English literature -- England -- Lancashire; Legends -- England -- Lancashire
On the 5th of June 1604, he presented a petition to
King James, earnestly desiring that he might be brought to trial and
delivered, by a judicial sentence, from those suspicions which his
astrological and other inquiries had brought upon him. But the King,
knowing the nature of his studies, was very far from showing him any
mark of his favour. In November, the same year, he quitted Manchester,
returning to his house at Mortlake, where he died, old, infirm, and
forsaken of his friends, being very often obliged to sell some book or
other to procure a dinner. The following account of Dr Dee's expenses
from Trebona to London, copied from a statement in his own
handwriting,[19] we have thought too curious to omit:--
"The charges of my last return from beyond seas, A. 1589, being
favourably called home by her Majestie from Trebon Castle in Bohemia.
[Sidenote: 600 lib.]
"My journey of remove homeward from Trebon Castle to Staden cost me more
than 3000 dollars, which we account
[Sidenote: 120 lib.]
"Besides the cost of 15 horses wherewith I travelled all that journey;
of which the 12 which drew my 3 coaches were very good and young
Hungarian horses, and the other three were Wallachies for the saddles:
which 15 cost with one another
[Sidenote: 60 lib.]
"The three new coaches made purposely for my aforesaid journey, with the
furniture for the 12 coach-horses, and with the saddles and bridles for
the rest, cost more than 3 score pounds
"The charge of wains to carry my goods from Trebon to Staden, they being
two and sometimes three (for more easy and light passage in some
places), cost above an hundred and ten pounds, which I account (for an
hundred of it) under my former sum of 600 lib. Under which 600 lib. also
I do account for the charges of the 24 soldiers, well appointed, which,
by virtue of the emperor's passport, I took up in my way from Diepholt,
and again from Oldenburgh; the charges of the six harquebusiers and
musqueteers, which the Earl of Oldenburgh lent me out of his own
garrison there: I gave to one with another a dollar a man for the day,
and their meat and drink full. For at the first, 18 enemies, horsemen,
well appointed, from Lingen and Wilstrusen, had lain five days attending
thereabout, to have sett upon me and mine; and at Oldeborch, a Scot (one
of the garrison) gave me warning of an ill-minded company lying and
hovering for me in the way which I was to pass, as by a letter may
appear here present. Of the former danger, the Landgrave of Hesse his
letters unto me may give some evidence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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