I’m so glad I’m not an astrologer practicing in the Middle Ages.
You’d be asked to pontificate on when the king might die, knowing that giving a straight answer would probably make you guilty of treason.
And you’d have to do all this without any knowledge of his Pluto transits.
And also while pretending to spot the answer by staring blankly at a pot of his piss.
The excellent biography of 17th century astrologer William Lilly by Catherine Blackledge opens with the great man doing precisely that while obviously making all of his deductions from this horary.
This question was asked in the early part of the English Civil War. John Pym was the leader of the Parliamentary opposition to King Charles 1.
Pym had been struck down with a serious illness. Some of his colleagues had collected his urine without his knowledge and brought it to Lilly with the question – Will Pym live or die ?
Lilly took the chart ruler, the Moon to signify Pym.
Its placement right on the cusp of the 6th house showed the concern about his health. The Moon was in its final hours, combust the Sun and getting weaker. In 6 degrees time it would disappear.
So Lilly knew that the answer would be death.
The 8th house ruler is Saturn. Lilly checked the ephemeris to see that in 8 days time the Moon would reach 0 Aries and conjoin Saturn. He rightly predicted Pym’s death to occur on that day.
I must confess, I would have come to the same conclusion using slightly different means.
As the question was not asked by Pym himself, I would have seen his significator as Jupiter ( ruler of the 10th house and placed in the same ).
Pym’s health would be the Sun ( 3rd house being 6th from 10th ) and his death would be Venus ( 5th house is 8th from 10th ).
The Moon on the cusp of the 6th house and combust its ruler would show his poor and deteriorating health and its application to Venus in just over 8 degrees time, would mean he would die 8 days later.
There would not have been any need to use the outer planets that Lilly wasn’t aware of, but I would have had the advantage of checking with Pym’s natal chart first.
This is a noon chart.
He died during his 2nd Saturn return with the ringed planet at 1 Aries.
Mars was at 28.30 Scorpio opposite his Sun on the day.
I don’t know whether Lilly would have had access to Pym’s natal chart. If he had this might have been enough information to expect his death.
But if he had known about the outer planets yet to be discovered, there would have been no doubt.
Lilly would have been aware of Pym’s Sun’s conjunction with the South Node.
He would certainly not have known that Pluto was at 4 Gemini, conjunct that Node at the time.
In fact Pluto was the planet responsible for Pym’s rise to power and peak as it was conjunct his Sun in 1640 when he became leader of the opposition in Parliament.
At Pym’s death Neptune was opposing Pluto at 2 Sagittarius.
It’s the three outer planets that provide all the challenges in what would otherwise be a relatively benign chart.
Pym’s Sun is closely square to Uranus – very fitting for the leader of the rebel faction.
Neptune is square to his Venus / Jupiter conjunction.
And Pluto is conjunct Saturn in the noon 8th house.
The real story of these times could not be seen even by the greatest astrologer to have ever lived.
In The English Revolution – Isn’t That An Oxymoron ? there is the most extraordinary chart I have ever seen.
” That this was a momentous event in history is clearly recognised by the chart. Of course regular readers of these pages would expect Pluto to be prominent and it did not disappoint being at 8 degrees Gemini, exactly opposite Charles’ Sun.
” The staggering thing is that in January 1649 not only was Pluto opposite Charles Sun but Neptune and Uranus were conjunct it and Saturn was opposed it. This is a heavyweight astrological pattern that has probably never occurred before or since in the history of mankind.
Not only that but this mega opposition was part of a cataclysmic Grand Cross which included the Moon and Mars and Venus. The Moon in the execution chart is exactly conjunct Charles’ Ascendant and square his Sun. “
This is such a momentous chart in history that every other one has to be seen in context with it.
The great opposition between Neptune and Pluto had been building since 1639.
” The 1639 and 1640 Bishops’ Wars were the first of the conflicts known collectively as the 1639 to 1653 Wars of the Three Kingdoms
In 1637 the Catholic king, Charles I attempted to impose uniform practices on the Church of England and Scotland. These were opposed by most Scots, who supported a Presbyterian church governed by ministers and elders.
After the Covenanters took control of government following the 1639 war, the Scottish Parliament passed a series of acts that amounted to a constitutional revolution, confirmed by victory in 1640.
In order to protect that settlement, the Scots allied with sympathisers in Ireland and England, chiefly Puritans who objected to recent religious reforms, and wanted elections for a new Parliament of England, suspended since 1629. When Charles sought to reverse his defeat in 1640, the combination destabilised all three kingdoms, with the October 1641 Irish Rebellion followed by the First English Civil War. “
The Neptune / Pluto opposition is now down to an orb of 5 degrees.
We can see that the noonchart for the start of the Civil War means it will end in defeat for the king.
In a battle chart the Ascendant will always represent the holders, whoever is in power at the beginning of the fight, the Descendant will be the challengers.
Charles’ forces would be Mercury in Taurus.
The Parliamentary army would be Jupiter, dignified in Pisces conjunct Mars and right on the Descendant, so all the power lies with them.
The Pluto / Saturn conjunction at Charles’ execution hits the Sun of the Civil War chart, so we can see the event that will bring it to an end.
John Pym’s own life and death have to be seen in context with all of this.
Pym has been called by one historian, ” the greatest parliamentarian that ever lived “.
” His skill as a parliamentary tactician was unrivaled. He balanced between radicals—some of whom were republicans—and the peace party, which was so frightened of social upheaval that it would have accepted almost any terms from the king. “
This coalition was fractured after Pym’s death with the war party gaining the upper hand.
It is very hard to imagine Charles being executed under a Pym leadership. But execution was required by that opposition involving Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, so Pym had to be killed off first.
There are some traditional astrologers who naively refuse to use use Uranus, Neptune and Pluto because their heroes didn’t.
They don’t seem to get the obvious fact that said heroes were by far the most forward thinking people of their time who would have absolutely jumped at the chance of the extra insight afforded by them.
Lilly had a Capricorn Moon, he was a pragmatist, not some dumb theorist. He would have gone for the outers because they work.
He predicted Charles death, presumably from Saturn being opposite his Sun. Imagine how much more certain he would have been had he known that the other three heavyweights were there too.
If Lilly had access to the outers, he would already have known about John Pym’s fate from his Neptune and Pluto transits and that would have saved him having to inspect a dying man’s urine.
Anyone reading the thousand odd articles on this website would understand the power of the outer planets, particularly the last one.
And any astrologers refusing to use Pluto would not have a pot to piss in.
Posted 17th September 2023
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