Monday, January 17, 2022

A Life of John Dee, Part 1.

In this series:

The life of John Dee is a sprawling affair of high academic honor, connections with some of the greatest minds in Europe, often rising to the level of friendships, access to the English Royal Court, and Quixotic travels through Europe that drove him into poverty and destroyed his reputation among intellectuals during his later life. He was a much sought after mathematician and teacher of Euclid, drew the horoscopes of Queen Mary and Princess Elizabeth, studied alchemy, was arrested on suspicion of practicing black magic and released, and, at the last, made the dupe of a charismatic charlatan.

The following is the first part of a review of Charlotte Fell Smith’s 1909 biography of Dee[1]. The second will follow.

 

In reality, John Dee was a man born out of due season. His age was not ready for him. In the times of the Tudors there was no place in the body politic for the professed man of science, unless he practiced his science covertly as a physician or a priest. Even then its pursuit  was attended with a considerable measure of personal peril. John Dee, it is true, dabbled in medicine, as he dabbled in most things that had any connection to the science of his period, and he was thereby of occasional service to his suffering fellows. For a time, too, his only means of came from a couple of wretchedly endowed country livings to which he was presented. But he was never recognized as a practicing physician, or as a professed priest. His life’s work was the pursuit of truth merely for the sake of elucidating it, an occupation unintelligible to his age. Apparently every aspect or form of truth was of equal importance to him; but, naturally enough, the direction in which he searched was influenced by his environment and the circumstances of his time. It was inevitable that such a man should sooner or later come into conflict with his age — a hard, unrelenting, pitiless age; and it was equally inevitable that he should be worsted in the fight. The spectacle of a strong man struggling with adversity is, we are told, a sight loved by the gods. We cannot help thinking that it is the spectacle of a sorely tried albeit misguided man, bent and well-nigh broken by the storms of fate, that has touched and quickened the womanly sympathy of the author of this book. Its compilation has evidently been a labour of love, or of the pity which is akin to it. Every page bears testimony to the patient care and trained skill with which the author has searched all available records and followed every clue which might serve to unravel the mystery of her hero’s life.

John Dee was born in London in 1527. his father, Rowland Dee, was a  gentlemen server in the court of Henry VIII. The boy was sent to the chantry Scholl and Chelmsford, and thereafter, at the age of fifteen to St. john ‘s College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1546, and was made fellow of Trinity at its foundation by Henry VIII. Two years later, after taking his M.A. degree, he entered the University of Louvain, and thence passed on to Paris, where he gave lectures at the university on Euclid. Returning to England, he produced one or two astronomical works, and a book on the cause of tides, presumably for the use of Edward VI. On the accession of Mary he got into trouble, and was thrown into prison on a charge of magic, and eventually of treason, and stood his trial by the Star Chamber. Nothing could be proved against him, and he was liberated, only to be handed over to the tender mercies of Bishop Bonner. He escaped even this ordeal and subsequently presented Mary with a project for the establishment of a great national library in which to preserve “the treasure of all antiquity,” the priceless collections of ancient literature which had been scattered by the dissolution of the monasteries and religious houses. Nothing came of the suggestion at the time. Aa couple of centuries had to elapse before the British Museum was founded, and it was only in the opening years of Queen Victoria’s reign that keepers of the public records were appointed and the Historical Manuscripts Commission was brought into existence.

Easier times came to Dee with the advent of Elizabeth. He was already well known to her. she had corresponded with him when confined to Woodstock. His position as a mathematician had been established, and the name of the editor of Billingsley’s “Euclid” was known throughout the the learned world. The friend of Mercator — “my Gerard,” as he calls him — he was esteemed, too, as a geographer skilled in cartography, and was constantly consulted by the great sea-captains of his time — Gilbert, Davis, Frobisher, Hawkins, Cavendish, and others of the remarkable band that created the sea-power of England. Dee had settled at Mortlake, where he was frequently visited by the Queen. Elizabeth had ever an eye for a comely man, and Dee was remarkably handsome, tall, stately, and of a dignified mien. The picture which Miss Fell Smith draws of his home life there, with his second wife — “his paynful Jane,” as he calls her, the staunchest, truest friend he ever had  — with the great Queen, either when “taking the ayre” or when on her way from Hampton Court or Isleworth to her palace at Greenwich, cantering up to his garden gate in order to get sight and speech of her courtly philosopher, this is a charming piece of word-painting. But these were not altogether halcyon days for Dee. Elizabeth was gracious, even profuse in promise, but she was very niggard in performance, and her astrologer was occasionally hard put to for the means of living.



[1] T. E. Thorpe. “John Dee.” Nature. December 2, 1909. 121-2.


Also at Virtual Grub Street:


  • White Wands, 1574 Plague Policy and the Context of Plague Times. December 30, 2021. “FOR auoyding of the increase and spreading of the infection of the plague wythin this Citie, so much as by good polycie it Iyeth in us to doe”.
  • The Funeral of Queen Mary I. December 13 & 14, 1558. November 30, 2021. “She was buried with a pomp suitable to her princely quality, by special order of the Queen her sister, and her Council”.
  • To Where Did Queen Elizabeth I Disappear in August 1564? July 18, 2021. “Leicestershire was in the opposite direction from London. Nichols could discover no more.”
  • Lady Southwell on the Final Days of Queen Elizabeth I.  March 24, 2019.  “her majesty told [Lady Scrope] (commanding her to conceal the same ) that she saw, one night, in her bed, her body exceeding lean, and fearful in a light of fire.”
  • Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time and about the Shakespeare Authorship Question.
  • Check out the Medieval and Tudor Holy Days Page for many other articles.

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