William Laud (1573 - 1645)

William Laud rose from impoverished beginnings to the rank of Archbishop of Canterbury in 1633. He was a close advisor to Charles I, and became a hated figure for his persecution of Puritans and other religious dissidents resulted in his trial and execution by the House of Commons. There had been talk of Laud's being hung as a criminal, leading to William Lilly's horary question ("Christian Astrology", London, 1647) regarding Laud's manner of death. He was beheaded on 10 January 1645.

Lilly, Gadbury, Ashmole and Partridge all use the same data for Laud's birth, but the latter is less than convinced of it. Harvey, too, is suspicious of the time of birth. Lilly published a pamphlet in 1645 ("A Collection of Ancient and Modern Prophecies...) which included his judgement of Laud's nativity. The data there provided are 4.57 am, 7 October 1573 (OS), Reading, Berkshire, 52° north latitude. Again Harvey provides the positions of the planets in Lilly's chart, but not the house cusps, therefore all cusps in the following chart are computer generated and have been rounded to reflect their uncertainty. The computer calculates that both Mercury and Jupiter are retrograde this is noted in neither Harvey's own calculations nor those he has transcribed from Lilly's work.