Welsh Journals

AN EPISODE IN THE LATER LIFE OF JOHN DEE THE reputation of the sixteenth-century mathematician John Dee (1527-1608) is being re-established by recent studies of his life and works which emphasize his contribution to the development of scientific ideas and their practical application to astronomy, optics, mechanics and geographical exploration.! Other aspects of his career, particularly his experiments in the 'occult arts', remain as contro- versial as in his own day. Despite an international reputation and the high regard of many of his fellow-countrymen, not least that of Queen Elizabeth herself, his life after his return to England in December 1589 was characterized by financial insecurity. He faced accumulated debts, the cost of renewing his ruined library and laboratories, and the normal maintenance of his household, yet he had no regular income from any official or academic position. His royal patron made many promises of preferment, but the wardenship of Manchester College that came to him in 1595 has hitherto been the only known instance of such a promise being fulfilled. This note draws attention to another preferment that he ultimately gained, and as it concerns a Welsh parish it is of interest in the light of his other known associations with Wales by family origins, personal friendships and antiquarian pursuits.2 In his Compendious Rehearsall, an autobiographical statement compiled in 1592-94 to further his pleas for official recognition, Dee records that early in 1592 his friends at Court secured for him a promise of ecclesiastical preferment by Crown patronage: 'And so it came to pass by her Majesties very bountifull purpose in giving unto the right worshipfull Doctor Awbrey, one of the Masters of Requests, a few advowsons of rectories endowed with vicarages in St. Davids diocese to my use, onely, when any of them shall become vacant'.3 The text of the grant in the Patent Rolls and in a con- temporary record of presentations to Crown livings names these benefices as Llangeler, Llanddewi Velfrey, Llandysul, Tenby, Stackpole Elidyr, St. Florence and Angle, with their valuations as 1 For Dee's career, see Dictionary of National Biography (D.N.B.). XIV, 271 (1888). Dictionary of Welsh Biography {D.W.B.) (1959), and E. G. R. Taylor. The Mathematical Practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England (1954). Biographies of Dee are numerous, the most recent being John Dee by R. Deacon (1968). D. WB. and Trans. Radnorshire Soc.. III. 10-15; XXI. 43-46; XXV, 15-16; XXVI. 15-16. 8 Chetham Society, XXIV. ed. J. Crossley (1851). p. 15 (Comp. R. hereafter).