Oliver Cromwell

Cromwell's place in British and European history is well-known and requires no introduction here. For his data, Harvey accepts John Booker's of 3.00am on 25 April 1599 OS at Huntingdon, as did Lilly. Harvey suspects that Gadbury, too, based his "modest aberration" on this same time.

Harvey quotes John Aubrey (MS. Aubr. 9. fol.33), a friend of all the above-named astrologers, as follows referring to Thomas Hobbes: "His horoscope is Taurus, having in it a satellitium of five of the seven planets. It is a maxim in astrology – vide Ptol. Centil. – that a native that has a satellitium in his ascendant becomes more eminent in his life than ordinary, e.g. diverse, which see in Origanus, etc. and Oliver Cromwell had so, etc."

Using 3 am local apparent time and 52° north latitude (as would probably have been the case in the 17th century), it is not possible to reproduce a satellitium in the 1st house. Adjusting the latitude for Huntingdon's 11' minutes of west longitude makes no difference. Harvey has used Campanus cusps which does achieve four planets in the 1st house, but gives an Ascendant of 24° Pisces, this cannot be reproduced with astrological software which calculates the rising degree as 21° 25'. The chart shown below uses Booker's data, but does not agree with Harvey's calculations and should not be assumed to represent the chart that Booker and Lilly used.