scientific experiments and his library, Northumberland acquired the nickname "The Wizard Earl". The library was one of the largest in England at the time. He was a patron to Thomas Harriot, Nicholas Hill, Robert Hues, Nathaniel Torporley and Walter Warner The astrologer John Dee, nearby Syon House at Mortlake, was also a friend of Henry, and their circles overlapped. Harriot had been a navigational tutor to Raleigh and his captains. From 1598 (or possibly from 1607) Harriot lived at Syon House. There he used a telescope to make a map of the moon several months before Galileo did the same. He may have been the first person to observe sunspots. Northumberland had also connections to the literati. George Peele wrote a poem, The Honour of the Garter, dedicated to Percy and for the occasion of his admission to the Order of the Garter, on 26 June 1593. For his efforts Peele was paid £3. Christopher Marlowe claimed his acquaintance and certainly moved in the same group. Percy was a friend to John Donne. After Donne's elopement and clandestine marriage in 1601, he had the task of taking a letter for him to the new father-in-law, Sir George More. In William Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost (1594), there is a mention of the "School of Night". It has been argued that this refers to a circle of scientific investigators who met at Syon House, though other commentators think the word "school" is a misprint for something like "shawl." Since Percy was often considered to be an atheist, the "school" was sometimes referred to as the "School of Atheism." Raleigh was the supposed leader and Thomas Harriot and Marlowe were supposedly members. Frances Yates comments on this hypothetical group, supposedly including also George Chapman as the author of Shadow of Night, as arguably part of Ralegh's circle, to the effect that they would be "Saturnians" in the sense of her study. Notes External links 1564 births 1632 deaths 16th-century alchemists 16th-century English astronomers 16th-century English nobility 16th-century occultists 17th-century alchemists 17th-century English astronomers 17th-century English nobility 17th-century occultists English deaf people Deaf royalty and nobility 9 English alchemists Knights of the Garter Prisoners in the Tower of London Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland Scientists with disabilities