In the year 1066 Halley's comet appeared to announce to the Saxons the approaching conquest of England by William the Norman. A contemporary poet made a singular remark, which may have some profound poetical meaning, but certainly seems a little indistinct on the surface. He said that 'the comet had been more favourable to William than nature had been to Cæsar; the latter had no hair, but William had received some from the comet.' This is the only instance, so far as I know, in which a comet has been regarded as a perruquier. A monk of Malmesbury spoke more to the purpose, according to then received ideas, in thus apostrophising the comet: 'Here art thou again, cause of tears to many mothers! It is long since I saw thee last, but I see thee now more terrible than ever; thou threatenest my country with complete ruin.'
Halley's comet, with its inconveniently short period of about seventy-seven years, has repeatedly troubled the nations and been regarded as a sign sent from Heaven:
Ten million cubic miles of head,
Ten billion leagues of tail,
all provided for the sole purpose of warning one petty race of earth-folks against the evils likely to be brought against them by another. This comet has appeared twenty-four times since the date of its first recorded appearance, which some consider to have been 12 B.C., and others refer to a few years later. It may be interesting to quote here Babinet's description of the effects ascribed in 1455 to this comet, often the terror of nations, but the triumph of mathematicians, as the first whose motions were brought into recognisable obedience to the laws of gravity.[42]
'The Mussulmans, with Mahomet II. at their head, were besieging Belgrade, which was defended by Huniade, surnamed the Exterminator of the Turks. Halley's comet appeared and the two armies were seized with equal fear. Pope Calixtus III., himself seized by the general terror, ordered public prayers and timidly anathematised the comet and the enemies of Christianity. He established the prayer called the noon Angelus, the use of which is continued in all Catholic churches. The Franciscans (Frères Mineurs) brought 40,000 defenders to Belgrade, besieged by the conqueror of Constantinople, the destroyer of the Eastern Empire. At last the battle began; it continued two days without ceasing. A contest of two days caused 40,000 combatants to bite the dust. The Franciscans, unarmed, crucifix in hand, were in the front rank, invoking the papal exorcism against the comet, and turning upon the enemy that heavenly wrath of which none in those times dared doubt.'
The great comet of 1556 has been regarded as the occasion of the Emperor Charles V.'s abdication of the imperial throne; a circumstance which seems rendered a little doubtful by the fact that he had already abdicated when the comet appeared—a mere detail, perhaps, but suggesting the possibility that cause and effect may have been interchanged by mistake, and that it was Charles's abdication which occasioned the appearance of the comet. According to Gemma's account the comet was conspicuous rather from its great light than from the length of its tail or the strangeness of its appearance. 'Its head equalled Jupiter in brightness, and was equal in diameter to nearly half the apparent diameter of the moon.' It appeared about the end of February, and in March presented a terrible appearance, according to Ripamonte. 'Terrific indeed,' says Sir J. Herschel, 'it might well have been to the mind of a prince prepared by the most abject superstition to receive its appearance as a warning of approaching death, and as specially sent, whether in anger or in mercy, to detach his thoughts from earthly things, and fix them on his eternal interests. Such was its effect on the Emperor Charles V., whose abdication is distinctly ascribed by many historians to this cause, and whose words on the occasion of his first beholding it have even been recorded—
"His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant"—
the language and the metrical form of which exclamation afford no ground for disputing its authenticity, when the habits and education of those times are fairly considered.' It is quite likely that, having already abdicated the throne, Charles regarded the comet as signalling his retirement from power—an event which he doubtless considered a great deal too important to be left without some celestial record. But the words attributed to him are in all probability apocryphal.
The comet of 1577 was remarkable for the strangeness of its aspect, which in some respects resembled that of the comet of 1858, called Donati's. It required only the terror with which such portentous objects were witnessed in the Middle Ages to transform the various streamers, curved and straight, extending from such an object, into swords and spears, and other signs of war and trouble. Doubtless, we owe to the fears of the Middle Ages the strange pictures claiming to present the actual aspect of some of the larger comets. Halley's comet did not escape. It was compared to a straight sword at one visit, to a curved scimitar in 1456, and even at its last return in 1835 there were some who recognised in the comet a resemblance to a misty head. Other comets have been compared to swords of fire, bloody crosses, flaming daggers, spears, serpents, fiery dragons, fish, and so forth. But in this respect no comet would seem to have been comparable with that of 1528, of which Andrew Paré writes as follows: 'This comet was so horrible and dreadful, and engendered such terror in the minds of men, that they died, some from fear alone, others from illness engendered by fear. It was of immense length and blood-red colour; at its head was seen the figure of a curved arm, holding a large sword in the hand as if preparing to strike. At the point of this sword were three stars; and on either side a number of axes, knives, and swords covered with blood, amongst which were many hideous human faces with bristling beards and hair.'