John Dee (13 July 1527 - 1608 or 1609) was an English mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, occult philosopher, and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I. He devoted much of his life to the study of alchemy, divination, and Hermetic philosophy. He was also an advocate of England's imperial expansion into a "British Empire", a term he is generally credited with coining. Dee straddled the worlds of modern science and magic just as the former was emerging.
Dee was married three times and had eight children. He first married Katherine Constable in 1565; she died in 1574 and their union resulted in no children. His second (also childless) marriage to an unknown woman lasted only a year until her death in 1576. From 1577 to 1601, Dee kept a sporadic diary (also referred to as his "almanac") from which most of what we know about his life during that time has been gleaned. In 1578 he married the 23-year-old Jane Fromond: Dee was fifty-one at the time. Jane had her own connections to the Elizabethan court: she was a lady in waiting to Elizabeth Clinton, Countess of Lincoln, a position she gave up when she married Dee. When in 1587, Kelley informed Dee of the angel's wish that they share wives, Jane Dee (nee Fromond) was the wife Dee shared with him. Although Dee complied with the angel's supposed request for a while, he was apparently distressed by the arrangement and it was one reason why the two men parted company not long thereafter. Some believe that Dee's son Theodore, born nine months later, could have been Kelley's son, not Dee's. Jane died in Manchester of the bubonic plague and was buried in the Manchester Cathedral burial grounds in March 1604. Michael, born in Prague, died on his father's birthday in 1594. Theodore, born in Trebon, died in Manchester in 1601. His sons Arthur Dee and Rowland survived him, as did his daughter Katherine "who was his companion to the end". No records exist for his youngest daughters Madinia, Frances and Margaret after 1604, so it is widely assumed they died in the same epidemic that took their mother. (Dee had by this time ceased keeping his diary). While Arthur was a student at the Westminster School, Dee wrote a letter to his headmaster that echoes the worries of boarding school parents in every century. Arthur was an apprentice in much of his father's alchemical and scientific work, and was in fact often his scryer until Kelley came along. Arthur went on to become an alchemist and hermetic author, whose works were published by Elias Ashmole. As regards Dee's physical appearance, the antiquary John Aubrey gives the following description: "He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit.... A very fair, clear sanguine complexion... a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man."
Was John married?
Dee was married three times Dee was married three times Dee was married three times and had eight children. Dee was married three times
Dee was married three times