The village of Hersham, with its quiet green, its duck pond, and its air of settled Surrey respectability, seems an unlikely final refuge for one of the most controversial figures of 17th-century England.
And yet here, on a small estate in what is now one of the most pleasant villages in the Walton-on-Thames area, William Lilly — astrologer, propagandist, apparent prophet, suspected arsonist, and the man his admirers called the “English Merlin” — chose to spend the last two decades of his life.
He is almost entirely forgotten by the town that once harboured him. He shouldn’t be.
From Leicestershire to London
William Lilly was born in 1602 in Diseworth, Leicestershire, to a farming family of modest means. His father’s financial difficulties prevented him from completing the kind of education his evident intelligence warranted. At eighteen, he made the journey to London that so many ambitious young men of his era made, arriving with little but his wits.
He found employment as a servant to Gilbert Wright, Master of the Salters’ Company — one of the ancient livery companies of the City of London. It was a position that gave Lilly access to a world far above his origins: educated men, books, conversation, and the quietly accumulated knowledge of a merchant household.
When Wright died, Lilly secured his financial independence through a move that was entirely conventional for the period and is rarely noted without a raised eyebrow: he married Wright’s widow. The inheritance gave him the leisure and the resources to dedicate himself fully to the study that would make his name.
That study was astrology.
Christian Astrology and the Nation in Crisis
In 1647, at the height of the English Civil War, Lilly published Christian Astrology — a massive, comprehensive compendium of astrological knowledge and practice. Its significance lay not in its content alone but in its language: it was the first major astrological work printed in English rather than Latin.
This was a revolutionary act. By writing in the vernacular, Lilly opened the study of the stars to anyone who could read — artisans, merchants, soldiers, ordinary people seeking guidance in a country torn apart by civil conflict. A nation in crisis turned to the skies for answers, and Lilly gave them the tools to look.
The timing was perfect. By the late 1650s, his annual almanacs were selling approximately 30,000 copies a year — extraordinary figures for the period. He was, in the most literal sense, a household name. People named their children after him. Soldiers on campaign wrote to him seeking predictions about battles. His word carried weight.
The Great Fire — and the Parliamentary Inquiry
Lilly’s most enduring claim to fame is the one that also came closest to destroying him.
In 1651 — fifteen years before the event — he published a series of prophetic hieroglyphics that depicted, with uncomfortable clarity, a city in flames and people tumbling into graves. The images were cryptic, as such things are designed to be, but their reference was not lost on contemporaries.
Then, in September 1666, the Great Fire of London destroyed roughly 13,200 houses and 87 churches across the medieval City.
The authorities, casting about for explanations, remembered Lilly’s hieroglyphics. He was summoned before a parliamentary committee investigating the fire’s causes. The committee’s concern was not whether Lilly had magical powers — it was whether his accurate prediction implied prior knowledge of, or involvement in, the disaster.
Lilly handled the examination with characteristic confidence. He explained, carefully and at length, that his hieroglyphics had been symbolic and prophetic rather than operational. He was released. But the episode illustrated the peculiar kind of authority he wielded: powerful enough to be considered a suspect, credible enough to be questioned by Parliament.
The English Merlin — and His Enemies
Lilly’s political importance during the Civil War period is difficult to overstate. He was, in effect, a propagandist for the Parliamentarian cause — issuing predictions that consistently favoured the forces opposing King Charles I and, later, supporting the Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell. He was on intimate terms with Cromwell himself and with figures such as Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke, the jurist and parliamentarian.
His supporters called him the “English Merlin” — a comparison that placed him in a lineage of prophetic counsel stretching back to Arthurian legend, the astrologer-adviser at the ear of power. His enemies, who were numerous and vocal, called him a “juggling wizard and imposter” — a fraud trading on superstition to accumulate money and influence.
Both descriptions contained a measure of truth. Lilly was undoubtedly brilliant, and his almanacs contained genuine astrological learning. He was also a skilled self-promoter with a sharp eye for what a paying public wanted to hear, and a political chameleon who navigated the lethal shifts of mid-17th-century English politics with remarkable survival instincts.
Retirement to Hersham
The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 — the return of King Charles II — was the event that finally reduced Lilly’s political relevance. His association with Cromwell and the Parliamentary cause made him a figure of suspicion under the new regime. He was briefly imprisoned, though released without charge.
Using the considerable fortune he had amassed through decades of almanac sales and private consultation, Lilly purchased a small estate in Hersham, Surrey. The choice of location is suggestive: close enough to London to remain connected, far enough to be effectively retired, in a part of England with no particular associations with the Civil War controversies that had defined his career.
In Hersham, Lilly underwent one of the more improbable late-career transformations in English intellectual history: he became a country doctor. He studied medicine, obtained a licence to practise from the Bishop of London, and spent his final two decades treating the ailments of his neighbours in Hersham and the surrounding area.
By all accounts he was a conscientious and capable physician. The combination of his residual celebrity and his genuine care for local people made him a respected figure in the community — a long way from the crowded print shops of London and the parliamentary committees that had once examined him.
William Lilly died in Hersham on 9 June 1681. He was 78 years old.
The Legacy
Lilly is remembered today primarily within the specialised world of astrology, where his Christian Astrology remains a foundational text and is still in print. Among historians of the English Civil War, he is recognised as a significant figure in the propaganda battle between Crown and Parliament. Among historians of popular culture, his almanacs represent one of the most remarkable publishing phenomena of the 17th century.
In Hersham and Walton-on-Thames, he is almost entirely forgotten. There is no plaque on the site of his estate, no street named in his honour, no local history exhibition that features him prominently.
This is, to put it gently, an oversight. The village green at Hersham — so peaceful, so quintessentially English — was once the local territory of a man who had predicted the burning of London, known Oliver Cromwell personally, been questioned by Parliament, and accumulated one of the most extraordinary reputations of his age.
He retired here because it was quiet. It still is. That, presumably, was rather the point.
William Lilly’s Christian Astrology (1647) is available in modern reprint editions. His autobiography, written in 1668, is one of the most vivid personal accounts of life in 17th-century England and is freely available online.