A man, it is sometimes said, is to be judged by the company he keeps, and we will therefore say a few words of this astrologer's friends. Of men like William Pennington, of Muncaster, in Cumberland, 'of good family and estate,' introduced to Lilly by David Ramsay, the king's clockmaker, in 1634, who are otherwise unknown to us, we will say nothing. But the reader surely knows something of Hugh Peters, the Puritan preacher--who could do other things as well as preach: with him Lilly had 'much conference and some private discourses,' and once in the Christmas holidays, a time of leisure, Peters and the Lord Gray of Groby invited him to Somerset House, and requested him to bring two of his almanacs. At another time Peters took Lilly along with him into Westminster Hall 'to hear the king tried.' But the most influential friend, perhaps, was Sir Bulstrode Whitlocke, a man well known to readers of English history as very prominent in the time of the Commonwealth and Protectorate. He was high steward of Oxford, member of the council of state, one of the keepers of the great seal, a man very learned in the law, who made long discourses to Oliver Cromwell on the matter of the kingship, and on other matters. He went to Sweden as Cromwell's ambassador, and was one of the great men of that time, or one of the considerable men. Sir Bulstrode, according to Ashmole, was Lilly's patron; and indeed the great man did befriend him long, and help him out of difficulties. The acquaintance began in this wise: Sir Bulstrode being sick, Mrs. Lisle, 'wife to John Lisle,' afterward one of the keepers of the great seal, came to Lilly, bringing a specimen of the sick man. Whereupon the astrologer, having inspected the specimen, 'set a figure,' and said, 'the sick for that time would recover, but by means of a surfeit would dangerously relapse within one month; which he did, by eating of trouts at Mr. Sands' house in Surrey.' Therefore, as there could no longer be any doubt of Lilly's skill, he, at the time of Sir Bulstrode's second sickness, was called to him daily; and though the family physician said 'there was no hope of recovery,' the astrologer said there was 'no danger of death,' and 'that he would be sufficiently well in five or six weeks; and so he was.' This Mrs. Lisle, who brought the specimen, being apparently one of Lilly's she friends, we will add that she made herself remarkable by saying at the martyrdom of King Charles I, in 1648, that 'her blood leaped within her to see the tyrant fall.' For this, and for other things, the woman was finally beheaded; it being impossible otherwise to stop her tongue; and I have no tear for her.