So Lilly, whose business as astrological prophet brought him into close contact with many kinds of men—­men of all parties and sects—­went on getting information of all, and by all kinds of means; and imparting it again to all who had need; but always he had an eye to the ’main chance,’ and provided well for himself.  With each of his three wives he got money.  The second one, who, as we remember, ’was of the nature of Mars,’ died in February, 1654, and the bereaved man says that he thereupon ‘shed no tear;’ which we can well believe.  Dry eyed, or with only such moisture as comes of joy, he, within eight months after the departure of Mrs. Mars, took another to his bosom, one who, he says, ’is signified in my nativity by Jupiter in Libra, and she is so totally in her conditions, to my great comfort.’

After the Restoration, Lilly was apprehended and committed to the Gate House.  ‘I was had,’ he says, ’into the guard room, which I thought to be hell:  some therein were sleeping, others swearing, others smoking tobacco.  In the chimney of the room I believe there were two bushels of broken tobacco-pipes, and almost half one load of ashes.’  A sad time and place:  but his ‘old friend, Sir Edward Walker, garter king-at-arms,’ made interest for him in the right quarters, and he was released from the place he ‘thought to be hell.’  In 1660 he sued out his pardon for all offences ‘under the broad seal of England.’

Of Lilly’s religion (so called) there is not much to be said:  in early life he ‘leaned to Puritanism,’ as we have been told, and he probably leaned on that so long as he could find support in it; but after the Restoration (in 1663) he was made churchwarden of Walton-upon-Thames, and settled ‘the affairs of that distracted parish’ as well as he could; and upon leaving the place, ‘forgave them seven pounds’ which was due to him.

Soon after this, when the great plague of 1665 came upon London, Lilly gave up business there and retired into the country to his wife and family, and continued there for the remainder of his life; going up to the great city occasionally to visit his friends, or on calls to business in his special line:  one call from a high quarter came to him in this shape: 

’Monday, 22d October, 1666.

At the committee appointed to inquire after the causes of the late fires: 

’Ordered, That Mr. Lilly attend the committee on Friday next, being the 25th day of October, at two o’clock in the afternoon, in the speaker’s chamber, to answer such questions as shall be then and there asked him.

‘ROBERT BROOKE.’