John Dee – the early years and the making of a lifelong pursuit for recognition
John Dee: A 16th-century portrait by an unknown artist
John Dee – the early years and the making of a lifelong pursuit for recognition
John Dee was born in July 1527 into an up and coming family. The Dee family had arrived in London sometime after 1584 having followed Henry VII from Wales as he started the Tudor dynasty. Henry VII, being a wily leader, surrounded himself with intelligent men who owed him and supported him rather than those who assumed right of power through birth. So for the first time in centuries, Welshmen found themselves in demand rather than denigrated in the Royal Court. The Dee family was part of this shift in fortune.
Roland Dee, was a gentleman sewer in the court of Henry VIII. He likely provided cloth to the court and would have had connections with men of power. He had social standing as a warden of St Dunstans – a wealthy church in Tower Ward and was then awarded one of two packer licences which meant he had the right to inspect and charge fees on merchandise shipped out of London. Roland Dee was soon ascending as a wealthy man. He went on to enter the Guild of Mercers and join the socially exclusive Vestry of St Dunstans.
Just like affluent families of today, money was invested into his son’s education. Young John was sent to school in Chelmsford and then to St John’s College, Cambridge. Just as his father was a determined merchant, John was a dedicated scholar, spending eighteen hours a day at study. He learned Greek, Latin, mathematics, philosophy, and astronomy. In his final year he began the astronomical observations which would underpin his lifelong study of the stars and their influence on mankind. When he graduated in 1546, such was his reputation as a scholar, he became a founder of the new Trinity College. So the Dee family was an impressive compilation of wealth and brilliance. The future looked golden.
Then everything changed.
In 1547, Henry VIII died and his young son, Edward VI ascended the throne. But too young to rule, power went into the hands of his uncle, Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who was made Lord Protector. One of Somerset’s men was a certain John Thynne – a ruthless political and financial mover who would play any game to get what he wanted. Within weeks he had convinced Somerset to revoke Roland Dee’s packer licence and have it transferred to him. In the strike of a pen, Roland Dee lost his income and John Thynne was set to make a fortune which would enable him to build Longleat House.
Roland was desperate and determined to save his future. He started prowling the quays and trader taverns and foolishly charged illegal packer fees from ill-informed foreign traders. The authorities moved and he dug in, refusing to set out his accounts or assets. Then in desperation, he sold plate from St Dunstans without the permission of the parishioners and refused to give the name of the purchaser. He was a desperate man, making desperate moves to save his income but the walls of his world came down. He and his wife Jane fled to Gravesend where he might have some protection from the ambitious Dudley family.
At the same time, John Dee announced that he was not satisfied with scientific theory in England and decided to go abroad to study. Or was he escaping the very uncomfortable reputation which now clung to the name Dee? Roland Dee was now an embarrassment rather than a financial and social enabler.
Whatever the real reason, Dee went to Louvain and Paris where he worked with the great minds of Europe – Mercator, Fresias, Nunes – who were showing that the world was not a flat disc around which the stars revolved. Dee’s scholarly reputation grew and so did his mind.
When he returned in 1552, the political scene had changed in England. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, had taken control of Edward and the throne. John Dee was in favour again, his father’s fall from grace forgotten as distant past. He was taken into the great houses as a tutor – first William Herbert, Earl of Pembroke and then into the house of John Dudley. He was introduced to William Cecil, other courtiers and also the young king who was suitably impressed as to award pensions for income. The future looked golden once more.
Then it all changed again.
Edward fell ill and died in July 1553. The foolish attempt to wrest the throne by putting Lady Jane Grey as Queen and marrying her to Dudley’s son, Guilford, went terribly wrong. After just nine days the reign collapsed as Lady Jane, Guilford Dudley and John Dudley were arrested for treason. So were their helpers – among them Roland Dee!
This time Roland was ruined. Sent to the Tower and all property seized, he then had to answer a panel and was fined £13 pounds to buy his pardon. It took him six months to scrape together the money.
As he fell, so did his son. Here started a lifetime of John Dee trying to get back to the standing of his youth, the wealth he had been born into and the golden future he had been promised twice. We know little of his personality, but his behaviour is in keeping with people today who have had it all and lost it all. There is a tendency to resent and always believe that what they had was rightly theirs and should be returned. The psychology of accepting little after having so much is a lifetime of seeing what you do not have. Does this explain the endless attempts of John Dee to be accepted at court, his resentment of being ignored by Mary Tudor, his constant aligning and calling cousin women like Blanche ap Harri, his delight at Elizabeth’s interest, and his endless pleading with Cecil for an income that respected and recognised his efforts and advice? Was it the sorrow of being once named as ‘the most learned man in Europe’ only to be sneered at as ‘The Arch Conjuror’ after his arrest in May 1555 that led him to ever seek special knowledge and the power of the dark side? Was he on a constant mission to become what he truly thought he was going to be – a man of Court with wealth, status and, above all, the respect of others?
It never worked. Roland Dee’s inability to fight John Thynne and his desperate actions to retain money, then his blind assistance to treason had brought the Dee family to the depths of poverty. John Dee spent his life trying to redress the balance but he also died in poverty – still resenting the wealth, fortune and standing he had never had.
Further reading
The Arch-Conjuror of England, John Dee. Glynn Parry ISBN: 978-0-300-11719-6. This excellent biography gives the most detailed account of Roland Dee’s downfall and also a very readable account of John Dee’s life.
The Queen’s Conjuror. Benjamin Wooley. ISBN: 978-0-00-655202-4. This gives less detail on the very early years but is excellent in explaining Dee’s body of work, his scrying and use of various methods to commune with the other side.
The House of Doctor Dee. Peter Ackroyd. ISBN: 0-241-12500-6. A novel in which a young man inherits a house and finds himself communicating with a former owner of the house – Doctor John Dee. This book is said to be one of the best fictional depictions of Dee’s character.