Re Aurelius Conanus

Hi everyone,

I thought it would be easier to respond to everybody in one message.

First of all, hello and welcome to the newbies.

First, JESSICA, no I haven't read ""The Dragon Waiting" but I'll
definitely put it on my list.

I seem to remember an article in an old Ricardian about the mutterings
of the Welsh bards prior to Bosworth. I'll try and look it out. Perhaps
Richard fell down in not using the Welsh Mortimer link for propaganda
purposes in the way Edward had done. I recall that Edward's plan for
Richard immediately after the Re-adeptiomn seems to have been to set him
up with a Welsh power base. But Richard clearly had other ideas. Had he
gone with that perhaps history might have been different, who knows?

About the alchemical aspect, there are mentions in various histories of
Henry VI and Edward IV employing alchemists to produce gold. Also, there
was a 15th century window in St Margaret's Westminster known as 'The
Alchemists' Window'. This is described in some detail in a book on
medieval Westminster (details still buried due to decorating!). I
remember there was an image of a man and a red rose, and a Latin caption
meaning something like "Rejoice O ye Adepts for the Lord is your
Brother". I remember thinking at the time : how on earth did they get
away with that? There must have been powerful backing somewhere.
Hughes' book is the only one I've ever read which tackles the subject
(although I don't think he mentioned the window). And, although he talks
a lot about Geoffrey of Monmouth he doesn't mention Aurelius Conanus.
Nor does he mention Havelok. He suggests that Richard was identified
with Mordred, Arthur's scheming bastard son (who I think usurped the
throne while Arthur was abroad, but I'll check), and that the coming
battle with Henry Tudor was a chance for the new Arthur to rerun his
fatal battle with Mordred and get it right this time. I wonder if he
actually read the whole of Geoffrey (I read it many years ago and the
parallel between AC and the trad. Richard III leapt out at me), or if he
was worried that showing the traditional account to be TOO close to
literary archetypes might make it seem suspect - just a cynical
rehashing of an old tale. He's very anti-Richard, as I explain below.
As for alchemy in general, a lot of books in the past just looked at it
as bad early chemistry rather than the complete philosophical system it
was, but there is actually an alchemy website which seems really good
and even offers study courses! http://levity.com/alchemy.

Hughes doesn't really deal with where the court interest in alchemy came
from. He notes the alchemical interests of Henry VI's physicians. The
impression I had gained myself was that perhaps it was Margaret of Anjou
who first brought them in. I found no references to alchemists and the
court before Henry's marriage, and I think her father Rene was into all
sorts of things. However, I am probably wrong.
Alchemy is perhaps difficult to define, as a lot of what Edward's
alchemists were doing was the standard stuff for the time such as
balancing the humours. Perhaps the question is where the divisions can
be drawn between medieval medical theories, alchemy and necromancy.
Hughes argues that alchemical means were used as sort of sympathetic
magic to help Edward and Henry Tudor tap into archetypes like King
Arthur and the heroes of Ancient Rome. It was believed that history had
a divine pattern like the rest of God's world. Regular and repeating,
just like, say, a leaf.
The image, from More et al, of Edward's second reign being a time of
great peace and properity, apparently derives from these images. At the
time the adepts were explaining away Edward's refusal to get to grips
with the demands of state, in particular the threat posed by Louis XI,
by promoting the image of a second Augustan age of peace. However, they
knew perfectly well this was eyewash and that things were falling apart.
However, Hughes is no lover of Richard. Everyone else was legitimately
allowed to play with archetypes, it seems, except him. In Richard it was
highly nefarious, pompous and sinister. As I said to Tim once, the
problem Richard has is that most historians heartily approve of the
later dynasties and the direction they took us, so that Richard becomes
an aberration. Hughes is no exception. He, probably rightly, sees the
interest in fostering a reunited Britain under a new Emperor Arthur as
the inspiration behind the later union of the crowns and the British
Empire, so it was A GOOD THING.

I see I'm getting rather long.

Now MARION. As regards Buckingham, again I need to nitpick over
everybody's activities in detail to see what comes out, but my gut
reaction is that nobody genuinely changes sides so completely and so
quickly. I have heard all sorts of theories: that he was angling for the
throne for himself all along and was setting Richard up just to knock
him down. Although this seems rather convoluted, it is true that he
would have had to get rid of Richard and the Princes, and could hardly
have done so straightforwardly without blackening his own reputation;
Commines said that when Richard was crowned Buck could hardly bear to
look (I take it there were French spies present). I have even heard the
theory that Buckingham's rebellion never was intended to place Henry
Tudor on the throne - that that was made up retrospectively by Tudor's
camp. Conversely, I have heard the theory that it wasn't really
Buckingham's rebellion at all, that he only jumped in on it very late
when he thought it was going to succeed. Buckingham's another one who's
been categorised by historians as unstable in order to explain away
behaviour they haven't themselves understood.

How did authorities interpret the death of Prince Arthur? I wondered
that. I honestly don't know. They would have put a brave face on it,
I've no doubt, and nobody who thought it a sign of divine displeasure
would have committed such thoughts to writing, but it must have been
very awkward. So must the sweating sickness immediately after Bosworth.
Hughes explains that people really did see bad harvests, pestilence etc
as being due to a problem with the king.

I'm actually planning to reread the Tudor sources to see to wat extent
they do seem to echo these stories. I feel I could also usefully read
more of the stories that were current at the time. Man is essentially a
storyteller after all, and it is perhaps mainly through stories that we
make sense of the world.

As for the quotes from Voltaire et al. Yes, of course the alternative
explanation is that history does repeat itself in these strange patterns
and that Richard was doomed to fill this particular role. Perhaps this
is so, but it is not the orthodox way of viewing things today. So that
if I find traditionalist historians suddenly taking this up as a new
religion I shall think they are only doing it for one reason....

Got to go,

Marie

Hello Everyone,
I've stumbled across your group, and have quite enjoyed the reading
so far.
The influence of Alchemists in European politics generally persisted
at least into the eighteenth century. The later Tudors (esp.
Elizabeth) and the Stuarts seemingly had influential courtiers of
that persuasion, and there is an article I have seen (sorry I don't
have the citation right at hand) which implies many of "Lord
Protector" Cromwell's motives were traceable to Alchemical thought
under the cover of Puritanism. After the restoration, Sir Isaac
Newton was perhaps the most famous Alchemist of all time, and only
in hindsight do we see him as a "modern" scientist who was able to
somehow transcend superstition with reason.
Eventually Alchemists faded as a political force in the face of work
such as Newton's, the prosperity brought by the New World world
trade and the consequent spur to the growth of modern science. Its
most famous modern survival is in its influence on some religious
forms today, notably Freemasonry and the Mormon church.


> About the alchemical aspect, there are mentions in various
histories of
> Henry VI and Edward IV employing alchemists to produce gold. Also,
there
> was a 15th century window in St Margaret's Westminster known
as 'The
> Alchemists' Window'. This is described in some detail in a book on
> medieval Westminster (details still buried due to decorating!). I
> remember there was an image of a man and a red rose, and a Latin
caption
> meaning something like "Rejoice O ye Adepts for the Lord is your
> Brother". I remember thinking at the time : how on earth did they
get
> away with that? There must have been powerful backing somewhere.


Cheers!
LF

--- In , "longform108"
<scholarly1@w...> wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
> I've stumbled across your group, and have quite enjoyed the reading
> so far.
> The influence of Alchemists in European politics generally
persisted
> at least into the eighteenth century. The later Tudors (esp.
> Elizabeth) and the Stuarts seemingly had influential courtiers of
> that persuasion, and there is an article I have seen (sorry I don't
> have the citation right at hand) which implies many of "Lord
> Protector" Cromwell's motives were traceable to Alchemical thought
> under the cover of Puritanism. After the restoration, Sir Isaac
> Newton was perhaps the most famous Alchemist of all time, and only
> in hindsight do we see him as a "modern" scientist who was able to
> somehow transcend superstition with reason.
> Eventually Alchemists faded as a political force in the face of
work
> such as Newton's, the prosperity brought by the New World world
> trade and the consequent spur to the growth of modern science. Its
> most famous modern survival is in its influence on some religious
> forms today, notably Freemasonry and the Mormon church.
>
>
>>> Cheers!

Yes, I knew about Elizabeth, Dr Dee & Edmund Kelly, also Isaac Newton
(didn't he give himself mercury poisoning in the end?). Also I've
read a lot of popular books about the strange origins of Freemasonry.
There are also groups like the Rosicrucians, of course. But all these
things seem to link to occult ideas in general, which is what I was
thinking when I said I'm not sure what the strict definition of
alchemy is, as opposed to any of the rest. Hughes doesn't really deal
with that. Buckingham's Thomas Nandike was attainted as a necromancer
by Richard's parliament, and Hughes says the inventory of his
possessions does suggest there may have been some truth in the
accusation.

Cromwell and the Mormons, however, is complete news to me. I'd love
to know more. I use my nearest Mormon Family History Centre virtually
weekly but I know very little about the beliefs.

Marie

>
> Cromwell and the Mormons, however, is complete news to me. I'd
love
> to know more. I use my nearest Mormon Family History Centre
virtually
> weekly but I know very little about the beliefs.
>
> Marie

Dear Correspondants,
Here is a quote from
_The_Refiner's_Fire_The_Making_of_Mormon_Cosmology_1644-1844_
by John L. Brooke, Tufts University from the Cambridge University
Press:

"The peoples of medieval and early modern Europe viewed earth and
the cosmos as a hierarchy of visible and invisible worlds, of matter
and spirit, stretching from village streets and fields up to
supernatural forces in the stars and beyond to a divinity in the
heavens. The Reformation was a struggle for the definition of and
control over this hierarchy of visible and invisible worlds. The
outcome was the fragmentation of medieval theological unity under
the Catholic church with the religious insurgency of the new
Protestant churches and sects. But the rise of Protestantism was
only one of a series of fault lines wracking the spiritual life of
Reformation Europe, fault lines involving claims to divine
immanence, the popular practices of magic, and the esoterica of
hermetic (alchemical) divinization...
In many ways, the reforming clergy and laity of Protestantism and
Catholicism shared a common agenda of regularity, order and control.
Although Protestants clearly led the assault on the form and spirit
of medieval Christianity, they were closely followed by the Catholic
reformers of the Counter-Reformation...
Protestant and Catholic reformers also shared a common antipathy for
contrary and disorderly voices, most obviously those of prophetic,
millenarian and utopian radicals who challenged the spiritual
hegemony and civil privilege that both parties struggled to assert.
The medieval church had long suppressed heretical such as the
Albigensian Cathars, the Lollards and the Taborites, and Catholics
certainly viewed the rise of Protestantism in the same light. But
the Protestants were divided similarly into two broad camps,
reformers and radicals. The first, the Magisterial Reformation of
Lutherans, Calvinists and Anglicans... The militancy of the
Anabaptists of Munster and the perfectionism of the English
revolutionary sects posed just as much of a threat to Protestant
reformers as Protestantism itself posed for Catholicism. The lineage
of the Latter-day Saints (Mormons) runs back to this Radical
Reformation."

Brooke goes on to trace several geneologies showing that most of the
ancestors of the first influential Mormons were themselves radical
refugees from Stuart England.

The association of Alchemists with minting money, legally or not,
based on their supposed knowledge of the "philospher's stone" which
would turn base metals into gold, aroused the greed and tolerance
(if expedient) of Kings, as well as magisterial and, later, radical
churchmen alike throughout the medieval and early modern ages. The
passage of time and technology only changed some of the names used
for this syndrome. As one wit commented, they seemed to stop burning
witches just about the same time that they started hanging coiners!
Two hundred years after Charles I, such musings still had powerful
appeal to surviving radical religionists in New England.

Regards,
LF