Henry Machyn's Diary. 07 Mar 1556. The vij day of Marche be-gane the blassyng [star] at nyght, and yt dyd shutt owt fyre to grett [wonder] and marvell to the pepull, and contynud serten [nights].

Note. The blasyng star. This is recorded by Stowe to have appeared on the 4th March, and continued for twelve days (Summarie 1566); but in his chronicle 1580 he limits its continuance to five nights from the 6th to the 10th of March.

Note. P. 101. The blazing star which is noticed in this page, and of which Stowe's account has been quoted in p. 348, was calculated by Halley to have been the same comet which had before appeared in the year 1264, and which, having completed its presumed revolution of two hundred and ninety-two years, may be expected to appear again in the present year, 1848. The learned Fabricius described the comet of 1556 as of a size equal to half that of the moon. Its beams were short and flickering, with a motion like that of the flame of a conflagration or of a torch waved by the wind. It alarmed the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who, believing his death at hand, is said to have exclaimed "His ergo indiciis me mea fata vocant." This warning, it is asserted, contributed to the determination which the monarch formed, and executed a few months later, of resigning the imperial crown to his brother Ferdinand.