17th Century Almanac for July – free quarter & contribution
The 17th Century Almanac for July is an article by author Charles Cordell on Early Modern life, English Civil War free quarter, contributions and the impact of armies on communities. It also discusses Early Modern ideas of the Sun, Apollo, the divine right of kings and astrology.
The 17th Century almanac for July – the hight of the campaigning season. July was a month when armies marched. A time when soldiers descended on towns and villages to demand free quarter, food, fodder and contributions to their cause. And it was a time of terrible battles.
Today, we can enjoy July as the ‘month of summer’s prime’. It is time to bask in the long, hot ‘dog days’ of summer. But for so many in the 17th Century, July was the ‘hungry month’. By July, the store cupboard was bare. The last of the winter’s wheat, barley or rye had gone. There would be no more – and no bread – until the grain in the fields was ready to harvest in August.
17th Century Life & Agriculture in July – weeding acre strips
July should see the last of the hay crop gathered in and stacked – vital for feeding horses and store cattle through the winter. In the 17th Century, it was also the last chance to weed the corn and bean fields before harvest. This was unpleasant but necessary work involving huge numbers of people in the fields. Whole families laboured in the open fields in the summer heat weeding the acre strips.
Thistles, dock, dead-nettle, charlock, corncockle, corn marigolds, cornflowers, blackgrass and couch grass roots all needed to be weeded out, by hand. There were no weedkillers. If this work was not done, the grain would be filled with inedible seeds and the fields filled with even more weeds (and less crops) the next year. Today, our farmers are still struggling to control blackgrass that invades and kills wheat.
The ‘Hungry Month’ of July – no bread before harvest
We often have an idyllic view of pre-industrial summer. For sure, the sun must have brought happy times. But we should not forget that July was the ‘hungry month’. Almost all of the last year’s grain would have been consumed. What was left was expensive and probably mouldy. Until the new harvest had started, there was little bread to feed those working long hours in the fields.
Free Quarter & Contribution – marching armies & camp followers
July was also the hight of the campaign season. We often focus on the battles that punctuate a war. But we should never forget the impact armies have on the land and its civilian population. Troops in the 17th Century demanded quartering, food, drink and fodder.
At best, householders were paid sixpence a day per soldier for board and lodging. More usually, they were given a chit to reclaim the cost at the end of the war. This was free-quarter. Armies also expected contributions in terms of taxes to support their cause and war effort. Many civilians were left bankrupt, particularly those who had quartered the losing side.
The arrival of marching troops in July often left communities with nothing, stripping them bare in the hungriest of months. If nothing else, this must have pushed many young men to take up arms, to join the soldiers that took their food and beds, or join the Clubmen that resisted them. Young women and boys also left their homes to follow the armies, working for scraps, rather than be left with nothing.
July Battles – Marston Moor, Lansdown, Roundway & Bristol
But July is a month of brutal Civil War battles. It starts with Marston Moor fought on 2 July 1644. This momentous battle will be the climax of Divided Kingdom book #3. But it was a scene of horror for those that witnessed it. The largest battle of the English Civil War, it involved five armies.
The brutal Battle of Lansdown Hill was fought on 5 July 1643. This was followed by the Siege of Devizes from 9 July, Roundway Down on 13 July and the Storming of Bristol on 26 July. These battles – fought over three weeks in 1643 – are the setting for The Keys of Hell and Death.
Each battle was important in its own right. Combined, they saw the King’s fortunes rise to their highest point during the Civil War. However, Lansdown Hill and Bristol each came at a terrible cost, born particularly by the King’s foot regiments. The Cornish foot never truly recovered.
The Sun – Early Modern Science, Galileo & the Little Ice Age
At the beginning of the 17th Century, most people still believed in a classical, geocentric cosmos. The Sun was one of Ptolemy’s seven celestial bodies that circled the earth on crystal spheres. The heavens were an ordered, finite construct of hierarchies. But, by the end of the century, this belief was shaken by the idea of a heliocentric universe within an infinite space built by chance out of chaos. Science challenged God.
Whether people believed the Earth or Sun lay at the centre of the universe, all knew that the Sun was the ultimate ruler, ‘Lord of the Day’, the ‘fountain of life’. It governed time, agriculture and life itself. The length of the working day depended on the seasons. The Sun regulated food production. A poor harvest would result in hunger, sickness and death.
Before Galileo’s improved telescope, each heavenly body was thought to be a perfect, unchanging orb. However, in 1612, Galileo observed sunspots, irregular, ever-shifting blemishes upon the surface of the Sun. The Sun was clearly a dynamic, physical object in space – not a perfect creation.
By the 1640s, astronomers noted lengthening periods of time with fewer and fewer sunspots. This period of low sunspot activity coincided with the worst years of the Little Ice Age. We now recognise this phase of the Sun’s life as the Maunder Minimum. It was to lead to crop failure and was a key cause of The General Crisis – the global crisis – including the Thirty Years War and English Civil War.
Charles I – the Sun, Apollo, Phoebus & divine right of kings
The Sun had long been seen as a symbol of God’s glory. ‘The Light’ was a physical manifestation of God’s Divine Light in a cosmos that mirrored His spiritual truth. Scientific thinkers such as Kepler showed that the Sun was the central engine of the universe. It was the source of light and order. Science elevated the Sun to be the supreme ruler of the planets – a single all-powerful authority.
King Louise XIV of France is well known for portraying himself as the Sun King. However, he was following an example set by Charles I. Charles I used images of the Sun and Apollo in art and court masques to represent enlightenment, celestial order and the divine right of kings. Others saw these as decadent, self-deifying images of tyranny.
As a prince, Charles I appeared as Phoebus (Apollo) in Ben Jonson’s masque The Fortunate Isles and their Union, performed on Twelfth Night 1625. In 1629, he commissioned Ruben’s to paint Apollo Bestowing Royal Liberality for the ceiling of the Banqueting House at Whitehall. The image depicts the Sun God dispensing a crown, sceptre and gold from a horn of plenty.
Most famously, Charles I and Queen Henrietta Maria are depicted as Apollo and Dianna – the Sun and Moon – in a 1628 painting by Gerard van Honthorst. The massive Apollo and Diana or The Liberal Arts presented to King Charles and Henrietta Maria was commissioned by the Duke of Buckingham and now hangs over the queen’s staircase at Hampton Court.
English Civil War & Astrology – Prophecy of the White King
Almost everyone in the 17th Century believed in astrology. They believed that celestial alignments – the stars and planets – governed human, earthly affairs. Kings, ministers, parliaments and ambassadors all consulted astrologers. Generals sought guidance on when to fight battles. Merchants and farmers looked to the heavens before investing, planting or reaping a harvest.
More almanacs were printed and sold than copies of the Bible. They sold in their tens of thousands every year throughout the 1600s. People consulted these pocket-sized ‘secular bibles’ daily. They contained astronomical data, astrological predictions, medical advice, tide tables, weather forecasts, court activity, market dates and more.
But astrology took on an even deeper significance during the English Civil War. As the world turned upside down and Britain collapsed into crisis, people looked to the stars for meaning and guidance. Both parliamentarian and royalist factions turned to astrology to justify their causes and shape perceptions. Today, we would class this as Information Operations and Psychological Warfare.
Perhaps one of the most influential astrological texts of the Civil War was A Prophecy of the White King, and Dreadful Dead-Man Explained. In it, the astrologer William Lilly reworked a 12th Century prophecy to foretell the defeat and downfall of Charles I. Printed in 1644, soon after the Battle of Marston Moor (2 July 1644), Lilly’s prediction caused a sensation. All 1,800 copies sold within three days of publication.
July – Sun, Grain Moon & Galen’s choleric Leo – the lion
July is the month of Leo, the lion. Those born under its fiery influence were said to have a choleric temperament. According to Galen, their hot and dry humour tended to towards being ruddy, fierce, active and valiant. For Leo – the regal lion, ‘King of Beasts’, symbol of kingship – is ruled by the sun.
The Sun radiated vitality, authority and kingly power. Leo reflected that power as sovereignty. However, the Sun’s heat in summer was thought to increase the amount of yellow bile within the body. Galen taught that this could create an excess of choler. Those of a choleric disposition were particularly susceptible. An imbalance of this humour could lead to irritability, aggression, hot-headed or irrational behaviour.
The cold, moist, silver light of the Moon (the Celestial Queen) was the antipathy to the Sun. This year a new moon will rise on 14 July to be full on 29 July 2026. This will be the Grain Moon, come earlier than usual. Traditionally, harvest should follow, when the grains are fullest with the Moon’s vital energy.
Of the other five classical planets, bright Venus and Jupiter will be visible on the western horizon after sunset. Saturn too will rise early in the evening. Look out for the Perseid meteors from the middle of July. They should look their best around the new moon on 14 July.
William Lilly was not aware of the far-off presence of the planet Uranus. (It was discovered to be a planet in 1781.) However, today’s astrologers foresee unpredictable energy and potential shocks around the conjunction of warlike Mars and Uranus, the planet of change and revolution on 4 July. They say that things should become clearer as the month ends with the full moon. Let us hope they are right.
St Swithin’s Day – Sirius & the ‘dog days’ of summer
Finally, 15 July is St Swithin’s Day, said to set the weather for the next forty days. These should be the long, hot ‘dog days’ of summer, following the rising of Sirius in the evening sky. Today, we know the importance of the ocean currents and the jet stream in regulating our weather and climate. However, in the 17th Century, we still relied upon folklore.
St Swithin was the Bishop of Winchester from 852 to 862. On his request, he was buried in a simple grave where “the sweet rain of heaven” could fall upon him. However, on 15 July 971 his body was enshrined within the cathedral. It is said that the pious Saxon saint was so outraged by this move that a huge storm struck England and it rained for forty days after.
Thankfully, St Swithin’s shrine mostly survived the Storming of Winchester and Puritan iconoclastic desecration of Winchester Cathedral in December 1642. But that is another (short) story – DESECRATION.
Follow & Read More of the 17th Century Almanac
Whether you are weeding your crops, or feeding armies, I hope you can enjoy the dog days of ‘summer’s prime’. As ever, if this post has left you with nothing but an empty cupboard, please tell me how to refill it.
I will post more of the 17th Century Almanac, next month. Each article discusses a topic of interest, such as 17th Century Climate Change and conflict, as well as annual activity in Early Modern Britain for that month. If you would like to receive an email notification of the next post, please click the button to follow.
17th Century History – articles, maps & events
In the meantime, this website includes more posts and articles about life in 17th Century Britain, Europe and the Americas at Historical Notes and Maps. These include notes and pages on the impact of the Little Ice Age and The General Crisis of the 17th Century. They include articles on the English Revolution and Great Rebellion. They also include Pike and Shot Warfare and battles of the English Civil War.
You can also find more posts on Early Modern history, Living History and re-enactment at News & Events. You may also wish to read about the English Civil War history talks and battlefield walks I give. If you would like to meet, why not check out the calendar at Charles Cordell Events.
Divided Kingdom – English Civil War historical fiction
The 17th Century almanac blog posts provide a backdrop and set the scene for the Divided Kingdom books. This historical fiction series is set in Early Modern Britain during the English Civil War. These posts are part of their backstory.
The Divided Kingdom books take a fresh approach. They are not based on a single hero. They do not take sides. Their voices – ordinary men and women – face each other in the chaos of Britain in civil war. They are both relatable and sharply relevant today. They are also as historically accurate as is possible.
Please do check out some of the writing at Divided Kingdom Books, including reviews, book tasters and a FREE ebook short story.
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