IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF EDWARD KELLEY: Some Manuscript References at the Royal Library in Copenhagen Concerning an Alchemical Circle around John Dee and Edward Kelley

Abstract

My primary aim in this paper is to present a group of manuscripts in The Royal Library in Copenhagen which in one way or another are intimately related to the alchemical quest of a group of historically little-known persons associated with Edward Kelley and John Dee. My secondary aim will be to question the established opinion that Edward Kelley’s alchemical and allegedly fraudulent career at the court of Rudolph II in Prague was so chaotic and adventurous that it led to his imprisonment and subsequent death in 1595 from injuries he is said to have suffered whilst attempting to escape. This is the common story, given for instance by Elias Ashmole, Anthony à Wood, and in the Dictionary of National Biography.1 Let us first address the matter of Kelley’s career in Prague.