In that year I printed the Prophetical Merlin, and had eight pounds for the copy.

I had then no farther intention to trouble the press any more, but Sir Richard Napper having received one of Captain Wharton’s Almanacks for 1645, under the name Naworth, he came unto me:  ’Now, Lilly, you are met withal, see here what Naworth writes.’  The words were, he called me ’an impudent senseless fellow, and by name William Lilly.’

Before that time, I was more Cavalier than Roundhead, and so taken notice of; but after that I engaged body and soul in the cause of Parliament, but still with much affection to his Majesty’s person and unto monarchy, which I ever loved and approved beyond any government whatsoever; and you will find in this story many passages of civility which I did, and endeavoured to do, with the hazard of my life, for his Majesty:  but God had ordered all his affairs and counsels to have no successes; as in the sequel will appear.

To vindicate my reputation, and to cry quittance with Naworth, against whom I was highly incensed, to work I went again for Anglicus, 1645; which as soon as finished I got to the press, thinking every day one month till it was publick:  I therein made use of the King’s nativity, and finding that his ascendant was approaching to the quadrature of Mars, about June, 1645, I gave this unlucky judgment; ’If now we fight, a victory stealeth upon us;’ and so it did in June, 1645, at Naseby, the most fatal overthrow he ever had.

In this year, 1645, I published a treatise called the Starry Messenger, with an interpretation of three suns seen in London, 29th May, 1644, being Charles the Second’s birthday:  in that book I also put forth an astrological judgment concerning the effects of a solar eclipse, visible the 11th of August, 1645.  Two days before its publishing, my antagonist, Captain Wharton, having given his astronomical judgment upon his Majesty’s present march from Oxford; therein again fell foul against me and John Booker:  Sir Samuel Luke, Governor of Newportpagnel, had the thing came to his garrison from Oxford, which presently was presented unto my view.  I had but twelve hours, or thereabout, to answer it, which I did with such success as is incredible; and the printer printed both the March and my answer unto it, and produced it to sight, with my Starry Messenger, which came forth and was made publick the very day of the Parliament’s great victory obtained against his Majesty in person at Naseby, under the conduct of the Lord Thomas Fairfax.

That book no sooner appeared, but within fourteen days complaint was made to the committee of examinations, Miles Corbet then being Chairman, my mortal enemy, he who after was hanged, drawn, and quartered, for being one of the King’s Judges; he grants his warrant, and a messenger to the Serjeant at Arms seizeth my person.  As I was going to Westminster with the messenger, I met Sir Philip Stapleton, Sir Christopher