Mines Royal Act 1689

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The Mines Royal Act 1689 was an act of the Parliament of England (1 Will. & Mar. sess. 1 c. 30) with the long title An Act to prevent Disputes and Controversies concerning Royal Mines. The act repealed the 1404 Act Against Multipliers, passed in the reign of Henry IV, which had made it a felony to create gold and silver by means of alchemy.

The act specified also that "no mine of tin, copper, iron or, lead, shall hereafter be adjudged, reputed, or taken to be a royal mine although gold or silver may be extracted out of the same." In doing so, the act brought to an end the monopolies of the Society of Mines Royal and the Company of Mineral and Battery Works which had enjoyed exclusive rights to extract metal from certain mines.

According to Isaac Newton, in a letter to John Locke, Robert Boyle 'procured the repeal of the Act of Parliament against Multipliers'. He further claimed that Boyle must then have had in his hands a recipe for the production of gold by alchemical means.