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A Medieval Ghost Hunter: Disraeli

Let me depict it in Disraeli's little known words: "Dee, sitting in his library," says Disraeli, "received the royal commissioners.

Two tables were arranged; on one lay all the books he had published, with his unfinished manuscripts; the most extraordinary one was an elaborate narrative of the transactions of his whole life. This manuscript his secretary read, and, as it proceeded, from the other table Dee presented the commissioners with every testimonial. These vouchers consisted of royal letters from the Queen, and from princes, ambassadors, and the most illustrious persons of England and of Europe; passports which traced his routes, and journals which noted his arrivals and departures; grants and appointments and other remarkable evidences; and when these were wanting, he appealed to living witnesses. "Among the employments which he had filled, he particularly alluded to a 'painful journey in the winter season, of more than fifteen hundred miles, to confer with learned physicians on the Continent, about her majesty's health.' He showed the offers of many princes to the English philosopher, to retire to their courts, and the princely establishment at Moscow proffered by the czar; but he had never faltered in his devotion to A Medieval Ghost Hunter • .. his sovereign.