Page 6 - Scottish Alchemists

Michael Scot

The first well-known Scottish alchemist was the famous wizard or
magician, Michael Scot of Balwearie, who was born in Fifeshire about the
year 1200, after the commencement of the reign of Alexander II. He was
thus the contemporary of the great English alchemist or natural philosopher,
Roger Bacon, who, from his vigorous intellect, and information far in
advance of his age, was dreaded by the people, and eventually poisoned by
his monastic brethren. Devoting himself from his early years to the
cultivation of letters, Michael Scot repaired to the University of Oxford,
which then enjoyed a high reputation, not only for the sciences of ethics and
philosophy, but for those of astronomy and chemistry. This last science
comprehended within its range the mystery of alchemy, an art which then
was not only very passionately cultivated by the most learned men of the
kingdom, but which had become the subject of royal patronage and
munificence. The sagacious and politic Edward I seems to have been so far
transported by his belief in the transmutation of metals that he invited the
famous Raymond Lully, one of the greatest philosophers of his time, into his
dominions, and it was then currently reported that the gold which was
expended in fitting out an expedition to the Holy Land had issued, not from
the exchequer of the king, but from the laboratory of the sage.

To show how long this belief remained, the following passage occurs in a
work entitled an Essay on Critical and Curious Learning, by T. R., printed
in London in 1698. “I have read in some of their (the alchemists’) late books
that it is authentically recorded that Ripley, an English adeptus, sent for
many years successively a hundred thousand pounds of artificial gold to the
knights of Rhodes to maintain the war against the Turks, and that Raymond
Lully, another adept, furnished Edward the First with six myriads of the
same metal to carry on the holy war in the Holy Land”.

After leaving Oxford Michael Scot studied for some time at the
University of Paris, where he applied himself to the study of mathematics
with such success that he acquired the name of Michael the Mathematician.
He also devoted himself to the study of divinity, and received the degree of
doctor in theology. Having possessed himself of all information he could
acquire in his pursuits at Paris, he resumed his travels, and visited many

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