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Simkinson reached Trebona on September 18, and at once declared his flattering errand. "On December 8 at noon, Garland came to me from the Emperor of Moschovia, according to the articles before sent unto me by Thomas Simkinson." On December 17, at Trebona, Edward Garland drew up a paper repeating all the former promises in the Emperor's name, and signed it, with Kelly, his brother Francis Garland, and others, as witnesses.

There is no doubt that the Emperor thought he was inviting to his Court the man who could fill his coffers and bring glory and prestige to his name. Hakluyt hints at it when he says the offer was made partly for his counsel about discoveries to the North-East, partly for some other weighty occasions. Dee was no self-seeker, or Court flatterer, although this was the fifth sovereign he says he might have served. The offer seems never to have tempted him from his loyalty to his own Queen. He bade Garland at once dismiss six out of the eight Russian servants he had brought to attend them on their journey, and turned to matters more important.

"On 19th December, to the great gratification of Master Edward Garland and Francis, his brother, which Edward had been sent to me with a message from the Emperor of Muschovia, that I should come to him, E.K. made projection with his powder in the proportion of one minim (upon an ounce and a quarter of mercury) and produced nearly an ounce of best gold; which gold we afterwards distributed from the crucible, and gave one to Edward."

It is quite significant that Kelly made the gold, Kelly showed it, and Dee is content to give him all the credit. The pangs and heartburnings and jealousies have yet to come. Now he only felt that at last he was victorious in his long quest. He was on the crest of the wave. His hour had come.

How the wonderful trick was done, Kelly could best describe.

Kelly was now constantly riding to Prague, or making longer expeditions to Poland, for he still had hopes of getting more money from Laski. By March his hope seems to have been realised, for Dee notes that Kelly paid him about 500 ducats in two or more sums (about £233). This plenitude of money of course encouraged the idea abroad that they were actually making it. When he returned from Prague on January 18, Kelly brought a handsome present from Rosenberg to Jane Dee, in the shape of a beautiful jewelled chain, the value of which was "esteemed at 300 duckettes," says Dee, "200 the juell stones and 100 the gold." In three days Kelly had posted off again to Prague, to join Rosenberg at his house in the scity. This time he took with him his brother Thomas, Francis Garland, and a Bohemian servant, Ferdinand Hernyck. No doubt he was pursuing his experiments for the "multiplying" of gold in the city, away from Dee.

Kelly's letter to Dee announcing this arrival of his in Prague is the only communication between this strange pair of partners that seems to have survived. It shows that erratic and wayward creature in a gentle and even affectionate light, and although its pious protestations are obviously overdone, it pictures for us quite vividly the relations between the two, and partly accounts for the strength of the tie that bound Dee to his intractable pupil, soon to become his master. For whle Dee laboured laboriously and scientifically with his alchemical compounds, Kelly at one bound overleaped the chasm and by some process best known to himself professed to have arrived at the goal.


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