Dr John Dee is the chief instigator of the events that unravel in The Blade in the Angel’s Shadow. Through his medaling in Angelic magic, he creates the conditions for what happens to our protagonists and, beyond that, alters the course of world history in the belief that he can return humanity to the state of grace it enjoyed before the Fall. He is the magical spider in the centre of the web of intrigue that causes ripples through time itself. Or, at least, that is how I have chosen to paint him for this story. But, in truth, Dr Dee is a complex character in his own right, someone who actually existed in the Tudor world beyond his part in the book.

Dee, born in 1527, studied mathematics and astronomy at Trinity College, Cambridge, before moving to Louvain in the Low Countries to study geographical arts. Returning to England following the death of Henry VIII, he took up positions in several prominent households where he acted as advisor and tutor. He appeared to be on the verge of becoming a favourite of the young King Edward VI, and he seemed destined to enjoy rank and wealth. But, upon the death of the young Edward, his fortunes were thrown into turmoil with the ascension of Mary. Dee’s father was arrested as a Protestant activist, and with no benefactors, Dee was suddenly forced to fend for himself.

In 1555, Mary’s supporters began to burn prominent Protestants, and the officers of the Privy Council were dispatched to arrest Dee. The accusations against Dee were serious, focusing on his religious leanings and his mathematics, which was associated with the magical ‘black arts’; the term calculating was synonymous with conjuration. After three months of questioning and the collapse of the evidence against him, he was accused of heresy and taken to be questioned by the Bishop of London. Dee, refusing to be swayed, stood firm in his beliefs, always contending that his theology was founded on ancient principles and confirmed by science. His resilience and intellectual prowess were evident, as he managed to fit into the new Catholic order and, therefore, survived where many of his peers did not. 1558, Mary died, leaving all those associated with her regime and religion in a dangerous position, not least the Bishop of London and Dee, who had been made his chaplain.

Fate smiled on Dee in the form of Elizabeth. As one of the country’s leading natural philosophers who had revived an interest in mathematically based astrology, he was asked to cast a horoscope setting the date for her coronation. Soon after the coronation, Dee disappeared from the historical record for nearly five years. It is believed that he spent much of this time abroad collecting books and researching the Cabala. Returning to England in 1564, he presented Elizabeth with a copy of his book ‘The Hieroglyphic Monad’, which fascinated her, and she promised to become Dee’s ‘scholar’ if he disclosed ‘unto her the secrets of that book’.

Dee became an important figure in the promotion of the idea of a ‘British Empire’ advocating for the establishment of English colonies abroad, with English exploration and the expansion of English trade being at the fore. He strongly supported efforts to find a Northwest Passage to Asia and to discover the continent of ‘Terra Australis Incognita’, which he was convinced existed in the southern hemisphere. Dee posited a formal claim to North America on the back of a map drawn in 1577–1580; he noted that “circa 1494 Mr. Robert Thorn his father, and Mr. Eliot of Bristow, discovered Newfound Land.” In his Title Royal of 1580, he wrote that Madog ab Owain Gwynedd had discovered America, intending thereby to boost England’s claim to the New World over that of Spain. He also asserted that Brutus of Britain and King Arthur, as well as Madog, had conquered lands in the Americas so that their heir, Elizabeth I of England, had a prior claim there. The famous English navigators Frobisher, Drake, Borough and Raleigh all sought out Dee for his mathematical and technical expertise.

His home at Mortlake became the repository of his extensive library, the largest in England, and collection of alchemical apparatus, and the Queen frequently consulted with him on scientific and astrological matters. She even visited his home on occasion.

In the 1580’s Dee began his ‘angelic conversations’ with the help of a number of mediums, the most notorious of which was Edward Kelly. During these alleged conversations, Dee was told to assist the angels’ plans for the bringing about of the end of the world, specifically with regard to gathering the twelve tribes of Israel. With the goal of bringing together Catholicism and Protestantism and bringing Judaism, Islam, and paganism into the fold of a new Christianity, this new world religion, along with the plans that Dee had already laid for a British Empire, would enable the angels to unite the entirety of humanity into one state and one church, directed by the angels themselves. During this time, he created a completely new language with its own grammar and syntax. But, following an abortive journey to the court of the Holy Roman Emperor, where he failed to produce gold from base metal, he found his reputation and finances damaged beyond repair by his association with the rogue Edward Kelly.  

When Elizabeth I died in 1603, he lost his only access to the royal court and found himself a pariah. The new king, James I, was very much against the supernatural and Dee found himself spending his remaining years defending himself against accusations of being a sorcerer. He died a pauper at his home in Mortlake in 1608.

Despite Dr Dee’s ignominious end, he was a polymath and possibly one of the most brilliant men of the Renaissance, engaging in cutting-edge science, which he intertwined with the occult. He is reputed to have cast a spell which caused the storm that wrecked the Spanish Armada. Elizabeth used the well-travelled and loyal Dee as a spy, something that Ian Fleming used as inspiration for his James Bond creation, including the famous ‘007’, with which Dee is said to have signed his letters to Elizabeth. The remaining possessions of Dr Dee are housed in the British Museum and include a black obsidian mirror, which he used to perform his scrying. The mirror is believed to be of Aztec origin and to have been taken to Europe by the returning forces of Hernán Cortés. All of this makes Dr John Dee a fascinating character who I may well have ill-used in my book, although who is to say?

Oh, and one more thing. In 1642, a confectioner and his wife decided to go and buy some ‘household stuff’. They spied a locked cedar wood chest in very good condition and decided to buy it. They returned home with it, and there it lay undisturbed for twenty years. In 1662, they decided to move the chest and, in doing so, heard a rattle. Upon investigating, the confectioner discovered a secret draw which he pried open with a knife and inside, they found a collection of books and papers. Unable to decipher the gibberish contents, they put the papers to one side. Their maid found the papers and decided that they would be good for lining pie tins and other such uses and proceeded to work her way through around half the pile before this was noticed and the papers were locked away again. In 1644, the confectioner died, and two years later, the Great Fire of London broke out. His wife fled with what possessions she could carry but was forced to leave the heavy chest although she did remove the papers and took them with her.  She remarried to a warder of the Tower of London, and upon showing him the papers, he recognised their potential value, although he too could not understand them. But he knew a collector and expert in astrology, alchemy and the occult. Elias Ashmole became the owner of the remaining papers, which he found to be the surviving remnants of Dee’s Liber Mysteriorum, his book of mysteries. Which, according to the man in whose hand they were written, contained the secrets of the universe…