William Lilly

William Lilly was the man who taught a nation in crisis to read the language of the stars, and his own chart shows exactly why the work stuck. His Sun sits in Taurus, the earthy, Venusian pillar of the zodiac, the bull who builds a solid foundation of values and will not be moved: God himself could beg a Taurus to change an opinion and get nowhere. Planted in the second house, that Sun shines through money, worth and resources; born a yeoman farmer's son in Leicestershire, Lilly went to London as a servant and secured his fortune by marrying his former master's widow, which bought him the leisure to study the sky. His Moon in Capricorn is the child who grew up fast, stoic, dutiful, humble and unspoiled, a hard worker forged by early responsibility. In the eleventh house it fed on friends, patrons and the masses, and it was who he knew, from Cromwell to members of Parliament, that carried him. A Pisces Ascendant gave him the mystic's face the age needed: to admirers an English Merlin, to enemies a juggling wizard. His 1647 Christian Astrology, the first great compendium printed in English, remains his monument.