Lilly's Library

Two armies engaged, which shall overcome?

Contest with an adversary (7th house) · Christian Astrology, Chap. LXV, p.399 (1647 ed.)

What Lilly says

Christian Astrology, Chap. LXV, p.399 (1647 ed.) — verdict: Favorable

With two Civil War armies about to engage near Alresford, a supporter of Parliament asked which side would win. Lilly took the Moon -- ruler of the ascendant, and so of 'our army' -- exalted in Taurus in the 11th and applying to Venus, and set it against Sir Ralph Hopton's significator Saturn, which he found in its fall, burnt up under the Sun's beams, peregrine, and in aspect to nothing. He judged a clear victory for the querent's side and timed fresh good news within about twelve hours. It came: the Battle of Cheriton (29 March 1644) was a decisive Parliamentarian win, and Hopton was beaten back.

What the engine says

Querens's own verdict, computed independently from the same chart: Unclear — differs from Lilly's.

How the engine reasoned

  1. The ascendant is at Cancer 19.20° — the 1st-house cusp, standing for the querent.
  2. Querent is MOON (ruler of the 1st house); quesited is SATURN (ruler of house 7).
  3. MOON (querent) dignity: essential +4, accidental +17, combined +21. (CA p.115)
  4. SATURN (quesited) dignity: essential -4, accidental +8, combined +4. (CA p.115)
  5. Considerations before judgment: Ascendant is neither too early nor too late — chart is fit to judge. (CA p.121)
  6. No aspect currently forms between the significators.
  7. No aspect, translation, or collection connects the significators — the matter does not perfect.
  8. No perfection connects the significators, so the matter is unclear.
  9. Overall verdict: unclear.

Why the engine diverges

Lilly judged this contest not by an aspect perfecting between the two sides but by their sheer difference in strength -- and the engine computes exactly that gap, scoring the querent's Moon at +21 against the adversary's Saturn at +4 before setting it aside. Querens only returns a verdict when a direct aspect, translation, or collection connects the querent's and quesited's own rulers; here the Moon and Saturn never aspect each other, so it reads the matter as unclear. It doesn't yet decide a 'who overcomes' question by dignity differential alone, the way Lilly weighed a well-dignified significator against a badly debilitated one.

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