Cromwell’s third of September

The old verse calendar of unlucky days warned that the third and tenth of September bring harm to the members, and Aubrey’s century saw it borne out in Oliver Cromwell’s third of September. On that day he beat the Scots at Dunbar in 1650 and at Worcester in 1651, and on that day in 1658 he died. John Gibbon, whom Aubrey reprinted, added that the Great Fire of London was burning on the same day in 1666. Aubrey himself copied out a long list of events of 3 and 10 September from a chronicle of the years 1600 to 1690.