The Alchemists: Thomas Charnock

INTRODUCTION

Thomas Charnock was not (even by his own estimation) one of the most successful of alchemists. He was however one about whose life we know a great deal because of the wealth of autobiographical material which he provided. The vast majority of this is contained in his Booke dedicated unto the queenes maiestie of 1565 (herein after referred to as his 'Booke') and numerous notes inscribed on the back of a parchment roll discovered in his laboratory after his death. At an early age he was left destitute by the machinations of his uncle who none-the-less left him a library of alchemical manuscripts. He lived in relative poverty, his hopes of gaining the Philosopher's Stone constantly frustrated and, despite an ill-fated attempt to gain royal recognition, died in obscurity in a Somerset backwater.

THOMAS CHARNOCK. (152? – 1581)

Charnock was born in the early years of the 1520's at Faversham in Kent during the reign of King Henry VIII (1509 – 1547). The exact year is not known but from his writings it would seem to have been either 1524 or 1526. His uncle, also called Thomas, a Dominican Friar of Ludgate, London, Doctor of Divinity and confessor to Henry VII (in c.1509) was also an alchemist. In his Booke Charnock says that his uncle had obtained the Philosopher's Stone from a fellow Black Friar of Canterbury in the year in which Wolsey was made a cardinal (1515). After he had