Everybody has probably heard of “the British Empire.” In the 19th and early 20th centuries it was the largest empire in history, and for much of that time was the military “superpower” of the world. It began in the 1400s when Europeans, initially from Portugal and Spain, began exploring the world by ship. The European approach was to come ashore on a new bit of land and claim they owned it (unless there was an existing society that looked powerful enough to give them a serious argument), then claim it was a “possession” or “territory” or, if they shipped enough of their own people there, a “colony.”
England was a late starter in this European trend, but got very good at it by the 1500s. The British government, headed by Queen Elizabeth I, started to enthusiastically support the effort, and in the 1500s began talking about establishing an empire. It probably wasn’t Elizabeth I’s idea — instead, it was a policy urged by one of her closest advisors, John Dee, who was born July 13, 1527 in London. He’s probably the one who coined the term “British Empire.”
Dee was born into a well-placed family, although they weren’t formally members of the nobility. His father was a textile merchant, or “mercer,” and a member of the court of the king at the time, Henry VIII. Because his family was well off, Dee was educated, and attended St. John’s College in Cambridge when he was 15. By the time he graduated he’d been recognized as a particularly bright student, and was named one of the original fellows of Trinity College when it was founded in 1546.
Dee was interested in just about everything, including science — which at the time included alchemy and astrology. At Trinity College he helped out behind the scenes with theatre productions, designing various sorts of special effects. For one production, Peace (a classic play by Aristophanes), his effects were so good he acquired a reputation as a magician. That reputation stuck with him — and he probably encouraged it.
In the late 1540s Dee travelled throughout Europe, meeting other natural philosophers (although that term probably didn’t yet exist) and studying math, astronomy, navigation, and anything else he could find out about. During his travels he accumulated the biggest collection of mathematical and astronomical instruments and tools in England.
When he got back home he became a rector in a school near London, and was offered a position as the equivalent of a professorship at Oxford University — but he turned it down, saying he disagreed with the school’s emphasis on rhetoric and grammar instead of philosophy and science. He may have had an ulterior motive as well: obtaining an even better position at the royal court, which at the time was headed by Queen Mary I. His plan was diverted when he was arrested because he’d prepared horoscopes for the Queen and for Princess Elizabeth. The actual charge was “calculating.” The English body that investigated such crimes was the Star Chamber, a sort of local version of the Spanish Inquisition, but Dee managed to clear his name. It turned out that one of the factors against him was his preference for secrecy — which caused him problems at other times as well.
For the next few years Dee concentrated on writing and on expanding his personal library, which grew to be the best library in England, and almost a university on its own. His big break came in 1558, when Elizabeth was crowned Queen, and named him her astrological and scientific advisor. He kept the job for about the next 20 years, during which he pushed hard at exploration, colonization, and creating the British Empire. He also kept up his studies in the sciences — but in those days, “science” included some topics we’d call occult or mystical. Among other things, he claimed he knew, through occult, magical methods, about a treasure hidden in a vague location in Wales, as well as valuable ancient manuscripts stored in a castle near Wigmore, England. These might have been cleverly planted rumors, since he was acquainted with Queen Elizabeth’s Lord Treasurer and knew the treasurer’s ancestors came from that area.
By the time he was in his 60s, Dee grew dissatisfied with his progress in understanding, basically, everything, and also with his influence in the royal court. So he did something that was, I guess, perfectly reasonable for a proto-scientist in the 1580s: he turned to the supernatural and started to hold seances at which he asked (or thought he asked) angels for help. Dee met the Polish nobleman Albert Laski at court, and Laski invited Dee and his spiritual advisor (or “scryer”), Edward Kelly, to accompany him back to Poland. But when they arrived, it turned out that Laski was bankrupt and had been cast out of the Polish royal court. Dee and Kelly stayed in Europe, meeting various monarchs and other nobles and trying to convince them about how important magical communication with angels was.
Dee had a reputation throughout Europe as a leading scholar, but because he’d been a member of the Queen Elizabeth’s court for decades, the nobles of Europe kept him at arm’s length because they thought he was a spy. And he might really have been one; at least one letter survives that he wrote to Francis Walsingham, who was Elizabeth’s “spymaster.”
Although Dee was primarily focused on communicating with angels in order to advance his learning, Kelly began to distance himself when his own reputation as an alchemist began to grow. There’s some evidence that Kelly had been what we’d call a scam artist from the start, and discovered there was more possibility for wealth as an alchemist than by conducting Dee’s constant seances. The two split up in 1589. Dee returned to England and Kelly remained as the official alchemist to Emperor Rudolph II, the Holy Roman Emperor.
Dee returned home to a disaster; his house, library, and extensive collection of scientific instruments had been vandalized and robbed. Worse, the popular mood in England had begun to turn against his magical beliefs and practices. He turned to Queen Elizabeth for help, and she gave him a job: warden on a college in Manchester. He tried unsuccessfully to get Kelly to return to England, believing that alchemy could solve the economic problems England was experiencing at the time.
It wasn’t long before Elizabeth died and James I took the throne, which was bad for Dee — King James had no interest in him or his advice. Dee retired to his house and supported himself by selling his remaining books and instruments. He died sometime around the age of 81. It’s unclear because both the church records and Dee’s gravestone are, for some reason, missing.
Dee is memorialized by a plaque installed (in 2013) in the church near his home in Mortlake. He is likely to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s character Prospero in The Tempest. Edmund Spenser’s 1596 The Faerie Queene seems to refer to Dee, or someone like him. He’s also mentioned, and is sometimes a major character, in works from every century from his own to the present. He’s even a nonplayer character in the computer game Uncharted 3. You can also regard the British Empire itself as a sort of memorial to John Dee — after all, he’s the guy who thought of it.
