Part 11

King Charles II. went by long sea to Portsmouth or Plymouth, or both; an extraordinary storm arose, which carried him almost to France. Sir Jonas Moor (who was then with his Majesty) gave me this account, and said, that when they came to Portsmouth to refresh themselves, they had not been there above half an hour, but the weather was calm, and the sun shone: his Majesty put to sea again, and in a little time they had the like tempestuous weather as before.

Not long before the death of King Charles II. a Sparrow-hawk escaped from the perch, and pitched on one of the iron crowns of the white tower, and entangling its string in the crown, hung by the heels and died. Not long after, another hawk pitched on one of the crowns. From Sir Edward Sherborne, Knight.

The Gloucester frigate cast away at the Lemanore, and most of the men in it; the Duke of York escaping in a cock boat, anno 1682, May the 5th, on a Friday.

When King James II. was crowned, (according to the ancient custom, the Peers go to the throne, and kiss the king) the Crown was almost kissed off his head. An Earl did set it right; and as he came from the Abbey to Westminster Hall, the Crown tottered extremely.

The canopy (of cloth of gold) carried over the head of King James II. by the Wardens of the Cinque Ports, was torn by a puff of wind as he came to Westminster Hull; it hung down very lamentably: I saw it.

When King James II. was crowned, a signal was given from Westminster Abbey to the Tower, where it was Sir Edward Sherborne's post to stand to give order for firing the cannons, and to hoist up the great flag with the King's arms. It was a windy day, and the wind presently took the flag half off, and carried it away into the Thames. From Sir Edward Sherborne.

The top of his sceptre (Flower de Lys) did then fall.

Upon Saint Mark's Day, after the coronation of King James II. were prepared stately fire works on the Thames: it hapened, that they took fire all together, and it was so dreadful, that several spectators leaped into the river, choosing rather to be drowned than burned. In a yard by the Thames, was my Lord Powys's coach and horses; the horses were so frightened by the fire works, that the coachman was not able to stop them, but ran away over one, who with great difficulty recovered.

When King James II. was at Salisbury, anno 1688, the Iron Crown upon the turret of the council house, was blown off.- This has often been confidently asserted by persons who were then living.

In February, March, and April, two ravens built their nests on the weather cock of the high steeple at Bakewell in Derbyshire.

I did see Mr. Christopher Love beheaded on Tower Hill, in a delicate clear day about half an hour after his head was struck off, the clouds gathered blacker and blacker; and such terrible claps of thunder came that I never heard greater.

'Tis reported, that the like happened after the execution of Alderman Cornish, in Cheapside, October 23, 1685.

Anno 1643. As Major John Morgan of Wells, was marching with the King's army into the west, he fell sick of a malignant fever at Salisbury, and was brought dangerously ill to my father's at Broad-Chalk, where he was lodged secretly in a garret. There came a sparrow to the chamber window, which pecked the lead of a certain pannel only, and only one side of the lead of the lozenge, and made one small hole in it. He continued this pecking and biting the lead, during the whole time of his sickness; (which was not less than a month) when the major went away, the sparrow desisted, and came thither no more. Two of the servants that attended the Major, and sober persons, declared this for a certainty.

Sir Walter Long's (of Draycot in Wilts) widow, did make a solemn promise to him on his death-bed, that she would not marry after his decease, but not long after, one Sir --- Fox, a very beautiful young gentleman, did win her love; so that notwithstanding her promise aforesaid, she married him: she married at South-Wraxhall, where the picture of Sir Walter hung over the parlour door, as it doth now at Draycot. As Sir --Fox led his bride by the hand from the church, (which is near to the house) into the parlour, the string of the picture broke, and the picture fell on her shoulder, and cracked in the fall. (It was painted on wood, as the fashion was in those days.) This made her ladyship reflect on her promise, and drew some tears from her eyes.*

*This story may be true in all its details, except the name of the lady, who was a daughter of Sir W. Long; she married Somerset Fox, Esq. See Sandford's Geneal. Hist, of the Kings of England, p. 344.

See Sir Walter Raleigh's history, book 4, chap. 2, sec. 7. The dogs of the French army, the night before the battle of Novara, ran all to the Swisses army: the next day, the Swisses obtained a glorious victory of the French. Sir Walter Raleigh affirms it to be certainly true.

The last battle fought in the north of Ireland, between the Protestants and the Papists, was in Glinsuly near Letterkenny in the county of Donegall. Veneras, the Bishop of Clogher, was General of the Irish army; and that of the Parliament army, Sir Charles Coot. They pitched their tents on each side the river Suly, and the Papists constantly persist in it to this very day, that the night before the action,* a woman of uncommon stature, all in white, appearing to the said Bishop, admonished him not to cross the river first, to assault the enemy, but suffer them to do it, whereby he should obtain the victory. That if the Irish took the water first to move towards the English, they should be put to a total rout, which came to pass. Ocahan, and Sir Henry O'Neal, who were both killed there, saw severally the same apparition, and dissuaded the Bishop from giving the first onset, but could not prevail upon him. In the mean time, I find nothing in this revelation, that any common soldier might not conclude without extraordinary means.

*So an apparition of a woman greater than ordinary, beckoned to Julius Caesar to pass over the Rubicon, L. Flor. lib. 4. Satyres appeared to Alexander when he besieged Tyrus; Alexander asked the divines, what was the signification of it; they told him the meaning is plain, {Greek Text: Sa Turos} (i.e.) Tyre is thine. Alexander took the town. Q. Curtius.

Near the same place, a party of the Protestants had been surprized sleeping by the Popish Irish, were it not for several wrens that just wakened them by dancing and pecking on the drums as the enemy were approaching. For this reason the wild Irish mortally hate these birds, to this day, calling them the Devil's servants, and killing them wherever they catch them; they teach their Children to thrust them full of thorns: you will see sometimes on holidays, a whole parish running like mad men from hedge to hedge a wren-hunting.

Anno 1679. After the discovery of the Popish plot, the penal laws were put in execution against the Roman Catholics; so that, if they did not receive the sacrament according to the church of England, in their parish church, they were to be severely proceeded against according to law: Mr. Ployden, to avoid the penalty, went to his parish church at Lasham, near Alton, in Hampshire: when Mr. Laurence (the minister) had put the chalice into Mr. Ployden's hand, the cup of it (wherein the wine was) fell off. 'Tis true, it was out of order before; and he had a tremor in his hand. The communion was stopt by this accident. This was attested to me by two neighbouring ministers, as also by several gentlemen of the neighbourhood.

When King James II. first entered Dublin, after his arrival from France, 1689, one of the gentlemen that bore the mace before him, stumbled without any rub in his way, or other visible occasion. The mace fell out of his hands, and the little cross upon the crown thereof stuck fast between two stones in the street. This is very well known all over Ireland, and did much trouble King James himself, with many of his chief attendants.

The first Moors that were expelled Spain, were in number five thousand five hundred and fifty-five. They sailed from Denia, October 2, 1609. H. Bleda. "Expulsion de Moriscos", p. 1000.

DREAMS.

{Greek Text: --'Onar kai Dios esi}. Homer Iliad A.

DREAMS PROCEED FROM JOVE.

HE that has a mind to read of dreams, may peruse Cicero "de Divinatione", Hier. Cardani "Somniorum Synesiorum", lib. 4, and Moldinarius "de Insomniis", &c. I shall here mention but little out of them, my purpose being chiefly to set down some remarkable and divine dreams of some that I have had the honour to be intimately acquainted with, persons worthy of belief.

Cicero "de Divinatione", lib. 1. "Hannibalem, Caslius scribit, cum Columnam auream, quae esset in fano Junonis Laciniae, auferre vellet, dubitaretque utrum ea solida esset, an extrinsecus inaurata, perterebravisse; cumque solidam invenisset, statuissetque tollere: secundum quietem visam esse ei Junonem praedicere, ne id faceret; minarique, si id fecisset se curaturam, ut eum quoque oculum, quo bene videret, amitteret; idque ab homine acuto non esse neglectum; itaque ex eo auro quod exterebratum esset, buculam curasse faciendum, & eam in summa columna collocavisse."

i. e.