of the Government of the World, by the Presiding Angels’—all three tracts in one volume.
Notwithstanding his services to the Parliamentary cause, Lilly secretly retained a strong attachment towards Charles I., and he was consulted by Mrs. Whorwood, a lady who enjoyed the royal confidence, as to the best place for the concealment of the King, when he escaped from Hampton Court. After the usual sham of ‘erecting a figure’ had been gone through, Lilly advised that a safe asylum might be found in Essex, about twenty miles from London. ‘She liked my judgment very well,’ he says, and being herself of sharp judgment, remembered a place in Essex about that distance, where was an excellent house, and all conveniences for his reception. But, either guided by an irresistible destiny, or misled by Ashburnham, whose good faith has been sometimes doubted, he went away in the night-time westward, and surrendered himself to Colonel Hammond, in the Isle of Wight.
With another unfortunate episode in the King’s later career, Lilly was also connected. During the King’s confinement at Carisbrooke the Kentishmen, in considerable numbers, rose in arms, and joined with Lord Goring; at the same time many of the best ships revolted, and a movement on behalf of the King was begun among the citizens of London. ‘His Majesty then laid his design to escape out of prison by sawing the iron bar of his chamber window; a small ship was provided, and anchored not far from the Castle, to bring him into Sussex; horses were provided ready to carry him through Sussex into Kent, so that he might be at the head of the army in Kent, and from thence to march immediately to London, where thousands then would have armed for him.’ Lilly was brought acquainted with the plot, and employed a locksmith in Bow Lane to make a saw for cutting asunder the iron bar, and also procured a supply of aqua fortis. But, as everybody knows, the King was unable to force his body through the narrow casement, even after the removal of the bar, and the plot failed.
When the Parliament sent Commissioners into the Island to negotiate with Charles the terms of a concordat, of whom Lord Saye was one, Lady Whorwood again sought Lilly’s assistance and advice. After perusing his ‘figure,’ he told her the Commissioners would arrive in the Island on such a date; elected a day and hour when the King would receive the Commissioners and their propositions; and as soon as these were read, advised the King to sign them, and in all haste to accompany the Commissioners to London. The army being then far removed from the capital, and the citizens stoutly enraged against the Parliamentary leaders, Charles promised he would do so. But, unfortunately, he allowed Lord Saye to dissuade him from signing the propositions, on the assurance that he had a powerful party both in the House of Lords and the House of Commons, who would see that he obtained more favourable conditions. Thus was lost almost his last chance of retaining his crown, and baffling the designs of his enemies.
Whilst the King, in his last days, was at Windsor Castle, on one occasion, when he was taking the air upon the leads, he looked through Captain Wharton’s ‘Almanack.’ ‘My book,’ saith he, ‘speaks well as to the weather.’ A Master William Allen, who was standing by, inquired, ‘What saith his antagonist, Mr. Lilly?’ ‘I do not care for Lilly,’ remarked his Majesty, ‘he has always been against me,’ infusing some bitterness into his expressions. ‘Sir,’ observed Allen, ‘the man is an honest man, and writes but what his art informs him.’ ‘I believe it,’ said his Majesty, ‘and that Lilly understands astrology as well as any man in Europe.’
In 1648 the Council of State acknowledged Lilly’s services with a grant of £50, and a pension of £100 a year, which, however, he received for two years only.
In the following January, while the King lay at St. James’s House, Lilly began his observations, he tells us, in the following oracular fashion:
‘I am serious, I beg and expect justice; either fear or shame begins to question offenders.
‘The lofty cedars begin to divine a thundering hurricane is at hand; God elevates man contemptible.
‘Our demigods are sensible, we begin to dislike their actions very much in London; more in the country.
‘Blessed be God, who encourages His servants, makes them valiant, and of undaunted spirit to go on with His decrees: upon a sudden, great expectations arise, and men generally believe a quiet and calm time draws nigh.’
Our garrulous and egotistical conjurer, who seems really to have believed that he exercised a considerable influence upon the course of events, though his position was no more important than that of the fly upon the wheel, evidently wished to connect these commonplaces with the execution of Charles I.:
‘In Christmas holidays,’ he writes, ‘the Lord Gray of Groby, and Hugh Peters, sent for me to Somerset House, with directions to bring them two of my almanacks. I did so. Peters and he read January’s observations. “If we are not fools and knaves,” saith he, “we shall do justice.” Then they whispered. I understood not their meaning until his Majesty was beheaded. They applied what I wrote of justice to be understood of his Majesty, which was contrary to my intention; for Jupiter, the first day of January, became direct; and Libra is a sign signifying justice. I implored for justice generally upon such as had cheated in their places, being treasurers and such-like officers. I had not then heard the least intimation of bringing the King unto trial, and yet the first day thereof I was casually there, it being upon a Saturday. For going to Westminster every Saturday in the afternoon, in these times, at Whitehall I casually met Peters. “Come, Lilly, wilt thou go hear the King tried?” “When?” said I. “Now—just now; go with me.” I did so, and was permitted by the guard of soldiers to pass up to the King’s Bench. Within one quarter of an hour came the judges; presently his Majesty, who spoke excellently well, and majestically, without impediment in the least when he spoke. I saw the silver top of his staff unexpectedly fall to the ground, which was took up by Mr. Rushworth; and then I heard Bradshaw, the judge, say to his Majesty: “Sir, instead of answering the Court, you interrogate their power, which becomes not one in your condition.” These words pierced my heart and soul, to hear a subject thus audaciously to reprehend his Sovereign, who ever and anon replied with great magnanimity and prudence.’
Lilly tells us that during the siege of Colchester he and his fellow-astrologer, Booker, were sent for, to encourage the soldiers by their vaticinations, and in this they succeeded, as they assured them the town would soon be surrendered—which was actually the case. Our prophet, however, if he could have obtained leave to enter the town, would have carried all his sympathies, and all his knowledge of the condition of affairs in the Parliament’s army, to Sir Charles Lucas, the Royalist Governor. He had a narrow escape with his life during his sojourn in the camp of the besiegers. A couple of guns had been placed so as to command St. Mary’s Church, and had done great injury to it. One afternoon he was standing in the redoubt and talking with the cannoneer, when the latter cried out for everybody to look to himself, as he could see through his glass that there was a piece in the Castle loaded and directed against his work, and ready to be discharged. Lilly ran in hot haste under an old ash-tree, and immediately the cannon-shot came hissing over their heads. ‘No danger now,’ said the gunner, ‘but begone, for there are five more loading!’ And so it was. Two hours later those cannon were fired, and unluckily killed the cannoneer who had given Lilly a timely warning.
The practice of astrology must have been exceedingly lucrative, for Lilly is known to have acquired a considerable fortune. In 1651 he expended £1,030 in the purchase of fee-farm rents, equal in value to £120 per annum. And in the following year he bought his house at Hersham, with some lands and buildings, for £950. In the same year he published his ‘Annus Tenebrosus,’ a title which he chose not ‘because of the great obscurity of the solar eclipse,’ but in allusion to ‘those underhand and clandestine counsels held in England by the soldiery, of which he would never, except in generals, give information to any Parliament man.’ Unfortunately, Lilly’s knowledge was always embodied ‘in generals,’ and the misty vagueness of his vaticinations renders it impossible for the reader to pin them down to any definite meaning. You may apply them to all events—or to none. Their elastic indications of things good and evil may be made to suit the events of the nineteenth century almost as well as those of the seventeenth.
Many characters Mr. William Lilly must be owned to have represented with great