greater difficulties than was befitting a Prince to adventure, and thus without any order taken for his Realme, in two Hulkes of Holland and one English ship, destitute of all necessary provisions, set sail towards Burgundy, and in the way was encountered by the Easterlings, England’s great enemies, having much adoe to clear himself of their surprize.’ The politer version of the legal roll has been written over an entry which, although completely erased, we may be sure set out how Henry VI. had recovered the realm from Edward, ‘king in fact but not in right.’ The alchemy of the pen, by which the roseate Lancastrian version faded to the colourless statement of the Yorkists, was more successful, we may well believe, than was ever the alchemy of Sir Henry Grey.

But in spite of the ill-success of Sir Henry Grey the King in 1476 licensed David Beaupee and John Merchaunt to practise for four years ‘the natural science of the generation of gold and silver from mercury.’ Alchemy, indeed, was clearly flourishing in the fifteenth century. In 1468 Richard Carter received authority to practise the art, while under Henry VI. several such licences were granted. Thus in 1444 Edward Cobbe was authorised ‘to transmute the imperfect metals from their own kind by the art of Philosophy and to transubstantiate them into gold or silver’; two years later Sir Edmund Trafford and Sir Thomas Ashton were empowered to transmute metals, and in 1446 John Fauceby, John Kirkeby, and John Rayny received the royal permission to search for the philosopher’s stone or the elixir of life and to transmute metals. Presumably the need for royal licence in all these cases was based on the royal claim to all mines, and therefore to all other sources, of precious metals. Covetous eyes had been cast upon Alchemy as a possible source of revenue at least as early as 1330, when Thomas Cary was ordered to bring before King Edward III. John le Rous and Master William de Dalby, who were said to be able to make silver by alchemy, with the instruments and other things needful to their craft. But of all these scientists and philosophers no more is heard, and, although I have not searched the accounts of bullion purchased for the Mint, it may safely be asserted that the revenue profited little by all their science and philosophy.

Alchemy, like so many other branches of knowledge, found a home in the monasteries, and there is a story of an abbot in one of the Western Counties who, at the time of the Dissolution, hid his books and manuscripts of the hermetic art in a wall, and returning thither to fetch them found them not, and for grief at his loss lost also his wits. Thomas Ellis, again, prior of Leighs in Essex, took more loss than gain from dabbling in the art. Rumours of his skill in manipulating metals caused him to be suspected of coining, and he had to give an account of himself. His interest in the theory of Alchemy, which he had derived from reading books, had been stimulated by ‘commynyng with Crawthorne, a goldsmyth in Lumbardstrete, that sayd ther was a prest callyd Sir George that made himselfe cunning in suche matters.’ This priest in turn introduced the prior to one Thomas Peter, a clothworker of London, ‘that sayd he had the syens of alkemy as well as eny man in Yngland.’ The prior took him at his own valuation and promised to pay him £20 for lessons in the art, and gave him 20 nobles in advance. Master Peter then gave his pupil some silver and quicksilver with instructions how to treat them. These metals Prior Ellis sealed hermetically in a glass vessel, which he then placed in an earthen pot full of water, and this he kept hot for some ten weeks or more, employing a young novice of the priory, Edmund Freke, a boy of twelve, to keep up a continual fire. Master Peter came from time to time to see how matters were progressing, and no doubt reported favourably, but after a while the prior ‘perceyved yt was but a falce crafte,’ broke the glass vessel, sold the silver for what it would fetch and refused to pay his instructor the remaining 20 marks. Peter, however, who was better skilled in making money out of men than gold out of silver, threatened an action for debt, and as it chanced that an offer of 20 marks was made at this time to the prior for the lease of a rectory he handed the money over to Master Peter. ‘And thus I never medelyd with hym syne, nor with the crafte nor never wyll, God wyllyng.’

‘A young novice of the priory.’

WHITE MAGIC

Before the days of Sherlock Holmes and the scientific pursuit of clues the ways of tracing lost or stolen property were devious and varied. In recent times the aid of St. Anthony of Padua has often been invoked. Why that good Saint should have taken up this branch of detective work I know not; possibly he was confused with his namesake the hermit, whose pig might well have been trained to search for lost articles as less holy pigs to hunt for truffles, or possibly, as was said of the man who married five wives, ‘it was his hobby.’ However this may be, I have known excellent results obtained by the promise of a candle or the repetition of a paternoster in honour of St. Anthony; the prayer is the more popular offering, being cheaper for the petitioner and more certain for the saint—the candle is apt to be withheld when the property has been recovered, and candles have even been known to go astray and blaze before the altar of the other St. Anthony, who was probably too busy in pre-Reformation days looking after the cattle of his devotees to trouble about lost property. The man, therefore, who would have supernatural assistance in the recovery of his strayed goods had perforce to seek the aid of sorcerers and their familiar but often incompetent spirits. Unfortunately for the modern inquirer no unsolicited testimonials bearing witness to the efficacy of these magicians appear to have survived, and it is only their failures that brought them into unpleasant and enduring prominence.

London was naturally a great centre of these occult detectives, and they seem to have been well patronised. In 1390 when two silver dishes were stolen from the Duke of York’s house, application was made to one John Berkyng, a renegade Jew, who performed certain incantations, and as a result accused one of the Duke’s servants, William Shadewater. In the same way, when Lady Despenser’s fur-lined scarlet mantle was stolen, about the same time, Berkyng had no hesitation in denouncing Robert Trysdene and John Geyte. His repute was no doubt considerable, but these two cases proved disastrous; the parties accused had him arrested, and he was found guilty of deceit and defamation, stood in the pillory for an hour, and was then banished from the city.

In this case nothing is said as to the means of divination employed, but in two cases that occurred in London in 1382 particulars are given. When Simon Gardiner lost his mazer bowl he employed a German, Henry Pot by name, to trace it. He made thirty-two balls of white clay, and after appropriate incantations named Nicholas Freman and Cristine, his wife, as the thieves. Here again the mistake brought the magician to the pillory, and the same fate befell Robert Berewold. In this case also it was a mazer that had been stolen; Maud of Eye was its owner, but a