The Queen's Conjuror by Benjamin Woolley

Author:Benjamin Woolley [Woolley, Benjamin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007401062
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2001-09-14T16:00:00+00:00

THE PRINCE AND THE JUGGLER

[He] had read Dee’s prefaces before

The Devil, and Euclid o’er and o’er,

And all th’intrigues ‘twixt him and Kelley,

Lascus and th’Emperor, would tell ye.

SAMUEL BUTLER, HUDIBRAS

XX

In 15 June 1583 a fanfare of trumpets rang out across the river, announcing the arrival of the royal barge. Beneath a canopy of royal cloth, escorted by Lord Russell, Sir Philip Sidney and other nobles of Elizabeth’s court, sat a Polish prince, Lord Albert Laski.1 The cavalcade moored at Mortlake, and Laski climbed the waterstairs at the back of Dee’s house and was formally presented to the philosopher by Sidney. He had come, as Dee put it, ‘to do me honour, for which God be praised’.

Laski had arrived in England unexpectedly two months earlier. The Queen was concerned that he had fallen out with the elected King of Poland, Stephen Bathory, in which case his arrival could spark a diplomatic incident. The French ambassador Michel de Castelnau was convinced his mission was to persuade the English to stop selling arms to Russia, a trade that had prospered since the formation of the Moscow Company. Laski unconvincingly claimed he was simply there to meet the Queen and enjoy the scenery.

Laski was a powerful, unpredictable figure in Polish politics. He was the Palatine of Sieradz, a central region of Poland west of Lodz. In 1575 he was suspected of raising a private army to seize the Polish throne, which had lain temptingly vacant for over a year following the flight of its previous occupant, the French prince Henry de Valois. A committed but unorthodox Catholic, he had links to the world of alchemy and magic, and had sponsored the first edition of a work by the German physician and mystic, Paracelsus. Dee also had a particular interest in Paracelsus, who is now regarded as one of the founding fathers of modern medicine, and had a comprehensive collection of his works in the library at Mortlake.

Laski supported the universalist schemes that appealed so strongly to Dee. He was a backer of Jakob Basilikos, an adventurer who claimed to be a descendant of Levantine princes, wandering between the courts of Central Europe to promote the reunion of the Greek Orthodox and Catholic churches. Laski also had links with the heretical ‘Family of Love’. One of the movement’s leading figures was Johannes à Lasko, a kinsman of Laski. Johannes was based at Emden in East Frisia which had become the movement’s centre since its founder, Hendrick Niclaes, had settled there.2

Despite the uncertainty about his intentions, Laski was welcomed to England with full princely honours. His homeland and neighbouring Bohemia were in the throes of bewildering religious and political tensions, between Protestant reform, Ottoman imperialism and Catholic incumbency. England had few contacts and little influence in the region, and William Cecil and Walsingham seized the chance of an insider’s view of the complex dynamics at play. Laski was offered quarters at Winchester House in Southwark, where he found himself surrounded by exiled Italians, bear pits and brothels.

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