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Alchemy (from al, Arab. the, and χημεία, chemistry), the pretended art of transmuting the inferior metals into gold or silver, by means of what was called the Philosopher's Stone, or the powder of projection, a red powder possessing a peculiar smell, is supposed to have originated among the Arabians; Geber, an Arabian physician of the seventh century, being one of the earliest alchemists whose works are extant; but written so obscurely as to have led to the suggestion that his name was the origin of our modern term gibberish, for unintelligible jargon. A subsequent object of alchemy was the discovery of a universal medicine, the Elixir Vitæ, which was to give perpetual life, health, and youth. The Egyptians are said to have practised alchemy; and Paulus Diaconus, a writer of the eighth century, asserts that Dioclesian burned the library of Alexandria, in order to prevent the Egyptians from becoming learned in the art of producing at will those precious metals which might be employed as "the sinews of war" against himself.[8] The earliest English writer on alchemy was probably St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, in the tenth century. "He who shall have the happiness to meet with St. Dunstan's work, 'De Occulta Philosophia' [that on the 'Philosopher's stone' is in the Ashmole Museum], may therein read such stories as will make him amazed to think what stupendous and immense things are to be performed by virtue of the Philosopher's Mercury."[9] A John Garland is also said to have written on alchemy and mineralogy prior to the Conquest.[10] Alchemy was much studied in conventual establishments[11] and by the most learned doctors and schoolmen, and the highest Church dignitaries—nay, even by kings and popes. Albertus Magnus, a German, born in 1282, wrote seven treatises on alchemy; and Thomas Aquinas "the angelic doctor" (said to have been a pupil of Albert), wrote three works on this subject. Roger Bacon ("Friar Bacon"), born at Ilchester in 1214, though he wrote against the folly of believing in magic, necromancy, and charms, nevertheless had faith in alchemy; and his chemical and alchemical writings number eighteen. Of his Myrrour of Alchemy, Mr. J. J. Conybeare observes, "Of all the alchemical works into which I have been occasionally led to search, this appears the best calculated to afford the curious reader an insight into the history of the art, and of the arguments by which it was usually attacked and defended. It has the additional merit of being more intelligible and more entertaining than most books of the same class."[12]

Raymond Lully, born at Majorca in 1235, is said to have been a scholar of Roger Bacon, and to have written nineteen works on alchemy. Arnoldus de Villa Nova, born in 1235, amongst a number of works on this subject, wrote The Rosarium, a compendium of the alchemy of his time. He died in 1313, on his way to visit Pope Clement V. at Avignon. Another pope, John XXII., professed and described the art of transmuting metals, and boasts in the beginning of his book that he had made two hundred ingots of gold, each weighing one hundred pounds. Among English alchemists of the fourteenth century may be mentioned Cremer, abbot of Westminster (the disciple and friend of Lully), John Daustein, and Richard, who both practised and wrote upon the "hermetic philosophy," as it was termed. In the fifteenth century was born George Ripley, a canon registrar of Bridlington, who wrote the Medulla Alchymiæ (translated by Dr. Salmon in his Clavis), and another work in rhyme, called "The Compound of Alchemie," which was dedicated to Edward IV. Dr. John Dee (born 1527), the warden of Manchester College, and his assistant, or "seer," Edward Kelly (born 1555), were both avowed alchemists. Dee wrote a Treatise of the Rosie Crucian Secrets, their excellent methods of making Medicines and Metals, &c. Ashmole says of him, that "some time he bestowed in vulgar chemistry, and was therein master of divers secrets: amongst others, he revealed to one Roger Cooke 'the great secret of the elixir' (as he called it) 'of the salt of metals, the projection whereof was one upon a hundred.'[13]

"'Tis generally reported that Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelly were so strangely fortunate as to find a very large quantity of the elixir in some parts of the ruins of Glastonbury Abbey." It had remained here, perhaps, ever since the time of the highly gifted St. Dunstan, in the tenth century.[14] The great Lord Bacon relates the following story in his Apothegms:—

"Sir Edward Dyer, a grave and wise gentleman, did much believe in Kelly, the alchemist, that he did indeed the work, and made gold; insomuch that he went into Germany, where Kelly then was, to inform himself fully thereof. After his return he dined with my Lord of Canterbury, where at that time was at the table Dr. Brown, the physician. They fell in talk of Kelly. Sir Edward Dyer, turning to the archbishop, said—'I do assure your Grace that that I shall tell you is truth: I am an eye-witness thereof; and if I had not seen it, I should not have believed it. I saw Master Kelly put of the base metal into the crucible; and after it was set a little upon the fire, and a very small quantity of the medicine put in, and stirred with a stick of wood, it came forth, in great proportion, perfect gold, to the touch, to the hammer, and to the test.' My Lord Archbishop said, 'You had need take heed what you say, Sir Edward Dyer, for here is an infidel at the board.' Sir Edward Dyer said again pleasantly, 'I would have looked for an infidel sooner in any place than at your Grace's table.' 'What say you, Dr. Brown?' said the archbishop. Dr. Brown answered, after his blunt and huddling manner, 'The gentleman hath spoken enough for me.' 'Why,' saith the archbishop, 'what hath he said?' 'Marry,' saith Dr. Brown, 'he said he would not have believed it except he had seen it; and no more will I.'"

Professor De Morgan observes that "Alchemy was more than a popular credulity: Newton and Boyle were amongst the earnest inquirers into it." Bishop Berkeley was of opinion that M. Homberg made gold by introducing light into the pores of mercury. Amongst the works of the Hon. Robert Boyle (vol. iv. 13–19), is An Historical Account of a Degradation of Gold, made by an anti-Elixir: a Strange Chemical Narrative, in which he says—"To make it more credible that other metals are capable of being graduated or exalted into gold, by way of projection, I will relate to you, that by the like way, gold has been degraded or imbased. … Our experiment plainly shows that gold, though confessedly the most homogeneous and the least mutable of metals, may be in a very short time (perhaps not amounting to many minutes), exceedingly changed, both as to malleableness, colour, homogeneity, and (which is more) specific gravity; and all this by so very inconsiderable a portion of injected powder," &c.

"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 informed his people that the happy hour was approaching when by means of "the stone" he "should be able to pay off his debts!"[24] It is scarcely necessary to add that the stone failed, and the king's debts must have remained unpaid, if his majesty had not pawned the revenue of his Duchy of Lancaster, to satisfy the demands of his clamorous creditors. Henry VI. was deposed by Edward IV. in March, 1461, and though he was nominally restored to the throne in October, 1470, he lost both crown and life in May, 1471, being found dead (most probably murdered) in the Tower on the evening or the morrow of the day on which Edward IV. entered London after his victory at Barnet. Such are some of the most notable facts in the practice of alchemy as connected with Lancashire. It will naturally be asked if alchemy is still practised in this county? We can only say, that if it be it is in very rare instances, and with the greatest secrecy. The more chemistry is known—and the extent to which it has been developed within the last twenty years is truly marvellous—the more completely it takes the ground from under the feet of a believer in alchemy. It is not like astrology, which accepts the facts of the true science of astronomy, and only draws false conclusions from true premisses. Alchemy could only have sprung up at a period when all the operations of the chemist's laboratory were of the most rude, imperfect, and blundering character; when the true bases of earths and minerals and metals were unknown; when what was called chemistry was without analysis, either quantitative or qualitative; before the law of definite proportions had been discovered; when, in short, chemistry was a groping in the dark without the help of any accurate weight or measure, or other knowledge of the countless substances which are now so extensively investigated, and so accurately described in the briefest formulas. A man, to become an alchemist in the nineteenth century, must study only the hermetical writings of past ages, shutting both eyes and ears to all the facts of modern chemistry. It is scarcely possible at this day to find such a combination of exploded learning and scientific ignorance. Hence we conclude that alchemy is in all probability, from the very nature of things, an obsolete and forgotten lore.