William Lilly

The Astrologer Who Made the Craft a Profession

William Lilly (1602–1681) was the most famous astrologer in seventeenth-century England — a working consultant whose busy London practice turned astrology into a thriving everyday profession. More than any figure of his age, he showed what the craft looked like as a public service rather than a court secret.

Christian Astrology

In 1647 Lilly published Christian Astrology, the first major astrology textbook written in English rather than Latin. Clear, practical, and full of worked examples, it became the foundational text of the horary tradition and remains the book the modern horary revival reads and rebuilds from.

Horary: Answering the Question

Lilly’s specialty was horary astrology — casting a chart for the exact moment a question is asked and reading the answer from it. Where will I find the lost ring? Will the voyage return safely? Is the patient going to recover? Drawing on the houses, the planets, and their aspects, he answered thousands of such questions for clients across every layer of society — and, famously, charged the poor next to nothing.

The Great Fire of London

Lilly’s reputation rests partly on his political almanacs (the Merlinus Anglicus series) during the English Civil War, and partly on a striking image: a 1651 pamphlet whose woodcut showed a city in flames. When the Great Fire of London broke out in 1666, the apparent prophecy caused such a stir that a parliamentary committee questioned him — half-suspecting he might have known the arsonists. He convinced them it was astrology, not conspiracy.

Legacy

Lilly stands at the commercial peak of pre-modern astrology, the era when astrologers advised kings, wrote best-selling almanacs, and ran what were essentially consulting firms. As the later history of astrology shows, that golden age would soon collide with the Scientific Revolution — but Lilly’s Christian Astrology survived it all, and today his name is almost synonymous with the horary art he perfected.