Part 7

Gold and riches will be shown In a land that’s not now known.

IX.

Under rivers man shall walk, Shall ride, shall sleep, and shall talk.

X.

A river and a town shall be on fire.

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_The following remarkable Prophecy_, _which is known as_ “_Mother Shipton’s prophecies_,” _was first published in 1448_,_ and republished in 1641_. _It will be seen that the events it predicts have come to pass_, _except that contained in the last two lines_, _which is still in the future_.

XI.

Over a wild and stormy sea, Shall a noble {184} sail, Who to find, will not fail, A new and a fair countree. From whence he shall bring A herb {185a} and a root {185b} That all men shall suit, And please both the ploughman and the king. And let them take no more than measure. Both shall have the even pleasure. The world to an end shall come In eighteen hundred and eighty-one.

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_Here follow other Prophecies which Mother Shipton stated at various times in her life to different persons_:—

The first coming in of the King of the Scots (James I.) shall be at Holgate Town, but he shall not come through the bar. And when the King of the North shall be at London Bridge, his tail shall be at Edinburgh.

This was fulfilled in the following manner—When King James arrived there was such a multitude of people at Holgate bar to behold him, that to avoid the danger of the crush he was forced to ride another way. When King James was at London, his children were at Edinburgh, preparing to come into England.

Water shall come over Ouse Bridge, and a windmill shall be set upon a Tower, and a Elm Tree shall lie at every man’s door. At that day women shall wear great hats and great bands.

This was verified by the conducting of water into York streets through bored Elms; and the Conduit-house had a windmill on the top that drew up the water.

When there is a Lord Mayor living in Minster-yard in York, let him beware of a stab.

A Lord Mayor, whose house was in Minster-yard, was stabbed by an assassin in three places, which caused his death.

When two Knights shall fall out in the York Castle-yard, they shall never live kindly all their after lives.

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_.

I.

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.

Great noise there shall be heard, Great Shouts and Cries, And Seas shall Thunder louder than the Skies; Then shall three Lions fight with three, and bring, Joy to a People, Honour to their King.

Mother Shipton, the authoress of these Prophecies, continued for years esteemed as the Sybil or Oracle of her time; and though she was generally believed to be a Witch, yet all persons that either saw or heard of her, held her in great esteem, and her memory is much honoured by those of her own country, especially in Yorkshire. A long time before her death, she foretold the day and hour she was to take her departure; and the time approaching which she had Prophecied, and which was in the year 1561; she took solemn leave of her friends, who were all greatly attached to her, laid down on her bed, and died, at the good old age of 75 years. Many more “_Prophecies_” are current in Yorkshire as of her utterance, but the Publisher being unable to find them either properly authenticated, or in any old works, they have been omitted, being desirous of not adding anything which might tend to destroy her sterling reputation.

A stone was erected to her memory near Clifton, about a mile from the city of York, upon which was the following inscription:

Here lyes she who never ly’d Whose skill often has been try’d; Her prophecies shall still survive, And ever keep her name alive.

PROPHECIES OF MARTHA, THE GIPSY.

London may appear an unbefitting scene for a story so romantic as that which I have here set down: but, strange and wild as is the tale I have to tell, _it is true_; and, therefore, the scene of action shall not be changed; nor will I alter or vary from the truth, save that the names of the personages, in my domestic drama shall be fictitious.

To say that I am superstitious would be, in the minds of many wise personages, to write myself down an ass; but to say that I do not believe _that_ which follows, as I am sure it was believed by _him_ who related it to me, would be to discredit the testimony of a friend, as honourable and as brave as ever trod the earth. He has been snatched from the world, of which he was a bright ornament, and has left more than his sweet suffering widow and his orphan children affectionately to deplore his loss.

It is, I find, right and judicious most carefully and publicly to disavow a belief in supernatural visitings: but it will be long before I become either so wise or so bold as to make any such unqualified declaration. I am not weak enough to imagine myself surrounded by spirits and phantoms, or jostling through a crowd of spectres, as I walk the streets; neither do I give credence to all the idle tales of ancient dames, or frightened children, touching such matters: but when I breathe the air, and see the grass grow under my feet, I cannot but feel that HE who gives me ability to inhale the one, and stand erect upon the other, has also the power to use for special purposes such means and agency, as in his wisdom he may see fit; and which, in point of fact, are not more incomprehensible to us than the very simplest effects which we every day witness, arising from unknown causes.

Philosophers may pore, and in the might of their littleness, and the erudition of their ignorance develope and disclose, argue and discuss; but when the sage, who sneers at the possibility of ghosts, will explain to me the doctrine of attraction and gravitation, or tell me why the wind blows, why the tides ebb and flow, or why the light shines—effects perceptible to all men—then will I admit the justice of his incredulity—then will I join the ranks of the incredulous. However, a truce with my views and reflections: proceed we to the narrative.

In the vicinity of Bedford-square lived a respectable and honest man, whose name the reader will be pleased to consider Harding. He married early: his wife was an exemplary woman, and his son and daughter were grown to that companionable age, at which children repay, with their society and accomplishments, the tender cares which parents bestow upon their offspring in their early infancy.

Mr. Harding held a responsible and respectable situation under the government, in Somerset House. His income was adequate to his wants and wishes; his family a family of love: and, perhaps, taking into consideration the limited desires of what may be fairly called middle life, no man was ever more contented, or better satisfied with his lot than he.

Maria Harding, his daughter, was a modest, unassuming, and interesting girl, full of feeling and gentleness. She was timid and retiring; but the modesty which cast down her fine black eyes could not veil the intellect which beamed in them. Her health was by no means strong; and the paleness of her cheek—too frequently, alas! lighted by the hectic flush of our indigenous complaint—gave a deep interest to her countenance. She was watched and reared by her tender mother, with all the care and attention which a being so delicate and so ill-suited to the perils and troubles of this world demanded.

George, her brother, was a bold and intelligent lad, full of rude health, and fearless independence. His character was frequently the subject of his father’s contemplation; and he saw in his disposition, his mind, his pursuits, and propensities, the promise of future success in active life.

With these children, possessing as they did the most enviable characteristics of their respective sexes, Mr. and Mrs. Harding, with thankfulness to Providence, acknowledged their happiness, and their perfect satisfaction with the portion assigned to them in this transitory world.

Maria was about nineteen, and had, as was natural, attracted the regards, and thence gradually chained the affections, of a distant relative, whose ample fortune, added to his personal and mental good qualities, rendered him a most acceptable suitor to her parents, which Maria’s heart silently acknowledged he would have been to _her_, had he been poor and penniless.

The father of this intended husband of Maria was a man of importance, possessing much personal interest, through which George, the brother of his intended daughter-in-law, was to be placed in that diplomatic seminary in Downing-street, whence, in due time, he was to rise through all the grades of office, (which, with his peculiar talents, his friends, and especially his mother, was convinced he would so ably fill,) and at last turn out an ambassador.

The parents, however, of young Langdale and of Maria Harding were agreed, that there was no necessity for hastening the alliance between their families, seeing that the united ages of the couple did not exceed thirty-nine years: and seeing, moreover, still, that Mrs. Langdale, who was little more than six-and-thirty years of age herself, had reasons, which she also meant to be private, for seeking to delay as much as possible a ceremony, the result of which, in all probability, would confer upon her, somewhat too early in life to be agreeable to a lady of her habits and propensities, the formidable title of grand-mamma.

How curious it is, when one takes up a _little bit_ of society (as a geologist crumbles and twists a bit of earth in his hand, to ascertain its character and quality,) to look into the motives and manœuvrings of all the persons connected with it; the various workings, the indefatigable labours, which all their little minds are undergoing to bring about divers and sundry little points, perfectly unconnected with the great end in view; but which for private and hidden objects, each of them is toiling to carry. Nobody, but those who really understood Mrs. Langdale, understood why she so readily acquiesced in the desire of her husband to postpone the marriage for another twelvemonth. A stranger would have seen only the dutiful wife according with the sensible husband; but I knew her, and knew that there must be something more than met the eye, or the ear, in that sympathy of feeling between her and Mr. Langdale, which was not upon ordinary occasions so evidently displayed.

Like the Waterman who pulls one way and looks another, Mrs. Langdale aided the entreaties and seconded the commands of her loving spouse, touching the seasonable delay of which I am speaking; and it was agreed, that immediately after the coming of age of Frederick Langdale, and not before, he was to lead to the hymeneal altar the delicate and timid Maria Harding.

The affair got whispered about; George’s fortune in life was highly extolled—Maria’s excessive happiness prophesied by everybody of their acquaintance; and already had sundry younger ladies, daughters and nieces of those who discussed these matters in divan after dinner, began to look upon Miss Harding with envy and maliciousness, and wonder what Mr. Frederick Langdale could see in her: she was proclaimed to be insipid, inanimate, shy, bashful, and awkward: nay, some of her female friends went so far as to discover that she was absolutely awry.

Still, however, Frederick and Maria went loving on; and their hearts grew as one; so truly, so fondly were they attached to each other. George, who was somewhat of a plague to the pair of lovers, was luckily at Oxford, reading away till his head ached, to qualify himself for a degree, and the distant duties of the office whence he was to cull the bunches of diplomatic laurels, and whence were to issue rank and title, and ribbons and crosses innumerable.

Things were in this prosperous state, the bark of life rolling gaily along before the breeze, when as Mr. Harding was one day proceeding from his residence, to his office in Somerset-place, through Charlotte-street, Bloomsbury, he was accosted by one of those female gypsies who are found begging in the metropolis, and especially in the particular part of it in question: ‘Pray remember poor Martha, the gipsy,’ said the woman: ‘give me a halfpenny for charity, sir, pray do.’

Mr. Harding was a subscriber to the Mendicity Society, an institution which proposes to check begging by the novel mode of giving nothing to the poor: moreover, he was a magistrate—moreover, he had no change; and he somewhat sternly desired the woman to go about her business.

All availed him nothing; she still followed him, and reiterated the piteous cry, ‘Pray remember poor Martha, the gipsy.’

At length, irritated by the perseverance of the woman—for even subordinates in government hate to be solicited importunately—Mr. Harding, contrary to his usual custom, and contrary to the customary usages of modern society, turned hastily round, and fulminated an oath against the supplicating vagrant.

‘Curse!’ said Martha; ‘have I lived to this? Hark ye, man—poor, weak, haughty man! Mark me, sir—look at me!’

He did look at her; and beheld a countenance on fire with rage. A pair of eyes blacker than jet, and brighter than diamonds, glared like stars upon him; her black hair dishevelled, hung over her olive cheeks; and a row of teeth whiter than the driven snow displaying themselves from between a pair of coral lips, in a dreadful smile, a ghastly sneer of contempt which mingled in her passion. Harding was riveted to the spot; and, affected partly by the powerful fascination of her superhuman countenance, and partly by the dread of a disturbance in the street, he paused to listen to her.

‘Mark me, sir,’ said Martha; ‘you and I shall meet again. Thrice shall you see me before you die. My visitings will be dreadful; but the third will be the last!’

There was a solemnity in this declaration which struck to his very heart, coming too as it did only from a vagrant outcast. Passengers were approaching; and wishing, he knew not why, to soothe the ire of the angry woman, he mechanically drew from his pocket some silver, which he tendered to her.

‘There, my good woman—there,’ said he, stretching forth his hand.

‘Good woman!’ retorted the hag, ‘Money now? I—I that have been cursed! ’tis all too late, proud gentleman—the deed is done, the curse be now on you.’ Saying which, she huddled her ragged red cloak about her shoulders, and hurried from his sight, into the deep and dreary recesses of St. Giles’s.

Harding experienced, as she vanished from his eye, a most extraordinary sensation: he felt grieved that he had spoken so harshly to the poor creature, and returned his shillings to his pocket with regret. Of course, fear of the fulfilment of her predictions did not mingle with any of his feelings on the occasion; and he proceeded to his office in Somerset-place, and performed all the arduous official duties of reading the opposition newspapers, discussing the leading politics of the day with the head of another department, and signing his name three times, before four o’clock.

Martha the gipsy, however, although he had ‘poophoohed’ her out of his memory, would ever and anon flash across his mind; her figure was indelibly stamped upon his recollection; and though, of course, as I before said, a man of his firmness and intellect could care nothing, one way or another, for the maledictions of an ignorant, illiterate gipsy, still his feelings—whence arising I know not—prompted him to call a hackney-coach, and proceed _en voiture_ to his house rather than run the risk of again encountering the metropolitan sibyl, under whose forcible denunciation he was actually labouring.

There is a period in each day of the lives of married people, at which, I am given to understand, a more than ordinarily unreserved communication of facts and feelings takes place; when all the world is shut out, and the two beings, who are in truth ‘but only one,’ commune together freely and fully upon the occurrences of the past day. At this period, the else sacred secrets of the drawing-room coterie, and the _tellable_ jokes of the after-dinner convivialist, are mutually interchanged by the fond pair, who, by the barbarous customs of uncivilized Britain, have been separated during part of the preceding evening.

Then it is, that the husband informs his anxious consort how he has forwarded his worldly views with such a man—how he has carried his point in such a quarter—what he thinks of the talents of one, of the character of another; while the communicative wife gives _her_ views of the same subjects, founded upon what she has gathered from the individuals composing the female cabinet, and explains why she thinks he must have been deceived upon this point, or misled upon that. And thus, in recounting, in arguing, in discussing, and descanting, the blended interests of the happy pair are strengthened, their best hopes nourished, and perhaps eventually realized.