Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Magical Origins
of the British Empire
By Glyn Parry the dreadful schisms in Europe. Many believed that alchemy
A
would produce this end, for the Last World Emperor would
t last, the true purpose of John Dees inven- wield the philosophers stone to reform all of decaying Na-
tion of the British Empire, previously hidden, ture, including human beings.
can now be revealed. Conventional wisdom Dee was persuaded by these ideas, which had been
holds that he was responsible for naming repeated by European intellectuals and seers for many cen-
that empire, which became identified with a turies. The prophecy had originated in an apocalyptic text
progressive Protestant mission to bring enlightenment to a known as Pseudo-Methodius, after a semi-legendary bishop.
benighted world. However, that picture is the complacent Written c.674-8 CE in remote Syrian Mesopotamia, recently
result of intervening centuries of imperial history. From conquered by Islamic invaders, the prophecy was influenced
neglected manuscripts and hints within Dees writings, we by Jewish messianic expectations of an earthly ruler over a
now discover that, for Dee, the real purpose of the British period of peace and plenty. It promised a mighty Last World
Empire was to fulfil its prophetic
and apocalyptic destiny. He drew
upon ancient prophecies of a Last Dee was persuaded by these ideas,
World Empire under an Emperor (or
Empress) who would reform global
which had been repeated by European
religion, society, and politics before intellectuals and seers for many centuries.
the return of Christ to rule the world
for a millennium. The prophecy had originated in an
In fact, Dee was not a Protestant
of the kind assumed by later cen-
apocalyptic text known as Pseudo-
turies. He was born into a Catholic Methodius, after a semi-legendary bishop.
London family in 1527, baptised in
a ritual which the Church taught
exorcised demons from the infant, and brought up to believe Emperor who would destroy Islam, recover Jerusalem, and
in the magical powers of the priesthood and its rituals. His rule benevolently until Gog and Magog appeared. Pseudo-
patrons at St Johns College Cambridge, where he studied Methodius prophesied that the Emperor would defeat them
as an undergraduate, and Trinity College, where he became and rule in Jerusalem for ten and a half years until Anti-
a Fellow in 1547, were all conservative Catholics. Dee also christ appeared, when the Emperor would resign his pow-
studied at Louvain, when that university had become a ers into Gods hands and die. The short, troubled reign of
bastion of Catholic orthodoxy. Therefore it is no surprise Antichrist would end with his destruction by Christ, and the
that Dee finally became a Catholic priest in February 1554, end of time.
partly to please his master, the Earl of Pembroke, who Translated from Syriac into Greek, this prophecy of
needed to ingratiate himself with Queen Mary, and partly to a great imperial destiny rapidly proliferated in the Byz-
escape suspicion through his familys connections with the antine Empire. Already by 800 CE it had been translated
Wyatt Rebellion, which had just been bloodily suppressed. into Latin, as the expansion of Muslim power increasingly
Dee served Bloody Bonner, Bishop of London, as chaplain, threatened western and southern Europe. Together with the
making rather ineffectual attempts to convert the Protestants biblical books of Daniel and Revelations it became the most
whom Bonner persecuted. Dee was not a very doctrinaire widely-read of medieval apocalyptic texts and exercised a
Catholic; he belonged to an ecumenical generation of Eu- powerful fascination over the Western imagination for the
ropean intellectuals who hoped for a ruler who would heal next thousand years. Printed broadsheet excerpts describing
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increasingly fulfilled ancient western assumptions about the
rise of the Whore of Babylon, the Antichrist, in the East.
The vision of the Last World Emperor enabled the Re-
naissance to hold in tension expectations of imminent Anti-
christian calamities with the positive prospect of a returning
classical Golden Age and a Joachimist hope of a renovated
world after Antichrists defeat. The prophetically-charged
imperial election of Charles V in 1519 seemed to bring these
hopes towards final fulfilment, because Charles united the
French and German royal bloodlines. His early victories
over both the Turks and Protestant heretics also seemed to
fulfil a multitude of Sibylline prophecies, now clearly point-
ing to his destiny in the East. Ever since Virgils Iliad, impe-
rial aspirants had appropriated the solar god Apollo, guaran-
tor of the migration of sovereignty from East to West. This
thousand-year-old tradition fed into prophecies of the Last
World Emperor taken up by Charles grandfather, Maximil-
ian I, and vigorously exploited by his son, Philip II, whose
astrologers emphasised how his solar emblem prophesied the
conquest of the East, conversion of the infidel, and perpetual
establishment of universal peace.
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in Eastern Europe, from
Bohemia to Constantinople,
where they would battle the
Antichristian power of the
Ottomans in the Last Days,
before planting their banners
in Jerusalem and ushering in
the second coming of Christ.
Dees copy of Leowitzs
book survives, with his en-
thusiastic marginal annota-
tions about the final battles
against Antichrist and the
foundation of an apocalyptic
empire in the East.
In 1576 Dees associate
in magical learning James
Sandford, another Leicester
client, dedicated his Houres
of Recreation to Elizabeths
favourite, Christopher Hat-
ton. Sandford put Elizabeths
universal pretensions into
the cosmic apocalyptic John Dee (left), the English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer,
context previously reserved occultist, navigator, and consultant to Queen Elizabeth I (right).
for the Habsburgs. Citing
Leowitzs predictions about
astrological influence on earthly events, and with a profound
the great 1583 conjunction, and prophetic visions seen in
belief in the ability of alchemists to create the philosophers
Poland, Sandford added for good measure the widespread
stone, through which the Last World Empress would rule.
expectation that either the world would end in 1588, or at
Elizabeth certainly believed in alchemys transformatory
leaste governementes of kingdomes shall be turned upside
powers, for she employed male and female alchemists in
downe. Elizabeth, in whom there must needes be some
distilling houses at her palaces of Hampton Court and
diviner thing... than in the Kings and Queens of other coun-
Whitehall, and in her Privy Chamber. She also believed in
tries would play a leading role in the End Times. During
the power of astrological forces, on which Dee advised her
the Royal Progress at Norwich in August 1578, court poets
many times. In the mid-1570s she found the prospect of
introduced a new theme into their masques and declama-
becoming the universal ruler over a pacified globe deeply
tions, celebrating Elizabeth as the Virgin Queen for the
attractive.
first time. A few years later
Sandford applied Joachims
prophecies of the End when
Elizabeth certainly believed in alchemys
he dedicated to Leicester his transformatory powers, for she employed male
translation of Giacopo Bro-
cardos The Revelation of St and female alchemists in distilling houses...
John Reveled (London, 1582).
This thoroughly Joachimite
She also believed in the power of astrological
Protestant prophecy imagined forces, on which Dee advised her many times.
Christs Kingdom soon cover-
ing the whole worlde. No
other religion, no other lawe,
and rule to heare then that of the Gosple. By now the idea
Why then has Dees magical vision of the British Empire
that Elizabeth would prepare the way for Christ by triumph-
been condemned to historical obscurity? The answer lies in
ing over the East had permeated the excitable underworld of
the reactions of political conservatives at Elizabeths Court,
popular prophecy, and manuscripts circulated declaring that
particularly her long-time favourite, Sir Christopher Hat-
Elizabeth now Queen of England is ordained of God to be
ton, of more obscure figures who supported his rise, and
Queen of Jerusalem.
of Hattons protg, John Whitgift. From the mid-1570s
The British Empire John Dee envisaged for Elizabeth I
these men became influential at Court, and Whitgift be-
was profoundly different from that which actually emerged
came Archbishop of Canterbury in 1583. From then on he
in later centuries. It drew upon an ancient prophetic tradi-
and Hatton worked hard to drive prophetic expectations
tion that had become interwoven with widely-held beliefs in
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