Part 11

Sir Thomas Wentworth and Sir John Savile in choosing Knights for the Shire in the Castle-yard at York, did so fall out, that they were never after well reconciled.

When all Colton-hag hath borne crops and corn for seven years; seven years after that you shall hear news.

Colton-hag in Mother Shipton’s time was a woodland ground full of trees, which some long time after her death was cultivated and bore crops and corn for seven years; and the seven years after that, was the year of the coming in of the Scots, and their taking of Newcastle.

You shall have a year of pining hunger, and then a dearth without corn. You shall not know of the war over-night, yet you shall have it in the morning; and when it comes it shall last three years.

Between Calder and Aire Shall be great warfare, When all the world is aloft, It shall be called Christ’s Croft.

Calder and Aire are two rivers in Yorkshire; and this Prophecy relates to the Civil War in the time of Charles I.

When the battle of warfare begins, it shall be where Crookback Richard made his fray.

It was near Leicester where Richard the Third was slain in battle. There Colonel Hastings was one of the first in arms at the commencement of the civil war. Or it may thus be understood—That as King Richard began his march from Nottingham when he first set out against the Earl of Richmond, so also should these wars take rise from thence. And indeed at Nottingham, on Aug. 25th, 1640, Charles I. set up his standard, and there continued it to little purpose.

They shall say to warfare for your King for half-a-crown a day, but stir not. They will say to warfare for your King on pain of hanging, but stir not.

At the time of the Civil War in 1642, many Lords promised two shillings and sixpence a day for each horseman who would join the King’s service.

For he that goes to complain, Shall not come back again.

This seems to refer to the Welsh and the Irish serving the King, for very few lived to return back again to their own country.

The following Prophecies by Mother Shipton, (extracted from Lilly’s collection, with his remarks,) being rather quaint in the composition, are left for the reader to decypher.

(a) There will be a great battel between England and Scotland, and they will be pacified for a time; and when they come at (b) Bramma-moore they fight, and are again pacified for a time: Then there will be a great battel between England and Scotland at (c) Knavesmore: Then they will be pacified for a while: Then there will be a great battel between England and Scotland at (d) Storktonmore; then will Ravens sit on the (e) Crosse, and drink as much blood of Nobles as of the Commons. Then wo is me, for London shall be destroyed.

(a) God I hope will prevent this threatened mischief. (b) Brammish is a river in Northumberland. (c) I conceive it should be Knaresborough, by which the river Nidd runs. (d) Storkton I conceive mistaken for Stanemore, in Richmondshire. (e) It is to be noted and admired, that this Crosse in the North in Mother Shipton’s days, was a tall stone Crosse which ever since hath been by degrees sinking into the ground, and is now (1640) sunk so low, that a Raven may sit upon the top of it and reach her bill to the ground.

Then will come a woman with one eye, and she shall tread in men’s blood to the knee; and she shall meet a man leaning on a staff, and shall say to him, What art thou? and he shall say, I am King of the Scots. And she shall say, Go with me to my house, for there are three Knights. And he will go up with her, and stay there three days and three nights. Then will England be lost; and they will cry twice in one day, England is lost. Then there will be three Knights in Petergate in York, and the one shall not know of the other. There shall be a child born in Pomfret with three thumbs, and these three Knights will give their horses to this (f) child with three thumbs to hold, whilst they win England again: then come in Clubs and Clouted shoes, and they with the three Knights win England again: and all Noble blood shall be gone but one, and they shall carry him to Sheriff Hutton’s Castle, six miles from York, and he shall die there; and they shall chuse their Earl in the field, and hang their horses on a thorn, and rue the time that ever they were born to see so much blood shed.

(f) There was a child not many years since born at Pomfret with three thumbs, and credibly reported.

(g) Then they will come to York to besiege it; and they shall keep them out for three days and three nights: and a peny-loaf shall be within the Bar at half a Crown, and without the Bar at a peny; and they will swear, if they will not yield, to blow up the Town-walls. Then they will let them in: and they will hang the Maior, Sheriffs, and Aldermen. There will three Knights go into Crouch-Church, and but one of them come out again; and he will cause Proclamation to be made, That any man may take House, Tower, or Bower, for One and twenty yeers. And while the world endureth, there shall never be warfare again, nor any more (h) Kings or Queens; but the Kingdom shall be governed by three lords; then York shall be London.

(g) This is yet unacted. (h) All old Prophecies do intimate a final subversion of the Monarchy in England.

After this, shall be a white Harvest of Corn gotten in by women. Then shall be in the North, that one woman shall say to another, Mother, I have seen a man to day. And for one man there shall be a thousand women. There shall be a man sitting on Saint James church hill, weeping his fill.

The time will come when England shall tremble and quake for fear of a (i) Dead-man, that shall be heard to speak: Then will the Dragon give the Bull a great snap; and when this battel is done they will all go to London Town.

(i) This Dead-man hath not yet appeared, but is at hand doubtless.

* * * * *

Here follow other Prophecies she uttered, which because they concern Future Times we shall leave to the Interpretation of the reader.

The Fiery Year as soon as o’er, Peace shall then be as before; Plenty everywhere is found, And men with Swords shall plough the Ground.

II.

The time shall come, when seas of Blood, Shall mingle with a greater Flood.

III.