Lord Derwentwater's Lights

On the night of 6 March 1716, people across England reported battles and flames in the sky, and the display was later called Lord Derwentwater's Lights.

JSTOR Daily reports that across England on the night of 6 March 1716, people saw what they described as a war in the sky. Some said the fighting was fierce enough to smell the gunpowder. Others described flaming swords hovering overhead.

The Historical Register of 6 March 1716, as summarised in the Journal of British Studies, described the display over London. Londoners first saw what looked like a huge, motionless curtain of light. It began to move at random and broke into parts that spread west and turned into huge pillars of flame. The lights then shot southeast with great speed, starting at the western horizon. William Whiston published a pamphlet on the meteor of that night, including his own observations and his conjectures about its causes.

Pamphleteers read the lights as omens of God's will. JSTOR Daily notes that Derwentwater, an earl, had been put to death a few days earlier, after a failed rebellion aimed at the King, and that his burial took place on 6 March. The lights soon carried the name Lord Derwentwater's Lights, and his supporters took them as a sign of divine anger over his execution. Amelia Soth, writing in JSTOR Daily, refers to the 1716 aurora.