"When Locke, as one of the executors of Boyle, was about to publish some of his works, Newton wished him to insert the second and third part of Boyle's recipes (the first part of which was to obtain 'a mercury that would grow hot with gold'), and which Boyle had communicated to him on condition that they should be published after his death."[15] "Mangetus relates a story of a stranger calling on Boyle, and leaving with him a powder, which he projected into the crucible, and instantly went out. After the fire had gone out, Boyle found in the crucible a yellow-coloured metal, possessing all the properties of pure gold, and only a little lighter than the weight of the materials originally put in the crucible."[16]
From these proofs of the credulity of great men, let us turn to the encouragements vouchsafed to alchemy and its adepts by the Kings and Parliaments of England. Raymond Lully visited England on the invitation of Edward I.; and he affirms in one of his works, that in the secret chamber of St. Katherine, in the Tower of London, he performed in the royal presence the experiment of transmuting some crystal into a mass of diamond, or adamant, as he calls it; on which Edward, he says, caused some little pillars to be made for the tabernacle of God. It was popularly believed, indeed, at the time, that the English king had been furnished by Lully with a great quantity of gold for defraying the expense of an expedition which he intended to make to the Holy Land. Edward III. was not less credulous on this subject than his grandfather, as appears by an order which he issued in 1329, in the following terms:—"Know all men that we have been assured that John of Rous, and Master William of Dalby, know how to make silver by the art of alchemy; that they have made it in former times, and still continue to make it; and considering that these men, by their art, and by making the precious metal, may be profitable to us and to our kingdom, we have commanded our well-beloved Thomas Cary to apprehend the aforesaid John and William wherever they can be found, within liberties or without, and bring them to us, together with all the instruments of their art, under safe and sure custody." The first considerable coinage of gold in England was begun by Edward III. in 1343: and "The alchemists did affirm, as an unwritten verity, that the rose nobles, which were coined soon after, were made by projection or multiplication alchemical, by Raymond Lully, in the Tower of London." But Lully died in 1315; and the story only shows the strength of the popular faith in alchemy. That this pretended science was much cultivated in the fourteenth century, and with the usual evil results, may be inferred from an Act passed 5 Hen. IV. cap. 4 (1404), to make it felony "to multiply gold or silver, or to use the craft of multiplication," &c. It is probable, however, that this statute was enacted from some apprehension that the operations of the multipliers might possibly affect the value of the king's coin. Henry VI., a very pious, yet very weak and credulous prince, was as great a patron of the alchemists as Edward III. had been before him. These impostors practised with admirable success upon his weakness and credulity, repeatedly inducing him to advance them money wherewith to prosecute the operations, as well as procuring from him protections (which he sometimes prevailed upon the Parliament to confirm) from the penalties of the statute just mentioned.[17] In 1438, the king commissioned three philosophers to make the precious metals; but, as might be expected, he received no returns from them in gold or silver.[18] His credulity, however, seems to have been unshaken by disappointment, and we next find him issuing one of these protections, which is too long to print entire, granted to the "three famous men," John Fauceby, John Kirkeby, and John Ragny, which was confirmed by Parliament May 31, 1456. In this document the object of the researches of these "philosophers" is described to be "a certain most precious medicine, called by some philosophers 'the mother and empress of medicines;' by some, 'the inestimable glory;' by others, 'the quintessence;' by others, 'the philosopher's stone;' by others, 'the elixir of life;' which cures all curable diseases with ease; prolongs human life in perfect vigour of faculty to its utmost natural term; heals all healable wounds; is a most sovereign antidote against all poisons; and is capable of preserving to us and our kingdom other great advantages, such as the transmutation of other metals into the most real and finest gold and silver."[19] Fauceby, here mentioned, is elsewhere designated the king's physician.[20] We have not traced the position of the other two adepts named. Fauceby, however, notwithstanding his power of gold-making, did not refuse to accept a grant from the king, in 1456, of a pension of 100l. a year for life.[21]
We come now to the two most distinguished of Lancashire alchemists, both knights, and at the head of the principal families of the county. They seem to have been actively engaged together in the delusive pursuit of the transmutation of metals; and, self-deceived, to have deluded the weak king with promises of wealth which never could be realised. These Lancashire adepts were Sir Edmund de Trafford, Knight, and Sir Thomas Ashton [of Ashton], Knight. The former was the younger of two sons of Henry de Trafford, Esq., and Elizabeth his wife, daughter of Sir Ralph Radcliffe, Knight. The elder son, Henry, dying at the early age of twenty-six years, this Edmund succeeded as his heir about King Henry V. (1414), and he was knighted by Henry VI. at the Whitsuntide of 1426. He married Dame Alice Venables, eldest daughter and co-heir to Sir William Venables, of Bollyn, Knight. Their only son, Sir John Trafford, knighted about 1444, in his father's life-time, married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Ashton, of Ashton-under-Lyne, Knight; whilst Sir Edmund's youngest daughter, Dulcia, or Douce, married Sir John Ashton, a son of Sir Thomas, in 1438; so that the two families were connected by this double alliance. Sir Thomas Ashton, the alchemist, was the eldest son of Sir John de Ashton (Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Henry IV. in 1399, Knight of the Shire in 1413, and Constable of Coutances in 1417), and of his first wife, Jane, daughter of John Savile, of Tankersley, county York. Sir Thomas married Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Byron. The date of his death is not known. Sir Edmund Trafford died in 1457. Their supposed power of transmuting the baser metals into gold had great attractions for a weak king, whose treasury was low, and who was encumbered with debt. They were not mere adventurers, but men descended from ancient families, opulent, and of high estimation in their native county. Fuller found in the Tower of London, and copied,[22] a patent granted to these two knights by Henry VI., in the twenty-fourth year of his reign (1446), of which he gives the following translation:—"The King to all unto whom, &c., greeting—Know ye, that whereas our beloved and loyal Edmund de Trafford, Knight, and Thomas Ashton, Knight, have, by a certain petition shown unto us, set forth that although they were willing by the art or science of philosophy to work upon certain metals, to translate [transmute] imperfect metals from their own kind, and then to transubstantiate them by their said art or science, as they say, into perfect gold or silver, unto all manner of proofs and trials, to be expected and endured as any gold or silver growing in any mine; notwithstanding certain persons ill-willing and maligning them, conceiving them to work by unlawful art, and so may hinder and disturb them in the trial of the said art and science: We, considering the premises, and willing to know the conclusion of the said work or science, of our special grace have granted and given leave to the same Edmund and Thomas, and to their servants, that they may work and try the aforesaid art and science lawfully and freely, without any hindrance of ours, or of our officers, whatsoever; any statute, act, ordinance, or provision made, ordained, or provided to the contrary notwithstanding. In witness whereof, &c., the King at Westminster, the 7th day of April" [1446.][23] Fuller leaves this curious document, which might fitly have been dated the first instead of the 7th April, without a word of comment. The two knightly alchemists, doubtlessly imposing on themselves no less than on their royal patron, kept the king's expectation wound up to the highest pitch; and in the following year he actually