Scottish Alchemy in the Seventeenth Century

Abstract

SCOTLAND'S impressive contribution to the development of chemistry is well known;1 but it is not often realized that from the advent of alchemy into Western Europe until the birth of modern chemistry this small but vigorous country in the far north fostered a succession of outstanding exponents of the Divine Art of alchemy, the precursor of chemistry. Scottish alchemy falls into three well-defined periods. Scotland's first recorded authority on alchemy was the celebrated Michael Scot, a veritable Wizard of the North, who achieved fame in Spain and Italy early in the thirteenth century as a master of Latin learning, of Hebrew, and of Arabic, and became astrologer and philosopher to the Emperor Frederick II at his court in Sicily.2 Some three hundred years later, James IV founded Scotland's first alchemical laboratory?which at the same time might be called Scot land's first research laboratory?in historic and picturesque surround ings provided by the grim fastness of Stirling Castle. The accounts of the Lord High Treasurer of Scotland between 1501 and 15IS throw much light upon the nature and cost of the materials which were used in this remarkable laboratory.8 Scottish alchemy rose to its zenith in the seventeenth century, the very opening of which was marked by the alchemical epic of Alex ander Seton, a reputed Scotsman whose romantic wanderings through Europe as a goldmaker are said to have come to a tragic end in 1604. This figure of high romance and tragedy in the chronicles of alchemy