heavenly; Sleaze written in the stars

The Roman naturalist Pliny described eclipses as "the most marvellous and indeed portentous occurrence in the whole of our observation of nature". Even a few centuries ago, in the wake of last Saturday's eclipse we would all have spent this week scanning the headlines for signs of catastrophe. As to who would reap the particular whirlwind, eclipses have a long tradition of creating problems for rulers. That this solar eclipse occurred in the 30-degree portion of the sky assigned to Libra, the sign opposing John Major's sun in Aries, would have undoubtedly been remarked upon.

The Prime Minister's opponents uniting in accusations of sleaze would be put down to the effects of sun and moon conjoined in his opposite sign. The possibility of Neil Hamilton's resignation cutting Major's razor thin majority even thinner, plus Speaker Boothroyd's forceful interventions and ex-whip David Willett's scandalous ones, would not be viewed as just another chapter in an ongoing sorry saga. Instead this week's events would be seen as certain harbingers of Government doom.

All this was brought to mind by my participation in a programme on eclipses on Radio 4 last Saturday. The other commentators were a scientist and a psychologist. The producer, being more accustomed to television, told me I was included as the "illustration", which could perhaps be translated as the comic relief since the programme was Science Now. During times of Science Then, the English were seen as susceptible to prodigies of all kinds.

Thomas Sprat, in his 1667 History of the Royal Society, complained, "This wild amazing of men's minds, with Prodigies and conceits of Providences ... is a vanity to which the English seem to have been always subject above others. There is scarce any Modern Historian that relates our Foreign Wars, but he has this Objection against the disposition of our Countrymen, that they used to order their affairs of the greatest importance according to some obscure Omens or predictions that passed amongst them." Presumably the Welsh and Scots were considered more enlightened.

A solar eclipse for 29 March 1652 - Black Monday - seemed calculated to drive all Britons into a frenzy. Among the dire predictions were darkness, sudden death and the end of monarchy. At Dalkeith the poor threw away their possessions, while in London anyone rich enough loaded their coaches and fled. The diarist John Evelyn noted that the alarm was so great "hardly any would work, none stir out of their houses, so ridiculously were they abused by knavish and ignorant stargazers".

The Council of State issued a pamphlet insisting that eclipses were natural events and could have no political effects. When the day dawned fine and clear and nothing terrible ensued, astrologers - like acolytes of any revealed religion - were not short of excuses. For the omen tradition of eclipses looked to the duration as well as the location of the eclipse for its time-frame of prediction. Last week's eclipse lasted for three hours, representing three years during which we will feel its effects.

When the sun is eclipsed, so is the ruler's power. Perhaps Conservative Central Office might issue a pamphlet assuring us all is well, although Major may yet remain resilient since this eclipse was merely partial. The coming total eclipse over Cornwall in 1999 could prove more intractable. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle highlights more than one ruler, including the King of Kent, who met his end during the same year as an eclipse. Were I the King of Cornwall, I should look to my future.

Ann Geneva