5

Everything fell through, and things began to look darker than ever. Michael, who had been a delicate child, fell ill in July. On the 6th, he "becam distempered in his head and bak and arms." Dee himself was unwell, complaining of headache and internal pains, but he does not forget to note that he paid "Letice my servant 5s., part of her wages, with part whereof she is to buy a smok and nekercher." Michael's illness was short: "July 13th, in ortu solis, Michael Dee did give up the ghost, after he sayed `O Lord, have mercy upon me!'" His father omits any reference to the child's burial.

The summer passed with very little to record in the diary beyond a visit on Aug. 25, fromFerard, the herbalist of quaint and fragrant memory; another on the 30th, from "Monsieur Walter Mallet, who toke his leave to go to Tholose. He had the fix oyle of saltpetre." Dee sends letters in September to Kelly, and in October determines on another appeal to royal favour. But Elizabeth was getting old and hard to move; Burleigh also was failing. Dee wrote in his wife's name to Lady Scudamore, her old friend and Katherine's godmother, begging her to intercede with the Queen that either he might appear and declare his case before the Council, or else have a licence under the Great Seal to go where he would. St. Cross was farther off than ever; England cold and inhospitable; and he prepared to say a final good-bye to courts and courting at home, and betake himself to Germany, or Austria, or some other land. Francis Garland arrived on December 2 from Prague, "just as I came five years ago to a day from Bremen to England." Little profit indeed had he reaped in that five years.

On the 7th, "Jane delivered her supplication with her own hand to the Queen, as she passed out of the privy garden at Somerset House, to go to dinner with Sir Thomas Heneage at the Savoy." Elizabeth handed the letter to the Lord Admiral, but took it again from him, and kept it on her cushion. The next day, the Lord Admiral and Lord Buckhurst reminded her of the matter; presently she told the Archbishop that she wished Dee to have Dr. Day's place of Chancellor at St. Paul's. "8th Dec. The Chancellorship presented. The Archbishop of Canterbury willing," he writes; but this was apparently another castle in the air, for Dr. William Day was not appointed Bishop of Winchester till a year later, November 23, 1595, and although Dee's name appears as Chancellor under the date of December 8, 1594, he seems never to have held office.

His friends, however, were not idle. In a month's time, January 3, Archbishop Whitgift was recommending Elizabeth to grant him the Wardenship of Christ's College, Manchester, in her own gift. Dr. William Chadderton, who was then Warden and Bishop of Chester, was to be promoted to the see of Lincoln, and here was an opening for Dee. On February 5, Sir John Wolley endeavoured to get her to sign the patent for his appointment, "but she deferred it." Dee was up and down to London from Mortlake, and on February 10, at two in the afternoon, he "toke a cut-purse taking his purse out of his pocket in the Temple." On April 18, the Queen did sign the bill, when it was offered her by Dee's friend and neighbour at Mortlake, John Herbert, Master of the Requests. On May 25, 26, 27, it passed the Signet, the Privy Seal, and the Great Seal; and, as a climax to his entry in the diary, Dee adds, "£3 12s. borrowed of my brother Arnold," doubtless to pay the fees.