The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 4, October, 1863. Various
those books I had obtained, many times twelve or fifteen or eighteen hours a day and night: I was curious to discover whether there was any verity in the art or not. Astrology at this time, viz. 1633, was very rare in London; few professing it that understood anything thereof.' Lilly gives us next some account of the astrologers of his time; but the reader need form no further acquaintance of this kind; acquaintance with Lilly, who was the best of them, will be enough for him.
In October of this year, 1633, Lilly's wife died, and left him 'very near to the value of one thousand pounds sterling'—all she had to leave. He continued a widower 'a whole year,' which he, as that phrase implies, held to be a long time in such bereavement—and followed his studies in astrology very diligently. So diligently that he soon had knowledge to impart to others, and he 'taught Sir George Knight astrology, that part which concerns sickness, wherein he so profited that in two or three months he would give a very good discovery of any disease only by his figures.'
With a new wife, which he got the next year (1634), Lilly had £500 portion; but 'she was of the nature of Mars,' which is surely not a good nature in a wife. In that same year he, with some 'other gentlemen,' engaged in an adventure for hidden treasure: they 'played the hazel rod round about the cloyster,' and digged, in the place indicated, six feet deep, till they came to a coffin; but they did not open it, for which they were afterward regretful, thinking that it probably contained the treasure. Suddenly, while they were at this work, a great wind arose, 'so high, so blustering, and loud,' that all were frightened, 'and knew not what to think or do;' all save Lilly, who gave 'directions and commands to dismiss the dæmons,' and then all became quiet again. These doings Lilly did not approve, and says he 'could never again be induced to join in such kind of work.' He engaged, however, in another transaction of still worse character, which seems to have been even more unpleasant to him; for he says: 'After that I became melancholy, very much afflicted with the hypochondriac melancholy, growing lean and spare, and every day worse; so that in the year 1635, my infirmity continuing and my acquaintance increasing, I resolved to live in the country, and in March and April, 1636, I removed my goods unto Hersham (Horsham in Sussex, thirty-six miles from London), where I continued until 1641, no notice being taken who or what I was:' and in this time he burned some of his books, which treated of things he did not approve, and which he disliked to practise; for this man really had a conscience as good as the average, or even better: he was driven into solitude by the reproaches of it—or, perhaps, by the scoldings of a wife who 'was of the nature of Mars.'
Thus far we have followed Lilly's account of himself closely, using often his own words, because they give a more correct idea of the man than could be got from the words of another; but henceforth to the end, we will skip much and be brief. This astrologer did not always rely on his special art to discover things hidden, but used often quite ordinary means; sometimes such as are common to officers of detective police. His confessions of doings in that kind are candid enough, and we must say of his 'History of his Life and Times' that it is, on the whole, a simple, truthful statement of facts; not an apology for a life at all; for he seldom attempts to excuse or justify his actions, but leaves a plain record with the reader for good or evil.
A man, it is sometimes said, is to be judged by the company he keeps, and we will therefore say a few words of this astrologer's friends. Of men like William Pennington, of Muncaster, in Cumberland, 'of good family and estate,' introduced to Lilly by David Ramsay, the king's clockmaker, in 1634, who are otherwise unknown to us, we will say nothing. But the reader surely knows something of Hugh Peters, the Puritan preacher—who could do other things as well as preach: with him Lilly had 'much conference and some private discourses,' and once in the Christmas holidays, a time of leisure, Peters and the Lord Gray of Groby invited him to Somerset House, and requested him to bring two of his almanacs. At another time Peters took Lilly along with him into Westminster Hall 'to hear the king tried.' But the most influential friend, perhaps, was Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke, a man well known to readers of English history as very prominent in the time of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. He was high steward of Oxford, member of the council of state, one of the keepers of the great seal, a man very learned in the law, who made long discourses to Oliver Cromwell on the matter of the kingship, and on other matters. He went to Sweden as Cromwell's ambassador, and was one of the great men of that time, or one of the considerable men. Sir Bulstrode, according to Ashmole, was Lilly's patron; and indeed the great man did befriend him long, and help him out of difficulties. The acquaintance began in this wise: Sir Bulstrode being sick, Mrs. Lisle, 'wife to John Lisle,' afterward one of the keepers of the great seal, came to Lilly, bringing a specimen of the sick man. Whereupon the astrologer, having inspected the specimen, 'set a figure,' and said, 'the sick for that time would recover, but by means of a surfeit would dangerously relapse within one month; which he did, by eating of trouts at Mr. Sands' house in Surrey.' Therefore, as there could no longer be any doubt of Lilly's skill, he, at the time of Sir Bulstrode's second sickness, was called to him daily; and though the family physician said 'there was no hope of recovery,' the astrologer said there was 'no danger of death,' and 'that he would be sufficiently well in five or six weeks; and so he was.' This Mrs. Lisle, who brought the specimen, being apparently one of Lilly's she friends, we will add that she made herself remarkable by saying at the martyrdom of King Charles I, in 1648, that 'her blood leaped within her to see the tyrant fall.' For this, and for other things, the woman was finally beheaded; it being impossible otherwise to stop her tongue; and I have no tear for her.
Lilly's most intimate friend, however, was Elias Ashmole, Esq. Born in 1617, the name for him agreed on among his friends was Thomas; but at the baptismal font the godfather, 'by a more than ordinary impulse of spirit,' said Elias; and under that prophetic name the boy grew up to manhood, and became for a time rather famous in high places. He was a learned antiquary, and made a description of the consular and imperial coins at Oxford, and presented it, in three folio volumes, to the library there. He made also a catalogue and description of the king's medals; a book on the Order of the Garter; a book entitled, Fasciculus Chemicus, and another, Theatrum Chemicum. He published, moreover, a book called 'The Way to Bliss;' but if he himself ever arrived at that thing, he found the way uncomfortable, if we may judge from his diary, half filled with record of his ailments, surfeits, and diseases, and of the sweatings, purgings, and leechings consequent thereupon, or intended as preventives thereof. To one kind of bliss, however, he did certainly attain—that of high society; dining often with lords, earls, and dukes, bishops and archbishops, foreign envoys, ambassadors, and princes; and they, many of them, came in turn, and dined with him, who had made a book on the Order of the Garter, and who understood the art of dining. Continental kings sent to this man chains of gold, and his gracious majesty, Charles II, was very gracious to him, and gave him fat offices, mostly sinecures: and over and above all he gave a pension. This world is a very remarkable one—especially remarkable in the upper crust of it.
Lilly's acquaintance with Ashmole began in 1646, and continued till death did them part in 1681. Through all these thirty-five years there was a close intimacy, Ashmole being a frequent visitor at Lilly's house in the country, staying there often months at a time, and Lilly in return coming often to London, and staying weeks with his honored friend—a kind of Damon and Pythias affair without the heroics. Ashmole, we said, was famous in his time; but indeed he has a kind of fame now, and cannot soon be altogether forgotten, for he founded the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and in the library there the curious can probably find all his books, and read them, if they will; but I, who have read one of them, shall not seek for more.3
But indeed Lilly attracted the attention of Oliver Cromwell himself, and once had an interview with him—a remarkably silent one. The occasion of it was as follows: The astrologer, in his Martinus Anglicus (astrological almanac) for 1650, had written that 'the Parliament should not continue, but a new government should arise;' and the next year he 'was so bold as to aver therein that the Parliament stood upon a tottering foundation, and that the commonalty and soldiers would join together against it.' These things, and others, published in Anglicus, offended the Presbyterians, and on motion of some one of them, it was ordered that 'Anglicus should be inspected by the committee for plundered ministers;' and the next day thereafter Lilly was brought before the committee, which was very full that day (thirty-six in number), for the matter was an interesting one, whispered of before in private, and now made public by prophecy. The astrologer,
The Lives of those eminent Antiquaries, Ellas Ashmole and William Lilly, &c. London, 1774.