cornelis Drebbel trained as an engraver. His master initiated him into the secrets of alchemy and gave him his sister in marriage with a curse. Engraving kept him alive, but he was more interested in science and alchemy. He built a water pump, a new type of chimney, and a clock that did not need to be wound. Alkmaar was too small for him.
James I, King of England and Scotland, liked new things. Drebbel came to London in 1605 and built a perpetual motion machine, a circular glass tube filled with liquid. The level in the tube was changing for an unknown reason. The unknown cause was temperature, and the king admired the thermometer.
Drebbel was eventually noticed by Rudolf II’s talent hunters. and in 1610 he received an invitation to the imperial court. Perpetuum mobile charmed the emperor, so instead of six months, Drebbel spent three whole years in Prague. And do you wonder about him? Being in Prague at that time was something!
However, he did not like being in Prague for the last year. When Rudolf II. died in 1612, Drebbel found himself in prison, probably in connection with the fall of the all-powerful chamberlain Kašpar Rucký. Emperor Matthias found him in prison after a year and realized that someone like Drebbel could be a good fit for him. Matthias sent a messenger to King James to release Drebbel to his service. Drebbel sent a faster messenger and begged the king not to let him go. King Jakub agreed with Drebbel. Drebbel then promised that he would just finish some work in London and return. What do you think, did he come back?
Drebbel’s return to London was triumphant. One day a strange ship moored in front of the King’s castle in Greenwich, from which Drebbel got out. There would be nothing strange about this, if the ship had not sailed under the surface of the Thames, all the way from Westminster. Drebbel built a submarine for the king!
When the French King Louis XIII. besieged the Huguenots in La Rochelle in 1627, England decided to help them and submarines were to show their power for the first time in history. Drebbel built several submarines, built torpedoes, small boats loaded with explosives and incendiary bombs. It did not work. The English did not break through the French causeway and were repulsed. According to the Admiralty, Drebbel’s inventions did not work, according to Drebbel, the sailors did not dare to approach the French at all. England had other problems too. King Charles I married a Catholic woman, dusk fell over England.
Disappointed, Drebbel had to make a living, so he opened a pub under the old London Bridge. He brewed beer and took guests in his submarine, above and below the surface of the Thames. It is said that the beer always flowed after the adrenaline experience. But Drebbel did not forget about alchemy either. The preparation of the Philosopher’s Stone is a delicate matter, requiring patient work and, above all, a constant temperature. Drebbel didn’t want to sit by the cunt all day and night and apply by hand. He therefore brought out his famous perpetual motion machine, actually a thermometer. When the oven was hot, the level in the thermometer rose, opened the hatch and lowered the temperature. When the level dropped, the hatch closed again. We don’t know how it testified to alchemy, but we do know that it testified to hen’s eggs. Drebbel built the first temperature-controlled chicken hatchery.
Today, a crater on the moon bears Drebbel’s name. By all means, try to look at that crater sometime. If you take a good look at it, don’t you think it has a bit of an egg shape?
is a member of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic.