October 5, 2011 • 26 mins
Born in 1527 to a Welsh family, John Dee grew to become one of Queen Elizabeth's most memorable advisors. Join Sarah and Deblina as they delve into the life and times of this scholar, statesman and sorcerer.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling a Chalk reporting and I'm fared out.
And we promised our listeners some spooky kind of Halloween
issh episodes in October. And it just so happens that
(00:23):
I've gotten magic on the brain recently because I was
visiting with my ten year old niece and she is
finally requiring me to do something that many people have done,
which is read Harry Potter. Oh, finally, I know. I
know you've been wanting that for a long time. That's great. Yes,
we been my long cherished hope. She lies in bed
(00:43):
and I read Harry hopefayin that I'll read it. She's
wearing a wizard outfit right now. Actually, So we wanted
to look into some real life examples of people who
were said to have been involved with magic and the occult.
And John d who was a mathematician and astronomer from
the sixteenth century, really our interest, not least of all
because there's a new opera about him. So this opera,
(01:05):
which is called Dr D, premiered at the Manchester International
Festival in July and It came about when festival organizers
approached the graphic novelist Alan Moore, who is the creator
of V for Vendetta and From Hell, approached him to
work on a new project about the quote life of
an obscure but important figure from English history. So more
(01:29):
pondering on this, decided to focus on John D. Of course,
Moore didn't finish the project, he left before it was completed,
but Damon Albarn, singer and songwriter of the band Blur
and also Guerrillas, he did finish it along with director
Rufus Norris. And we haven't heard or seen it ourselves,
but we've we did get kind of stuck on that
(01:49):
phrase obscure but important figure from English history. I mean,
that's exactly the type of person we love to read
stuff he missed in history class exactly. So there's no
denying that D was important. In addition to being an
accomplished mathematician, astronomer, geographer and navigator and also book collector,
he was an adviser to Queen Elizabeth the First and
(02:10):
probably a spy for her in some capacity, and also
an early proponent of expanding Britain into an empire. So
why is this guy with some legitimate resume entrees sometimes
dismissed as the queen's astrologer and necromancer and a sorcerer.
Well we're going to take a look at that, but
first we need to find out how he got to
work for the queen in the first place. So it
(02:31):
started with schooling and he was born. John D was
born July fifty seven in London. His father, Roland, was
of Welsh descent and was probably some kind of merchant.
So John D started his studies at a school in
Chelmsford in Essex in fifteen thirty five and then went
(02:52):
on to St John's College in Cambridge in fifteen forty two,
where he studied a pretty impressive lineup of Greek, Latin philosophy, geometry,
arithmetic and astronomy. And from the beginning he was really
dedicated to his studies, especially when you consider how young
he was at the time. He really seemed to love
(03:12):
to learn, especially when it came to studying mathematics. And
just to give you an example of young John D's
typical day, according to his biographer Benjamin Woolley, D would
work at his studies about eighteen hours a day, leaving
just four hours for sleep and two hours for meals.
So a busy child, and by all accounts he was
(03:35):
an extremely talented scholar. Some even call him a genius.
So I guess all that hard work of his really
paid off. He got both his bachelor's and master's degrees
from St John's in fifteen forty five and fifteen forty eight, respectively.
In fifteen forty six he was made one of the
founding fellows of Trinity College in Cambridge. But then he
switched stuff up a little bit. He left England from
(03:55):
fifteen forty eight to fifteen fifty one. He continued his
scientific education on the continent, and he studied with a
variety of top experts in a number of different fields,
including cartography and mathematics. He published astronomy texts and lectured
on Euclid's elements. Euclid, of course, was a Greek mathematician
and sometimes called the father of geometry and d is
sometimes credited with popularizing Euclidean geometry and academic circles. He
(04:19):
was also said to be an early supporter of Copernicus's
heliocentric model of the universe, so he was out promoting
sort of revolutionary math he was out learning and kind
of yeah, thinking about and talking about cutting edge ideas.
It was interesting, though. He turned down to mathematical professorships,
(04:41):
one at the University of Paris in fifteen fifty one
and another one that was offered to him at the
University of Oxford in fifteen fifty four. It's unclear exactly
why he did this. He seems to have had designs
on landing a position with the English crown, though, as
we'll see later, probably hoped that that setup would result
in financial support or or patronage that would allow him
(05:01):
to pursue his own research, so that seemed to work
at first. He was aiming higher. Yeah, it did seem
to work at first, and when Dee returned to England
in fifteen fifty one, he was able to associate himself
with the royal court and he offered his math instruction
to courtiers and to navigators, and that same year he
was presented to King Edward the six, who granted him
(05:25):
a pension of one hundred crowns, which d later exchange
for a rectorship which had a nice comfortable living associated
with it. Um. So, yeah, it seems like he was
doing well for himself. He made friends at court. He
received the patronage of a couple of them, including the
Duchess of Northumberland, and soon he started to get caught
up in things though, the intrigue that was going on
(05:47):
at the time regarding Queen Mary's ascension to the throne
and the tensions going on in England between the Catholics
and the Protestants. But Deep played his cards right, and
at least at first, he didn't appear to take side,
which obviously during this time, could mean a swift execution. Yeah.
So when Queen Mary the First, who was Catholic, took
(06:07):
the throne, D served as a consultant and astrologer to her.
So we should stop here, though and talk about it
a little bit, because you're probably thinking, whoa wait a second, astrology.
I thought you said D was into astronomy. I have
a whole different opinion of him now. But before you
go judging him, we have to give you a little
background by way of explanation. Around this time, there wasn't
(06:28):
such a distinct line between astronomy and astrology. Many people
like D put stock in both. In fact, even though
people were coming out of the Dark Ages in the
sixteenth century, reason and science still existed right alongside superstition
and magic. So he wasn't the only one to feel
this way or to have these beliefs. And they'll get
(06:49):
too upset about dark ages people. I know everyone sometimes
gets riled up with that, But I think it's a
good illustrative term for discussing coming out of this real superstitious,
magical time. Yeah, it's illustrative. So just to give you
an example of what D's beliefs were like, he believed
that the positions of the planets at the moment of
(07:11):
a person's birth would affect their future, so like astrology,
but he was driven to find a scientific explanation for this,
and it was this need to understand it all that
really shaped his whole career. So we're gonna too, essentially,
and so he was asked to use these astrology skills
for Queen Mary. He was asked to cast horoscopes for
(07:32):
her and for her husband, Phillip the second of Spain.
Around that time, though, D also started a correspondence with
the Protestant Princess Elizabeth, Mary's half sister, and he did
an astrological chart for her too. Soon after this, maybe coincidentally,
maybe not. In May A, fifteen fifty five, D was
arrested and imprisoned at Hampton Court, a week or so
(07:55):
before Elizabeth faced the same similar situation, and the charge
against him maybe different, depending on what source you look at.
I've seen it as conjuring, and then I've seen it
in other places as simply calculating um just to explain that.
And mathematics was kind of considered a form of black
magic by some at that time, so that's why calculating
would have been a criminal charge. He was acquitted after
(08:16):
this and released soon after, though, and he went back
to work for Mary, which kind of amazes me. Yeah,
he kept on working for Mary, and he was loyal
to her until she died in fifteen fifty eight, and
then when Elizabeth the First became queen after that, D
immediately shifted his allegiance to her. It's likely most people
think that he may have supported her all along, but regardless,
(08:38):
it's interesting to see that he showed loyalty to kind
of whoever was in power because it was best for him,
especially since it seems like it would be difficult for
an astrologer to show loyalty to two people what are
you going to tell somebody that there their cards don't
look so great or their stars aren't aligned. Maybe just
avoid the conversation it would be it would be a
(08:58):
tricky conversation have. So with Elizabeth, he became kind of
a scientific and medical advisor to her, known officially as
the Queen's Intelligence or or the Royal Astrologer, and she
asked him to use his astrological skills to pick the
data for coordination, and obviously it worked out, so she
was happy with the result, and she promised him security,
(09:19):
but always kind of kept him at arm's length, like
she didn't want to be too closely associated with his
involvement in the occult. But de still had that dream
of royal patronage, and especially a dream of creating this
huge royal library that would be available to everyone with
the goal of advancing learning. But he couldn't get official
(09:40):
support for that, so finally he just decided to build
his own private library and spent several years abroad collecting
books for it. By the mid fifteen sixties, he had
set up a laboratory and a library near London, and
the library had more than four thousand books in it
and was the largest private library in England at the time,
(10:01):
but d kept to his original intention. He was really
generous with it. He made it accessible to scholars. He
had a pretty significant collection of astronomical instruments, a collection
of globes, so this was all suddenly um at the
fingertips of England scholars, which was a great boon for
them and for him too. During the next twenty years
(10:22):
or so, D was involved in a number of let's
say practical or more scientific compared yes. He edited, for example,
the first English translation of Euclid's Elements in fifteen seventy.
He also observed Tico Brahe's supernova fifteen seventy two, and
if you would like to know a little bit more
about that, you can reference our Tico Bray podcast from
(10:45):
last December. So he observed this as well, and he
offered some triggering a metric methods for fighting its distance
from Earth. So he kind of helped not a little
to the discussion, absolutely, and he recommended that England adopt
the Grigorian calendar in fifth teen eight two, although no
one really listened to him at the time, and during
this entire period he was also helping lay the groundwork
(11:07):
for English exploration by preparing just all sorts of nautical information,
including maps and charts for navigation in the polar regions,
as well as teaching ship captains and crews about the
principles of navigation and giving them navigational instruments. So this
allowed them to venture out on routes that were away
from the coast and really encourage exploration. I kind of
(11:29):
see him as a coach almost to all of these advisors.
You know, somebody who's got the brains and knows all
of the specifics for all of these diverse sciences and
can help the people actually making the decisions make the
correct decision. And just a little side note if you're
interested in such things. Uh D was probably an advisor
on Sir Francis Drake's voyages as well, so that's another
(11:52):
impressive entry for his resume. But along those same lines,
D was a really big advocate of building a British
and fire and that sort of makes sense if you
consider his involvement in all the navigation stuff. He expressed
those views, those views for an empire in a work
called Perfect Art of Navigation. But just because he was
(12:13):
working on navigation and empire building, didn't mean that he
had left math and physics and astrology and magic um
to just linger there and not be worked on. He
published something called the Propa Dumata Afrostica in fifteen fifty eight,
which contained his views on these subjects math and physics
and magic and things like that, and that's not all
(12:35):
he had going on. Many sources also suggest that throughout
this period D was working with none other than Sir
Francis Walsingham as a spy for the English crown. And uh,
that's kind of It's kind of a surprise, isn't it.
It is, it just takes the story in a completely
different direction. An article in Military history by Adam Mandelbaum,
(12:59):
for example, suggests that it was D along with Walsingham,
who founded the British Secret Intelligence Service. I mean, talk
about having an entry on your resume. That's something that
you wouldn't expect for someone who's labeled a sorcerer and
a conjuror not at all. But he was probably able
to use both his scientific and his more supernatural skills
(13:21):
to act as a spy and to work in this
capacity because for the more scientific part of things. Mondel
Bomb suggests that D was kind of like a sixteenth
century version of James Bond gadget Master Q. He would
create all kinds of cool devices, including this mechanical flying bird,
which might not have been used for spying, but it
(13:42):
still sounds pretty neat um. So you know that that
very practical side of him had an outlet in this.
Speaking of James Bond, there is another James Bond connection
here that's kind of interesting, and I couldn't really find
it in any great academic sources or anything, so I
thought I just put it out there that if you
happen to look up D and double oh seven on
(14:04):
the Internet, you might find some interesting stuff there. Some
say that he actually used that double O seven sign
and his secret correspondence to the Queen. The two ohs
would symbolize his eyes and the seven was just a
sacred or lucky number to him. I like that maybe
some tutor experts can let us know if there's any
(14:25):
truth behind that. Here's what we do know, though. D
also discovered this work while he was searching for books abroad,
and it was the staganigraphia of Johanna's Truthemius, a German
abbott and magician of the late fifteenth century. It was
divided into three books, all of which were apparently concerned
with the evocation of angels, and this was a topic
(14:47):
that D was very interested in. We'll tell you more
about that later. But the first two parts actually turned
out to be hoaxes. They were really the subject of
them was really secret codes, and only the third part
was actually about contacting spirit. So, according to Mandelbaoma's article,
D use this code to communicate with Walsingham and disguise
the intelligence he'd gathered, throwing some symbols associated with alchemy
(15:10):
in there too, that was in the mix so that
people would think that they were magical writings. It's why
some people think of him more as a master spy
than necessarily a magician. And I really love this detail.
I mean, I imagine somebody intercepting a letter and it
looks like it's all about magic, and to add to that,
you know, there are these weird symbols thrown in, and
it's from old John D. Really there's important communications contained.
(15:33):
I think that's such an interesting tactic for a spy
to take. I know, we when we talked about Civil
War spies, we talked about one who would visit the
hospitals and fame being crazy and this is this reminded
me of that almost just a personality disguise. Almost yeah,
something that has the ability to tarnish your reputation, but
(15:54):
as further in time, dismiss what you're what you're working on.
So D did also im loy his psychic abilities and
occult knowledge in this. Walsingham, for example, asked him to
cast horoscopes to evaluate the queen's marriage options, and he
used this to determine that neither the Duke Gianjou or
his brother were suitable marriage partners for the queen. So
(16:15):
what other intelligence to d obtain? Well, for one thing,
he gathered a lot of information about Spain, which was
England's big expansionist rival. He found out about the Armada,
the Spanish fleet that was designed to overthrow Elizabeth, long
before it was launched, and in fact, it said that
D predicted violent storms in fight. He used his math
(16:36):
and astronomy knowledge to predict the weather, I guess, and
spread that around and Spain had some trouble because of that,
Because of those rumors, they had trouble drumming up volunteers
for this venture. And then of course the predictions proved
to be true story did destroy many of the Armadas ships,
and some have wondered if that prediction that he made
(16:56):
was actually just psychological warfare by the English, or if
it was actually just that he really doing. But between
those scientific pursuits and the spying, you'd think that d
would really have his work cut out for him. But
he also had some side jobs going on. He told
fortunes for money, He practiced necromancy with real corpses, basically
(17:19):
attempting to communicate with the dead or even raise the dead.
And on top of that, he would also teach the
occult arts and alchemy to students for a fee, basically
as a magician for hire. But one other thing that
was a real passion of deeds was his efforts to
communicate with angels. I mean, this guy has so much
(17:41):
going on, but that was a really strong interest of his.
He said to have conducted occult experiments with crystal gazing
that he called scrying the ether and began conversing with
angelic intelligences this way, and D got more and more
involved in this. So while some of these pursuits seemed
(18:02):
pretty well balanced from most of his life, this started
to take over the other ones from the fifteen eighties
onward until it really began to dominate his life almost entirely.
And a lot of people think that he changed his
focus because he was just so frustrated that he couldn't
gain a comprehensive understanding of the universe up until that point.
(18:22):
That was what he was striving for all along, as
we mentioned earlier, to try to reconcile the magical aspects
of life with the practical aspects and the secrets of
the universe make it all makes sense, and he was
frustrated he couldn't do this despite his long hours, despite
his intelligence, and thought that maybe the angels could explain
(18:45):
it all, it could help him out. Another major influence
that played a part in this, though, was a man
named Edward Kelly, not to be confused with Ned Kelly
another not Ned It's not another Australian podcast, But Edward
Kelly came to D's life in fifteen eighty two and
he's often referred to as D's medium. According to Encyclopedia Britannica,
Kelly was a convicted counterfeiter and he claimed that he
(19:07):
could contact angels and spirits by gazing into a crystal ball.
He and D held seances together, and D became pretty
convinced that Kelly's abilities were actually real. The two traveled
on the continent together for several years in the fifteen eighties,
doing displays of magic at various courts, and they recorded
a language for communicating with angels, which is now referred
(19:28):
to as a Nokian, and he basically claimed that the
angels had revealed this language to them. Many historians suggest
that Kelly was pretty much a con artist, doing this
for fame and for wealth. According to d biographer Woolley,
he eventually made a play for D's wife and that's
what sort of broke them apart. But D seems to
(19:48):
have really been sincere in his belief of the stuff,
and that didn't help him win any friends. And by
the time he returned to England in fifteen eighty nine,
his reputation had been very much tarnished by his involvement
in the occult, and he found that his library had
been ransacked and his books and scientific instruments had been stolen,
(20:09):
and that that great reputation as a practical mind, as
somebody who was intelligent and and capable of performing all
these sciences was really gone, and ultimately the financial support
that D had longed for from Queen Elizabeth the First
and that she had sort of promised him to never
really materialized. She did give him a job, she appointed
(20:30):
him warden of Manchester College in fifte but that didn't
pay enough to support D and support his family, and
was honestly probably just a way to get him out
of London um away from from giving her a bad
rap by association. So his friends managed to raise some
money for him, but still his final years were pretty
(20:51):
much spent in poverty. He was miserable in Manchester, and
in sixteen oh five, to add insult to injury, the
area was hit by plague, killing his wife life and
several of his children too. He eventually returned to London
and died there in December sight. He basically spent the
end of his life trying to fight off the reputation
of being a conjurer, and that's what many remember him as,
(21:13):
even though he did so many other things. They're kind
of faded into the background now. The British Museum, though,
has some artifacts associated with him that you can check out,
including a mirror that he probably used in his occult
research and for all of the literary minded people out there,
d is also thought to be Some people actually say
he's almost certainly the inspiration for a very famous literary
(21:37):
conjuror Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. So in a lot
of ways, and some people have said this before, he
was the quintessential magician, and therefore I think, okay, submission
for Halloween months, even though he wasn't that scarier spooky.
I like Halloween entries like that, ones that are intriguing.
(21:58):
It kind of reminds me of the Mesmerism episode did
for Halloween last year. Ones that just make you think, what,
what's reality, what's not? I don't know, And it makes
me interested to check out that opera if I ever
get a chance. Definitely, So that probably should bring us
to listen to me, And do you think so? We
(22:20):
had a lot of fun recently recording a podcast about
orson Wells War of the World's radio broadcast, which is
definitely spooky. It is, And so we have a couple
of emails here about that. One is from Martha and
she says, good afternoon, ladies, I just finished listening to
your podcast on orson Wells in the War of the
World's broadcast, So I wanted to share with you a
fond memory that your broadcast helped me recall. In two
(22:41):
thousand eight, I worked at a local skilled nursing facility
that October, to mark the seventh anniversary of the original broadcast,
I worked with some of the residents to rebroadcast the original.
We really put on a show for the other residents,
so it wasn't a actual radio broadcast, is which she's
trying to point out. She goes on to say, the
residents had a great I'm putting on the show, and
afterwards we talked about the original. Many of the residents
(23:04):
that I worked with were teenagers and young adults at
the time, and they told me that for some it
was a little scary and for others a good laugh,
but the majority were glued to their seats wanting to
know what happened next. The residents enjoyed sharing their memories
of their youth with me, which made this little bit
of history come alive for me. I've since moved on
in my career and some of those residents have passed away.
But your podcast covering the War of the Worlds has
(23:25):
brought back some fond memories. So I thought that sounded
like such a neat project to do, and I don't know,
maybe something that would be pretty fun for schools today too.
I mean, it's really cool if if the people actually
got to hear the original, But um, it's something that
doesn't seem to go away. Really. We got so many
emails from people about hearing the War of the World.
(23:47):
Then most of them were not people who had heard
the original broadcast. They heard it because their grandparents played
it for them, or it was rebroadcasts on the radio.
And we even heard from some people who said, I
know exactly what I would have done, because I thought
it was real when I heard it rebroadcast in the
seventies or whatever. Doesn't seem like a great thing to
play for little kids, because we also heard from many,
(24:10):
many people who had terrified memories as children of of
hearing the War of the World. But we did get
another fun email. This one is from Sarah, and she
wrote that a friend of mine just received his master's
degree in broadcast communications and his master's thesis was about
the War of the World. Last Halloween, he threw a
(24:31):
nineteen thirties War of the World's theme party where everyone
had to come in period dress. We drank classic cocktails
and listened to the War of the World's broadcast. It
was fabulous. This Halloween, he plans to host the party again,
but on a bigger scale. So this auce that sounded
really fun and a perfect pre Halloween listener a mail
to include. Um good costume idea for sure. Yeah, a
(24:54):
good party idea, definitely. So if you have any more
Halloween suggestions, well, probably have time to to receive your
feedback and maybe records them. I don't know, get them
in soon though, maybe as soon as you as soon
as you hear this podcast. If we're gonna have a turnaround, yeah,
you know that we can always use spooky ideas, so
we are always up for spooky doesn't have to be
contained in just one month of the year. We can
(25:16):
spread it around definitely, So right into us where at
history podcast at how Stuff works dot com. We're also
on Twitter at Miston History, and we are on Facebook too,
So those are all great ways to leave your Halloween suggestion.
And if you want to join me on my quest
to find out what this whole Harry Potter thing is
all about, many years after the fact of it's being cool.
(25:41):
You can check out an article we have on our
website called how Harry Potter's wand Works. I think I
should probably hold off from reading it in case of
how spoilers. There will be spoilers, but you can find
that by visiting our homepage and searching for Harry Potter
at www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure
(26:01):
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how stupe Works staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Step Works
iPhone app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm to bling a Chalk reporting and I'm fared out.
And we promised our listeners some spooky kind of Halloween
issh episodes in October. And it just so happens that
(00:23):
I've gotten magic on the brain recently because I was
visiting with my ten year old niece and she is
finally requiring me to do something that many people have done,
which is read Harry Potter. Oh, finally, I know. I
know you've been wanting that for a long time. That's great. Yes,
we been my long cherished hope. She lies in bed
(00:43):
and I read Harry hopefayin that I'll read it. She's
wearing a wizard outfit right now. Actually, So we wanted
to look into some real life examples of people who
were said to have been involved with magic and the occult.
And John d who was a mathematician and astronomer from
the sixteenth century, really our interest, not least of all
because there's a new opera about him. So this opera,
(01:05):
which is called Dr D, premiered at the Manchester International
Festival in July and It came about when festival organizers
approached the graphic novelist Alan Moore, who is the creator
of V for Vendetta and From Hell, approached him to
work on a new project about the quote life of
an obscure but important figure from English history. So more
(01:29):
pondering on this, decided to focus on John D. Of course,
Moore didn't finish the project, he left before it was completed,
but Damon Albarn, singer and songwriter of the band Blur
and also Guerrillas, he did finish it along with director
Rufus Norris. And we haven't heard or seen it ourselves,
but we've we did get kind of stuck on that
(01:49):
phrase obscure but important figure from English history. I mean,
that's exactly the type of person we love to read
stuff he missed in history class exactly. So there's no
denying that D was important. In addition to being an
accomplished mathematician, astronomer, geographer and navigator and also book collector,
he was an adviser to Queen Elizabeth the First and
(02:10):
probably a spy for her in some capacity, and also
an early proponent of expanding Britain into an empire. So
why is this guy with some legitimate resume entrees sometimes
dismissed as the queen's astrologer and necromancer and a sorcerer.
Well we're going to take a look at that, but
first we need to find out how he got to
work for the queen in the first place. So it
(02:31):
started with schooling and he was born. John D was
born July fifty seven in London. His father, Roland, was
of Welsh descent and was probably some kind of merchant.
So John D started his studies at a school in
Chelmsford in Essex in fifteen thirty five and then went
(02:52):
on to St John's College in Cambridge in fifteen forty two,
where he studied a pretty impressive lineup of Greek, Latin philosophy, geometry,
arithmetic and astronomy. And from the beginning he was really
dedicated to his studies, especially when you consider how young
he was at the time. He really seemed to love
(03:12):
to learn, especially when it came to studying mathematics. And
just to give you an example of young John D's
typical day, according to his biographer Benjamin Woolley, D would
work at his studies about eighteen hours a day, leaving
just four hours for sleep and two hours for meals.
So a busy child, and by all accounts he was
(03:35):
an extremely talented scholar. Some even call him a genius.
So I guess all that hard work of his really
paid off. He got both his bachelor's and master's degrees
from St John's in fifteen forty five and fifteen forty eight, respectively.
In fifteen forty six he was made one of the
founding fellows of Trinity College in Cambridge. But then he
switched stuff up a little bit. He left England from
(03:55):
fifteen forty eight to fifteen fifty one. He continued his
scientific education on the continent, and he studied with a
variety of top experts in a number of different fields,
including cartography and mathematics. He published astronomy texts and lectured
on Euclid's elements. Euclid, of course, was a Greek mathematician
and sometimes called the father of geometry and d is
sometimes credited with popularizing Euclidean geometry and academic circles. He
(04:19):
was also said to be an early supporter of Copernicus's
heliocentric model of the universe, so he was out promoting
sort of revolutionary math he was out learning and kind
of yeah, thinking about and talking about cutting edge ideas.
It was interesting, though. He turned down to mathematical professorships,
(04:41):
one at the University of Paris in fifteen fifty one
and another one that was offered to him at the
University of Oxford in fifteen fifty four. It's unclear exactly
why he did this. He seems to have had designs
on landing a position with the English crown, though, as
we'll see later, probably hoped that that setup would result
in financial support or or patronage that would allow him
(05:01):
to pursue his own research, so that seemed to work
at first. He was aiming higher. Yeah, it did seem
to work at first, and when Dee returned to England
in fifteen fifty one, he was able to associate himself
with the royal court and he offered his math instruction
to courtiers and to navigators, and that same year he
was presented to King Edward the six, who granted him
(05:25):
a pension of one hundred crowns, which d later exchange
for a rectorship which had a nice comfortable living associated
with it. Um. So, yeah, it seems like he was
doing well for himself. He made friends at court. He
received the patronage of a couple of them, including the
Duchess of Northumberland, and soon he started to get caught
up in things though, the intrigue that was going on
(05:47):
at the time regarding Queen Mary's ascension to the throne
and the tensions going on in England between the Catholics
and the Protestants. But Deep played his cards right, and
at least at first, he didn't appear to take side,
which obviously during this time, could mean a swift execution. Yeah.
So when Queen Mary the First, who was Catholic, took
(06:07):
the throne, D served as a consultant and astrologer to her.
So we should stop here, though and talk about it
a little bit, because you're probably thinking, whoa wait a second, astrology.
I thought you said D was into astronomy. I have
a whole different opinion of him now. But before you
go judging him, we have to give you a little
background by way of explanation. Around this time, there wasn't
(06:28):
such a distinct line between astronomy and astrology. Many people
like D put stock in both. In fact, even though
people were coming out of the Dark Ages in the
sixteenth century, reason and science still existed right alongside superstition
and magic. So he wasn't the only one to feel
this way or to have these beliefs. And they'll get
(06:49):
too upset about dark ages people. I know everyone sometimes
gets riled up with that, But I think it's a
good illustrative term for discussing coming out of this real superstitious,
magical time. Yeah, it's illustrative. So just to give you
an example of what D's beliefs were like, he believed
that the positions of the planets at the moment of
(07:11):
a person's birth would affect their future, so like astrology,
but he was driven to find a scientific explanation for this,
and it was this need to understand it all that
really shaped his whole career. So we're gonna too, essentially,
and so he was asked to use these astrology skills
for Queen Mary. He was asked to cast horoscopes for
(07:32):
her and for her husband, Phillip the second of Spain.
Around that time, though, D also started a correspondence with
the Protestant Princess Elizabeth, Mary's half sister, and he did
an astrological chart for her too. Soon after this, maybe coincidentally,
maybe not. In May A, fifteen fifty five, D was
arrested and imprisoned at Hampton Court, a week or so
(07:55):
before Elizabeth faced the same similar situation, and the charge
against him maybe different, depending on what source you look at.
I've seen it as conjuring, and then I've seen it
in other places as simply calculating um just to explain that.
And mathematics was kind of considered a form of black
magic by some at that time, so that's why calculating
would have been a criminal charge. He was acquitted after
(08:16):
this and released soon after, though, and he went back
to work for Mary, which kind of amazes me. Yeah,
he kept on working for Mary, and he was loyal
to her until she died in fifteen fifty eight, and
then when Elizabeth the First became queen after that, D
immediately shifted his allegiance to her. It's likely most people
think that he may have supported her all along, but regardless,
(08:38):
it's interesting to see that he showed loyalty to kind
of whoever was in power because it was best for him,
especially since it seems like it would be difficult for
an astrologer to show loyalty to two people what are
you going to tell somebody that there their cards don't
look so great or their stars aren't aligned. Maybe just
avoid the conversation it would be it would be a
(08:58):
tricky conversation have. So with Elizabeth, he became kind of
a scientific and medical advisor to her, known officially as
the Queen's Intelligence or or the Royal Astrologer, and she
asked him to use his astrological skills to pick the
data for coordination, and obviously it worked out, so she
was happy with the result, and she promised him security,
(09:19):
but always kind of kept him at arm's length, like
she didn't want to be too closely associated with his
involvement in the occult. But de still had that dream
of royal patronage, and especially a dream of creating this
huge royal library that would be available to everyone with
the goal of advancing learning. But he couldn't get official
(09:40):
support for that, so finally he just decided to build
his own private library and spent several years abroad collecting
books for it. By the mid fifteen sixties, he had
set up a laboratory and a library near London, and
the library had more than four thousand books in it
and was the largest private library in England at the time,
(10:01):
but d kept to his original intention. He was really
generous with it. He made it accessible to scholars. He
had a pretty significant collection of astronomical instruments, a collection
of globes, so this was all suddenly um at the
fingertips of England scholars, which was a great boon for
them and for him too. During the next twenty years
(10:22):
or so, D was involved in a number of let's
say practical or more scientific compared yes. He edited, for example,
the first English translation of Euclid's Elements in fifteen seventy.
He also observed Tico Brahe's supernova fifteen seventy two, and
if you would like to know a little bit more
about that, you can reference our Tico Bray podcast from
(10:45):
last December. So he observed this as well, and he
offered some triggering a metric methods for fighting its distance
from Earth. So he kind of helped not a little
to the discussion, absolutely, and he recommended that England adopt
the Grigorian calendar in fifth teen eight two, although no
one really listened to him at the time, and during
this entire period he was also helping lay the groundwork
(11:07):
for English exploration by preparing just all sorts of nautical information,
including maps and charts for navigation in the polar regions,
as well as teaching ship captains and crews about the
principles of navigation and giving them navigational instruments. So this
allowed them to venture out on routes that were away
from the coast and really encourage exploration. I kind of
(11:29):
see him as a coach almost to all of these advisors.
You know, somebody who's got the brains and knows all
of the specifics for all of these diverse sciences and
can help the people actually making the decisions make the
correct decision. And just a little side note if you're
interested in such things. Uh D was probably an advisor
on Sir Francis Drake's voyages as well, so that's another
(11:52):
impressive entry for his resume. But along those same lines,
D was a really big advocate of building a British
and fire and that sort of makes sense if you
consider his involvement in all the navigation stuff. He expressed
those views, those views for an empire in a work
called Perfect Art of Navigation. But just because he was
(12:13):
working on navigation and empire building, didn't mean that he
had left math and physics and astrology and magic um
to just linger there and not be worked on. He
published something called the Propa Dumata Afrostica in fifteen fifty eight,
which contained his views on these subjects math and physics
and magic and things like that, and that's not all
(12:35):
he had going on. Many sources also suggest that throughout
this period D was working with none other than Sir
Francis Walsingham as a spy for the English crown. And uh,
that's kind of It's kind of a surprise, isn't it.
It is, it just takes the story in a completely
different direction. An article in Military history by Adam Mandelbaum,
(12:59):
for example, suggests that it was D along with Walsingham,
who founded the British Secret Intelligence Service. I mean, talk
about having an entry on your resume. That's something that
you wouldn't expect for someone who's labeled a sorcerer and
a conjuror not at all. But he was probably able
to use both his scientific and his more supernatural skills
(13:21):
to act as a spy and to work in this
capacity because for the more scientific part of things. Mondel
Bomb suggests that D was kind of like a sixteenth
century version of James Bond gadget Master Q. He would
create all kinds of cool devices, including this mechanical flying bird,
which might not have been used for spying, but it
(13:42):
still sounds pretty neat um. So you know that that
very practical side of him had an outlet in this.
Speaking of James Bond, there is another James Bond connection
here that's kind of interesting, and I couldn't really find
it in any great academic sources or anything, so I
thought I just put it out there that if you
happen to look up D and double oh seven on
(14:04):
the Internet, you might find some interesting stuff there. Some
say that he actually used that double O seven sign
and his secret correspondence to the Queen. The two ohs
would symbolize his eyes and the seven was just a
sacred or lucky number to him. I like that maybe
some tutor experts can let us know if there's any
(14:25):
truth behind that. Here's what we do know, though. D
also discovered this work while he was searching for books abroad,
and it was the staganigraphia of Johanna's Truthemius, a German
abbott and magician of the late fifteenth century. It was
divided into three books, all of which were apparently concerned
with the evocation of angels, and this was a topic
(14:47):
that D was very interested in. We'll tell you more
about that later. But the first two parts actually turned
out to be hoaxes. They were really the subject of
them was really secret codes, and only the third part
was actually about contacting spirit. So, according to Mandelbaoma's article,
D use this code to communicate with Walsingham and disguise
the intelligence he'd gathered, throwing some symbols associated with alchemy
(15:10):
in there too, that was in the mix so that
people would think that they were magical writings. It's why
some people think of him more as a master spy
than necessarily a magician. And I really love this detail.
I mean, I imagine somebody intercepting a letter and it
looks like it's all about magic, and to add to that,
you know, there are these weird symbols thrown in, and
it's from old John D. Really there's important communications contained.
(15:33):
I think that's such an interesting tactic for a spy
to take. I know, we when we talked about Civil
War spies, we talked about one who would visit the
hospitals and fame being crazy and this is this reminded
me of that almost just a personality disguise. Almost yeah,
something that has the ability to tarnish your reputation, but
(15:54):
as further in time, dismiss what you're what you're working on.
So D did also im loy his psychic abilities and
occult knowledge in this. Walsingham, for example, asked him to
cast horoscopes to evaluate the queen's marriage options, and he
used this to determine that neither the Duke Gianjou or
his brother were suitable marriage partners for the queen. So
(16:15):
what other intelligence to d obtain? Well, for one thing,
he gathered a lot of information about Spain, which was
England's big expansionist rival. He found out about the Armada,
the Spanish fleet that was designed to overthrow Elizabeth, long
before it was launched, and in fact, it said that
D predicted violent storms in fight. He used his math
(16:36):
and astronomy knowledge to predict the weather, I guess, and
spread that around and Spain had some trouble because of that,
Because of those rumors, they had trouble drumming up volunteers
for this venture. And then of course the predictions proved
to be true story did destroy many of the Armadas ships,
and some have wondered if that prediction that he made
(16:56):
was actually just psychological warfare by the English, or if
it was actually just that he really doing. But between
those scientific pursuits and the spying, you'd think that d
would really have his work cut out for him. But
he also had some side jobs going on. He told
fortunes for money, He practiced necromancy with real corpses, basically
(17:19):
attempting to communicate with the dead or even raise the dead.
And on top of that, he would also teach the
occult arts and alchemy to students for a fee, basically
as a magician for hire. But one other thing that
was a real passion of deeds was his efforts to
communicate with angels. I mean, this guy has so much
(17:41):
going on, but that was a really strong interest of his.
He said to have conducted occult experiments with crystal gazing
that he called scrying the ether and began conversing with
angelic intelligences this way, and D got more and more
involved in this. So while some of these pursuits seemed
(18:02):
pretty well balanced from most of his life, this started
to take over the other ones from the fifteen eighties
onward until it really began to dominate his life almost entirely.
And a lot of people think that he changed his
focus because he was just so frustrated that he couldn't
gain a comprehensive understanding of the universe up until that point.
(18:22):
That was what he was striving for all along, as
we mentioned earlier, to try to reconcile the magical aspects
of life with the practical aspects and the secrets of
the universe make it all makes sense, and he was
frustrated he couldn't do this despite his long hours, despite
his intelligence, and thought that maybe the angels could explain
(18:45):
it all, it could help him out. Another major influence
that played a part in this, though, was a man
named Edward Kelly, not to be confused with Ned Kelly
another not Ned It's not another Australian podcast, But Edward
Kelly came to D's life in fifteen eighty two and
he's often referred to as D's medium. According to Encyclopedia Britannica,
Kelly was a convicted counterfeiter and he claimed that he
(19:07):
could contact angels and spirits by gazing into a crystal ball.
He and D held seances together, and D became pretty
convinced that Kelly's abilities were actually real. The two traveled
on the continent together for several years in the fifteen eighties,
doing displays of magic at various courts, and they recorded
a language for communicating with angels, which is now referred
(19:28):
to as a Nokian, and he basically claimed that the
angels had revealed this language to them. Many historians suggest
that Kelly was pretty much a con artist, doing this
for fame and for wealth. According to d biographer Woolley,
he eventually made a play for D's wife and that's
what sort of broke them apart. But D seems to
(19:48):
have really been sincere in his belief of the stuff,
and that didn't help him win any friends. And by
the time he returned to England in fifteen eighty nine,
his reputation had been very much tarnished by his involvement
in the occult, and he found that his library had
been ransacked and his books and scientific instruments had been stolen,
(20:09):
and that that great reputation as a practical mind, as
somebody who was intelligent and and capable of performing all
these sciences was really gone, and ultimately the financial support
that D had longed for from Queen Elizabeth the First
and that she had sort of promised him to never
really materialized. She did give him a job, she appointed
(20:30):
him warden of Manchester College in fifte but that didn't
pay enough to support D and support his family, and
was honestly probably just a way to get him out
of London um away from from giving her a bad
rap by association. So his friends managed to raise some
money for him, but still his final years were pretty
(20:51):
much spent in poverty. He was miserable in Manchester, and
in sixteen oh five, to add insult to injury, the
area was hit by plague, killing his wife life and
several of his children too. He eventually returned to London
and died there in December sight. He basically spent the
end of his life trying to fight off the reputation
of being a conjurer, and that's what many remember him as,
(21:13):
even though he did so many other things. They're kind
of faded into the background now. The British Museum, though,
has some artifacts associated with him that you can check out,
including a mirror that he probably used in his occult
research and for all of the literary minded people out there,
d is also thought to be Some people actually say
he's almost certainly the inspiration for a very famous literary
(21:37):
conjuror Prospero in Shakespeare's The Tempest. So in a lot
of ways, and some people have said this before, he
was the quintessential magician, and therefore I think, okay, submission
for Halloween months, even though he wasn't that scarier spooky.
I like Halloween entries like that, ones that are intriguing.
(21:58):
It kind of reminds me of the Mesmerism episode did
for Halloween last year. Ones that just make you think, what,
what's reality, what's not? I don't know, And it makes
me interested to check out that opera if I ever
get a chance. Definitely, So that probably should bring us
to listen to me, And do you think so? We
(22:20):
had a lot of fun recently recording a podcast about
orson Wells War of the World's radio broadcast, which is
definitely spooky. It is, And so we have a couple
of emails here about that. One is from Martha and
she says, good afternoon, ladies, I just finished listening to
your podcast on orson Wells in the War of the
World's broadcast, So I wanted to share with you a
fond memory that your broadcast helped me recall. In two
(22:41):
thousand eight, I worked at a local skilled nursing facility
that October, to mark the seventh anniversary of the original broadcast,
I worked with some of the residents to rebroadcast the original.
We really put on a show for the other residents,
so it wasn't a actual radio broadcast, is which she's
trying to point out. She goes on to say, the
residents had a great I'm putting on the show, and
afterwards we talked about the original. Many of the residents
(23:04):
that I worked with were teenagers and young adults at
the time, and they told me that for some it
was a little scary and for others a good laugh,
but the majority were glued to their seats wanting to
know what happened next. The residents enjoyed sharing their memories
of their youth with me, which made this little bit
of history come alive for me. I've since moved on
in my career and some of those residents have passed away.
But your podcast covering the War of the Worlds has
(23:25):
brought back some fond memories. So I thought that sounded
like such a neat project to do, and I don't know,
maybe something that would be pretty fun for schools today too.
I mean, it's really cool if if the people actually
got to hear the original, But um, it's something that
doesn't seem to go away. Really. We got so many
emails from people about hearing the War of the World.
(23:47):
Then most of them were not people who had heard
the original broadcast. They heard it because their grandparents played
it for them, or it was rebroadcasts on the radio.
And we even heard from some people who said, I
know exactly what I would have done, because I thought
it was real when I heard it rebroadcast in the
seventies or whatever. Doesn't seem like a great thing to
play for little kids, because we also heard from many,
(24:10):
many people who had terrified memories as children of of
hearing the War of the World. But we did get
another fun email. This one is from Sarah, and she
wrote that a friend of mine just received his master's
degree in broadcast communications and his master's thesis was about
the War of the World. Last Halloween, he threw a
(24:31):
nineteen thirties War of the World's theme party where everyone
had to come in period dress. We drank classic cocktails
and listened to the War of the World's broadcast. It
was fabulous. This Halloween, he plans to host the party again,
but on a bigger scale. So this auce that sounded
really fun and a perfect pre Halloween listener a mail
to include. Um good costume idea for sure. Yeah, a
(24:54):
good party idea, definitely. So if you have any more
Halloween suggestions, well, probably have time to to receive your
feedback and maybe records them. I don't know, get them
in soon though, maybe as soon as you as soon
as you hear this podcast. If we're gonna have a turnaround, yeah,
you know that we can always use spooky ideas, so
we are always up for spooky doesn't have to be
contained in just one month of the year. We can
(25:16):
spread it around definitely, So right into us where at
history podcast at how Stuff works dot com. We're also
on Twitter at Miston History, and we are on Facebook too,
So those are all great ways to leave your Halloween suggestion.
And if you want to join me on my quest
to find out what this whole Harry Potter thing is
all about, many years after the fact of it's being cool.
(25:41):
You can check out an article we have on our
website called how Harry Potter's wand Works. I think I
should probably hold off from reading it in case of
how spoilers. There will be spoilers, but you can find
that by visiting our homepage and searching for Harry Potter
at www dot how stuff works dot com. Be sure
(26:01):
to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Join how stupe Works staff as we explore the most
promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The House Step Works
iPhone app has a rise. Download it today on iTunes.
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