“And wilt thou, John Dee, as Lord of the new provinces and subject to Our Crown, ever keep thine eye fixed on Our advantage?”
At this I threw myself to my knees before my Queen and swore, as God was my witness and my judge, that from that time forward my sole aim should be to expand her Power and influence on the new Indian continent.
A strange light flashed in her eyes. With her strong hand she herself raised me from my knees and said slowly:
“Thou sayest well, John Dee. I see that thou art determined to devote thy self and thy life to the service of – – – England by subjugating the new continent to Our power. The country thanks thee for thy good will.”
With these cool and impenetrable words she dismissed me.
That very night the envious and short-sighted Secretary of State, Walsingham, succeeded in persuading the Queen to put the enterprise off until some vague future date when it had been scrutinised once more.
Two days later Elizabeth removed the court to London without having taken leave of me.
I was prostrate with a despair that words cannot express.
It was then, in the night, that Bartlett Greene appeared to me once more with his thunderous laugh and mocked me in his coarse manner:
“Ho there, brother Dee; thou wouldst be a mighty warrior and conqueror to the wife of thy soul – thou dost but trample on her fondest dreams like the bull in the adage and stirrest up her maidenly jealousy. Thou art surprised the cat doth scratch when thou strokest it’s fur widdershins!”
Greene’s mocking speech suddenly opened my eyes and I could see into Elizabeth’s soul and read it like an open book: she could not bear that I should devote my passion and zeal to anything other than to her person and to win any other prize than her commendation. And in my need and dire despair I raised myself up in my bed and beseeched Bartlett Greene to counsel me, what I might do to make good the hurt I had done my noble Mistress. And in that night Greene revealed to me many things from the marvellous power of his knowledge and instructed me how to see into the magic coal which he had given me on the night he had departed this side of the world and wherein I was shown proof that both Queen Elizabeth and Walsingham were my implacable enemies – he, because he was about to become her paramour, she because of the wound I had done her woman’s pride. Thereupon I fell into a rage; my long curbed desire for vengeance for all the torments I had suffered was unchained and I surrendered to the counsel of Bartlett Greene, who told me what must be done to render the “woman” Elizabeth once more compliant to my will and my blood.
In that same night, therefore, with my lust for revenge boiling over, I prepared myself according to the instructions of the wraith-like Bartlett Greene.
I dare not here describe all the ceremonies I performed to gain power over Elizabeth’s soul and over her body. Greene stood by me as the sweat dripped from my every pore and my heart and brain throbbed so violently that I thought every moment I would collapse in a faint. All I can say is: there are beings the very sight of which is so dreadful that it freezes the blood – can one comprehend that even more dreadful is the awareness of their unseen presence! The fear is compounded by a terrible feeling of impotence and blindness.
I finally completed the conjurations, the last part of which had to be performed naked, out of doors and by the light of the waning moon. I raised the black coal scrying glass up in the moonlight and, for the time it takes to say three Paternosters, concentrated all my will-power on its gleaming facets. Greene disappeared and the figure of Queen Elizabeth, eyes closed and in mysterious haste, approached with a kind of floating gait over the lawn of the park. I could see that my Mistress was neither awake, nor sleeping a natural sleep. Rather she seemed like a ghost. I shall never forget the sensation that filled my breast. My heart was not beating – no, it was a wild, unarticulated scream that tore itself away from my throbbing blood and awoke, distant and yet deep within me, a ghastly echo, as of a chaos of voices that made my scalp prickle with horror. But I gathered all my courage, took Elizabeth by the hand and led her into my chamber, as Greene had commanded me. At first her hand was cold, but soon it and her whole body became warm, as if, the longer I touched her, the more my blood flowed into her. Finally my tender caresses opened her lips in a warm smile, which I took as a sign of her inner acceptance and a revelation of the true longing of her soul. I hesitated no longer; in joyous exultation of my victory, I consummated our marriage with all my senses afire with the fury of lust.
Thus I took by force my predestined wife.
In John Dee’s diary this account is followed by several pages covered with strange and confused signs, which it would be impossible to reproduce, a jumble of symbols and calculations, letters and numbers, perhaps with
