Maxie’s Demon (40 page)
Edward Kelley
According
to Aubrey’s contemporary Anthony Wood, Kelley was an apothecary’s son, born near Worcester in 1555. As Talbot he had studied at Oxford, possibly with another magical scholar, Thomas Allen, but had dropped out under some unspecified cloud. He had since been convicted of forgery, for which he was sentenced to have his ears cropped in the pillory at Lancaster;
he had also been involved there in disinterring a corpse for necromantic rites. Early in Dee’s service he married the widow Joan Cooper, apparently unhappily; he later blamed his choice on the angels. There is no description of Kelley, only one engraving of unknown origin; it shows an impressive but hard-faced man with flowing hair and beard – possibly to cover his notched ears.
Kelley
had an
obvious interest in Dee’s success, and the angelic messages he transmitted began to feed the good doctor’s ambition, steering him away from the English court to his Polish admirer, the prince Albrecht Laski. It was under his patronage that in 1583 Dee, Kelley and their families set out to impress Europe.
Rulers such as Stephen Bathori of Poland and the Emperor Rudolph received the pair royally
at first, partly because Dee exaggerated his influence with Elizabeth, because he represented a new thought free of Church restraints – and because of Kelley’s impressive alchemical demonstrations. An eyewitness account, by Sir Edward Dyer, survives of him heating base metal in crucibles together with a mysterious ‘powder of the Stone’ – the famous Philosopher’s Stone, presumably – and appearing
to produce gold. Lilly and his fellow antiquary Elias Ashmole record others. Unfortunately, in 1586, Kelley, perhaps trying to ingratiate himself with the Emperor, delivered a tactless angelic message to the Papal Legate in Prague. An attempt was made to lure the pair to Rome, no doubt for a fireside chat about heresy. When that failed, Rudolph was pressured to arrest them. Dee and Kelley hastily
retreated to a noble admirer’s country estate, but in 1589 they returned briefly to Prague, to mend fences with Rudolph. The Emperor knighted Kelley; Dee was more or less ignored. Elizabeth twice sent an envoy to recall them, but to Dee’s chagrin she too was more interested in Kelley’s potential.
What
happened then is not clear – except to Maxie; but Dee and Kelley split up. Dee returned to England
in grand style. Elizabeth gave him an academic post, but he lived expensively, with eight children to educate and a large household. Kelley remained behind, probably unwillingly, and was imprisoned in the tower of Zerner Castle. Dee tried to get Elizabeth to have him released; but in 1595 Kelley fell from the tower window – officially while trying to escape – and died of his injuries. Dee’s
diary records the news without any comment.
In 1605 Jane Dee died of the plague. When the magic-hating James VI and I came to the throne Dee’s prosperity finally dwindled, and in 1608 he died. Lilly records that in his last years, looked after by one daughter, Dee was so poor that he often had to sell one of his precious books to buy dinner.
Aubrey records Dee’s son Arthur, by then a successful
doctor, remembering that as a boy he ‘used to play at Quoits with the Plates of Gold made by Projection in … Dr Dee’s lodgings in Prague, and that he had more than once seen the Philosophers’ Stone.’
Stephen Fisher
The mysterious Stephen Fisher tells his own story, along with much more about the Spiral, in the cycle of books that begins with
Chase the Morning,
and continues through
The Gates
of Noon
and
Cloud Castles.
Michael Scott Rohan (1951 – )
Michael Scott Rohan, born in Edinburgh in 1951, writes both fantasy and science fiction. Whilst studying law at Oxford, Rohan joined the SF group and met the president, Allan J Scott, who started him writing for the group’s semi-professional magazine
SFinx
alongside names such as Robert Holdstock and Ian Watson. His first novel,
Run to the Stars
, was published in
1983 and he collaborated with Allan J Scott on
The Hammer and the Cross
, a non-fiction account of how Christianity arrived in Viking lands. Rohan is best known for his acclaimed
The Winter of the World
sequence, an epic fantasy set in and ice-bound world.
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Michael Scott Rohan 1997
All rights reserved.
The right of Michael Scott Rohan to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This eBook first published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 0 575 09231 0
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