Post #17. The World Turned Upside Down: Magic and Mayhem in 17th-Century London
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The death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603 marked the end of an era. The magical confidence and intellectual ferment of the Renaissance began to curdle into a century of unprecedented turmoil. The 17th century would see London convulsed by civil war, the execution of a king, the rise of radical new religious and political ideas, and the devastation of plague. This was not just a period of political and social upheaval; it was a period of profound magical crisis.
The carefully constructed magical order of the Tudors, with its cult of the Virgin Queen and its balance of high and low magic, was shattered. The spiritual energies of the city were thrown into chaos, creating a volatile and dangerous magical environment. This was the world turned upside down, a time when the old certainties dissolved and anything seemed possible, for good or for ill.
The Gunpowder Plot: A Failed Magical Coup
The tone for the century was set early, with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. This was not just a failed terrorist attack; it was a failed magical coup. Guy Fawkes and his co-conspirators were not just political dissidents; they were radical Catholics who believed they were engaged in a holy war, a magical struggle for the soul of England.
Their plan to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the state opening was an act of immense symbolic and magical significance. It was an attempt to destroy in a single, fiery blast the entire magical and political establishment of the new Protestant regime: the King, the Lords, and the Commons. The failure of the plot was celebrated not just as a political victory, but as a magical one, a sign of God's providential favour for the new Stuart dynasty.
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The English Civil War: A Nation at War with Itself
The tensions that had been simmering beneath the surface of Jacobean and Caroline England finally exploded in the 1640s with the outbreak of the English Civil War. This was more than just a conflict between King and Parliament; it was a war of ideas, a war of religion, a war for the magical soul of the nation.
Both sides employed magical as well as military means. Astrologers like William Lilly became powerful figures, publishing popular almanacks that predicted the outcome of battles and offered magical advice to their respective factions. Prophecies, both ancient and new, were circulated to boost morale and demoralise the enemy. The war was fought not just on the battlefields of Edgehill and Naseby, but in the astral plane, in the hearts and minds of the English people.
The Execution of a King: The Ultimate Blasphemy
The culmination of this magical civil war was the execution of King Charles I in 1649. This was an act of unprecedented and terrifying magical significance. For centuries, the king had been seen as God's anointed representative on earth, a sacred figure imbued with divine power. The execution of a king was not just a political act; it was a deicide, a ritual murder that shattered the magical aura of the monarchy and sent a shockwave through the spiritual fabric of the nation.
The execution took place in the heart of London, outside the Banqueting House in Whitehall. It was a public spectacle, a powerful and bloody ritual that proclaimed the death of the old order and the birth of a new, republican one. The magical consequences of this act were immense. It created a power vacuum at the very heart of the state, a spiritual wound that would fester for years to come.
The Rise of Radicalism: A Thousand New Faiths
The chaos of the Civil War and the Interregnum created a fertile environment for the growth of radical new religious and political ideas. The old, hierarchical structure of the church had been destroyed, and in its place arose a bewildering variety of new sects and movements: the Levellers, the Diggers, the Ranters, the Quakers, the Fifth Monarchists. Each had their own vision of a new Jerusalem, their own unique blend of spiritual revelation and political radicalism.
This was a time of immense spiritual creativity, but also of immense magical danger. The old spiritual containers had been broken, and the powerful religious energies of the people were flowing in a thousand different directions. London became a cauldron of prophetic fervour, a city of competing apocalypses, a place where the veil between the worlds seemed to have been torn asunder.
This period of chaos and crisis was, in essence, a massive, uncontrolled magical working. The old, magical structures of the city were being torn down, their spiritual energies rendered volatile and unstable. The temple was being prepared for a new and terrible consecration.
The stage was now set for the final acts of this century of turmoil: the Great Plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666. These two events, coming one after the other, would be interpreted by many as a divine judgment on a sinful nation. But for a select few, they were something else entirely: the two final, necessary stages in a great alchemical working, a process of purification and destruction that would pave the way for the rebuilding of London as a new and more powerful kind of magical temple.
In our next post, we will explore the Great Plague, the Nigredo of the London alchemical working, the blackening that had to precede the final, fiery purification.
Before creation, there must be destruction. Follow the Secret City series.
Join us as we continue to uncover the secrets of the Secret City.
Solomon Jones (Author/Researcher)
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