Queen Elizabeth’s Court Occultist

In 2016, X-ray examination of Henry Gillard Glindoni’s painting John Dee Performing an Experiment before Elizabeth I revealed that a circle of human skulls was present in an earlier version of the work. The finished painting depicts a scene that looks rather like a mundane chemistry experiment, but Glindoni’s original vision for the piece incorporated the mystical trappings that one would expect of Queen Elizabeth I’s court astrologer.

The alteration of the painting embodies a disagreement over Dee that has raged for centuries. Was he a scholar or a mystic? Or, perhaps, both? During his lifetime, Dee collected the largest private library in England, and he studied extensively with some of Europe’s most prominent mathematicians. His knowledge of navigation and cartography helped launch a number of England’s voyages to the New World in the late 16th century, and he was a passionate advocate for the widespread dissemination of scientific and mathematical knowledge.

Dee also believed that he conversed with angels, and his interest in mathematics extended well into the realms of numerology. Elizabeth trusted Dee’s knowledge in this area, and it was he who selected her coronation date (January 15, 1559) based on his mystical and astrological calculations. Numerology figured into Dee’s correspondence with Elizabeth as well: He signed his letters to the queen “007,” a detail that Ian Fleming would repurpose for another gentleman in her majesty’s service.

Sorcerer or scholar, Dee remains a source of fascination more than four centuries after his death.