Seventeenth-century Britain was gripped by chronic instability.

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Over the course of the century, religious tensions pulled the country’s civilians apart; civil war raged across England, Scotland and Ireland while kings were executed and governments toppled.

“This is a particularly chaotic period of history,” says Dr Martha McGill, speaking on the HistoryExtra podcast. “[As well as] periods of civil warfare, you’ve got outbreaks of plague, you’ve got famine.

“There are an awful lot of uncertainties to life. People died unexpectedly and their children died young, very commonly. Faced with all of these challenges, people look for reassurance.”

Many found comfort in prayer and scripture. But some instead turned to prophecy and divination.

While this might seem to have echoes of witchcraft to our modern minds, trying to read the future wasn’t necessarily blasphemous in the early modern period. Instead, it was understood as an attempt to glimpse God’s plan.

But how, exactly, did these early modern Britons try to see the future? What methods did they use? And why did they believe those methods worked?

The 17th century saw an explosion of printed almanacs and prophetic guides. Astrology offered ordinary people a structured way to interpret uncertainty, and a means of predicting everything from the outcomes of harvests to broader political events.

Among the most famous of the figures leading these emerging practices was William Lilly, an astrologer whose annual Merlinus Anglicus almanacs sold in the tens of thousands. During the English Civil War, Lilly became notorious for predicting political upheavals, including ominous ‘fiery visitations’ that many later linked to the Great Fire of London.

Others wrote competing almanacs and despite initially drawing the ire of church leaders and intellectuals, they proved immensely popular. Such prophecies provided a sense that a pre-ordained fate, rather than chaos, governed the world.

But this was all part of an evolving Christian lens.

This portrait of William Lilly (1602–1681), reproduced in the late 19th century from his Christian Astrology, shows the astrologer whose reputation soared — and soured — after the Great Fire of London. Accused of having predicted the blaze 14 years earlier, Lilly was even questioned as a possible arsonist, though he was cleared.
This portrait of William Lilly (1602–1681), reproduced in the late 19th century from his Christian Astrology, shows the astrologer whose reputation soared — and soured — after the Great Fire of London. Accused of having predicted the blaze 14 years earlier, Lilly was even questioned as a possible arsonist, though he was cleared. (Photo by Getty Images)

The search for signs

The Protestant Reformation had stripped away many rituals of the medieval Church, leaving a spiritual vacuum that people filled with other methods of finding meaning.

“People look for some kind of guidance,” McGill explains, “some way of seeing, ‘Well, is it a good idea to get on this ship and go try and seek my fortune on it?’”

And for many, fortune-telling deepened their connection to Christianity, rather than conflicting with their fate. “Many practices relied on the belief that God has made a plan for the universe, and that is writ everywhere in the natural world,” McGill explains. “The elements reflect His will in some respect.”

That conviction transformed the natural world into a language that could be read to uncover the future. People watched how nutshells burned in the fire, or how oil floated on water, or how smoke rose from a hearth. Each offered signs for what the future might hold.

Prophecies from snails, moles and wolves

Animals, God’s living creations, also offered keen clues.

“You could search in a snail’s shell very carefully,” McGill says, “and if you were lucky, you might find a little purple stone that supposedly lived within the body of snails. If you then placed that stone under your tongue, you might be able to prophesise and tell of future things.”

Engraved with interlocking stars and mystical symbols, the Sigillum Dei — the “Seal of God” — was used by the Elizabethan mathematician and occult philosopher John Dee (1527–1608). Dee placed this seal beneath one of his crystal “shew stones,” the reflective objects through which he and his scryer attempted to communicate with angels during their esoteric experiments.
Engraved with interlocking stars and mystical symbols, the Sigillum Dei — the “Seal of God” — was used by the Elizabethan mathematician and occult philosopher John Dee (1527–1608). Dee placed this seal beneath one of his crystal “shew stones,” the reflective objects through which he and his scryer attempted to communicate with angels during their esoteric experiments. (Photo by Getty Images)

Others resorted to darker – and bloodier – rites. “You could try getting a mole, cutting it open, and eating its heart while it’s still palpitating,” McGill continues. “This is thought to give you insight into the future.”

Other methods included sleeping with a wolf’s tooth under one’s pillow, inhaling vapours of violet or linseed, or burning the blood of a dove. These all were said to be ways of reading God’s natural language, summoning visions or revealing hidden truths.

In practice, looking to the future was at the edge of a fraught moral frontier. In the Christian context of the early modern period, interpreting God’s signs in nature was acceptable, but conjuring spirits or invoking magic wasn’t. But where that line was drawn in practice was unclear.

England’s witch trials of the late 1500s and 1600s often drew on the same fears that surrounded fortune-telling, homing in on the idea that someone might possess secret, forbidden knowledge.

For McGill, these customs reveal how ordinary people in a violent century sought to make sense of their world, with the promise of foresight (however tenuous) providing some measure of control.

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Dr Martha McGill was speaking to Ellie Cawthorne on the HistoryExtra podcast. Listen to the full conversation.

Authors

James OsborneDigital content producer

James Osborne is a digital content producer at HistoryExtra where he writes, researches, and edits articles, while also conducting the occasional interview

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