6

The almost apostolical flavour which Dee permits himself to impart to some of this letter, owing to the greatness of his believed mission, shows to what a height of "rhapsodical" fervours his spirit had now attained. It is still more emphasised in the concluding passage, which begins, however, very practically, with an anxious thought cast back to his English possessions. His desire that Thomas Digges, the eminent mathematician to whom his calculations for the reformed calendar had been submitted, should be sent over to inspect their doings, was curious, but it shows that he, at any rate, wished to deal openly and conceal nothing. He ends thus:

"Sir, I trust I shall have Justice, for my house library, goods and Revenues, etc. Do not you disdain, neither fear to bear favour unto your poor innocent neighbour. If you send unto me Master Thomas Digges, in her Majestie's behalf, his faithfulness to her Majesty and my well liking of the man, shall bring forth some piece of good service. But her Majesty had been better to have spent or given away in alms, a Million of gold, than to have lost some opportunities past. No human reason can limit or determine God his marvellous means of proceeding with us. He hath made of Saul (E.K.) a Paul, but yet now and then visited with a pang of human frailty. The Almighty bless her Majestie both in this World and eternally; and inspire your heart iwth some conceiving of his merciful purposes, yet not utterly cut off from her Majesty to enjoy.

From Leipsic this 14 of May, 1586,
at Peter Hans Swarts house.

Your Honours faithful welwisher to use and command for the honour of God and her Majesties best service,

"John Dee."

On being ejected from Prague, Dee removed his family and goods to Erfurt, but in spite of the influence of Dr. Curtius, and of a friend of Rosenberg, he was not allowed to hire a house there, for the Italian was before him. Pucci called on Dee after supper, and held out hopes that he might obtain permission for their return to Prague, for the new Nuncio, the Bishop of Piacenza, was inclined to a more favourable view than Malaspina. Pucci protested that they were only to be examined and if found heretical to be sent to Rome. He brought an invitation for their return, if they would promise not to exercise magical arts. Dee, who was starting early next morning to look at a house at Saalfield, wherein to settle his exiled family, bade Kelly copy it and rode off. On the ride he thought it over. Pucci he had never liked, neither had jane. "His household behaviour was not acceptable to our wives and family. He had blabbed our secrets without our leave. He was unquiet in disputation." Dee summed up the man as a spy, the letter as a bait, and set to work to devise a way of being rid of him "by quiet and honest meanes." He was absent two or three days, but the Italian was still there when he returned, urging them to go to Rome. Dee rebuked him for curiosity and interference, and accused him of conspiring against them; he, a mere probationer and not yet owned of the spirits (who in fact had said he was "leprous" and should be "cut off"), to presume an equal authority with them in their revelations!

Dee wrote a dignified letter to the Nuncio, and despatched it by the Italian, who was to receive from John Carpio, a wealthy neighbour and friend of theirs in Prague, a sum of fifty dollars for his expenses. The travellers went on to Cassel and to Gotha, but it was not long before a permanent asylum offered for the exiles. Their new patron, Count Rosenberg, was a friend worth having, for he was all-powerful with Rudolph; he was Viceroy of Bohemia and a Knight of the Golden Fleece. His influence and protection were now to be at the Englishmen's disposal. On August 8, Rosenberg obtained from the Emperor a partial revocation of the decree against them, since they were permitted by it to reside freely in any of his lordship's towns, cities or castles. They settled on September 14, 1586, at Tribau or Trebona, in Southern Bohemia, and here for about two years their wanderings came to an end.

Dee resumed the writing of his private diary, in which he had made no entry for three years, the last event recorded there being the departure of the family from Mortlake just three years before, on September 21, 1583. He opened a new volume, an Ephemerides Coelestium, calculated for the years 1581-1620, by Joh. Antonius Maginus, printed in Venice, 1582. The first entry made in it was Michael's birth at Prague on February 12, 1586; the next was their arrival at Trebona (for it will be more convenient to follow Dee's latinised version of the name).