Dee, John Dee: Codename 007?

The influence of prophecy and astrology have an important place in the fifteenth and sixteen centuries, so it was no surprise that the ideas were important to King Henry the Seventh, who ruled England from August until his death in April of fifteen o nine. The importance of those things remained strong through the Tutor period, which began the same year Henry took the throne and came to an end in sixteen o three. Not only was he fascinating by the occult,

that fascination continued through generations of his family. His son, Henry the Eighth was obsessed with the practices, as was Elizabeth the First. Henry the eighth daughter enter the man named John D. John d. Is there anything he wasn't interested? In let's start with his personal life. John D was born in July to Rowland and Joanna D who were of Welsh descent. Rowland was a tailor and a mercer. A mercer was a merchant who dealt with fabrics, usually

expensive fabrics. And just in case we have any stitchers in the crowd and your brain has made the connection to the phrase mercer at cotton, which comes up in descriptions of thread and occasional sewing textiles. Coincidental and unrelated. That is named for a process of treating fabrics so they upticked die more readily, but it is named for John Mercer, who invented it several hundred years after the events were talking about today, which puts us in the

mid eighteen hundreds. And we could thank Holly for this ditchery and sewing information. I immediately thought of mercerized cotton. I knew would didn't didn't want any confusion to be there. So back to John D. John was married at least twice and possibly three times. Here's what we've got. John's first wife was Katherine Constable. The couple had no children. There may have been a second wife after Katherine, but that is unclear. Again, if there was a marriage, there

were no children. John was we know, married to Jane Fromond. Jane had been a lady in waiting to the Countess of Lincoln. It suggested that Jane's connections could have helped her new husband's career and his finances in his later years. Now, also depending on what you read, John and Jane had

either one child or they had eight children, pretty wide margin. Uh. In the scenario where the couple is described as having one child, that child was a son named Arthur, and Arthur, like his father, was an alchemist who was also a physician to King Charles the First of England, and is are Michael the First of Russia. The version of the story where they had eight children kind of falls out like this. There were four boys and four girls, and it's possible that at least two of their daughters died

of plague. Let's switch this focus to John's work. John really was a genius. If you look at the word Polly Math in the dictionary, you could possibly see a picture of John d He was a person who was genuinely curious about our world and what might be beyond our world. So John, as you'll get to know was was really quite a character, But we can't talk about all the things about his life in this episode. He was a force of nature, and our show just isn't

big enough to contain him. So if there's something about his life that we skip over, we probably didn't want to. We know about De's education because he told us about it. In fifteen ninety two, he recounted how, at age fifteen, he attended St John's College, Cambridge, where he wrote he studied for at least eighteen hours a day. He received his undergraduate degree in fifteen forty five and a master's

degree in fifteen forty eight, both from St John's. In fifteen forty six, John was elected a fellow at the newly founded Trinity College. He also spent time studying at the University of Luven. Note that here we're talking about old University of Luvin, not the newer Catholic University of Luven, which was established in eighteen thirty five, and it is at university where John d met, in his words, some quote, learned men. These learned men included mathematicians Gema Frisius, Gerardis Mercator,

and Gaspar America. By fifteen fifty John was living in and lecturing around Paris, and went on to work for King Henry the second of France, as well as the un Diversity of Paris. D's understanding of chemistry and physics was extraordinary, and he's said to have used these skills to produce some pretty impressive stage effects during his time at Cambridge. Here's one great example of his mathematical antics.

He was involved in a production of Aristophanes's Athenian play Packs or Peace, a comedy that was first staged in four b C. D's contribution was this a giant mechanical scarab beetle used as a prop to make it appears though a character was flying through the air while riding the insects back the performance, it was reviewed, was so lifelike and astonishing to the audience that many believed d must have conspired with the devil to make such a thing.

And these thoughts, well we quote him here and for these and such like marvelous arts and feats naturally mathematically and mechanically rock contrived, any student and modest Christian philosopher be counted and called a conjuror. As a student at Trinity College, he gained a reputation as a magician. We're gonna take a break for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back we will talk about the crime of calculating. Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about John

d astrologer to the royals. It is said that John turned down a mathematical professorship at the University of Paris in fifteen fifty one and another similar position at the University of Oxford in fifteen fifty four, all in the hope that he would be able to score an official position with the Crown. And he did, and then he got arrested. He was arrested and charged with the crime

of something called calculating. It was in reference to what was considered an act of treason on his behalf, casting horoscopes for Queen Mary and her younger sister Elizabeth, who would go on to become Elizabeth the First. He was then interrogated by the Star Chamber, which was an English

court that sat in the Palace of Westminster. He was exonerated by the common law judges in that court, but he later was examined by Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London and infamous heretic hunter the outcome may not have been exactly what you expect, though D. N. Bonner became friends and that marked the end of any further investigation. Later found among these books was one inscribed in Latin quote the house of my singular friend, a reference to a

stay at Bonner's home. John d did work for the royal family, and he became famously known as the conjuror to Queen Elizabeth the First, but d was a just astrologer to the royals. He had clients and students outside of the royal family, including Francis Bacon, promoter of a new idea called the scientific method, un to the astronomer Thomas Diggs, who believed the universe to be infinite. Not to be missed two is Dee's library, which is kind

of a character in and of itself. It was not your ordinary home bookshelves, and it was known to have contained as many as three thousand to four thousand books. It became a hub a sort of scholarly network that

he often imagined expanding into an international research institute. Occultism in these types of practices were actually pretty normal for the period, and the occult sciences enjoyed a kind of Renaissance in later Elizabethan England, as print and translation made ancient, Medieval, and earlier Renaissance texts available to would be English adepts, writes academic Paul S. Sever Dee didn't view any of

his study as heresy. He saw the practices as a way to learn more about the world and the cosmos. He spent much of his time on the ideas of alchemy, divination, and hermetic philosophy, and he known for his accuracy in what was at the time the newly emerging science of physics, and for his interest in exploration of chemical compounds. But here is a problem. That d and his peers ran into math made people suspicious. D was up against a

society that considered math disreputable. It was thought to be in league with the practices of witchcraft and the dark arts. You're manipulating the counting of things that is scary. Nicolas Copernicus is the Revolutionibus, published in fifty three, for instance, was scandalous because of its heliocentric theory of the solar system. But the fact that he used mathematics to deduce the

things he couldn't directly see was also problematic. During the Tutor period, math books were often destroyed, usually burned for being and we're quoting conjuring books. A few decades after D's death in sixteen fifty one, biograph for John Rawleigh was accused of conjuring when he used basic geometry to

calculate the height of a steeple. So alchemy could and was confused with witchery from time to time or often, and at this time, as we've seen, such as with Cornelia's Agrippa as well as Nostrodamus, when your work and interests fall into what's considered to be beyond our physical world, you begin to kind of tell the line between an afternoon discussion about horoscopes in the queen's court to being

punished by death for heresy. In six hundred, just a few years before John's death, astronomer Giordano Bruno was executed because well, I mean, actually it depends on which historian you ask, because this is debated. The Roman Inquisition condemned him, at least partly because of cosmology. Bruno argued there were many worlds, and he was formally accused by the Church not of heresy but of blasphemy thirteen times in ten depositions by six witnesses. These out of world ideas lead

to his death. Eventually, John d left the Queen's service to seek deeper knowledge of the occult and the supernatural. In doing so, though, De aligned himself with individuals who were or who were once considered to be con artists and Charlatan's and frankly frauds. These gadgets and devices may have seemed magical to the untrained eye, but they were actually mathematical instruments. The children near his home in Mortlake quote dreaded him because he was accounted a conjurer. But

you see, John was a conjurer. D closely studied codes and cryptography discussed in Stenographia by the German abbot Johannes Trithemius, who, by the way, was suspected of diabolical wizardry. Steinographia described the practice of concealing a message within another message or a physical object, basically the art of encrypting messages, and it's the book that turned d on the idea of

angelic communication. John spent years scrying for angels and spirits with a man named Edward Kelly, who was an English Renaissance occultist and self declared spirit medium. Scrying is a form of divination that involves staring into a reflective surface, such as a crystal ball or a mirror, or maybe water, and looking for visions of things to come in the future.

John and Edward were seeking and we quote angelic conversation d and Kelly claimed they've discovered an angelic language called an opian and we're being taught the alphabet and words by the angels themselves. So we have to talk about this part because the story here takes a pretty big turn. There is a version of John and Edward's story where Edward claims the angels wanted the men to swap wives.

Depending on the version, this situation may have happened in Poland. Also, depending on the version, they did swap wives and shortly after parted ways. Some versions do, while others do not claim that. In one of these journals, he writes, Kelly may have fathered one of his sons. You know, regardless of which adventure here that you choose, the two men

did part ways. We are going to take a break here for a word from our sponsor, and when we're back, we're going to talk about the idea that John D. Was a spy. Welcome back to Criminalia. So is John D a scientist or is he a sorcerer? Let's discuss. John had set his more scientific and mathematical work aside for the crystal ball and obsidian mirror. Upon returning home to England, def that his home and that enormous and enviable library we mentioned had both been broken into, pillaged

and vandalized. John did return to the Queen's service when Elizabeth the First appointed him Warden of Manchester College in fifteen ninety six, but he found himself out of royal favor when the Queen was succeeded by James the First. The end of John's life was overwhelmed by poverty and isolation.

History has long said that he died at Mortlake in December of sixteen o eight and was buried in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, but over the years new evidence has emerged that suggests that maybe his death didn't happen that way. Perhaps instead his death actually took place the following March in sixteen o nine, and that instead of at Mortlake, rather it happened in the London home of his friend probable fellow alchemist and possible executor

to his estate. John pontois pretty much everyone who has tried has founded difficult to categorize John D. Is he a scientist or a sorcerer. John was a fairly marginal character for most of the twentieth century, and it wasn't until the nineteen sixties and seventies that his story began to re emerge, this time regarding the advances in astronomy

and philosophy that occurred during his lifetime. A new focus was placed on these contributions to subjects including mathematics, geography, astronomy, and navigation, and his magical investigations and occult leanings were de emphasized. Many of his contemporaries would have tried to pin him down as a philosopher or an astrologer, or perhaps even a magician. All would have agreed on one thing, though,

John D was perhaps most of all a mathematician. In his work The Mathematical Preface to the Elements of Geometry of Euclid and Megara, published in fifteen seventy, D argued that mathematics was an influence and an imported influence on all other arts and sciences. This became one of John's most widely and most frequently reprinted writings. And when it comes to those writings and specifically that writing, let's quote Galileo, The Book of Nature is written in the language of mathematics.

You probably recognize Galileo as the famous Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer. And there's probably a few of the things I could add that list as well. The two were contemporaries, but D would have been nearly forty years old when Galileo was born. Galileo's point here was complicated, but it boils down to really this, No true science would be called a science until it had become mathematical. Natural philosophy, which D had interest in studying, was the philosophical study

of nature and the physical universe. So the idea that John's work was written in the language of mathematics was really big, and German philosopher Emmanuel Kant backed up this idea in the eighteenth century, saying, quote, there is only that much genuine science in any science as it contains mathematics.

To put it all into perspective, though definitions were still pretty fluid at this point, and Kant applying the idea that modern science must be mathematicized, denied that chemistry was a science, so not all wisdom is universal to all things right, it's a work in progress here, it was agreed though that quote des work looks like mumbo jumbo and mysticism. Yet it was mathematical, and that was what mattered.

During his lifetime, John was never rewarded for his intellectual achievements, but his legend, his ideas and inventions, they live on in so many ways in literature, comics, opera, songs, and video games, and even James Bond. James Bond Bond, Yes, but first Prospero. John D and William Shakespeare were contemporaries, and while no one can be sure if the two men ever met each other, it's not unlikely that they

knew of each other. That's all speculative, though, However, scholars are almost certain that Shakespeare used John as the model for his character of Prospero, an alchemist who uses magical powers to manipulate and intimidate in the play The Tempest. The Tempest was probably written in sixteen ten or sixteen eleven, so not long after John D's death, and it is

not just the character of Prospero that he inspired. He was considered to have been the inspiration for Christopher Marlowe's character Dr Faustus, as well as Ben Johnson's The Alchemist. And then there's D. John D. So we discovered a long history regarding John D as a spy, and it all seems to have started when seventeenth century scientist Robert Hook suggested that D was officially employed by Elizabeth the First not for his abilities as an oracle, but that

he was really an undercover agent for the crown. Hook argued that John traveled Europe as an academic, but his real job was to gather information for the Queen. Hook also defended John's conversations with the angels by explaining they must have been encrypted intelligence messages sent from the Royal court. We have actually no proof of anything that Hook said about D in this capacity. It just seems to be

out there, sort of floating in the ether. In rumors swirled that John had signed his name as double O seven in his correspondence with Queen Elizabeth the First, and the code was rumored to mean for the Queen's eyes only. But again, there's nothing to see here other than rumors. But I mean, actually there is one thing. It has been said that d did actually sign memos to Elizabeth with specific symbols two ohs like a pair of eyes, followed by a seven with its top drawn across back

of the os. It's much more likely, though, to be true, that d advised the Queen's director of Intelligence, Francis Walsingham, on issues of national security as well as on establishing a network of spies and codes, because remember, he was competent with crying, with seeing what was to come. Much more of a project manager than a field agent at that point, Yes, very much so. So angel conversationalist or

not conjuror or mathematician. During the Scientific Revolution, that's the specific period of scientific growth shortly after D's death, during the sixteenth and seventeen centuries, these ideas and visions began to be heard and taken seriously by a larger circle of scientists. And with a quote from John himself, We're gonna stroll over to the cauldron quote. Who does not understand should either learn or be silent. So Holly, teach

us what's in the cauldron. Oh, surprises, surprises. I feel like this is one of those drinks that is either going to lose half of the listeners or um or delight them, or maybe it'll be But in any case, this is a drink that I call angel language, because I was really obsessed with this idea of like, oh, yes,

we're we're talking to angels. They're teaching us alphabets and also instructing us to do interesting things, and so I just kept thinking about like what a what a strange and sort of wonderful thing to be, like, oh, yeah, I'm talking to angels. Later, I gotta I gonna have lunch, but I have a meeting to the angels. I had

a meeting with the angels at five. I'm like, so I wanted to come up is something that felt a little angelic, and I noodled on it for a bit and then I realized I wanted to do something with champagne. And this one has some roots with the classic champagne cocktail from the eighteen fifties, but with a twist that kind of nods to John d The classic champagne cocktail, which isn't what we're making here today, but I'll give

it to you in case. Is a sugar cube that is then doused with angst a bitters and you drop it in your glass before you pour the champagne, so it sweetens it. Some people just use regular sugar, not a sugar cube, and now some people would use simple syrup. It's delightful. However, this one, I'm telling you it's a little weird. But come with me, something very fun happens. I highly recommend using a coupe for this one rather than a fluted champagne glass because, uh, it helps with

a thing that I will describe. It does the thing for you. You're gonna build this, like I said, in the glass, so it's not something you shake and then pour in. You want to go ahead and build it in the glass. So it's gonna start with a blourb that's an official measurement. Um. I've seen it popping up

in cookbooks recently, like a spoonful of marshmallow cream. Well, this is starting interestingly, I know, I told you, And you're gonna toss that in your glass, and then on top of that, you'll pour a half ounce of creme de violette. If you don't like violet cordial, you could use almost any other cordial here that you prefer, and then an ounce of whipped cream or vanilla vodka whatever. I had whipped cream vodka on hand, but vanilla vaca would work just fine here. And then you're gonna top

all that with champagne. And so what happens is your marshmallow fluff um or your marshmallow cream, whichever you've bought, is going to start to break apart and dissolve a little, and it makes these beautiful little cloud shapes in the glass.

And it's got that kind of In my case, the crammed a violette added a little pink hue, so it looks almost like a pretty sunset, and it gets sweeter as you drink it because more and more of the marshmallow fluff has broken down, and it's just very beautiful. You could, even if you wanted to play John de fun could say that you were reading the fluff clouds as they break apart, like one would divine tea leaves or something. There's no real thing going on there. It's

just delicious sugar breaking into pieces. But this is uh drink that tastes like candy and surely packs a wallop. Like I described it, as I was work shopping it, I was tweeting a little about it, and I said it was like being slapped around by kittens, so yummy, And you're like, oh, it's a very dessert e drink.

But because I mean you have vodka and a liquor and champagne, the only thing that's not an alcohol in there is marshmallow flow, so I have to die you Like I I grew up with marshmallow fluf fluff for Nutters, where um, and I have this association with marshmallow fluff and peanut butter, so like, I'm so glad that you've broken fluff out for me into a different world because I was never really a fan and a fluff for nutter, but I have a fan and I'm not keeping your drink,

so I'd much rather have that. And I do like marshmallow flavored everything, so um yeah, I kind of wanted to do something that tasted a little like Angel food cake, which it does, and it is light because of the champagne, so it's kind of like an Angel food cake e nod as well. Here's how you would do the mocktail version of this. Marshmallow cream or marshmallow fluff obviously fine. Instead of your cordial, you can just do a flavored syrup,

whatever variety you like. I wanted to do a rose syrup, but I'm trying not to be a predictable beast um. But also I mean, if you like a raspberry syrup, like any syrup that you like, would be fun to try here. Obviously you can't do the vodka. Here's what I would do a little bit of cream soda, and then you're ginger ale on top of that. I would do one or both of those in a low sugar or sugar free version. Otherwise it's going to be pretty cloying. But if you like super sweet, then go for it.

The other funding that happens that I didn't mention with the alcoholic version is that when you pour the champagne in, it really reacts with the marshmallow fluff and does this like kind of explode. E does have a chemical chemical react a little bit. I mean it just it has. You have a big moment initially, so definitely pour it slowly, don't just like because it's gonna expand pretty quickly and you may have an overflow under your counter like I did.

It happens tools of the trade. So it's a fun little dessert sparkler, And like I said, it's called angel Language. I love it. I want to make I would have had too, but I workshop them sometimes in the morning before we record, and I didn't need to come to this recording like Stumbalina. I would have been really not not holly in the corner right, I've been like, where do you be? John. It wouldn't have been very good

at all. So nobody needs that. So if you make a little angel language, I hope it's delightful for you. I hope that you meet us back here next week where we will have yet another episode of Criminalia, and I hope that you have enjoyed this one, and I want to thank you for spending this time with us. Criminalia is a production of Shonda land Audio in partnership

with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shonda land Audio, please visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.