John Dee

John Dee was educated in Greek, mathematics and astronomy at St. John's College, Cambridge, but travelled widely in Europe to complete his studies. He was awarded his BA in 1546 and shortly afterwards appointed Fellow & Under-Reader in Greek at Trinity College. He was, even at such a young age, widely regarded as a brilliant academic. As a young man he could number among his patrons the Earl of Pembroke and the Duchess of Northumberland (mother in law to the ill-fated Jane Grey). Later, he became tutor at the court of King Edward VI, where he taught the king and Robert Dudley. Later patronage came through numerous prominent noblemen and women about the court of Elizabeth, where he regularly advised the Queen and her ministers on matters of astronomy, navigation and geography, history, trade and commerce, (he was the first to pen the term 'British Empire').

At his home in Mortlake, close to London on the Thames, Dee became an avid collector of rare manuscripts and books, as well as numerous devices, mechanical, astronomical and optical pieces from all over the world. It was the forerunner of the British Library and was, in its day, possibly the largest collection of learned works in existence. The library alone is thought to have consisted of anything up to 4000 books - which does not sound all that impressive by today's standards, but we need to remember that in the 16th century books were precious and very expensive objects. By comparison, the library at Oxford university numbered a mere 400 books at the time. Mortlake was the epi-centre of the academic universe in Elizabethan England.

In 1570, Dee published his famous Mathematical Preface to the first English translation of Euclid by Henry Billingsley - a work that had a profound influence on the practical application of mathematics in England, applying new methods in geometry and maths to subjects as diverse as astronomy, navigation, architecture and geography. He urged calendar reform and wrote extensively on developments in astronomy such as comets and super nova - and was also one of the first in England to champion the revolutionary theories of the then-radical Polish astronomer Copernicus. Together with his friend Thomas Digges, it is even possible that he had a hand in the invention of the telescope.

VIRGIN AND THE CRAB - Sketches, Fables and Mysteries from the early life of John Dee and Elizabeth Tudor

Among John Dee's associates we find most of the great men and women of the age. There is hardly a development or invention in all of Elizabethan society over which he did not have some kind of influence or over which his advice was no sought by others.

John Dee was a friend and confidant of Queen Elizabeth for most of her life (he was a little older than her, and he outlived her by a few years). He was her 'noble intelligencer' or at other times 'her eyes.' He served her as astrologer and advisor on everything from navigation and exploration, to alchemy and medicine. She granted him freedom to pursue his studies, no matter how controversial these might become. She regularly summoned him to Court for his advice and counsel, and she would often visit him and his wife Jane, quite spontaneously, at his home in Mortlake. Jane was one of Elizabeth's maids of honour before her marriage to Dee.

One of Elizabeth's closest ladies in waiting throughout most of her life, including her childhood, was Dee's cousin Blanche Parry (she was also godmother to one of Dee's children). Blanche became Chief Gentlewoman of the Privy Chamber at court following Elizabeth's coronation in 1559 and remained at the Queen's side for an unbroken period of 31 more years. See: www.squidoo.com/blanche-parry

When did Dee and Elizabeth first meet?

The answer to this must be speculation, but we do know that Dee's father was employed about the court of Henry VIII, and Elizabeth as a child often stayed at court, of course. Dee's tutors, Roger Ascham and John Cheke, both distinguished Cambridge scholars, were employed as tutors to the children at Court, including the young King Edward and Elizabeth herself. Dee later joined them and was employed in a similar capacity, as tutor of mathematics. It was at this time, that he and Elizabeth probably first met. Her life-long interest in geography, mathematics and astronomy/astrology would have almost certainly have meant that Dee was her tutor as well in some capacity. Some fictional works such as the novel 'Virgin and the Crab' by Parry take this possibility a stage further, suggesting that Dee and Elizabeth might have realised a common purpose together at a very early age. As with so many facets of 16th Century culture and politics, however, we simply do not know.

He first becomes connected with Elizabeth in an official, recorded sense, however, in 1558 when he was asked to draw up a propitious time and date for the coronation of January the following year. This was astrology, of course - and what was termed an 'electional chart' - the premise of which is that if the beginnings of any undertaking or venture are good, then the future will be good also. Like a seed planted in fertile ground. It certainly seems to have worked in this instance.

How often did Dee and Elizabeth meet?

Dee's own diaries do not, unfortunately cover the early part of his life all that well, and are at best sketchy and incomplete even when availabe to the modern historian. However, there are several entries in which we learn that Elizabeth, as Queen, visited Dee at his home in Mortlake, usually spontaneously. Reasons for visiting were probably varied. The Queen did make contributions financially to help Dee with his work, and she also had a keen interest in inventions of all kinds. On one occasion in 1575 she came to Mortlake to see the astrologer's 'magic glass' - though what exactly this might have been is still the subject of speculation. Some believe it to have been a distorting mirror - like we have at a fairground - so an object of entertainment. In Spencer's 'Faerie Queene' it becomes 'a glass globe that Merlin made in which the Queen might spy her lover.' All rather frivolous. Given the fact that Dee and his colleague Thomas Digges were constantly experimenting with lenses and mirrors, it might even have been the forerunner of the telescope.

Two more examples, among many, of their meetings: In 1577, Dee was summoned to Court to advise on the implications of a sudden appearance of a comet. Then, in 1578, Dee was consulted over "her Majestie's grievous pangs and pains by reason of toothake and the rheume etc." Shortly after this, we find Dee sent overseas to consult with other physicians on this and perhaps other matters of personal importance to the Queen. These kinds of comings and goings were typical. They were life-long associates. Elizabeth often provided funds for his research and in 1592 he was granted the Wardenship of Christ's College, Manchester - a post which marked one of the least successful periods in his later life, however.

VIRGIN AND THE CRAB - Sketches, Fables and Mysteries from the early life of John Dee and Elizabeth Tudor

Surveys in our own times often reveal that around half of us actually believe in angels - or in some kind of benign entity that watches over us in some sense and comes to our aid in times of need. John Dee not only believed in angels, he also spoke with them, saw them occasionally and also devoted a considerable portion of his life receiving information from them, including an entirely new language.

We know that he was intensely interested in the work of earlier philosophers like the 'Stenographia' by Trithemius - thought to be a combination of a magical treatise in the traditional style of the middle ages, and also an instruction in the art of ciphers and codes. But the real breakthrough for Dee seems to have come in his middle years, starting perhaps with some not particular successful attempts at scrying (gazing into a crystal or dark mirror) and then with the sudden and miraculous event that happened to him one evening while working in his study at Mortlake.

THE ANGEL AT THE WINDOW

Among all the sober and scientific writings of Dee, one of the most remarkable is the fragment in which he describes how he was given the crystal or 'shewstone' with which he and his scryers did most of their work. It was one evening towards sunset when a angel in the form of a small child appeared standing in the sunbeams of his study window. the angel held in its hand a thing 'most bright, most clere and glorius, of the bigness of an egg.' the archangel Michael with his sword of fire appeared next and bade Dee 'Go forward, take it up, and let no mortall hand touch it but thine own.'

Shortly after this, Dee met with the man who was to successfully scry for him and aid him in his research - Edward Kelley. Kelley had a rather dubious background and a criminal record for fraud, and the two men made an unlikely combination. But it was a relationship that lasted. Together they and their wives toured much of Europe, staying at one royal court after another during the 1580s - all the while experimenting in alchemy and conducting literally hundreds of séances in which they spoke directly to the angelic hierarchies.

So what was really going one? Did John Dee really communicate with angels, or was he deluding himself? Were the hundreds of pages of dialogue recorded through his seer and scryer Edward Kelley as he sat with Dee over a crystal, deep in prayer, all nonsense, or was it instead a cover for what was really an elaborate system of coded messages and ciphers for the purposes of espionage? Could it even have been all of these all at the same time?

John Dee and his beliefs cannot be viewed in isolation to the times in which he lived, and there was ample precedence for communication of these kinds of spiritual beings throughout the renaissance period, and much earlier of course. In these belief systems it is important to remember that man was seen as being composed of celestial material - something divine rather than the orthodox Christian view that man is merely dust. It is this kind of belief that often put people like Dee at variance with the authorities of the Church and State. A contemporary of Dee's, the astronomer and philosopher Giordano Bruno was burnt at the stake in 1600 for similar views, so it is no surprise that much of Dee's revelations and scientific study remained shrouded in secrecy.

Dee believed there was a noble purpose to his work. He believed in the possibility of a universal religion one day through which all faiths would be reconciled (it is more than likely that Queen Elizabeth also shared these views). The means towards this end was possibly direct revelation through his angelic beings. Ultimately, however, Dee was a practical man, and a realist. His motto was 'nothing useful if not honest.' And so I think we must give him the benefit of the doubt. He was much too canny and intelligent a man to be deceived by any trickery that his scryer Kelley would have ever dreamt up, and he certainly believed that what he experienced was genuine and real.

John Dee and his work had an immense influence on the golden Elizabethan age. Among his students and those who consulted him on matters as diverse as navigation and metallurgy were some of the notable figures of the times including Sir Walter Raleigh (shown here in the portrait), Richard Chancellor, John Davis, Martin Frobisher, Adrian and Humphrey Gilbert, Christopher Hall, Charles Jackman, Anthony Jenkinson, Arthur Pet, Sir Philip Sidney, Sir Francis Drake, William Camden, Leonard and Thomas Digges, Edward Dyer, Sir Francis Walsingham, the Hakluyts, Thomas Harriot, Sir Christopher Hatton, Sir William Pickering, Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester - and, of course, Elizabeth the Queen herself along with most of her ministers, including William Cecil. Meanwhile, he could number among his overseas friends and colleagues luminaries such as Mercator, Cardan, Bruno, Ramus and Ortelius, to name but a few.

He also enjoyed the patronage from the Pembroke, Grey and Northumberland families in England, from the Marchioness of Northampton - and overseas, from the Habsburg Emperors Charles, Maximillian and Rudolph, from Henri of France, and from Prince Laski and King Stephen of Poland. He received offers of employment and patronage from Tsar Ivan in Russia and from numerous universities in Europe and at home. He was advisor to the pioneering Muscovy trading company and was involved in the planning of numerous voyages of exploration made by the great English seafarers. He was intimately involved in the Sydney circle of artists and intellectuals and in 1580, at the Queen's request, he prepared a document listing the territories legally subject to her rule. A career spanning several decades as a leading geographer, mathematician and chemist, enjoying the friendship and support of his Queen throughout, is no mean achievement and would, under normal circumstances, set John Dee in a position of being one of the greatest of Englishmen.

VIRGIN AND THE CRAB - Sketches, Fables and Mysteries from the early life of John Dee and Elizabeth Tudor

Description of Dee

"Hee had a very cleare rosie complexion, a long beard as white as milke. A very handsome man, he was tall and slender. He wore a gowne like an artist's gowne, with hanging sleeves, and a slitt. A mighty good man he was."
John Aubrey in 'Brief Lives'

Was John Dee a spy? We shouldn't be surprised to discover that the man himself did not leave behind too many clues in this respect. The available evidence, however, does rather suggest the answer to this question has to be yes.

The Elizabethan Court saw the beginnings of a proper, organised network of intelligence gatherers under firstly William Cecil, and later Francis Walsingham. Dee knew both intimately. There are many references to Dee having been in communication with Cecil and Walsingham while overseas, and they often visited one another. Dee was always travelling - and many of his journeys could have been connected with espionage, particularly during the 1580's, a difficult period for England, marked by numerous treasons, the execution of Mary Queen of Scots and the Spanish Armada. It is possible that Dee's angelic conversations staged in Prague at this critical time were in part a cleverly disguised system of ciphers for the purposes of sending messages home to England.

The Original James Bond?

Dee's involvement with the early years of the secret service is perhaps reflected in the fictional character created by author Ian Fleming of 007 - James Bond. Did Fleming base this, tongue in cheek, on John Dee who used to sign some of his documents with the 007 glyph?

The Public Record Office in London today has works containing around 200 cipher-codes dating from Elizabethan times. That they were in use cannot be denied, nor can the fact that Dee himself was fascinated by codes and ciphers. While on the continent browsing in the bookshops of Antwerp, he discovered a copy of a rare and little known manuscript "Stenographia" by Trithemius (1462-1516). This work is described by modern scholars as 'the first studied work on cipher writing,' and as partly a treatise on cryptography in which the methods of encipherment are disguised as magic. Dee was so excited about his discovery that he wrote to Secretary of State Cecil requesting permission to linger on in the region in order to discuss the book with others.

Later, Dee often refers in his diaries or letters to journeys undertaken on the Queen's business, or at the behest of the Earl of Leicester or Francis Walsingham (the head of the Elizabethan secret service). Here are some examples from 1578:

'The Earl of Leicester and Sir Francis Walsingham determined my going over for the queen's Majesty."
'I was directed to my voyage by the Earl of Leicester and Mr Secretary Walsingham.'
'I came to Hamburg, hona tertia.'
'To Frankfurt-upon-Oder.' and so on.

Messengers would also be sent to Dee, from Walsingham, while overseas. Meanwhile, the 17th century scientist Robert Hooke, who was himself an expert in ciphers, stated that he believed Dee's angelic conversations were a system of ciphers, though he never explained his conclusions. Perhaps they were, after all, still secret!

VIRGIN AND THE CRAB - Sketches, Fables and Mysteries from the early life of John Dee and Elizabeth Tudor