Speaker 1: In the bows of Hampton Court Palace in the south
Speaker 1: of England, In a sparsely furnished cell, a tall, wiry
Speaker 1: man sat on a crude bed, resting his back against
Speaker 1: the wall. His face was whiter than usual, his fair
Speaker 1: hair and long wispy beard unkempt and bedraggled. To pass
Speaker 1: the time, he gazed at the bricks on the opposite wall,
Speaker 1: running his eyes over their somewhat uneven arrangement. Whilst there
Speaker 1: a pattern he could discern, there, some kind of formula
Speaker 1: he could devise to replicate their unusual spacing. Eventually he
Speaker 1: grew tired and ran sequences of prime numbers through his
Speaker 1: head instead. The minute and hours stretched out interminably. Somewhere
Speaker 1: off water dripped his only marker of time. The prisoner
Speaker 1: closed his eyes. Just four years earlier, he seemed to
Speaker 1: have the whole continent of Europe at his feet. How
Speaker 1: had it come to this? The sound of slow, heavy
Speaker 1: footsteps approached, echoing on the flagstones of the passage outside.
Speaker 1: Was this to be his release, some sort of reprieve?
Speaker 1: Or were the footsteps a port end of something far,
Speaker 1: far worse? After all, they were burning heretics at the
Speaker 1: stake up and down the country. Was this to be
Speaker 1: his time? The man was John d famed mathematician, astrologer
Speaker 1: and to some a true master of a cult magic.
Speaker 1: You're listening to unexplained, and I'm Richard mc lean smith.
Speaker 1: Back in the fifteen twenties in Tudor times, Rowland D
Speaker 1: left Wales with his fifteen year old bride Jane, and
Speaker 1: traveled to London, England, to make its fortune. At the time,
Speaker 1: London was what was contained within the square mile walls
Speaker 1: of the City of London. It stretched along the north
Speaker 1: bank of the River Thames, from the Fleet River in
Speaker 1: the west, which is covered today by London's Farringdon Street,
Speaker 1: all the way to the Tower of London in the east,
Speaker 1: one of the many royal residences in the city. From
Speaker 1: there the city stretched north up to the Church of
Speaker 1: Saint Giles without Cripplegate, which still stands today in the
Speaker 1: sh shadow of the Barbican Centre. Home to roughly fifty
Speaker 1: thousand residents, The city was a vast rabbit warrant of narrow,
Speaker 1: muddy streets and tall timber framed buildings that blotted out
Speaker 1: the sun while the Thames bustled with barges and sailing ships,
Speaker 1: delivering all manner of wares, from fish to wine and
Speaker 1: textiles from all over the known world. When Roland and
Speaker 1: Jane Dee arrived there, they found the city awash with
Speaker 1: celebrations for the coronation of the new King, Henry the eighth.
Speaker 1: Rowland was quick to secure work as a dealer in
Speaker 1: textiles and fine fabrics. He developed connections at the court
Speaker 1: of King Henry, gaining a position as a courtier and
Speaker 1: royal sewer making clothes for the king. In fifteen twenty seven,
Speaker 1: Jane gave birth to a baby boy. She and Roland
Speaker 1: christened him John. For what it's worth, the surname D
Speaker 1: comes from the Welsh word do or black in English.
Speaker 1: John D was born into a world that sat well
Speaker 1: and truly at the center of the universe. Most people
Speaker 1: back then, looking up at the sky saw a sun,
Speaker 1: a moon, and planets that revolved around the Earth in
Speaker 1: a series of concentric spheres. Beyond those celestial bodies were
Speaker 1: the stars, and beyond that was heaven. It was also
Speaker 1: a time when science saw no conflict between astronomical observations
Speaker 1: and astrological forecasting. Many believed wholeheartedly that planetary motions and
Speaker 1: positions could inflaruance human lives. An astrological birth chart or
Speaker 1: natal chart, it is created by taking a record of
Speaker 1: the position of the Moon, Sun, and known planets at
Speaker 1: the exact date, time, and location of your birth, all
Speaker 1: analyzed in relation to how they fall within the signs
Speaker 1: of the zodiac. John D's own chart was one of
Speaker 1: great contrasts. The Sun and the Moon were in what's
Speaker 1: known as equal and opposite positions, suggesting a conflicted personality,
Speaker 1: while the position of the planet Jupiter, together with the
Speaker 1: Sun in the sign of cancer, portended that the young
Speaker 1: de would become skilled in science, but it also foretold
Speaker 1: that his life would be a difficult balance between joy
Speaker 1: and malevolence. John D was by all accounts precociously bright.
Speaker 1: After spending his early years at school in Chelmsford, Essex,
Speaker 1: in the winter of fifteen forty two, he gained entry
Speaker 1: into Saint John's College at Cambridge University. When he arrived
Speaker 1: at the university, it was an especially febrile time for academia.
Speaker 1: Long held medieval ideas were being loosened by teachings from
Speaker 1: ancient Greece, along with Arabic mathematics. Then, in fifteen forty three,
Speaker 1: Polish astronomer and mathematician Nicolaus Copernicus shook Western academia to
Speaker 1: its core. Writing that year in his groundbreaking work The Revolutionibus,
Speaker 1: Copernicus proposed the heretical theory that the Sun was actually
Speaker 1: at the center of the universe, not the Earth, and
Speaker 1: that it was the Earth that orbited it, not the
Speaker 1: other way round, though many chose simply not to believe it,
Speaker 1: whether they liked it or not, in that moment, many
Speaker 1: of the founding principles of the known world had become
Speaker 1: profoundly untethered. For someone as scientifically curious as John D.
Speaker 1: It would no doubt have been an exciting but deeply
Speaker 1: unsettling revelation. Were it true, what other secrets might the
Speaker 1: universe be hiding from us? By the end of fifteen
Speaker 1: forty six, John D had established himself as a star
Speaker 1: pupil at the university, but some had begun to wander
Speaker 1: about the unusually gifted student who remained somewhat of an
Speaker 1: enigma despite his burgeoning reputation. One afternoon, students and teachers
Speaker 1: packed elbow to elbow into the Great Hall of Cambridge's
Speaker 1: Trinity College to watch the play piece by Aristophanes, which
Speaker 1: had been put on by D. At one point, a
Speaker 1: character named Tira Gaius mounted a prop made to look
Speaker 1: like a giant sca of beetle under the flickering of candlelight.
Speaker 1: The audience watched their mouths wide open in astonishment as
Speaker 1: Tira Gaius and his giant beetle proceeded to rise up
Speaker 1: into the air and fly right off the stage. When
Speaker 1: D was cornered by students later who demanded to know
Speaker 1: exactly how he'd done it, he refused to divulge. The
Speaker 1: sum thought he'd used a combination of pulleys, mirrors, and
Speaker 1: springs to achieve the effort, but others were not so sure.
Speaker 1: Soon word began to circulate that the strange feet of
Speaker 1: apparent levitation had been created by something more than mere stagecraft.
Speaker 1: On graduating from university, such was D's academic reputation that
Speaker 1: he was offered a position at Trinity College and became
Speaker 1: one of its founding fellows. But something else was calling
Speaker 1: him a growing interest in astrology. Whenever the skies were
Speaker 1: clear at night, he set up his homemade observing equipment
Speaker 1: and gazed up at the sparkling firmament and wondered how
Speaker 1: was it exactly he thought that the position of the
Speaker 1: planets were able to exert an influence on our lives.
Speaker 1: It then occurred to him that perhaps each celestial body
Speaker 1: emitted rays of some kind of force that acted on
Speaker 1: all other bodies, including our own. Over time, Dee became
Speaker 1: dissatisfied with the stuffy conservative attitudes at Cambridge University. He
Speaker 1: fixed his sights on the Low Countries, where a growing
Speaker 1: galaxy of intellectual stars were beginning to emerge. Shortly after
Speaker 1: the death of Henry the Eighth in January fifteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: John d arrived in Louver, near Brussels, where the best
Speaker 1: university in the region was to be found. There he
Speaker 1: joined a lively group surrounding the esteemed Dutch physician, mathematician
Speaker 1: and cartographer Herma Frisius. Among them was also Flemish cartographer
Speaker 1: Gerardus Mercata. Makata had become famous our to creating a
Speaker 1: new map of the world that effectively enabled movement across
Speaker 1: a globe to be accurately recorded on a flat two
Speaker 1: D surface with the use of what are known as
Speaker 1: rum lines, a technique he invented that is still used
Speaker 1: on nautical charts today. All of which is to say
Speaker 1: John D's chosen social circle at the time included among
Speaker 1: them some of the finest minds the world has ever known,
Speaker 1: and he was very much regarded as their equal. D
Speaker 1: was greatly inspired by the Mall, especially Mercata, who was
Speaker 1: very much at the forefront of human endeavor. D would watch,
Speaker 1: wrapped with attention, over Mercata's shoulder, as he constructed maps
Speaker 1: and globes of the world's emerging geography, supplemented by new
Speaker 1: reports from explorers like Christopher Columbus. There was something so
Speaker 1: undeniable and concrete about the maps he made. They were
Speaker 1: the physical equivalent of light being shone into a dark space,
Speaker 1: pushing back the borders of the known world. In many ways,
Speaker 1: this was what D wanted to do himself, not with
Speaker 1: the material world, but rather with the hidden truths of
Speaker 1: all existence. In fifteen fifty D went to Paris and
Speaker 1: lectured on Euclid's Elements to a sold out and enthusiastic crowd.
Speaker 1: His talks were so well received that the following year
Speaker 1: he was offered an appointment as professor of mathematics in Paris,
Speaker 1: which he declined, feeling it was time to return to England.
Speaker 1: John d arrived back in England in fifteen fifty one
Speaker 1: to find a country he barely recognized. Twenty years previously,
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth had thrown the nation and the Catholic
Speaker 1: world into turmoil when he secretly married Anne Boleyn while
Speaker 1: still married to his first wife, Catherine of Arrogant. At
Speaker 1: the time, the predominant religious power in the country was
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church, who even the King of England was
Speaker 1: ultimately answerable to. Henry asked the Pope to grant him
Speaker 1: a divorce in order to marry Anne Boleyn, but the
Speaker 1: Pope refused, so when Henry went ahead and did it anyway,
Speaker 1: he was humiliatingly excommunicated. Not one to take such things lightly,
Speaker 1: King Henry's response was to simply create a law that
Speaker 1: made him the supreme head of the Church of England,
Speaker 1: instantly removing the authority of the Pope and Catholicism over
Speaker 1: the country, and so began the English Reformation. For the
Speaker 1: next few years, King Henry oversaw a violent and bloody
Speaker 1: renunciation of all things Catholic in favor of Protestantism. Anyone
Speaker 1: deemed too influential who didn't conform was simply executed. When
Speaker 1: Henry the Eighth died in fifteen forty seven, his nine
Speaker 1: year old son Edward ascended to the throne. Having been
Speaker 1: raised a Protestant, Edward, or more precisely, his advisers, intensified
Speaker 1: his father's campaign and destroyed all symbols of the Catholic
Speaker 1: faith they could find. When John Dee arrived back in
Speaker 1: London four years later, hundreds of churches had been stripped bare.
Speaker 1: Even the Great Crucifix from the altar of Saint Paul's
Speaker 1: Cathedral was forcibly removed. When d whose own religious affiliations
Speaker 1: were not entirely clear, requested an audience with the then
Speaker 1: twelve year old King, he was understandably a little nervous,
Speaker 1: but he needed cash to continue his academic ambitions. D
Speaker 1: was duly invited to make his pitch to the king.
Speaker 1: On his arrival, he handed the young Edward two books
Speaker 1: on astronomy he'd written. It's easy to imagine the childish
Speaker 1: Edward swinging his feet with boredom on his giant throne
Speaker 1: as he leafed absent mindedly through the thick, heavy tomes,
Speaker 1: while D did his best to impress on him the
Speaker 1: importance of his work. Either it was the flowery dedication
Speaker 1: to the young King at the front of each volume
Speaker 1: that did the trick, or simply the boy's boredom. Either way,
Speaker 1: thankfully for D, he agreed to grant him an annual
Speaker 1: stipend of one hundred crowns, a hefty sum for the times. Overjoyed,
Speaker 1: D promptly bought a property in Upton, a small village
Speaker 1: near London, where he also established himself as a local chaplain.
Speaker 1: At some point word of D's academic abilities reached John Dudley,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Northumberland, King Edward's official protector. Dudley hired
Speaker 1: John D as an adviser for himself and as a
Speaker 1: tutor to his children. By the end of fifteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: D was firmly established as a man of the highest intellect,
Speaker 1: well known as an expert astronomer and mathematician. But people
Speaker 1: had begun talking. What exactly had he been up to
Speaker 1: while he was abroad? They wondered, and just how, after
Speaker 1: being away for so long had he so effortlessly found
Speaker 1: himself at the heart of English government. In fifteen fifty two,
Speaker 1: King Edward sixth fell Ill, the Duke of Northumberland, called
Speaker 1: on the services of famed Italian physician and astrologer Gerlimo
Speaker 1: Cardano to attend to the boy. A physical examination revealed
Speaker 1: the king was suffering from what we know today as tuberculosis.
Speaker 1: Later that day, when Cardano returned to his quarters, he
Speaker 1: drew a horoscope for the king. It was a risky
Speaker 1: thing to do, since reading the horoscope of a king
Speaker 1: was considered espionage by means of magic, and so Cardano
Speaker 1: did not share with any of the king's council the
Speaker 1: dark omens that were revealed to him alone in his
Speaker 1: room that night. Over the next few months, the king's
Speaker 1: condition steadily deteriorated. Then, one violent stormy night, on the
Speaker 1: sixth of July fifteen fifty three, the young king died
Speaker 1: at the age of only fifteen. Because King Edward had
Speaker 1: no heirs of his own, and his sister Mary was Catholic,
Speaker 1: he nominated his close relation, Lady Jane Gray, to inherit
Speaker 1: the crown, and so, with the support of the Duke
Speaker 1: of Northumberland, whose fourth son had married Jane Gray only
Speaker 1: months before, she was thrust onto the throne. Within days,
Speaker 1: it became clear that Edward's sister had far more support
Speaker 1: for the role. After only six days, Queen Lady Jane
Speaker 1: Gray was unceremoniously deposed, with Mary taking her place. A
Speaker 1: month later, John Dee's great supporter, the Duke of Northumberland,
Speaker 1: was beheaded in front of a huge crowd just outside
Speaker 1: the Tower of London. Lady Jane Gray was thrown into
Speaker 1: the Tower of London Prison before also being beheaded in
Speaker 1: February fifteen fifty four. She's thought to have been either
Speaker 1: sixteen or seventeen at the time. The new Queen, who
Speaker 1: had become known as Bloody Mary, began a purge of
Speaker 1: Northumberland's friends and sympathizers, and yet somehow John Dee was
Speaker 1: appointed as an adviser to the new queen. His father, Rowland, however,
Speaker 1: was not so fortunate. Rowland, who had prospered greatly under
Speaker 1: King Henry the Eighth and then his son, King Edward,
Speaker 1: was arrested and accused of being one of Northumberland's conspirators.
Speaker 1: There was every likelihood that the charges against Rowland d
Speaker 1: were fabricated, and luckily for him, he was released fairly
Speaker 1: soon after his arrest, but in punishment for his Protestant
Speaker 1: sympathies and connections, Roland was stripped of his assets and
Speaker 1: his royal appointment. Two years later, things got worse. Queen
Speaker 1: Mary's supporters began burning heretics. The Catholic Queen had come
Speaker 1: to the throne very much against the wishes of many
Speaker 1: Protestants in England, who now all feared for their safety,
Speaker 1: and they were right to be scared. Over the next
Speaker 1: few years, although nowhere near as many as King Henry
Speaker 1: the Eighth had executed, three hundred people were burned at
Speaker 1: the stake. Anyone, regardless of birth or rank, was potentially
Speaker 1: a target. It was perhaps not the best time to
Speaker 1: be dabbling in anything that might seem at odds with
Speaker 1: the Catholic faith, but John D couldn't help himself. One night,
Speaker 1: at his home in Upton, he drew up a series
Speaker 1: of strange looking squares within squares, and at each intersecting
Speaker 1: line he placed various dates and occult looking symbols. There
Speaker 1: was one for Queen Mary and one for her husband,
Speaker 1: King Philip of Spain, and one two for her half
Speaker 1: sister Elizabeth. D noted with relief that the exact moment
Speaker 1: of Mary and Philip's wedding eleven a m on the
Speaker 1: twenty fifth of July fifteen fifty four, coincided with the
Speaker 1: rising sign of Libra, ruled by Venus. This d knew
Speaker 1: well was a good omen for the partnership, but that
Speaker 1: was where his relief ended. As Mary's sign came together,
Speaker 1: he felt something shift in the pit of his stomach.
Speaker 1: Her reign, it seemed, would not end well according to
Speaker 1: the chart. In fact, she had only years left to live.
Speaker 1: Her sister Elizabeth's horoscope foretold something far brighter by comparison.
Speaker 1: Dee hurriedly hid the horoscopes away and went to bed.
Speaker 1: Over the next few months, John d became increasingly nervous
Speaker 1: as one by one his closest friends those that were
Speaker 1: still alive, were either arrested or forced to flee abroad.
Speaker 1: Then he received the disturbing news that the authorities were
Speaker 1: after him. Somehow they'd found out about the horoscopes. He
Speaker 1: managed to elude the authorities for two days, but in
Speaker 1: May fifteen fifty five, the Queen's Sheriffs found and arrested him.
Speaker 1: They took him to Hampden Court, where he was put
Speaker 1: in solitary confinement. The charges against him were numerous, but
Speaker 1: most serious were those that highlighted his skills in what
Speaker 1: had come to be seen increasingly as the occult. D
Speaker 1: was eventually charged with calculating, conjuring, and casting the Queen's Horoscope,
Speaker 1: which was considered a treasonous act. The long standing rumor
Speaker 1: that John D was some kind of magician had come
Speaker 1: home to roost. As it turned out, John D had
Speaker 1: been informed against by a lawyer named George Ferrers, who,
Speaker 1: for reasons unknown, apparently bore a grudge against D. Though
Speaker 1: it isn't known exactly what Ferrers knew about D and
Speaker 1: his activities, he accused him of using spells to blind
Speaker 1: one of his children and kill another. D was brought
Speaker 1: in front of a hostile tribunal in the Star Chamber,
Speaker 1: the main court at the Royal Palace of Westminster, better
Speaker 1: known to day as the location of the UK's House
Speaker 1: of Commons and House of Lords. The court was packed
Speaker 1: with Queen Mary's most loyal supporters. Shortly after the hearing,
Speaker 1: D was ordered to be taken back to his cell
Speaker 1: to await sentencing, where we first found him at the
Speaker 1: beginning of this episode. Many would no doubt have felt
Speaker 1: it a foregone conclusion that D was about to get
Speaker 1: his comeuppance. Perhaps D feared it too, or perhaps not,
Speaker 1: Because despite the acttions, D was released and told that
Speaker 1: he was free to go. In the subsequent months, D
Speaker 1: was subjected to a series of scathing examinations for suspected
Speaker 1: heresy and for harboring Protestant sympathies by the Catholic Bishop
Speaker 1: of London, Edmund Bonner. Bonner, a stern and imposing man,
Speaker 1: was hugely feared up and down the country as the
Speaker 1: man tasked with rooting out heretics for the Queen. His
Speaker 1: word was enough to ensure your doom. Surely there was
Speaker 1: no way that D would come out of this alive too.
Speaker 1: But not only did he escape any further punishment, he
Speaker 1: was given a position in the Catholic Church, becoming Bonner's
Speaker 1: personal chaplain. A year later, the Queen issued a full pardon.
Speaker 1: In John Fox's famous book Acts and Monuments, a History
Speaker 1: of Protestant Martyrdom, published in fifteen sixty three, D was
Speaker 1: described as the great conjurer who drifted in and out
Speaker 1: of interrogations of suspected heretics at will, so well had
Speaker 1: he ingratiated himself with the new Court and their Queen.
Speaker 1: John D was even said to be living at Bonnard's
Speaker 1: temside residence, Fulham Palace. For a while. Did John D
Speaker 1: secretly profess himself to be an adherent of the Catholic
Speaker 1: faith under the fear of being pronounced a heretic? Or
Speaker 1: had something else a little more magical been at play.
Speaker 1: Early in fifteen fifty six, D approached Queen Mary with
Speaker 1: a request to help fund a national library, an idea
Speaker 1: he'd been mulling over for some time. It would be
Speaker 1: a place where all the most important academic and religious
Speaker 1: texts could be stored together. However, the Queen declined the request,
Speaker 1: prompting D to move to his mother's house in Mortlake
Speaker 1: in Richmond upon Thames. There he set about constructing his
Speaker 1: own library and a base for his future scientific endeavors.
Speaker 1: Among those academic and religious texts, he added a few
Speaker 1: more esoteric manuscripts, and then, two years later, in fifteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, just as D's horoscope had predicted, Queen Mary died. Suddenly,
Speaker 1: the wheels of D's world were about to turn again,
Speaker 1: and he was just getting started. You've been listening to
Speaker 1: Unexplained Season seven, episode eighteen, A Dance with Mister d
Speaker 1: Part one of four, Part two will be released next Friday,
Speaker 1: March twenty ninth. This episode was written by Diane Hope
Speaker 1: and Richard McLain Smith. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions
Speaker 1: podcast created by Richard mclin Smith. All other elements of
Speaker 1: the podcast, including the music, are also produced by me
Speaker 1: Richard McLain Smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook, with stories
Speaker 1: never before featured on the show, is now available to
Speaker 1: buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones,
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Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation
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