Many characters Mr. William Lilly must be owned to have represented with great success. But that all-essential one—if we desire to secure the confidence of our contemporaries, and the respect of posterity—of an honest man, I fear he was never able to personate successfully. Of the craft and cunning he could at times display he records a striking illustration—evidently with entire satisfaction to himself, and apparently never suspecting that it might not be so favourably regarded by others, and especially by those plain, commonplace people who make no pretensions to hermetic learning or occult knowledge, but have certain unsophisticated ideas as to the laws of morality and fair dealing.
In his 1651 ‘Almanack’ he asserted that the Parliament stood upon tottering foundations, and that the soldiery and commonalty would combine against it—a conclusion at which every intelligent onlooker must by that time have arrived, without ‘erecting a figure’ or consulting the starry heavens.
This previous attempt at forecasting the future ‘lay for a whole week,’ says its author, ‘in the Parliament House, much criticised by the Presbyterians; one disliking this sentence, another that, and others disliking the whole. In the end a motion was made that it should be examined by a Committee of the House, with instructions to report concerning its errors.
‘A messenger attached me by a warrant from that Committee. I had private notice ere the messenger came, and hasted unto Mr. Speaker Lenthall, ever my friend. He was exceeding glad to see me, told me what was done, called for “Anglicus,” marked the passages which tormented the Presbyterians so highly. I presently sent for Mr. Warren, the printer, an assured cavalier, obliterated what was most offensive, put in other more significant words, and desired only to have six amended against next morning, which very honestly he brought me. I told him my design was to deny the book found fault with, to own only the six books. I told him I doubted he would be examined. “Hang them!” said he; “they are all rogues. I’ll swear myself to the devil ere they shall have an advantage against you, by my oath.”
‘The day after, I appeared before the Committee. At first they showed me the true “Anglicus,” and asked if I wrote and printed it.’
Lilly, after pretending to inspect it, denied all knowledge of it, asserting that it must have been written with a view to do him injury by some malicious Presbyterian, at the same time producing the six amended copies, to the great surprise and perplexity of the Committee. The majority, however, were inclined to send him to prison, and some had proposed Newgate, others the Gate House, when one Brown, of Sussex, who had been influenced to favour Lilly, remarked that neither to Newgate nor the Gate House were the Parliament accustomed to send their prisoners, and suggested that the most convenient and legitimate course would be for the Sergeant-at-Arms to take this Mr. Lilly into custody.
‘Mr. Strickland, who had for many years been the Parliament’s ambassador or agent in Holland, when he saw how they inclined, spoke thus:
‘“I came purposely into the Committee this day to see the man who is so famous in those parts where I have so long continued. I assure you his name is famous over all Europe. I come to do him justice. A book is produced by us, and said to be his; he denies it; we have not proved it, yet will commit him. Truly this is great injustice. It is likely he will write next year, and acquaint the whole world with our injustice, and so well he may. It is my opinion, first to prove the book to be his ere he be committed.”
‘Another old friend of mine spoke thus:
‘“You do not know the many services this man hath done for the Parliament these many years, or how many times, in our greatest distresses, on applying unto him, he hath refreshed our languishing expectations; he never failed us of comfort in our most unhappy distresses. I assure you his writings have kept up the spirits both of the soldiery, the honest people of this nation, and many of us Parliament men; and at last, for a slip of his pen (if it were his), to be thus violent against him, I must tell you, I fear the consequence urged out of the book will prove effectually true. It is my counsel to admonish him hereafter to be more wary, and for the present to dismiss him.”