§ 52. Edward Kelley and John Dee.
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.5 He is also said
to have entered Oxford University under the pseudonym of Talbot.
6 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,7
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;
8 and
under the date May 10, 1588, we find the following recorded: "E.K. did
open the great secret to me, God be thanked!"
9 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 his former impositions, Kelley informed the doctor
that by the orders of a spirit which had appeared to him in the crystal,
they were to share "their two wives in common"; to which arrangement,
after some further persuasion, Dee consented. Kelley's profligacy and
violent temper, however, had already been the cause of some disagreement
between him and the doctor, and this incident leading to a further
quarrel, the erstwhile friends parted. In 1589, the Emperor Rudolph
imprisoned Kelley, the price of his freedom being the transmutative
secret, or a substantial quantity of gold, at least, prepared by its
aid. He was, however, released in 1593; but died in 1595; according to
one account, as the result of an accident incurred while attempting to
escape from a second imprisonment. Dee merely records that he received
news to the effect that Kelley "was slayne."
It was during his incarceration that he wrote an alchemistic work
entitled The Stone of the Philosophers, which consists largely of
quotations from older alchemistic writings. His other works on Alchemy
were probably written at an earlier period.
10
