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The Arch-Conjuror of England

YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

Chapter One

John Dee was born into a world resonating with magical forces, which surrounded him to the end of his life. Within days of his birth on 13 July 1527 he was baptised in the ancient Gothic church of St Dunstan's-in-the-East, just west of the Tower of London, between Tower and Thames streets. His parents, Roland and Jane, like their neighbours, believed that the rituals and prayers of the elaborate ceremony would expel the Devil, save John's soul and rescue him from limbo. The baptismal water, salt and oil had been exorcised by repeated prayers and signs of the cross at a Sunday high Mass. After immersing John in the font three times, the priest, resplendent in a rich cope reflecting the flickering light from dozens of candles burning before images of Christ and the saints, repeated the holy words that gave the hallowed substances power to drive out unclean spirits. He then placed the salt in John's mouth, made the sign of the cross on his head, chest and hands with water, and anointed his forehead with the holy oil, over which he tied a chrisom cloth to be burnt when his mother returned for her purification. Then the holy water was locked away to prevent its use in illicit magic, and John's godparents washed their hands to remove any holy oil.

Fifty years later John would use 'holy oil' in a futile attempt to exorcise demons from one of his servants. To the end of his life he believed implicitly that the sign of the cross, and the formulaic repetition of holy words, had the power to ward off evil. Thus he retained elements of the Catholicism of his childhood and youth, which incorporated the magical beliefs of laypeople into a flexible and familiar ritual marking the seasons of the year. As a child John learnt to pray from a Book of Hours or Primer, designed for laypeople who believed that invisible demonic enemies surrounded them, provoking harm and discord. John would later complain that Satan stirred up backbiters to accuse him of 'conjuring'. Some Primer prayers did not just appeal for God's help, but like spells and charms presumed that incantations of God's magical names and repeated signs of the cross would conjure angelic assistance against human and demonic enemies. Other prayers would win favour before the King, or protect against thieves, fevers, plague, fire and drowning. Young John's contemporaries attributed the results both to God's grace and the inherent power of His magical names, which also featured in spells conjuring spirits for divination, whether into a child's well-polished thumbnail, a sword, a basin of holy water or a crystal.

While John was growing to manhood in the 1540s, and learning to conjure his own spirits, such beliefs remained popular from the King's Court downwards. Only gradually would 'elite' Catholic clergy tacitly accept Protestant criticisms by distancing themselves from 'popular' magical beliefs, leaving John exposed to attacks as a 'conjuror'. John's training in 'magic' therefore began with his experience of the Catholic ritual year during the last decade before Protestants and, in response, Catholic reformers began to undermine its comfortable certainties.

At Candlemas on 2 February every parishioner would carry a blessed candle in procession, before offering it to the priest at Mass to burn before the image of the Virgin. The priest would then bless many more candles, giving them power to make Satan's minions flee. Parishioners took these candles home to protect against demons who filled the air during thunderstorms, for reassurance in times of sickness and to comfort the dying. The ashes distributed on Ash Wednesday, like the 'palms' blessed on Palm Sunday (actually green branches of yew, box or willow) would also protect the house from evil spirits. Handmade crosses assembled during the reading of the Passion story that day were believed to have great protective powers. At Rogationtide in late May or June, parishioners formed processions to drive the Devil and evil spirits from the parish and restore neighbourly unity, singing the litany of the saints and reading the Gospels, carrying banners, handbells and processional crosses. Dee could recall those occasions sixty years later, when he led processions that beat the parish boundaries at Manchester to settle tithe disputes.

Most parishioners received the Blessed Sacrament once a year, at Easter, after confessing and being absolved by a priest, and reconciling quarrels with neighbours, the steps Dee would follow in Prague more than fifty years later. The Easter Mass was the peak of the ritual year and emphasised the special priestly power to recreate the body of Christ, flesh and blood that renewed the bonds of the Christian community. Adoring the Blessed Sacrament at its moment of elevation brought great benefits, not only signifying God's protection over body and soul but also working as a magical charm that protected individuals against sickness, bad weather, robbery, the perils of childbirth and epidemics. Every weekday shorter 'low' versions of the Mass reinforced belief in the priesthood's special status, when priests actually created the Sacrament and distributed other 'sacramentals', holy bread and holy water, which were also imbued with great protective power. Only priests could touch the sacred vessels with bare hands, such was the power that emanated from Christ's body and blood, the 'angel meat' as one contemporary described it. No wonder John Dee became a Catholic priest himself at the age of twenty-six.

In the light of his later occult studies and 'imperial' writings, it is somehow appropriate that Dee grew up in the church of St Dunstan, the much-venerated tenth-century patron saint of goldsmiths, and thus alchemists, renowned for his artistic skill in precious metalwork (hallmarks still change annually on his feast day, 19 May) but excessively prone to visions of angels and evil spirits. According to legend, in one contest he took the Devil by the nose with his red-hot tongs, which became Dunstan's symbol ever afterwards. Sixteenth-century Protestants preferred to retail accusations of witchcraft and necromancy, which had dogged his reputation for five centuries. Dunstan had restored Glastonbury Abbey, the legendary hiding place for mysterious alchemical books and even the philosopher's stone itself, as Dee would discover. As Archbishop of Canterbury, Dunstan had crowned King Edgar, who was later Dee's model as the first 'imperial' monarch of Britain after Arthur.

Merchants and traders congregated in the crowded, noisy parish of St Dunstan's, whose narrow streets ran down to the busy warehouses, quays and cranes near Billingsgate, London's major dock, the Customs House, and the hundreds of ships anchored just below London Bridge. From there brave men set sail on epic voyages of discovery, and to such men the mature John Dee would give important advice. About the time of John's birth, Robert Thorne tried to interest Henry VIII in exploring the North-West Passage to search for the fabled riches of Cathay, and John would later acquire his speculative map of that route. Mercantile wealth accumulated in less ambitious ventures, particularly exporting woollen cloth to the Netherlands, ensured that St Dunstan's large church was well maintained; over fifteen tombs and a small chapel commemorated the local merchant dynasties. When John was a boy the laity controlled much of the church's decoration and services, through the guilds or brotherhoods of the Holy Trinity and 'Our Lady'.

Thanks to generations of devout donors, the wall paintings and windows illustrated the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, the Apostle's Creed, the Ten Commandments, the seven works of mercy, the seven virtues, the seven vices and the seven sacraments. The guilds used their income from properties to ensure that candles burned constantly before the images of the crucified Christ, Mary and Joseph on the Rood screen, and before the many brightly painted images of the saints, those powerful advocates and comforting friends whose shrines filled the church. On festival days, devotees would dress those images in rich velvet coats, with little silver shoes. Even though some precious altar vessels disappeared while John's father, Roland, was churchwarden, in August 1549 St Dunstan's could still count in gold and silver to grace its altar four chalices, two basins, two incense censers, two candlesticks, two cressets (for oil), and several silver sheep, religious symbols but also tokens of the wool trade. Above them rose 'the Great Cross with Beryl', at its centre a huge crystal shining and sparkling in the candlelight. Dee must have seen that cross many times, and whenever in after years he crossed himself he would pause in the middle of his chest in memory of that profound junction, where in his occult philosophy he would place the philosopher's stone.

Dee later claimed descent from Welsh princes, even from Arthur and Cadwallader themselves. In reality the House of Dee clung to its Arthurian legends as threadbare covering for its far more modest Tudor status. On the Radnorshire border with England the extended family, there spelt 'Ddu', the Welsh for 'Black', were accounted mere yeomen cattle farmers, hardly gentlemen at all. When they migrated to London as small-time merchants the Cockneys called them 'Dye'. Roland had followed the example of his first cousin, Hugh Dee, who had risen highest in the world. Hugh had become a Yeoman of the Crown by 1514. Over the next decade Henry VIII rewarded him with important local positions. By 1526 Hugh had become joint mayor of Worcester. He represented the town in the Parliament of 1529, which rejected the Pope's authority and made Henry VIII Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Other branches of the Dee family followed Hugh's example. The Court offered ambitious men of limited means and common blood a path to advancement. Through relatively minor positions close to the King, they could develop strong personal bonds with the monarch, who used trusted men to build up his client network in the localities. Roland Dee tried to emulate his cousin's career. Roland's prospects brightened with his marriage in 1524 to Jane, the fifteen-year-old heiress of William Wilde of Milton-next-Gravesend in Kent. Jane gave birth to a daughter in 1525 and to John in 1527, then to three more sons. The Wilde family had also risen through service in the King's Chamber and through strong connections with the Kentish magnate, Sir Henry Wyatt. By marrying Jane, Roland gained an alliance that offered political insurance. He would need it in the rough and tumble of the Tudor political world he now entered. St Dunstan's lay in Tower Ward, dominated by the looming Norman fortress, where both Roland and John would later find themselves imprisoned for backing the wrong side in deadly infighting at Court. If the instruments of torture in the Tower dungeons, the scaffold and gallows on Tower Hill, had not warned them, the many fresh traitors' heads displayed on the gatehouse of London Bridge nearby surely would have.

As a Mercer, Roland prospered sufficiently in the cloth trade to enrol John in Chelmsford Grammar School, where as the first in his family to move into the world of learning, John mastered the elements of Latin grammar. Besides funding his son's education, Roland's trade gave young John an appreciation of the power of 'vulgar' numbers, as he later called them, in contrast to those divine 'formal' numbers by which God created the world. To succeed, his father had to calculate speedily and accurately the size and number of cloths, customs dues, exchange rates, and profit-and-loss margins.

Also, merchants looked beyond England's borders. The Mercers dominated the export cloth trade, their customs duties providing much of the Crown's income. Roland Dee's rising status amongst the guild made John appreciate the importance of naval power in the Narrow Seas to protect England's dominant outlet through the great port of Antwerp. Naval power also supported the strategic priorities of King Henry's 'empire'. Both numbers and empire would bulk large in John's life.

Roland followed his kinsmen in becoming a 'gentleman sewer' to Henry VIII. He superintended the table arrangements, seated the guests and served the dishes at the King's lengthy feasts. Roland's title marked his rise into the gentry. His coveted position ensured close personal access to Henry, offering opportunities for influence peddling. It placed Roland alongside useful contacts such as Richard Cecil, and it was to his son William that John Dee would repeatedly turn for patronage. Roland exploited his opportunities, for the 1541 tax assessment rated him as worth £100. This placed him amongst the richest half dozen merchants in St Dunstan's. The Mercers acknowledged his success by taking him into the exclusive Livery of the Company on 19 February 1543. Roland would reach the peak of his fortunes the following year, only to crash disastrously in 1547 (see p. 13).

Roland's position close to the King gave John access to the Court. By now Henry was a bloated caricature of the dazzling young prince on whom many Renaissance humanists had pinned their hopes. Yet his major palaces such as Hampton Court, Greenwich, Windsor and Westminster still provided a backdrop of immense wealth for his swaggering kingship. Stuffed with costly furniture, carpets, tapestries, mirrors, maps of the world, of England, Rome, Jerusalem and other cities, embroidered hangings, statues and clocks, these palaces also offered the young John his first encounter with celestial and terrestrial globes, and perhaps astronomical instruments like astrolabes. He later owned a manuscript by the King's astronomer, Nicholas Kratzer, featuring his famous fixed and portable sundials, which John would also construct. Henry also employed as chaplain and alchemist one Robert Broke, who toiled in the steamy distilling houses at Westminster making the many essential oils and tinctures that the King's decaying body required.

Roland's rise depended on Henry VIII, who liberally rewarded his intimate servants for their services. In return he relied on their personal loyalty in crucial positions. England's kings had always struggled against Customs fraud. Henry's free-spending ways required him to maximise his Customs revenue. By 1534, when the King's break with Rome left England internationally isolated, his need for money had become gargantuan. His chief minister Thomas Cromwell, who was personally familiar with corruption in the cloth trade, in 1534 reminded himself to speak to Henry about 'the packer of London'. Henry later appointed a Privy Chamber servant as King's Packer, to oversee the packing and weighing of merchandise, preventing the City's own Packer from conniving with merchants to defraud the Customs.

By May 1544, needing even greater sums for his French war, Henry intensified Customs oversight by appointing his trusted personal servant Roland Dee as Packer to the Strangers. Roland's experience and loyalty qualified him to oversee the City's Packer, assessing customs on exports by foreigners, and charging fees for packing them. The Packership probably brought Roland £400 a year. (Under Elizabeth I, Customs reformers were to consider Roland's appointment a model for a Queen's Packer whose 'skill and judgement' would enhance Crown revenues.) A year later, in 1545, Flemish merchants officially complained that Roland's charges hindered their trade. Roland's increased income enabled him six months later to join a Mercer syndicate speculating in former monastic lands. Eventually these vast land sales impoverished the Crown and would make John's quest for royal patronage much harder. Yet more immediately, his father's new wealth supported the Cambridge education that would prepare John for royal service.

Dee entered St John's College, Cambridge, in November 1542, when freezing north-easterlies sweeping off the Fens at least moderated the stench from the dung heaps and open sewers befouling the little market town's narrow streets. Barely thirty years old, St John's contained nearly a quarter of the University's student body crammed into its single court, four or five students sleeping on truckle beds in their tutors' spartan rooms. That constellation of intellectual stars, split by regional, factional and religious tensions, had already begun an enduring tradition of backstabbing and skulduggery in Fellowship and Scholarship elections.

St John's Elizabethan reputation for breeding evangelical Protestants has obscured the importance of its Catholic humanists in Dee's time. Several St John's Catholics had already decamped to Louvain in the Habsburg-controlled Netherlands, unable to stomach Henry's schism from Rome. Soon more would choose deprivation, imprisonment and exile rather than accept the Edwardian and Elizabethan Reformations. All the teachers Dee gratefully remembered fifty years later belonged to the conservative humanist Catholic faction in St John's.

At fifteen Dee studied simplified Aristotelian logic with the outspoken Catholic, John Seton. After taking his Bachelor's degree in 1546, he would teach logic and sophistry for two years in the University Schools, before graduating Master of Arts in 1548. In the 1590s he still valued two treatises on logic and sophistry he had written as a young teacher, which mixed medieval scholastic methods with Renaissance humanism in Seton's conservative style. Seton would dispute with the Protestant martyrs Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley in 1554 and die in exile from the Elizabethan Church in 1561. Dee learnt his Aristotelian philosophy from Robert Pember, who became Greek Reader at Trinity College in December 1546, with Dee as his Under-Reader. Pember remained a lifelong committed Catholic.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from The Arch-Conjuror of England by GLYN PARRY Copyright © 2011 by Glyn Parry. Excerpted by permission of YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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