John Aubrey: My Own Life by Ruth Scurr Page A

astrology, or some way or other.’ This is from Book I, Chapter LVI of Machiavelli’s Discourses , and I believe it true. On the first day of this month of May, my mother saw a sign of dire things to come when she went outside to read the time on our horizontal dial at Broad Chalke. It was a very clear sunny day, but from just before eleven until twelve, two circles appeared in the sky: a rainbow and a reversed rainbow, its bow turned down and the two ends standing upwards. The sun was caught inside the intersecting circles. My mother was the first to see it. She ran back into the house and told all the servants, who went outside and saw it too. The vicar and his family also saw it, and others who were hunting on the Downs.
    . . .
    3 June
    On this day a young officer in the Parliament’s new-modelled army, Cornet George Joyce, carried King Charles prisoner from Holmeby House. My mother saw a portent of this terrible news last month.
    . . .
    Anno 1648
    6 January
    On this day Dr Hannibal Potter was formally removed from the Presidency of Trinity College, but he refuses to leave his lodgings.
    . . .
    February
    I am at Broad Chalke. My friend Mr John Lydall writes to me from Oxford. He hopes to be able to send me some Aurum Fulminans – or exploding gold – as soon as our chemist (Dr Thomas Willis) has prepared it. It is extremely susceptible to friction when heated and might have medicinal uses, as well as being helpful in our investigations into the nature of combustion. Aurum Fulminans is one of the few explosives not compounded with nitre.
    Mr Lydall has not yet received 28 my books, but expects them daily. His caution money is 3 li. Mr Ralph Bathurst and my other Trinity College friends send me their love via Mr Lydall: how much I miss their company.
    . . .
    March
    Mr Lydall has done 29 as I asked and delivered my two pairs of sheets and pillow-bed to the carrier: but my towel is still at the laundress’s in Oxford. Mr Bathurst has sent me a catalogue of the writers of the Saracen history. My friends assure me that they are as unhappy as I am that I am deprived of their company and the comforts of my study. They recognise me as one born for the honour and preservation of learning. How I miss them.
    . . .
    April
    In regard of the recent contempt of Fellows, officers and members of the University of Oxford towards the authority of Parliament, all who will not submit to it shall be removed from their positions in colleges and halls, and the Parliamentarian Visitors will appoint others to their places.
    It is difficult to evade the simple question: ‘Do you submit to the authority of Parliament in this Visitation?’
    . . .
    Hannibal Potter 30 has escaped a violent ejection from his lodgings by fleeing in advance. He was found guilty of contempt of the Parliament and will be replaced by a Puritan.
    . . .
    27 May
    On this day Parliament passed an Ordinance enabling the Committee for the University of Oxford to send for convicted malignants and to destroy superstitious relics.
    . . .
    June
    My good friend William Radford has been removed from his Fellowship at Trinity by the Parliamentarian Visitors.
    . . .
    John Wilkins, whose father was an Oxford goldsmith, has been made Warden of Wadham College by the Parliamentarian Visitors.
    . . .
    The south front 31 of Wilton House has burnt down while the rooms were being aired. Philip, Earl of Pembroke, will rebuild it, from designs by Mr John Webb, who is married to Inigo Jones’s niece. Mr Inigo Jones is now too old to come himself to Wilton.
    . . .
    At Morecomb-bottome 32 , in the parish of Broad Chalke, on the north side of the river, it has been observed time out of mind that when the water breaks out there, it foretells a dear year of corn. It has happened again this year.
    . . .
    The walls of the church 33 at Broad Chalke, and of the buttery at the farm there, shoot out nitre and a beautiful red, it is lighter than scarlet, an oriental horseflesh colour.
    . . .
    The River