Witch, Warlock, and Magician

‘You will marry the red gentlewoman,’ replied Hodges, with an air of imperturbable assurance.

On returning to London, Scott, to his great astonishment, found that his tall gentlewoman had jilted him, and taken to herself another husband. Two years afterwards, in the course of a Kentish journey, he refreshed himself at an inn in Canterbury; fell in love with its ruddy-complexioned barmaid; and, when he married her, remembered her red waistcoat, her avocation, and Mr. Hodges ‘his crystal.’

An amusing story is told of this man Hodges.

A neighbour of his, who had lost his horse, recovered the animal by acting upon the astrologer’s advice. Some years afterwards he unluckily conceived the idea of playing upon the wise man a practical joke, and obtained the co-operation of one of his friends. He had certainly recovered his horse, he said, in the way Hodges had shown him, but it was purely a chance, and would not happen again. ‘So come, let us play him a trick. I will leave some boy or other at the town’s end with my horse, and we will then call on Hodges and put him to the test.’

This was done, and Hodges said it was true the horse was lost, and would never be recovered.

‘I thought what fine skill you had,’ laughed the gentleman; ‘my horse is walking in a lane at the town’s end.’

Whereupon Hodges, with an oath, as was his evil habit, asserted that the horse was gone, and that his owner would never see him again. Ridiculing the wise man without mercy, the gentleman departed, and hastened to the town’s end, and there, at the appointed place, the boy lay stretched upon the ground, fast asleep, with the bridle round his arm, but the horse was gone!

Back to Hodges hurried the chap-fallen squire, ashamed of his incredulity, and eagerly seeking assistance. But no; the conjurer swore freely – ‘Be gone – be gone about your business; go and look for your horse.’ He went and he looked, east and west, and north and south, but his horse saw never more.

Let us next hear what Lilly has to tell us of Dr. Napper, the parson of Great Lindford, in Buckinghamshire, the advowson of which parish belonged to him. He sprang from a good old stock, according to the witness of King James himself. For when his brother, Robert Napper, an opulent Turkey merchant, was to be made a baronet in James’s reign, some dispute arose whether he could prove himself a gentleman for three or more descents. ‘By my soul,’ exclaimed the King, ‘I will certify for Napper, that he is of above three hundred years’ standing in his family; all of them, by my soul, gentlemen!’ The parson was legitimately and truly master of arts; his claim to the title of doctor, however, seems to have been dubious. Miscarrying one day in the pulpit, he never after ventured into it, but all his lifetime kept in his house some excellent scholar to officiate for him, allowing him a good salary. Lilly speaks highly of his sanctity of life and knowledge of medicine, and avers that he cured the falling sickness by constellated rings, and other diseases by amulets.

The parents of a maid who suffered severely from the falling sickness applied to him, on one occasion, for a cure. He fashioned for her a constellated ring, upon wearing of which she completely recovered. Her parents chanced to make known the cure to some scrupulous divines, who immediately protested that it was done by enchantment. ‘Cast away the ring,’ they said; ‘it’s diabolical! God cannot bless you, if you do not cast it away.’ The ring was thrown into a well, and the maid was again afflicted with her epilepsy, enduring the old pain and misery for a weary time. At last the parents caused the well to be emptied, and regained the ring, which the maid again made use of, and recovered from her fits. Thus things went on for a year or two, until the Puritan divines, hearing that she had resumed the ring, insisted with her parents until they threw the ring away altogether; whereupon the fits returned with such violence that they betook themselves to the doctor, told their story, acknowledged their fault, and once more besought his assistance. But he could not be persuaded to render it, observing that those who despised God’s mercies were not capable or not worthy of enjoying them.

We do not dismiss this story as entirely apocryphal, knowing that, in the cure or mitigation of nervous diseases, the imagination exercises a wonderful influence. There are well-authenticated instances of ‘faith healing’ not a whit less extraordinary than this case described by Lilly of the maiden and the ring. It would be trivial, perhaps, to hint that a good many maidens have been cured of some, at least, of their ailments by a ring.

In 1646 Lilly printed a collection of prophecies, with the explanation and verification of ‘Aquila; or, The White King’s Prophecy,’ as also the nativities of Archbishop Laud and the Earl of Strafford, and a learned speech, which the latter intended to have spoken on the scaffold. In the following year he completed his ‘Introduction unto Astrology,’ or ‘Christian Astrology,’ and was summoned, along with John Booker, to the head-quarters of Fairfax, at Windsor. They were conveyed thither in great pomp and circumstance, with a coach and four horses, welcomed in hearty fashion, and feasted in a garden where General Fairfax lodged. In the course of their interview with the general he said to them:

‘That God had blessed the army with many signal victories, and yet their work was not finished. He hoped God would go along with them until His work was done. They sought not themselves, but the welfare and tranquillity of the good people and whole nation; and, for that end, were resolved to sacrifice both their lives and their own fortunes. As for the art that Lilly and Booker studied, he hoped it was lawful and agreeable to God’s Word: he himself understood it not, but doubted not they both feared God, and therefore had a good opinion of them both.’

Lilly replied:

‘My lord, I am glad to see you here at this time. Certainly, both the people of God, and all others of this nation, are very sensible of God’s mercy, love, and favour unto them, in directing the Parliament to nominate and elect you General of their armies, a person so religious, so valiant.

‘The several unexpected victories obtained under your Excellency’s conduct will eternize the same unto all posterity.

‘We are confident of God’s going along with you and your army until the great work, for which He ordained you both, is fully perfected, which we hope will be the conquering and subversion of your and the Parliament’s enemies; and then a quiet settlement and firm peace over all the nation unto God’s glory, and full satisfaction of tender consciences.

‘Sir, as for ourselves, we trust in God; and, as Christians, we believe in Him. We do not study any art but what is lawful and consonant to the Scriptures, Fathers, and antiquity, which we humbly desire you to believe.’

They afterwards paid a visit to Hugh Peters, the famous Puritan ecclesiastic, who had lodgings in the Castle. They found him reading ‘an idle pamphlet,’ which he had received from London that morning. ‘Lilly, thou art herein,’ he exclaimed. ‘Are not you there also?’ ‘Yes, that I am,’ he answered.

The stanza relating to Lilly ran as follows:

‘From th’ oracles of the Sibyls so silly,The curst predictions of William Lilly,And Dr. Sibbald’s Shoe-Lane Philly,Good Lord, deliver me.’

After much conference with Hugh Peters, and some private discourse betwixt the two ‘not to be divulged,’ they parted, and Master Lilly returned to London.

In 1647 he published ‘The World’s Catastrophe,’ ‘The Prophecies of Ambrose Merlin’ (both of which were translated by Elias Ashmole), and ‘Trithemius 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 success. But that all-essential one – if we desire to secure the confidence of our contemporaries, and the respect of posterity – of an honest man, I fear he was never able to personate successfully. Of the craft and cunning he could at times display he records a striking illustration – evidently with entire satisfaction to himself, and apparently never suspecting that it might not be so favourably regarded by others, and especially by those plain, commonplace people who make no pretensions to hermetic learning or occult knowledge, but have certain unsophisticated ideas as to the laws of morality and fair dealing.

In his 1651 ‘Almanack’ he asserted that the Parliament stood upon tottering foundations, and that the soldiery and commonalty would combine against it – a conclusion at which every intelligent onlooker must by that time have arrived, without ‘erecting a figure’ or consulting the starry heavens.

This previous attempt at forecasting the future ‘lay for a whole week,’ says its author, ‘in the Parliament House, much criticised by the Presbyterians; one disliking this sentence, another that, and others disliking the whole. In the end a motion was made that it should be examined by a Committee of the House, with instructions to report concerning its errors.

‘A messenger attached me by a warrant from that Committee. I had private notice ere the messenger came, and hasted unto Mr. Speaker Lenthall, ever my friend. He was exceeding glad to see me, told me what was done, called for “Anglicus,” marked the passages which tormented the Presbyterians so highly. I presently sent for Mr. Warren, the printer, an assured cavalier, obliterated what was most offensive, put in other more significant words, and desired only to have six amended against next morning, which very honestly he brought me. I told him my design was to deny the book found fault with, to own only the six books. I told him I doubted he would be examined. “Hang them!” said he; “they are all rogues. I’ll swear myself to the devil ere they shall have an advantage against you, by my oath.”

‘The day after, I appeared before the Committee. At first they showed me the true “Anglicus,” and asked if I wrote and printed it.’

Lilly, after pretending to inspect it, denied all knowledge of it, asserting that it must have been written with a view to do him injury by some malicious Presbyterian, at the same time producing the six amended copies, to the great surprise and perplexity of the Committee. The majority, however, were inclined to send him to prison, and some had proposed Newgate, others the Gate House, when one Brown, of Sussex, who had been influenced to favour Lilly, remarked that neither to Newgate nor the Gate House were the Parliament accustomed to send their prisoners, and suggested that the most convenient and legitimate course would be for the Sergeant-at-Arms to take this Mr. Lilly into custody.

‘Mr. Strickland, who had for many years been the Parliament’s ambassador or agent in Holland, when he saw how they inclined, spoke thus:

‘“I came purposely into the Committee this day to see the man who is so famous in those parts where I have so long continued. I assure you his name is famous over all Europe. I come to do him justice. A book is produced by us, and said to be his; he denies it; we have not proved it, yet will commit him. Truly this is great injustice. It is likely he will write next year, and acquaint the whole world with our injustice, and so well he may. It is my opinion, first to prove the book to be his ere he be committed.”

‘Another old friend of mine spoke thus:

‘“You do not know the many services this man hath done for the Parliament these many years, or how many times, in our greatest distresses, on applying unto him, he hath refreshed our languishing expectations; he never failed us of comfort in our most unhappy distresses. I assure you his writings have kept up the spirits both of the soldiery, the honest people of this nation, and many of us Parliament men; and at last, for a slip of his pen (if it were his), to be thus violent against him, I must tell you, I fear the consequence urged out of the book will prove effectually true. It is my counsel to admonish him hereafter to be more wary, and for the present to dismiss him.”

‘Notwithstanding anything that was spoken on my behalf, I was ordered to stand committed to the Sergeant-at-Arms. The messenger attached my person said I was his prisoner. As he was carrying me away, he was called to bring me again. Oliver Cromwell, Lieutenant-General of the army, having never seen me, caused me to be produced again, when he steadfastly beheld me for a good space, and then I went with the messenger; but instantly a young clerk of that Committee asks the messenger what he did with me. Where is the warrant? Until that is signed you cannot seize Mr. Lilly, or shall [not]. Will you have an action of false imprisonment against you? So I escaped that night, but next day stayed the warrant. That night Oliver Cromwell went to Mr. R – , my friend, and said: “What, never a man to take Lilly’s cause in hand but yourself? None to take his part but you? He shall not be long there.” Hugh Peters spoke much in my behalf to the Committee, but they were resolved to lodge me in the Sergeant’s custody. One Millington, a drunken member, was much my enemy, and so was Cawley and Chichester, a deformed fellow, unto whom I had done several courtesies.

‘First thirteen days I was a prisoner, and though every day of the Committee’s sitting I had a petition to deliver, yet so many churlish Presbyterians still appeared I could not get it accepted. The last day of the thirteen, Mr. Joseph Ash was made chairman, unto whom my cause being related, he took my petition, and said I should be bailed in despite of them all, but desired I would procure as many friends as I could to be there. Sir Arthur Haselrig and Major Galloway, a person of excellent parts, appeared for me, and many more of my old friends came in. After two whole hours’ arguing of my cause by Sir Arthur and Major Galloway, and other friends, the matter came to this point: I should be bailed, and a Committee nominated to examine the printer. The order of the Committee being brought afterwards to him who should be Chairman, he sent me word, do what I would, he would see all the knaves hanged, or he would examine the printer. This is the truth of the story.’

Lilly’s biographer, however anxious he may be to imitate biographers generally, and whitewash his hero, feels that in this episode of his life the great seer fell miserably below the heroic standard, and was guilty of pusillanimous as well as unveracious and dishonourable conduct. Yet Lilly is evidently unaware of the unfavourable light in which he has shown himself, and ambles along in an easy and well-satisfied mood, as if to the sound of universal applause.

On February 26, 1654, Lilly lost his second wife, and I regret to say he seems to have borne the loss with astonishing equanimity. On April 2 °Cromwell expelled from the House our astrologer’s great enemies, the Parliament men, and thereby won his most cordial applause. He breaks out, indeed, into a burst of devotional praise – Gloria Patri – as if for some special and never-to-be-forgotten mercy. A German physician, then resident in London, sent to him the following epigram:

Strophe Alcaica: Generoso Domino Gulielmo Lillio Astrologo, de dissoluto super Parliamento:‘Quod calculasti Sydere prævio,Miles peregit numine conscio;Gentis videmus nunc SenatumMarti togaque gravi leviatum.’

His widower’s weeds, if he ever wore them, he soon discarded, marrying his third wife in October, eight months after the decease of his second. This, his latest partner and helpmate, was signified in his nativity, he says, by Jupiter in Libra, which seems to have been a great comfort to him, and perhaps to his wife also. ‘Jupiter in Libra’ sounds as well, indeed, as ‘that blessed word, Mesopotamia.’

In reference to the restoration of Charles II., in 1660, Lilly unearths an old prophecy attributed to Ambrose Merlin, and written, he says, 990 years before.