The Alchemical Patronage of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley

caste the ffeare of god behynd me and desyre riches more than gods glory, I
cold do ffor the Emperor suche things and make hym suche engynes for
his warres that he might therby subdewe any prynce that wold stand agaynst
him. Whiche devyces yf I wold make manyfest I cold have land and mony
inough; but that goode is evill gotten, that pressyts a man downe in to
hell 104
Nicholai Rubtsov‘s identification of Lock as a cannon founder was possibly based on this
letter. 105 Lock also maintained that he ―cold have done proffytable things in England
abought the making of salt‖ but believed that another man would steal his invention, as
Cecil and Leicester had given credit to unspecified baseless accusations against him. 106 It
seems unlikely that Lock was referring to common salt, whose method of production was
well known. Perhaps Lock was referring to Paracelsian medical salts. Regardless, Lock did
not receive the desired response, as three years later he was still stranded in Moscow.
Accused by the merchants as a ―traytor, and an eniymye to me countrye, bycause I could
not prase there evyll doings‖, on 19 May 1572 Lock wrote to Leicester begging for his
good favour as in times past. 107 Lock asked if Leicester and Cecil could convince the
Queen to write a letter for his delivery out of Russia. 108 Although he technically had free
passage in Russia, Lock doubted whether he would be allowed to leave if the Tsar
continued his ambitious building schedule.
It was Lock‘s situation in Russia, accused by the Muscovy Company as a traitor and
desperate to return home, that motivated him to send Cecil an alchemical treatise. Grund
has identified seven extant copies of the treatise, along with five extracts and abbreviations,
making it difficult to establish which, if any, is original. None are in Lock‘s hand and only
the alchemist and physician Simon Forman‘s copy of 1590 is dated. This chapter primarily
relies on MS Sloane 299, seemingly the most compete version. 109 The manuscript consists
104 Lock to Cecil, SP70/98 f. 64v.
105 N. N. Rubtsov, History of Foundry Practice, p. 44.
106 Lock to Cecil, SP70/98 f. 64v.
107 Humfrey Lock to Leicester, 19 May 1572, TNA, SP 70/123 f.149r.
108 Ibid.
109 For a detailed comparison of the contents and provenance of the various versions see Peter Grund,
‗―Misticall Wordes and Names Infinite‖‘, pp. 6-12.
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