PART FOUR
HARNESSSING the SUN

When Elizabeth I of England received the papal bull of 1582, astronomers urged her to make the change to the new “Gregorian” calendar, while Protestant bishops opposed it. This engraving from c. 1641, Father Time Carrying the Pope Back to Rome, catches the popular mood. As the poem beneath the image puts it, “This load of vanity, this pedler’s packe / This trunk of trash.…” Illu(p4.1)