Everything by turns, and nothing long.
It was his practice to raise the dead by incantations, and to consult the corpse for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge, as he pretended, of the fate of the living. Weever, in his “Ancient Funeral Monuments” (p. 45), says that upon a certain night in the park of Walton-le-Dale, near Preston, with one Paul Wareing, of Clayton Brook, he invoked one of the infernal regiment to know certain passages in the life, as also what might be known of the devil’s foresight of the manner and time of the death, of a young nobleman in Wareing’s wardship. The ceremony being ended, Kelly and his companion repaired to the church of Walton, where they dug up the body of a man recently interred, and whom, by their incantations, they made to deliver strange predictions concerning the same gentleman, who was probably present and anxious to read a page in the book of futurity. This feat, which was no doubt performed by a kind of ventriloquism, is also mentioned by Casaubon. It is not said when the circumstance occurred, but a local historian, anxious to supply the omission, gives the date August 12, 1560, and says that Dee was present. This, however, must be an error, for Kelly could then have been only five years of age, and Dee did not make his acquaintance until long afterwards.
Kelly was a notorious alchemist and necromancer long before Dee became associated with him, and after the unfortunate intimacy commenced he acted as his amanuensis, and performed for him the office of “seer,” by looking into the doctor’s magic crystal,[23] a faculty he himself did not possess, and hence he was obliged to have recourse to Kelly for the revelations from the spirit world. It would seem, therefore, that “mediums” are by no means a modern invention. Dee says he was brought into unison with him by the mediation of the Angel Uriel, and their dealings and daily conferences with the spirits are fully recorded in Casaubon’s work, entitled, “A True and Faithful Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John Dee and some Spirits.” They had a black spectrum or crystal—a piece of polished cannel coal, in which Kelly affirmed the Angels Gabriel and Raphael, and the whole Rosicrucian hierarchy, appeared at their invocation—and hence the author of “Hudibras” says,—
Kelly did all his feats upon
The devil’s looking-glass—a stone;
Where playing with him at bo-peep
He solved all problems ne’er so deep.
When an incantation was to take place, “The sacred crystal was placed on a sort of altar before a crucifix, with lighted candles on either side, and an open Psalter before it,” and prayers and ejaculations of the most fervid description were intermingled with the account taken down at Kelly’s dictation of the dress and hair, as well as the sayings and movements, of the angels. Dee was infatuated with his new acquaintance, and every experiment he suggested was tried, at whatever cost, and hence it was not long before Kelly’s weak and credulous dupe found himself in straitened circumstances. It was at this time that the Earl of Leicester, the Queen’s favourite, proposed dining with him at Mortlake and bringing Albert Lasque, the Palatine of Sieradz, who was then in England, with him, when Dee had to explain that he could not give them a suitable dinner without selling some of his plate or pewter to procure it. Leicester mentioned the circumstance to the Queen, who speedily helped her old favourite out of the difficulty by sending him “forty angells of gold.” He thus relates the circumstance:—
Her Majestie (A. 1583 Julii ultimo) being informed by the right honourable Earle of Leicester, that whereas the same day in the morning he had told me, that his Honour and Lord Laskey would dyne with me within two daies after, I confessed sincerely unto him, that I was not able to prepaire them a convenient dinner, unless I should presently sell some of my plate or some of my pewter for it. Whereupon her Majestie sent unto me very royally, within one hour after, forty angells of gold, from Syon, whither her Majestie was new come by water from Greenewich.
At the same time he makes the following entry in his “Diary”:—