PORTRAIT OF EDWARD KELLEY.
PORTRAIT OF JOHN DEE.
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Edward Kelley (1555-1595) and John Dee (1527-1608.)
§ 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 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.”
[66] See, for example, William Lilly: History of His Life and Times (1715, reprinted in 1822, p. 227).
[67] See Anthony à Wood’s account of Kelley’s life in Athenæ Oxonienses (3rd edition, edited by Philip Bliss, vol. i. col. 639.)
[68] William Lilly, the astrologer, in his History of His Life and Times (1822 reprint, pp. 225-226), relates a different story regarding the manner in which Kelley is supposed to have obtained the Great Medicine, but as it is told at third hand, it is of little importance. We do not suppose that there can be much doubt that the truth was that Dee and others were deceived by some skilful conjuring tricks, for whatever else Kelley may have been, he certainly was a very ingenious fellow.
[69] The Private Diary of Dr. John Dee (The Camden Society, 1842), p. 22.