Martin Bashir secured BBC TV’s ‘scoop of a generation’ when he interviewed Diana, Princess of Wales, in the throes of her marriage breakdown with Charles. This was broadcast on 20th November 1995 (advertised time thought to be 8pm). Bashir has now been accused by a Judge-led inquiry of serious deception in obtaining the interview. The line of symbolism for the event brings Diana’s intercepted 1st house Saturn at 27Cap48 into focus, with Broadcast transit Uranus 27Cap22, shattering all protocol. Bashir’s coup is shown by his Sun within a degree, reinforced by the major TV inception chart for the BBC (see below) which has Pluto at 28Can46, 4′ from the opposition to Bashir’s Sun, his fame made and ruined by TV. Diana was desperate to get her story out before she would be effectively censored by the Royal Family. The heart of the matter seems to turn on the Sun – Saturn theme of the ‘knight in shining armour’, where the glorious Sun comes to save Saturn from its prison. This is how Bashir must have appeared. The South Node suggests a fallen knight bearing soiled gifts, and behind it the Plutonic power of the Media, compounding ‘fear, paranoia and isolation’. More to come, and serious consequences for the BBC, may take several years as Pluto, currently at 26Cap39r, passes the significant degrees, including its half-return for BBC TV in 2023.

There are strains for the Monarchy, too. The interview was secretly recorded on 5th November, Guy Fawkes Day, commemorating the failed 1605 Gunpowder Plot which sought to blow up James I and his Parliament.

BBC horoscopes discussed: see article by Maggie Hyde from COA Bulletin no.2 1988
* added data (faint original): BBC Corporation Sat 1 Jan 1927 0h GMT London

Appended comments on symbolism:
Most astrologers glancing at Martin Bashir’s natal chart in the context of the current scandal will be struck by the close Moon-Neptune conjunction in Scorpio. This disreputable combination begs to be tied in with the methods used by Bashir to gain access to Diana through her younger brother Charles, the current 9th Earl Spencer. Connections can always be scraped together with wider orbs and multiple aspects, but we cannot ignore the fact that at a basic transit and synastry level there appears to be no conventional and simple indicative contact to point the way. A ‘wrong chart’ is not the answer, either – this configuration tries hard NOT to be brought into our current framing of events. Some other theme may be in play, which time may (or may not) tell.
The evocative imagery of the Knight in shining armour for the Sun in contact with Saturn in a female nativity comes from a comment I heard from Liz Greene, who stresses its particular significance for the woman in relationship to a man. (GC)

HRH Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, died 9th April 2021.
The announcement was made by the Palace between 12:00 and 12:04pm.

STOP PRESS – GEMINI CALLING

A second corrected birthtime, shown here, has come up for Gemini HRH Prince Philip. Joanna Watters, a former COA tutor who now teaches in Greece, has passed on Facebook information from astrologer Laura Boomer-Trent. Laura has posted a Greek birth certificate for the Prince, born in Corfu. This states the birthtime as 10:00 am, not the 9:46 pm time given amongst other sources by Astrodienst (via Lois Rodden, who listed this as DD dirty data).

The 9:46pm wrong chart in use until now showed a striking commutation, negated by the considerable difference in time. This commutation suggested a ‘fairy tale’ theme in the synastry of the Queen and Philip, with both Queen and the (wrong) Prince having Moon ruling the marriage 7th, alongside Neptune in the 7th. Her Moon at 12 Leo is conjunct his Neptune at 11 Leo; her Neptune at 22 Leo is conjunct his (wrong) Moon at 22 Leo.

We therefore lose his Moon on her Neptune. Instead, Philip’s corrected Ascendant at 18 Leo falls broadly across her Neptune opposite Mars-Jupiter.

We are bound by our craft of natal horoscopy to start our investigations from a correct birth time as given on a birth certificate. Yet as Geoffrey Cornelius pointed out in The Moment of Astrology with Princess Diana’s chart, ‘wrong’ maps may work, until they don’t. Then they are replaced by the ‘right’ map, which must be found to work. The interesting thing about many wrong maps is that they offer a narrative that is then replaced by the new narrative. The fairy-tale marriage of the Moon-Neptune commutation matches the idealised and romantic presentation of the royal couple at the very beginning of their marriage. This must now give way to a story that is a better fit, perhaps to Philip’s 7th ruler Saturn at 18 Virgo, closely square his Sun at 18 Gemini, trine and sextile the horizon: walking two steps behind, in a life of service. – MH

The wrong map

for London