"'To the first part of your inquiry,' said the astrologer, 'I can readily reply. You have been a favorite of fortune; her smiles on you have been abundant, her frowns but few; you have had, perhaps now possess, wealth and power; the impossibility of their accomplishment is the only limit to the fulfilment of your desires.'"
"'You have spoken truly of the past,' said the stranger. 'I have full faith in your revelations of the future: what say you of my pilgrimage in this life—is it short or long?'
"'I regret,' replied the astrologer, in answer to this inquiry, 'to be the herald of ill, though TRUE, fortune; your sojourn on earth will be short.'
"'How short?' eagerly inquired the excited and anxious stranger.
"'Give me a momentary truce,' said the astrologer; 'I will consult the horoscope, and may possibly find some mitigating circumstances.'
"Having cast his eyes over the celestial map, and paused for some moments, he surveyed the countenance of the stranger with great sympathy, and said, 'I am sorry that I can find no planetary influences that oppose your destiny—your death will take place in two years.'
"The event justified the astrologic prediction: George IV. died on May 18, 1830, exactly two years from the day on which he had visited the astrologer."(8)
This makes a very pretty story, but it hardly seems like occult insight that an astrologer should have been able to predict an early death of a man nearly seventy years old, or to have guessed that his well-groomed visitor "had, perhaps now possesses, wealth and power." Here again, however, the point of view of each individual plays the governing part in determining the importance of such a document. To the scientist it proves nothing; to the believer in astrology, everything. The significant thing is that it appeared shortly AFTER the death of the monarch.
On the Continent astrologers were even more in favor than in England. Charlemagne, and some of his immediate successors, to be sure, attempted to exterminate them, but such rulers as Louis XI. and Catherine de' Medici patronized and encouraged them, and it was many years after the time of Copernicus before their influence was entirely stamped out even in official life. There can be no question that what gave the color of truth to many of the predictions was the fact that so many of the prophecies of sudden deaths and great conflagrations were known to have come true—in many instances were made to come true by the astrologer himself. And so it happened that when the prediction of a great conflagration at a certain time culminated in such a conflagration, many times a second but less-important burning took place, in which the ambitious astrologer, or his followers, took a central part about a stake, being convicted of incendiarism, which they had committed in order that their prophecies might be fulfilled.
But, on the other hand, these predictions were sometimes turned to account by interested friends to warn certain persons of approaching dangers.