John Dee and the Quest for a British

Empire
By Ceri Carter

Referred to as the ‘Arch Conjuror of England’, Dr John Dee was a polymath with many different
faces; magician, mathematician and astrologer, to name a few. 1 Walter I. Trattner labels him simply
‘an Elizabethan’. 2 He was also a close advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, who dubbed him ‘hyr
philosopher’. 3 Born in London with roots in Radnorshire, he became part of what Gwyn A.
Williams christened ‘the London-Welsh’; a group of prominent Welshmen in London that
included the like of William Cecil Lord Burghley. 4 Dee was at the forefront of the Elizabethan
Renaissance, and Dee, the imperialist, became integral to Elizabeth’s claim to foreign lands, coining
the term ‘British Empire’. 5 He took it upon himself to look through the history at past discoveries
and ancient British Empires both real and mythical to establish the lands that Elizabeth could lay
claim to as British Monarch. He also ensured that Elizabeth’s claim to these ancient Empires was
cemented in her lineage.

The age of discovery and conquering had been well established on the continent by the likes of
the Spanish and Portuguese; Britain was left behind with nearly a century worth of catching up to
do. Dee’s fascination with mathematics led to him developing an interest in navigation and he
sought to prompt his fellow Britons into fulfilling their duties in the art of discovery. 6Dee knew
that to stake a claim in the New World, he had to prove that Britons were there before. Gwyn A.
Williams has often used Dee’s sources on empire to establish Dee’s Welshness and therefore the
Welshness of the Tudor Dynasty and empire. This article will interrogate his approach to the
question of Dee’s Welsh identity. Firstly, the sources that Williams’ used in his arguments will be
outlined and then will be used to assess Dee’s priorities; Welsh Identity or British expansion.

1 Gwyn A. Williams, ‘Welsh Wizard and British Empire: Dr John Dee and a Welsh Identity’, in Gwyn A.
Williams, The Welsh in Their History, (London & Canberra: Croom Helm Ltd, 1982), pp.13-30 (p.13); R.
Julian Roberts, ‘Dee, John (1527–1609)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press,
2004), online edn, (May 2006), <http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/7418>, [accessed 16 February
2012].
2Walter I. Trattner, ‘God and Expansion in Elizabethan England: John Dee, 1527-1583’, Journal of the

History of Ideas, (1964:1), 17-34 (p.18).

3 Williams, 'Welsh Wizard and British Empire’, p.13.
4Ibid., p.16.
5 Gwyn A. Williams, When Was Wales? A History of the Welsh, (London: Penguin, 1985), p.124.
6Trattner, ‘God and Expansion in Elizabethan England’, p.24.
The first source chronologically is ‘A letter dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee’; which can be
found in E.G.R. Taylor’s article in Imago Mundi. As the title alludes to, the source is a letter/notes
sent from Gerardus Mercator to Dr John Dee regarding the ‘Northern Regions’ supposedly
conquered and settled by King Arthur. The notes have been transcribed and translated by Taylor;
some of the document had been written in Dutch and in Latin. Taylor explains that part of the
document is missing due to fire damage. The original document can be found in the British Cotton
MS. Vitellius C. VII. The source is a report of Mercator’s findings, as Dee had sent him into
‘divers[e] places beyond the sea’ to investigate claims that the Queen has to those lands so that she
might reclaim them. The margin contains Dee’s notes and commentary on the text. Mercator has
investigated the islands that King Arthur is accredited with conquering in the likes of the Gestae
Arthuri, the Inventio Fortunatae, and an account by Jacobus Cnoyen; all of which are long since lost;
in attempt to confirm claims to the lands.

Secondly, John Dee’s General and Rare Memorials pertyning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation: Annexed to
the Paradoxal cumpas, in Playne: now first published: 24 yeres, after the first Inuention thereof (1577). The
document is available via Early English Books Online in digital format; both as a scanned
document and transcribed text (the scanned document also contains notes in the margin by Dee).
The document contains two prefaces, the main body of the document and three appendices. 7 The
main body of the document is contained in the chapter headlined as ‘The Brytish Monarchie’. Here
Dee puts forth his argument for the creation of a Pety Navy Royall, primarily to protect Britain’s
coasts and fisheries and what it should contain.

Thirdly is John Dee’s copy of Humphrey Llwyd’s ‘History of Cambria’; particularly the section on
Lord Madoc. This copy can be found in the British Library’s Cotton Collection. 8 This document
comes from an unfinished version of Humphrey Llwyd’s translation of a two hundred year old
source (now lost) by an unknown author in the British tongue (Welsh). Unfortunately, he was

7 ‘A BRIEF NOTE SCHOLASTICAL, FOR THE better understanding of the Decorum obserued, (or,
at the least, regarded) in this present Two-fold Treatise, written vnder the Names of Three diuers
Properties, States or Conditions of MAN’ Whereby yt may apere, that there are not scopae dissolutae: or, Du
Coq à l’ Asne: But, by the will, and Grace of the Highest, thus Recorded’; ‘A necessary Aduertisement, by
an vnknown freend, giuen to the modest, and godly Readers: who also carefully desire the prosperous
State of the Common wealth, of this BRYTISH KINGDOM, and the Politicall SECVRITIE thereof’;
‘TO THE RIGHT WOR|shipfull, [1.] discreet, and singular fauorer, of all good Artes, and Sciences, M.
Christopher Hatton Esquier: Captain of her Maiesties Garde, and Ientleman of her priuy Chamber’(headlined
as ‘The Brytish Monarchie’); ‘GEORGII GEMISTI PLE|thonis de Rebus Peloponnesi, ORATIO. 1’;
[the digested version] ‘GEORGII GEMISTI PLE|thonisad Principem Theodorum de Rebus
Peloponnes: Oratio Posterior: GVLIELMO CANTERO, Interprete’ [the original oration]; and ‘TO THE
RIGHT WORSHIPFVL M. CHRISTOPHER Hatton, Esquyer, Capitayn of her Maiesties Garde, and
Ientleman of her Priuy Chamber.’ The last chapter is a verse addressed to Christopher Hatton.
8London, British Library, MS Cotton Caligula A VI, fol. 2–228.
unable to finish it before he died in 1568. The History of Wales was finished and published by
another notable Welshman, Dr David Powel in 1584 as The historie of Cambria now called Wales: A
part of the most famous Yland of Brytaine, written in the Brytish language above two hundredth years past. 9

Dee’s version of Llwyd’s original text and Powel’s completed print version are often treated the
same in the historiography; the differences are not highlighted and this is particularly notable in
Gwyn A. Williams’ Madoc, where the two sources are cited in the bibliography but he does not
distinguish within the text which version of the document he is referring to. 10 Gwyn A. Williams
dates Dee’s acquisition of the Llwyd document as between 1577 and 1578.His reasoning for this
is because his writings from 1576 and 1577 have no mention of Madoc in them, despite being,
what he calls, ‘Arthurian’ in nature. 11 The source is dated by the British Library as 1559.

The source includes notes in the margin in another pen (identified as Dee’s) relating to the
document; such as, ‘Madoc[,] sonne to Prince Owen sayled to the land west of Ireland which
afterward above 400 year [sic] was judged to have byn first by the Spaniards (and others)
discovered’. 12 On the preceding pages there are also attempts at working out family trees featuring
Madocs in Dee’s pen; an interesting addition overlooked by Williams. Powel’s printed version
contains more detail added in by Powel with the benefit of seeing George Peckham’s Trve Reporte
(1583) the third chapter of which contains information relating to Madoc. 13 Both Powel and
Peckham refer to David Ingram’s evidence of Welsh (British) words being used in the New World
by natives; words such as pengwin (penguin- white head). These notes are not contained in Dee’s
original version.

9 David Powel ed. Trans. By Humphrey Llwyd (London, 1584), The historie of Cambria now called Wales: A
part of the most famous Yland of Brytaine, written in the Brytish language above two hundredth years past: translated into
English by H. Lhoyd Gentleman: Corrected, augmented and continued out of Records and best approoued Authors by
David Powel Doctor in Diuinitie.
10Gwyn A. Williams, Madoc: The Legend of the Welsh Discovery of America, (Oxford & New York: Oxford

University Press, 1987).

11Ibid., p.55.
12MS Cotton Caligula A VI, fol. 2–228.
13 George Peckham, A Trve Reporte, Of the late discoueries, and possession, taken in the right of the Crowne of

Englande, of the Newfound Landes: By that valiaunt and worthye Gentleman, Sir Humphrey Gilbert Knight Wherein is
also breefely sette downe, her highnesse lawfull tytle there vnto, and the great and manifolde commodities, that is likely to
grow thereby, to the whole realme in generall, and to the aduenturers in particular. Together with the easines and shortnes of
the voyage. Seene and allowed. (London, 1583) Original document can be access via Early English Books
online <http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?ctx_ver=Z39.88-
2003&res_id=xri:eebo&rft_id=xri:eebo:citation:99845914> [accessed 26 April 2012] also in The Voyages
and Colonising Enterprises of Sir Humphrey Gilbert Vol. II, ed. by David Beers Quinn (ed.), (London: Hakluyt
Society, 1940), pp.459-460.
Fourthly are John Dee’s manuscripts that are referred to by historians as the Tytle Royall and Limits
of the British Empire (1578).These are located in an edited collection of manuscripts known
collectively as The Limits of the British Empire. 14 The collection was rediscovered in 1976 by the
British Library after it was believed to have been lost. It was thought that there had been two
versions of the document, one produced in 1578 and this one produced in 1580; this is an illusion
that Williams was also working under when attempting to date Madoc’s introduction to John
Dee. 15 Ken MacMillan and Jennifer Abeles, as first editors of the collection, claim that they have
tried to ‘provide an annotated edition that is respectful of the form and function of the original
manuscript while also attending to the needs of a modern and varied audience’. 16 The Tytle Royall
is a document addressed directly to Queen Elizabeth I and outlines the following:-

1. The clayme in perticuler

2. The reasons of the clayme
3. The credit of the reason
4. The value of the credit by force of law. 17

Dee outlines Elizabeth’s claims to foreign lands in the first paragraph. He then proceeds to
describe in depth the reason for her claims by outlining the various explorers and Kings, both
mythical and real, which have travelled to, conquered and/or settled the lands. This is done in
seventeen points, describing the exploits of Lord Madoc (circa 1170); Mr Sebastian Caboto (circa
1494 & 1497); Mr John Caboto (circa 1494); 18 the Irish Brandan (circa 560); Martin Frobisher (1576
& 1577); King Arthur (circa 530); King Malgo (circa 583); the friar from Oxford, whom he thinks
likely be Hugo of Hibernia, in his account Inventio Fortunatae (1360); and Mr Stephen Aborowgh
(1556). He then goes on to plead with Her Majesty to proceed to reclaim those lands that have not
been settled by Christian Princes to expand her kingdom. He explains that it is her duty as a
Christian ruler to spread Christianity to those heathen lands.

14 Thusly named by the editors Ken MacMillan and Jennifer Abeles; they have also given the last

document in this collection the same title. For the remainder of this dissertation, Limits of the British Empire
will refer to the final document and the collection will be prefaced by or referred to as ‘the collection’.
15 Ken MacMillan & Jennifer Abeles (eds.), John Dee: The Limits of the British Empire, (Westport: Praeger

Publishers, 2004), pp.4-9.

16Ibid.,p.IX.
17 John Dee, Unto your Majesties Tytle Royall to these Forene Regions &Ilandes do appertayne 4 poyntes,[Known in

short as Tytle Royall] (London, 1578), in MacMillan & Abeles (eds.) John Dee: The Limits of the British Empire,
pp.43-49.(p.43).
18Caboto as spelt in John Dee’s document. In English it is commonly spelt Cabot. Both spellings are

referred to in this paper.

Dee’s Limits of the British Empire goes on to explain that the lands he has described in the Tytle Royall,
he has done so as not to cause offence to other Christian Princes. However, there are lands that
Elizabeth can lay claim to that have been settled by Christian Princes. He recommends that the
Queen avoids conflict in reclaiming these lands. Dee also explains the problems he faced in
deciphering the facts of King Arthur from the myth and claims that enemies of the Britons
(Saxons, Scots, Picts, Danes Norwegians and others) have attempted to discredit the legend of
Arthur by creating untruths, but they have only succeeded in boosting his renown. Dee claims his
reasons for persuading her Majesty to pursue these lands are for the ‘great good service of God,
for your highness immortall fame, and the marvailous wealth publick of your Brytish Impire’. 19
The document lays out all of the evidence that he has gathered and the reasons why he believes
that Elizabeth can lay claims to the lands.

Madoc’s appearance in the Tytle Royall of 1578, allowing Williams to further narrow the date of
Madoc’s earliest inclusion into English discourse as between July 1577 (‘when he was finishing his
great imperial work’) and August 1578 (‘when he went to the Queen at Norwich’). 20 It is possible
that Dee’s publication his General and Rare Memorials (1577) prompted an offer to give Llwyd’s
manuscript to Dee. 21

John Dee’s Welsh identity has not been a subject for debate; however, there are varying schools
of historical thought on his nationality. While there are historians who have said outright that he
is Welsh and those who have gone further to suggest he was a Welsh patriot, there are also those
who have acknowledged his Welsh origins and yet describe him as British, and there are those who
refer to him in the English sense. 22 Historians appear not to be inclined to debate the subject.
Dee’s Welsh links are condemned to be forgotten or not important enough for discussion. What
is most interesting is Williams’ take on Dee’s Welshness; drawing upon these sources he has
concluded in his lecture, ‘Welsh Wizard and British Empire: Dr John Dee and a Welsh Identity’,
that Dee is most certainly a Welsh patriot. Whilst it is possible that Williams has drawn this
conclusion from another source; these sources do not conclude the subject of Dee’s Welshness.

19 John Dee, Limits of the British Empire, (London, 1578), in John Dee: The Limits of the British Empire, ed. by
MacMillan & Abeles, pp. 51-100. (p. 56).
20 Williams, Madoc, p.55.
21 It is not know who owned Llwyd’s manuscript after Llwyd’s death in 1568.
22 Williams, 'Welsh Wizard and British Empire’;Trattner, ‘God and the Expansion of Elizabethan

England’, p.25. Though he does not say that Dee is English expressly, the Trattner’s writing uses the
words English and England in reference with Dee.
The source frequently used by Williams to instil a strong Welsh identity on Dee is the Tytle Royall.
Prior to this writing, Dee’s focus for Empire had been on the mythical King Arthur and his
supposed Empire to the north of the British Isles. Sometime, in the above list of sources, between
the 1577 letter from Mercator and the 1578Tytle Royall, Dee discovered the story of Madoc or at
least reassessed the importance of Madoc to the Elizabethan claim to Empire. The Tytle Royall sees
Madoc take primary place as evidence for Elizabeth to stake a claim on a broader Empire. Arthur
does not make an appearance until his eleventh point. Williams argues that Madoc takes
precedence over all other claims (even those that have no doubt hanging over them) because he is
Welsh. 23Is it possible that Arthur takes a backseat because he does not conquer that all important
land, America?

It is possible that Madoc’s Welsh connection is what made Dee use Madoc as his primary evidence
for a claim to America; after all, he has demoted the like of the Cabots, who sailed to America in
1494) and 1497, to second, third, fourth and ninth on the list. 24 Cabot is a much stronger link to
the Americas simply because there is no doubt that this happened; there is no real evidence of
Madoc prior to Humphrey Llwyd’s work (though much like Arthur there is evidence to suggest
there might have been an oral tradition surrounding the story). Madoc and Arthur are not the only
ancient myths to appear in his Tytle Royall, the Irish Brandan also appears, and above Arthur in the
pecking order.

If Welshness was truly Dee’s motivation, would not Arthur feature higher in his list of evidence?
Dee was not looking back to a time when Wales and Welsh people had a greater importance in
Britain; the importance for Dee appears to lay in Ancient Britain not in Wales. Wales is the land
to which the Ancient Britons were forced to retreat after the Angles and the Saxons invaded their
land. The language spoken in Wales is the language of the Ancient Britons. In Dee’s case, he is
looking back to the Ancient Britons because they once held dominion over the whole of the British
Isles, not because they now occupy the land from which he hails. It is understandable, however,
for a section of historians to depict Dee’s nostalgia towards Ancient Briton as being a patriotic act
towards his Welsh brethren. Uncovering stories of Ancient Britons who had made discoveries
(real or not) predates any discoveries made by rival Empires. Arthur initially captured Dee’s interest
with stories of discoveries and conquests made North of Britain, outlines in the letter from

23Williams, 'Welsh Wizard and British Empire’, p.16.

24Francesco Tarducci, Trans. by Henry F. Brownson, John and Sebastian Cabot: Bibliographical Notice,
(Detroit: Henry F. Brownson Publishers, 1893),
<http://www.archive.org/stream/johnsebast00tardrich/johnsebast00tardrich_djvu.txt> [accessed 26
April 2012]; Dee, Tytle Royall, pp.44-45.
Mercator. 25 Arthur still plays a role in his evidence to Elizabeth for the re-establishment of Empire,
but it is evident from his Tytle Royall that the main focus/goal was to establish America as rightfully
British. Brandan’s inclusion in Dee’s list of evidence seems to suggest that Dee acknowledge Henry
VIII’s sovereignty over Ireland (1541); this suggests that Dee’s allegiance was that to British
monarchy and not to Wales. Arthur’s empire did not include the New World that we can identify,
though it did take in mystical/mythical lands that we cannot place today; these lands can be seen
on the map published by the Venetian Xeno (or Zeno) brothers of the North Atlantic in 1558.
Dee’s Tytle Royall alone shows that Dee’s priority was not Welshness and the importance of Wales;
this is evident from the wide range of evidence be brings forward. What makes Arthur and Madoc
significant (and in particular Arthur as he is earlier in time) was the fact that they were ancient
Britons or (in Madoc’s case) their lineage could be tied to the Ancient Kings of Britain; not because
they were Welsh.

John Dee had an interest in King Arthur long before he had even heard of the legend of Madoc.
It is possible that, through Arthur, Dee could find a claim to the New World, or maybe he felt that
Arthur was his only hope of re-establishing an ancient empire. However, after his discovery of
Madoc, Arthur seems to take up a secondary (even tertiary if you consider his inclusion of the Irish
Brandan) role in Dee’s plan to map an ancient British Empire in the Tytle Royall. Arthur does not
appear until his eleventh point of evidence;

Recorded Circa Anno 1060. In Priscis Anglorum Legibus, the famous ilande called Groenland &
Island &c are accorded to be {Appurtenances of the British Crown}, as of Kinge Arthur his
conquest. 26

Dee uses the Priscis Anglorum Legibus in a couple of different ways to make his case for a British
Empire. 27 The Priscis enables Dee to show that Britain had come together under one crown:

It was at this time [under King Edward] that due to God’s mercy the whole people of
Britain came under one universal monarchy. From this time on, what was previously
referred to as the British [Welsh] Kingdom was referred to as the Kingdom of the
English.... 28

25 E.G.R. Taylor, ‘A letter dated 1577 from Mercator to John Dee’, Imago Mundi, 13.1, (1956), 56-68.
26Madoc is his first point and Brandan appears as points five to eight; This is William Lambarde,
Achaionomia, sive de priscis anglorum legibuslibri (London, 1568) commonly known in Dee’s time as De Priscis
Anglorum Legibus (‘the ancient laws of England’);Dee, Tytle Royall, p.45.
27 Dee provides a translation of part of the Priscis Anglorum Legibus in the Limits of the British Empire, pp.56-

58.
28 Extract from Lambarde, Priscis Anglorum Legibus: p.137.
This allowed Dee to claim Arthur for the British Monarchy if there were any doubt over the
legitimacy of using the Welsh king. This together with the 1536 Act of Union under Henry VIII,
uniting Wales and England under one law, could leave little doubt over Elizabeth’s claim to
Arthurs Empire. Dee’s other purpose in referencing the Priscis is to establish what Elizabeth can
and cannot lay claim to. In his Limits of the British Empire he warns Elizabeth against pursuing claims
to lands that have long since been settled by Christian Princes. By this he is referencing the law
established in the Priscis acknowledging that the Kingdom of Norway, though once belonged
within King Arthur’s Empire, had been granted concession.

So at length King Edward, our last king (who was a great peacemaker) came to an agreement, and granted
them concessions through the common council of the whole realm, such that in future they should be able,
and have the right, to live alongside us, and [32] remain in the kingdom as our sworn brothers. 29

In incorporating this part of the Priscis into his Limits of the British Empire he is specifying that this
matter of not upsetting Christian Princes is only in relation to the like of Norway. This clears the
way for the later Madoc claim. Madoc supposedly settled down in Florida which had been a
Spanish colony since the early sixteenth century. It is clear that he is not concerned about upsetting
the Spanish; the claim predates the Spanish claim therefore the Spanish should not be upset about
Elizabeth laying claim to that land. He is careful to ensure that the lands covered in his Tytle Royall
have strong claims that cannot be undermined by a previous claim by the Spanish or any other
Kingdom with ambitions of empire: ‘no other prince of potentate els in the whole world beinge
able to alledge therto any claime the like’. 30

The focus on Madoc, rather than Arthur, is interesting as there is a claim to be made with John
Cabot and his sons. One can assume that the reason Madoc takes pole position is because he
predates the Spanish discovery of America by a considerable time; not as Gwyn A. Williams
suggests, because of his Welsh Identity. Why, therefore, does someone like the Irish Brandon; who
supposedly landed in America prior to Madoc; take a back seat? Possibly because Dee could trace
(or fabricate) a direct line from Madoc to Elizabeth; it is understood that Dee had traced
Elizabeth’s lineage back to the Ancient British Kings though these sources are now missing, tying
Elizabeth to Ancient Britain is legitimising her claim to an ancient empire. Henry VII had also had

29Referring to King Edward, the Confessor; From Dee’s translation of the Priscis Anglorum Legibus in the
Limits of the British Empire, p.58.
30 Dee, Tytle Royall, p.48.
his lineage traced back to the Ancient Kings and Princes of Britain, though in Henry’s case, he was
more interested that these Kings were ancestors of the Welsh. 31

The first appearance of Madoc in Dee’s literature is in his Tytle Royall where he has taken pride of
place at number one in the list of evidence for the British Empire:

Circa Anno 1170. The Lord Madoc, sonne to Owen Gwynedd prince of North Wales, leaving
his brother in contention and wars for their inheritance, sought by sea (westerly from
Irland) for some forein and apt region to plant hymselfe in with soverainty. Which region
when he had found, he returned to Wales againe & furnished hymselfe with shipps,
victuals, armour, men, and women sufficient for the colony which spedely he leed into the
province named Iaaquaza (but of late Florida) or into some of the provinces and territories
neere ther aboutes, as in Apalchen, Mocosa, or Norombega, eache od these 4 beinge notable
portions of the ancient Atlantis, not longe synce nowe named America. 32

Much of this is taken in verbatim from Dee’s copy of Humphrey Llwyd, Williams, however, does
not address this in his analysis of the documents:

And at this tyme another of Owen Gwyneths sonnes named Madock left the lands in
contention betwixt his brethren, and prepared certayne shippes wth men and munition
and sought adventure by the seas, and sayled west leaving the coast of Ireland north. 33

Ultimately, Dee saw that Britain was a hundred years behind Spain in Empire building. Spain had
already claimed much of the New World to the South. Although the English monarchy had
sponsored exploratory voyages and had laid claim to lands to the north, they had yet to successfully
lay claim to ‘Atlantis’-as Dee dubbed America. Dee’s preoccupation with the Spanish is evident in
his copy of Llwyd’s account. One of the differences between this version and Powel’s printed
version of the Historie of Cambria is that it contains notes in the margin and underlining by Dee;
this tells us what Dee felt was important in the document. Dee has noted:

Madoc sonne to prince Owen sayled to the land west of Ireland which afterward above
400 year [sic] was judged to have byn first by the Spaniards (and others) discovered.

31There is evidence in Dee’s copy of Llwyd’s Historie of Cambria, on the page previous to the Madoc
account, that Dee had made attempts at working out family trees featuring Madocs; again these sources
are long since lost. Gutun Owain was part of the commission set up to establish Henry Tudor’s Welsh
Pedigree. He is also cited by Powel in the Historie of Cambria as writing of Madoc prior to the Columbus
discovery.
32 Dee, Tytle Royall, p.44.
33MS Cotton Caligula A VI, fol. 2–228.
In this, Dee has found the perfect candidate to front his list of great British Explorers that have
conquered lands for the British Empire; more precisely, he had the perfect candidate to undermine
the Spanish.

Perhaps this goes someway to explaining why there was a lack of emphasis placed upon the Cabot
discoveries. John Cabot and his sons Sebastian, Lewes and Sacius were granted permission by
Henry VII in 1497 to sail under the Tudor flag to discover new lands. 34 The letter of patent that
was granted by Henry VII also granted the Cabots and their descendants exclusive right of
settlement wherever they landed. They had already sailed in 1494 where, according to Dee,
Sebastian discovered the ‘Baccalalaos Ilandes’. 35 Also in 1494, Dee attributes John and Sebastian
Cabot, along with Robert Thorns and Mr Eliot, with the discovery of ‘Newfound Lande’ and
‘Sainct Iohns Iland’. 36 In 1497, Sebastian Cabot has been credited with the rediscovery of
Newfoundland and lands ‘so far northerlie’, that he also discovered the ‘greate square Goulf,
otherwise called the Goulf of Merosre’.It was not enough that the Cabot’s discoveries in America
allowed them to claim parts of America under the Elizabethan Crown. 37Despite the fact that the
Spanish had not reached that area of America, Dee wanted to ensure that Elizabeth’s Empire was
more powerful; establishing a claim prior to Spain’s allows this. Sebastian Cabot’s defection to the
Spanish in the early sixteenth century may also be a factor in Dee’s decision to downplay the
importance of their discoveries. That, along with Henry VII’s Letters of Patent granting the Cabots
and their descendants exclusive right of settlement, may have strengthened the Spanish claim
rather than the British claim. However, their discoveries of Newfoundland, Labrador and other
surrounding islands were too important to leave out.

Therefore, it is not a Welsh identity that drove Dee in his pursuit of a British Empire but a need
to establish the origins of empire before Spain’s expansion. The Spanish were the main rivals to
beat in the game of empire building. Madoc effectively denies the Spanish the right to claim finder’s
rights on the New World. Dee’s motivation seems to be to elevate Britain’s standing in the world
to an Empire. John Dee’s sense of Welshness was a matter of convenience as it was with Henry
VII, though in slightly different ways. Henry played on his Welsh ancestry to gain support in Wales
to usurp the throne of England; in doing so he drew upon the myth of Arthur and the prophecy
that one day Arthur would return to reclaim the throne for Ancient Britons (now the Welsh). To

34 Letter of Patent granted by Henry VII, (1497) <http://avalon.law.yale.edu/15th_century/cabot01.asp>

[accessed 29 January 2014].
35 Dee, Tytle Royall, p.44.
36Ibid., p.44.
37Ibid., p.45.
Dee on the other hand, Wales was a place rife with antiquity that he could draw upon to further
the British crown. On the other hand, there is evidence to suggest that some of Dee’s
contemporaries were aware of his Welshness. Sir Philip Sidney, in a letter replying to Hubert
Languet, warns that by deriding Humphrey Llwyd’s apparent Welsh patriotism he might anger
Dee. Sidney claims that by mocking his Welsh brethren Dee might ‘in his anger may wield against
you his hieroglyphical monad, like Jove's lightning’. 38 I t is possible that Dee felt a strong sense of
Welsh Identity; however, from the evidence that Gwyn A. Williams presents tells us about Dee’s
Welshness, it is not clear that Dee felt any strong connection to his Welsh roots.

38Philip Sidney in a letter to Hubert Languet (February, 1574) in William Aspenwall Bradley (ed.) The
Correspondence of Sir Philip Sidney and Herbert Languet, (Boston: Merrymount, 1912), p.38. Also mentioned in
Philip Schwyzer, Literature, Nationalism and Memory in Early Modern England and Wales, (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2009), p.78.