The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Modern Science 1300-1800 (1951) famously described historians of alchemy as ―tinctured
with the kind of lunacy they set out to describe‖. 42
This presentist view, which assigned little historical importance to alchemy because
it conflicted with current scientific concepts, predominated until the 1960s. In that decade,
Frances Yates argued that a cohesive Renaissance philosophy of magical and hermetic ideas
played an essential role in the Scientific Revolution, thereby transforming the study of
Renaissance ideas. Despite subsequent criticism, the so called ―Yates thesis‖, which
argued, for example, that John Dee‘s obsession with Renaissance magic ―could pass into,
and stimulate, the will to operate in genuine applied science‖, caused historians to reassess
the influence of occult knowledge, a process that continues today. 43 Scholars such as Walter
Pagel, Allen G. Debus, Nicholas Clulee and Stanton Linden have since helped to
reintegrate alchemy, along with elements of magic, Neoplatonist philosophy, and
Paracelsian medicine, into the mainstream history of science. 44
Perhaps the most influential general study of early modern magical practices has
been Keith Thomas‘ seminal work Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971). 45 In describing the
links between changing religious practices and belief in witchcraft, astrology, and magic,
Thomas created a convincing explanation for the decline of popular magical beliefs by the
end of the seventeenth century. Whilst Thomas‘ three hundred year time span meant that
his argument remained very broad, he did briefly discuss some aspects of Cecil‘s mentality
that would seem to contradict his pragmatic reputation, specifically his belief in astrological
prediction and in the unlucky nature of certain days. 46 Thomas‘ treatment of alchemy was
inadequate in comparison. Because he relied principally on printed material, Thomas
42 Herbert Butterfield, The Origins of Modern Science, 1300-1800, New York, 1951, p. 98.
43 Frances Yates, Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Chicago, 1964, p. 150.
44 See Alan Debus, The Chemical Promise: Experiment and Mysticism in the Chemical Philosophy 1550-1800, Sagamore
Beach 2006; Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: An Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance, Basel,
1958; Nicholas Clulee, John Dee’s Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion, London, 1988; Stanton J.
Linden, The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton, Cambridge, 2003.
45 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century
England, Oxford, 1971.
46 Ibid., p. 616.
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