author
William Lilly
1602–1681
Best known as England’s most famous astrologer of the seventeenth century, he turned celestial reading into a public spectacle and left behind one of the era’s most colorful self-portraits. His life sits at the crossroads of astrology, politics, and everyday survival in Civil War England.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1602 at Diseworth in Leicestershire, he rose from modest beginnings to become the best-known English astrologer of his age. After moving to London, he built a successful practice and gained wide attention through almanacs and astrological writing aimed at a broad readership.
He is especially remembered for Christian Astrology (1647), a major work that helped shape later astrological practice, and for the autobiographical History of His Life and Times, which offers a lively account of seventeenth-century England. His reputation grew during the years of the English Civil War, when astrology, politics, and popular print were closely intertwined.
He died in 1681, but his name has lasted far beyond his own century. Whether readers approach him as a historical curiosity, a serious astrological author, or a witness to a turbulent age, he remains one of the most recognizable figures in early modern English occult culture.