malcontents, and a sore thorn in the side the doctor found him. Carter disliked alchemical philosophers as much as he hated Popish recusants, and denounced the Warden’s intercourse with the spirit world as a scandal upon the Church. The Presbyterian Fellow had little respect for lawfully-constituted authority, and his open resistance in matters of ceremony had aforetime brought him in collision even with the cautious and temperate Bishop Chadderton, who had found it necessary to enforce some little submission to ecclesiastical law. It is not surprising, therefore, that he should have shown little regard for the authority of the new comer, whom he looked upon as a Court spy, and detested accordingly. He was a continuous source of annoyance, and his contumacious demeanour, his “impudent and evident disobedience in the Church,” and persistent obstructiveness are frequently complained of, thus—
Jan. 22, 1579.—Olyver Carter’s thret to sue me with proces from London, &c., was this Satterday in the church declared to Robert Cleg.
Sept. 25.—Mr. Olyver Carter his impudent and evident disobedience in the church.
Sept. 26.—He repented, and some pacification was made.
Nov. 14.—The fellows would not grant me the £5 for my howse-rent, as the Archbishop had graunted; and our foundation commandeth an howse.
July 17, 1600.—I willed the fellows to com to me by nine the next day.
July 18.—They cam. It is to be noted of the great pacification unexpected of man which happened this Friday; for in the forenone (betwene nine and ten), when the fellows were greatly in doubt of my heavy displeasure, by reason of their manifold misusing of themselves against me, I did with all lenity enterteyn them, and shewed the most part of the things that I had browght to pass at London for the colledg good, and told Mr. Carter (going away) that I must speak with him alone. Robert Leghe (one of the four clerks) and Charles Legh (the brother of Robert, and receiver) were by. Secondly, the great sute betwene Redich (Redditch) men and me was stayed, and Mr. Richard Holland his wisdom. Thirdly, the organs uppon condition were admitted. And, fourthly, Mr. Williamson’s resignation granted for a preacher to be gotten from Cambridge.
Reconciliation was thus effected, but it was not long before there was a renewal of hostilities, for, under date Sept. 11, we find—
Mr. Holland, of Denton, Mr. Gerard, of Stopford (Stockport), Mr. Langley, &c., commissioners from the Bishop of Chester, authorised by the Bishop of Chester, did call me before them in the Church abowt thre of the clok, after none, and did deliver to me certayne petitions put up by the fellows against me to answer before the 18th of this month. I answered them all codem tempore, and yet they gave me leave to write at leiser.
Amid these harassing anxieties and unseemly disputations with the unruly Fellows, Dee’s alchemical studies were not neglected. He had secured another medium in the place of Kelly—Bartholomew Hickman, who turned out to be nearly as great a knave, though not nearly half so clever as his predecessor, and, losing confidence, Dee discharged him and burnt all the records of what he had seen and heard in the wonderful show-stone. The next day Roger Kooke, who had previously been in the service of the philosopher, and to whom he had revealed “the great secret of the elixir of the salt of metals,” offered “the best of his skill and powre, in the practises chymicall.” He was quickly set to work, but young Arthur Dee finding by chance among his papers what seemed a plot against the father, he was charged with the conspiracy, when Dee cried, “O Deus libera nos a malo! All was mistaken, and we are reconcyled godly;” and he again dreamed of his “working the philosopher’s stone.” He would appear, however, to have subsequently parted with Kooke, for before his death Hickman had been restored to favour.
Though devoted to scientific pursuits, it must not be supposed that the Warden neglected his official duties, or that he was by any means unmindful of the secular interests of the Collegiate body. His business exactitude and active zeal in this direction, however, did not always meet with the approval of his neighbours, or at least of such of them as happened to be tithe-farmers or College tenants. In May of the year following his induction we find him with his curate, Sir Robert Barber (clerics commonly affected the prefix of “Sir” in those days), Robert Tilsey, the parish clerk, and “diverse of the town of diverse ages,” making a careful perambulation of the bounds of the parish with the view of determining its exact limits, a procedure that somewhat alarmed Mr. Langley, the rector of the adjoining parish of Prestwich, who smelt litigation in Dee’s anxiety “for avoiding of undue encroaching of any neighbourly parish, one on the other.” On another occasion he was careful to note that—
At midnight (January 22, 1599), the College gate toward Hunt’s Hall did fall, and some parte of the wall going downe the lane—
the “lane” being the narrow passage that led from the north side of the church, by the venerable tree where bulls were baited, and past the prison to Irk Bridge, then known as Hunt’s Bank, a name it retained until modern times, when it was superseded by the present Victoria Street. The gate-house, which, as before stated, was at one time used as a workhouse, stood on this, the westerly side of the great quadrangle, the gates opening into Hunt’s Bank. Though they have long since disappeared, the evidences of their former existence may still be traced in the wall.
After an absence in London he paid an official visit to the Grammar School, where he “fownd great imperfection in all and every of the scholers, to his great grief,” a record that must be taken as reflecting on Dr. Cogan, the head master, whose time appears to have been divided between the teaching of youth and the practice of physic. In August, 1597, the “Erle and Cowntess of Derby” having taken up their abode at Aldport Lodge, Dee entertained them at “a banket at my lodging at the Colledge hora 4½.” There are many other entries of visits from distinguished personages, among them Sir Urian Legh, of Adlington, the reputed hero of the ballad of “The Spanish Lady;” Sir George Booth, sheriff of Cheshire; Mr. Wortley, of Wortley. Probably, also, Camden, the historian, for it is recorded that when that distinguished antiquary visited the town, Dee pointed out to him the inscription of some Roman remains at Castle Field, attributable to the Frisian cohort, which occupied the station there. While dispensing his hospitalities the poor old man was suffering from lack of money, his financial difficulties being as great as ever, and we find him raising loans on the security of his diminished stock of plate, &c.—
Feb. 17, 1597.—Delivered to Charles Legh the elder (the receiver of College before referred to), my silver tankard with the cover, all dubble gilt, of the Cowntess of Herford’s gift to Francis her goddaughter, waying 22oz., great waight, to lay to pawne in his own name to Robert Welshman, for iiijli tyll within two dayes after May-day next. My dowghter Katherin and John Crocker and I myself were at the delivery of it and waying of it in my dyning chamber—it was wrapped in a new handkercher cloth.
Many similar transactions are recorded—indeed, he appears to have been continually borrowing money from his friends, and almost as frequently lending his books to them. Dee was certainly not one of those who believe that “imparted knowledge doth diminish learning’s store,” for he was ever ready to place his literary treasures at the service of others, and frequent entries occur of his lending rare and valuable works to those he thought capable of understanding and appreciating them.
It was some little relief to him when, on the 2nd December, 1600, his son Arthur had a grant of the chapter clerkship, though before he could pay £6 for the patent he
Borrowed of Mr. Edmund Chetham, the schoolmaster (the uncle of Humphrey, the founder) £10 for one yere uppon plate, two bowles, two cupps with handles, all silver, waying all 32oz. Item, two potts with cover and handells, double gilt within and without, waying 16oz.
The Warden’s pecuniary embarrassments kept him in discredit with his parishioners, who naturally looked with disfavour upon an ecclesiastic that did not pay his debts, especially when, as they believed, it required only a very little closer intimacy with the evil one to enable him to do so. The fellows maintained their hostility, his neighbours became more and more unfriendly, the urgency of his creditors was oppressive, and on every hand he was assailed with suspicions of sorcery. The nine years he was in Manchester was the most wretched portion of his life. Unable to bear the odium attaching to him, he petitioned King James that he might be brought to trial, “and by a judicial sentence be freed from the revolting imputations” his astrological and other inquiries had brought upon him; but Elizabeth’s wary successor, who detested his mysteries, would have nothing to say to him. Weary with the struggle, he quitted Manchester in November, 1604, and once more sought shelter in the house at Mortlake. Of the closing years of his chequered life little is known, but that little is sad enough. The friends of former years had died or forgotten him, and the new generation of Court favourites left him to pass his few remaining days in poverty, sickness, and desolation. After all his tricks and conjurations the once haughty philosopher was reduced to such miserable straits that he oftentimes had to sell some of his books before he could obtain the means wherewith to purchase a meal. The prediction of the Earl of Salisbury that he “would shortly go mad” was nearly being realised, for in the midst of his poverty, and while on the very verge of the grave, he resumed his occult practices, in which he was aided by the formerly discarded Bartholomew Hickman. At last, in poverty and neglect, wearied and worn out, the miserable wreck of an ill-spent life, he, in 1608, passed away at the advanced age of 81, and was buried in the chancel of the church at Mortlake without any tombstone or other memorial to preserve his name.