Cornelius de Vos or de Vois or Devosse (fl. 1565-1585), was a Dutch or Flemish mine entrepreneur and mineral prospector working in England and Scotland. He was said to have been a "picture-maker" or portrait artist. De Vos is known for gold mining in Scotland and founding saltworks at Newhaven near Edinburgh.
Career In 1558 Cornelius de Vos was in London, and married Helen, the widow of a butcher, Nicholas Howe, and John Gylmyne.Edward Town, A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625, Walpole Society, 76 (London, 2014), pp. 71-2. He was recorded as a member of the French church in Farringdon in 1568.Elizabeth Goldring, Nicholas Hilliard (New Haven, 2019), p. 128.
De Vos was granted rights to mine and make copperas and alum in England on the Isle of Wight and in Devon by letters patent in 1564,Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Elizabeth 1558-1572 (London, 1960), p. 119: William Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce, 1 (London, 1882), p. 293: E. Wyndham Hulme, "History of the Patent System", The Law Quarterly Review, 12 (April 1896), pp. 146–147. and pursued mining concessions in Ireland.Calendar State Papers Domestic, 1547-1580 (London, 1856), pp. 253 (TNA SP12/36/162, which binds Cornelius and co-contractor to respect mineral rights granted to Thomas Thurland and Daniel Hechstetter), 254 (TNA SP12/40/180, Cornelius a "devyser" in a suite for mines in Ireland). According to his rival for Irish mining rights, William Humfrey, Cornelius de Vos obtained patents for mine drainage methods previously granted to Burchard Kranich.Maxwell Bruce Donald, Elizabethan Monopolies: The History of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works from 1565 to 1604 (London, 1961), p. 15. He worked for James Blount, 6th Baron Mountjoy at Canford Cliffs in Dorset, with little success.Claire Cross, Puritan Earl: Henry Hastings Third Earl of Huntingdon (New York, 1966), pp. 87-8. His mining rights in Dorset and the Isle of Wight passed to John Engelberd in 1577.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Elizabeth, 8 (London: HMSO, 1982), pp. 529–530 no. 3620.
Searching for Scottish gold Cornelius de Vos was a shareholder in the English Company of Mines Royal.W. G. Collingwood, Elizabethan Keswick: Extracts from the Accounts of the German Miners at Augsburg (Kendal, 1912), p. 3. He went prospecting for gold in Crawford Muir in Scotland in 1566.Eric H. Ash, Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, 2004), p. 45. There was already competition, Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley had granted a concession to three Edinburgh burgesses, James Carmichael the warden of the mint, Master James Lyndsay, and Andrew Stevenson, while the mint-master John Acheson and John Aslowan were already working in Wanlockhead and Glengonnar.Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, 1619 (Bannatyne Club, 1825), pp. 89-90.
In October 1566 Cornelius de Vos arrived in Keswick in Cumbria with an English and a Scottish partner (whose names are unknown). He brought a sample of sand in a napkin from the Scottish gold fields, found by a woman worker washing for gold, a "mayde of Scotlande". The German miners at Keswick tested the sample and told him the sand was rich in gold. The supervisor at Keswick, Thomas Thurland, noted this as suspicious activity, possibly against his or Company interests, and reported it to William Cecil. Thurland also wrote to Queen Elizabeth in alarmist terms about "secret practices with merchant strangers and by some foreign princes to have of the Scottish queen (Mary, Queen of Scots) the mines in Crawford Moor nigh adjoining to your majesty's west borders", mines he hoped to work himself.Eric H. Ash, Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, 2004), p. 45, quotations from TNA SP12/40/175 (modernised). Thurland was in a partnership with a German miner, Daniel Houghstetter or Hechstetter, between 1565 and 1577, with 24 investors.J. Collingwood & J. Trier, Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1575-1578 (London: HMSO, 1982), p. 336 no. 2303.
The Company of Mines Royal tried to get an interest in Scottish gold mining and panning from Mary, Queen of Scots. Meanwhile, Cornelius de Vos and his business partners, two London merchants Anthony Hickman and John Achillay, gained a permit to work salt at Newhaven from Mary and the Earl of Bothwell shortly after their marriage in May 1567. These salt works were revived by Eustachius Roche in 1592.Jill Turnbull, Scottish Glass Industry 1610-1750: To Serve the Whole Nation with Glass (Edinburgh, 2001), p. 114: Edinburgh Burgh Records 1557–1571 (Edinburgh, 1875), pp. 230-1: Jennifer Morag Henderson, Daughters of the North: Jean Gordon and Mary, Queen of Scots (Sandstone Press, 2022): Edinburgh City Archives, muniments box 7, bundle 15: See external links.
De Vos was awarded a traditional 19 year "tack" of the gold mines by Regent Moray in 1568. Cornelius appeared before the Privy Council of Scotland on 4 March 1568 to register his exclusive contract to work all the gold and silver mines in Scotland. He was obliged to start work before June 1569. If any lead, tin, or copper was found he was to extract it and pay the profits to the Scottish crown. For every hundred ounces of native gold or silver he was to pay eight ounces to the treasury, and four ounces for any metal that needed to be refined.Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 1 (Edinburgh, 1877), pp. 612-4. He set up his own joint-stock company to recover the gold. Cornelius however still lacked knowledge of chemistry and mineralogy and, as reported by George Nedham, again had to send one of his workers, a Dutch miner called Rennius, to Daniel Hechstetter at Keswick to assay samples of sand.Eric H. Ash, Power, Knowledge, and Expertise in Elizabethan England (Baltimore, 2004), pp. 46-9.
Digging at Crawford Moor continued, but Regent Morton was unhappy with the contract. In June 1574 Morton went to Crawford Moor in person to see the workings and set miners to work. Cornelius de Vos approached the English ambassador Henry Killigrew in August 1574 with a message for William Cecil about the mines, presumably seeking investment and sponsorship.Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 5 (Edinburgh, 1907), pp. 5, 36. On 7 February 1575 Morton lent £500 to Cornelius de Vos and his three German or "Almain" partners, Abraham Peterson, Johnne Kelliner, and Helias Clutene.Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 3 (Edinburgh, 1880), p. 412.
In June 1575 Morton wrote to James MacGill of Nether Rankeillour, who was now Lord Clerk Register, who had witnessed the 1568 contract. He described the terms of his contract as "captious and doubtful in many points and nothing to the king's profit".HMC Laing Manuscripts, vol. 1, (London, 1914), pp. 25-6. Soon after, the mining concession was granted to one of de Vos' partners Abraham Peterson in February 1576.Elizabeth Goldring, Nicholas Hilliard (New Haven, 2019), p. 128: Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, vol. 2, pp. 506-514, 598-601, vol. 2, p. 2. Peterson made proof coins for the mint in April 1576.Accounts of the Treasurer of Scotland, 13 (Edinburgh: HMSO, 1978), p. 102.
In 1580, although he had lost his political power, Morton received gold which was coined to the value of £678, possibly connected with mining.Amy Blakeway, 'James VI and the Earl of Morton', Miles Kerr-Peterson & Steven J. Reid, James VI and Noble Power in Scotland 1578-1603 (Routledge, 2017), pp. 21-2. The goldmining concession was given to Thomas Foulis in 1594.
In London his relationship with Margriete van der Eertbrugghe came into scrutiny by the Dutch Church in October 1570.Edward Town, A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625, Walpole Society, 76 (London, 2014), pp. 71-2. In 1573 he is known to have written letters to the Mayor of London, Lionel Duckett, and others via his cousin Arnold. As he is linked with the painter Arnold van Bronckorst in Stephen Atkinson's story, it has been suggested that this Arnold was the same person.Edward Town, A Biographical Dictionary of London Painters, 1547–1625, Walpole Society, 76 (London, 2014), pp. 71-2.
A "Cornelis Clewtinge de Vos", Dutchman, was buried at St Nicholas Acons in London on 11 December 1586, who was perhaps this mining entrepreneur. The name "Clewtinge" seems to be the surname of Helias Clutene, the partner of Cornelius in 1575.Mary Edmond, Hilliard and Oliver: The Lives and Works of Two Great Miniaturists (London, 1983), p. 56: The Register Book of the Parish of St. Nichols Acons, London: 1539-1812 (London, 1890), p. 93. Mine entrepreneurs in Scotland of the next generation included George Douglas of Parkhead, George Bowes, and Bevis Bulmer.
Stephen Atkinson's account of Cornelius de Vos in Scotland
In 1619 an English gold prospector Stephen Atkinson wrote a kind of historical prospectus for gold mining in Scotland. This includes the story of "Master Cornelius" or "Cornelius Devosse". Atkinson described Cornelius Devosse as "a most cunning picture maker, and excellent in art for the trial of mineral and mineral stones", although the archival record of his activity shows that he lacked lapidary or chemical knowledge and no other source mentions him as portrait painter.Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, 1619 (Bannatyne Club, 1825), pp. 18-21, 33-5, 108. According to Atkinson, the painter Nicholas Hilliard invested in the Scottish gold mine with another painter Arnold Bronckhorst. The historian Elizabeth Goldring dates Hilliard's involvement to the years 1573 or 1574.Elizabeth Goldring, Nicholas Hilliard (New Haven, 2019), pp. 127-8.
Atkinson's narrative seems in part based on hearsay but he describes using a "book of record" of Cornelius de Vos' mining operation at Crawford Moor and a record of the works of George Bowes. This seems to have been an account of wages. Atkinson says that he himself had worked with Daniel Hechstetter, the miner who Cornelius de Vos had consulted at Keswick. He wrote that Nicholas Hilliard, then still alive, would confirm that he also lost money in the venture.Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, 1619 (Bannatyne Club, 1825), pp. 32, 35.
Atkinson states that Cornelius de Vos went into Scotland with a recommendation from Elizabeth I of England, was given permission to prospect and found rich ore, which describes the events of October 1566.Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, 1619 (Bannatyne Club, 1825), pp. 18-19. He gives the names of four partners in the enterprise; the Earl of Morton, "Robert Bellenden (Secretary of Scotland)" perhaps intending John Bellenden (Lord Justice Clerk), Abraham Peterson a Dutch man residing in Edinburgh, and James Reid an Edinburgh burgess.Stephen Atkinson, The Discoverie and Historie of Gold Mynes in Scotland, 1619 (Bannatyne Club, 1825), pp. 19-20.