Alchemy by H. Stanley Redgrove

Author:H. Stanley Redgrove [Redgrove, H. Stanley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Good Press
Published: 2019-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

PLATE 9.

PORTRAIT OF EDWARD KELLEY.

PORTRAIT OF JOHN DEE.

To face page 68]

Edward Kelley (1555–1595) and John Dee (1527–1608.)

Table of Contents

§ 52. Edward Kelley or Kelly (see plate 9) was born at Worcester on August 1, 1555. His life is so obscured by various traditions that it is very difficult to arrive at the truth concerning it. The latest, and probably the best, account will be found in Miss Charlotte Fell Smith’s John Dee (1909). Edward Kelley, according to some accounts, was brought up as an apothecary.[66] He is also said to have entered Oxford University under the pseudonym of Talbot.[67] Later, he practised as a notary in London. He is said to have committed a forgery, for which he had his ears cropped; but another account, which supposes him to have avoided this penalty by making his escape to Wales, is not improbable. Other crimes of which he is accused are coining and necromancy. He was probably not guilty of all these crimes, but that he was undoubtedly a charlatan and profligate the sequel will make plain. We are told that about the time of his alleged escape to Wales, whilst in the neighbourhood of Glastonbury Abbey, he became possessed, by a lucky chance, of a manuscript by St. Dunstan setting forth the grand secrets of Alchemy, together with some of the two transmuting tinctures, both white and red,[68] which had been discovered in a tomb near by. His friendship with John Dee, or Dr. Dee as he is generally called, commenced in 1582. Now, John Dee (see plate 9) was undoubtedly a mathematician of considerable erudition. He was also an astrologer, and was much interested in experiments in “crystal-gazing,” for which purpose he employed a speculum of polished cannel-coal, and by means of which he believed that he had communication with the inhabitants of spiritual spheres. It appears that Kelley, who probably did possess some mediumistic powers, the results of which he augmented by means of fraud, interested himself in these experiments, and not only became the doctor’s “scryer,” but also gulled him into the belief that he was in the possession of the arch-secrets of Alchemy. In 1583, Kelley and his learned dupe left England together with their wives and a Polish nobleman, staying firstly at Cracovia and afterwards at Prague, where it is not unlikely that the Emperor Rudolph II. knighted Kelley. As instances of the belief which the doctor had in Kelley’s powers as an alchemist, we may note that in his Private Diary under the date December 19, 1586, Dee records that Kelley performed a transmutation for the benefit of one Edward Garland and his brother Francis;[69] and under the date May 10, 1588, we find the following recorded: “E.K. did open the great secret to me, God be thanked!”[70] That he was not always without doubts as to Kelley’s honesty, however, is evident from other entries in his Diary. In 1587 occurred an event which must be recorded to the partners’ lasting shame. To cap

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