Scientific Innovations in the Elizabethan Era

The Elizabethan era was not known for its scientific community. Scientists in this time were not real scientists. Astronomers doubled as astrologers, chemists practiced alchemy. This caused much scrutiny for the real scientists and inventors of the time. Even so, there were many great discoveries in this era. The discovery of phosphorus, the flushing toilet, and even magnetism came out of this period. Still in all the churches heartless and self-centered attempts to control the flow of information, these determined scientists and practitioners of absurd philosophies alike, still managed to make critical advances in science.

John Herrington was an English poet and whose god mother was Queen Elizabeth. John was known to be a trouble maker. Things caught up with him when he published a rough translation of a racist segment of Orlando Furioso by Ariosto. When a copy of the translation reached the queen, she was discussed. The queen promptly gave John punishment for translating the dirty poem: John was to be confined to his house until he finished translating all 40,000 lines of Ariosto's poem. In 1591, John finished the translation. The irony is John translated the poem to impress women.

Unfortunately the several years in his home did not keep Herrington out of trouble. John proceeded to publish a book titled A New Discourse upon a Stale Subject: The Metamorphosis of Ajax. The term 'ajax' is short for 'a jakes; 'jackes' was a slang term for the toilet, the words use was highly looked down upon. the use of the word was equivalent to that of the “F” word in a professional environment. The book also made jokes about important political figures, many of which people began to accept as true. This infuriat...

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... would not marry. This put him on shaky ground as people started to question if he used witchcraft to see the queen’s future. John later would help build props for a play. One of the props he built was a wooden beetle. This beetle had moving wings and mimicked the flight of an actual beetle. When the beetle was seen flying in the play, people were horrified and ran from the theater. John also created a wooden beetle as a prop for a play. The beetle accurately mimicked a beetle’s flight. When the beetle was seen in the play people were horrified that it was some form of magic. This put John in uneasy waters. Soon after this incident the queen released a statement about John Dee's prediction she would not marry or have kids. This got people even more suspicious of John and jumped to the conclusion that John was an assassin and was trying to use magic to kill the queen.