The Arch-Conjuror of England

How central was what we would regard as magic in the lives and thoughts of the rulers and scholars of Elizabethan England?  Very much so, Glyn Parry claims in his engaging biography of John Dee, mathematician, book-collector, alchemist and prolific occult philosopher, called upon from time to time for advice by counsellors such as Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and even by Queen Elizabeth herself. 

Parry brings out very well the sheer range of Dee’s interests, from the reform of the calendar to finding in the magical realm of King Arthur a British Empire that could serve as a model for the Queen. And we are made to sympathise with Dee’s restless search for recognition and preferment, never quite achieved. Dee could be guileless, as when persuaded by Edward Kelly, who claimed to talk with angels, to swap wives on the angels’ orders.

His reputation secured him the ear of the powerful – including the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II – but Dee lacked the courtier’s skill of ingratiation. Parry tends to present him as very much the pawn of rival factions at Elizabeth’s court, though his narrative does not allow much space to deal with the claims of other scholars, notably Simon Adams, that politics were consensual. Elizabeth and her ministers were, after all, confronted by an extraordinarily difficult international situation. Listening to someone who cast horoscopes seemed to make sense – though it prompts questions now about just how influential that made Dee and just how far Dee’s experiences show that magic and occult philosophy were at the heart of the Elizabethan court. It would require a more rounded assessment of the making of foreign policy, weighing Dee’s interventions against other influences, to establish that case. And it would be interesting to compare Dee more substantially with other scholars engaged in mathematical-cum-scientific studies at this time. 

If Parry presents Elizabeth as passionately interested in occult philosophy and alchemy, he also shows that some, notably John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, were far less sympathetic. And Dee himself was, as Parry notes, very concerned not to be slandered as a ‘conjuror of wicked and damned spirits’.  At times charlatanry does not seem far away. An analytical chapter would thus have been a valuable addition – as would an assessment of Dee’s scientific legacy, especially the use that later scholars such as Boyle and Newton would make of his work. But Parry’s purpose is rather to tell the story of Dee’s life, even when the historian has to make good the lack of sources. ‘We can imagine him every inch the magus, striding up and down before the packed shelves of his library at Mortlake in his black robe, his long beard waving, his arms gesticulating as he groped for the right expression.’  We can indeed. And the verve of Parry’s writing makes The Arch-Conjuror of England as enjoyably readable as it is thought-provoking.

George Bernard is Professor of History at the University of Southampton. His latest book, The Late Medieval English Church: Vitality and Vulnerability before the Break with Rome, is published by Yale University Press.