In 1592 the English necromancer John Dee reported that he kept in his possession (and to his credit) ‘The honorable Erle of Oxford his favorable letters Anno 1570’. That Oxford was engaged in magic about this time is confirmed by Henry Howard's subsequent report that Oxford boasted at table of three distinct acts of necromancy (LIB-3.1/3):

Charles Arundel offered variations on the same three charges (LIB-4.2/2):

Both lists refer to Oxford's step-father Charles Tyrrell, buried on 7 March 1570 at Kingston-upon-Thames; Howard refers also to Oxford's mother, who had died in December 1568. ‘Parsons of the Chappell that died’ is Robert Parsons, musician of the Chapel Royal, famously drowned in January 1570 crossing the river Trent at Newark. Since the recently dead were aptest for necromantic contact, the conjurations at Greenwich evidently began in the latter half of 1570, following Oxford's return from the North.

Both Howard and Arundel situate Oxford's conjuring at or near the house of Sir George Howard at Greenwich. Sir George, evidently born in the late 1520s, was the third son of Edmund Howard, and younger sibling of Catherine and Margaret Howard. He alone of three brothers prospered in the wake of their sister's execution in 1542, acquiring a knighthood in 1547 and various offices in the 1550s. He participated in a tournament on 25 March 1555, and, as we have seen, in the coronation jousts of 17 January 1559.