Memorable World History/Authors

John Dee: Her Majesty's Secret Sorcerer (Part I)

John Dee (13 July 1527 – 1608 or 1609) was an Anglo-Welsh mathematician, astronomer, astrologer and occult philosopher, and an advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. He spent much time on alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. He also advocated turning England's imperial expansion into a "British Empire", a term he is generally credited with coining.

Science and sorcery

To 21st-century eyes, Dee's activities straddle the worlds of magic and modern science, but the distinction would have meant nothing to him. He was invited to lecture on Euclidean geometry at the University of Paris while still in his early twenties. He was an ardent promoter of mathematics, a respected astronomer and a leading expert in navigation, who trained many who would conduct England's voyages of discovery.

Meanwhile he immersed himself in sorcery, astrology and Hermetic philosophy. Much effort in his last 30 years went into trying to commune with angels, so as to learn the universal language of creation and achieve a pre-apocalyptic unity of mankind. A student of the Renaissance Neo-Platonism of Marsilio Ficino, he drew no distinctions between his mathematical research and his investigations of hermetic magic, angel summoning and divination: all his activities were facets of the quest for a transcendent understanding of the divine forms underlying the visible world, Dee's "pure verities".

Dee amassed one of the biggest libraries in England. His scholarly status also took him into Elizabethan politics as an adviser and tutor to Elizabeth I and through relations with her ministers Francis Walsingham and William Cecil. He tutored and had patronage relations with Sir Philip Sidney, his uncle Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester, Edward Dyer, and Sir Christopher Hatton.

Biography

Early life

Dee was born in Tower Ward, London, to Rowland Dee, of Welsh descent, and Johanna Wild. His surname "Dee" derived from the Welsh du (black); his grandfather was Bedo Ddu of Nant-y-groes, Pilleth, Radnorshire, and John retained his connection with the locality. His father Roland was a mercer and gentleman courtier to Henry VIII. John Dee claimed to be a descendant of Rhodri the Great, Prince of Wales and constructed a pedigree showing his descent from Rhodri. Dee's family arrived in London in the wake of Henry Tudor's coronation as Henry VII. Jane Dee was the daughter of William Wild.

Dee attended the Chelmsford Chantry School (now King Edward VI Grammar School) from 1535 to 1542. He entered St John's College, Cambridge, in November 1542, aged 15, graduating BA in 1545 or early 1546. His abilities recognized, he became an original fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, on its founding by Henry VIII in 1546. At Trinity, the clever stage effects he produced for a production of Aristophanes' Peace procured him the reputation of being a magician that clung to him through life. In the late 1540s and early 1550s, he traveled in Europe, studying at Louvain (1548) and Brussels and lecturing in Paris on Euclid. He studied with Gemma Frisius and became a close friend of the cartographer Gerardus Mercator and cartographer Abraham Ortelius. Dee also traveled extensively throughout Europe meeting and working with as well as learning from other leading continental mathematicians such as Federico Commandino in Italy. He returned to England with an important collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments. In 1552, he met Gerolamo Cardano in London: during their acquaintance, they investigated a purported perpetual motion machine, as well as a gem supposed to have magical properties.

Rector at Upton-upon-Severn from 1553, Dee was offered a readership in mathematics at Oxford University in 1554, which he declined, citing English universities' emphasis on rhetoric and grammar (which, together with logic, formed the academic trivium) over philosophy and science (the more advanced quadrivium, composed of arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy), as offensive. He was occupied with writing and perhaps hoped for a better position at court. In 1555, Dee became a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers, as his father had, through the company's system of patrimony.