Arthur Dee


Arthur Dee was a physician and alchemist. He became physician successively to Tsar Michael I of Russia and to King Charles I of England.

Youth

Dee was the eldest son of John Dee by his third wife, Jane, daughter of Bartholomew Fromond of East Cheam, Surrey, and was born at Mortlake on 13 July 1579. He accompanied his father in travels through Germany, Poland, and Bohemia. After his return to England he was placed at Westminster School, on 3 May 1592, under the tuition of Edward Grant and Camden. Anthony Wood was informed that he subsequently studied at Oxford, but he took no degree and it is not known which college he attended.

Medicine

Settling in London with the intention of practising "physic", he exhibited at the door of his house a list of medicines which were said to be certain cures for many diseases. The censors of the College of Physicians summoned him to appear before them, but it is not known what the outcome was. Proceeding to Manchester, Dee married Isabella, daughter of Edward Prestwych, a justice of the peace.
Through the recommendation of James I he was appointed one of the physicians to the Tsar Michael I of Russia. He remained in Russia for about 14 years, principally in Moscow. There he wrote his Fasciculus Chemicus, a collection of writings on alchemy.
Returning to England on the death of his wife in 1637, Dee became physician to King Charles I. On his retirement, Arthur Dee moved to Norwich, where he became a friend of Sir Thomas Browne. His relationship to Browne has been little explored, only one literary critic speculating on this relationship:

Manuscripts

Arthur Dee died in September or October 1651 and was buried in St George's Church, Tombland, Norwich. He had seven sons and six daughters.
On his death, the bulk of his alchemical manuscripts and books was bequeathed to Sir Thomas Browne.
In the early 20th century Rasputin stole a number of Arthur Dee's translations of his father's writings into Russian. They were later reclaimed by the Romanov family and returned to the Imperial Library in Moscow.