The British Empire

We, therefore, the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

— So ends the Declaration of Independence, making July the 4th the date on which thirteen British colonies officially proclaimed their separation from the British Empire. Recognition of that independence was not instantaneous. The colonies had to back up their words by arms. Six years later, after much bloodshed and sacrifice all sides involved in the Revolutionary War, the British Empire had to humble itself and recognize defeat. The Treaty of Paris (1783) guaranteed the American Colonies a place of their own on the international scene. The British Empire, however, did not end. It reorganized itself and turned its gaze upon other lands, other peoples to control (Africa, Australia, the Middle East, and India), while looking forward to the day they believed would come, when the American experiment would falter and the colonies could be reclaimed for the British crown.

How did such visions of grandeur enter into the psyche of what would otherwise be an insignificant island-nation? To tell that story, we must turn to the time of Queen Elizabeth. It was one of her advisors, sometimes known as the first 007, who came up with the plan: John Dee.

While there are many fanciful claims that John Dee was some sort of Elizabethan spy, which would explain why Ian Fleming would be impressed with his 007 signature and use it for James Bond,[1]the connection between Dee with the founding principles of the British Empire are undeniable. Not only was he the first to use the term, he believed that the British Empire was a real entity in history, and needed to be restored under Queen Elizabeth.[2] It is certain that his ideas impressed Elizabeth, and she took much of what he said to heart. However, it is also clear that not everyone in her court approved of him, and so there was to be, after his initial proposal, a kind of separation between Dee and the Elizabethan court. Nonetheless, whatever power he did or did not possess in the court, much of what he wrote about was to be acted upon and become history. “The navy would become the ‘master key’ of English military strength, England would challenge the Spanish — to spectacular effect in its defeat of the Armada in 1588 —North America would be colonized, a British Empire would emerge, and the expeditions that Dee had in the last few years been helping to plan would lay its foundations.”[3]

What was the extent of Dee’s ideas? Armed with a fanciful version of history which looked all the way back to Arthurian times, he would try to provide several kinds of justification for Elizabeth to ignore the “international law” that was held in their time, that is, the Bull of Pope Alexander VI. If the British Empire was to colonize the Americans, England would have to show that Alexander’s partitioning of America was unjust. First, he suggested that the principle of discovery must be taken into account: the one who discovered a land has a claim to that land. Of course, they must find some way to possess it to actualize that claim. But if the right belonged to the discoverer, then the Papal Bull was null and void, because it failed to recognize England’s legitimate claims. John Dee said that England held the rights to North America because the Welsh Prince Madoc had journeyed there in the 12^thcentury, and Queen Elizabeth was his heir. Since the Papal Bull failed to take this into account, it could not be seen as legally binding. This, he hoped, would at least justify English colonies in the Americas. Since no one could lay claim to the open seas, natural law guaranteed equal access to the oceans, and the British had a right to send fleets over to the Americas and take what is rightfully theirs, especially since no one had laid claim to the land. More importantly, Dee thought of this in a kind of Manifest Destiny; he believed that England was being called to greatness which required its becoming a colonial power: “John Dee had an apocalyptic vision of England’s future in which he perceived the formation of an ‘Incomparable BRYTISH IMPIRE’ – both religious and political – with Elizabeth as empress.”[4] He did what he could to make this possible. He worked with the navy, putting his scientific skills to work, helping to upgrade the ships. His own navigational techniques were put to use; in fact, there is evidence that he had helped Sir Francis Drake in his voyage around the world.[5]

Now all of this is interesting in and of itself, and would be enough to earn John Dee’s place in history. However, it’s not his claim to fame. John Dee is known less for his scientific and geo-political accomplishments and more for his occultism. He was one of the last great “renaissance mages,” and he lived his life in pursuit not only of truth, but for power. He experimented in various forms of occult knowledge, uniting them with the best of the philosophical and scientific advances of his time. He was an accomplished mathematician who used the skills he gained in that disciple for pursuits in alchemy and astrology. Indeed, his ties to Elizabeth began through his work in astrology: he once did a horoscope for Queen Mary which predicted tragedy for her. Believed to be involved in a conspiracy against the Queen, he was imprisoned, but not before Elizabeth took note of him. Since he had seen great things in store for Elizabeth, when Mary died, Elizabeth called him to her court, and it was through his astrological work that a date was chosen for her coronation. But it is not even his work in astrology that made Dee famous for being a powerful sorcerer; rather, it was his demonology, a practice which he thought he was rather successful in. And his desire to transform the world came in part through his engagement of the occult. “To compete with the spiritual authority of Rome, however, Dee sought divine authority from the angels and God himself. […] Thus his scrying, publications, and political activities were all part of his grand scheme to unify the peoples, religions and languages of the world through universal knowledge. An element of this plan was to convert the pagans of the New World, and the Jews.”[6]The establishment of the British Empire was, in part, a plan of his own creation of a New Age, and a New World, one which he believed the angels (and demons) were helping him to establish: “Oute of this, shall be restored the holy bokes, which haue perished euven from the beginning, and from the first that liued And herein shalbe deciphred perfect truth from imperfect falshode, True religion from fals and damnable errors, With all Artes; which are proper to the use of man, the first and sanctified perfection: Which when it hath spred a While, THEN COMMETH THE ENDE.”[7] Dee’s vision, like so many others after him, combined a vision of world domination with eschatology, believing that his work, prepared for by God, was working for God’s own end, that is, the end of the world. But he believed that this new, final kingdom was not the kingdom of the devil, but of God: manifest destiny leading to utopia.

As much as things change, oh how do they remain the same! Even today, imperial desires continue to be used, at least by some, for the sake of bringing about the end.

Footnotes

[1] See, Richard B. Spence, Secret Agent 666: Aleister Crowley, British Intelligence, and the Occult (Port Townsend, WA: Feral House, 2008), 20.
[2]“Dee had been working on this idea for some time, and proposed featuring it in a series of new works aimed at shifting English foreign policy into a new, adventurous, expansionist mode. One of these works was planned as his magnum opus, a four-volume survey of the idea of a ‘Brytish Impire,’ entitled General and rare memorials pertaining to the Perfect Arte of Navigation,” Benjamin Woolley, The Queen’s Conjurer (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001), 117.
[3] Ibid., 122-3.
[4] Peter J. French, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus (London: Routledge, 1972), 180.
[5] Ibid., 179.
[6] Intro to Joseph H. Peterson, Ed. John Dee’s Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic (Boston: Weiser Books, 2003), 9.
[7] John Dee in Ibid., 395.