ks of
eclipses, rings about the sun, and the like, as signs of the approaching
end of the world.(98)

(98) For Bodin, see Theatr., lib. ii, cited by Pingre, vol. i, p. 45;
also a vague citation in Baudrillart, Bodin et son Temps, p. 360.
For Polydore Virgil, see English History, p. 97 (in Camden Society
Publications). For Cranmer, see Remains, vol. ii, p. 535 (in Parker
Society Publications). For Latimer, see Sermons, second Sunday in
Advent, 1552.

In 1580, under Queen Elizabeth, there was set forth an "order of
prayer to avert God's wrath from us, threatened by the late terrible
earthquake, to be used in all parish churches." In connection with this
there was also commended to the faithful "a godly admonition for the
time present"; and among the things referred to as evidence of God's
wrath are comets, eclipses, and falls of snow.

This view held sway in the Church of England during Elizabeth's whole
reign and far into the Stuart period: Strype, the ecclesiastical
annalist, gives ample evidence of this, and among the more curious
examples is the surmise that the comet of 1572 was a token of Divine
wrath provoked by the St. Bartholomew massacre.

As to the Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems to have been
active in carrying the superstition from the sixteenth century to the
seventeenth, and Archbishop Bramhall cites Scripture in support of
it. Rather curiously, while the diary of Archbishop Laud shows so much
superstition regarding dreams as portents, it shows little or none
regarding comets; but Bishop Jeremy Taylor, strong as he was, evidently
favoured the usual view. John Howe, the eminent Nonconformist divine
in the latter part of the century, seems to have regarded the comet
superstition as almost a fundamental article of belief; he laments the
total neglect of comets and portents generally, declaring that this
neglect betokens want of reverence for the Ruler of the world; he
expresses contempt for scientific inquiry regarding comets, insists that
they may be natural bodies and yet supernatural portents, and ends by
saying, "I conceive it very safe to suppose that some very considerable
thing, either in the way of judgment or mercy, may ensue, according as
the cry of persevering wickedness or of penitential prayer is more or
less loud at that time."(99)

(99) For Liturgical Services of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, see Parker
Society Publications, pp. 569, 570. For Strype, see his Ecc