ASTROLOGY AND THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY MIND

WILLIAM LILLY AND THE LANGUAGE OF THE STARS

Ann Geneva

Manchester University Press

Manchester and New York
Distributed exclusively in the USA and Canada by St Martin's Press

CONTENTS

List of illustrations Series editor's introduction Preface ' A S T R O L O G Y P R O V E D HARMLESS, USEFUL, P I O U S ' Astrological Revisionism Acknowledgements O n e ' F O R A S T R O L O G Y W A N T S ITS H I S T O R Y ' Astrological Historians Two 'AENIGMAES, M E T A P H O R S , PARABOLS, A N D F I G U R E S ' Seventeenth Century Encrypting Three ' T H E STARS CHIEFEST A M B A S S A D O R ' William Lilly, Primus Inter Pares Four ' T H E M I R R O U R O F T H E W O R L D ' Natural Phenomena as Portents
COMETS ECLIPSES 'DAZZLE MINE EYES': AN EXPLANATION OF PARHELIA THE DOCTRINE OF CONJUNCTIONS

page ix xii

xiii xviii I 17 55 75
84 97 99 118

Five 'THAT HIDDEN AND SUBLIME SCIENCE' The Astrological Tradition Six 'ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS' The Starry Language Decoded Seven THE KING MUST DIE Charles I Death Prophecies
DEATH BY NATURAL PHENOMENA

151 175 202

202 208 213 223

England's Prophetkall Merline

DEATH BY CONJUNCTION DEATH BY ECLIPSE AND COMETARY INFLUENCE

The Starry Messenger

DEATH BY PARHELIA

[vii]

CONTENTS

Eight THE 'HIEROGLYPHIC KING' Death by Cipher Nine EPILOGUE: 'THIS WORLD'S SPENT' The Decline of Astrology as a Symbolic Language System Index

238 263 286

[viii]