The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

Many of the distortions in the historiography of Cecil can be traced to limitations in
the surviving records. As Principal Secretary to the Queen, and later as Lord Treasurer,
Cecil received, intercepted, read, responded to, and stored huge volumes of incoming
correspondence. A high proportion of these letters survive today, scattered across a
number of manuscript collections in the British National Archives and elsewhere. The
Cecil papers in Hatfield House alone comprise more than 900,000 manuscript folios. 57
However, only a small portion of Cecil‘s outgoing letters survive, forcing historians to
evaluate much of what he wrote by his correspondents‘ replies. This lack of direct written
evidence has exacerbated historians‘ tendency to impose their own, rationalist mindset on
Cecil. Nowhere is this more evident than in the few discussions of Cecil‘s alchemical
patronage.
The dispersal of Cecil‘s papers has also altered historians‘ interpretations. Upon his
death in 1598 one portion of his papers remained in the state records; another he left to his
second son Robert; and a third portion was appropriated by his personal secretary Michael
Hickes. 58 That part of Cecil‘s papers left in state hands forms the majority of the domestic
and foreign English State Papers in the National Archives, with part finding their way into
other collections such as the Cotton Manuscripts. 59 Robert Cecil‘s share, along with his
own papers, remain in his family home, Hatfield House, and form perhaps the most
important private collection of early modern English manuscripts. 60 That portion of Cecil‘s
papers obtained by Michael Hickes was acquired by Lord Lansdowne, first Earl of
Shelbourne, in the eighteenth century and now resides in the British Library as part of the
Lansdowne Collection. 61 Whilst these collections differ slightly in their focus, both
thematically and chronologically, records of any one important episode in Cecil‘s life are
57 Stephen Alford, ‗The Collection of the Cecil Papers, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire‘, State Papers Online,
1509–1714, Cengage Learning EMEA Ltd, Reading, 2009.
58 Stephen Alford, ‗State Papers of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I: the Archives and the Documents‘,
State Papers Online, 1509–1714, Cengage Learning, Reading 2007.
59 Simon Adams, ‗The Tudor State Papers in the Yelverton, Cotton and Harleian Manuscript Collections‘,
State Papers Online, 1509–1714, Cengage Learning, Reading, 2009.
60 Stephen Alford, ‗The Collection of the Cecil Papers, Hatfield House, Hertfordshire‘, State Papers Online,
1509–1714, Cengage Learning EMEA Ltd, Reading, 2009.
61 Stephen Alford, ‗State Papers of Edward VI, Mary I and Elizabeth I‘.
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