WITCHCRAFT 367
comment that their prognostications about an eclipse of the
sun had so alarmed the whole nation that hardly any one
worked or stirred out of doors when it occurred.1 The two
best-known astrologers in early Stuart times were John Lambe
and William Lilly. The former, a crystal-gazer, enjoyed great
popularity in the iGso's, and among his wealthy clients was
the duke of Buckingham, whose amorous adventures he was
popularly supposed to have aided with love charms. For this
reason, among others, he incurred the enmity of the London
mob, and was beaten to death two months before his patron's
assassination. Lilly had a longer and luckier career and re-
tained the confidence of the credulous to the end of his life.
He specialized in cryptic prophesying of both public and private
events, and was as ready to claim to have foretold the execution
of Charles I as to accept payment for predicting the success
of a courtship.
More serious than credulity in impostors was the widespread
belief in witchcraft. Probably in all ages such a belief was
common among the masses, but in the seventeenth century,
at least, it was not rejected by the highest or most learned in
the land. The basis of the belief seems to have been the desire
to explain what was otherwise unaccountable, together with
fear of the malignity of witches. James, who while still king
of Scotland wrote a book called Damonologie to demonstrate
the reality of witches and who prided himself on his skill in
detecting them, apparently was first convinced of their existence
by the unseasonably rough weather that disturbed his voyage
when he brought his wife, Anne of Denmark, home to Scotland.
The common people likewise (as a contemporary remarked),
if they suffered any adverse sickness, or loss of corn or cattle,
promptly accused some neighbour or other as a witch.2 When-
ever a misfortune happened in the countryside, some one was
liable to recall that an old deformed male, or much more
probably female, had once cursed the unlucky individual; since
the curse had come true, the curser was bewitched; once that
stage was reached, vivid imaginations supplied evidence that
the witch was in league with the devil, was visited by imps, and
had a familiar. Those higher in the social scale were often
willing to accept the evidence of certain tests—to throw the
1 Diary, 5 Apr. 1652.
2 The Oxinden Letters, ed. Dorothy Gardiner, p. 221,