LILLY, WILLIAM, the astrologer, was born at Diseworth, a village in Leicestershire, 1st May 1602. He was educated at the grammar-school of Ashby-de-la-Zouch; and went as an adventurer to London in 1620. There he was servant for some time to a mantua-maker; but in 1624 he became a domestic, and also clerk, to Mr Wright, master of the Salters' Company, in the Strand. Soon after his master's death, in 1627, Lilly married his widow, and receiving L.1000 as her dowry, he was released from the cares of any stated employment. After busyying himself for some years in the interests of the Puritans, he began in 1632 to study astrology under Evans, a clergyman who had been expelled from his curacy for several frauds practised under the guise of his art. In 1633 he lost his first wife, and married a second with a dowry of L.500. He was employed in the following year to discover a treasure reported to be buried in Westminster Abbey, but while engaged at night in the presence of thirty others in poisoning his "Mosaical rods," a terrific storm arose, and scared the party. In 1644 appeared, for the first time, his almanac, entitled Merlinus Anglicus Junior, of which the first edition was sold in the course of a week, and which continued to be published annually for about 20 years. In the same year, three suns were seen on Prince Charles's birth-day; and Lilly, in 1645, publishing an interpretation of this phenomenon, under the title of the Starry Messenger, was charged before the Committee of Examinations with having, by certain passages in this book, incited the populace to insult the Commissioners of Excise, and burn the excise office. On its being proved, however, that these two offences had been committed previous to the publication of the Messenger, Lilly was acquitted. In 1647 Charles,
Lillybeum whilst under guard at Hampton Court, sent a messenger to him to inquire in what part of the country he might safely lurk should he contrive to escape from his enemies. Lilly recommended some part of Essex, about 20 miles from London; an advice which circumstances did not suffer to be tested. Not more effectual were the aqua fortis and the saw which he sent to the king in 1648, to aid his escape from Carisbrook Castle. About the same time some important information touching the affairs of France, which he received from the confessor to one of the French secretaries, was communicated to the Council of State as the fruit of his astrology, and was rewarded with L.50, and an order for a yearly pension of L.100. In 1654 his second wife died, and he married a third. In 1659 the King of Sweden, who had been praised in his Almanac of 1657, presented him with a gold chain and medal. At the Restoration, he was apprehended by order of parliament, but sued out his pardon under the great seal. During the plague of 1665, after all his attempts to recommend his art to the ministry had failed, he retired to Hershamp, and practised as a physician under a license from Archbishop Sheldon. In 1666 he was consulted about the great fire, and though he claimed to have predicted it and the plague fifteen years before, confessed his ignorance of its cause. He died in 1681 of a dead palsy, bequeathing a considerable property to a tailor whom he had adopted, and was buried at Walton-upon-Thames, where a monument was erected over his grave by his friend Ashmole.
Among his works are:—Christian Astrology, 1647; Monarchy or no Monarchy in England; Grebner's Prophecy; Passages on the Life and Death of King Charles, London, 1651; Annus Tenebrosus, 1652, and History of his Life and Times from 1602 to 1681; containing Observations upon the Life and Death of Charles I., London, 1715 and 1721, and published, with notes by Ashmole, London, 1774.