‘1577, November 25th.—I spake with the Quene hora quinta; I spoke with Mr. Secretary Walsingham.[30] I declared to the Quene her title to Greenland, Estotiland, and Friesland.
‘1577, December 1st.—I spoke with Sir Christopher Hatton; he was made Knight that day.
‘1577, December —th.—I went from the Courte at Wyndsore.
‘1577, December 30th.—Inexplissima illa calumnia de R. Edwardo, iniquissima aliqua ex parte in me denunciebatur: ante aliquos elapsos diro, sed ... sua sapientia me innocentem.’
I cannot ascertain of what calumny against Edward VI. Dee had been accused; but it is to be hoped that his wish was fulfilled, and that he was acquitted of it before many days had elapsed.
I have omitted some items relating to moneys borrowed. It is sufficiently plain, however, that Dee never intended his Diary for the curious eyes of the public, and that it mainly consists of such memoranda as a man jots down for his private and personal use. Assuredly, many of these would never have been recorded if Dee had known or conjectured that an inquisitive antiquarian, some three centuries later, would exhume the confidential pages, print them in imperishable type, and expose them to the world’s cold gaze. It seems rather hard upon Dr. Dee that his private affairs should thus have become everybody’s property! Perhaps, after all, the best thing a man can do who keeps a diary is to commit it to the flames before he shuffles off his mortal coil, lest some laborious editor should eventually lay hands upon it, and publish it to the housetops with all its sins upon it! But as in Dr. Dee’s case the offence has been committed, I will not debar my readers from profiting by it.
(ii.) 1578-1581.
‘1578, June 30th.—I told Mr. Daniel Rogers, Mr. Hackluyt of the Middle Temple being by, that Kyng Arthur and King Maty, both of them, did conquer Gelindia, lately called Friseland, which he so noted presently in his written copy of Mon ... thensis (?), for he had no printed boke thereof.’
What a pity Dr. Dee has not recorded his authority for King Arthur’s Northern conquests! The Mr. Hackluyt here mentioned is the industrious compiler of the well-known collection of early voyages.
Occasionally Dee relates his dreams, as on September 10, 1579: ‘My dream of being naked, and my skyn all overwrought with work, like some kinde of tuft mockado, with crosses blue and red; and on my left arme, about the arme, in a wreath, this word I red—sine me nihil potestis facere.’