JOHN DEE’S INTEREST IN THE APPLICATION OF NAUTICAL SCIENCE, MATHEMATICS AND LAW TO ENGLISH NAVAL AFFAIRS

Abstract

Although John Dee’s first teaching appointment was in classics at the new Trinity College, Cambridge in 1547, he was soon off abroad to buy books later that year, and going on extended trips to the Universities of Louvain and Paris in 1549 and 1550 to study the practical application of mathematics to navigational problems. He learned much there about the relationship of these matters with geography, politics and international law, as well as acquiring a number of instruments. Dee had returned by 1551, taking service in February 1552 with William Herbert, the Earl of Pembroke, who through his marriage to Anne Parr remained very influential at Court until his death in 1570. Dee would share many of the same interests with the Welsh-speaking Earl and his sons, from Welsh history, to the law on mineralogy and prospecting, metallurgy, to cartography and exploration. Those shared interests shaped the Herbert family’s investment decisions in respect of their estates in Wales and Gloucestershire, where they successfully exploited coal, iron and copper deposits, and the losses they incurred due to over-confidence in the American ores found on Martin Frobisher’s northern voyages to “Meta Incognita” between 1576 and 1578.