JOHN LILLV. 
S4b 
aftorded some ground by receiving an application from the kiri^, 
then in custody of the army at Hampton-court ; for in the August 
preceding, when his majesty had framed thoughts of escaping from 
the soldiery, and hiding himself somewhere near the city, he sent, ais 
Lilly tells us, Mrs. Whorwood, to know in what quarter of the nation 
he might be safely concealed, till he thought proper to discover him- 
self. Lilly, having erected a figure, said the king might be safely con- 
cealed in some part of Essex, about twenty miles from London, where 
the lady happened to have a house fit for his majesty’s reception, 
and went away next morning to acquaint him with it. But the king 
was gone away in the night westward, and surrendered himself at 
length to Hammond, in the Isle of Wight ; and thus the project was 
rendered abortive. 
He was again applied to by the same lady in 1648, for the same 
purpose, while the king was at Carisbrook castle ; whence having laid 
a design to escape by sawing the iron bars of his chamber window, 
Mrs. Whorwood came to our author, and acquainted him with it. Lilly 
procured a proper saw, made by one Farmer, an ingenious locksmith, 
in Bow-lane, Cheapside, and furnished her with aquafortis besides, 
by vvhich means his majesty had nearly succeeded ; but his heart fail- 
ing, he proceeded no farther. About September, the same lady came 
a third time to Lilly on the same errand. The parliament commis- 
sioners were now appointed to treat with his majesty ; on which our 
astrologer, after perusing his figure, told the lady the commissioners 
would be there on such a day, appointed the day and hour when to re- 
ceive them, and directed, as soon as the propositions were read, to sign 
them, and make haste with all speed to come up with the commission- 
ers to London, the army being then far distant from London, and the 
city enraged stoutly against them. The king is said to have promised 
he Would do so, but was diverted from it by lord Say. 
All this while our astrologer continued true to his own interest, by 
serving that of the parliament party, from whom he received this year, 
1648, fifty pounds in cash, and an order from the council of state for 
a pension of 1001. per ann. which was granted to him for furnishing 
them with a perfect knowledge of the chief concernments in France. 
This he obtained by means of a secular priest, with whom he had 
been formerly acquainted, and who now was confessor to one of the 
French secretaries. Lilly received the pension two years, when he 
threw it up, with the employment, on some account or other. He read 
public lectures upon astrology in 1648 and 1649, for the improvement 
ctf young students in that art, and succeeded so well, both as a prac- 
titioner and teacher, that we find him, in 1651 and 1652, laying out 
near 20001. in a house and lands at Horsham. During the siege of Col- 
chester, he and Booker were sent thither to encourage the soldiers, 
which they did by assuring them that the town would soon be taken, 
which proved true, and was perhaps not difficult to be foreseen. In 
1650 he published that the parliament should not continue, but a new 
government arise, agreeably thereto ; and in the almanack for 1653, 
he also asserted that the parliament stood upon a ticklish foundation, 
and that the commonalty would join together against them. On 
this he was called before the committee of plundered ministers, but 
2 X 
