1 30 JEROME CARDAN 



southward. He feared the cold ; he longed to get back 

 to his sons, and he was greatly troubled by the continued 

 ill-behaviour of one of the servants he had brought with 

 him "maledicus, invidus, avarissimus, Dei contemptor;" 

 but he found his patient very loth to let him depart. 

 The Archbishop declared that his illness was alleviated 

 but not cured, and only gave way unwillingly when 

 Cardan brought forward arguments to show what dangers 

 and inconveniences he would incur through a longer stay. 

 Cardan had originally settled to return by way of Paris, 

 but letters which he received from his young kinsman, 

 Gasparo Cardano, and from Ranconet, led him to 

 change his plans. The country was in a state of 

 anarchy, the roads being infested with thieves, and 

 Gasparo himself had the bad fortune to be taken by 

 a gang of ruffians. In consequence of these things 

 Cardan determined to return by way of Flanders and 

 the Empire. 



It was not in reason that Cardan would quit Scotland 

 and resign the care of his patient without taking the 

 stars into his counsel as to the future. He cast the 

 Archbishop's horoscope, and published it in the Genitu- 

 rarum Exempla. It was not a successful feat. In his 

 forty-eighth year, i.e. in 1560, the astrologer declared 

 that Hamilton would be in danger of poison and of 

 suffering from an affection of the heart. But the time 

 of the greatest peril seemed to lie between July 30 

 and September 21, 1554. The stars gave no warning 

 of the tragic fate which befell Archbishop Hamilton 

 in the not very distant future. For the succeeding six 

 years he governed the Church in Scotland with prudence 

 and leniency, but in 1558 he began a persecution of the 

 reformers which kindled a religious strife, highly embar- 

 rassing to the Catholic party then holding the reins of 



