William Lilly

WIL-yuhm LIL-ee

Definition

William Lilly (1602–1681) was the leading English astrologer of the 17th century. Holden records that he came from yeoman-farmer stock, gained his independence by marrying a wealthy London widow, and gave his life to astrology. His *Christian Astrology* (London, 1647) is the foundational English-language sourcebook of horary technique — the branch that answers a question by casting a chart for the moment it is asked — and the main English-language bridge between the medieval Latin and Arabic-mediated tradition and modern practice.

In Tradition

In the traditional and horary revival, Lilly is the standard English-language source for horary technique. Holden documents that *Christian Astrology* is the ultimate source of most English horary treatises written since the 17th century, and that Zadkiel's 1835 *Introduction to Astrology* is essentially an abridged revision of it. When Olivia Barclay revived the practice in the late 20th century, she deliberately kept Lilly's Regiomontanus house system, on the reasoning that it had been good enough for Lilly.

In Practice

Modern horary astrologers still follow Lilly's way of working: choosing the significator (the planet that stands for each person or thing in the question); reading perfection, refranation, and frustration; tracking the translation and collection of light; watching the Moon's next aspect and whether it is void-of-course; and applying the Considerations before Judgement. His degree-values for a planet's nearness to the Sun — cazimi within 0°17′, combust within 8°30′, under-the-sunbeams within 17° — are still the standard. Lilly's casebooks, held at the Ashmolean Library in Oxford, preserve thousands of horary judgments and bear out the example charts of Book II. Most of today's horary teachers — Frawley, Houlding, the Barclay line — anchor their instruction in Lilly.

Historical Origin

Lilly was born at Diseworth, Leicestershire on 1 May 1602 and died in London on 9 June 1681. He practised in London through the English Civil War, advising both Parliament and royalist clients, and produced public almanacs (*Merlinus Anglicus Junior* from 1644). *Christian Astrology* was first printed in London in 1647 and reprinted in 1659; the Regulus facsimile (Exeter, 1985) is the standard modern reproduction, and the Wright/Zadkiel 1835 abridgement carries the 19th-century line of transmission. The striking symbolic woodcuts in his *Monarchy or No Monarchy in England* (1651) were later read as foretelling the Great Fire of 1666.

Etymology

Origin: English. Meaning: A common English name; the surname Lilly (also Lily) derives from the Old English place-name or the flower.

Further Reading