re seen in London on November 19, 1644---the anniversary
of the birth of Charles I., then the reigning monarch. This phenomenon
caused a great stir among the English astrologers, coming, as it did,
at a time of great political disturbance. Prophecies were numerous, and
Lilly's brochure is only one of many that appeared at that time, most of
which, however, have been lost. Lilly, in his preface, says: "If there
be any of so prevaricate a judgment as to think that the apparition of
these three Suns doth intimate no Novelle thing to happen in our own
Climate, where they were manifestly visible, I shall lament their
indisposition, and conceive their brains to be shallow, and voyde of
understanding humanity, or notice of common History."

Having thus forgiven his few doubting readers, who were by no means
in the majority in his day, he takes up in review the records of the
various appearances of three suns as they have occurred during the
Christian era, showing how such phenomena have governed certain human
events in a very definite manner. Some of these are worth recording.

"Anno 66. A comet was seen, and also three Suns: In which yeer, Florus
President of the Jews was by them slain. Paul writes to Timothy. The
Christians are warned by a divine Oracle, and depart out of Jerusalem.
Boadice a British Queen, killeth seventy thousand Romans. The Nazareni,
a scurvie Sect, begun, that boasted much of Revelations and Visions.
About a year after Nero was proclaimed enemy to the State of Rome."

Again, "Anno 1157, in September, there were seen three Suns together, in
as clear weather as could be: And a few days after, in the same month,
three Moons, and, in the Moon that stood in the middle, a white Crosse.
Sueno, King of Denmark, at a great Feast, killeth Canutus: Sueno is
himself slain, in pursuit of Waldemar. The Order of Eremites, according
to the rule of Saint Augustine, begun this year; and in the next, the
Pope submits to the Emperour: (was not this miraculous?) Lombardy was
also adjudged to the Emperour."

Continuing this list of peculiar phenomena he comes down to within a few
years of his own time.

"Anno 1622, three Suns appeared at Heidelberg. The woful Calamities that
have ever since fallen upon the Palatinate, we are all sensible of, and
of the loss of it, for any thing I see, for ever, from the right Heir.
Osman the great Turk is strangled that year; and Spinola besiegeth
Bergen up Zoom, etc."

Fortified by the