John Dee's "Brytanici Imperii Limites"

Abstract

John Dee's (1527-1609) manuscript compilation Brytanici Imperii acquired by the British Library in 1976, plays a vital role in completing our knowledge of the imperial writings prepared by Dee in the late 1570s.' Scholars have long known about Dee's General and Rare Memorials Pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation (1576-77), Of Famous and Rich Discoveries (1577), and A brief Remembraunce of Sondrye foreyne Regions, discovered, inhabited, and partlie Conquered by the Subjects of this Brytish Monarchie (158o?).2 But in his diary and his short autobiography, Dee mentions other related materials presented to Queen Elizabeth and her senior advisers. These are referred to as the queen's title to Greenland, Estetiland and Friseland, declared to Elizabeth and Secretary of State Sir Francis Walsingham in November 1577; Her Majesties Title Royall, to many forayn countries, Kingdomes, and provinces, and Imperium Brytanicum, both declared in 1578; and two rolls of the Quene's Majesties title, presented to the queen and the Lord Treasurer, William Cecil, Lord Burghley in 1580.3 For many years it was assumed that these had not survived or were alternate names for works already known.4 Now that we have Dee's Limites, much more is known about Dee's audiences with the Crown. In his