Читать книгу Lancashire Folk-lore - Thomas Turner Wilkinson - Страница 9

Table of Contents

Astrology (literally the Science of the Stars), is now understood to signify the mode of discovering future events by means of the position of the heavenly bodies, which has been termed judicial astronomy. This quasi science found universal belief among all the nations of antiquity except the Greeks. Among the Romans it was eagerly cultivated from the time of the conquest of Egypt. In the second century the whole world was astrological. All the followers of Mohammed have ever been, and still are, believers in it. The Church of Rome has repeatedly condemned the art, but popes and cardinals rank amongst its votaries. Cardinal d'Ailly (about 1400), calculated the horoscope of Jesus Christ; and in the fifteenth century Pope Calixtus III. directed prayers and anathemas against a comet which had either assisted in or predicted the success of the Turks against the Christians. The establishment of the Copernican system was the death of astrology. The last of the astrologers was Morin, best known as the opponent of Gassendi. The latter in youth had studied and believed in the art, but afterwards renounced and written against it. Morin, who worked thirty years at a book on astrology, and who disbelieved in the motion of the earth, repeatedly predicted the death of Gassendi, but was always wrong, as he was in foretelling the death of Louis XIII. Since his death, in 1656, the pseudo-science has gradually sunk, and has not since, it is believed, been adopted by any real astronomer. Roger Bacon and other early English philosophers were believers in astrology, no less than in alchemy. In Lancashire the most remarkable practisers of the art were Dr. John Dee, warden of Manchester College, his friend and "seer," Sir Edward Kelly, and John Booker, of Manchester. Dee was the son of a wealthy vintner, and was born in London in 1527. At the age of fifteen he was entered at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he seems to have devoted himself to the study of mathematics, astronomy, and chemistry; displaying great assiduity and industry. At twenty he made a year's tour on the Continent, chiefly in Holland, and on his return was made one of the fellows of Trinity College on its foundation by Henry VIII., in 1543. In 1548 he was strongly suspected of being addicted to "the black art," probably from his astrological pursuits; and having taken his degree of A.M., he again went abroad to the university of Louvaine and to Rheims, and elsewhere in France; returning to England in 1551, when he was presented by Cecil to King Edward VI., who assigned him a pension of one hundred crowns, which he subsequently relinquished for the rectory of Upton-on-Severn. Shortly after the accession of Mary, he was accused of "practising against the queen's life by enchantment;" the charge being founded on some correspondence between him and "the servants of the Lady Elizabeth." He was long imprisoned and frequently examined, but as nothing could be established against him he was set at liberty by an order of the church in 1555. On the accession of Elizabeth, Dee was consulted by Lord Robert Dudley respecting "a propitious day" for the coronation. He says, "I wrote at large and delivered it for her Majesty's use, by the commandment of the Lord Robert (afterwards Earl of Leicester), what in my judgment the ancient astrologers would determine on the election day of such a time as was appointed for her Majesty to be crowned in." He was presented to the queen, who made him great promises (not always fulfilled); amongst others, that where her brother Edward "had given him a crown, she would give him a noble" [one-third more—viz., from 5s. to 6s. 8d.]. Nothing can better mark the belief in astrology than the fact that Queen Elizabeth's nativity was cast, in order to ascertain whether she could marry with advantage to the nation. Lilly, some eighty years later, declares[25] that he received twenty pieces of gold, in order that he might ascertain where Charles I. might be most safe from his enemies, and what hour would be most favourable for his escape from Carisbrooke Castle.

In 1564 Dee again visited the Continent, and was presented to the Emperor Maximilian, probably on some secret mission; for Lilly says, "he was the Queen's intelligencer, and had a salary for his maintenance from the Secretaries of State. He was a ready-witted man, quick of apprehension, and of great judgment in the Latin and Greek tongues. He was a very great investigator of the more secret hermetical learning (alchemy), a perfect astronomer, a curious astrologer, a serious geometrician; to speak truth, he was excellent in all kinds of learning."[26] Dee was repeatedly and urgently sent for one morning "to prevent the mischief which divers of her Majesty's privy council suspected to be intended against her Majesty, by means of a certain image of wax, with a great pin stuck into it, about the breast of it, found in Lincoln's Inn Fields." For some years Dee led a life of privacy and study at Mortlake in Surrey, collecting books and MSS., beryls and magic crystals, talismans, &c. So strong was the popular belief in his neighbourhood that he had dealings with the devil, that in 1576 a mob assembled, broke into his house, and destroyed nearly all his library and collections; and it was with difficulty that he and his family escaped the fury of the rabble. In October, 1578, by the Queen's command, he had a conference with Dr. Bayley, her Majesty's physician, "about her Majesty's grievous pains, by reason of toothache and the rheum," &c.; and the same year he was sent on a winter journey of about 1500 miles by sea and land, "to consult with the learned physicians and philosophers [i.e., astrologers], for her Majesty's health-recovering and preserving." Passing over his more useful and valuable services to the State and to the world, as we are only noting here his doings as an astrologer, &c., we may remark that most of his proceedings and writings in this pseudo-science or art were accomplished after he had passed his fiftieth year. It was in 1581 that he took into his service, as an assistant in his alchemical and astrological labours, an apothecary of Worcester named Edward Kelly, born in 1555, and who was called "The Seer," because, looking into magic crystals or speculæ, it was said he saw many things which it was not permitted to Dee himself to behold. Kelly also acted as Dee's amanuensis, and together they held "conversations with spirits." They had a black speculum, it is said "a polished piece of cannel coal," in which the angels Gabriel and Raphael appeared at their invocation. Hence Butler says—