The Seven Heptarchic Kings and Princes by Weekday

King and prince pairs by weekday

The table transcribes the visible weekday headings in chapter seven as a finding aid. It does not resolve every variant name or unheaded entry.

The hierarchy is sevenfold, but not flat

The explicit day headings run from Sunday’s Bobogel and Bornogo through Monday’s Carmara and Hagonel, Tuesday’s Babalel and Befafes, Wednesday’s Bnaspol and Blisdon, Thursday’s Bynepor and Butmono, Friday’s Baligon and Bagenol, and Saturday’s Bnapsen and Brorges. Yet “king plus prince” does not mean two interchangeable ranks. Chapter four makes Carmara the arranger of the entire doctrine: Uriel gives him a measuring rod and chair, he summons the princes and kings, and the other companies bow through a visible chain toward him. Hagonel is Carmara’s prince but is also called first of twelve and commander of Sons of Light as well as forty-two angels. Elsewhere a day’s king and prince govern the whole day while six subordinate divisions distribute ministerial action. The hierarchy nests several scales; week, day, pair, six day-parts, and minister company; rather than repeating one simple ladder seven times.

Worked comparison: Monday and Friday share a ruler

Compare the Monday and Friday entries. Monday names Carmara, recalls his triple crown, purple robe, golden measuring rod, and role in transmitting the doctrine, then assigns Hagonel beneath him. Friday names Baligon and emphasizes aerial actions, the stone, and forty-two ministers. Chapter four supplies the link that the two headings conceal: Baligon is the same ruler first described as Carmara, also called Marmara, although the initial M is not expressed. The Compendium states the structural consequence more plainly; Carmara governs Monday and Friday and thus fills two kingly places. The variant is therefore functional, not a casual spelling error. It allows one superior ruler to present a different name and office in the Friday position. Bagenol’s portrait is also left undeveloped, while the king himself governs the company. A chart that treats Carmara and Baligon as unrelated kings creates an eighth ruler and erases the book’s own explanation.

The unheaded Blvmaza and Bralges problem

After the Monday pair, Sloane 3191 gives headings for King Blvmaza and Prince Bralges before the Tuesday heading. Blvmaza’s space says he had not yet appeared by that name; Bralges receives a seal, an invisible company likened to small white smokes, and a remembered claim about teaching innumerable names. No weekday is printed over them. The Compendium sharpens the uncertainty: Carmara is said to have called only five other kings and not to have spoken of Blvmaza, while Dee admits he does not yet know the mystery. Bralges nevertheless appears as the last of seven princes holding the heptagonal figure. This mismatch can be read as evidence of compilation: a prince and associated king-name belonged to the sevenfold material, but the weekly king sequence had already used Carmara twice. Leaving the blank and missing heading visible is more faithful than silently assigning the pair to Monday or inventing an eighth day.

How forty-two ministers fit beneath a pair

Chapter three says the king and prince rule for the whole day and the rest operate through six parts of that day. Chapter four repeatedly displays forty-two ministers as six rows of seven or seven positions across six rows; their letters form each company’s table. Dee himself notes that counting by six and by seven is difficult to reconcile in one Carmara scene. The layout nevertheless explains why forty-two recurs: it is not another set of forty-two kings, but a lower administrative field beneath the day’s principal pair. The portraits make those companies differ in form. Babalel and Befafes have watery ministers whose lettered formation interacts with water; Bnaspol and Blisdon stand by a clay hill and the earth’s hidden contents; Bnapsen and Brorges appear amid flame. Form, office, and letter table reinforce one another, so the minister grids are part of the hierarchy’s argument rather than decorative ciphers.

Office language changes the meaning of the weekday list

The offices do more than attach a planet-like keyword to each name. Sunday pairs Bobogel’s wisdom and learning with Bornogo’s transformation of corrupt nature and knowledge of metals. Tuesday joins a king in waters to Befafes’s extended account of seas, vessels, creatures, and hidden substances. Wednesday moves into the earth and its concealed contents. Thursday speaks in broader terms of life, measure, and created animals. Friday links aerial action with the show-stone and its receptacle. Saturday turns to the detection or expulsion of wicked powers. Read in sequence, the week moves across intellectual, elemental, political, and protective claims without following a single modern list of planetary virtues. The chapter’s recitals remember statements attributed to each figure and provide language to insert into the common invitation. They are textual dossiers, not proof that the promised effects occurred.

Names across different witnesses

Sloane MS 3188 preserves the earlier conferences from which many statements were selected; Sloane MS 3191 preserves Dee’s arranged seven-chapter handbook; Additional MS 36674 preserves the difficult, corrected Compendium; and Elias Ashmole’s Sloane MS 3678 is a later copy. These witnesses can differ because they represent diary, draft, handbook, and copy rather than four transparent views of one finished chart. The Carmara–Marmara–Baligon cluster shows why the distinction matters, as does the tension between an unheaded Blvmaza and a complete seven-day schedule. Modern normalization can make names easier to search, but it can also hide a correction, alias, missing appearance, or editorial decision. The weekday table above therefore records only the explicit day headings in chapter seven and keeps the disputed pair in the analysis instead of manufacturing a new row.

Sources and witness notes

1. British Library, Sloane MS 3191 ↗The catalogue assigns De heptarchia mystica to ff. 32r–51r and distinguishes the Keys and Liber Scientiae in the same volume.
2. John Dee, De Heptarchia Mystica, edited by Joseph H. Peterson ↗Modern copyrighted transcription with manuscript folio markers; cited for chapter sequence and weekday names, not reproduced.
3. John Dee, Compendium Heptarchiae Mysticae, edited by Joseph H. Peterson ↗Related draft witness used to flag differences in order and formulation.
4. British Library, Sloane MS 3188 ↗Earlier conference record, including the 1582–83 sessions excerpted in the later handbook.