Book Review: A Biography of William Lilly. The man who saw the future

[adwelly]

By Catherine Blackledge. www.watkinspublishing.com

William Lilly was a working astrologer who lived through the English Civil wars of the 17th Century. He is famous, perhaps notorious, for having predicted both the death of King Charles the First, as well as the fire of London. His feuds with other astrologers of the day were epic, his friendships with individuals on both sides of the wars were sincere, and his almanacs were best sellers. This little book is clearly the result of considerable research; despite that it wears its learning lightly and has an engaging style. Far from being a dull academic list of dates and events it is something of a page turner. I finished over a weekend and I was sorry it was not longer.

When I had finished it, I felt that in some sense I’d met the man and rather liked him. He wasn’t a saint by any means. He’d married a rich widow for her money and status, and this match allowed him the leisure to study his chosen subject. He was sometimes called before parliamentary committees to explain on threat of imprisonment or worse, particular passages in his published works. On at least one occasion he manufactured evidence to save his skin. After the restoration when King Charles the 2nd was on the throne, he was seen as one of the troublemakers and much of his work was censored. On the other hand, he was kind when his circumstances permitted it and above all else he had scruples.

One of the problems with divination by any technique is that to do it properly requires a certain amount of personal steeliness. Quite often the results are not the results you might have hoped for. If you are a fee taking professional, as Lilly was, there’s always going to be a temptation to sugar coat or even lie about bad news. I don’t think Lilly ever intended to frighten or shock people, but he did take his predictions very seriously and he deplored others who would tell their own clients news that was good for fees rather than the news contained in the chart.

This desire to follow the chart wherever it took him seemed to have gained him clients amongst the Royalists and Parliamentarians, and the book describes a couple of occasions when he was approached by agents of Charles the 1st for advice – advice that was not taken.

Lilly was a master of horological astrology, a branch that I’ve spent virtually no time looking at, and there are several charts and a description of features he thought important that would make an excellent toehold for someone embarking on the study of this subject. In medical matters, Lilly was generally given a jar of urine to look at, the common practice. This lead to the nickname of ‘piss prophets’ for the profession, and of course it completely misses the point. In fact there are a few diseases that can be diagnosed this way – Porphyria turns it a rather fetching shade of blue for example. What Lilly was actually interested in was the time he was given the sample since this determined the chart to be examined. By all accounts, Lilly had a great deal of return business. We can conclude that he was very good at what he did.

Naturally enough, the vast majority of the text is taken up with his professional life, what happened after his retirement and the circumstances of his final days, but there is a fascinating final section about the fate of astrology itself after Lilly’s death. The proposition that it fell from favour partly as the result of the enlightenment, but also because it was viewed as somehow associated with the lower classes. Various Vagrancy Acts have been passed since then had lumped together astrologers with the indigent and feckless. To my astonishment, as recently as 1989 it was still illegal to take a fee for an astrological forecast; presumably the sun sign horoscopes in the magazines and newspapers of my childhood were simply ignored.

In any case, a fascinating book. Highly recommended.

Comments

[sdi]

Thank you for the recommendation! I saw this book at a nearby bookstore, thought of your review, and picked it up. I quite enjoyed it, too!