Every century is a period of change, but the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England saw greater revolutions of thought and social structure than any before them since those two crucial periods when the Roman eagles left Britain and when the Normans conquered England. They are only comparable to the changes that the older ones amongst us have witnessed in the present age. If the sixteenth century saw the Tudor succession, the impact of the New Learning, the Reformation, the rise of Bureaucracy and the Middle Classes and the shift from Feudalism to Plutocracy, the seventeenth saw the crystallisation of Parliamentary theory and procedure, the proliferation of sects, the final destruction of the medieval world picture, the rise of Science and Empirical Medicine and the virtual destruction of the sanctions which hedged Monarchy.

It is in this last period that [William] Lilly (1602-81) was born and lived.

Lilly's short account of his Own Life, which reaches a little over a hundred pages in a small octavo volume, touches on so many aspects of the life of his time that it is of value not only to folklorists and students of occult writings, but also to those interested in history, literature, sociology and education. A certain cunning and plausibility is displayed in it. Lilly was, by the time he wrote, a Church Warden and a respected member of society. He was writing soon after the Restoration when loyalty was in fashion, and he could not afford to be candid about little matters of Parliamentary espionage and the like. At the same time he has a certain naïvety, almost candour, which from time to time betrays him. He was a rogue, but he seems really not to have known what a rogue he was. There is an air of triumph about his account of how he juggled matters for his patron William Pennington, who had been accused by a Northern girl of getting her with child. He produced a warrant for her arrest but could not secure her person, but Lilly succeeded in catching her, in throwing discredit on her proffered bail and getting her brought to trial in the North, where she was sentenced to a whipping and a year's imprisonment. Further, Lilly succeeded in discovering the names of the gentry who supported her by the very dubious method of approaching her old father under a false name, making him drunk and stealing away all his papers. By something the same method Lilly stole Pennington's Warrant of Array, given him by Charles II in the second Civil War, from a Mr. Musgrave, who wanted to use it in procuring the sequestration of William Pennington's lands. Of even more social interest was the case brought against Pennington by Isaac Antrobus, a Puritan divine, who was defeated by a counter-accusation brought against him by Lilly on the grounds that he was a notorious drunkard, that he had had illicit intercourse with a woman and her daughter, and that he had christened a cock by the name of Peter. This last would probably be counted a witchcraft practice. Antrobus was adjudged guilty and lost his living. On a later occasion Pennington was in great danger of having the greater part of his wealth sequestrated, but Lilly made interest with Speaker Lenthall, who signed a letter for him which he sent to Pennington to show to the Northern Commissioners. With equal complacency Lilly describes in Chapter XVI how, when an accusation of writing against the government was brought against him by the Presbyterians, he got the printer to falsify his book and swore that the offensive passages had been written in by enemies in order to ruin him. He must have had an engaging personality, for he kept many friends of all opinions, and even his own frank confessions do not seem to have brought him into disrepute.

The account of his own youth well illustrates the continual flux of the society in which he was reared. He belonged to a family with some claims to gentility—his great-uncle, Sir Henry Poole, was one of the Knights of Rhodes—but in the main of yeoman stock with quite an amount of land and property in the small town of Diseworth where he was born. His father, however, had sunk into poverty, and by the time Lilly left home to go to work was lodged in a debtor's prison. In spite of the family difficulties, however, his mother was successful in getting him sent to a local Grammar School at Ashby, where he learnt to speak Latin as well as English, became proficient in making verses and must have made the beginnings of the study of rhetoric, for he was put forward to dispute against visiting divines.

The atmosphere of the town was Puritan, and the most influential man there was Sir Arthur Hildersham, an eminent Puritan divine. Most of Lilly's contemporaries went to the University but his family became too poor to support him, and he was taken home to hang about the farm. After a time he was given a recommendation to a master in London, collected the bare necessities of clothing and a few shillings from some well-wishers and set out to walk up to town with the carrier's cart. In contrast to Lilly's own educational qualifications it is worth nothing that his new master, though Master of the Salter's Company, was unable to read or write. Lilly had no money to pay his indentures and was probably engaged as a menial servant; indeed he gives a list of the various duties he performed, but he must also have helped his master in his business, for he was later made a member of the Salters' Company. One of the most arduous and harrowing duties he had to perform was the nursing of his mistress, who was dying of a cancer in the breast. Lilly gives a painful account of how he cut away her decaying flesh, but he seems to have shown kindness, for he says she would allow no one to nurse her but himself. Lilly had at this time no knowledge of astrology, but he must already have had some interest in magic, for he gives some account of the sigils (engraved seals) and amulets found on his mistress' body after her death. The cutting of these sigils was a large part of the trade of many of the ordinary magicians.

During this time Lilly was evidently gaining his master's confidence for he was left in charge of the house, and presumably what business still remained, when his master left London to escape from the plague. His master soon married again, an elderly but good-natured wife, and when he died Lilly took the first step in building up his fortune by marrying her. This happened in 1627, though the marriage was kept secret for two years. Unless he flatters himself he was a kindly husband to her, and made his friends during her lifetime among elderly and sober men. It was at this time, however, that his interests turned towards astrology, and he draws us the first picture of that shabby, shady gallery of quacks and imposters who make Ben Jonson's Face and Subtle seem comparatively respectable.

He describes his first master in the Art, Evans, with a vigour which is worthy of one of Nash's pamphlets:

He was the most Saturnine Person my Eyes ever beheld, either before I practised or since; of a middle Stature, broad Forehead, Beetle-brow'd, thick Shoulders, flat Nosed, full Lips, down-look'd, black curling stiff Hair, splay-footed; to give him his Right, he had the most piercing Judgment naturally upon a Figure of Theft, and many other Questions, that I ever met withal; yet for Money he would willingly give contrary Judgments, was much addicted to Debauchery, and then very abusive and quarrelsom, seldom without a black Eye, or one Mischief or other.

We get from Lilly a very good notion of the things most commonly asked from the magical practitioners. The commonest of all was the question of thefts, which Lilly calls "the only shame of astrology". This was probably because it was often a matter of collusion when the magician had good reason to know where the lost object was. Antimonial cups supposed to nullify poisons were lucrative to magicians, charms and sigils were used to fend off evil spirits and to bring luck. People wanted to know fortunate times to begin enterprises. A knowledge of the future could be gained by astrology, by the invocation of spirits or by mediums, called "spectatrices", who often looked in crystals. Lilly himself on one occasion used a spell to clear spirits off the ground as a preliminary to digging for treasure. Spirits were supposed to be often set to guard treasures. Lilly's experiment threatened to be dangerous because the spectators did not observe the ritual silence necessary for treasure hunting. Sometimes spirits were used to purloin documents and other material objects, as the Angel Salmon did for Evans.

Lilly must have learned mathematics at school, though he only mentions literature, because he quickly rose to proficiency and began to teach others. One can learn from his account how much esteemed magical manuscripts were at the time and how important it was for proficients to acquire a good library. A learned and accomplished astrologer, like Dee, would have a really valuable collection, a more ignorant and almost illiterate practitioner would have a printed pamphlet like Erra Pater, but original manuscripts might fall into the hands of ordinary working men. A large manuscript in the British Museum from Ashmole's collection is marked as bought from a small-coal man. As Lilly's skill and reputation grew he rose from the dubious company of such as Evans and Captain Bubb to Dr. Napper, a cousin of Napier the mathematician, a pious white magician who worked by the conjuration of angels and whose knees were horny with praying, until he associated with true mathematicians like William Oughtred and was esteemed by scholars like Ashmole and Aubrey. Ashmole was indeed one of his chief patrons, and it is to him that the account of his life is addressed.

After his first wife's death in 1633 Lilly studied very sedulously and began to practise both astrology and medicine about 1640. He became much more generally known, however, after the publication of his first pamphlets in 1644. By this time the Great Civil War was in full swing. It was a period of very active propaganda, from the carefully reasoned documents issued by the Parliamentarians and by the King's supporters to news-sheets, pamphlets, ballads and prophecies. The official propaganda may be studied at length in Clarendon's History of the Great Rebellion. Much of it is skilfully written and convincing, particularly that written by Hyde himself, but we are more concerned here with the outpourings of the popular press, and particularly with the prophecies. Political prophecy had been a weapon in Civil troubles for many centuries and was particularly effective in the Wars of the Roses. The prophecies of Merlin, of Sybilla and of Thomas the Rhymer were reshaped to meet the occasion. The personages intended were generally cryptically described as animals, sometimes heraldically, sometimes symbolically. For instance, King Henry IV is indicated as "the Maudrigal Mouldiwarp" because of his undermining activities. Lilly followed the same tradition when he described Charles II as "the Chicken of the Eagle". His educational background inclined him to the Puritan side and though his prophecies were cautiously worded they were generally Pro-Parliament and were enthusiastically read in the Army. In the Puritan climate of opinion his activities were sometimes condemned as witchcraft, but Astrology still ranked as a Science, and though some of his undertakings might well have been suspect, he always found friends to protect him and was several times thanked for his services. The annuity that he was given at one time was avowedly for these, but it is more likely that they were a spy's wages. He was consulted by both parties, and had his ears to a good many keyholes. Madam Whorewood was so rash as to consult him about the King's escape, and though his advice was not taken over that he is likely to have betrayed the intention. He admits indeed that the pension of £100 a year was given him for two years because he had the means of getting perfect intelligence out of France, and in Chapter XVII he says that he knew all the spies that went in and out of Oxford while the King was stationed there. Cromwell, Whitelock, Lenthall, Sir Harbottle Grimston, Sir Philip Stapleton, Denzil Holies and many other prominent Parliamentarians protected him when he was attacked.

In this little miniature we are able to gain a vivid impression of the cross-currents of opinion and the shifting rivalries, the moderate men, the fanatics, the self-servers, the disputes between the Generals. We see the decay of confidence in the Parliament, the rise of the Army's power and the desperate counsels that began to prevail. We had a hint of how Lord Say & Sele, who engineered the start of the War, began to turn towards the King. There is surely a little disingenuousness in Lilly's disavowal of any knowledge of the Trial before it actually opened, yet it certainly was pressed forward quickly, and Fairfax appears to have been ignorant of the execution until just after it had taken place, though his lady attended and protested against the Trial. The time of Cromwell's Protectorate is rather skated over, for Lilly's personal controversies receive most of his attention, but after Richard Cromwell was set aside public matters again come to the fore, with the return of the Rump, Lambert's bid for power and the subtle and secret policies of General Monk. No one was sure of his intentions until he finally disclosed himself.

After the Restoration Lilly, perhaps naturally, fell under suspicion. Once he was arrested, but here again he found friends to speak for him, and before the end of 1660 he had sued out his pardon, and felt himself secure. In 1666 there was a nervous time for him when he was questioned about the origin of the Fire of London, but again he was well supported. His second wife, whom he made no pretence of regretting, had died in 1654, and in the same year he had married his third wife, with whom he lived in great contentment. From 1665 the rest of his life was spent in Surrey, in the study and practice of medicine. In 1670 he obtained a licence from the Archbishop of Canterbury to practise Physic. No examination was needed for this except the signatures of two physicians.

He was much esteemed for his charity to the poor of Horsham where he made his last home. He died in 1681, and Elias Ashmole raised a tomb over his grave. A glowing epitaph in Latin and English was composed for him by George Smalridge, afterwards Bishop of Bristol, who had been educated at Ashmole's expense. And so, after all his earlier turns and twists, Lilly passed peacefully away in the odour of sanctity.