prophecy, politics and the people in early modern england

PROPHECY, POLITICS AND THE PEOPLE IN EARLY MODERN ENGLAND

The influence of the non-biblical vernacular prophetic traditions in earlymodern England was considerable; they had both a mass appeal, and a specificrelevance to the conduct of politics by elites. Focusing particularly on MotherShipton, the Cheshire prophet Nixon, and Merlin, this book considers theorigins of these prophetic traditions, their growth and means of transmission,and the way various groups in society responded to them and in turn tried tocontrol them. Dr Thornton also sheds light on areas where popular cultureand politics were uneasily interlinked: the powerful political influence of thoseoutside elite groups; the variations in political culture across the country; andthe considerable continuing power of mystical, supernatural, and ‘non-rational’ideas in British social and political life into the nineteenth century.

Dr TIM THORNTON teaches at the University of Huddersfield, where he ishead of department, History, English, Languages and Media.

PROPHECY, POLITICS AND THEPEOPLE IN EARLY MODERN

ENGLAND

Tim Thornton

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Tim Thornton 2006

All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast,

transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means,without the prior permission of the copyright owner

The right of Tim Thornton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with

sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

First published 2006The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 1 84383 259 3

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer LtdPO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK

and of Boydell & Brewer Inc.668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA

website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A CIP catalogue record of this publication is availablefrom the British Library

This publication is supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)

This publication is printed on acid-free paper

Typeset by Keystroke, Jacaranda Lodge, WolverhamptonPrinted in Great Britain byCambridge University Press

Contents

Preface viiAbbreviations ix

Introduction: prophecy, politics and the people in late medieval and early modern England 1

1 Ancient prophecy in the sixteenth century 14

2 Prophetic creation and audience in civil war England 53

3 Prophecy and the Revolution settlement 99

4 The re-rooting and survival of ancient prophecy 145

5 Conclusions 194

Bibliography 198Index 249

Preface

This book has had a long gestation. Its foundations were laid while I was stillworking primarily on early modern Cheshire and its palatinate. In that senseit owes something to those influences at school and college which inspiredand provoked me to explore the centralist assumptions of English and Britishhistory: teaching such as that of Nick Henshall, and the chance to work withPenry Williams, Chris Haigh, Cliff Davies and Steve Gunn in particular. It has, however, largely been researched and written while I have had the goodfortune to work for the University of Huddersfield, where I have been stimu-lated by teaching and administration in an institution committed to wideningopportunities in education to think further not just about the mechanics of power and influence, and of the relationships of ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’, butthose of past and future, and of elite and non-elite. The majority of the laterresearch and writing up was achieved only thanks to a sabbatical granted bythe University and made possible by the generosity of my colleagues in Historythere, supplemented by a Research Leave award from the then Arts andHumanities Research Board. Coming after an intense period of work as Headof History, that sabbatical was an opportunity I seized on with particular relish.During the earlier part of that period my former colleague Bertrand Taithe wasa particularly stimulating influence on the development of my ideas; ProfessorsKeith Laybourn, Bill Stafford and David Taylor have all been consistent intheir support for this element of my work as an integral part of my role. Sincemy sabbatical, colleagues not just in History, but in the wider department of History, English, Languages and Media, and most recently at the UniversityCentre Barnsley, have been more than tolerant of my occasional ramblingsabout Mother Shipton and her fellow prophets.

The extent of the practical assistance provided by many librarians andarchivists, for all of which I am very grateful, is reflected in my bibliography;particular thanks go to the staff in Inter-Library Loans at the University ofHuddersfield, and to those in Special Collections in the Brotherton Library,University of Leeds, and the John Rylands University Library in Manchester.Boydell have been a particularly helpful publisher, and Peter Sowden deservesspecial thanks for his work on the project over several years.

I am grateful to the following for permission to cite their unpublished theses: Stephen W. Baskerville, Timothy Crist, Christopher Randall Duggan,D. T. Etheridge, Frances M. Gladwin, M. L. Holford, C. M. Keen, JenniferIsobel Kermode, Deborah Marsh, Susan Aileen Newman, Susan ElizabethEllen Pitts, David Stuart Robinson, and R. S. Thomson.

vii

My parents, Jenny and David Thornton, have helped me in so many waysover the years – it is to them, especially in this, the year of my father’sseventieth birthday, that this book is dedicated. The support and inspirationof my wife, Sue Johns, and of our children, Carys and Gwyn (despite the lackof any mention here of ballet, swimming, trains or Thunderbirds), has beenmost important of all in ensuring that this book was written.

PROPHECY, POLITICS AND THE PEOPLE

viii

Abbreviations

APC Acts of the Privy Council of England, n.s., ed. John Roche Dasent and others (London 1890–)

BIHR Bulletin of the Institute of Historical ResearchBJRL Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester/Bulletin

of the John Rylands University Library of ManchesterBL British LibraryBodl. Oxford, Bodleian LibraryBRUO A. B. Emden (ed.), A Biographical Register of the

University of Oxford to A.D. 1500 (Oxford 1957–9)BRUO, 1501–40 A. B. Emden (ed.), A Biographical Register of the

University of Oxford, A.D. 1501–1540 (Oxford, 1974)

CCR Calendar of Close Rolls (London, 1898–)CCRO Cheshire County Record Office, Duke St, ChesterCChR Calendar of Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record

Office, 6 vols (London, 1903–20)CFR Calendar of the Fine Rolls Preserved in the Public Record

Office, 22 vols (London, 1911–62)CJ The Journals of the House of Commons (London,

1803)CP G. E. C. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage, 2nd edn

(London, 1910–59)CPR Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record

Office (London, 1901– )CSPD Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series (London,

1852– )DKR Annual Reports of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records

(London, 1840– )EETS Early English Text SocietyEHR English Historical ReviewHBC E. B. Fryde, D. E. Greenway, S. Porter and I. Roy (eds)

Handbook of British Chronology, 3rd edn (London, 1986)

HJ Historical JournalHMC Historical Manuscripts CommissionJRUL Manchester, John Rylands University LibraryLJ The Journals of the House of Lords (London, 1771– )

ix

LP J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner and R. H. Brodie (eds), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, 1509–47 (London, 1862–1910); Addenda, I (London, 1929–32)

NLW Aberystwyth, National Library of Walesn.s. new seriesODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest

Times to the Year 2000, ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford, 2004), sub nomine

Ormerod, Chester George Ormerod, The History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, 2nd edn by Thomas Helsby (London, 1882)

o.s. original seriesPRO London, The National Archives: Public Record OfficeRP J. Strachey and others (eds), Rotuli parliamentorum

(London, 1767–77)RS Rolls SeriesRSLC Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshireser. seriesSheaf Cheshire SheafSR The Statutes of the Realm (London, 1810–28)STC (according Daniel Goddard Wing, A Short-Title Catalogue of the to publication Books Printed in England, Scotland, Ireland, Wales and date) British America, and of English Books Printed in Other

Countries, 1641–1700, 2nd edn, revised, ed. John J. Morrison et al. (New York, 1972–98)

Alfred W. Pollard and G. R. Redgrave, A Short-Title Catalogue of the Books Printed in England, Scotland, and Ireland and of English Books Printed Abroad 1475–1640, 2nd edn, ed. W. A. Jackson, F. S. Fergusonand K. F. Pantzer, 3 vols (London, 1976–91)

THSLC Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire

TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical SocietyVCH The Victoria History of the Counties of EnglandYAJ Yorkshire Archaeological JournalYAS Leeds, Yorkshire Archaeological Society


x

Introduction

Prophecy, politics and the people in late medievaland early modern England

This is a study of non-biblical prophetic traditions current in England fromthe sixteenth century to the present day, especially Mother Shipton, Merlinand Nixon the Cheshire prophet. The term ‘prophecy’ covers a wide varietyof phenomena in the early modern period. These overlap far more than issometimes allowed, but it is nonetheless necessary and legitimate to focus forthe moment on one element of ‘prophecy’, in this case ‘ancient prophecy’ (touse a term of Keith Thomas’s), that is prophecy allegedly uttered or writtenby figures in the past, who might or might not be religious figures but who were not formally part of the biblical tradition and apocrypha.1 Its influenceon events, through both its mass appeal and its specific relevance to theconduct of politics by elites, and on a day-to-day level and in specific crises,makes it as significant as many of the economic, social, cultural and ideologicalfactors familiar to political historians. Yet, for example, neither Shipton norNixon has been subjected to proper study in the present century, and Merlinis usually treated as part of the Arthur myth. This is in spite of their appearancein many of the major and more of the minor works of literature produced in the last few centuries, and in the writings of men as humble as John Clareand as prominent and educated as Samuel Pepys, Horace Walpole and HenryFielding. The prime purpose of this investigation is therefore to describe andaccount for this powerful influence, considering the origins of these prophetictraditions, their growth and means of transmission, the way various groups insociety responded to them and in turn tried to control them, and ultimatelythe way their influence, in some cases such as that of Nixon, has waned.

More generally, I came to write this book because its subject matter seemedto stand at the intersection of three problematic areas of late medieval and

1

1 Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth andSeventeenth Century England (London, 1971), ch. 13; cf. the extended discussion ofdefinition in Frances M. Gladwin, ‘Popular Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century England: ByMouth and Pen in the Alehouse and from the Pulpit’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universityof Adelaide, 1997), pp. 23–44. D. T. Etheridge, ‘Political Prophecy in Tudor England’(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wales (Swansea), 1979), p. 9, prefers the term‘traditional prophecy’.

early modern popular culture and politics. First it illustrated the powerfulinfluence on politics and political discourse of those outside the rural and urbanelites; second, it demonstrated the importance of regional, as opposed tonational, political culture, and variation in that culture; and third, it wassuggestive of the considerable and continuing power of mystical, supernaturaland ‘non-rational’ ideas in British social and political life through theeighteenth and into the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The first of these problematic areas was concerned with the extent of involve-ment in politics of groups outside the political elite. Discussion of politics,especially away from crises, tended to down-play the role of those outside the gentry. The Whig perspective allowed for the expression of a national will, but although this incorporated the wishes of the people, those wisheswere represented and enacted by politicians drawn from the elite.2 Marxistssuch as Christopher Hill considered this period to be dominated by processesculminating in bourgeois revolution in the form of the English Civil War andGlorious Revolution. The competitors on the political stage were thereforethe crown and nobility on one hand, and the capitalist gentry and townsmenon the other. Men and women from the strata of society below this level wereinvolved only as dependants of the paternalism of the old feudal order, or asdimly understanding followers of bourgeois ideals, antipathetic though thesemight ultimately be to their interests.3 The revisionists who challenged bothWhig and Marxist orthodoxies tended to remove the lower orders even morepositively from the political stage – no longer did the Tudors represent thenational will, but, if anything, worked against it, manipulated by the money-grabbing courtiers and administrators who dominated their governments.4 Thestock of all revisionist historians working within the period became the countystudy, focused on the gentry.

Yet writers from diverse perspectives, such as Steve Gunn on the earlysixteenth century and Tim Harris on the late seventeenth, have over the last


2

2 For a classic example, see the manner in which Pollard described Henry VIII’s ruthlesspursuit of the national will in the Reformation: A. F. Pollard, Henry VIII (London, Parisand New York, 1902), esp. pp. 288–97: ‘He directed the storm of the Reformation, whichwas doomed to come. . . . Without him, the storm of the Reformation would still haveburst over England; without him, it might have been far more terrible’ (pp. 295–6).3 The English Revolution 1640: Three Essays, ed. Christopher Hill (London, 1940).4 Christopher Haigh, ‘Anticlericalism and the English Reformation’, History 68 (1983),pp. 391–407; and the work collected in The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987);cf. the more directly political approach of E. W. Ives, seen in e.g. Faction in Tudor England(London, 1979; revised edition 1986); ‘Faction at the Court of Henry VIII: The Fall ofAnne Boleyn’, History 57 (1972), pp. 169–88; The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The MostHappy’ (Malden, Mass., Oxford, 2004); ‘The Fall of Wolsey’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church,State and Art, ed. S. J. Gunn and P. G. Lindley (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 286–315; and thatof David Starkey, e.g. ‘The Age of the Household: Politics, Society and the Arts, c. 1350–c. 1550’, in The Later Middle Ages, ed. Stephen Medcalf (London, 1981), pp. 225–90; TheReign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (London, 1985).

two decades increasingly argued that those below the ranks of the county gentrymight be involved in a politics which was more than the simple operation of ties of lordship, tenancy and interest. If the revolt of 1381 was dominatedby ideas of peasant autonomy and millenarianism, the plebeian authors of Jack Cade’s revolt of 1450 seemed to engage more directly with the politicalagendas of members of conventional political elites.5 The grievances of the south-eastern yeomen and clothworkers who stood behind Cade were seenas springing from failures of royal policy at court and in France; they wereexpressed in proclamations, bills and through spokesmen dressed as heralds;and they were to be resolved by the appointment of royal councillors and theprosecution of courtiers. By the early sixteenth century, the senior yeomanry,artisans and minor gentry were clearly able to play a major role in, and possiblyeven drive, a rebellion like the Pilgrimage of Grace which addressed details ofroyal policy from religious, social and economic spheres.6

It was partly in opposition to this determination to write the lower ordersout of the political story that counter-revisionists began to reassert the impor-tance of political processes and ideologies in which they might be involved.The political process of elections to the House of Commons was discussed by Derek Hirst who argued that the franchise was effectively widened in thelate sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries by the effects of inflation onthe 40 shilling freehold qualification set down for shire elections by the act of 1429–30. This, Hirst argued, combined with varied and sometimes relativelyopen borough franchises to mean that possibly as much as 40 per cent of the

INTRODUCTION

3

5 Rosamund Faith, The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship (London, 1997); StevenJustice, Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (Berkeley and London, 1994); The PeasantsRevolt of 1381, ed. R. B. Dobson, 2nd edn (London, 1983). I. M. W. Harvey, Jack Cade’sRebellion (Oxford, 1991); R. A. Griffiths, The Reign of Henry VI: The Exercise of RoyalAuthority, 1422–1461 (London, 1981), ch. 21; B. P. Wolffe, Henry VI, paperback edn(London, 1983), pp. 231–8; John Watts, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge,1996).6 Interpretations emphasizing noble, court and senior gentry involvement are now heavily criticized. For this perspective, see G. R. Elton, ‘Politics and the Pilgrimage ofGrace’, in After the Reformation: Essays in Honour of J. H. Hexter, ed. Barbara C. Malament(Manchester, 1980), pp. 25–56 (reprinted in Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics andGovernment, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1974–92), vol. 3, Papers and Reviews, 1973–1981 (1983),pp. 183–215); M. R. James, ‘Obedience and Dissent in Henrician England’, Past and Presentxlviii (August 1970), pp. 3–78 (reprinted in Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in EarlyModern England, paperback edn (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 188–269). Criticism: S. J. Gunn,‘Peers, Commons and Gentry in the Lincolnshire Revolt of 1536’, Past and Present123 (May 1989), pp. 52–79; R. W. Hoyle, ‘Thomas Master’s Narrative of the Pilgrimageof Grace’, Northern History XXI (1985), pp. 53–79; M. L. Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October 1536 (Manchester, 1996), e.g. p. 408 (the rebel armies‘presented themselves, and were perceived as acting, in the name and cause of thecommonalty’).

adult male population was qualified to vote in the early 1600s.7 Althoughrevisionists such as Mark Kishlansky argued that it was only with the CivilWar that standing for election, a process usually agreed in advance by meetingsof county gentry, representing consensus and avoiding contests, was replacedby running for election, with the full panoply of the contested poll, he has beencriticized. Many constituencies already exhibited a tendency towards frequentand polarizing contests as early as the 1620s.8 This complemented earlier workon the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, in which Bill Speckand others showed that the party conflict of the period reflected ferociouscontests within constituencies.9

Recent work has therefore tended to move away from models of societyriven by horizontal divisions, between upper and middle classes, between townelites and urban masses. Instead, vertical divisions have been given greaterprominence. Tim Harris’s late Stuart London is dominated by religious andideological divisions; the sexual politics of Martin Ingram’s rural South aregiven stability by the ‘respectable’ at all levels of society; Tessa Watt’s religiouschapbook caters for an inclusive market for Protestant ideology.10

Trends in the study both of rebellion and crisis, and of the more normalrhythm of social and political life, are therefore pointing to the more extensiveinvolvement of the lower orders in politics in the late medieval and earlymodern periods. Discussion of this involvement has therefore thrown up theproblem of the way in which plebeian action was organized and articulated.The study of rebellions and similar crises has often led historians to reflect onthe way that demands were expressed, and the mechanism for organizing menand resources, such as the East Anglian predilection for ‘camping’ during majordemonstrations in the sixteenth century.11 Naturally, these reconstructions


4

7 D. Hirst, The Representative of the People? (Cambridge, 1975).8 Mark Kishlansky, Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in Early Modern

England (Cambridge, 1986); Richard Cust, ‘Politics and the Electorate in the 1620s’, inConflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–1642, ed. Richard Custand Ann Hughes (Harlow, 1989), pp. 134–67.

9 W. A. Speck, Tory and Whig: The Struggle in the Constituencies, 1701–1715 (London,1970).10 Tim Harris, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politics from theRestoration to the Exclusion Crisis (Cambridge, 1987); Tim Harris, ‘The Problem of PopularPolitical Culture in Seventeenth-Century London’, History of European Ideas 10 (1989),pp. 43–58; Martin Ingram, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570–1640(Cambridge, 1987); Tessa Watt, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge,1991). A good impression of the differing sides in the debate can be found in the differingapproaches of Popular Culture in England, c. 1550–1800, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke, 1995),and Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. Barry Reay, new edn (London,1988); although it has to be said that the essays in the former do not necessarily addressthe same agenda as is set out by the editor in his introduction.11 Diarmaid MacCulloch, ‘Kett’s Rebellion in Context’, Past and Present 84 (August 1979),pp. 36–59; cf. Bush, Pilgrimage of Grace.

of the dramatic events in which popular influence was most obviously dis-played have tended to focus on crises; unfortunately the very atypicality of thecrisis raises questions about the general applicability of models of popularpolitical action and language developed in these studies. The attempts thathave been made to assess the ideas of those below the gentry and urban eliteoutside times of crisis have focused essentially on the ideas of that elite andthe media controlled by them. One of the most influential assumptions hereis that elite ideas were mediated to the people, a move from a great traditionto a little tradition.12 The most obvious example of this is the role of religion.For the period of the later Reformation and later seventeenth century, reli-gion has been cited as something which might motivate crowd activity; yetthis is a religion which draws fundamentally on the thinking of ‘leading’theologians and politicians, albeit in a popularized form and made availablein simplified and cheaply priced texts or ballads. The same is true of the recentreassertion of the importance of ideas in the politics of the fifteenth century.Christine Carpenter, Ted Powell and John Watts acknowledge the role of thosebelow the gentry in political debate, but the ideas that move Cade’s rebels intheir work are those of thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas, albeit communicatedto them in a simplified form by preachers and propaganda texts.13 This assump-tion seems to be in need of questioning: the implication of giving the peopleback a role in the affairs of their locality and wider world might be to givethem not just control over physical resources and the political initiative during a crisis which divided their betters, but a stronger grip on the key ideasof politics themselves. Ethan Shagan’s avowedly ‘post-revisionist’ account ofthe English Reformation describes it as a process done not for or to the people,but with them.14 As Watt has argued in her work on print culture, there arereal problems with the model of a great and a little tradition, with ideas‘trickling down’ from the elite to the masses. Drawing on the work of Frenchhistorians of printing such as Roger Chartier, she argued that there was gen-eral participation in a pool of ideas, which were accessible to and used by all elements in society in the same language and vocabulary.15 She evensuggested that it might be the consumer of the chapbook who dictated theemergence of the particular form and content of the late sixteenth-centuryreligious chapbook. The problem here is that, in this emphasis on inclusion,there is still a focus on the importance of the printed medium as a meansallowing the control of the traditions and ideas expressed. This largely springs

INTRODUCTION

5

12 Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978).13 Christine Carpenter, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire Landed Society,1401–1499 (Cambridge, 1992); eadem, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitutionin England, c. 1437–1509 (Cambridge, 1997); E. Powell, Kingship, Law and Society: CriminalJustice in the Reign of Henry V (Oxford, 1989); Watts, Henry VI.14 Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003).15 Roger Chartier, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France, trans. Lydia C.Cochrane (Princeton, 1987). Watt, Cheap Print, pp. 257–332.

from the work of Watt’s predecessors Thomson and Spufford, who tended to view the pre-print oral culture of the people as starkly more autonomous ofelite control than the print-derived oral culture which was simply learned byrote.16 Although there are many signs that she had doubts about her ownanalysis, Spufford quoted examples of folk-singers dependent on the press fortheir repertoire, such as ‘all [the] milkmaids that are in love’, who received a bequest from the satirical ‘Mistress Money’, ‘to buy the next new ballet ofLove, so that they may sing it over their milking pails’ (1674). Even moreextreme were the examples she cited of this leading to traditions becomingmeaningless in terms of the original intention of their content, as with thegarbled songs collected from the Scottish servant girl Bell Robertson in thenineteenth century, or the singers in Sussex who sang to ‘“you Gentlemen ofhiring hounds” ’ when the words intended were ‘ “you gentlemen of highrenown”’.17 In a similar way, Shagan’s re-emphasis on the role of the non-eliteremains limited, at least in part through his use of conceptual models explain-ing collaboration or complicity with totalitarian regimes of the twentiethcentury.18

Adam Fox has further developed this trend in the historiography, to empha-size the limits to an oral culture independent of a literary one. Includingmanuscript in his analysis, he has successfully argued that even at the start of the early modern period it is hard to find many areas of oral culture notdependent on writing or print, and those remaining, such as local manorialcustom, were soon eroded. The implication is that this subjection to literary


6

16 R. S. Thomson, ‘The Development of the Broadside Ballad Trade and its Influence uponthe Transmission of English Folksongs’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge,1974); Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readershipin Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1981), esp. pp. 14–15 (e.g. at p. 13 quoting D. Buchan, The Ballad and the Folk (London, 1972), ‘the spread of printed songs in a newlyliterate society [leaves] people with an awed respect for the authority of the printed word,[who] come to believe that the printed text is the text; they lose their acceptance of thetextual multiformity of the oral ballad story’). J. A. Sharpe, ‘The People and the Law’,Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. Barry Reay (London, 1985), pp. 244–70,provides a stark vision of the entry of the great tradition into the little tradition, leadingto the enlistment of the people in an elite-controlled legal culture.17 Spufford, Small Books, pp. 13–15. One sign of her eagerness to qualify the picture is herrecognition that because children of elite families, citing James Boswell, Samuel Johnsonand Edmund Burke, read chivalric romances, the ‘gap between the culture of the elite andpopular culture was not complete’: pp. 73–5. For a slightly different emphasis, on thepervasive but trivial nature of chapbook material, see Victor E. Neuburg, ‘The Diceys andthe Chapbook Trade’, The Library 5th ser. 24 (1969), pp. 219–31, at pp. 227–8; heacknowledges that the chapbooks ‘fostered working-class literacy’ which made possible the working-class politics of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (pp. 229–30); this,however, represents the thesis that the politics of the masses could only develop anyautonomy after the industrial revolution.18 Shagan, Popular Politics.

culture was similarly controlling and restrictive. While opposition to the crownor court might in some senses be facilitated and become more coherent, it wasalso limited by its dependence on a fundamentally literary medium.19

In all this work the ability of the masses to achieve any significant par-ticipation in the content and uses of the tradition is therefore minimized. My argument will be that printed prophecy represented a close and creativedialogue with a continuing vigorous and highly political oral and manuscripttradition which, although it (at least) compelled the elite’s attention, was notexclusively under elite control. Seeing chapbook literature, especially pro-phetic material, as escapist, almost as much as seeing it as nonsensical, deniesthe political and social messages even the most apparently trivial or fancifultract conveyed. More importantly, however, the directness of the politicalmessage conveyed by prophecies such as those of Shipton, Merlin and Nixon,and the invitation they offered to think hard about past and future events, hasnever been properly acknowledged. These hugely popular prophecy traditionssuggest there were strands to the political culture which did not simply trickledown to the people but were more fundamentally of their making and undertheir control. Further, prophecy prompts us to re-emphasize the importanceof the interpretation and reception of texts and traditions in a historiographywhich has become too conscious of textual consistencies as against meaningand understanding.

If, as Keith Wrightson has argued in ‘The Politics of the Parish’, thereexisted a range of political discourses at the most local level – a local politicsof patriarchy, of neighbourhood, of custom, of reformation, of ‘state formation’,and of subordination and meaning20 – these were not conducted in termsderived simply from the realm of social elites. This book is an attempt toconsider prophecy as a specific political language or grammar which mightarticulate those discourses – a language accessible to and current among thepeople across three hundred and more years without being stifled by elite

INTRODUCTION

7

19 Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2000). Cf. AdamFox, ‘Custom, Memory and the Authority of Writing’, in The Experience of Authority inEarly Modern England, ed. Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steve Hindle (Basingstoke andLondon, 1996), pp. 89–116, and in the same volume, Andy Wood, ‘Custom, Identity andResistance: English Free Miners and their Law, c.1550–1800’, pp. 249–85; although thelatter in particular sees customary law as a potentially enduring discourse controlled by itsparticipants among the lower orders, both make a case for the interaction of customary lawwith writing and printing which worked in the end to constrain it and place it under elitecontrol through the formal legal system.20 Keith Wrightson, ‘The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England’, in The Experienceof Authority in Early Modern England, pp. 11–46; cf. attempts to establish the nature of thepolitics of the village in the fifteenth century, e.g. Robert Goheen, ‘Peasant Politics? VillageCommunity and the Crown in Fifteenth-Century England’, American Historical Review 96(1991), pp. 42–62; Francesca Bumpus, ‘The “Middling Sort” in the Lordship of Blakemere,Shropshire, c. 1380–1420’, in Social Attitudes and Political Structures in the Fifteenth Century,The Fifteenth Century 7, ed. Tim Thornton (Stroud, 2000), pp. 202–19.

control. Equally, it is an attempt to suggest how elite discourses in these areasremained open to ideas from below.

The second issue which ancient prophecy opens up is the role and impor-tance of regional and local political cultures. A major problem with much ofthe work on both popular and elite politics already discussed is that it tendsto assume the unity and coherence of the national community by the sixteenthcentury, and therefore the coherence of political discourses and languageswithin that national space. The geographical spaces within which politics has been imagined as taking place have been those of the county and thenation, and the former has almost without exception been seen as a build-ing block from which the latter was constructed. Not only that, but thepolitical cultures of counties have generally been seen as uniform and thereforetypical of national society as a whole. This has led, on the most obvious level,to a tendency to present county studies as studies of particular phenomena in England as a whole. This has had two consequences. The first is that coun-ties, even when presented as effectively autonomous, have not been seen as capable of developing distinct characteristics. The classic example of thisis Cheshire, especially given the importance John Morrill’s work on the countyhas assumed. In a book on the county extending to over two hundred pages,only two are devoted to the special circumstances and history resulting fromthe county’s distinctive palatine status.21 The second is that other geographicalspaces have hardly received any treatment at all. This is particularly true of the region. In spite of the importance of regional variation in much writingon agricultural and economic histories of the British Isles, regional approachesto political history have been unfashionable.22 Although there are honour-able exceptions,23 even those counter-revisionists who have challenged thedominance of the county study over the last thirty years have done little to develop study of alternative sub-national entities, largely because their agendahas been dominated by a determination to re-emphasize the national.24 A late-


8

21 J. S. Morrill, Cheshire 1630–1660: County Government and Society during the EnglishRevolution (London, 1974).22 A regional perspective is the fundamental underpinning of The Agrarian History ofEngland and Wales, e.g. vol. 3, 1348–1500, ed. Edward Miller (Cambridge, 1991), vol. 4,1500–1640, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1967); and vol. 5, 1640–1750, ed. Joan Thirsk(Cambridge, 1984), for example.23 E.g. Michael Bennett, Community, Class and Careerism: Cheshire and Lancashire Societyin the Age of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, 1983); R. H. Hilton, A MedievalSociety: The West Midlands at the End of the Thirteenth Century, reissue (Cambridge, 1983);Carpenter’s Locality and Polity, although expressly a study of Warwickshire, is clearlyintended as a study of the North Midlands, especially given her further thoughts on thesubject in ‘Gentry and Community in Medieval England’, Journal of British Studies 33(4)(October 1995), pp. 340–80.24 Ann Hughes, for example, in pointing out the problems of a study of Warwickshire beforeand during the English Civil War, because of internal divisions and external ties, did notdevelop this into a regionalist perspective, but emphasized the national: Ann L. Hughes,

modern fascination with the existence of a North–South divide has resultedin a continuing flow of studies of the ‘North’ or, as often, of the divide and thetensions it has created.25 Even so, the North was something which was clearerto those living elsewhere than to those who were allegedly primarily north-erners, because of the stark differences between the constituent parts of theirregion. There is therefore a need to assess the importance of political spacesand communities which are neither the conventional English county, nor the conventional English nation. Both the Nixon and Shipton prophetictraditions discussed here had a distinctly regional base, and, in their differentways, the continuing vitality of each depended on local and regional politicalcultures.

The third issue raised by ancient prophecy is of course the history of pro-phecy and associated ‘non-rational’ ideas as systems of belief in late medievaland early modern England. It is now thirty-five years since Keith Thomasprovided us with a forceful modernization narrative which described how the ending of faith in prophecy was one aspect of our rejection of magic,superstition and the suffocating power of the past, and our assumption of the trappings of modernity and rationality.26 Some more evanescent prophetictraditions appear on first examination to support Thomas’s case. Soon afterhis work appeared, Bernard Capp produced a detailed account of the pro-duction of almanacs and popular astrology in the three hundred years after1500, which adopted much the same approach. Patrick Curry’s Prophecy andPower later provided a vision of a bourgeois rationalist hegemony defeatingand destroying first the practitioners of astrology and then the credulity of theirplebeian following.27 There have always been voices which have pronouncedThomas’s account too categorical, overemphasizing the power of prophecy inthe medieval period and its weakness today.28 Neither is it adequate, however,

INTRODUCTION

9

‘Warwickshire on the Eve of the Civil War: A “County Community”?’, Midland History VII(1982), pp. 42–72; cf. Clive Holmes, ‘The County Community in Stuart Historiography’,Journal of British Studies XIX (1980), pp. 54–73, which develops from his work on a countystudy of Lincolnshire: Clive Holmes, Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1980).25 Helen M. Jewell, The North–South Divide: The Origins of Northern Consciousness inEngland (Manchester, 1994); A. J. Pollard, ‘The Tyranny of Richard III’, Journal of MedievalHistory 3 (1977), pp. 147–65; Frank Musgrave, The North of England: A History from RomanTimes to the Present (Oxford, 1990); Richard Lomas, North-East England in the Middle Ages(Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 41–52.26 Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic.27 Bernard Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500–1800 (Londonand Boston, 1979); Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England(Princeton, 1989).28 E.g. criticism of Thomas’s use of Blagden’s figures for the production of almanacs(Cyprian Blagden, ‘The Distribution of Almanacs’, Studies in Bibliography XI (1958), pp. 107–16) as an indication of the power of the astrological and other ideas they conveyed:C. John Sommerville, ‘On the Distribution of Religious and Occult Literature inSeventeenth-Century England’, The Library 5th ser. 29 (1974), pp. 221–5. Cf. Michael

simply to emphasize the role of credulity in the twentieth century, as PeterLaslett did (or even today, as Jerome Friedman chose to do).29 An increasingawareness of the complexity of the way people understand and represent theworld makes it hard to accept simple ideas of in/credulity or ir/rationality. Work on the alleged decline of belief in other ‘irrational’ systems, such aswitchcraft, has begun both to question the nature and inevitability of thedecline and to emphasize the degree to which this was contingent on a com-plex interplay of cultural, social and political changes, rather than being partof an uncomplicated march of modernity.30 Further, there has been a tendencyin the historiography to seek to identify and describe internally coherent setsof ideas and attitudes. Rather as the recent Anglo-Saxon preoccupation inliterary studies has been with establishing an authoritative text, so in thehistory of popular political and social ideas change tends to be understood as movement from one coherent set of views to other coherent sets of views,whether abruptly or by a process of evolution. The proposition examined here will be that multiple and perhaps contradictory understandings of future‘reality’ in its relationship to the present and the past might be found in oneindividual, even at the same time. Prophecy offers us the chance to considerthe history of ‘non-rational’ political beliefs other than in stark terms of eradi-cation through modernization, or of straightforward unchanging continuities,to consider them in terms of the processes and structures which might sup-port them (or not), and to assess their interaction with other, sometimescontradictory, sets of beliefs.

The last few years have seen several important publications on the historyof prophecy during the period covered by this study. Sharon Jansen’s work on prophecy in the reign of Henry VIII has made available the evidence toshow how prophecy helped to articulate the concerns of English men andwomen concerned by the policies of his government.31 There has also been a flowering of work on the phenomenon, produced by radical Protestantism,


10

Harris’s review of Capp’s work in Publishing History 8 (1980), pp. 87–104, which drawsparticular attention to the effects of the cut-off date of 1800, just as a tremendous revivalin astrology was occurring.29 Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost: England before the Industrial Age, 2nd edn(London, 1971); Jerome Friedman, Miracles and Pulp Press: The Battle of the Frogs andFairford’s Flies (London, 1993), conclusion.30 E.g. witchcraft: Ian Bostridge, Witchcraft and its Transformations c. 1650–c. 1750 (Oxford,1997); Owen Davies, Witchcraft Magic and Culture 1736–1951 (Manchester and New York,1999); cf. Alexandra Walsham, ‘“Frantick Hacket”: Prophecy, Sorcery, Insanity, and theElizabethan Puritan Movement’, Historical Journal 41 (1998), pp. 27–66.31 Sharon Jansen, Political Protest and Prophecy under Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 1991). Cf.also A. Fox, ‘Prophecies and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII’, in Reassessing the HenricianAge: Humanism, Politics and Reform, 1500–1550, ed. A. Fox and J. Guy (Oxford, 1989), pp. 77–94; C. S. L. Davies, ‘Popular Religion and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, in Order andDisorder in Early Modern England, ed. A. Fletcher and J. Stevenson (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 58–91; Gunn, ‘Peers, Commons and Gentry’, pp. 52–79.

of prophesying, in the sense of speaking and interpreting the word of God.32

Much fruitful work has been done, in particular, on the voice these doctrinesgave women in seventeenth-century England.33 The doctrine of the prophetas marginal figure, speaking from the liminal spaces of society and temporalworld alike, had tremendous potential to empower the disempowered. TheReformation still stands, however, as a major barrier within this historiography;from 1600, most attention is focused on prophecy in its biblical sense, andwords inspired by forces other than God are played down. For the Pilgrims of 1536, Thomas of Erceldoun and Bede spoke the words that explained their future; the prophets and prophecies which played a role in shaping society and politics in the seventeenth century came more or less directly from God. In that sense, Keith Thomas’s narrative still holds sway, if with the quali-fication that inspired speech, from more restricted, more regulated and moretheologically respectable sources, possessed tremendous power into the nine-teenth century. Ancient prophecy such as Shipton, Merlin and Nixon,however, non-Christian as it usually is and with its popularity spread acrossprecisely the centuries which Thomas sees as crucial, offers the chance topresent a more nuanced view of change in this system of belief.

Something needs to be said about the methodology adopted here, and some of the underlying assumptions behind the work. First, it should be noted that the assumption throughout is that there was, for example, almostcertainly never an individual named Nixon active in Delamere Forest whouttered a set of prophecies, nor an old woman named Ursula Shipton in Yorkor Knaresborough with astonishing powers of foresight; and if there was anoriginal for Merlin, then he is effectively inaccessible in early medieval times.The search for the person of the prophet has too often meant that past studiesof these prophecies became bogged down in suppositions and speculations.Such people may have existed, but since it is beyond the existing evidence to establish this with any degree of certainty, there is little point in trying todo so. In rather the same way that recent study of Robin Hood has benefitedfrom an acceptance that there may not be one individual who lies behind the

INTRODUCTION

11

32 E.g. G. Games, ‘“To Justify the Ways of God to Men”: The Prophetic Role of Ministersin Early New England’, in Prophecy: The Power of Inspired Language in History 1300–2000,ed. Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton (Stroud, 1997), pp. 85–100.33 Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England(Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1992); Diane Purkiss, ‘Producing the Voice,Consuming the Body: Women Prophets of the Seventeenth Century’, in Women, Writing,History, 1640–1740, ed. I. Grundy and S. Wiseman (London, 1992), pp. 139–58; NigelSmith, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640–1660 (New Haven and London, 1994),p. 125; Nigel Smith, Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English Radical Religion,1640–1660 (Oxford, 1989), passim, esp. ch. 1. A psycho-historical approach is attemptedin A. Cohen, ‘Prophecy and Madness: Women Visionaries during the Puritan Revolution’,Journal of Psychohistory 11 (1984), pp. 411–30.

myth, either as subject or as author,34 concentration on the tradition itself,rather than on the supposed person of the prophet, is more likely to be reward-ing.35 My second assumption is that the prophetic tradition was not in factprophetic, at least in so far as its more specific ‘predictions’ go. The Shiptonprophecy did not foretell the death of Thomas Percy, or the failure of CardinalWolsey to reach York in 1529–30, and Nixon did not predict the outcome of the battle of Bosworth Field or the miraculous birth of an heir to theCholmondeley family. In fact, the assumption will be that prophecies mustpost-date the events described.36

Many political historians, and others who are primarily literary scholars,have tended to read the evidence for this ancient prophetic culture in earlymodern England at face value. The latter group have taken the words recordedas texts to be analysed and deconstructed.37 The former have seen the evidenceas a direct record of prophetic activity, whether by makers or audience.38

Both tendencies have been rightly criticized by students of popular culture,who have pointed out the inherently hostile attitude of those who recordedthe bulk of the evidence for the phenomenon.39 The creation of many of thesurviving records of ancient prophecy was stimulated by an atmosphere of fear and persecution, at times when authorities felt threatened. Historians of popular culture have therefore described the need to ‘decode’ the evidence,to allow the extraction of as close an approximation as possible of the cultureitself. The danger with this approach is that the process of ‘decoding’ requiresvery considerable input from the interpreter – with all the dangers this posesfor adding to potential distortion according to the assumptions of the historian.While in no sense underestimating the inevitable input of the reader, it is still possible to arrive at a more convincing interpretation of ancient prophecy.


12

34 Stephen Knight, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford, 1994), isparticularly hostile to attempts to link ‘Robin Hood’ to a particular individual; cf. also R. B. Dobson and John Taylor, Rymes of Robin Hood: An Introduction to the English Outlaw,revised edn (Stroud, 1997); J. C. Holt, Robin Hood, revised edn (London, 1990); J. R. Maddicott, ‘The Birth and Setting of the Ballads of Robin Hood’, English HistoricalReview 93 (1978), pp. 276–99.35 It should therefore be understood that here the words ‘Nixon’ and ‘Shipton’ representtraditions and not people. This might have been conveyed by the use of quotation marks,but this would have reduced the clarity of the text itself.36 In a similar way to the terms ‘Shipton’ and ‘Nixon’, ‘prediction’ might have beenrendered throughout in quotation marks; it is assumed that the reader makes this assumptionsilently.37 E.g. Lesley A. Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England (Woodbridge,2000); Howard Dobin, Merlin’s Disciples: Prophecy, Poetry, and Power in Renaissance England(Stanford, Calif., 1990); Jansen, Political Protest.38 E.g. G. R. Elton, Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of ThomasCromwell (London, 1972).39 In general, this critique was advanced by Burke, Popular Culture; it was applied specificallyto prophecy by Gladwin, ‘Popular Prophecy’.

This should be done through a process of close reading, not just of the specificevidences for prophetic traditions, but of the deeper and wider context forthose who created, interpreted and consumed ancient prophecy. This willallow us to discount, as far as possible, the impact of the pathological natureof the source material generally used. My approach has been to assess thepublication histories of prophecies, in both manuscript and printed form, and the texts themselves, to obtain clues about the attitudes and intentionsof those who wrote, printed and published works about the prophecies. Thosewho patronized, wrote, circulated – and attempted to control – the propheciesare examined. I have also been concerned to understand as far as possiblesomething of the reception of the prophecies, their readership and the reac-tions of that readership.40 Inferences are drawn from the approach adopted in the texts and their frequency and pattern of reprinting and adaptation, an assumption that relies upon the production of these texts being at least toa degree responsive to those who ultimately read them.

INTRODUCTION

13

40 Marginal annotations on the texts themselves are, however, rare; mentions of this kindof material in narrative biographical or autobiographical writings or in diaries are evenrarer; and even the most thorough of business and testamentary records are systematicallyunspecific about such books: cf. the comments of Spufford, Small Books, pp. 45–9.

1

Ancient prophecy in the sixteenth century

In 1539 John Davy, described as a Welsh prophet, was sent up to the capitalby an anxious courtier, Sir John Gresham. Davy was very desirous to see theking, and content to face prison and death if what he foretold did not provetrue. Gresham opined: ‘he is but a “werysh” [that is insipid or, perhaps, weakand unimaginative] person to have any such learning of prophecy’.1 The inci-dent seems to encapsulate the state of ancient prophecy in the sixteenthcentury: espoused by the marginal or deranged, a threat to order and stability,and either benignly dismissed or savagely punished by an ever more incom-prehending elite. Yet if this was the case, why did Gresham not deal with the issue summarily on the spot? Why inform the king’s chief minister andsend Davy to London? And read closely, Gresham’s comments might implythat some, weightier and more worthy people properly understood prophecyand might thereby be useful and not necessarily dangerous. It is thereforenecessary in this chapter to ask further questions. Who was involved in theculture of ancient prophecy in the sixteenth century? Was it a minority, andan increasingly marginalized one at that, as the historiography might lead us to expect? What influence, in practical terms, did ancient prophecy haveon political life? What political agendas did prophecy traditions serve? Andif, as will be argued here, ancient prophecy retained a wide currency, influ-encing the political agenda in many areas, to what extent did its circulationbegin to be influenced, and even controlled, by the means of its circulation,possibly in manuscript, certainly in print?

Given his reputation as a pragmatic, hard-working and modernizing ruler,Henry VII might be thought an inauspicious subject with which to open thischapter. Yet Henry’s reign, it can be argued, saw the influence of the allied

14

1 Henry Ellis, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History; From Autographs in the BritishMuseum, the State Paper Office, &c., with Notes and Illustrations, 3rd ser., 4 vols (London,1846), iii. pp. 101–3 (LP, xiv/2. 124; Ellis sees Davy’s confidence as a sign of the (to himdubious) familiarity of Tudor monarchy under Henry). Sherman M. Kuhn et al. (eds), MiddleEnglish Dictionary (Ann Arbor, 1954–), W, p. 340.

ideas of ancient prophetic tradition and astrological prediction of the futurein medieval England reach a high point at court and amongst the politicalelite. This predominance of astrology and prophecy had several causes. Onewas Henry himself, and in particular his origins and experience before ascend-ing the throne. Henry placed considerable emphasis on his Welsh and Britishheritage in defining his understanding of his place in history. The influence of the ‘British history’ under Henry VII and in particular the pervasiveness ofArthurian myth was challenged many years ago by Sydney Anglo.2 Withoutoveremphasizing one aspect of Henry’s heritage, however, it is possible toreassert the power of the British history in early Tudor England.3 Even if thenaming of Henry’s first-born son, Arthur, is not in itself conclusive, the con-junction of the name with his birthplace in Winchester is heavy with ‘British’connotations.4 The official historian of the reign, Bernard André, empha-sized Henry’s sense of himself as a descendant of Cadwaladr, the wars of thefifteenth century as an expression of the savagery of the Saxons, and his ownprophetic mission to quell this savagery. Henry’s exile, in Brittany, mirroredCadwaladr’s.5 An important source for Henry’s interest in prophecy was

ANCIENT PROPHECY IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

15

2 Sydney Anglo, ‘The British History in Early Tudor Propaganda – with an Appendix ofManuscript Pedigrees of the Kings of England, Henry VI to Henry VIII’, Bulletin of the JohnRylands Library, Manchester 44 (1961–2), pp. 17–48.3 Cf. in general David Starkey, ‘King Henry and King Arthur’, in Arthurian Literature XVI,ed. James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 171–96; and AntoniaGransden, ‘Antiquarian Studies in Fifteenth-Century England’, The Antiquaries’ Journal 60(1980), pp. 75–97.4 Further to Anglo, see Richard K. Morris, ‘The Architecture of Arthurian Enthusiasm:Castle Symbolism in the Reigns of Edward I and his Successors’, in Armies, Chivalry andWarfare in Medieval Britain and France: Proceedings of the 1995 Harlaxton Symposium, ed.Matthew Strickland (Stamford, 1998), pp. 63–81: Arthur’s plain marble tomb at Worcesterechoes the legendary king’s.5 Bernard André, ‘De vita atque gestis Henrici Septimi, Angliæ ac Franciæ regumpotentissimi sapientissimique, historia’, in Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andreatholosate conscripta; necnon alia quædam ad eundum regem spectantia, ed. James Gairdner, RS10 (London, 1858), pp. 1–75, at pp. 9–10 (a return to the rule of Cadwaladr’s family afteran interlude of ‘Anglorum saevitia’ (savagery of the English)). André also has Margaret ofBurgundy stirring up Perkin Warbeck in conspiracy, reminding him of Saxon victories overthe Britons, and of Henry’s British blood: p. 68. It should also be noted that André recordeda prophecy of Henry VI about Henry Tudor: p. 14. André also makes prophecy themotivation for Edward IV’s actions regarding Henry Tudor during his second reign:‘Propheticis quorumdam testimoniis exterritus, apud Franciscum Britanniae ducem pretioprecibusque saepe contendit magnis pollicitationibus ut Richemundiae comitem in patriamrevocaret’ (p. 23). Cf. the prognostication by Henry VI on seeing Henry Tudor during hisreadeption, recorded by Polydore Vergil: Anglicae historiae libri xxvi (Basileae, 1534) (ThreeBooks of Polydore Vergil’s English History, Comprising the Reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV.,and Richard III, ed. Henry Ellis, Camden Society o.s. 29 (London, 1844), p. 135). AnthonyGoodman, ‘Henry VII and Christian Renewal’, in Religion and Humanism, ed. KeithRobbins, Studies in Church History 17 (Oxford, 1981), pp. 115–25, at p. 121.

therefore Welsh prophetic tradition, in which Henry had been greeted as thepromised heir, the mab darogan, as early as 1458.6

Direct evidence for Henry’s interest in prophecy is apparent from a manu-script produced for him in 1490. This includes a considerable body of propheticmaterial, concluding with the prophecies of John of Bridlington, the visionsof St Brigitta, the prophecies of Merlin Ambrosius, prefaced by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s epistle to Bishop Alexander of Lincoln, and those of MerlinSilvester. These were followed by four short prophecies, a grouping which isusually described by the collective name of the ‘Prophecy of the Eagle’.7 Henrywas not alone in this interest. Prophecy continued to encourage dissidents and pretenders, such as those involved in the final plots concerning PerkinWarbeck.8 It also involved men with connections to the heart of the regime,such as Sir Hugh Conway, who had shared Henry’s exile and occupied thehighly sensitive post of Treasurer of Calais,9 and Reginald Andrew, who was in the service of William Uvedale of Wickham, a squire for the king’sbody.10

The prevalence of ancient prophecy was a significant reason for, amongstother things, potential dynastic change in or immediately after Henry’s reign.


16

6 Ceridwen Lloyd Morgan, ‘Prophecy and Welsh Nationhood in the Fifteenth Century’,Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1985), pp. 9–26.

7 BL, Arundel 66, fols 267–291b: summarized in H. D. Ward and J. A. Herbert, Catalogueof Romances in the Department of Manuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London,1883–1910), vol. I, pp. 301–2. Kathleen L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts, 1390–1490, 2vols (London, 1996), II, pp. 365–6. Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’sBooks: Ideal and Reality in the Life of a Medieval Prince (Stroud, 1997), pp. 195–202. Cf.Excerpta Historica, or, Illustrations of English History (London, 1833), p. 95 (reward to[William?] Cornysshe in return for a prophecy, November 1493).

8 53rd Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records (1892), App. II, ‘Conspiracy againstHenry VII’, pp. 30–6, pp. 32–3; Ian Arthurson, The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy 1491–1499(Stroud, 1994), pp. 196, 198, 203, 207, 209–10, 213, 215; Margaret Condon, ‘TheKaleidoscope of Treason: Fragments from the Bosworth Story’, The Ricardian VII (1986),pp. 208–12. Such involvement was no doubt the reason for the attempt to outlaw it inHenry’s first parliament, although this seems to have come to nothing: Plumpton Letters andPapers, Camden Society 5th ser. 8 (Cambridge, 1996), p. 64. Previous legislation had beenin the context of anti-heresy/reform campaigns: RP, III, p. 583 (1406); Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, ‘Prophecy and Suspicion: Closet Radicalism, Reformist Politics, and the Vogue forHildegardiana in Ricardian England’, Speculum 75 (2000), pp. 318–41, esp. pp. 338–9.

9 J. Gairdner (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III and Henry VII,RS 24 (London, 1861–3), I, pp. 231–40; A. F. Pollard (ed.), The Reign of Henry VII fromContemporary Sources, 3 vols (London, 1913–14), I, pp. 240–50; for the dating of thisdocument, see Dominic A. Luckett, ‘Crown Patronage and Political Morality in Early TudorEngland: The Case of Giles, Lord Daubeney’, EHR 110 (1995), pp. 578–95, at p. 589(placing it between June 1504 and early 1506).10 Uvedale served the Woodvilles; his father Sir Thomas’s second wife, Elizabeth, was one of the four ladies-in-waiting to the queen. Bodl., Lyell MS 35, esp. fols 1–23v, 35–37v;Rosemary Horrox, Richard III: A Study in Service, paperback edn (Cambridge, 1991),

We can go further, however, to suggest that ancient prophecy had a continuinginfluence on the king himself, giving him a sense of the destiny which was suc-cessfully worked out on the field of Bosworth and addressing themes whichwere central preoccupations of the reign. It is likely that Henry’s interests inthe French throne, in the conquest of Ireland, and ultimately in crusadingsprang in part from his belief in prophecy and his own destiny.11 Shortly afterhis accession he ordered prayers for the expedition against Granada.12

Subsequently, European interests in the crusade tended to switch eastwards,not least onto the territory of Italy itself. In 1504 Henry sent 20,000 goldcrowns to the Pope to support crusading, the only prince personally to contri-bute.13 Henry’s commitment to crusade made sense in the context of propheticexpectations of a ‘last world emperor’ who would conquer the Holy Land in a confrontation with antichrist, ushering in the millennium. Further, it wasbelieved that the first action of the man destined for the role of last worldemperor would be to re-establish dominance over the whole of Britain andIreland,14 and then achieve the conquest of France. Henry’s understanding


17

pp. 102, 103, 157, 274, 294; Josiah C. Wedgewood, History of Parliament 1439–1509, 2 vols(London, 1936–8), vol. 1: Biographies of the Members of the Commons House 1439–1509, p. 901; John Hutchins, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd edn, ed.William Shipp and James Whitworth Hodson, 4 vols (Westminster, 1861–70 [1874]), III,p. 144. It may even be that Andrew was associated with the Richard Andrew who wasReginald Bray’s nephew and was bequeathed the Hampshire manor of Freefolk by Bray in1503: VCH Hampshire, IV, pp. 208, 283. A Reginald Andrew, late of St Mary’s parish,Strand, Middlesex, alias of parish of Melksham (Wiltshire), gent, was pardoned for non-appearance, 28 May 1462: CPR, 1461–1467, p. 174.11 Goodman, ‘Henry VII and Christian Renewal’, pp. 117–19. S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII(London, 1972; 2nd edn, London, 1977), pp. 304–5 (he doubts the sincerity of Henry’sdesires; but the evidence cited, Henry’s insistence that the Pope should join in the crusade,seems less decisively evasive when it is remembered that campaigning against the Turk wasalready taking place on Italian soil in 1494: James Orchard Halliwell, Letters of the Kings of England, 2 vols (London, 1846), I, pp. 185–94 (Henry VII to the Pope, 1502, 17 HenryVII), reprinted in Pollard (ed.), Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources, III, pp. 165–72. Goodman has pointed out the Breton interest in crusading which Henry musthave observed during his time there: ‘Henry VII and Christian Renewal’, p. 119.12 Henry probably received a prognostication in 1492 which included elements related toSpanish crusading, discussed in more detail below regarding the abbot of Burton, p. 18.13 Christopher Tyerman, England and the Crusades, 1095–1588 (Chicago, 1988), pp. 350–1.Henry VIII: 1511 expedition and title given that year; enthusiasm 1519–20: pp. 351–3.Generally Tyerman sees English interest, including that of the monarchs, as sincere andfinds the real break with the past in the Elizabethan regime’s negotiations with theOttomans in the 1580s: p. 349.14 State Papers, Henry VIII, part iii [vol. II], pp. 1–31 (the summary in LP, ii/2. 1366 (1515,p. 371) omits all mention of this aspect of the document). This reflected a Lancastrianheritage: see the letters left at Chirk (supporting the claims of Edward, son of Henry VI)and found by John Edwards: BL, Add. MS 46,846 (Letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou andBishop Beckington and others, Written in the reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI. From a MS.

of his Boulogne expedition of 1492 had a prophetic context which may havebeen actively promoted by the king and certainly had a widespread audience.15

Perhaps understandably, there seems to have been something of a reactionagainst some elements of prediction, and political astrology in particular,towards the end of Henry’s reign. The general sense of disillusion, especiallywith the death of Arthur and Queen Elizabeth, and as the king’s health failed,was palpable. Yet this eventual disenchantment should not be considered asall-embracing. To read back the scepticism of Francis Bacon about prophecyinto the reign of Henry VII is to impose an unhelpful and anachronisticinterpretation on the first Tudor – as do so many other elements of Bacon’sportrait of the king.16

The influence of ancient prophecy at the heart of Henry VIII’s regime is evi-dent in the person of Thomas Cromwell. The best evidence comes from thetestimony of Anthony Budgegood, who was for a long time closely associatedwith Cromwell, in the service of the marquis of Dorset, Thomas, CardinalWolsey17 and the king. Cromwell had borrowed money from Budgegood, andwhen Leonard Grey was looking to confirm his hoped-for marriage withElizabeth, Lady Tailboys in 1532 – a not unimportant matter given her role as mother of the king’s son and possible heir Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond– he left it to Cromwell or Budgegood indifferently to devise a letter on hisbehalf to the duke of Norfolk.18 Budgegood later recalled a prophecy concern-


18

found at Emral in Flintshire, ed. Cecil Monro, Camden Society o.s. 86 (Westminster, 1863),pp. 166–7); also BL, Cotton MS Vespasian B XVI, fol. 5r (from 1458/9).15 Register of Thomas Felde, abbot of Burton on Trent, c. 1431–92: University ofNottingham, Hallward Library, Mi. Dc. 7, fols 41r–41v (HMC Middleton, pp. 263–6). Thismay be the prognostication brought to Henry in January 1492: Excerpta Historica, p. 88.The prophecies in Henry’s presentation MS, BL, Arundel MS 66, fols 267–91b, all focuson the relationship between England and France: cf. the comments of Lesley M. Coote,Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2000), pp. 235–6. JohnM. Currin, ‘“To Traffic with War”? Henry VII and the French Campaign of 1492’, in TheEnglish Experience in France c. 1450–1558: War, Diplomacy, and Cultural Exchange, ed. DavidGrummitt (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 106–31.16 Francis Bacon, The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh (London, 1622) – butnote that even he includes the Henry VI prophecy about Henry, at the very end.17 We have some important hints as to Thomas Wolsey’s interest in ancient prophecy.Richard Britnell pointed out the intensely prophetic context of George Cavendish’s Lifeof Wolsey: if Cavendish is to be believed, Wolsey had a strong sense of his own future, butit is not always clear whether this was grounded in the work of his astrologers or in ancientprophetic texts: ‘Penitence and Prophecy: George Cavendish on the Last State of CardinalWolsey’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 48 (1997), pp. 263–81. Cf. the prophetic tauntingof the cardinal in Jerome Barlowe and William Roy, Rede Me and be Nott Wrothe ([J. Schott,1528]), Aiv; Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Report on Manuscripts in theWelsh Language, ed. J. G. Evans, 3 vols (London, 1898–1910), vol. I, pp. v–vi; LP, xiii/1.1383; G. R. Elton, Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of ThomasCromwell (London, 1972), p. 52.18 Borrowings: LP, iv. 5330; cf. v. 1285. Grey: LP, v. 1049; Beverley A. Murphy, Bastard

ing Wolsey, allegedly current at the time of Dorset’s expedition to France inthe summer of 1512, ‘[w]hich prophecy the lord Cromwell well knoweth andmany and often times he and I have reasoned the matter’.19

Later in his life, Cromwell supported prophetic interpreters. This chapterbegan with an account of how John Davy, a Welsh prophet, was in 1539 sentup by Sir John Gresham with an apparently dismissive judgement on hispowers.20 There the story usually ends, with Davy most likely ruthlessly con-demned or benignly discounted depending on the perspective of the historian.Yet he can potentially be traced further. On 4 March 1538, Richard Pollardhad reported to Cromwell the flight from Exeter of one John Davy, who hadpreviously been accused of treason. Davy had allegedly gone to Westminster,to the house of one Lewis ap Richard.21 Shortly afterwards, another reportreached Cromwell, this time from Lewes, from Gregory Cromwell and Sir John Gage. They had met a John Davy, whom at first they took for a vaga-bond; but it transpired that he had been a monk and priest of the monasteryin Lewes. He claimed that he had since Christmas been with ThomasCromwell, who had promised him protection from his enemies in Sussex.22

The strong connections between Lewes and the marquis of Exeter’s family


19

Prince: Henry VIII’s Lost Son (Stroud, 2001), p. 23, and cf. LP, vi. 299ii, vii. 923xx, xl; x.567; xiii/1. 653.19 LP, xiv/1. 186iii (the text is mutilated and sections missing). Budgegood made thisallegation in 1539 as an old and impoverished exile after a precipitate flight from Londonthat ended in Italy: LP, x. 567; xiii/2. 416, 433, 694, 846, 847; xiv/1. 1, 186; xv. 498. It mayhave been in Budgegood’s interest to exaggerate the weaknesses of the English nobility (LP,xiv/1. 186(?); Bernard’s opinion noted in T. B. Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’,in The Tudor Nobility, ed. G. W. Bernard (Manchester, 1992), pp. 49–110, at p. 97), but itis not clear that it was in his interests to fabricate a Cromwellian interest in prophecy.Sharon L. Jansen, Political Protest and Prophecy under Henry VIII (Woodbridge, 1991), p. 26, says Cromwell ‘took careful note’ of the prophecy, although her overall argumentprevents her from seeing Cromwell as a full participant in the discussion.20 See above, p. 14.21 LP, xiii/1. 416. One individual at least can be excluded from the difficulties of identifyingthis prophet: the Lisles’ servant John Davy appears never to have been suspected orotherwise involved in these events.22 LP, xiii/1. 549. The house was surrendered 16 November 1537 (LP, xii/2. 1101), manymonths after a report of extensive corruption and treason made by Richard Layton in autumn 1535 (LP, ix. 632). This may not be the same man, since Pollard’s notes from around this time on earlier charges against the marquis of Exeter include some on aJohn Davy, clothier, who in 1531 allegedly said that four or five years hence Exeter wouldsucceed Henry as king, and who is therefore likely to be his fugitive of March 1538: LP,xiii/2. 961. 1531 charges v. Exeter: LP, v. 340, 416 (where he is called Dorset in error;Chapuys’s reports, 17 July and 10 September 1531); Nicholas Harris Nicolas, ‘Instructionsgiven by King Henry the Eighth to John Becket the Usher, and John Wrothe the Sewer ofhis Chamber, Relative to their Journey into Cornwall, for the Purpose of Inquiring intothe Conduct of William Kendall’, Archaeologia xxii (1829), pp. 20–5, from BL, HarleianMS 296, fol. 35v.

provide a possible association between the two incidents.23 Intriguingly, too,in September 1540, John Davy, specifically described as a Welshman, receiveda reward from the king, and recompense for a horse which had died at court,amounting to the substantial sum of £4.24 Around this time, a John Davy also appears in the royal household, receiving a fee of 50s., probably as amessenger of the chamber.25 Even in the face of Gresham’s evident scepticismin 1539, Davy’s confidence that he must speak with the king almost certainlyproved well placed, as did his claimed association with Cromwell.26 In fact hereappears, some years later, now in the service of the duke of Somerset, whenhe was described as ‘a prophesier, and a great teller of thinges lost’.27

Anne Boleyn too seems to have knowingly operated in a courtly environ-ment in which prophecy was common currency. George Wyatt’s account of the final months before Anne Boleyn’s marriage to Henry VIII suggests that prophecies were employed by all sides to help delay the king’s purpose in the hope that ‘something might fall between the cup and the lip’. One was delivered to Anne in her chamber, a prophecy of H, A and K, which ‘anexpounder’ interpreted as indicating ‘great destruction if she married the king’. Wyatt says Anne pronounced the book ‘a bauble’, but her maid, AnneGainsford, commented, ‘If I thought it true, though he were an emperor, I would not myself marry him with that condition.’ In Wyatt’s text the incidentserves the purpose of showing Anne’s selfless willingness to sacrifice herself for the realm: ‘I am resolved to have him whatsoever might become of me.’This therefore implies some level of belief in prophecy, if only in the lower-status but still gentle maid, and demands a belief in the reader’s mind that thegeneral climate of opinion at court, if not Anne’s own beliefs, was receptiveto the idea that prophecy might genuinely predict her fate.28 The account


20

23 W. H. Godfrey, The Priory of St Pancras, Lewes: A Short Historical Guide to the Ruins atSouthover (Lewes, 1927).24 LP, xvi. 380.25 LP, xiii/2. 1280; xiv/2. 781.26 We certainly see no signs of a more unfortunate end for Gresham’s prophet. John Davyof the household seems to have survived until at least 1544: LP, xix/1. 275 (at p. 163). AJohn Davy acted as a trusted servant of Sir John Wallop in France in 1540–1: LP, xvi. 476,492, 525.27 ‘Autobiography of Edward Underhill’, in Narratives of the Days of the Reformation: Chieflyfrom the Manuscripts of John Foxe the Martyrologist: with Two Contemporary Biographies ofArchbishop Cranmer, ed. John Gough Nichols, Camden Society o.s. 77 (Westminster, 1859),p. 334, from BL, Lansdowne MS 2, art. 26 (examination by Sir Thomas Smith of WilliamWicherly). We may also catch a glimpse of Davy and through him Cromwell’s interest inprophecy in words alleged against George Poulett during his time in Ireland: that Cromwellhad sent a Welshman to St Patrick’s purgatory in Ireland to enquire of a prophecy ‘that apelican should come out of Ireland and should do many strange marvellous things inEngland’. LP, xiii/1. 470–1. Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, p. 51.28 George Cavendish, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. Samuel Weller Singer, 2nd edn(London, 1827), p. 429; Eric Ives, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The Most Happy’

is corroborated by the report of the imperial ambassador, Eustace Chapuys, in May 1536, that Anne had discussed prophecy with the king before hermarriage. Anne, he said, had told the king that there was a prophecy thatabout this time a queen of England would be burned, but that, to please theking, she did not care. After her marriage, Chapuys went on, she boasted thatalthough part of the prophecy had been fulfilled, she had not been condemned– but, Chapuys added, they might have said to her, as to Caesar, that the Ideshave come, but not yet gone. Chapuys’s report implies some of the scepticismof Wyatt’s, since he makes Anne report the prophecy to the king as a ploy toincrease his love, yet her subsequent boasting at having escaped the con-sequences of the prophecy implies some element of belief.29 What is beyonddoubt, however, is that Anne and her brother George, Lord Rochford, wereinterested in the prophetic interpretations of François Lambert.30

Anne’s involvement begins to intersect more clearly with Cromwell’s as we turn to consider another noted collector and interpreter of prophecy,Thomas Gybson. Gybson wrote to Thomas Cromwell in 1538 saying he had gathered prophecies of a king who would win the Holy Cross and alsodivers realms. Such things had been done to advance the glory of the emperorCharles, so Gybson intended to do the same for Henry, showing he was theking intended. He provided thirteen prophecies, of St Thomas, Merlin andothers.31 Gybson combined the highly successful practice of medicine with arole as one of the most radical Protestant printers in the London of the 1530s,and he had been recommended by Latimer, Edward Crone and others toCromwell as the man who should print the Institution of a Christian Man in


21

(Oxford and Malden, Mass., 2004), p. 145. Cf. Chapuys’s report in December 1530 ofgeneral belief in a prophecy that the kingdom would be destroyed by a woman, which ledsome merchants to approach him with a view to transferring their stock to Flanders orSpain: Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers, Relating to the Negotiations betweenEngland and Spain, preserved in the archives at Vienna, Simancas, Besancon and Brussels, ed.Royall Tyler, 13 vols (London, 1904–54), 1529–1530, p. 547.29 LP, x. 909 (Chapuys to Granvelle, 19 May 1536). An earlier case seems to confirm theexistence of such a prophecy in the early 1530s: see below, p. 27. Starkey, ‘King Henry andKing Arthur’, p. 196, speculates that this might be a reference to the parallelism betweenAnne’s alleged behaviour and potential fate and that of Guinevere.30 Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, p. 283; cf. Jennifer Britnell and Derek Stubbs, ‘TheMirabilis Liber: its Compilation and Influence’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes49 (1986), pp. 126–49; Jennifer Britnell, ‘Jean Lemaire de Belges and Prophecy’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 42 (1979), pp. 144–66; eadem, ‘John Gough and the Traité de la différence des schismes et des conciles of Jean Lemaire de Belges: Translationas Propaganda in the Henrician Reformation’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 16 (1995),pp. 62–74; Richard Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth Century Apocalypticism,Millenarianism and the English Reformation: From John Bale to John Foxe and Thomas Brightman(Appleford and Abingdon, 1978), pp. 258–68.31 BL, Cotton MS Cleopatra E. vi., fol. 386 (LP, xiii/2. 1242).

1537.32 Given this background it is unsurprising that Gybson’s account ofancient prophecy emphasizes Cromwell’s godliness and membership of theelect. Gybson’s role as printer to the city of London in at least 1538 suggestshis interest in prophecy did not exclude him from ministerial support.33 Hetherefore provides us with detailed evidence for the way radical Protestants inthe 1530s with powerful connections could find hope in ancient prophecy.Gybson’s work included printing The Pilgrim’s Tale, probably in 1537–9, aProtestant text heavily founded on prophecies attributed to Merlin – andwhose likely author, Robert Singleton, was Anne Boleyn’s chaplain.34

From an opposition perspective, too, people around the court found anunderstanding of the future in prophecy. This was true of the nobility. Rhysap Gruffydd was executed for treason in 1531, when amongst his motiva-tions was listed the currency in Wales of the prophecy ‘that king Jamys withthe red hand and the ravens should conquere all England’. In spite of theWelsh origins of the prophecy, it nonetheless formed part of the everyday


22

32 LP, xii/2. 295; John Hodgson, A History of Northumberland, 3 vols in 7 (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1820–58), vol. II, part ii (1832), p. 438. His outspoken Protestantism is evident from[Thomas Gybson], The Sum of the Actes and Decrees made by Diverse Bishops of Rome([London], [1540?]). Neither Elton nor Jansen seem to have identified him correctly: G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England, 1509–1558 (London, 1977), pp. 158–9 (theprophecies as ‘peculiarly vapid’, and Thomas as possibly the son of Richard, a common-wealth man); idem, Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal (London,1973), pp. 20–1, 63; Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in PopularBeliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London, 1971), p. 402; Jansen, PoliticalProtest, pp. 58–9.33 STC, iii. pp. 68–9.34 [The Court of Venus. With the Pilgrim’s Tale. In Verse] ([T. Gybson, 1538?]) (STC24650); The Court of Venus, ed. Russell A. Fraser (Durham, NC, 1955), pp. 4–5, 12–20,31–3; Index Britanniae Scriptorum: John Bale’s Index of British and Other Writers, ed. ReginaldLane Poole and Mary Bateson, with an introduction by Caroline Brett and James P. Carley(Cambridge, 1990), p. 389; John Bale, Illustrium Maioris Britanniæ scriptorum, hoc est,Angliæ, Cambriæ, ac Scotiæ summariu, in quasdam centurias diuisum, cum diuersitate doctrinaruatq; annoru recta supputatione per omnes ætates a Iapheto sanctissimi Noah filio, ad annum dominiM.D.XLVIII. (Additio . . . pro sexta centuria.) (Basileae, 1557, 1559), vol. I, p. 719(Gybson); vol. II, p. 105 (Singleton); Animaduersions vppon the Annotacions and Correctionsof some Imperfections of Impressiones of Chaucers Workes: (Sett Downe before Tyme, and Nowe)Reprinted in the Yere of Oure Lorde 1598 / Sett Downe by Francis Thynne . . . Now NewlyEdited from the MS. in the Bridgewater Library, with Fresh Collections for the Lives of WilliamThynne, the Chaucer Editor, and Francis Thynne, his Son, and a Reprint of the Only KnownFragment of “The Pilgrim’s Tale”, ed. F. J. Furnivall, Chaucer Society 2nd ser. 13 (London,1875), pp. xlvi, 6–7; Ives, Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, p. 310; Susan Brigden, London andthe Reformation, corrected edn (Oxford, 1991), pp. 221, 259, 349–52; BRUO 1501–1540,pp. 516–17; Andrew Wawn, ‘Chaucer, “The Plowman’s Tale” and ReformationPropaganda: The Testimonies of Thomas Godfray and “I Playne Piers”’, BJRL 56 (1973–4),pp. 174–92; Joseph A. Dane, ‘Bibliographical History versus Bibliographical Evidence: ThePlowman’s Tale and Early Chaucer Editions’, BJRL 78 (1996), pp. 47–61, at pp. 47–51.

conversation of the household of Rhys at Islington (Middlesex), in closeproximity to the court and connected to English elites through Rhys’s marriageto Lady Katherine Howard, daughter of the second duke of Norfolk and sisterof the third.35 Under investigation in 1538, Gertrude, marchioness of Exeter,described how, when her husband the marquess went north at the time of thePilgrimage of Grace, Sir Edward Neville, Lord Montague’s brother-in-law,came to her and said ‘Madam, how do you? Be you merry’, to which she repliedthat she could not be, as her husband would be one of the foremost in anybattle. Edward responded in prophetic terms, ‘Madame, be not afeared of this, nor of the second, but beware of the third.’ She countered, ‘Mr. Nevellyou will never leave your Welsh prophecies, but one day this will turn you todispleasure.’36 It was also true of another group opposed to Reformation andwith an interest in prophecy, centred on the family of Sir Thomas More:William Daunce, of Cassiobury (Hertfordshire), husband of Elizabeth, seconddaughter of More, was pardoned for treasonable words and for certainprophecies in 1544.37


23

35 W. Llewelyn Williams, ‘A Welsh Insurrection’, Y Cymmrodor XVI (1903), pp. 1–93, theindictment being at pp. 33–9. James: king of Scots; Red Hand: Llawgoch; Ravens: houseof Dynevor. A copy of the record was kept at Dynevor: NLW, Dynevor MS 884(1). TheReports of Sir John Spelman, ed. J. H. Baker, 2 vols, Selden Society 93–4 (London, 1977), I, p. 47.36 PRO, SP 1/138, fol. 158v (LP, xiii/2. 765); Madeleine Hope Dodds and Ruth Dodds,The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536–1537 and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538, 2 vols (Cambridge,1915), ii. pp. 289–90, 310, 312, 314–15, 320. Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, p. 52.37 LP, xix/1. 444(5). A similar formula was used in 1545 for one of his co-accused, RogerIreland, clerk, late of Wandsworth (‘Wanneswoorth’, Surrey): LP, xx/1. 282(25). JohnGriffith, vicar of Wandsworth (a Westminster Abbey benefice), his chaplain and servant,were hanged in 1539 for denying the royal supremacy: VCH Surrey, iv. p. 117. The mostprominent victim actually to suffer in this group was Germaine Gardiner, executed fordenying the royal supremacy early in 1544. The grounds for this seem to have been relatedto his contacts with Reginald Pole while in France with Stephen Gardiner in the late 1530s.The formal verdict is singularly unspecific: James Gairdner, Lollardy and the Reformation inEngland: An Historical Survey, 4 vols (London, 1908–13), ii. pp. 411–12. Also accused, andagain for contacts with Pole, were John Beckinsall of (‘Borowclere’, Hampshire) and HenryCole of New College, Oxford, and St Paul’s Cathedral. Cole: LP, xix/1. 444(11); BRUO1501–40, pp. 128–9; ODNB. Bekinsall: LP, xix/1. 610(62); BRUO 1501–40, p. 37; ODNB.Others involved were part of the More connection: John Heywood, husband of Joan,daughter of John Rastell, John Larke, More’s vicar at Chelsea, and John and Roger Ireland.Larke and John Ireland died with Gardiner, and Heywood was reprieved at the last minute:Glyn Redworth, In Defence of the Church Catholic: The Life of Stephen Gardiner (Oxford,1990), pp. 205–6; James Arthur Muller, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (London,1926), pp. 113, 361; Gairdner, Lollardy, ii. p. 412; William Roper, The Lyfe of Sir ThomasMoore, Knighte, ed. Elsie Vaughan Hitchcock, EETS o.s. 197 (London, 1935), pp. 115–17.John Heron, bastard brother of Giles, was investigated for astrological activities in 1540:ibid., p. 121. For prophecy MSS from the More circle, cf. Washington, DC, FolgerShakespeare Library, Loseley MS L. b. 546; London, Lambeth Palace Library, MS 527.

The Henrician court in England would, in fact, have been very unusual ifit had not been pervaded by a belief in prophecy, given the Western Europeancontext.38 The extent to which this impacted on policy towards England was great; as powerful a figure as Mercurin de Gattinara, chancellor of Charles V, was influenced in major diplomatic decisions by his belief in prophecy. When discussing the possible abandonment of Princess Mary as prospectivewife for the emperor, he observed in a matter-of-fact way that according toprophecy Charles would become king of England by marriage, and so a newalliance (to Isabella of Portugal) could not be more than a short-lived firstmarriage.39 Not unnaturally, such views impinged on the English court throughambassadors sent abroad and the correspondence they had with their mastersat home. A Spanish report of the manner of the executions of Anne Boleynand her co-accused ended, ‘Thus, he who wrote this billet says that, accordingto old writings, he has seen the prophecy of Merlin fulfilled.’40

Of course, there was opposition to ancient prophecy on some occasions by some members of the elite. The danger in the way this evidence has beentreated in the past rests in the underlying assumption that the elite werethereby expressing either uncomplicated opposition to or contempt for ancientprophecy. Read in specific context, we see that condemnation tends to havemore specific causes. Sometimes this was because the prophecies’ use was poli-tically unacceptable – and not because prophecy in itself was beyond the pale. Partly because it was so extensively tolerated, we catch only glimpses of ancient prophecy in the assize records. Remarkably few cases of seditionunder Henry VII or his son, or Elizabeth and James I, seem to have concernedprophecy;41 we only get more direct indication of the continuing influence of ancient prophecy in the highly controversial circumstances of rebellion,especially in the North, because it was then that it was most rigorously per-secuted. Late in 1568, one Dr Marshall, a papist, was arrested near Bolton(presumably Castle Bolton, in the North Riding of Yorkshire), and was foundto possess a book including Merlinic prophecies.42 William Warton, of Ripon,reported that he had passed to John Molineux, JP, a book of prophecies, to


24

38 Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Study in Joachimism(Oxford, 1969), part III, chs VI–VII.39 Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs Existing in the Archivesand Collection of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy, ed. Rawdon Brown (London,1864–), 1520–1526, p. 852.40 LP, x. 911.41 These cases are surveyed by Christopher Randall Duggan, ‘The Advent of PoliticalThought-Control in England: Seditious and Treasonable Speech, 1485–1547’ (unpublishedPh.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1993), and Frances M. Gladwin, ‘Popular Prophecyin Sixteenth-Century England: By Mouth and Pen in the Alehouse and from the Pulpit’(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Adelaide, 1997), pp. 228–54; cf. her emphasis onthe relatively limited use of the potentially draconian penalties available to the authorities.42 Calendar of Scottish Papers, 1563–1569, p. 821.

the discredit of the queen and treating of the actions of the nobility of therealm, and persons beyond the seas.43 This may have been the same as the setof prophecies which were discussed by a group centred on one Banister,including reference to the hound (Leonard Dacre) which should chase thewhite lion (the duke of Norfolk) to Berwick.44 The period 1569–70 may itselfhave been the highpoint of rebellion in part because of prophecy relating toElizabeth’s twelfth year.45 In 1575–6, Dr Morys Clynnog’s invasion projectswere based in part on the faith placed by the Welsh in ancient prophecy of deliverance from Rome,46 and later, in 1582, Richard Kirkbride, of Ellerton(Yorkshire, North Riding), brother-in-law to Richard Cliburne, who waswanted by the privy council for his association with a Scots seminary priest,kept prophecies in his chamber, along with news from Scotland. The book ofprophecies seems to have dated from 1563 and centred on the idea of universalredemption through the means of ‘Philip’s blood’, resulting in the conversionof the Turk and the overthrow of princely powers in Germany, France andEngland.47 The period of uncertainty in the last years of Elizabeth’s reign alsoprompted worries about prophetic activity, and in 1592 it was reported thatthe Catholics, especially in Lancashire, had prophecies of the queen’s deaththat year.48

Further, it is worth noting signs that it might be particular prophetic inter-preters, rather than prophets in general, who were doubted. For example,Cromwell noted of two well-known prophets that William Hurlok was a blind ‘profeser’ and that Laynam was a ‘madd prophet’.49 This is evidence ofdisbelief in particular prophecies or, more specifically, particular propheticinterpreters. On Laynam, Cromwell added, ‘no part of the spirit of true prophetcan be found in hym’, indicating his judgement was not against prophecy in general as ‘madd’, but in terms of discriminating between the ‘true’ and the‘madd’.50 Another attack on prophecy which on consideration appears less


25

43 CSPD, Addenda, 1566–1579, pp. 456–8. Warton later begged pardon from the queenfor being unable to get possession of a book of prophecies: CSPD, 1547–1580, p. 430 (83.28;?Nov. 1571).44 CSPD, Addenda, 1566–1579, pp. 420–1.45 William Camden, Annales rerum Anglicarum, et Hibernicarum, regnante Elizabetha, ad annum salutis M. D. LXXXIX (London, 1615), pp. 186–7, explains the growth incelebration of 17 November from 1570 as due to exultation over the non-fulfilment of thisprophecy; cf. Richard Bannatyne, Memorials of Transactions in Scotland, A.D. MDLXIX –A.D. MDLXXIII (Edinburgh, 1836), p. 62.46 J. M. Cleary, ‘Dr. Morys Clynnog’s Invasion Projects of 1575–1576’, Recusant History 8(1965–6), pp. 300–22, esp. p. 307.47 CSPD, Addenda, 1580–1625, pp. 105–11 (28:58, esp. 58V).48 CSPD, 1591–1594, p. 184 (241.45).49 LP, vii. 923xxi (which also includes a reference to Richard Jones, a false ‘profetour’,associated with William Neville, son of John, Lord Latimer: Elton, Policy and Police, pp. 50–6); BL, Cotton MS Titus B.i, fol. 271 (LP, xiv/1. 806).50 BL, Cotton MS Titus B.i, fol. 271 (LP, xiv/1. 806).

comprehensively damning came in parliament in 1541–2. The statute of 1542regarding prophecies ‘uppon Declaracon of Names Armes Badges, &c.’ notedthe threat posed by such prophecies to noblemen, and it proposed a severepenalty: the offence was to be a felony without benefit of clergy.51 It is perhapssignificant that it was introduced via the Lords, and its emphasis on the mercyof the prince towards noblemen suggests it might have originated outside the inner circle of the regime. It is generally read as a piece of ‘government’legislation, but the evidence fits better with it as a piece of self-defence bysome lords outside the inner circles of power seeking to ensure that their names(and arms and badges) were not so lightly taken in vain.52 It is suggestive thatit does not dwell on prophecy concerning the fate of the throne and life of theking, which would be a more likely target for ‘official’ legislation.53

Broadly, contemporary theology and ideas did little to undermine, and oftenmuch to support, ancient prophecy. The biblical condemnation of diabolicaldivination was more easily applied to astrology than ancient prophecy, andaside from a rather limited tradition which interpreted this condemnation very strictly, it was rationalized away by many.54 Probably the most funda-mental critique of ancient prophecy, as of astrology, at this time came fromsceptics who questioned not its fundamental credibility but its practical success– as seen in mockery such as that of a spoof almanac of 1544.55

The evidence for the serious engagement in prophecy of so many of the key elite political figures of the reign of Henry VIII suggests the need to chal-lenge some of the interpretations of the way they dealt with others, their social inferiors, who recounted or discussed prophecy. Often such accounts are founded on the assumption that the elite found prophecy bizarre andincomprehensible, which, as has now been established, is clearly baseless.


26

51 Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols (London, 1810–28), iii. 850 (LP, xvii. 28ii); this was oneof the acts printed in proclamations by the king’s printer, Thomas Berthelet: LP, xviii.211ii.52 Journals of the House of Lords ([London, 1771?–]), i. pp. 185, 186, 191 (14–15, 24 March1542). Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 60–1, who provides the full text of the act, tends to seethis as the culmination of draconian controls on prophecy by the regime.53 Journals of the House of Lords, i. pp. 185, 189. Stanford E. Lehmberg, The Later Parliamentsof Henry VIII 1536–1547 (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 156–7, suggested the Lords might havebeen interested in prophecy because some had paid out money in vain to fortune-tellers or, more plausibly, they were afraid the people might believe the prophecies about them.The same period saw the introduction in the Commons of a bill against sorcery, suggestingslightly different priorities operated amongst MPs.54 D. T. Etheridge, ‘Political Prophecy in Tudor England’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis,University of Wales (Swansea), 1979), pp. 25–51; Theodore Otto Wedel, The MediaevalAttitude toward Astrology Particularly in England, Yale Studies in English 60 (New Havenand London, 1920), pp. 60–89.55 A Mery P[ro]nosticacion for the Yere of Chrystes Incarnacyon a Thousande Fyue HundrethFortye [and] Foure (London, 1544).

Some historians have been concerned to demonstrate the efficiency butalso the rational scepticism of a Cromwellian regime that could not under-stand but showed some tolerance to the delusions of prophets. It is, of course,right to note the ulterior motives and complicating rivalries entangled inallegations involving prophecy on some occasions. For example, in 1532,Thomas Cromwell oversaw an investigation into alleged treason and anattempt to break out of Ilchester gaol. Cromwell was, it is true, able to establishthat those involved were fabricating stories of treasonable attempts to poisonthe king purely to escape their imprisonment, but the case also produced a deposition by one Thomas Cheeselade of a prophecy he had heard origi-nating with the well-attested prophet Hurlok.56 Similarly, Cromwell showedcaution when, late in 1533, Lawrence Elviden accused William Barton, priest,and Richard Smyth of London, ‘called mere surgeon’, of treason. Smythallegedly told Barton, by a book of prophecy, ‘that the king’s most honorableperson should be torn in pieces with his own mule’.57 Elviden was a formerservant of John Stokesley, bishop of London, and made the allegations afterbeing imprisoned in King’s Bench for the theft of £100 from his master; and Barton was the most ‘troublesome and unworthy’ priest in London.58

Yet this emphasis on rationality in the face of plebeian credulity can mis-lead us as to the importance of prophecy. Thomas Gebons accused RalphWendon of having said in April 1533 that Anne Boleyn was a whore, harlotand heretic, and that she would be burned at Smithfield, as a prophecy said a queen would be burned there. Geoffrey Elton’s main emphasis in his discus-sion of the case was that Thomas Bedyll, clerk of the council, who investigated,established Gebons was unsound as a witness, and so Elton sees the inves-tigation as thorough but cautious, with Cromwell accepting the difficulty of dealing with an offence eighteen months old.59 Yet in reality the case hadwider implications, involving John Veysey, bishop of Exeter and President ofthe Council in the Marches of Wales. The scene of the alleged events wasSutton Coldfield, where Veysey continued to live in considerable state even


27

56 PRO, SP 1/237, fols 121–7 (LP Add. i/1. 768iii (8 Feb. 23 HVIII)). A slightly differentversion, putting the encounter nine or ten years previously, appears in LP Add. i/1. 768vi.Elton, Policy and Police, pp. 110–12, typifies such an interpretation of the case. LP, v. 759,793, 830. Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, p. 28.57 LP, xv. 1029(21).58 LP, vi. 1554, 1555; Brigden, London and the Reformation, pp. 279–81.59 Elton, Policy and Police, p. 347; PRO, SP 1/77, fol. 112 (LP, vi. 733). Wendon does seemto have survived, since the next presentation to his benefice was not until 1563: WilliamDugdale, The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated: From Records, Leiger-books, Manuscripts,Charters, Evidences, Tombes, and Armes, 2nd edn, ed. William Thomas, 2 vols (London,1730), ii. p. 915. Jansen’s contradictory interpretation is implicit in her discussion, PoliticalProtest, p. 35, emphasizing that prophecy was seen as treasonable. It is striking that thisconfirms Chapuys’s account of Anne’s own knowledge of such a prophecy before hermarriage: see above, p. 21.

after his translation to the see of Exeter60 and where Wendon was rector.61

The events should be read in the context of the problems affecting Veysey at this point, not least the challenge to his presidency: by the latter half of1533 the decision had been taken to replace him with Rowland Lee.62 TheGebons family were Veysey’s kin by marriage, since the bishop’s younger sister,Agnes, had married William Gebons. They had two sons, one being John, who became chancellor of Exeter (1522–37), acting as vicar general to hisuncle the bishop in 1530, the other Thomas, who inherited.63 Elton is rightthat the charges caused problems because the alleged offence occurredeighteen months previously, but Gebons countered this by saying that he haddeclared the offence to Bishop Veysey on 15 June last. Veysey therefore hadto swear an affidavit that he had never received such a declaration. Gebonsfurther testified that Thomas Gebons junior, almost certainly his son, andChristopher Veysey, had been present. The questions to be put to Christopherseem to show that Bishop Veysey feared prison over the issue.

In one sense Elton is right, for the case shows that allegations relating toprophecy were investigated seriously and in a measured way. But Elton’s beliefis that this sprang from a healthy scepticism on the part of the investigatorsregarding the nature of the alleged offence and the lowliness of those involved.In reality, the investigators’ actions betray a measured approach to a phenom-enon they took very seriously but which they did not consider inevitably fatallyunacceptable – or bizarre – in itself. Gebons’s initial attack on Wendon wastherefore rapidly turned round into a challenge to Gebons’s own kinsman,Veysey, for concealment of the alleged offence.

When we come to the better documented case of John Hale, vicar ofIsleworth, a superficial reading might once again light on the absurdity of theprophecy and those who repeated it, and the relative restraint displayed by the authorities. It was objected against Hale that he had called the king the‘moldewarpe’ (mole) of Merlin’s prophecy, that turned all up, and said the kingwas accursed of God’s own mouth, and his marriage unlawful.64 Yet although


28

60 In More Hall: ODNB; VCH Warwickshire, iv. pp. 231–5; Dugdale, Warwickshire, ii. pp. 913–14.61 Valor Ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII, 6 vols (London, 1810–34), iii. p. 80 (appointmenthad been in the hands of the Beauchamps, passing by this date to the crown; worth £339s.). Wendon had been appointed in 1527, the patron being the crown: Dugdale,Warwickshire, ii. p. 915.62 LP, vi. 946 (Thomas Croft to Cromwell, 6 August 1533: over 100 had been slain sinceVeysey’s appointment, and not one culprit had been brought to justice).63 Dugdale, Warwickshire, ii. pp. 915, 917. Agnes died in 1570. John Le Neve, Fasti EcclesiaeAnglicanae, 1300–1541, vol. 9: Exeter Diocese, compiled by J. M. Horn (London, 1964), pp. 10, 63; BRUO 1501–40, p. 254. John Gebons’s will is PCC, 14 Dyngeley (d. 20December 1537). Cf. the problems at Exeter involving Gebons around this time: LP, vi.1786. The first warden of the newly incorporated town of Sutton Coldfield was WilliamGybons: LP, iv/2. 5083(16) (Dec. 1528).64 PRO, SP 1/92, fols 34–42 (LP, viii. 565iii). Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 37–8.

Hale cut a rather pathetic figure in his appearances in 1535, complaining of his weak memory and falls from his horse, he was a university graduate with an impressive career behind him. He had gone to All Souls and by 1498was a Bachelor of Canon and Civil Law; once ordained, he served as vicar first of Sutton Valence and then of Northfleet in Kent. He became rector ofCranford in Middlesex in 1505 and vicar of Isleworth, at the presentation of Winchester College, in 1521. He was also rector of Northmoor in Oxford-shire, resigning this at about the time he became canon and prebendary ofWingham, Kent, in spring 1531.65 Nor was he isolated in his interest in pro-phecy. About two years previously, Hale confessed, the ‘fellow of Bristow’showed him and others of the monastery of Syon the prophecies of Merlin.Master Thomas Skydmore, also of Syon, also showed him similar material (and they conversed regarding the king’s lusts and marriage). Again about two years before, it was the prior of Hounslow, during a discussion of actsagainst churchmen, who had offered to show him a prophecy.66 The standingof the Syon community is well established, in terms of its learning and pres-tige, with a rich library that included several prophecy texts;67 Hounslow was a Trinitarian house and also of considerable repute.68 Hale was not anisolated madman but well connected in his interest in prophecy. Hale’s casesuggests too the caution of the regime. It might be argued that this sprang not from an indulgence towards those dabbling in prophecy, but from respectfor and wariness about the prophecy itself. At Hale’s trial his interest inprophecy was not directly alleged against him. The trial proceedings do notmention it, and Eustace Chapuys, reporting the executions of Hale and hisassociates, mentions him as having spoken and written concerning the life andgovernment of the king – without mentioning prophecy.69 His propheticactivity was clearly of interest to the authorities, but it was not part of the


29

65 Hale’s origins lay in Worcester diocese, and he was also, from 1506, master of St Oswald’sHospital in Worcester: BRUO, ii. p. 849; VCH Worcestershire, ii. pp. 177–9. For his timein the Tower: LP, xii/2. 181. After his arrest, Geoffrey Bagotte talked of a vacancy at King’sHall, Cambridge: LP, viii. 615. In later life at least he owned land and was possessed of some means: LP, ix. 171 (this letter also appears misdated and out of order in vii. 1085);x. 392(37).66 LP, viii. 567.67 Vincent Gillespie and A. I. Doyle (eds), Syon Abbey, with the Libraries of the Carthusians,Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 9 (London, 2001), pp. xxix–lxxi, 1–606,esp. items SS1.977ee, SS1.227o, SS1.*621b, SS1.738aa.68 George James Aungier, The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, the Parish ofIsleworth, and the Chapelry of Hounslow: Compiled from Public Records, Ancient Manuscripts,Ecclesiastical and Other Authentic Documents ([London], 1840), pp. 488, 490; VCH Middlesex,i. pp. 191–3.69 DKR (1842), III, App. II, part vi: ‘The First Part of the Inventory and Calendar of theContents of the Baga de Secretis’, pp. 213–68, at pp. 237–9; LP, viii. 609, 666; John Husseeincorrectly reported to Lord Lisle that Hale was pardoned – this was in fact Robert Feronalias Ferne: LP, viii. 663, 802(5). Cf. Nicholas Harpsfield, The Life and Death of Sr Thomas

formal case against him. This is likely to be because prophecy was not in itselfincredible – and perhaps because the regime was only too aware of the powerof the prophetic case against it.70

We might also consider the case of Elizabeth Amadas,71 who said she hadbeen studying prophecy for twenty years. Henry VIII, she claimed, was the‘moldewarpe’ and would be expelled from his realm like Cadwaladr, the realmbeing conquered by the Scots before midsummer. The ‘clobbes’ of Essex wouldexpel the Scots, and a bush in Essex be worth a castle in Kent. A religious manliving on an island was identified as the deadman, and he would come andhold a parliament of peace in the Tower. One Silvestre (Silvester Darius, papalambassador) came ambassador to the king, and she knew his answer. The king was counselled to stir the Scots to war. The whitening of the Towerdelighted her, for she associated this with the imminent burning of AnneBoleyn. The blazing star was towards the island whence the deadman shouldcome.72 In a battle of priests the king would die, and then there would be no more kings in England, but the realm would be divided in four and calledthe land of conquest. Fundamentally, Amadas was hostile to the king andespecially to Anne Boleyn, and seemed to identify herself with the plight of other long-suffering wives, Catherine of Aragon and the duchess of Norfolk. The case is generally considered to be one of outright insanity, per-haps induced by ill-treatment at the hands of her husband, or of that liminalelement to a woman’s gendered persona, especially a widowed woman, in early modern England, which gave her access to prophetic knowledge.73

Yet the evidence does not fit well with either interpretation. Elizabeth was the widow of Robert Amadas, keeper of the king’s jewels, who died early in 1532.74 The case almost certainly dates from around the time of his death: the


30

Moore, Knight, Sometimes Lord High Chancellor of England, Written in the Tyme of QueeneMarie, EETS o.s. 186 (London, 1932), pp. 179, 229.70 Note the judges’ earlier opinion, in the case of Elizabeth Barton, that her prophecies didnot constitute treason because they were spoken openly before the king; the new treasonstatute had removed this potential problem, whatever the level of openness in Hale’sdiscussions: John Bellamy, The Tudor Law of Treason: An Introduction (London, Torontoand Buffalo, 1979), p. 23.71 BL, Cotton MS Cleopatra E.iv.84** (LP, vi. 923).72 For this whitening of the Tower, cf. the prophecy retold by the abbot of Garendon: LP, vi. Add. 10.73 The former is Elton’s view (Policy and Police, pp. 59–61), the latter Jansen’s (PoliticalProtest, p. 32); eadem, Dangerous Talk and Strange Behaviour: Women and Popular Resistanceto the Reforms of Henry VIII (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 69–70 (although note her unwilling-ness to endorse a thoroughly gendered analysis, pp. 143–4), building on such work as PhyllisMack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England (Berkeley, LosAngeles and London, 1972), and others (see above, p. 11).74 He was dead by 14 April 1532; Elizabeth played a responsible part in the winding up ofhis affairs in connection with his keepership of the king’s jewels: LP, v. 939, 1799. He wasa London goldsmith (LP, iv. 464(23)). Robert appears to have fallen out with Sir John

information against her seems to be that referred to on an endorsement of the return of commissioners charged with establishing the state of his affairsin the immediate aftermath of his death.75 On 28 August 1532, Elizabethremarried, with significant speed, Sir Thomas Neville, fifth son of GeorgeNeville, Lord Bergavenny (d. 1492), a successful lawyer who had been promi-nent in the council and parliament for many years, serving as speaker in 1515. His cousins included Sir Thomas Willoughby, Chief Justice of theCommon Pleas, and Sir John Baker, chancellor of the exchequer. In 1535,after an attempt to match his daughter with Gregory, son of Thomas Cromwell,she was married to Sir Robert Southwell, master of the rolls. Neville receiveddedications from Thomas Becon, suggesting a possible radical religiousoutlook.76 Elizabeth and Robert Amadas’s daughter made a prestigious mar-riage.77 It also seems that she escaped any serious consequences from herprophecies, as she later wrote to Cromwell asking him to be good master toher cousin, offering a reward of £40.78

A case from Kent in 1536–7 again shows how discussion of prophecyinvolved figures who on further examination prove to be far from marginalized.In April 1536 John Whalley, comptroller of the Mint and paymaster of theworks at Dover, reported to Cromwell that the parson of Woodnesborough,near Sandwich (‘Wednysborowe’) (who was said to be a Scot), had a book


31

Neville of the Chevet, Yorkshire, but was (in association with his predecessor in the postof keeper) a feoffee of Sir Brian Stapleton in relation to lands in Nottinghamshire andYorkshire: LP, iv. 643, vi. 10. 3452, v. 278(16), 909(36); otherwise their interests weresouthern and south-western – see below, n. 78.75 Elton places this case in 1533 – with her then uttering a string of pronouncements; buthe says the comet referred to by Amadas is the 1534 comet, which surely poses problemsfor his dating? LP places the case in 1533 by reference to Bonner’s letter about a comet in1533 (LP, vi. 888, Bonner to Cromwell, 24 July 1533).76 The House of Commons, 1509–1558, ed. S. T. Bindoff, 3 vols (London, 1982), vol. II,pp. 10–11; ODNB, Sir Martin Bowes, Sir Thomas Neville.77 To Richard Scrope of Castlecombe (Wiltshire), great-grandson of Stephen, deputy ofIreland (d. 1409); and their friends and acquaintances, including the Whetnalls, Williamand George, and (probably) George Neville, Lord Bergavenny, were from Kent: WiltshireVisitation Pedigrees 1623, with Additional Pedigrees and Arms Collected by Thomas Lyte of Lyte’sCary, Co. Somerset 1628, ed. G. D. Squibb, Harleian Society 105–6 (London, 1954), p. 173; LP, iv. 464(2), 1459, 1795, 2002(11). She feared ‘Mr. Nevyle’ would call her a witch.78 LP, vi. 1626 (placed by the editors in 1533). There is a strong chance this cousin wasthe son of John Amadas, serjeant-at-arms, who on 28 January 1534 requested Cromwelltake his highly educated son into his service (LP, vii. 117); John’s interests were mainlysouth-western: LP, x. 1221, 1256(53); xi. 580(2), 670; xiii/1. 1519(30); xiii/2. 961, 1280(fol. 10); cf. J. P. D. Cooper, Propaganda and the Tudor State: Political Culture in the WestCountry (Oxford, 2003), pp. 246–7. Could it be that the investigation was prompted notsimply by the content of the prophecies but by an attempt to weaken the position ofElizabeth Amadas at the point at which Cromwell was taking on the mastership of thejewel house, combined with a genuine interest in her sayings?

of treasons.79 The parson was well connected, being very familiar with JohnTompson, superintendent of the new Dover harbour works and master of theMaisondieu there.80 And even though Tompson was under suspicion, one of those informing on him was none other than Anne Boleyn’s chaplainRobert Singleton, whom we have already come across as interested in ancientprophecy.81

There is further evidence for the way prophecy was integrated into thepolitical culture of communities to be found in accounts of discussions atFurness Abbey in the aftermath of the Pilgrimage of Grace. This exampleallows us to consider the alternative interpretation of prophecy: that it repre-sented the language of the excluded and oppressed, whether the poorestpeasant or the least educated and most marginalized clergyman, hence (asbefore) being largely incomprehensible to the elite, but that it carried someradical force as a way of envisioning or resisting change and therefore wastreated seriously, even ruthlessly, by the authorities.82 The Furness case might,on first reading, seem to show the interaction of monks with the most marginaland dispossessed peasants. John Broughton, monk of Furness, confessed83 thatin conversation with Robert Legate, friar, he said that if the changes to thechurch and religion stood for four years they would last for ever.84 He hadshown his master, the abbot, Roger Pele, certain prophecies, and had bills from two laymen, William Dicson of Windermere and William Rawlinson


32

79 PRO, SP 1/103, fol. 76 (LP, x. 614); Jansen, Political Protest, p. 40 (who calls the place‘Wednesbury’); Gladwin, ‘Popular Prophecy’, p. 217 (tentatively locating to Kent). At thetime of the Valor Ecclesiasticus the vicar was one Richard Slanye, Woodnesborough beingworth £10 6d. net and appropriated to Leeds Priory: i. 62. Sandwich had seen, in 1534, acritic of the queen have their right ear nailed to the pillory and then be banished: WilliamBoys, Collections for an History of Sandwich in Kent, with Notices of the Other Cinque Portsand Members and of Richborough (Canterbury, 1792), p. 684. 80 Tompson succeeded to the position in either late December 1534 or early January of thefollowing year (VCH Kent, ii. pp. 217–19), in spite of Christopher Hales’s highly criticalcomments about him in 1533: LP, vi. 1148.81 LP, x. 612, 640 (2, 9 April 1536).82 E.g. Howard Dobin, Merlin’s Disciples: Prophecy, Poetry, and Power in Renaissance England(Stanford, Calif., 1990); Jansen, Political Protest, passim, and pp. 43–4 for the Furness case;Ethan H. Shagan, ‘Rumours and Popular Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII’, in The Politicsof the Excluded, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 30–66.83 LP, vii. Add. 43 (misplaced in 1534).84 Cf. LP, xii/1. 841(3). A note by Thomas Derby indicates that Legate had been put intoFurness to read and preach to the brethren: LP, xii/1. 841(3) (and probably, more or lessexplicitly, to spy and inform on them: LP, xii/1. 652, 842, 849, 1089). He was shunned bymost of the house: LP, xii/1. 841(2). After the dissolution he had a dispensation to hold abenefice with change of habit (10 May 1537): Faculty Office Registers 1534–1549: A Calendar of the First Two Registers of the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faculty Office, ed. D. S. Chambers (Oxford, 1966), p. 97.

of Colton, containing prophecies.85 An exploration of the origins of the lay-men involved indicates that, far from being poor and marginalized, they were from the ranks of the more senior servants of the abbey. Rawlinson wasFurness’s bailiff of Colton at the time, while Dicson held a tenement and eightacres from the abbey in Graythwaite.86

Some of this evidence might be said to fit with elements of the recent trendin writing about, for example, the Pilgrimage of Grace, in seeing the drivingforce behind resistance to Tudor policy as neither the most dispossessed of the commons, nor the senior gentry and nobility, but the leaders of villagesociety, whether yeomen or parish gentry and their allies, from similar socialbackgrounds, in the clergy.87 Alternatively, it might fit with a so-called ‘post-revisionist’ explanation of the Henrician Reformation as successful by dint of being done not by, or to, such people, but with them.88 Such groups wereevidently influential in the circulation of prophetic texts in early TudorEngland.

Yet this picture is qualified a little through examination of perhaps the most complex and extensive set of allegations involving prophecy from this period. These linked cases relating to Yorkshire and Durham around thetime of the Pilgrimage of Grace provide sufficient evidence for us to begin topiece together the connections between the participants and those who stoodbehind them, and to draw out further implications for the attitude of theauthorities.

One of the key figures in the case was William Todde, prior of the house of Gilbertine canons at Malton.89 In Westmorland, fourteen or sixteen yearspreviously, he had seen in Geoffrey Lancaster’s hands a parchment roll on


33

85 It was further alleged that he had told the abbot about the prophecy that a rose shoulddie in its mother’s belly. Legate alleged that John Harrington with Broughton had thisprophecy of the rose, which Legate explained as relating to Henry himself dying at thehands of the church. The abbot himself alleged that John Broughton showed him the roseprophecy and another ‘that a .b. c. and iij ttt should set all in one seat and should workgreat marvels’: LP, xii/1. 841(3). Wriothesley’s notes include that the abbot knew of theprophecies, as Broughton’s deposition shows: LP, xii/1. 841(4). The prophecy was that ofthe ‘marvels of Merlin’: Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 91–7.86 The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey, ed. J. Brownbill, 2 vols, Chetham Society n.s. 9, 11;74, 76, 78 (Manchester, 1886–7, 1915–16, 1919), ii. pp. 622, 635.87 S. J. Gunn, ‘Peers, Commons and Gentry in the Lincolnshire Revolt of 1536’, Past andPresent 123 (May 1989), pp. 52–79; and see the references above, p. 3, n. 6.88 Ethan H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003).89 Malton, a house of Gilbertine canons, was relatively strong financially; in 1535 it wasassessed at £197, and only four other Gilbertine houses were more wealthy: Rose Graham,‘The Finance of Malton Priory, 1244–1257’, English Ecclesiastical Studies: Being Some Essaysin Research in Medieval History (London, 1929), pp. 247–70, and her S. Gilbert ofSempringham and the Gilbertines: A History of the Only English Monastic Order (London,1901), p. 188; Brian Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order, c. 1130 –c. 1300 (Oxford, 1995), pp. 220–1, 397. On this case, cf. Jansen, Political Protest, p. 43.

which the moon (symbolic of the Percy family) was painted growing, with a number of years growing as the moon did. Where the moon was full, aCardinal was painted and beneath him the moon waned, and there were twomonks, headless, one under the other, and so on and so forth. He had spokenof this to Sir Francis Bigod and others. Todde admitted he had a printed bookcalled Methodius (the text generally now known as pseudo-Methodius), which Sir Ralph Eure had given him,90 and which he kept open in hischamber.91 Bigod’s version of this was that the prior had sent him the detailsof the pilgrims’ demands, which Bigod had not previously seen. The priorshowed him a prophecy, which the prior said he had not understood beforethen, although now he knew that it was this year it spoke of. Malton wasevidently already a centre for the discussion of prophecy at least a year beforethe Pilgrimage began, as is apparent in the case of William Thwaytes, parsonof Londesborough (Yorkshire; just east of Pocklington), who apparentlypredicted, after having been to Malton where he heard news from London inApril or May 1535, that the king would be forced to flee the realm.92

By 1536 Todde had been prior of the house for some time, succeeding hispredecessor Richard Felton in 1525 or 1526,93 but he was not yet prior whenhe originally saw the prophecies of Geoffrey Lancaster. Yet he was evidentlyrelatively well connected at that point, for Lancaster was one of the mostsignificant figures in the administration of the North West of England, servingas JP in both Cumberland and Westmorland, one of the quorum in both, andcustos rotulorum in Cumberland, retained by the earl of Northumberland for his legal advice, and associated with the Dacres in their feuding with theCliffords.94 More important than Geoffrey Lancaster in Todde’s more recentinterest in prophecy, however, was the Eure family, from whom, as we have


34

90 LP, xii/1. 534.91 LP, xii/1.1023i.92 In a further examination Thwaytes is reported speaking of a prophecy of fields (i.e.battles) to come. Christopher Jenny early the following year sent depositions to Cromwellregarding Thwaytes, who had been taken by the earl of Cumberland and brought beforeCromwell for words spoken against the king. Jenny argued that the allegation was basedon malice alone. PRO, SP 1/99, fols 20–20v (LP, ix. 791), /91, fol. 161v (LP, viii. 457(misdated)); Elton, Policy and Police, p. 59; Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 38–9, 43. Thwayteswas then due to appear before Cromwell in the following term. Londesborough was part of a network of Clifford estates in the area, including Market Weighton, Brompton,Weaverthorpe, ‘Wellome’ and Barlby, a group that was used in 1543 under the first earl’swill to support marriage portions for his daughters and the payment of debts: TestamentaEboracensia, 6 vols, Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (London and Durham,1836–1902), vi. pp. 127–30.93 VCH Yorkshire, iii. p. 254.94 LP, iv. 137(10), 297, 1610, 2052, 3380(4), 4134(2ii), 4790, 4835, 4855, 6803(6); v.166(16), 1694ii; he appears to have died in or after 24 Henry VIII, this being the last yearin which he appears on the commission. Steven G. Ellis, Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power:The Making of the British State (Oxford, 1995), pp. 53, 104, 245, sees him as part of a stronger

seen, he had received a copy of the pseudo-Methodius prophecy. Malton wasclosely associated with the Eures, who counted it as one of their main resi-dences.95 Sir Ralph (d. 1545) was apparently deputy constable of ScarboroughCastle at the time of the Pilgrimage of Grace, during which he played anequivocal role.96

The connections evident here become clearer when we turn to a relatedcase, that of John Dobson, vicar of Muston in the East Riding of Yorkshire in December 1537. The charges involved a range of prophecies, apparentlydelivered in the church porch and in the alehouse.97 In response, Dobsonpetitioned98 that he was in Scarborough with Friar Chapman, warden of thetown’s Franciscan friary,99 and Friar Boroby, prior of its Carmelite house,100

when Chapman said there was a prophecy going about, and Boroby broughtout a paper roll, which he read. Boroby lent it to Dobson for fourteen days,returning it by his nephew and servant, William Bentley. This prophecy wasof Merlin and Thomas of Erceldoun. Dobson said that he told this only toStephen Rosse, Thomas Beforth, the pynder, and one or two bylaw men, indi-cating only the more senior villagers.101 When Prior Boroby was examined,102

he said he had met a priest in Beverley in May 1536, who showed him certainprophecies, beginning ‘Fra[nce] and Flanders shall arise’. Afterwards he metDobson, whom he invited into his chamber with the warden of Grey Friarsand showed them the prophecy. When Boroby was at Weaverthorpe, about12 miles east of Malton (‘Werthrope’) around 30 June 1536, the vicar103

showed him prophecies beginning with material relating to the Cock of the


35

Dacre interest in Westmorland than suggested by Mervyn James, Society, Politics andCulture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 112, 143.

95 New Malton manor descended to the three heiresses of William de Ayton, who diedin 1387, one of whom, Katherine, married Sir Ralph Eure. Old Malton manor passedentirely to the Eures: VCH Yorkshire, North Riding, i. pp. 533–4, 537.96 He allegedly criticized Cromwell, Norfolk and the council, although he defended

himself by alleging that this was a forgery by his rival, Sir Roger Cholmley. Commons,1509–1558, ii. pp. 109–10; R. W. Hoyle, The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s(Oxford, 2001), pp. 219, 221, 329, 367, 382–3, 398, 421.97 PRO, SP 1/127, fols 63–63v (LP, xii/2.1212i). Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 48–9.98 PRO, SP 1/127, fol. 64 (LP, xii/2.1212ii, iii).99 This was a very poor house: L. M. Goldthorp, ‘The Franciscans and Dominicans

in Yorkshire. Part I: The Grey Friars’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 32 (1934–6), pp. 264–320, ‘chapter VI: The Grey Friars of Scarborough’, pp. 310–19; VCH Yorkshire, iii.pp. 274–6.100 VCH Yorkshire, iii. pp. 279–80: Boroby surrendered the house in March 1539. TheDominican friary, the most prestigious of the three mendicant houses in Scarborough, doesnot seem to have become involved: VCH Yorkshire, iii. pp. 277–9.101 William Layng recalled the vicar talking of the cock of the north: LP, xii/2.1212iv.102 LP, xii/2.1212v.103 Presumably the vicar of Muston; if it was the vicar of Weaverthorpe, then at the timethe church was one of those in the East Riding belonging to the chapter of York: VCHYorkshire, iii. pp. 35, 84.

North; this he borrowed and did not return. At the time of his examination,he said, it lay in his chamber with the tale of Cromme and Christ Cross row,which he had transcribed from a copy owned by a gentleman in Scarborough,William Langdale. Two years ago, one of his brothers had brought a scrollwhich told of the black fleet of Norway and the child with the chaplet. WhenBoroby enquired where he got it, he answered that it belonged to a priest of Rudston (‘Rudstone’), Sir John Paicock, to whom he supposed it wasreturned, though his brother gave a copy to William Langdale.104 WilliamLangdale himself testified that the prior of White Friars had seen in his housea little roll of paper containing a prophecy in rhyme, otherwise called a‘gargonne’, which spoke of the learning of A, B, C, and K, L, M, and borrowedit from him for a few days. On his returning it, the prior lent him a long paper roll of prophecies, which, when he went into the castle of Scarboroughat the time of the Pilgrimage, he left behind him in his house, only for it to be stolen along with other books by the commons. He had obtained the‘gargonne’ from Sir Thomas Bradley, priest, at Ayton (‘Aton’), who told himhe had it from Sir Richard Stapleton, priest, at Sockburn (‘Sokburne’, Co.Durham). Thomas Bradley admitted taking a copy of prophecies relating to Merlin, Bede, A, B, C, and a ‘crumme’ in a man’s throat, read to him by Sir Richard Stapleton, in the buttery at Ayton, about Michaelmas 1536, ofwhich book he took a copy and gave it to William Langdale. Richard Stapletondeposed that he had met William Langley, parish clerk of Croft-on-Tees ‘inenloaning’ between Croft and Hawnby, in Richmondshire, when the lattersaid he had a little prophecy, which was not then with him. Langley promisedto send it to Sockburn, and did so by a servant of Stapleton’s master namedJohn Yoye. There were certain letters in it, and ‘crummes’; it was not longerthan twelve lines, and went in metre. Stapleton afterwards gave a copy of itto Bradley. Later, when he came by the Augustinian priory of Guisborough onhis master’s business, he showed it to the kitchener there.

Although Dobson’s connections are hard to discern,105 some of the othersinvolved here were more prominent. William Langdale was a well-connectedtownsman of Scarborough,106 and behind the lesser men investigated stood


36

104 At the time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus, the rector at Rudston was one Christopher Ven:Valor Ecclesiasticus, v. p. 123. There were several Paicocks serving churches in this areaaround this time, e.g. Michael, vicar of Skipsea (Valor Ecclesiasticus, v. p. 116).105 The manor of Muston was held by the Beckwiths throughout the early sixteenthcentury, but the family do not seem to play any role in the case. The church had been adependent chapel of Hunmanby, and the patrons at Hunmanby, Bardney Abbey, presentedat Muston even after the vicarage was ordained, in 1269. The vicarage was relatively poor,worth just £6 10s. in 1535. Hunmanby’s connections were with the Percies, who held two-thirds of the manor, the other third being held by the Pauletts in the early sixteenth century.The rectory, belonging to Bardney, was worth £64 in 1535. VCH Yorkshire, East Riding, ii.pp. 231, 233, 236, 279–81.106 Jack Binns, ‘Scarborough and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Transactions of the ScarboroughArchaeological and Historical Society 33 (1997), pp. 23–39, esp. p. 30.

the Eures, whose involvement, already seen in the gift of a copy of pseudo-Methodius to William Todde of Malton, was very extensive.107 Langdale hadacquired the ‘gargonne’ from Sir Thomas Bradley at Ayton – and Ayton, with Malton, was one of the main seats of Sir Ralph Eure before his death in 1539. Bradley himself said the discussion between Richard Stapleton andBradley had taken place in the buttery at Ayton, that is, the buttery of RalphEure’s house. Bradley was one of the witnesses to Sir Ralph’s will in 1533, so he is likely to have been his personal chaplain.108 The Eures’ household wastherefore a key point in the dissemination of these prophecies.109 The Conyersof Sockburn were probably as important in feeding this prophetic culture asthe Eures. Stapleton at least was associated with them, and the survival of amajor sixteenth-century collection of prophetic texts which can be confidentlyassigned to the circle of the family further enriches the sense of the culture ofthis gentry family.110


37

107 There does not seem to have been an English edition of pseudo-Methodius by this date.The most recent publication on the continent was that of 1515 by Michael Furter in Basel:John Trevisa, Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum; Richard fitzRalph’s Sermon: ‘DefensioCuratorum; and Methodius: þe Bygynnyng of þe World and þe Ende of Worldes’, ed. AaronJentiers Perry, EETS o.s. 167 (London, 1925). This does sit slightly oddly with Sir RalphEure’s successful defence against a charge of inappropriate words written in a letter againstCromwell and Norfolk – which was that he could read and write no more than his ownname: LP, xii/2. 248, 291, 356, 519, 583, 733.108 Testamenta Eboracensia, vi. pp. 183–5. Ayton also fulfilled the important role ofproviding support for William, Lord Eure’s surviving sons Ralph and Thomas, and his son-in-law, William Buckton, in the former’s will of 1548/9: Testamenta Eboracensia, vi. pp. 185–7. Since Ayton was appropriated to Whitby, the church was not served by perpetualvicars: Valor Ecclesiasticus, v. p. 91.109 Even if Sir Ralph Eure did not choose to remember Malton in his will, despite his goodrelationship with its abbot, he did remember all three friaries in Scarborough: TestamentaEboracensia, vi. p. 184: each received 6s. 8d., as did the Augustinians of York; most favouredof all the friars were the Newcastle Observants, receiving 13s. 4d. Given the Eures’ interestin prophecy, it is important to note their prominent role in campaigns against the Scots inthe 1540s, when amongst some people thoughts of the prophetic destiny of Scottishconquest were prominent: The Late Expedicion in Scotlande: Made by the Kynges HyghnysArmye, Vnder the Conduit of the Ryght Honorable the Erle of Hertforde, the Yere of our LordeGod 1544 (London, 1544), reprinted as ‘The Late Expedition in Scotland, Made by theKing’s Highness’ army, under the Conduct of the Right Honourable the Earl of Hertford,the Year of Our Lord God 1544’, in Tudor Tracts, 1532–1588, ed. A. F. Pollard(Westminster, 1903), pp. 37–51, esp. pp. 48–51 (after 20 June). This report to Lord Russellfrom an anonymous friend ended with the hope that Henry would long reign ‘in themperialseate of the monarchie of all Bretayne’ ([Ciiiv]). The Eures led a smaller expedition laterthat year: D-[Diiiv]. It should be noted that on 18 May 1544 a proclamation ordered theburning of ‘certain news of the prosperous success of the king’s majesty’s army’, presumablyan earlier publication that year: Tudor Royal Proclamations, ed. Paul L. Hughes and JamesF. Larkin, 3 vols (New Haven, 1964–9), I, no. 229.110 NLW, MS 441C; the association is suggested by the signature of James Raine, indicatinga north-eastern provenance, the property transaction recorded at the end of the collection,

Far from demonstrating a connection to a disreputable and marginalprophetic culture of riot and rebellion, or even one with which elites had tonegotiate from some cultural distance, therefore, Todde’s examinations regard-ing Malton seem to have shown his membership of a group of senior gentry(favoured by the king and closely associated with northern noblemen bothoppositionist and loyal in 1536), greater and lesser churchmen, townsmen and villagers. It is perhaps less surprising than initially might appear, therefore,that Todde escaped any serious consequences from these revelations. His houseat Malton survived until December 1539, so it is highly unlikely that he was found guilty of high treason, for in such cases houses were declared forfeit;but he was no longer at the head of the priory when it was surrendered.111

Strikingly, too, the heads of the two Scarborough friaries involved seemed tohave escaped any consequences from these events: at Grey Friars, RichardChapman was still in post into 1539, as was Boroby at White Friars.112

This is, of course, not a simple question of the control of prophecy tradi-tions. As this case suggests, prophecies were not simply written, read, told andlistened to in an uncomplicated sense. Any attempt to argue that printing or reliance on manuscript transmission imposed firm control on the interpre-tations possible for a reader is, in the light of recent advances in the under-standing of reception, implausible. Still more, where texts were intrinsicallyopaque, individual and collective interpretation was positively demanded evenby a printed version like pseudo-Methodius. There was no single, simple,uncomplicated ‘reader’; William Langley seems to have been the ultimateorigin of one of the texts just discussed, but Richard Stapleton also played aprominent role in its dissemination. Some listened, some passed on texts, somecopied them. This wide involvement in prophetic culture suggests we shouldlook more closely at those who played a more creative role in generatingprophecies and novel interpretations of older material. Of course writing is important here, but active interpretation of and debate over texts were justas, if not more, significant.113 This requires us to locate individuals who


38

which resulted in the passage of Castle-Carlton in Lincolnshire to the Conyers family (pp.60–9, 71–2), and the recording in Dalton’s visitation of a summary of a similar transactionin association with his notes on the family of 1558: The Visitation of Yorkshire, Made in theYears 1584/5, by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald; to which is added the Subsequent Visitationby Richard St George, Norroy King of Arms, with Several Additional Pedigrees, ed. Joseph Foster(London, 1875), p. 164; Visitations of the North, or, Some Early Heraldic Visitations of, andCollections of Pedigrees Relating to, the North of England, ed. F. W. Dendy and C. H. HunterBlair, 4 vols, Surtees Society 122, 133, 144, 146 (1912–32), i. p. 141.111 VCH Yorkshire, iii. pp. 253–4.112 VCH Yorkshire, iii. pp. 276, 279–80. William Langdale died in 1570, comfortably off,with his son ensconced as vicar of St Mary’s church in Scarborough: Binns, ‘Scarboroughand the Pilgrimage of Grace’, p. 30.113 In this emphasis on reception, interpretation and variability my interpretation is closerto that of Dobin, Merlin’s Disciples, than to that of Adam Fox, Oral and Literate Culture in

were generally ascribed prophetic authority, the texts with which they wereassociated, and the contexts in which they operated. Fortunately it is possiblein a few cases to do this.

The prophetic ability of the Hogan family was already established in the1470s. The Pastons knew the family well, since they had been involved in adisagreement with William Hogan, as part of a larger dispute with WilliamJenney in 1464–65.114 When, in March 1473, French ships off the East Angliancoast caused an invasion scare, Hogan predicted a descent on English shoresor an attempt to create internal discontent in May. Hogan was taken to theTower, but the actual if brief landing by the earl of Oxford at St Osyth (Essex)appeared to confirm his prediction and ensured his release. The king, it wasreported, had refused to see him, on the grounds that a meeting would enhanceHogan’s reputation: the whole episode suggests the way such words could gainwide currency and trust.115

This association with prophetic interpretation does not seem to havehindered the family’s rise among the ranks of county and wider society. Thebranches of the Hogan family were well established amongst the prosperousyeomanry, townsmen and lesser gentry of Norfolk.116 Most significant for us,however, are the Hogans of East Bradenham. Robert of that family, gentleman,was a client of the Howard family and also had connections with ThomasCromwell.117 Robert was yeoman, then cook, for the king’s mouth in the royalkitchen from at least July 1521 to his death late in 1532; in 1529 he also


39

England, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2000); see especially his discussions of prophecy at pp. 364–7(though my differences from Dobin should already be clear: his emphasis on elitedetermination to counter what it recognized as an inherently unstable discourse does notsquare with the evidence advanced above at pp. 14–24).114 The Paston Letters, ed. James Gairdner, 6 vols in 1 (Gloucester, 1983, reprinted fromthe 1904 Library edn), iii. p. 309; iv. pp. 88, 116–17, 151; v. pp. 120–1.115 Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, v. pp. 178–9, 181, 188. The identification with WilliamHogan is inferred here: the Pastons refer to both individuals simply by the surname, andthe prophet is only once distinguished with the epithet ‘the prophet’. Sharon L. Jansen,‘The Paston Family, “Hogan the Prophet,” and Sixteenth-Century Political Prophecy’,Manuscripta 39 (1995), pp. 137–47, discusses the case without attempting to identify‘Hogan’.116 Timothy Hawes (ed.), An Index to Norwich City Officers, 1453–1835, Norfolk RecordSociety lii (Norwich, 1989 for 1986), p. 83. Cf., for later appearances of the family, TheMuster Returns for Divers Hundreds in the County of Norfolk, 1569, 1572, 1574 and 1577,transcribed by M. A. Farrow and edited by H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence and Percy Millican,Norfolk Record Society vi–vii (Fakenham and Reading, 1935–6), pp. 8, 44, 66, 145, 157;M. A. Farrow, Index of Wills Proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich and now Preserved inthe District Probate Registry at Norwich, 1550–1603, Norfolk Record Society xxi (Norwich,1950), pp. 89, 90, 93, 94; Norwich Consistory Court Depositions, 1499–1512 and 1518–1530,calendared by E. D. Stone, revised and arranged by B. Cozens-Hardy, Norfolk RecordSociety x ([London], 1938), items 141, 266.117 Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols (Oxford,1971–[7]). Connections with the Howards are evident, for example, in Robert senior’s

became custodian of the palace of Westminster.118 In the last year of Hogan’slife his connections with Cromwell, and his activity in his native East Anglia,grew significantly.119 He seems to have been succeeded in the king’s kitchensby Ralph Hogan, who was listed as a ‘child’ there at Anne Boleyn’s corona-tion, and had progressed to cook by 15 March 1537.120 Robert the elder’s heir,however, was another Robert, who was acting as a commissioner for tenths of spiritualities in Norwich and Norfolk in 1535, and active in Cromwell’sservice and otherwise in Norfolk from then through 1536 and into early1537.121

It may be significant that at this point the chief clerk of the royal kitchenwas none other than William Thynne, friend of Skelton and editor ofChaucer.122 In the latter role, Thynne was responsible for adding ‘Chaucer’sprophecy’ to the printed apocryphal canon.123 Unlikely though it mightinitially seem, therefore, a place in the royal kitchen was conducive to thecontinuing involvement of the Hogan family in potentially controversial


40

interest in offices in the forest of Galtresse and lordship of Sheriff Hutton: LP, iv. 297(7);v. 318(29), 457(3); cf. his association with the duchess of Norfolk in LP, iv. 4710, and anearly appointment as bailiff of Long Newton, York, LP, iii. 1451(16).118 LP, iii. 1451(16); iv. 297(7), 3563, 4402, 5406(1), 5748(9), 318(29), 457(3). Death:LP, v. 1598(20) (grant of one of his offices, 15 November 1532).119 LP, v. 1184; vi. 129, 244–5, 256, 709 (all these letters in vol. vi are misdated to 1533);The Register of Thetford Priory, ed. David Dymond, 2 vols, Norfolk Record Society lix–lx(Oxford, 1995–6), p. 588.120 LP, vi. 562 (at p. 249); xiv/2. 782 (at p. 329). Robert junior remained closely associatedwith Thetford Priory: Register of Thetford Priory, pp. 600, 611, 618, 631, 649, 667, 686, 706,709. Other members of the family in the king’s service included Henry, in the stable(1540–1: LP, xvi. 287; xvii. 258) and possibly John (although he is associated with activitiesin South Wales and usually has his surname spelled ‘Ogan’, which is not common in thecase of the East Bradenham family and suggests an identification with Sir John Wogan (d.1557): LP, vii. 923iv; xvi. p. 723; W. R. B. Robinson, ‘The Marriages of Knighted WelshLandowners, 1485–1558’, National Library of Wales Journal 25 (1987–8), pp. 387–98, at pp.396–7; W. R. B. Robinson, ‘Knighted Welsh Landowners, 1485–1558: A Provisional List’,Welsh History Review 13 (1987), pp. 282–98, at p. 297; Commons, 1509–1558, III, p. 651.121 LP, viii. 149(43), ix. 478, 721, 978, 1042; x. 79, 173, 189, 563; xi. 518; xii/2. 487; xiv/2.782 (at p. 319). Register of Thetford Priory, p. 653. According to the visitation of 1664,Robert’s third son, Anthony, was the founder of the Hogans of Great Dunham (Norfolk),dying in 1585: The Visitation of Norfolk anno domini 1664 made by Sir Edward Bysshe, Knt.,Clarenceux King of Arms, ed. A. W. Hughes Clarke and Arthur Campling, 2 vols, NorfolkRecord Society iv–v (London, 1933–4), i. p. 102.122 Robert Costomiris, ‘Some New Light on the Early Career of William Thynne, ChiefClerk of the Kitchen of Henry VIII and Editor of Chaucer’, The Library 7th ser. 4 (2003),pp. 3–15.123 Kathleen Forni, The Chaucerian Apocrypha: A Counterfeit Canon (Gainesville, 2001),pp. xvii, 36, 52; Julia Boffey, ‘Proverbial Chaucer and the Chaucer Canon’, Readings fromthe Margins: Textual Studies, Chaucer, and Medieval Literature (Huntington Library Quarterly58:1 (1996)), ed. Seth Lerer, pp. 37–47, at pp. 39–40.

interpretation. In February 1537, however, it was alleged that one John Hoganhad sung ‘the hunt is up’ (a version of one of Cromwell’s own political ballads)before the earl of Surrey at Thetford,124 so closely associated with the Hogansof East Bradenham, and from about that time the family seems to have entereda temporary eclipse.125 Although he seems to have made a good marriage forhis eldest son, Thomas, to Susan, eldest daughter and heiress of Sir EdwardEchingham (‘Ichyngham’) of Barsham (Suffolk), Robert Hogan’s name wascrossed out of the list of those appointed to greet Anne of Cleves, and whileit appeared in the schedule of men to serve in France in 1544, it did so with-out any indication of any company to follow him.126 John Bale was soon to record ‘Huggonus Nordouolcius’ or Robert ‘Huggonus’ as an impostor whose‘prophecias vanas’ were the cause of many evils, including the rebellions of1549.127 Yet the considerable wealth acquired by the family in the previousthirty years is indicated by Robert junior’s ability to lay out £1142 8s. 6d. onthe purchase of ex-monastic land around the family’s home at East Bradenhamin 1543.128 Aspirations to consolidate gentry status also led to a grant of armsin May 1546.129 The Hogans therefore represent a tradition of gentlemenprophets with direct links to the heart of the regime and to the upper ranks ofcounty society.130


41

124 PRO, SP 1/116, fol. 30 (LP, xii/1. 424). He had also sung it before the earl of Surrey atCambridge. Fox, Oral and Literate Culture, p. 385.125 Robert Hogan senior was a corrodian of Thetford Priory from 1524/5: Register of ThetfordPriory, pp. 388, 407, 465, 481, 506, 521, 522, 540, 557, 568, 570, 582, 584, 588.126 LP, xiv/1. 693; xiv/2. 572; xix/1. 274 (at p. 159); PCC 28 Porch (will of Echingham,1527); Diarmaid MacCulloch, Suffolk and the Tudors: Politics and Religion in an EnglishCounty 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986), pp. 360–1. Limited exceptions are provided by Robert’spresence at the delivery of seisin of West Acre Priory in January 1538, and his presence ona commission of oyer and terminer for treasons on 4 July 1538: xiii/1. 85, 1519(20). Robert’sown wife was Bridget, daughter of Sir Richard Fowler of Hambledon (Buckinghamshire)and Rycote (Oxon): The House of Commons, 1558–1603, ed. P. W. Hasler, 3 vols (London,1981), ii. p. 326.127 Bale, Index Britanniae Scriptorum, p. 170. Bale, Illustrium Maioris Britanniæ scriptorum,ii. p. 66.128 LP, xviii. 449(4). Given the almost immediate alienation of some of this land to SirRichard Southwell, Hogan may have been in part acting as his agent: LP, xix/1. 1035(159).It is perhaps significant that both were near the top of the list of targets for anti-gentryrebels around Swaffham in 1540: LP, xv. 748.129 Visitation of Norfolk 1664, ii. p. 274.130 Robert junior died on 4 March 1547. His eldest son Thomas survived through most ofElizabeth’s reign, but his grandson, another Robert, died young: A. Hassell Smith, Countyand Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk, 1558–1603 (Oxford, 1974), pp. 32, 37–8,353 (noting his connection with the Howards); Commons, 1558–1603, ii. p. 326; FrancisBlomefield, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, 5 vols(Fersfield, 1739–75), ii. p. 354; vi. pp. 16, 136, 108, 236; one lasting presence in the areawas Anthony, rector of East Bradenham itself briefly in the 1540s and of Necton from atleast 1550 to at least 1580: Blomefield, Norfolk, vi. pp. 53, 55, 141.

Another family closely associated with prophecy texts and their interpre-tation was the Laynams of Wimborne Minster.131 In this case the prophets seemto have come from a more humble background, but once again it is the variedand impressive connections with associates in the aristocracy and gentry, andin other influential circles, which are striking. Skydmore referred to Laynamduring the investigations of Hale and the Carthusians in 1535,132 andCromwell informed the king in April 1539 of an examination of a prophetLaynam.133 Then, in 1546, we have extremely detailed information on theprophet and his associations, the result of privy council investigations ofWilliam Weston, a lute-player.134

Laynam explained that one young Hurlok, dwelling about Warminster(‘Wormyster’; Wiltshire), used to have books of prophecies and to communewith him. This is almost certainly the William Hurlok, a blind ‘profeser’ whose depositions Cromwell had in the mid-1530s, who was referred to by the prisoners of Ilchester with whom we began this account of popular pro-phecy under Henry VIII, and who had in 1530 been examined, probably in connection with Wolsey’s dealings with prophets, or a close relative.135 Thisis suggestive of the connections between prophetic interpreters in HenricianEngland, and of the relatively small pool from which such interpretation came.

Weston had met Laynam for the first time at Mompesson’s (‘Mountepeson’s’)house in Wiltshire, probably in 1530 or 1531. Walking on the plain beside the house, Laynam had recounted prophecies on themes such as the rise of a dead man, at which time the hot baths would be cold; and further thatthe king should have six or seven wives. The Mompessons of Bathampton (in Langford) were a prominent family of Wiltshire gentry who had a placeon the commission of the peace in the person of Edmund Mompesson from1532.136


42

131 Association with Wimborne Minster: Bodl., Bodley MS 623, fol. 100.132 LP, viii. 565(2v).133 LP, xiv/1. 806. Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 27–9, 37–8, on Laynam.134 APC, 1542–1547, p. 449 (7 June 1546).135 LP, vii. 923ii. Ilchester; iv/3. 6652; cf. Jansen, ‘Paston Family’, pp. 144–5.136 He was then about 21 and remained on the bench until his death in 1553; alsoappearing, briefly in 1539, was Thomas (probably Edmund’s uncle). Edward appeared onthe sheriff roll for the county, without actually being pricked, in 1535, 1536, 1537 and1539, and then served as sheriff in 1540–1: LP, v. 838(18), 1694ii; viii. 149(60); ix. 914(22);xi. 311, 1217(23); xii/1. 311; xii/2. 1150(18, 20); xiii/1. 384(20, 65); xiv/1. 1354(27); xiv/2.619(38); xvi. 305(80); xviii/1. 226(29); xx/1. 622 (pp. 314, 316); xxi/1. 302(62). Edmundappeared in 1539 in musters and at the reception of Anne of Cleves: LP, xiv/1. 652(M24);xiv/2. 572(2). He served in the 1544 expedition to France, and was the sole Wiltshirerepresentative in greeting the French embassy of 1546: LP, xix/1. 273, 274; xxi/1. 1384.Edmund was the son of John, inheriting as an infant in 1511: VCH Wiltshire, v. p. 53; viii.pp. 40, 243; xiv. pp. 189, 198, 200; Wiltshire Visitation Pedigrees, 1623, pp. 132–3. Wills:Edmund (PCC 5 Tashe), his mother Alice (33 Alyoffe), father John (25 Holder) and uncle

The diversity of the group involved with Laynam is striking. It includedJohn Lascelles, who prospered in Cromwell’s service and developed extremeProtestant views, for which he was executed on 16 July 1546.137 GilbertLatham had Jane Seymour to thank for the position of Master of St Katherine’sHospital by the Tower, which he still held when the hospital was surveyed on 2 March 1546.138 Edmund, Lord Bray’s involvement is interesting, givenhis interest in a Flemish prognostication, noted by Chapuys in 1535, pre-sumably shortly before the time he was in communication with Laynam.139

Although he was a courtier and presumably a friend of Henry VIII, acting ascupbearer, he never held any high office.140 Percivall’s wife is much harder toidentify with confidence, but the time of her correspondence with Laynam issuggestive, for in 1536–7 there was a woman known in this way who seems tohave had a prominent role in some of the manoeuvrings of the Pilgrimage of Grace and its aftermath. Percivall Cresswell, usually known as Percivall orMr Percivall, who appears to have moved from being a connection of bothLords Darcy and Hussey to being a servant of the duke of Norfolk, acted asmessenger in the exchanges between the duke and Lord Darcy, and thenfurther carried messages to court.141 Cresswell’s wife, Catherine, seems not just to have been privy to the obviously sensitive messages carried by her hus-band, but also to have discussed matters with Lady Hussey in London,including the extremely delicate details of exactly what Darcy had said toCromwell when he was examined.142 Given the fate which befell the Lancasterherald in 1538, executed for his concessions to Aske’s position during thepilgrimage, it is obvious that Cresswell was in a very difficult position, but anidentification of Laynam’s ‘Percivalls wife’ with Catherine implies some-thing more. Another case, from 1539, directly implicated another herald,


43

Thomas (d. 1561; 7 Loftes). For Thomas, see VCH Wiltshire, xiii. p. 218; LP, xx/2. 576,577, 581. Bathampton is just to the east of Bath and a little to the north-west of Trowbridgeand Bradford-upon-Avon.137 Derek Wilson, A Tudor Tapestry: Men, Women and Society in Reformation England(London, 1972), pp. 90–108, 124–5, 133, 199–200, 228–34.138 LP, xii/1. 795(45); xx/1. 309. He had been a canon of the college at Stoke by Clare(Suffolk) when Cromwell had written on his behalf in August 1535, seeking a restorationof his position there, in the face of accusations that he had broken the college statutes: LP,ix. 92; Stoke was Matthew Parker’s re-foundation under Anne Boleyn’s patronage (Ives,Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, pp. 286–7; John Strype, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker,the First Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 4 vols (Oxford, 1821),vol. I, pp. 16–18).139 LP, viii. 327 (Chapuys to Charles V, 4 March 1535).140 Helen Miller, Henry VIII and the English Nobility (Oxford, 1986), pp. 23, 25, 96, 98. Hedied in 1539.141 Association with Darcy and Hussey: LP, xii/2. 186(56), 187(2), 567. Messenger: LP, xi.1014, 1035, 1045, 1046, 1049, 1050, 1058, 1064(2), 1065; xii/2. 1089. Hoyle, Pilgrimage,pp. 318–20.142 LP, xii/1. 976, 981, 1013, 1120.

this time Robert Fayery, Portcullis pursuivant, in promoting an alleged Merlinprophecy about the murder and treason to be expected in Edward VI’s reign.143

Fayery was well placed to understand the situations he talked of, for as a heraldhe had been involved in political and diplomatic events, acting as a diplomaticmessenger since his appointment in 1516 and officiating at events such as the creation of Anne Boleyn as marquess of Pembroke and the interment ofJane Seymour.144 It is also easy to see why he was considered a great ‘cronacler’,for his work as a pursuivant involved him in the research associated withheraldic visitations, as when he toured St Paul’s and other London churcheswith Carlisle herald Thomas Hawley in July–September 1530.145 There wasclearly a group of individuals with impressive connections and responsibleroles, such as that of the king’s pursuivants and the trusted messengers of thenobility, who had an extensive interest in and knowledge of ancient prophecy.On the other hand, some were not so well connected. Robert Barker, whoseconfession helps elucidate the Laynam connection, was eventually releasedfrom the Fleet on 6 August 1546 when his mother, the ‘wife’ of the Rose tavernby Newgate, brought sufficient sureties to the Lord Chancellor.146

The stock of ideas on which such prophetic interpreters drew thereforemattered in setting the tone for a discussion of past and future which mightinvolve an exceptionally wide cross-section of the population. As the six-teenth century passed, these developed through a range of traditions. On theone hand there was the Welsh and Galfridian tradition usually associated with Merlin, which tended to focus on the conflict between Briton and Saxon,but also on crusade, Rome, France and Ireland, with a strong dose of dynasticinstability and internal strife.147 Yet this set of traditions also related to


44

143 Mark Noble, A History of the College of Arms: And the Lives of all the Kings, Heralds, andPursuivants from the Reign of Richard III, Founder of the College, until the Present Time(London, 1804), pp. 130, 147.144 LP, ii. 2397, 4174, pp. 875, 1464, 1478; iv. 1939(9); v. 245, 1274(3), pp. 322, 324–5;vi. 558; xii/2. 1060. Cf. the account of the activities of Thomas Wall, Windsor herald, inRobert J. Knecht, ‘Sir Nicholas Carew’s Journey through France in 1529’, in The EnglishExperience in France c. 1450–1558: War, Diplomacy and Cultural Exchange, ed. DavidGrummitt (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 160–81; The Voyage of Sir Nicholas Carewe to the EmperorCharles V in the Year 1529, ed. R. J. Knecht, Roxburghe Club (Cambridge, 1959); and thatof Roger Machado, Richmond herald, in Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andreatholosate conscripta; necnon alia quædam ad eundum regem spectantia, ed. James Gairdner, RS10 (London, 1858), pp. xxxvii–xlviii, 157–222.145 LP, xiv/2. 73; Anthony Richard Wagner, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages: AnInquiry into the Growth of the Armorial Function of Heralds, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1956), pp. 118,139–46.146 LP, xxi/1. 1424.147 Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs; Jansen, Political Protest, esp. pp. 62–146. The appealof one of the late medieval Merlin texts was demonstrated by its printing in 1510 and 1529(Here Begynneth a Lytel Treatyse of ye Byrth & Prophecye of Marlyn (London, 1510; anotheredition, 1529)).

Scotland, and the Tudor period saw this meld with the prophetic focus on thedynasty, given great stimulus by Henry VII’s decision to marry his daughterMargaret to James IV of Scotland, and subsequent problems with the Englishsuccession.

References to a Scottish alliance with the Welsh in the Rhys ap Gruffyddcase have already been noted, and in several other cases questions were raisedabout connections with Scotland. In particular, these questions focused on the idea of a potential Scottish succession to the English throne. In the 1530s,Robert Dalyvell of Royston (Hertfordshire) was repeating prophecies he hadheard from Scots that their king should be crowned king of England in Londonbefore Midsummer Day three years or a month after, in spite of the loss of hisears for it.148 Some at least believed these prophecies of a Scottish successionhad highly placed sponsors, including (though he denied it) James V him-self.149 James may or may not have been being disingenuous, but there is no doubt that prophetic debate was thriving in Scotland by this time. The keyfoundation to this was the prophecy tradition associated with Thomas ofErceldoun, the second of the two major ‘ancient’ prophetic bodies of ideas in early sixteenth-century Britain. This provided a constant reminder that theScottish fate was bound up with that of the English; the most pronouncedelement of this was the development of the prophecy to the effect thatultimately, through a future king with a French mother and of the kin of Bruce,the Scots would conquer England. This was originally intended for Alexander,duke of Albany, in 1513–15 in expectation of his return to Scotland,150 but itthen, from his birth, became associated with James VI.

We have our first distinct reference to Erceldoun as a prophet of Scottishhistory in John Barbour’s Bruce. According to Barbour, writing at some pointfrom about 1372 onwards, when William Lamberton, archbishop of St Andrewswas told of the murder of Comyn and his associates by Bruce on 29 January1306, he responded by saying that he hoped Erceldoun’s prophecy would be verified in Bruce, and that he would be king.151 This reliance on Erceldoun


45

148 LP, xxi/2. 74, 80; xiii/2. 1090. Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, pp. 46–7. Other cases whereScottish links were suspected are those of the parson of Woodnesborough (see above, pp. 31–2) and Richard Oversole of Northallerton (LP, xiii/2. 996).149 LP, xiv/1. 178, 232, 275. Cf. Jansen, Political Protest, p. 53.150 ‘Berlington’s’ prophecy, from the Whole Prophecies collection of 1603; established byDavid Dalrymple, Remarks on the History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1773), esp. pp. 89–91,96–102, 110.151 Barbour’s Bruce: A Fredome is a Noble Thing!, ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid and James A. C. Stevenson, 3 vols, Scottish Text Society 4th ser. 12–13, 15 (Edinburgh, 1980–5),vol. 1, pp. 27–8; John Barbour, The Bruce, ed. A. A. M. Duncan (Edinburgh, 1997), pp. 82–3. Note that Higden had referred to Edward Balliol’s victory over Scots atGledesmore, echoing Thomas, and translators followed: Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. C. Babington and Joseph Rawson Lumby, 9 vols, RS 41 (London, 1865–86), VIII, pp. 328–9.

as a prophet was taken up by Andrew Wyntoun,152 but the best known pro-phecy attributed to Erceldoun, and the one on which the credibility of hissubsequent tradition was mainly built, is described first by Walter Bower, c. 1440, in the tenth book of his Scotichronicon. He followed a lament on thedeath of Alexander III with a call to remember the prophecy of Erceldoun.According to Bower, the ‘earl of March’153 had asked Erceldoun at Dunbarwhat the following day would bring: Erceldoun replied that it would be a ‘dayof calamity and misery’. Bower concluded by observing that they discoveredby experience that Thomas’s prophecies were to ‘become all too credible’.154

Underlying these mentions in the chronicles was a tradition associated withThomas which provided an account of the history of England and Scotlandfrom the time of Robert the Bruce, probably taking its first form in pro-Scottishhands on the eve of the battle of Halidon Hill, almost certainly in ‘ballad’form, only recorded in written form in 1800.155 This tradition was revised toproduce a romance version, more favourable to the English, completed no laterthan 1402, of which the earliest survival appears in the Thornton manuscriptof c. 1430–40.156 Further prophecies associated with Thomas, either directlyin the tradition first represented by the Thornton MS or otherwise, thensurvive from the 1450s onwards.157

The prophecy was well known in Scottish court circles in the early six-teenth century. Sir David Lyndesey, in his poem ‘The Dreme’, recalled hisrelationship with the young James V, to whom he was appointed usher or chiefpage almost immediately on his birth in April 1512.158 He described how


46

152 Andrew of Wyntoun, The Original Chronicle, ed. F. J. Amours, 6 vols, Scottish TextSociety 1st ser. 50, 53–4, 56–7, 63 (Edinburgh, 1903–14), vol. VI, p. 71 (lines 4718–22)(book VIII, ch. 27); written c. 1400 (Duncan’s date).153 Patrick, earl of Dunbar, rather than of March at this point: Walter Bower, Scotichronicon,general editor D. E. R. Watt, vol. 5, Books 9 and 10, ed. Simon Taylor and D. E. R. Watt,with Brian Scott (Aberdeen, 1990), p. 510.154 Bower, Scotichronicon, vol. 5, ed. Taylor and Watt, pp. 426–9: ‘dicti Thome experti suntcredibilia nimis facta fore vaticinia’.155 E. B. Lyle, ‘The Relationship between Thomas the Rhymer and Thomas of Erceldoun’,Leeds Studies in English n.s. 4 (1970), pp. 23–30.156 The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, ed. James A. H. Murray, EETS o.s.61 (London, 1875), pp. xxiv–xxvi; The Thornton Manuscript (Lincoln Cathedral MS. 91),ed. D. S. Brewer and A. E. B. Owen (London, 1977).157 BL, MS Cotton Rolls ii. 23; Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, ed. RossellH. Robbins (New York, 1959), pp. 115–17; Coote, Prophecy and Public Affairs, pp. 198–200.Cambridge University Library, MS Ff. 5. 48, which is from the middle of the century, andBL, Cotton MS Vitellius E. x, which is slightly later.158 Of about 1526: ‘Heir followis he dreme of Shir Daid Lindsay of the mont knyt, aliasLion Kyng of armes derecket onto our souerane Lord kyng James the fyft’ (Paris, 1558), partof Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteor. Off the Miserabill Estait of the Warld . . .([Rouen?], 1558), lines 43–4. David Lindsay, The Poetical Works, ed. David Laing, 3 vols(Edinburgh, 1879), I, pp. xii–xiii; Janet Hadley Williams, ‘David Lyndsay and the Making

he had told the king various stories, including material from Erceldoun.Although the context for the prophecies here might be dismissed as associatedwith the fairy stories with which it appears, it should be noted that many of these apparently fanciful tales of monsters and witches could easily be readas metaphors for the struggles Scotland and its new king would have to face.159

Although in 1521, in his history, John Mair expressed scorn for theErceldoun prophecies,160 this scepticism was quickly countered by the moreinfluential Hector Boece,161 which was proudly translated into Scots by JohnBellenden, so promoting the tradition of Erceldoun, as ‘ane man of gretadmiration to the peple, . . . [who] schew sundry thingis as thay fell. Howbeit[p]ai wer ay hyd vnder obscure wourdis.’162

The broader collection of prophecies originally associated with Erceldountherefore had considerable influence on the way contemporaries saw eventsdeveloping. In particular, uncertainty about the future, fertile ground forancient prophecy, was evident in the dynastic crises on both sides of the border.Then, and to an extent as a result, there was the renewal of large-scale militaryhostilities in the 1540s. Erceldoun’s alleged prophecies of battles andbloodshed, and of the heir of Bruce ascending the English throne, becamehighly apposite.163 John Elder, who had studied at St Andrews, Aberdeen andGlasgow universities and came to England in 1542, enthusiastically usedprophecy as the context for his report of the destruction wrought by the earl


47

of King James V’, in Stewart Style, 1513–1542: Essays on the Court of James V, ed. JanetHadley Williams (East Linton, 1996), pp. 201–26.159 J. E. H. Williams, ‘James V, David Lyndsay, and the Bannatyne Manuscript Poem ofthe Gyre Carling’, Studies in Scottish Literature XXVI (1991), pp. 164–71.160 Historia majoris Britanniae: tam Angliae quam Scotiae ([Paris, 1521]), fol. lxviii; ‘[o]urwriters assure us that Thomas often foretold this thing and the other, and the commonpeople throughout Britain give no little credence to such stories, which for the most part– and indeed they merit nothing else – I smile at (translation: John Major, A History ofGreater Britain as well England as Scotland, ed. A. Constable, Scottish History Society o.s.10 (Edinburgh, 1892), pp. 190–1).161 Hector Boece, Scotorum historiæ a prima gentis origine ([Paris], [1527]), fol. 302 (cf. (Paris,1574), fol. 291r).162 Hector Boece, Heir Beginnis the Hystory and Croniklis of Scotland, trans. John Bellenden(Edinburgh, [1540?]), fol. cciii. This likely influenced subsequent chroniclers, such as AdamAbell: Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland, MS 1746, fol. 91. Alasdair M. Stewart,‘The Final Folios of Adam Abell’s “Roit or Quheill of Tyme”: An Observantine Friar’sReflections on the 1520s and 30s’, in Stewart Style, 1513–1542, ed. Williams, pp. 227–53.163 The ‘British’ context for English actions is evident from the tracts reprinted in TheComplaynt of Scotlande wyth ane Exortatione to the Thre Estaits to be Vigilante in the Deffensof their Public Veil. 1549, with an Appendix of Contemporary English Tracts, viz. The JustDeclaration of Henry VIII (1542), The Exhortacion of James Harrysone, Scottisheman (1547),The Epistle of the Lord Protector Somerset (1548), The Epitome of Nicholas Bodrugan aliasAdams (1548), ed. James A. H. Murray, EETS extra ser. 17, 18 (London, 1872–3). Thepowerful Protestant ideology behind many of these publications affected their treatmentof ancient prophecy; the author of the 1548 Epistle denied that the providential inheritance

of Hertford in Scotland in 1545.164 Expectations of a bloody conflict no doubtheightened the destructiveness of both sides in the conflict. William Patten,for example (although a radical Protestant sceptic), describing ProtectorSomerset’s expedition to Scotland, noted that some Scots referred to the battleof Pinkie/Musselburgh field as ‘Seton felde’ ‘by means of a blynd prophecie of theirs, whiche is this or sum suche toy, Betwene Seton & the sey, many aman shall dye that dey’.165

After James V’s death in 1542, his daughter Mary became the subject of the prophetic speculation as to the future of the English throne. Scottishsources, and indeed those of their French allies, saw the significance of themarriage of Mary and the dauphin Francis of 1548.166 It may have been pro-phetic expectation surrounding a French marriage which made the union so widely accepted in a country which until then had been extensively dividedover the way to deal with the death of James and the minority of his heir. In 1561, in his poem greeting Mary on her return to Scotland, Alexander Scottpraised her as the foretold mother of the country’s saviour.

Giffe sawis be suth to schaw thy celsitude,Quhat berne sould bruke all bretane be [th]e see?The prophecie expreslie dois conclude –‘The frensch wyfe of the brucis blude suld be’:Thow art be lyne, fra him the nynte degre,


48

of Edward and Mary, as potential marriage partners, could be interpreted as a miracle orthrough prophecy, since ‘present Prophesies nowe a daies, bee but either not certain, or elsnot playne’: p. 240.164 Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland, Preserved in Her Majesty’s Public RecordOffice, vol. I: A.D. 1509–1589, ed. M. J. Thorpe (London, 1858), p. 57. Marcus Merriman,‘Home Thoughts from Abroad: National Consciousness and Scottish Exiles in the Mid-Sixteenth Century’, in Social and Political Identities in Western History, ed. Claus Bjørn,Alexander Grant and Keith J. Stringer (Copenhagen, 1994), pp. 90–117, esp. pp. 93–9;ODNB. Later, in 1555, he converted to Catholicism while with Lennox at TempleNewsam, his statement on this occasion being reprinted in The Chronicle of Queen Jane,and of Two Years of Queen Mary, and Especially of the Rebellion of Sir T. Wyat, written by aresident in the Tower of London, ed. J. G. Nichols, Camden Society o.s. 48 (London, 1850),pp. 136–66.165 William Patten, The Expedicion into Scotlande of the most Woorthely Fortunate PrinceEdward, Duke of Somerset (London, 1548), fols aviir–aviiv. William Patten: Brian O’Kill,‘The Printed Works of William Patten (c. 1510–c.1600)’, Transactions of the CambridgeBibliographical Society 7 (1977–80), pp. 28–45; Betty Hill, ‘Trinity College Cambridge Ms.B.14.52, and William Patten’, ibid. 4 (1964–8), pp. 192–200.166 Thomas Bulkeley, writing to Sir William Maurice after the accession of James to theEnglish throne, reported a prophecy in Scots which he said had been printed when Marywas married to the French king: NLW, Brogyntyn MS 3349 (supplemented, wheredamaged, from the nineteenth-century transcript in NLW, Peniarth MS 414, fol. 83). Cf.Paula E. Ritchie, Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548–1560: A Political Career (East Linton,2002), pp. 66–70.

And wes king frances pairty, maik, and peir;So be discente, [th]e same sowld spring of [th]e,By grace of god agane this gude new [y]eir.167

A prophetic agenda in part adapted from contemporary French models helped shape the celebrations at Stirling of the baptism of Mary’s son Jamesin December 1566. No less a figure than James’s tutor George Buchanancelebrated Mary as Arthur and Astraea; Patrick Adamson, a Protestantminister and client of the Hamiltons, recited the prophecy that Mary wouldreunite the island of Britain.168

As in England, so in Scotland some radical Protestant authorities wereferocious in their condemnation of all forms of prophecy and astrology. GeorgeBuchanan in particular called Merlin an ‘egregious impostor’ and paid noattention to Erceldoun.169 The contempt felt by some Protestants for Merlinwas heightened, for Scots and their associates at least, by the Scottish reactionagainst Arthurianism of all kinds as an instrument of English imperialism, a mistrust which was only slowly broken down during the sixteenth century.170

Yet this does not seem to have stemmed the flow of prophecy on the sub-jects of the English succession and possible war between the two countries.171

Work such as that by John Lesley, bishop of Ross, in exile in England from1568, who presented his history of Scotland to Mary, queen of Scots in 1570,demonstrated the continuing currency of Erceldoun’s prophecy.172


49

167 The Poems of Alexander Scott, ed. Alexander Karley Donald, EETS extra ser. 85 (London,1902), pp. viii, 3–9, at p. 8, lines 193–200.168 Patrick Adamson, Serenissimi ac nobilissimi Scotiae Angliae Hybernie Henrici Stuardi etMariae Reginae (Paris, 1566); George Buchanan, Opera (Edinburgh, 1715), II, pp. 404–5;Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland, of the Reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary,and Elizabeth, vol. 1: 1509–1573, ed. Hans Claude Hamilton (London, 1860), p. 321;Michael Lynch, ‘Queen Mary’s Triumph: The Baptismal Celebrations at Stirling inDecember 1566’, Scottish Historical Review lxix (1990), pp. 1–21.169 George Buchanan, Rerum Scoticarum Historia (Edinburgh, 1582), fols 51–3 (GeorgeBuchanan, The History of Scotland, trans. James Aikman, 4 vols (Glasgow, 1827), I, p. 233,and cf. pp. 236–44). On the context for Buchanan’s hostility to Merlin, which may havebeen a reason for his distrust of other prophets, see David Allen, ‘“Arthur Redivivus”:Politics and Patriotism in Reformation Scotland’, in Arthurian Literature XV, ed. James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy (Cambridge, 1997), pp. 185–204.170 Allen, ‘“Arthur Redivivus”‘, pp. 196–8. Allen’s argument, which initially is essentiallyabout Merlin and Arthurianism, becomes a little blurred in his coverage of the seventeenthcentury and after, as he too easily equates acceptance of Merlin with acceptance of Thomas,‘Merlin’s Scottish alter ego’ (p. 201), when Thomas was a far more palatable prospect thanMerlin for a Scottish audience.171 The author of the Complaynt of Scotland combined condemnation of English relianceon Merlin to justify their ‘ardant desire . . . to be violent dominatours of oure cuntray’ withhope that his prophecies would come true in the sense found in Polychronicon, in theaccession of a Scottish prince to the English throne: pp. 82–5.172 John Lesley, The Historie of Scotland, trans. James Dalrymple (1596), ed. E. G. Cody and

By the middle of the sixteenth century, therefore, ancient prophetic tradi-tion, centred loosely on the themes and tone of Geoffrey’s Merlin and Thomasof Erceldoun, had produced a powerful set of ideas about the destinies ofEngland, Wales and Scotland which involved a wide spectrum of the popu-lation there. The events of the reigns of Edward VI and Mary were seen bymany as reflecting these ideas. Existing dynastic themes had clear relevance,but the novel circumstances of a minority followed by a female monarchdemonstrated ancient prophecy’s capacity for flexibility and development. It should be recalled here that from relatively early in Henry VIII’s reignprophetic expectation had shifted away from the king onto a hoped-for heir– and, in his youth, a protector who might guide him, leading the crusade thatwould recover the True Cross (and ultimately wear the crown himself).173

Somerset, who as we know employed Cromwell’s prophet John Davy,174 mayhave seen his campaigning in Scotland, and actions in Ireland, in this light.If he did see himself, at least in part, as a messianic figure in this way, it mighthelp to explain his pursuit of goals from the early 1540s which to modern eyesseem unachievable or pointlessly destructive. Equally, if he was perceived at least in part in this light by Englishmen, this might be one way in which hebecame so burdened with expectations of social transformation.175 Morespecifically, the rebels of 1549 in East Anglia appear to have had a sense of theimportance of Moushold Heath, where they made their camp, and Dussindale,where they chose, against all logic, to make their final disastrous stand;176 andthose in Yorkshire allegedly looked to a prophecy of the division of England


50

William Murison, 2 vols, Scottish Text Society o.s. 5, 14, 19, 34 (Edinburgh, 1888–95),vol. 1, pp. 340–1. Robert Lindsay of Pitscottie, The Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, ed.Æ. J. G. Mackay (c. 1579), 3 vols, Scottish Text Society o.s. 42, 43, 60 (Edinburgh,1899–1911), does not seem to mention Erceldoun.173 Bodl., Rawlinson MS C 813, fols 84v–7r.174 See above, pp. 19–20.175 Ethan H. Shagan, ‘Protector Somerset and the 1549 Rebellions: New Sources and NewPerspectives’, EHR 114 (1999), pp. 34–63; Michael L. Bush, ‘Protector Somerset and the1549 Rebellions: A Post-Revision Questioned’, EHR 115 (2000), pp. 103–12; George W.Bernard, ‘New Perspectives or Old Complexities?’ EHR 115 (2000), pp. 113–20. There is,of course, no sign of an acknowledgement of the prophecy in William Forrest’s advice tothe king and duke, ‘The Pleasaunt Poesye of Princelie Practise’, in Secretum Secretorum:Nine English Versions, ed. M. A. Manzalaoui, vol. 1: Text, EETS o.s. 276 (Oxford, 1977),pp. 392–534; and many Protestants associated with the regime (e.g. William Patten)distrusted prophecy: see above, p. 48.176 Alexander Neville, De furoribus Norfolciensium Ketto duce, liber unus (London, 1575),I4v–K1r; Nicholas Sotherton, in BL, Harleian MS 1576, fol. 258v (edited as Barrett L.Beer, ‘“The Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549”: A Narrative of Popular Rebellion in Sixteenth-Century England’, Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976), pp. 73–99, at pp.97–8; and as The Commoyson in Norfolk 1549, ed. Susan Yaxley (Stibbard, 1987)), pp.41–2); Frederic William Russell, Kett’s Rebellion in Norfolk; Being a History of the Great CivilCommotion that Occurred at the Time of the Reformation, in the Reign of Edward VI. Foundedon the ‘Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549,’ by N. Sotherton; and the ‘De Furoribus Norfolciensium’

between ‘4 gouernours to be elected and appointed by the Commons’.177 The‘deadman’ prophecies, predicting a miraculous return from the grave, enjoyedpopularity in the aftermath of Edward’s early death, and there are severalmanuscript collections of prophecy which provide a commentary on Mary’sreign, some from a strongly Protestant perspective, hostile to the Spanishmarriage, others with a calmer more loyalist tone. One of those spreading theseabroad was a canon of Peterborough.178

In the sixteenth century, therefore, ancient prophecy appealed to a widespectrum of society from the elite downwards. Although they might differ asto its specific worth, virtually everyone from the king and his ministers to thepoorest of the poor still gave credence to the prophetic traditions which theybelieved had been handed down to them. Although there are signs of someinterest in printed prophecies, as the Eures’ ownership of pseudo-Methodiussuggests, England is chiefly notable for a continued resort to native traditionswhich had not been printed.179 As a result, therefore, this powerful politicallanguage and the ideas it carried with it could not be simply brought underanyone’s control.180 Nor was the regular use of manuscript, important thoughit undoubtedly was, as constraining and systematizing as might be thought.The development of tradition and its interpretation remained vibrant.


51

of Nevylle; and Corroborated by Extracts from the Privy Council Register, Documents Preservedin the State Paper and Other Record Offices, the Harleian and other MSS. . . . With Illustrations(London, 1859), pp. 4–6; Barrett L. Beer, Rebellion and Riot: Popular Disorder in Englandduring the Reign of Edward VI (Kent, Ohio, 1982), pp. 135–6. John Hornyold, observingfrom Warwick’s army, could not understand the move: Longleat, Thynne MS 2, fol. 148,cited in Beer, Rebellion and Riot, p. 136. The prophecy may well be associated with RobertHogan (see above, pp. 39–41) and certainly existed in 1536: ‘The Confessions of RichardBishop and Robert Seyman’, Norfolk Archaeology I (1847), pp. 209–23, at pp. 217–19. Anappeal to remain true to the cause of reform in October 1549 attacked the council andrepeated a Merlinic prophecy that twenty-three London aldermen would lose their heads:Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Edward VI, 1547–1553, Preservedin the Public Record Office, ed. C. S. Knighton (London, 1992), p. 378.177 John Foxe, The First Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History Contayning the Actes andMonuments of Thynges Passed in Euery Kynges Tyme in this Realme, Especially in the Churchof England / Newly . . . Inlarged by the Author (London, 1570); The Second Volume of theEcclesiasticall History Contayning the Actes and Monuments (London, 1570) (STC 1223), p. 1500; this is discounted by A. G. Dickens, ‘Some Popular Reactions to the EdwardianReformation in Yorkshire’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 34 (1939), pp. 151–69, at p. 160.178 Sharon L. Jansen Jaech, ‘British Library MS Sloane 2578 and Popular Unrest inEngland, 1554–1556’, Manuscripta XXIX (1985), pp. 30–41; APC, 1554–1556, pp. 17, 76.179 As noted in a review of Jansen, Political Protest, by C. S. L. Davies in EHR cx (1995),pp. 722–3.180 Cf. that subjection to the print tradition so ably observed of popular ballads by MargaretSpufford (Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1981), esp. pp. 14–15) and R. S. Thomson (‘The Developmentof the Broadside Ballad Trade and its Influence upon the Transmission of English Folksongs’(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1974)); Fox, Oral and Literate Culture.

Prophecy’s interpreters continued to come from nearly as wide a spectrum ofsociety as its consumers. Credibility as a prophetic interpreter, once obtained,might allow an otherwise ‘worthless’ individual access to and influence witheven the king’s chief minister. Yet it should be stressed that the interpreters of ancient prophecy, unlike, for example, the divinely inspired speakers ofprophecy so well known from the seventeenth century, did not predominantlyoccupy liminal spaces in society. They often had the resources to give themaccess to considerable bodies of learning. Men and women like the Hogans,Laynams, Fayery and Amadas, and the ideas they interpreted, were central tothe way people in the sixteenth century understood the future, and to eventsboth dramatic, as in 1536, 1549 and 1569, and mundane.


52

2

Prophetic creation and audience in civil war England

The conditions prevalent during the latter part of the sixteenth century inEngland might have spelt the end for ancient prophecy as an influentialpolitical language and set of traditions. There were some attacks upon it, andespecially upon some of the broader ideas which helped to support it. Therewere also potentially significant challenges from other ways of understand-ing the future and its relationship to the past such as astrology and biblicalprophecy. These challenges to ancient prophecy, and the alternatives thatbecame increasingly attractive, did not in fact destroy ancient prophecy; insome ways, in fact, a synergy emerged from which ancient prophecy benefited.But they did change the way it was viewed, and they undermined some of themost important of the traditions of the previous century. This chapter analysesthese challenges, especially as they affected Merlin, and changes, in particularthe rise of the Mother Shipton tradition.

The main challenge to ancient prophecy was not explicitly a challenge toprophecy but to the historical context which was so often its foundation. Thiswas, specifically, the challenge to the British history, the historiography whichexplained Arthur and Merlin and their importance in the European past. Since prophecies attributed to Merlin had been so important to the whole ofancient prophecy until at least the middle of the century, his decliningcredibility as an historical figure might be expected to have had an impact.Scepticism was already apparent in the early sixteenth century, as we have seenfor example in John Mair, or might find in Polydore Vergil in England. Opinionremains divided on how quickly this scepticism became more generalized.1

Yet it is clear that there was no rapid disappearance of Arthurian themes.Arthur and his milieu remained important under the early Stuarts, whetherin Harbert’s Prophesie of Cadwallader of 1604 or in the masque ‘BritanniaTriumphans’ of 1638, both significant of different aspects of the historical

53

1 See above, pp. 15, 18, 47; Antonia Gransden, ‘Antiquarian Studies in Fifteenth-CenturyEngland’, The Antiquaries’ Journal 60 (1980), pp. 75–97; Humphrey Llwyd, Cronica Walliae,ed. Ieuan M. Williams (Cardiff, 2002), p. 63.

consciousness of the period.2 There was, still, the potential discontinuitybetween the Arthur/ Merlin tradition represented by Malory, in company withLovelich’s Merlin and the prose Merlin of the same period, and Ariosto’s Merlinin Orlando Furioso, heavy with classical allusions. Yet the signs are that inEngland this potential transformation of the understanding of heavilyprophetic tradition did not have much effect. Spenser’s Merlin in The FaerieQueene, while drawing heavily on Ariosto, retains an individuality and inparticular an importance as a prophet and one who can detect truth andfalsehood.3 Whatever the scepticism towards Arthur and the ‘British’ historyof some historiographical traditions by the latter part of Elizabeth’s reign,Merlin as prophet remained important.4 There was, in fact, only a slightreduction in the amount of ancient prophecy under his name in print and inother forms of circulation; if there was a decline, it was relative. Possiblybecause of his continuing employment by the court and by loyalistcommentators, the outburst of prophetic publication produced by the civilwar, although it featured Merlin, including some new appearances in print ofearlier texts, saw him losing the pre-eminence he had formerly enjoyed, asother prophetic figures appeared.5


54

2 William Harbert, A Prophesie of Cadwallader, Last King of the Britaines (London, 1604);William Davenant and Inigo Jones, Britannia Triumphans (London, 1638); Arthur H.Williamson, ‘Number and National Consciousness: The Edinburgh Mathematicians andScottish Political Culture at the Union of the Crowns’, in Scots and Britons: Scottish PoliticalThought and the Union of 1603, ed. Roger A. Mason (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 187–212; A. H. Williamson, ‘Britain and the Beast: The Apocalypse and the Seventeenth-CenturyDebate about the Creation of the British State’, in Millenarianism and Messianism in EarlyModern European Culture, vol. III, The Millenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts of Science,Politics, and Everyday Anglo American Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed.James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 2001), pp. 15–27;Roberta Florence Brinkley, Arthurian Legend in the Seventeenth Century (Baltimore, Md.,1932). Howard Dobin, Merlin’s Disciples: Prophecy, Poetry, and Power in Renaissance England(Stanford, Calif., 1990), pp. 184–206, discerns in these years ‘textual collapse’, yet he basesthis on little more than an unwillingness to believe Jonson was serious in the ambitiousprophecies he put in Merlin’s mouth in his 1610 ‘Barriers’ (p. 186), and on Drayton’sunwillingness to accept the manner of Merlin’s conception (p. 192).3 William Blackburn, ‘Spenser’s Merlin’, Renaissance and Reformation 16 (n.s. 4) (1980),pp. 179–98.4 Note the passage of a MS of the ‘prophecy of the Eagle’ through the hands of James I, Charles I and Oliver Cromwell: Anne F. Sutton and Livia Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard III’sBooks, 7 and 8: Guido delle Colonne’s Historia Destructionis Troiae and Geoffrey ofMonmouth’s Historia Regum Britanniae with The Prophecy of the Eagle and Commentary:The Interest of these Books to Richard III and Later Owners’, The Ricardian 8 (no. 109)(1990), pp. 403–13; and the possession by Thomas, Lord Fairfax, of what he called ‘A IrishChronology with a Prophecy [of Merlin] in the Conclusion’: Bodl., Rawlinson MS B 475,esp. pp. 126–7.5 Given the continuing loyalism of Thomas Heywood’s The Life of Merlin, SirnamedAmbrosius (London, 1641), it is hard to share David Carlson’s view that Arthurian material

In this period, too, astrology emerged from earlier restraints and become a major element in the predictive armoury of the late sixteenth and earlyseventeenth centuries. From the perspective of Protestant theology, it was pri-marily the influence of John Calvin that acted as restraint, and this influencedeclined, especially after his death. The portentous astrological conjunctionof 1583 and the eclipses of 1588 seem to have been a high point of interest:both critics and enthusiasts drew strength from the debate.6 Certainly, theboom in printing of almanacs and prognostications suggests at least the endof earlier more practical limitations to circulation, interacting with continuingunderlying belief.7

Additionally, the sixteenth century had seen a transformation of one impor-tant set of ideas about the future, in the shape of divine prophecy. Augustine’sinterpretation of the biblical prophecies as essentially metaphysical remainedoverwhelmingly influential during the later Middle Ages, and initially Lutherretained this element of traditional Catholicism.8 The excesses of ThomasMüntzer further acted as a temporary check,9 but during the late 1520s Lutherbegan to see the prophecies as genuinely historical, if very obscure.10 HeinrichBullinger, Andreas Osiander and Philipp Melancthon tended to follow

PROPHETIC CREATION IN CIVIL WAR ENGLAND

55

had taken on an inherently oppositionist tone, while accepting that Malory’s version ofthe tale had lost its appeal in the seventeenth century (David R. Carlson, ‘Arthur Beforeand After the Revolution: The Blome-Stansby Edition of Malory (1634) and Brittains Glory(1684)’, in Culture and the King: The Social Implications of the Arthurian Legend: Essays inHonor of Valerie M. Lagorio, ed. Martin B. Shichtman and James P. Carley (Albany, NY,1994), pp. 234–53). It could be that Merlin’s late adoption by anti-court writers reflectsthe degree of his association with Charles. The same is true of Eckhardt’s observations onthe scarcity of vernacular material from the prophetia merlini, and the way that much of whatshe charts departs significantly from the original, especially as we enter the seventeenthcentury. Heywood’s Merlin does so more and more as it moves into later reigns; this is lesstrue of Philip Kynder’s book, Bodl., MS Ashmole 788, fols 83–96, though much of thepreface echoes Heywood, and which is based on the 1603 or 1608 Frankfurt printing.Ashmole’s work seems to have been the basis for Lilly’s publication in World’s Catastrophe,and Ashmole again is partly reliant on the Frankfurt text, but also on a Welsh edition ofGeoffrey of Monmouth: Bodl., MS Ashmole 1835, fols 94–101. Caroline D. Eckhardt, ‘TheFirst English Translations of the Prophetia Merlini’, The Library 6th ser. IV (1984), pp. 25–34.

6 Don Cameron Allen, The Star-Crossed Renaissance: The Quarrel about Astrology and itsInfluence in England (London, 1966), esp. chs III–V.

7 Bernard Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500–1800 (Londonand Boston, 1979).

8 Richard Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth Century Apocalypticism, Millenarianismand the English Reformation: From John Bale to John Foxe and Thomas Brightman (Applefordand Abingdon, 1978), esp. pp. 41–2; Katharine R. Firth, The Apocalyptic Tradition inReformation Britain 1530–1645 (Oxford, 1979), p. 9.9 Walter Klaasen, Living at the End of Ages: Apocalyptic Expectation in the Radical Reformation

(Lanham, NY and London, 1992).10 Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, p. 43; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 9–11.

Luther’s lead in this; Calvin, an exception, did not, although he did acceptthe equation of the beast of Revelation with the papacy.11 There were paralleltrends in English Protestant thinking. Some were derivative of continentalEuropean theologians: works on biblical prophecy by Osiander, Melancthonand Oeclampadius were published in English translation by George Joye in exile in the 1540s, and printed for him in London once the accession of Edward VI allowed his return.12 Others were more independent: John Bale’swork in this area, seen in, for example, The Image of Bothe Churches,13 drew on Lollard tradition as well as Lutheran – and in fact Lollardy was one ofLuther’s inspirations here – and John Foxe, in his Acts and Monuments andelsewhere, increasingly followed Bale’s lead.14 All these developments wereapocalyptic in emphasis, focused on the imminence of the end of the world.The greatest impact of biblical prophecy on the world of ancient prophecy,however, was to come in the seventeenth century, as interpretation wastransformed with the emergence of millenarianism. It was Thomas Brightmanand Joseph Mede who applied the lessons of biblical prophecy less to the past,present and imminent future, and rather shifted the balance more clearly intothe future, presenting a compelling account of the approaching millennium,with an age of universal harmony which would precede doomsday.15

Neither astrology nor biblical prophecy was necessarily a cuckoo in thepredictive nest. John Foxe’s increasing commitment to an apocalyptic historybased firmly in scripture existed alongside his interest in ancient prophecy;and if 1588 was a promised annus mirabilis in the heavens, its explanation inthe prophecy of Regiomontanus was only one way in which astrology shadedinto ancient prophecy.16 Some astrologers became more prominent as pro-phets in their own right, with an obscure understanding of the future whichwas not exclusively about reading the heavens. Nostradamus is a prime casein point. After an initial explosion of interest in his later years, his profilediminished, but he reappeared in English in 1672, in a folio edition, edited by


56

11 Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, pp. 42–5; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 15–18, 32–7.12 George Joye, The Exposicion of Daniel the Prophete / Gathered oute of Philip Melanchton /Iohan Ecolampadius / Chonrade Pellicane & out of Iohan Draconite. &c. By George Ioye: AProphecye Diligently to be Noted of al Emprowrs & Kinges in these Laste Dayes . . . (Geneue,1545); The Conjectures of the Ende of the Worlde (gathered out of Scripture by A. Oseander,and) Translated by G. Joye ([Geneva?], 1548); Andreas Osiander, The Exposicio[n] of Daniellthe Prophete / Gathered out of Philip Melanchton , Iho[n] Ecolampadius, Chonrade Pellicane,and oute of Ihon Draconite &c. By George Ioye: A Prophecie Diligentlye to bee Noted of alEmperoures and Kinges, in these Last Daies . . . (London, 1550). Joye’s interest in prophecywas clear early: George Joye, The Prophete Isaye, Translated into Englysshe (Straszburg [i.e.Antwerp], 1531). Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, pp. 277–87.13 John Bale, The Image of Bothe Churches: After Reulacion of Saynt Iohan the Euangelyst([Antwerp, 1545?]), and subsequent editions.14 Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, ch. 4; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 38–110.15 Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, pp. 208–27; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 209–11.16 Allen, Star-Crossed Renaissance; Bauckham, Tudor Apocalypse, pp. 162–76.

a French physician, Theophilus Garencières (1610–80): an ‘ancient prophet’in his own right.17

The most common sceptical response to ancient prophecy was, therefore,neither outright disbelief nor a preference for astrology or biblical prophecy,but a practical mockery of its de facto limitations. Just as in the 1540s the newlypopular printed prognostications were mocked for their failings and general-izations, so Shakespeare himself may have added mockery to the fool’s reactionto Merlin in King Lear, probably in 1609–10, and in the 1620s WilliamRowley’s Birth of Merlin, while maintaining the gravity of his prophecy, madehumour of his conception and birth.18

So ancient prophecy remained a vigorous tradition from the late sixteenthcentury through the following century. The ever-growing likelihood of thesuccession of James VI of Scotland to the English throne was both supportedby the tradition of existing ancient prophecy on this theme19 and a majorstimulus to its further development. Sir John Harington recorded some of the wide range of possibilities framed in prophetic interpretation, from the re-division of England along the lines of the Saxon Heptarchy, to the appear-ance of governance through States, as in the Low Countries, to the rule of aSpanish viceroy.20 The birth of a male heir to James in 1594 helped to confirmprophetic hopes, and itself was the cause for a further outburst of Scottishenthusiasm. For Andrew Melville, the birth of the prince seemed to heraldthe time of the destruction of the papacy and of Spain which he saw in divineprophecy.21 Scottish opinion was, however, preoccupied with both Scottishand English ancient prophecy traditions that related to dynastic union.22 Mostimportantly, the Whole Prophesie of Scotland, England, & Somepart of France


57

17 The True Prophecies or Prognostications of M. Nostradamus . . . translated and commentedby T. de Garencières (London, 1672; reissued: London, 1685). Leslie Smith, ‘Notes on theGarencières Family’, Notes and Queries 197 (1952), pp. 4–9.18 See above, p. 26; John Kerrigan, ‘Revision, Adaptation, and the Fool in King Lear’, inThe Division of Kingdoms, ed. Gary Taylor and Michael Warren (Oxford, 1983), pp. 195–239; Gary Taylor, ‘King Lear: The Date and Authorship of the Folio Edition’, inibid., pp. 351–451; ‘William Shakespeare and William Rowley’, in The Birth of Merlin; Or,The Childe hath Found his Father (London, 1662); cf. Dobin, Merlin’s Disciples, pp. 194–201.19 See above, pp. 45–9.20 Sir John Harington, A Tract on the Succession to the Crown (A.D. 1602), ed. ClementsR. Markham, Roxburghe Club (London, 1880), pp. 17–18.21 Andrew Melville, Principis Scoti-Britannorum natalia (Edinburgh, 1594), reprinted inGeorge Buchanan, The Political Poetry, ed. Paul J. McGinnis and Arthur H. Williamson,Scottish History Society 5th ser. 8 (Edinburgh, 1995), pp. 276–81.22 ‘The Diary of Robert Birrel’, in Fragments of Scotish History, ed. J. G. Dalyell (Edinburgh,1798), p. 59: ‘at þis tyme [1603], all the haill comons of Scotland þat had red orunderstanding, wer daylie speiking and exponeing of Thomas Rymer hes prophesie, and ofuþr prophesies qlk wer prophesied in auld tymes’. These included the HEMPE prophecy,which Birrel said originated in Henry VIII’s time, the Scottish prophecy of a French wifebearing a son ‘shall bruik all Britaine be the sie’, and a garbled version of the prophecy of

was printed amidst the frenzy of interest generated by the imminent accessionof James VI to the throne of England. The only copies we have of the 1603edition are evidently pirated, but the evidence suggests that the text origin-ated with Robert Waldegrave, the Scottish king’s printer, amongst whose other work at the time was the king’s own Basilikon Doron.23 Also, althoughthe pirated editions are almost certainly from London, the original is likely to have been an Edinburgh product, implying that it was produced in the firstfew months of the year as Elizabeth’s death was awaited – for Waldegravealmost certainly moved to London in James’s train.24

Official sources in Scotland therefore found one way to prepare for James’ssuccession in the production of a new edition of the Scottish prophecies whichforetold eventual Scottish dominance over the English. This was soon rein-forced as Scottish prophecies were promoted to an English audience, forexample through John Monipennie’s Abridgement or Summarie of the ScotsChronicles, which first appeared in 1612 and went through many editions.25

It was therefore from the Rhymer tradition, with its roots in Scotland andnorthern England, that the most important ancient prophecies of the earlyseventeenth century sprang. Once James was on the English throne, they fed the idea of a Protestant crusade, led by either James himself or his sonPrince Henry.26 Even in 1613, with Henry dead and the chances of Jameshimself proving the conqueror of Europe and restorer of Jerusalem growingslim, the new heir, Prince Charles, however unpromising in reality, wasadopted as the new prophetic hope. Patrick Gordon’s Famous Historie of the


58

the sixth James who would rule both kingdoms. Cf. John Colville, Oratio funebris exequiisElizabethæ nuperæ Angliæ, Hiberniæ &c. Reginæ destinata (Paris, 1604).23 The Whole Prophesie of Scotland, England, & Somepart of France, and Denmark, Prophesiedbee Meruellous Merling, Beid, Bertlingtoun, Thomas Rymour, Waldhaue, Eltraine, Banester,and Sibbilla, all According in one: Containing Many Strange and Meruelous Things ([London?],1603).24 William A. Jackson, ‘Robert Waldegrave and the Books He Printed or Published in1603’, The Library 5th ser. XIII (1958), pp. 224–33. Waldegrave provides evidence ofcontinuities from sixteenth-century divine prophecy, as printer some years before of theMarprelate tracts: ODNB.25 John Monipennie, The Abridgement or Summarie of the Scots Chronicles (London, 1612,and many subsequent editions). Although Monipennie had indeed abridged the chronicleaccounts, he found space for the following account of Thomas’s prediction of the death of Alexander. ‘The day before the Kings death, the Earle of March demaunded of oneThomas Rymour, what wether should be the morrow? Thomas answered, that on themorrow before noone there shal blow the greatest winde that euer was heard in Scotland:on the morrow being almost noone (the ayre appearing calme) the Earle sent for the said Thomas, and reprouing him, said, There was no appearance. Thomas answering, yetnoone is not past, immediately cometh a Post, and sheweth that the King was falne andkilled. Then Thomas said to the Earle, that is the winde that shall blow, to the greatcalamity of all Scotland.’26 William Alexander, The Monarchick Tragedies (London, 1604).

Renouned and Valiant Prince Robert Surnamed the Bruce supported the traditionof Thomas the Rhymer’s significance, although appropriating it far moredirectly to the story of the Bruce. For Gordon’s Bruce, Thomas offers a gloriousvision in which Bruce’s own future is linked to subsequent Scottish historyand in particular to predictions of James VI and I as the man who will join the northern and southern kingdoms, and to Charles his son, who will be agreat general. In Gordon’s account, Thomas predicts the conquest of the Turkwill occur at this time.27

James’s long awaited return visit to Scotland in 1617 generated a furtheroutburst of interest in the Erceldoun prophecy, for example in WilliamDrummond of Hawthornden’s ‘Forth Feasting’.28

If Pict, Dane, Norman, Thy smooth Yoke had seene,Pict, Dane, and Norman, had thy Subjects beene:If Brutus knew the Blisse Thy Rule doth give,Even Brutus joye would under Thee to live.

On entering Glasgow on 22 July, James was duly welcomed as the king pro-phesied by Rhymer, Bede and Merlin, ‘the end of al your prophecies’.29 Thereceptive audience for ancient prophecy ranged from the king down to thosefar lower on the social scale. We can see the way this entered a more generaltradition in England in the Bishop Percy Folio Manuscript. This includes aversion of the ‘last world emperor’ prophecy, applied to James VI and I. Thisseems to date from after 1614, and perhaps no later than 1620, when Jamesstill seemed potentially a Protestant crusader in continental Europe. Theprophecy retains the conventional crowning as Western Emperor, a siege ofRome and two confrontations in the East, after the second of which theEmperor dies in the ‘valley of Iehosaphatt’.30


59

27 Patrick Gordon, The Famous Historie of the Renouned and Valiant Prince Robert Surnamedthe Bruce King of Scotland (Dort, 1615), fols Fiiir–Hiir, esp. fols Giir–Giiiir; cf. the ideas ofJames Maxwell: Admirable and Notable Prophecies, Uttered in Former Times by 24 FamousRomain Cathoickes, Concerning the Church of Romes Defection, Tribulation, and Reformation(London, 1615).28 ‘Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to the Kings Most Excellent Majesty’, in WilliamDrummond of Hawthornden, Poems and Prose, ed. Robert H. Macdonald (Edinburgh andLondon, 1976), pp. 83–7, and note at p. 197 (quotation lines 295–8, at p. 85).29 [Greek – Ta ton mouson eisodia]: The Muses Welcome to the High and Mightie Prince James,by the Grace of God King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland, Defender of the Faith &c.: athis M. Happie Returne to his Old and Native Kingdome of Scotland, after XIII. Yeers Absence,in anno 1617, ed. John Adamson (Edinburgh, 1618), p. 238 (although it is notable thatother towns and cities did not follow suit, in the cases of Stirling and Perth preferring tosee James as a new Constantine (pp. 124, 138)).30 Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript: Ballads and Romances, ed. John W. Hales and FrederickJ. Furnivall, 3 vols (London, 1867–8), III, pp. 371–3.

So, in spite of the potential threats, ancient prophecy was still an importantway of interpreting politics in the early seventeenth century, and with thebreakdown of order and imminent strife of the early 1640s a further majorimpetus was added to the ancient prophecy tradition. Once again, it was theNorth of England, and prophecies associated with Scotland, which were tothe fore. Both Scots and English had a predictive framework which includedScottish invasion, thanks to the prophecy tradition. Sir Henry Slingsby of Scriven, near Knaresborough, recalled the prophecy of the conquest ofEngland by Danes, Saxons, Normans and finally Scots already in the late1630s.31 In Suffolk, John Rous too turned to this and another prophecy, whichhe found readily accessible in Ranulph Higden’s Polychronicon, to help himunderstand the events of 1640:

But among all Englishmen medled together is so great changing and diversity ofclothing and array, and so many maner and diversity of shapes, that well nigh isthere any man knowne by his clothing and his array of whatsoever degree that hebe; thereof prophesied an holy anker in king Egelred’s time in this manner.32

The Scots around Newcastle in September 1640 were confident of victory,thanks to ‘several old prophecies they produce’.33 In December 1641, amidsta welter of news of political and supernatural wonders, the prophecy of MotherShipton was first published.

Shipton is worthy of particular study: not only was her prophecy one of themost frequently republished in the coming decades, it was new to nationalprominence. It allows a consideration of ancient prophecy in the seventeenthcentury in terms of the medium, the message, and its relationship to developingways of understanding the past and future. Richard Lowndes, a bookseller withonly a matter of months’ experience in the London book trade, issued the shortquarto volume, which ran to little more than 1,600 words. The overall purposeof the work seems clear. The text describes the visit of three noblemen to York,where they intended to see Mother Shipton, who had foretold that Cardinal


60

31 The Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, of Scriven, Bart: Now First Published Entire from the MS.A Reprint of Sir Henry Slingsby’s Trial, his Rare Tract, “A Father’s Legacy.” Written in theTower Immediately Before his Death, and Extracts from Family Correspondence and Papers, withNotices, and a Genealogical Memoir, ed. Daniel Parsons (London, 1836), p. 11; RanulphHigden, Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. C. Babington and Joseph Rawson Lumby, 9 vols,RS 41 (London, 1865–86), vol. VIII, pp. 286–7 (Danes, French and Scots).32 Diary of John Rous, Incumbent of Santon Downham, Suffolk, from 1625 to 1642, ed. MaryAnne Everett Green, Camden Society o.s. 66 ([London], 1856), pp. 103–4 (from RanulphHigden, Polychronicon (London, 1482), fol. 70v).33 CSPD, 1640–1641, pp. 28–9; cf. Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, A Short Abridgement ofBritane’s Distemper, from the Yeare of God M.DC.XXXIX. to M.DC.XLIX., ed. [John Dunn],Spalding Club 10 (Aberdeen, 1844), p. 5; James Howell, Bella Scot-Anglica: A Brief of allthe Battells, and Martiall Encounters which have Happened ‘twixt England and Scotland, fromall Times to this Present (London, 1648), pp. 16–19.

Wolsey, then journeying towards York, would never reach the city. Their guideled them to the old woman, who mysteriously knew of their coming inadvance; she then predicted not her own punishment, threatened by theCardinal, but the doom of the three noblemen. This done, she proceeded toutter a series of more general prophecies. These conclude quite suddenly withthe couplet ‘Unhappy he that lives to see these dayes, But happy are the deadShiptons wife sayes’.

At first glance, this general prophecy of doom seems to sum up the pro-phecy: sensational predictions of catastrophe, blended with predictions whoseobscurity only thinly disguises their ultimate meaninglessness. The vogue forthis prophecy tends to be explained as, at best, a sign of the degeneration of a once semi-respectable ancient prophetic culture into a childish, irrationaland almost exclusively plebeian fascination with wonders and prodigies.34 Afurther reason for its study, therefore, is that it is perhaps the best example of this perceived shift to debasement and absurdity. Yet far from being a ran-dom collection of nonsense, carelessly and hurriedly assembled35 to appeal toa population willing to believe anything in the fevered atmosphere of politicalcrisis, or an unthinking plagiarism of the 1603 Whole Prophesie of Scotland,England, & Somepart of France, it is possible to establish a clear sense of a pro-phecy emerging from an evolving tradition at least one hundred years old. Its context was the regional political culture centred on York, encompass-ing gentry and senior townsmen, and the lower orders in the city and thecountry.

At first sight located around a group of nonsensical or generic place names,the earliest version of Shipton’s prophecy, when studied, reveals an intimaterelationship with particular localities heavily concentrated on the city of York and its environs. Shipton’s prophecy concerns a visit by three Tudornoblemen to York to question her, guided by the important York figure, thelawyer Reginald Beasley.36 This leads to mentions of the King’s House nearYork and of Cawood. After this, the text becomes a more general recitationof prophecies; most are centred on York:


61

34 E.g. Jerome Friedman, Miracles and the Pulp Press: The Battle of the Frogs and Fairford’sFlies (London, 1993), pp. 64, 65–7, 70, 73, 75, and passim.35 There are several typographical or textual errors, such as the transformation of SheriffHutton Castle into ‘Sheriff Nuttons Castle’; and the mis-setting of letters such as theinverted ‘a’ two lines up on p. 4. Friedman suggested that the general statements in theprophecy ‘seemed to describe England’s experiences well’, with striking congruences withthe events and issues of the 1650s (Friedman, Miracles and Pulp Press, pp. 65–7); yet sincethe prophecy appeared in print in 1641, this relevance to national events cannot have beenthe framework around which the prophecy was constructed.36 The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (London, 1641),pp. 1–3; The House of Commons, 1509–1558, ed. S. T. Bindoff, 3 vols (London, 1982), I,pp. 425–6.

before that Owes Bridge and Trintie Church meet, they shall build on the day, and it shall fall in the night, untill they get the highest stone of Trinitie Church,to be the lowest stone of Owes bridge, then the day will come when the North shallrue it wondrous sore, but the South shall rue it for evermore.37

The king of Scots is then described as coming to Holgate Town but beingunable to pass through the Bar. Apparently more general geographical loca-tions are then raised, with the king of the North having his tail in Edinburghwhile he himself was at London Bridge; but the locality returns to York witha prediction that water shall flow over Ouse Bridge, and a warning that ‘whenthere is a Lord Major at Yorke let him beware of a stab’.38 Then there is areference to the castle yard, not specified as that of York, but implied, and to‘Colton Hagge’ bearing corn, and to two judges passing through ‘Mungate barre’.A great war is predicted between the rivers ‘Cadron’ and Aire; and a battle atBosworth Field ‘where Crookbackt Richard made his fray’. London appearsagain in a prophecy relating to a bull and a dragon, but the next passage talksof battles at ‘Brammammore’, ‘Knavesmore’ and ‘Stoknmore’. There follows aprediction of three knights in Petergate in York, and the birth of a child withthree thumbs in Pomfret who will be carried after a battle to Sheriff Hutton(‘Nuttons’) castle. The same location, after the child’s death, would be theplace where an earl would be chosen. The predictions then return to York,with mentions of the town walls and of ‘Crouch Church’. Finally, two pro-phecies relate to the capital: there is a mention of a man on St James’s churchhill weeping (i.e. St James Garlick Hithe, on the east side of Garlick Hill),39

before the last passage of the prophecy foretells the inability of the master ofa ship, sailing up the Thames, to obtain a drink in London.

Although at first glance obscure, these were virtually all locations in andaround York. In the city itself, there is mention of Trinity Church, meaningHoly Trinity, Micklegate, and Crouch Church, meaning St Crux, Pavement;of Ouse Bridge; of Petergate; and of the town walls40 and of the two mostimportant gates, one unnamed but associated with Holgate town, and Monk (‘Mungate’) Bar.41 Less than a mile to the west of the city walls, Holgatetownship was within the liberties of the city and the parish of St Mary


62

37 The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, p. 3.38 The title Lord Mayor came into use in York in the 1480s: D. M. Palliser, Tudor York(Oxford, 1979), p. 65.39 A Survey of London by John Stow Reprinted from the Text of 1603, ed. Charles LethbridgeKingsford, 2 vols (Oxford, 1908), vol. 2, pp. 249–50; A. E. Daniel, London City Churches,2nd edn ([n. p.], 1907), pp. 183–8.40 For the importance of the walls, see Palliser, Tudor York, p. 25.41 A silent emendation to specify this, the bar through which two judges would pass, asWalmgate Bar is made in Lilly’s edition of the prophecy in 1643: Mercurius Propheticus, or,A Collection of Some Old Predictions ([London], 1643), p. 4. This was then followed in latereditions.

Bishophill Junior; it sat astride an important route in and out of the city.42

Slightly further afield, but still closely connected to the city, was Cawood, the archbishop of York’s palace; and then there are the three moors, eachclosely connected with the city. The furthest afield was Bramham Moor(‘Brammammore’), between York and Leeds, just south of Wetherby; Bramhamwas the site of quarries that had supplied the building of the Minster.43

Knavesmire (‘Knavesmore’) and Stokton Moor (‘Stoknmore’) were much closerto the city, both being areas of common grazing, the former to the south of thecity, partly within its boundaries and the place of execution for condemnedcriminals, and the latter lying to the north-east and providing all year pastur-age.44 Colton Hagge lay around Colton, just south of York, near the confluenceof the Wharfe and the Ouse.45 The rivers of the region are represented by theAire and the ‘Cadron’ or Calder. Further afield still, but yet within the orbitof York, are Sheriff Hutton, described in the prophecy as six miles from thecity, and Pontefract. Aside from London and Edinburgh, the only other placementioned, although not by name, is Bosworth Field. In general, the keyevents foretold either relate directly to York and its immediate vicinity, or,when they relate to the kingdom as a whole, have some connection there.

Once these identifications have been made, it is possible in some cases tosee the events ‘foretold’, and this in turn provides clues as to the dating, author-ship and audience of this version of the prophecy. The mayor who should‘beware of a stab’ was Thomas Agar, a tanner, Lord Mayor of York in 1618,who was stabbed by Christopher Coelson, a tailor.46 The prophecy of OuseBridge and Holy Trinity, Micklegate relates to events in the 1550s and 1560s.The central tower of Holy Trinity was brought down by a gale on 15 February1552, probably reducing the choir of the church to ruins and damaging the clerestory and triforium of the nave.47 Ouse Bridge was also subject tocollapse, several years later, in a flood in 1564–5. Work began on restoring the bridge in 1565; the work was finally finished in October 1566. Stone wastaken for the rebuilding from several ruined ecclesiastical buildings in the


63

42 VCH, County of York: The City of York, p. 313.43 VCH City of York, p. 97.44 VCH City of York, pp. 498–501; Palliser, Tudor York, pp. 29, 88.45 Colton was very much within the orbit of the city community: in the thirteenth centuryGace de Chaumont, mayor in 1255, founded a county family there: VCH City of York, p. 45; The Survey of the County of York, Taken by John de Kirkby, Commonly Called Kirkby’sInquest. Also Inquisitions of Knights’ Fees, the Nomina Villarum for Yorkshire, and an Appendixof Illustrative Documents, Surtees Society 49 (Durham, 1867 for 1866), pp. 217, 434.46 William Hargrove, History and Description of the Ancient City of York, Comprising all theMost Interesting Information, Already Published in Drake’s Eboracum, 2 vols (York, 1818), I,p. 344.47 Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in England, An Inventory of the HistoricalMonuments in the City of York, vol. III, South-West of the Ouse (London, 1972), p. 12. Thetower had been rebuilt by the parishioners in 1453: VCH City of York, pp. 374–6.

city, including the ‘defaced walls’ of Holy Trinity.48 The old two-arched bridgewas replaced by a single span of 81 feet, one of the largest in Europe. Pride inthis new bridge, the only major civic project of the century, combined withunease about its safety, made it a good subject for the prophecy.49

The detailed knowledge of the topography of York displayed here issignificant in two ways. First, the authorship of the prophecy as published in 1641 is associated with very great familiarity with the city of York and itsvicinity. Second, the intended audience had to understand these geographicalreferences for the prophecy to make sense. To the extent that the printedversion of the prophecy was created in London in 1641, this may be explainedby the political context in which the publication took place, with Charles I’svisit to York on his progress north,50 but it is probable that the relationshipwith York goes deeper than that. Almost certainly both author and audiencewere very familiar with the region around York. This goes to confirm that the publication in 1641 was not the moment at which the Mother Shiptontradition was created. Locality strongly suggests that what Richard Lowndesproduced in 1641 had an origin some time before in York, either in the cityitself or its immediate vicinity: a local tradition for a local audience. This wasan audience which wanted to hear prophecies about local events, such as thefall of Ouse Bridge, and about places such as Stokton Moor and Colton Hagge;yet it also wanted to see national events prophesied in these local terms.

The sense of place conveyed here, being intensely localized and relatedstrongly to a major city, shows considerable similarities to that in other litera-ture of the late medieval period and sixteenth century. This sense of place was not regional – there is no sense of the ‘northern-ness’ of the prophecy in its first appearance – nor was it county-based, since there is no identification


64

48 Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York, III, p. 12; York Civic Records, 8vols, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series XCVIII, CIII, CVI, CX, CXII, CXV,CXIX (1939–52), vol. VI, pp. 73, 116. VCH City of York, p. 516, citing York House Book24, fols 45, 47–9, 56; Chamberlain, 1565–6, p. 120.49 Palliser, Tudor York, p. 82; VCH City of York, pp. 516–17. Note the city’s decline frombeing the largest provincial city in terms of population in 1377 to perhaps sixth place in1520, behind Norwich, Bristol, Exeter, Salisbury and possibly Newcastle; and fromwealthiest in 1377 to fourteenth in 1524: Palliser, Tudor York, pp. 202, 208. The bridge wasthe site of an oration to James I during his progress of 1617: Francis Drake, Eboracum: Orthe History and Antiquities of the City of York, from its Original to the Present Times (London,1736), pp. 133–4. In 1777, a sailor, William Cock, leapt the 37 feet from the parapet intothe river on two successive days, receiving a liberal subscription for his pains: Hargrove,History of York, I, p. 256.50 As suggested by W. H. Harrison, Mother Shipton Investigated: The Result of Investigationin the British Museum Library, of the Literature Pertaining to the Yorkshire Sybil (London, 1881),p. 47 (from Notes and Queries, 25 July 1868), and by me in ‘Reshaping the Local Future:The Development and Uses of Provincial Political Prophecy, 1300–1900’, in Prophecy: ThePower of Inspired Language in History, 1300–2000, ed. Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton(Stroud, 1997), pp. 51–67, at p. 58.

with Yorkshire.51 Its focus was the city. In the same way, the Towneley cycleof plays makes topical references to nowhere further from the centre of Wakefield than Horbury; and the Chester mysteries are focused on theimmediate vicinity of that city.52

If the locality of the 1641 Shipton prophecy is clearly based on York, thepersonalities identified there further confirm and develop our speculationsregarding authorship and audience. The 1641 edition of Shipton is striking inthe appearance there of five major identifiable figures. This is not a prophecywhich surveys a century or more of history, listing kings, queens and majornobles and churchmen. The five figures who participate in and are the subjectof the story and the prophecies contained within it all lived during the same decades at the end of the fifteenth century and the first seventy years of the sixteenth century. Shipton’s prophecy is introduced in the context ofCardinal Thomas Wolsey’s final journey northwards during 1530 just beforehis death. ‘Lord Darcy’, ‘the Lord Piercy’, and ‘the Duke of Suffolke’ aredescribed visiting Shipton at the instance of the Cardinal when Wolsey heardShipton’s prophecy that he would never enter York in company with the king. None is described in any detail, but their fates are foretold by Shipton.Suffolk is told by Shipton that ‘the time will come when you will be as low as I am, and that’s a low one indeed’. Darcy is informed, ‘you have made a greatGun, shoot it off, for it will doe you no good, you are going to warre, you willpaine many a man, but you will kill none’. Percy is told, ‘shooe what say yourHorse in the quicke, and you shall doe well, but your body will bee buried inYorke pavement, your head shall be stolne from the barre and carried intoFrance’. These are fairly specific prophecies, and they are interesting in thatthey invite from the reader some recognition of the key events of the middlefifty years of the sixteenth century in the North of England. Percy’s prophecyis the most specific: it refers to Thomas Percy, who was executed in York in1572 for his role in the rebellion of 1569;53 he was buried in the church of St Crux, Pavement, York, and his head was displayed on the gates of the citybefore being stolen and taken to France two years later.54 Darcy’s prophecy was slightly less direct, but nonetheless clearly relates to his rebellion in 1536. Thomas, Lord Darcy, was a professional soldier, with experience inFrance in 1512, as well as on crusade previously; most famously, however, he


65

51 M. L. Holford, ‘Locality, Culture and Identity in Late Medieval Yorkshire, c. 1270–c. 1540’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of York, 2001).52 The Towneley Plays, ed. Martin Stevens and A. C. Crawley, 2 vols, EETS supplementaryser. 13 (Oxford, 1994); The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills,2 vols, EETS supplementary ser. 3, 9 (Oxford, 1974, 1986).53 On the rebellion, see Mervyn James, ‘The Concept of Order and the Rising of 1569’,Past and Present lx (August 1973), pp. 49–83 (reprinted in Society, Politics and Culture:Studies in Early Modern England, paperback edn (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 270–307).54 VCH City of York, p. 378; Charles Brunton Knight, A History of the City of York, 2nd edn (York and London, 1944), p. 399.

was involved in the Pilgrimage of Grace. The prophecy that he was going towar, in which he would ‘paine many a man, but . . . kill none’ would seem to apply to this rebellion, in which the casualties suffered by either side werenegligible, although many died in the aftermath as royal forces wreaked theirrevenge.55 The prophecy regarding the duke of Suffolk is the hardest tointerpret. The meteoric rise of Charles Brandon, including the grant of theduchy of Suffolk and marriage to the king’s sister Mary, made him one of the richest and most influential noblemen in England.56 If he suffered someeclipse, it seems to have occurred in the 1530s, when the new queen AnneBoleyn and her then ally Thomas Cromwell relegated him from primacy atcourt, partly due to Mary’s support for Catherine of Aragon, and used him asa pawn in the settlement of Lincolnshire after the rebellion there in late 1536.The idea of his being as low as Shipton seems odd, unless it refers in a generalway to the duke’s mortality or perhaps to the ultimate failure of his dynasty inthe death of both his sons from sweating sickness in 1551.

Even if this passage did not belong to the inherently unreal world ofprophecy, it would immediately raise problems. For example, Thomas Percy,the man whose flight and execution in the Northern Rebellion is described,was not born when Wolsey’s journey towards York was made. He appears to have been confused with his uncle, Henry Percy. Equally, it is clear thattowards the end of 1530 Suffolk and Darcy were elsewhere and did not accom-pany the Cardinal as he made his way north.57 This was, therefore, not accuratehistorical description; it was either a blurred memory or a deliberate stylization.Why choose these three noblemen for a role in a fictitious expedition to theNorth in 1530? Their relationship with Wolsey does not seem to provide the answer. Brandon’s58 and Percy’s (if we take this to be Henry Percy, who


66

55 There are now many works on the Pilgrimage; the one that places most emphasis onDarcy’s role is G. R. Elton, ‘Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, in After the Reformation:Essays in Honour of J.H. Hexter, ed. Barbara C. Malament (Manchester, 1980), pp. 25–56;cf. also M. L. Bush, The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October 1536(Manchester, 1996); Madeleine Hope Dodds and Ruth Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace,1536–1537 and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1915). Far from possessingguns, Darcy seems to have been primarily concerned about his lack of ordnance, and thedangers of the pilgrims obtaining some: LP, xi. 692, 739, 1045, 1115, 1128. James calculatedthat fifty-seven men were executed for their role in the Lincolnshire Rebellion: ‘Obedienceand Dissent in Henrician England’, Past and Present xlviii (August 1970), p. 269n. G. R.Elton, Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age of Thomas Cromwell(London, 1972), pp. 387–9, has 120 tried for treason in Lincolnshire and 167 in thePilgrimage; in total 178 were executed.56 S. J. Gunn, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 1484–1545 (Oxford, 1988).57 Suffolk was in London in November 1530: LP, iv/3. 6720. Darcy’s whereabouts are lessclear – he suffered a recovery of Temple Newsam, Rothwell and other properties by trusteesincluding Edward, earl of Derby and Robert, earl of Sussex on 28 November 1530, but neednot have been present in person: LP, iv/3. 6740.58 Gunn, Charles Brandon, pp. 106–14; criticized by E. W. Ives, ‘The Fall of Wolsey’, in

succeeded to the title in 1527) relationships with the Cardinal were not good. Percy came to Wolsey at Cawood as, with Sir Walter Walsh, one of thecommissioners empowered to arrest the Cardinal.59 In Darcy’s case, relationswere distinctly hostile.60 Darcy had been working against Wolsey for severalyears before his fall; all three were signatories to the petition against him of 1 December 1529.61 So their supposed role as Wolsey’s agents is inaccurate orstylized; it cannot have been the prime reason for constructing this scenario.Their interest in the North and in Yorkshire in particular seems a more likelyreason for their inclusion. In 1530 Percy and Darcy were major figures insociety there, and although at that point Brandon’s interests were primarily in East Anglia, he still had a notable connection in Yorkshire.62 This associa-tion with Yorkshire becomes even clearer if it is taken out of the immediatecontext of 1530. Darcy’s estates were concentrated in the area of the WestRiding of Yorkshire and further afield in the region of York. His main seatswere at Temple Hirst and Temple Newsam; his landholding was predominantlyin Pontefract Honour and in Snaith; in both, his power was reinforced by thecontrol of the stewardships there, and he also held the Duchy stewardship in Knaresborough from 1509.63 Percy’s landholding, though extensive andwidely scattered, also included a major interest in the northern part of theWest Riding around Spofforth, and in the East Riding, centred on Wressle.64

Brandon’s role after 1536 concentrated in Lincolnshire, but his northerninterests in general also multiplied. They were particularly augmented by his appointment as king’s lieutenant in the North in 1543 and early 1544.65


67

Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art, ed. S. J. Gunn and P. G. Lindley (Cambridge, 1991),pp. 286–315, esp. pp. 304–5.59 George Cavendish, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. Richard S. Sylvester, EETSo.s. 243 (London, 1959 for 1957), pp. 150, 152–5; Cavendish, however, describes Percy’s‘tremlyng’ and evident reluctance to carry out his commission (p. 155).60 Ives, ‘Fall of Wolsey’, pp. 294–300.61 Twelve lay peers signed the petition. The text survives in two transcriptions: EdwardCoke, The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England: Concerning the Jurisdiction ofCourts (London, 1797), pp. 85–95; and Edward Herbert, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, TheHistory of England under Henry VIII (London, 1870), pp. 408–17. This document is discussedin Ives, ‘Fall of Wolsey’, pp. 307–10; G. R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England,1509–1558 (London, 1977), pp. 112–13; A. F. Pollard, Wolsey (London, New York (etc.),1929), pp. 258, 261–2; Stanford E. Lehmberg, The Reformation Parliament, 1529–1536(London, 1970), pp. 102–3.62 Already in the 1510s his chief household officers were Sir Thomas Wentworth and SirJohn Burton, both from Staincross wapentake: Gunn, Charles Brandon, p. 64.63 R. B. Smith, Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII: The West Riding of Yorkshire,1530–1546 (Oxford, 1970), pp. 77, 134. This and the following page provide a table of themajor landholders in West Yorkshire at the time.64 J. M. W. Bean, The Estates of the Percy Family, 1416–1537 (London, 1958); Smith, Landand Politics, pp. 77, 135.65 Gunn, Charles Brandon, pp. 183–91, 205–6 (note especially his connection with SirArthur Darcy and other Yorkshire gentlemen; ‘for a peer with Yorkshire estates worth less

The connection of all three men with the city of York itself was also very strong.66 The other key factor behind the selection is more obvious: a dramaticfall from prosperity and grace. Other nobles wielded influence in the area, such as the Cliffords, given their power around Skipton,67 or the Talbots, giventheirs around Hallamshire and in York itself,68 but their recent histories did not convey the required sense of the fickleness of fate, as foretold by theprophetess. The men in question were written into the prophecy as the majortragic noblemen of the area around York in the mid-sixteenth century.

The role of Wolsey also demands a comment. He appears indirectly in the1641 version of the prophecy: journeying towards York and hearing ofShipton’s prophecy, he sends the three noblemen to visit her.69 The threatthey convey, that she will be burned, comes from Wolsey. The Cardinal reachesCawood and can see the city of York eight miles away; but he is then recalledto London by the king, and dies of ‘a laske’ (i.e. dysentery) in Leicester.70 Thisis a portrait lacking in the detail which would surely have been apparent inany account constructed by someone familiar with the Cardinal’s actions, orthe reputation of those actions. There is nothing here of Wolsey’s reputationas a haughty churchman, or a royal minister who at times seemed the secondking, whatever the limitations of his grasp of the law, or the niceties of rela-tionships with members of the nobility.71 Instead Wolsey appears simply


68

than £110 a year they were an impressive selection’). The maps on pp. 155, 173 starklyillustrate the creation of Brandon’s concentrated Lincolnshire interest. York Civic Records,IV, pp. 90–1, 97–8, 99–100, 102–3, 103–4, 131–2.66 Darcy had recruited in York for his campaign in 1511: York Civic Records, III, p. 35. Yorkrelied heavily on the Percies, sometimes giving them presents in the hope of continuedfavour: ibid., pp. 30, 119, 142 (1509, 1529, 1532).67 And of course Henry Clifford, the first earl, succeeded Darcy in the stewardship ofKnaresborough in 1537: Smith, Land and Politics, p. 135.68 George Bernard, The Power of the Early Tudor Nobility: A Study of the Fourth and FifthEarls of Shrewsbury (Brighton, 1985), pp. 139–70, esp. pp. 148–9.69 It may be significant that there is strong evidence for Wolsey’s interest in just this sortof prophecy. According to George Cavendish, he was aware of the ‘dun cow’ prophecy,even if he could not know its import, and recognized in the role of William Kingston,constable of the Tower, after his arrest a prophecy that he would ‘have his end at Kingston’:Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. Sylvester, pp. 127–9, 151–2, 170, 243, 252–3. Cf. alsoRichard Britnell’s examination of the prophetic element in Cavendish’s Life itself:‘Penitence and Prophecy: George Cavendish on the Last State of Cardinal Wolsey’, Journalof Ecclesiastical History 48 (1997), pp. 263–81.70 On the cause of Wolsey’s death, see Cavendish, Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed.Sylvester, p. 178 and note (probably related to purgations and vomiting).71 Pollard, Wolsey; J. A. Guy, The Cardinal’s Court: The Impact of Thomas Wolsey in StarChamber (Hassocks, Sussex, 1977); J. A. Guy, ‘Wolsey and the Parliament of 1523’, in Lawand Government under the Tudors: Essays Presented to Sir Geoffrey Elton, ed. Claire Cross,David Loades and J. J. Scarisbrick (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 1–18; J. A. Guy, ‘Wolsey andthe Tudor Polity’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art, ed. S. J. Gunn and P. G. Lindley(Cambridge, 1991), pp. 54–75; Peter Gwyn, The King’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas

as a man journeying to York, with power over three important noblemen, and with the implacable determination to burn the woman who foretold his doom. Interestingly, the only sign of Wolsey’s famous magnificence and splen-dour to appear in the prophecy is a reference to ‘a fine stall built for theCardinall in the Minster, of Gold, Pearle, and precious stone’, which Shiptonpoints out to Reginald Beasley, instructing him, ‘goe and present one of thepillers to King Henry, and hee did so’.72 Wolsey’s impact on York was in fact in some ways beneficial, and he represented a powerful patron for his archi-episcopal city.73 On the other hand, Wolsey was probably behind the reorgan-ization of the common council on a less popular basis following trouble in the 1510s, and signs of an opposition to his influence even among the mostsenior merchants are to be found in the very rapid replacement as MP for the city of its recorder, Richard Page, a Wolsey man, on the Cardinal’s fall in1529.74 Once again, the overwhelming impression provided by the prophecyis of a world perceived from the perspective of York, a city in which Wolseynever set foot as archbishop, and where he left an impression simply throughhis architectural commissions and impatient orders.

Study of the personalities present in the prophecy therefore gives us furtherclues as to the authorship and readership of the prophecy. Those elementswhich refer to the theft of Percy’s skull from the gates of York are certainlyafter 1574, and the context in which the prophecy was created was one inwhich a memory of the most powerful men in the York region had blurredtogether personalities from the 1520s through to the 1560s.75 On the otherhand, it is hard to see an author or audience outside the immediate vicinity,perhaps in the Midlands or East Anglia, choosing to associate these particularmen in this particular role.

This impression is decisively confirmed when we come to ‘Master Besley’,their chosen guide and the other important figure to appear. Reginald Beasley is first noticed in 1530, when he was the tenant of a house and lands


69

Wolsey (London, 1990). Nor is there sign of the popularity and acclaim described by (the very partial) George Cavendish: Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. Sylvester, e.g. p. 144.72 For Wolsey’s patronage of renaissance sculpture, see P. G. Lindley, ‘Playing Check-matewith Royal Majesty? Wolsey’s Patronage of Italian Renaissance Sculpture’, in CardinalWolsey, ed. Gunn and Lindley, pp. 261–85. Note that Wolsey’s tomb was intended for YorkMinster or the chapel intended for Cardinal College, Oxford; the design included fourpillars, each nine feet high, which were only partly finished at his death (ibid., pp. 266, 270,279).73 Palliser, Tudor York, pp. 46–7, sees him in this light, citing as evidence the patent of1523 which allowed the citizens the right to ship overseas wool and fells from most ofYorkshire.74 York Civic Records, III, pp. 119, 127; Commons, 1509–1558, I, p. 253.75 Cf. the judgement of J. S. Fletcher, Harrogate and Knaresborough (London and New York,1920), p. 54, that the 1641 edition probably reflected the popular tradition of the previouseighty years.

belonging to Furness Abbey in the suburbs of York.76 From this point he begana rapid rise to be one of the most important lawyers in the North of England.He acted as a commissioner in a Star Chamber case in 1533, taking depositionsin York, and was advising Lady Anne Salvan on a case in the court of thearchdeacon of Durham in about 1534.77 In 1543, he appears to have beenacting as clerk of York, and executed writs on behalf of the corporation. By1547 he was already Recorder of Scarborough, and may have been appointedto that post shortly before being elected for the borough in 1545. His serviceas an MP for Thirsk and Knaresborough in the parliaments of 1553 and theApril parliament of 1554 suggests a close relationship with the Council in the North, and in particular with the fifth earl of Shrewsbury, then its presi-dent. The degree to which Beasley acted as an important agent for Shrewsbury,albeit not as a formal member of the council, is suggested by his handling of the returns for the elections in Ripon, Knaresborough and Boroughbridgein October 1555.78 York itself chose him as one of its MPs in 1555. At thatpoint, Beasley was a power to reckoned with among the nobility, gentry andmost important towns in the North of England, and the chief agents of thecentral government there. Who better to be given responsibility for guid-ing three nobles to Shipton? Although he soon afterwards became ill, gave up his post of solicitor for the city of York, and sat, uneventfully, only oncemore in parliament (for Scarborough in 1559), Beasley’s influence is clearlybetrayed by his ability to pass on the York solicitorship to his son-in-lawEdward Beasley.

Reginald Beasley was therefore one of the most influential lawyers workingin York in the middle of the sixteenth century. Once again, therefore, the issueof the locality of the prophecy is confirmed, for this prominence, indeed noto-riety, in the North and in York79 does not seem to have given Beasley much of a profile in the South, although he and Edward Beasley had chambers


70

76 There is a short biography of Reginald in Commons, 1509–1558, I, pp. 425–6. Harrisonsuggested a John Beasley, sheriff of York in 1488, as a likely candidate (Mother ShiptonInvestigated, p. 51); the association with Wolsey makes this less likely than the identificationwith (the far better known) Reginald.77 LP, vii. 125; Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings, II, ed. H. B. McCall, YorkshireArchaeological Society, Record Series xlv (Leeds, 1911 for 1910), pp. 23–36 (includingwrit of 11 December 1533 to four including Beasley); York Civic Records, IV, pp. 91–2 (thecity reports its lobbying of Beasley over the execution of writs regarding fishgarths, 11 April1543).78 HMC, A Calendar of the Shrewsbury and Talbot Papers in Lambeth Palace Library and theCollege of Arms, ed. Catharine Jamison, Gordon Richard Batho and E. G. W. Bill, 2 vols,Historic Manuscripts Commission, joint publications 6–7 (London, 1966–71), II, p. 349.The emphasis of the House of Commons article at this point, on Beasley’s dependence onShrewsbury, seems to underestimate his importance and influence as one of the leadinglegal counsels in the North during these years.79 Cf. the complaints that he abused his position in PRO, STAC 4/2/4.

in the Middle Temple in 1555.80 If we turn again to the question of the dateof the prophecy, there is also the issue of the longevity of his reputation.Important though he may have been, Reginald Beasley’s powers were clearlywaning from the mid-1550s, and he died some time during 1563.81 His son-in-law Edward may have continued his name and to an extent his reputationin the succeeding decades, dying as late as 1613 or shortly after, but he wasnot as prominent as Reginald had been.82 As a Catholic, he suffered periodsof imprisonment from 1572 onwards, and between 1589 and 1591 was removedfrom the clerkship of York, which he held in succession to Reginald.83 Whatremained of their estate, in the manor of Skelton in Overton, passed toEdward’s son William, but it is hard to imagine that Reginald’s name was still prominent in the Yorkshire of the early seventeenth century. The use ofBeasley as a figure of such authority in the presentation of the Shipton storystrongly suggests an origin in the latter half of the sixteenth century, andprobably in the generation after the death of the earl of Northumberland,which provides such a clear terminus post quem for this part of the prophecy. It is hard to resist the conclusion that these elements of the tradition would have prophesied the Beasleys’ fate if it had been initially formed much after1572, and especially after Edward’s fall after 1591.

On the other hand, the reference to the stabbing of Lord Mayor Agar in 1618 cannot date from before that time; and this was a celebrated crime,and the punishment inflicted on Coelson served to perpetuate its memory.Although Agar recovered, Coelson was sentenced to seven years’ imprison-ment, fettered with heavy chains, and a large fine. He was also to be carriedthrough the city at every quarter sessions on a horse, facing its tail and with apaper on his forehead denoting his crime. He was further obliged to stand in the pillory for certain hours at every return of the quarter sessions. Giventhat this took the direct experience of the punishment into the 1620s, thiselement of the prophecy was still directly relevant at that time.

To draw together some preliminary conclusions, therefore, we can say that what appears a random collection of nonsensical and non-specificprophecies, which might have been cobbled together at any time and in anylocation, on closer examination emerges as a coherent developing tradition


71

80 A Calendar of the Middle Temple Records, ed. Charles Henry Hopwood (London, 1903),I, p. 104.81 His will was made on 20 November 1562, and proved on 26 January 1564: Index of Willsin the York Registry A.D. 1554 to 1568, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record SeriesXIV ([Worksop], 1893), p. 13; York, Borthwick Institute for Historical Research, YorkWills, Reginald ‘Beesley’.82 Biography in Commons, 1509–1558, I, pp. 424–5.83 Interestingly, in view of the Knaresborough connection, it was members of the Slingsbyfamily who took the post from him: Commons, 1509–1558, I, p. 425, APC, n.s., XVII, A.D.1588–1589 (London, 1898), p. 139; XXI, A.D. 1591 (London, 1900), pp. 161–2 (William,Gylford and Francis Slingsby are mentioned).

taking shape during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries in Yorkor its immediate vicinity. The personalities described were either local, as inthe case of Reginald Beasley, with little interest or profile in the South ofEngland, or national figures portrayed in their local context. That someelements were composed in the last thirty years of the sixteenth century isindicated by the references to Beasley and Northumberland and confirmed by the mention of the rebuilding of Ouse Bridge. The relationship to the local topography was strong, guaranteeing the prophecy survival in its localityuntil particular national circumstances thrust it into the national limelight in the 1640s.

What does this show about the political culture which produced andsustained the prophecy tradition in the half-century before 1640? The locationof the prophecy in York is significant in another way. The milieu from whichit emerged was one of the most educated in the North of England. York’seducational tradition was strong. The provision of schooling during the lateMiddle Ages in the villages around the city, and in the city itself, meant thatelementary reading was accessible to many.84 York, and especially the Minsterand the merchant class of the city, also provided a focus for an educated elite.There was a long tradition, for example, of government clerks being drawnfrom Yorkshire; book ownership among merchants in the city was surprisinglyextensive.85 This showed itself in an active trade among stationers, printersand bookbinders, who were more numerous in York before 1557 than in anyprovincial city except Oxford.86 While there are few signs that theological and intellectual debate in the city employed material as advanced as it


72

84 Jo Ann Hoeppner Moran, Education and Learning in the City of York, 1300–1500,Borthwick Papers 55 (York, 1979); eadem, The Growth of Schooling, 1340–1548: Learning,Literacy, and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese (Princeton, 1985).85 Jennifer Isobel Kermode, ‘The Merchants of York, Beverley, and Hull in the Fourteenthand Fifteenth Centuries’, 2 vols (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield, 1990),vol. 1, pp. 383–4; Jenny Kermode, Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley and Hull in the Later Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 111–12, 140; P. J. P. Goldberg, ‘Lay BookOwnership in Late Medieval York: The Evidence of Wills’, The Library 6th ser. xvi (1994),pp. 181–9; M. G. A. Vale, Piety, Charity, and Literacy among the Yorkshire Gentry,1370–1480, Borthwick Papers 50 (York, 1976). J. B. Friedman, ‘Books, Owners and Makersin Fifteenth-Century Yorkshire: The Evidence of Some Wills and Extant Manuscripts’, in Latin and Vernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. A. J. Minnis(Cambridge and Wolfeboro, NH, 1989), pp. 111–27, is limited by its reliance on printedsources.86 E. Gordon Duff, The English Provincial Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders to 1557(Cambridge, 1912), pp. 42–65, 133f. (York had 27; Oxford had 44); A Memoir of the YorkPress with Notices of Authors, Printers, and Stationers, in the Sixteenth, Seventeenth andEighteenth Centuries, ed. Robert Davies (Westminster, 1868); this includes the inventoryof the York bookseller, John Foster, 1616. Cf. D. M. Palliser and D. G. Selwyn, ‘The Stockof a York Stationer, 1538’, The Library 5th ser. XXVII (1972), pp. 207–19.

did in the South East of England, there was nonetheless a vigorous traditionof intellectual activity in York.87 In particular, there was a long history ofprophetic activity in the North and in Yorkshire in particular.88

Yet no manuscript or printed version of the Shipton prophecy is knownbefore 1641. Such a tradition as the prophecy of Mother Shipton could existwithout passing into printed form, or even a significant presence in manuscript.Alongside the vigorous print and manuscript culture of York, therefore, thereexisted a vigorous continuity of the culture of prophetic transmission andinterpretation examined in Chapter 1. We have therefore to consider a popularpolitics in the region of York in the early seventeenth century which involvedprophecy traditions outside the print culture conventionally linked to it. The concerns of this popular politics, even at times when the country was at peace and there were few signs of internal strife, centred around four keythemes. One of these was the crown and its ministers, seen as anonymous and rather threatening figures: epitomized by Wolsey in the prophecy. Thesecond was the aristocracy of the region: it is significant that Percy, Darcy and Brandon are the only figures of power mentioned at length, not seniorgentlemen or townsmen. The third key theme is the prosperity of the city of York, clearly so important to the well-being of all who lived in its hinter-land; this has several aspects, including the physical structures of the city, such as the walls, bars and the Ouse bridge; the government of the city, withmentions of the mayor; and the impact of external intervention in the city,especially the arrival of the two judges. This was especially important givenYork’s difficult economic experience of the sixteenth century. Fourth, thethreat from the Scots is prominent, and it is this which draws out the clearestlinks between the local and the national (or, perhaps, more broadly northern)perspective in the prophecy: three battles between the English and the Scotswill be fought in the locality. There are, perhaps, some interesting omissions.There is little mention in the prophecy, for example, of the fate of religion and the church, even in the most general terms: religion, this suggests, wasnot a prime concern of York people in their understanding of the nature ofpast and future.

In assessing the popular political traditions represented by the Shiptonprophecy, it is finally worth considering the prophetic figure of Mother


73

87 Palliser (Tudor York, p. 229) noted that the vicar of All Saints, North Street, possessedErasmus’s Adages and two works of Cicero in 1535, but that Mores, the York bookseller,had nothing comparable in his stock in 1538. Cf. the debate over the apparent lack ofLollardy in the North: A. G. Dickens, Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York,1509–1558 (Oxford, 1959), argued that this represents skilful concealment; J. A. F.Thomson, The Later Lollards, 1414–1520 (London, 1965), preferred to see persecutionsfrom 1528 as the result of a late infusion of Protestantism from across the North Sea, a viewwith which Palliser agreed: Tudor York, p. 233.88 See above, pp. 24–5, 33–8; cf. Richard Rolle, Prose and Verse, ed. S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson,EETS o.s. 293 (Oxford, 1988).

Shipton herself. The earliest versions of the prophecy do not provide us withany specific passages of description about her, which was more usually a feature of sixteenth-century accounts than of later seventeenth-century ones. Thereis no attempt to lay down the reasons for her credibility as a prophet, this beingentirely left to the proof represented by the fulfilment of her Wolsey pro-phecies and other predictions. There are, however, clear implications in the text as to her character and social position. The first thing to note is thatshe is a woman; her very title, Mother Shipton, does not give her a Christianname, but emphasizes her female gender. ‘Mother’ in this context implies not directly the bearing of children, but age and seniority. Shipton is an oldwoman, although the point is not directly made. Nothing whatsoever is statedor implied about her personal appearance; the only hint provided is thewoodcut on the title-page, and this is probably simply a generic picture of a woman, age unclear, dressed slightly archaically for 1641; this is likely tohave been the choice of the printer, and may reflect more on the stockavailable to him at the time than on the intended portrayal of the prophetessin the prophecy. Shipton’s relationship with a husband is also left unspecified;the strong implication is that she lives alone, perhaps suggesting she is a widow.Her social position is also unspoken in any direct sense; her house is notcommented upon, although the implication of her coming to the door to greetthe visiting noblemen is that it is not large and that she does not have servants.There is a danger, given her later reputation as a hag-faced witch, of assumingthat characteristics of great age, ugliness and social marginalization werealready attributed to her. They were not. In that sense, there is little apparentgrounding of her credibility in the liminality of her position in society, and therefore access to hidden information. This differs from many of the otherfemale prophets of the period.89 Perhaps Shipton was a marginal figure, as a single woman, although it is not clear if she is old; perhaps she was poor,although again this was not emphasized. What is far more important in thetext is the contrast struck between Shipton’s social position and that of hervisitors. This is conveyed in the prophecy itself, for example in the suggestionthat the duke of Suffolk would be ‘as low as I am, and that’s a low one indeed’;it is also conveyed in some of the action, for example her calling Beasley intoher cottage first, when he had intended to give his social superiors precedence.Indeed, this contrast is dramatized by the subtext of the whole Wolseyprophecy incident: the power of the mightiest subject in the land, set againstone single woman in York.

If anything, therefore, the text is far more about empowerment than it isabout marginalization. Shipton’s lowly position is left unspoken, while the


74

89 Phyllis Mack, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-Century England(Berkeley, 1992); Diane Purkiss, ‘Producing the Voice, Consuming the Body: WomenProphets of the Seventeenth Century’, in Women, Writing, History, 1640–1740, ed. IsobelGrundy and Susan Wiseman (Athens, GA and London, 1992), pp. 139–58.

power of the lords and Cardinal is emphasized. That power is set at nought:the handkerchief that fails to burn in the fire acts as a metaphor for Shipton’sbody untouched by the mighty power of the king’s minister. The text is alsoempowering of Shipton in another way, in that it represents her as being ableto get on with her visitors, in spite of their elevated social position and theterrible news they bring her. Before they deliver their message, Shipton makesthem welcome with cakes and ale, and they ‘drunke and were very merry’. In this sense, the text occupies the world familiar to the reader of the balladsand early chapbooks, in which kings and queens fraternize with the lowliestof their subjects, such as ‘the King and the Cobbler’, in which Henry VIII andthe cobbler ended up drinking together in Whitehall.90

The Mother Shipton tradition, in its earliest forms, therefore demonstratesthe vitality of prophetic tradition as part of an oral political culture, autono-mous from written and printed forms, in the York region. The main themes ofthis tradition concerned kings and noblemen, civic prosperity and the threatfrom the Scots. This oral culture could be shaped by developments; it couldalso potentially shape them in turn. It was a culture which treated nationalthemes but from a specifically local perspective. And it was spoken from theperspective of the powerless about the powerful.

Such a use of a local tradition for a more national market as was seen in thecase of Shipton was not unusual during these years. Several other prophecieswhich first appeared during these months were also explicitly local, at least in their origins.91 Mother Shipton’s prophecy therefore gives us the chance tolook at reasons for the print publication of particular prophecies, consideringpolitical circumstances and the attitudes of publishers and readers. The successof the Shipton prophecy depended on the relevance of a York tradition to thepolitics of the whole nation during a period of civil war, when the fate of the nation might turn on local events and the implications of a local poli-tical culture. This relevance guaranteed a wide audience and the sustainedinterest of several publishers. This audience and these publishers spanned the whole of society, from the urban and rural poor to the gentry, merchantelites and the royal family. The most prominent interpreter of her words,William Lilly, fitted Shipton’s prophecy into a narrative of the inevitabledownfall of Charles I, the ‘White King’. Yet this was not a conclusive appro-priation: others, including royalists, found relevance in Shipton’s words, anda resonance in the popular imagination which made participation in the


75

90 Margaret Spufford, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readershipin Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1981), pp. 221–4; there is also the story of theking and the tanner, in which the king concerned is Edward IV (pp. 251–2).91 One example of this was Otwell Binns, associated with Huddersfield: ‘The Prophecy ofOld Otwell Binns kept by Mr. Smith, Vicar of Huddersfield Forty Years’, which appearedin Sixe Strange Prophesies ([London], 1642), sig. A4 (STC S3923). Joshua Smith was vicar1598–1619: D. F. E. Sykes, The History of Huddersfield and its Vicinity (Huddersfield, 1898),p. 143.

debate imperative. Belief in the words of Mother Shipton therefore allowedher tradition to be refurbished when the reasons for its original popularityfaded; as the threat of civil war diminished, Richard Head reworked Shiptonas the prophecy of Restoration monarchy and Anglican conformity, only for others to add to his version in the cause of Exclusion and, eventually,Revolution once more.

The first question to consider is the identity of those who published andsold the Shipton prophecy in seventeenth-century England. The format of the prophecies is not that of the single-sheet ballads, nor that of longer quarto or octavo publications, so it is not immediately obvious which groupsof publishers would choose to publish Shipton. Establishing the people who promoted Shipton may help establish the intended market of the work.Indications are that the first publishers of the prophecy were not long-standingmembers of the trade. Richard Lowndes, responsible for the first edition ofMother Shipton in London in 1641, The prophesie of Mother Shipton,92 had onlyemerged as a London bookseller in the previous two years. The first works soldby him to survive are religious, such as a third edition of Lancelot Andrewes’sInstitutiones Piae.93 In the same year as he produced the account of MotherShipton, his work included a challenge to the destruction of altar rails and an account of the speech of John Pym to the Lords in November 1641.94

Although Andrewes had been one of the first authors he had sold, Lowndesseems to have moved to cater to the market for anti-Arminian texts amongmany of London’s population. The links between York and London are alsoimportant in this connection.95 In 1637, the carriers of York left from the signof the Bell outside Ludgate on Saturdays or Mondays, and returned on Fridays.York then acted as a major staging post for all points north as far as Berwick.96

Since Richard Lowndes’s shop adjoined Ludgate, it may well be that he had a view to selling a large proportion of the production of his edition of theprophecies through these carriers. At the very least, we can see significancein the production of the text by a bookseller well placed for the trade alongthe great north road, rather than, for example, by one whose obvious markets


76

92 STC S3445; BL E. 181. (15.).93 First published 1630 (STC 601); also a Bible (2814) and Anthony Stafford’s Honour andVertue, Triumphing over the Grave (23126). STC, vol. 3, Katherine F. Pantzer, A Printers’and Publishers’ Index. Other Indexes & Appendices. Cumulative Addenda & Corrigenda(London, 1991).94 I. W., Certaine Affirmations in Defence of the Pulling Down of Communion Rails, by DiversRash and Misguided People, Judiciously and Religiously Answered, by a Gentleman of Worth(September 1641); John Pym, The Substance of Mr. Pymms Speach to the Lords in Parliament(noted by Thomason on 9 November 1641).95 By the sixteenth century at least York’s most important trade outside its own region waswith London: Palliser, Tudor York, pp. 193, 272.96 John Taylor, The Carriers Cosmographie; Or a Briefe Relation of the Innes in and NeereLondon (London, 1637), sig. C3, A2v.

lay to the south of the Thames. Lowndes was a bookseller with an eye to themarket for topical works, and one who might look to market his work in the North.97

Even if Lowndes expected a large proportion of his market for the Shiptonprophecy to be in the North of England, it clearly made a rapid and powerfulimpression in London. G. Smith, who took up the prophecy and included it in his Two Strange Prophecies, was also a relatively new arrival on the Londonpublishing scene, not having been active before 1641. It took several monthsfor better established figures to take on the publication of the Shipton pro-phecy. Richard Harper, who produced Foure Severall Strange Prophesies in 1642,had been selling books in London since 1633.98 His involvement is interest-ing, for the work he had tended to promote in his early years consisted mainlyof ballads. Even in 1640, although a political tone had appeared in work suchas Wye Saltonstall’s Complaint of Time against the Tumultuous and RebelliousScots (1639),99 Harper’s work was overwhelmingly of the variety of HumfreyCrouch’s A Pleasant New Song that Plainely doth Show, that al are Beggars, bothHigh and Low, or the anonymous Discontented Married Man. Or, a Merry NewSong.100 The prophecy was clearly entering the tradition of publication ofballads, and would have appeared alongside Harper’s stock of apolitical ditties.Yet the fact that Harper was the man who took it into this tradition is impor-tant, for it was the North and the Scots who represented the vast majority of his more topical publications. The year 1640 had also seen the promotionby Harper of Late Newes from the North: Being, a Relation of the Skirmish betwixt the English and Scots, Neere the River of Tine, a similar work entitled ABriefe Relation of the Scots Hostile Entrance into this Kingdome of England, overthe River of Tweed, and another edition of Saltonstall’s Complaint of Time.101

The prophecy is another indication that a publisher with a prior record almostexclusively in the ballad market wished to move into the market for moredirectly politically relevant material.102 The trend towards the publication of Shipton by ballad specialists became very clear when Francis Coles, who


77

97 We have the inventory of a Hull bookseller, J. Awdeley, from 1644, which might havegiven an indication of whether editions of the Shipton prophecy were sold in Yorkshire:C. W. Chillon, ‘The Inventory of a Provincial Bookseller’s Stock of 1644’, The Library6th ser. I (1979), pp. 126–43. Unfortunately, the inventory is too unspecific on such cheapproductions.

98 STC, vol. 3, Pantzer, Printers’ and Publishers’ Index, p. 76.99 STC 21643.5.

100 Respectively STC 6074, 17232.101 Respectively STC 18501.5, 22007.5, 21644.102 Thomas Harper was in fact arrested on 5 June 1641, in the face of allegations that he intended to produce a collected edition of parliamentary speeches: Sheila Lambert, ‘The Beginning of Printing for the House of Commons, 1640–42’, The Library 6th ser. III (1981), pp. 43–61, at p. 51.

had been one of the ballad partners from 1629,103 took up the work in 1648.Through the 1640s, Coles had been one of the major promoters of works by Richard Climsell104 and Martin Parker.105 If these publishers were movingin the direction of more serious political works – and Francis Coles also pro-duced many political pamphlets and proclamations – then Shipton and otherprophecies represented an excellent way of doing so while continuing to draw on the strengths, in terms of distribution and marketing, which they haddeveloped as ballad producers.

The other approach we can take when assessing the implications of theinitial editions of Shipton’s prophecy is to consider the political context of the time. Lowndes’s edition was noted by Thomason as appearing in December1641. This was a time of serious crisis and, significantly, shortly after the king’s return from Scotland, which of course brought him through Yorkshire.As has already been noted, the adoption of the prophecy by Harper was one sign of his interest in anti-Scottish literature. The king returned to Londonon 25 November, but the crisis returned and worsened: on 21 Decemberradicals were successful in the Common Council elections in London, and thenext day the convicted murderer and papist Colonel Lunsford was appointedLieutenant of the Tower of London.106 It may well be, as Harrison suggested,that the king’s journeys through York provided the opportunity for the pro-phecy to be introduced to men with contacts in London publishing;107 just asimportant, however, was the immediacy of the prophecy’s apparent relevanceat a time when the king was visiting Scotland and Yorkshire, and when rumour,well founded in reality, suggested that he might use Scottish or papist armsagainst his opponents. Yorkshire was seen as a potential threat due to thenumbers of Catholics there: it was one of six counties singled out by the Lordson 18 August 1641 (in the course of Charles’s journey north) as being worthyof special attention in the disarming of recusants.108

The year 1642 saw the production of several editions of the prophecyagainst the background of deepening crisis. After the abortive attempt on the five members, Charles again went north, arriving back in York on 18March 1642. Although the response he received was now relatively low-key,


78

103 STC, vol. 3, Pantzer, Printers’ and Publishers’ Index, p. 43.104 E.g. The Kind Hearted Creature: or the Prettest [sic] Jest that Er’e You Know, STC 5425;and The Praise of London: Or, a Delicate New Ditty, STC 5428.5.105 E.g. Robin Conscience, or, Conscionable Robin, STC 19266; The Distressed Virgin: Or, theFalse Young Man and the Constant Maid, STC 19228; and No Naturall Mother, but a Monster,STC 19261. On Martin Parker, cf. Susan Aileen Newman, ‘The Broadside Ballads of MartinParker: A Bibliographical and Critical Study’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University ofBirmingham, 1975).106 Anthony Fletcher, The Outbreak of the English Civil War, corrected paperback edn(London, 1985), pp. 169, 171–7.107 Harrison, Mother Shipton Investigated.108 LJ, IV, pp. 369–70.

the king stayed there until he moved to Nottingham to raise his standard on22 August.109 Another edition of Lowndes’s version followed in 1642 hard on the heels of the first;110 Thomason noted Two Strange Prophesies in March1642, precisely as the king returned to the city.111 Harper’s Foure SeverallStrange Prophesies must be after 2 July, but not long after, because of the ‘strangenewes from Oundle in Northamptonshire’ of that date appended to it;112 inthe last few months of the year came Sixe Strange Prophecies, 1642.113 A TrueCoppy of Mother Shiptons Last Prophecies, printed for one T.V., also appeared in1642.114 No volume of prophecy was complete without Shipton’s words,including for example, also from 1642 (June), A True Coppie of a Prophesiewhich was found in [an] old ancient house of one Master Truswell . . . Whereuntois added Mother Shipton’s Prophesies.115 By this stage, Shipton’s prophecies werevirtually canonical among the populace at large, and one (unfortunatelyunidentified) ‘great statesman’ referred to them at every opportunity.116 SevenSeverall Strange Prophecies followed in 1642, with a further edition in August1643; Nine Notable Prophecies appeared in 1644.117


79

109 Fletcher, Outbreak of the English Civil War, p. 231. CSPD, 1641–1643, pp. 300 (Nicolasto Sir Thomas Rowe, 23 March 1642), 307 (duke of York welcomed to York on Saturdaylast, same to same, 20 April).110 STC S3446.111 ‘The second prophesie of Mother Shipton’, in Two Strange Prophesies, predictingwonderfull events to betide this yeere of danger; named Mother Shipton (London, 1642) (STCT3537; BL E. 141. (2.)). There seems to be no record of Three Strange Prophecies, if it everexisted. Fletcher, Outbreak of the English Civil War, p. 244.112 (London, 1642); STC S3443; BL C. 40. f. 12.113 STC S3923.114 STC S3454.115 (London, 1642) (STC T2633): BL E. 149. (16.) (June); BL, 718. g. 47.116 The phrase is Thomas’s: Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Belief inSixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1971), p. 413; Christopher Syms, TheSwords Apology, and Necessity in the Act of Reformation (London, 1644), sig. C4v (‘howfrequent a great statesman there was about six years since in evry meeting in breaching andinculcating mother Shiptons prophecy. I confes, I then suspected (and his unmercifulproceedings against men trading from the Western Ilands with tobacco to their utter ruinegave mee good caus) that he was a pensioner to Rome and Spain, and a greater friend, andmore faithful servant to them in overthrowing the English plantation in the Western Ilands,than he was to his king & country. His own cariage hath since that time betrayed him toshame, and in good time may [reading hard] to punishment’; Nuncius Propheticus. Or, ACollection of Some Old Predictions (London, 1642), sig. A2: ‘have all of them been of longerstanding in mans memory then my great Grandfather, in whose dayes they were frequent’.We know that one correspondent of Lord Digby’s on 13 September 1645 was ‘deeply struck’by Lilly’s predictions of disaster for the nobility in England’s Merlin: CSPD, 1645–1647, p. 135; Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press, p. 76.117 Seven . . . (London, 1642) (STC S2739); (another edition, London, 1643 – noted byThomason on 16 August: BL, E. 250. (3.); for Richard Harper) (S2740). Nine NotableProphecies (London, 1644) (STC N1160).

It was in 1644 that a major reinterpretation of the Shipton prophecy tookplace. Up to this point there is no clear sign that its publication was seen aspropaganda for any personality or side in the civil war, aside from its clarityon the threat from the Scots. The reinterpretation was the work of WilliamLilly.118 In 1644, Lilly published his A Prophecy of the White King; and DreadfullDead-man Explaned, and in 1645 he included Shipton in his Collection ofAncient and Modern Prophecies.119 This made little alteration to the previousversions of the text itself, although it added a few short passages, such as theintended humour of the words, following the prediction that Percy’s headwould end in France and his body in York, ‘they all laughed, saying that wouldbe a great lap between the Head and the Body’.120 Lilly’s main contribution tothe Shipton tradition was to associate her with the corpus, we might even saycanon, of prophecy which Lilly created. His rigorous approach and excellentmarketing meant that those prophecies he included were guaranteed an enor-mous exposure to the public.121 Ever since the appearance of his Prophecy of the White King, Lilly had been developing for the public an analysis of thecivil war based on prophecy, especially that of Geoffrey of Monmouth.Geoffrey’s account included references to events under a White King, whomLilly identified with Charles I, crowned in 1625, against the advice of at least one of his courtiers, in robes of white. Lilly’s interpretation depended on identifying the White King with the Dreadful Deadman, a feature of theErceldoun tradition who had appeared in John Harvey’s A Discoursive ProblemeConcerning Prophecies of 1588; the deadman had been added by Lilly to


80

118 Most work on Lilly focuses on his astrology rather than his treatment of prophecy: DerekParker, Familiar to All: William Lilly and Astrology in the Seventeenth Century (London, 1975);Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press, pp. 35–6, 54–9, 76–7, 182–90; Patrick Curry, Prophecyand Power: Astrology in Early Modern Europe (Princeton, 1989).119 A Prophesy of the White King; and Dreadfull Dead-man Explaned: To Which is Added theProphecie of Sibylla Tiburtina, and Prediction of John Kepler: All of Especial Concernment forthese Times (London, 1644) (STC L2240); A Collection of Ancient and Moderne Prophesiesconcerning these present times . . . The nativities of T. Earle of Strafford and W. Laud . . .Archbishop of Canterbury . . . And the Speech Intended by the Earle of Strafford to have beenSpoken at his Death (London, 1645) (STC L2217).120 These few changes are discussed in the Heywood edition of 1881, p. xiii; more importanttypographical changes are noticed in the discussion of the location of the Shipton prophecy,above, p. 62. The lack of variation is made rather too absolute in Friedman, Miracles andPulp Press, p. 275, n. 6.121 One of Lilly’s prophecies sold over 1,800 copies in three days; several editions later, ithad sold over 4,500 copies: Friedman, Miracles and Pulp Press, p. 74; H. R. Plomer, ‘APrinter’s Bill in the Seventeenth Century’, The Library n.s. 7 (1906), pp. 32–45. Lilly wascriticized by astrologers such as John Gadbury for his credulity in publishing Shipton andsimilar prophecies ‘so slighted and contemned by many’ (Prophesy of the White King, p. 2).Their anger, however, underlines the tremendous influence they knew his imprimatur gaveto a prophecy, and vice versa. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press, p. 211.

Shipton, which meant that Shipton’s prophetic tradition could be recruitedto Lilly’s arguments.122

From 1644, therefore, much of the publication of the Shipton prophecy,and much of its audience, assumed it foretold the fall of Charles I. There wasthen, interestingly, an almost complete pause in the flood of Shipton pub-lications, a pause that can be explained in relation to the shift in the emphasis of the conflict away from the Scots and their possible threat, expressed throughShipton’s prophecy about York. Shipton only reappeared regularly with thecrisis surrounding the second civil war, the disbanding of the army and the execution of the king. Twelve strange proehesies, besides Mother Shiptons,newly printed for Francis Coles, was noted by Thomason in May 1648, follow-ing Charles’s signature of the Engagement with the Scots in the December of the previous year, and soon after the outbreak of the second civil war.123

Thirteen . . . and Foureteene Strange Prophesies, besides Mother Shipton’s, followedin 1648 and early in the following year.124 Crucially, the Scots had re-enteredthe political stage as a threat to England. There were then three editions ofthe prophecy in 1651, as the Scots were defeated by Cromwell,125 and as thecollapse of the protectorate approached, another edition of Shiptons Prophesiein 1659.126

Friedman has argued that this association of Shipton with the parliamen-tarian interpretation of Lilly rendered her words less relevant in the 1660s.127

The death of Charles I demonstrated the fulfilment of one element of theWhite King prophecy, and Cromwell seemed to fit the persona of the Eagle’schick, the great statesman who would succeed him. Yet, Friedman argued,royalists who wished to find legitimacy for the restoration of Charles II to theEnglish throne in ancient prophecy had some difficulty with the Shiptonianimagery left them by Lilly. Royalists like Christopher Syms had even in the


81

122 John Harvey, A Discoursive Probleme Concerning Prophecies (London, 1588).123 STC S3455.124 13: BL E. 525. (14.); STC S3453. 14: for Richard Harper, London. BL E. 527. (7.) [STCS3444]. 125 Shiptons Prophesie, by T.H. for Francis Coles and Richard Harper, 1651: STC S3447;Five Strange and Wonderfull Prophesies and Predictions of Severall Men Foretold Long Since: Allwhich are likely to Come to Passe in these our Distracted Times, s.l., 1651 (which includes‘Mother Shipton’s Prophesies, more fuller and larger than ever before was printed’): STCF1123; and The Second Part of Mother Shipton’s Prophecies (London, 1651?): STC S3451.126 A new edition of that by T.H. for Francis Coles and Richard Harper, 1651, producedby A.B. for Francis Coles: STC S3447A. The pattern of editions in the late 1640s, 1650sand 1660s suggests an answer to one possible criticism of this approach. At these times, thefrequency of publication of Shipton seems to run counter to overall levels of publication.For example, only about 1,000 titles p.a. appeared in 1650–8; and the total for 1663, below1,000, was part of another decline after the boom stimulated by the Restoration. WilmerG. Mason, ‘The Annual Output of Wing-Listed Titles, 1649–1684’, The Library 5th ser. 29(1974), pp. 219–20.127 Friedman, Miracles and Pulp Press, pp. 231–6.

1640s been at pains to point out that Shipton as expounded by Lilly did not necessarily provide an answer to the problematic issues of the later 1640sand 1650s. Friedman therefore argued that the Restoration had to be inter-preted through a different stock of prophecies. Yet such prophetic traditionsas Shipton’s could not be fossilized through their inclusion in printed texts andcommentaries, because they remained vibrant oral traditions firmly founded inpopular political debate. Lilly’s interpretation may have palled; some royalistsmay have preferred to reject Shipton outright; yet she lived on and continuedto be published even when Lilly’s words seemed most misplaced.

In 1663, another version of Mother Shipton’s Prophesies was produced, differ-ing little if at all from the editions of the civil war years.128 Yet the potentialfor continuing topicality is indicated by the coincidence of imagery first usedin 1649 with events of that year. The woodcut, of Cardinal Wolsey sightingYork from Cawood, included a nude representation of John Saltmarsh, chap-lain to Sir Thomas Fairfax, who shortly before the general’s death had criticizedhim for persecuting the saints and prophesied the army’s ruin.129 In 1663,Saltmarsh’s one-time patron Sir John Hotham was suspected of involvementin the Farnley Wood conspiracy. Once again, but probably for the last time inCharles’s reign, the possibility of civil war resulting from plotting and rebellionin the North had raised its head, pointing up the prophecy’s relevance.130

Far from being a period in which it was rendered irrelevant by events,therefore, the 1660s was a crucially important decade in the development of the prophecy tradition.131 The end of civil strife, especially involvingScotland and the North of England, might have made the prophecy lessimmediately relevant after about 1663. What appears to have dramaticallyrevitalized the prophecy was the traumatic year 1666. The precondition for


82

128 By T.P. for Francis Coles: STC S3448.129 He resigned the rectory of Heslerton (Yorkshire) in autumn 1643, on account of hisscruples over tithe, being put into the sequestered living of Brasted (Kent) before January1645: ODNB; Bulstrode Whitelock, Memorials of the English Affairs from the Beginning of theReign of Charles the First to the Happy Restoration of King Charles the Second, 4 vols (Oxford,1853), II, pp. 252–3. John Saltmarsh, A Letter from the Army (London, 1647) (STC S490);Sparkles of Glory (London, 1647) (STC S504) – his two works of 1647, the year of his death.First appearance of his prophecy: Wonderfull Predictions Declared in a Message . . . to . . . SirThomas Fairfax (London, 1648) (STC S507). It was then linked to Shipton in TwelveStrange Proehecies, noted by Thomason in May 1648. The image of Saltmarsh had firstappeared in Foureteen Strange Prophesies (1649). One of Lady Denbigh’s correspondents hadheard of the ‘profisies and visions’, and thought Saltmarsh affected by ‘mellincoly’: HMC,Denbigh, pp. 80–1 (23 January 1647).130 Memoirs of Sir John Reresby: The Complete Text and a Selection from his Letters, ed. AndrewBrowning; 2nd edn, ed. Mary K. Geiter and W. A. Speck (London, 1991), pp. 46–8. FarnleyWood plot: Thomas D. Whitaker, Loidis and Elmete (Leeds, 1816–[20]); Depositions in YorkCastle, Surtees Society 40 (Durham, 1861), pp. 11–12, 115–17, 119 (cf. pp. 102–10, on theassociated ‘Kaber-rig Plot’ in Westmorland).131 Pace what I have written elsewhere.

this revitalization was the continuing currency of the prophecy. As soon as thescale of the damage caused by the Great Fire of London became clear, even asthe city was still burning, it appears to have been assumed that Shipton’sprophecy had accurately foretold the disaster.132 Pepys famously reported whathe had been told by Colonel Thomas Middleton, a Navy Commissioner, who had been on the Prince with Prince Rupert when confronted by news of the fire: ‘all the Prince said was that now Shipton’s prophecy was out’.133

The scale and depth of this belief is indicated by a letter of 6 September 1666,from Windsor Sandys to Viscount Scudamore. Sandys stated that thousandsbelieved Shipton’s prophecy foretold the fire and he implied that this beliefamong the population led to a fatalistic unwillingness to attack the fire withdetermination.134 The implication is an almost universal penetration of thewords of the earliest versions of the Shipton tradition, and a belief in them ofsufficient strength to convince the majority that resistance to the conflagrationwas impossible. Given this level of awareness of and belief in the Shiptonprophecy, it is not surprising that the work should be republished at about thistime. It is, in fact, very likely that the following year saw the publication ofthe first version of Richard Head’s reworking of the prophecy, The Life andDeath of Mother Shipton, for although no editions produced before that of 1677survive,135 the title-page describes the work as collected until this present Year1667, and this seems to correspond to an entry in the Stationers’ Register.136

This revised version of the story of Mother Shipton was soon also giventheatrical form. The play The Life of Mother Shipton, by T[homas] T[hompson],which probably dates from the years 1668–71,137 is, at the very least, heavily


83

132 The scepticism of Walter George Bell, The Great Fire of London in 1666, popular edition(London, 1923), pp. 20, 316, 341, is correct only in so far as the highly specific prediction,that London in ’sixty-six would be burnt to ashes, appeared after the event. Stephen Porter,The Great Fire of London (Stroud, 1996), p. 30, simply cites Bell to support a similarscepticism.133 The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A New and Complete Transcription, ed. Robert Latham andWilliam Matthews, 10 vols (London, 1970–83), vol. VII, 1666 (1972), p. 333 (20 October).The clear descriptions of the fire in Head’s edition of the prophecies post-date the eventitself; yet this does not undermine the point that Shipton’s general warnings about London’sfate were seen immediately as being fulfilled. Note the presence of Shipton in Pepys’s ownlibrary: Spufford, Small Books, pp. 145–6.134 Bell, Great Fire, p. 316.135 (London, 1677) (STC H1257).136 The Stationers’ Register includes an entry for 30 August 1667, to Mrs Ann Maxwell,‘The life and death of Mother Shipton, or true Relacon of what she did and spakt’: J. G.McManaway, ‘Philip Massinger and the Restoration Journal’, ELH: A Journal of EnglishLiterary History I (1934), pp. 276–304, at p. 294. Donald Wing, A Gallery of Ghosts: BooksPublished Between 1641–1700 Not Found in the Short-Title Catalogue ([New York], 1967),p. 118 (O H1256A); A Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of Stationers;from 1640–1708 A.D., 3 vols (London, 1913), vol. II, p. 381.137 Pierre Danchin, The Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration, 1660–1700, 4 parts in 7

derived from Head’s work.138 In the very next year another new productionsprang from the tradition, Mother Shiptons Christmas Carrols of 1668.139

The crucial individual in this reworking was Richard Head. Ruined twice as a bookseller through gambling losses, Head took to ‘scribbling’ for thebooksellers at 20s. a sheet.140 His most famous work was The English RogueDescribed, an account of a professional thief which is in some ways auto-biographical. This was eventually published, after being refused a licence ongrounds of its indecency, in 1665.141 Head’s other works fall into two categories:further writing on the theme of criminality and lewd stories, and populistaccounts of war and exploration. In the former category, he produced theCanting Academy, or the Devil’s Cabinet opened, which was largely borrowedfrom Thomas Harman’s A Caueat for Commen Cursetors Vvlgarely CalledUagabones (first known edition 1567) or from his own English Rogue.142 In the latter is the work with which he followed the English Rogue, The Red Sea,a Description of the Sea-fight between the English and Dutch, with an Elegy on Sir


84

vols (Nancy, 1981–8), I (1981), pp. 295–6: 1668–9 (?); McManaway, ‘Massinger’, pp. 293–6: 1668–71. The BL catalogue and STC give the date [1660?], but this is renderedunlikely by the period of activity of the bookseller involved, T. Passenger, from c. 1667.Thompson’s work: T[homas] T[hompson], The Life of Mother Shipton: A New Comedy(London, 1668–9?); The English Rouge a Nevv Comedy (London, 1668); Midsummer-moon;or, the Livery Man’s Complaint (London, 1682).138 There is the possibility that the plays ascribed to Thompson are in fact by Head: AnnMaxwell, the recipient of the licence for Shipton in 1667 was the widow of David Maxwell,whose business was taken up on his death in c. 1665 by Peter Lillicrap, who printedThompson’s Mother Shipton and was also the printer of Head’s The Red Sea, a Description ofthe Sea-fight between the English and Dutch, with an Elegy on Sir C. Minnes (London, 1666).In addition, the subject matter of both The English Rouge and The Life of Mother Shiptonechoes Head publications, and in the case of The Life of Mother Shipton the similarity oflanguage, for example in the charms Shipton repeats, is great. McManaway, ‘Massinger’,p. 294n, rejects these speculations, largely because of the existence of the poem, Midsummer-moon, published under Thompson’s name in 1682. The ascription to Thompson isconfirmed by the signed dedication to Mrs Alice Barret in The English Rouge of 1668:McManaway, ‘Massinger’, p. 292. The Thompson plays coincide with a suspicious gap inHead’s publications list, however; there is nothing new in print after 1679.139 By P. Lillicrap for William Harris: STC S3442. This revival of interest in Shipton in1667 also resulted in a Dutch version: Moeder Schiptons Prophecyen van Engelandt: Ofte deProphecyen van Schiptons Vrouw, gepropheteert in het Jaer 1509, ten tijden van Koningh Henricusden Achtsten Koning van Engelandt (The Hague, 1667).140 ODNB.141 STC H1246 (for Henry Marsh); subsequent editions in 1666, 1667, 1668, 1669, 1672and 1680 are STC H1247–48cA. A reprint of the work, and of three subsequent partswritten by others, was issued in 1874, 4 vols, 8vo. For debate on the authorship of the thirdpart of the work, cf. C. W. R. D. Moseley, ‘Richard Head’s “The English Rogue”: A ModernMandeville?’ Yearbook of English Studies 1 (1971), pp. 102–7; Paul Salzman, ‘Alterations toThe English Rogue’, The Library 6th ser. IV (1982), pp. 49–52.142 (London, [1567]) (STC 12787).

C. Minnes.143 In a lighter vein is The Floating Island, or a New Discovery, relatingthe Strange Adventure on a late Voyage from Lambethana to Villa Franca,144

or Western Wonder, or O, Brazile, an Inchanted Island discovered.145 Head alsodabbled in astrology, with Nevvs from the Stars . . . by Meriton Latroon in 1673.146

It is perhaps then not surprising that from 1667 onward, Head appears to havebeen heavily involved with the production of work on Mother Shipton.

Richard Head’s transformation of the prophecy of Mother Shipton was so fundamental that it requires systematic treatment. After 1667, there weretwo quite different versions of the tradition available. It is therefore importantto establish how Head changed Shipton’s prophecy. It is first important torecognize that the work is heavily plagiarized.147 The early sections dependheavily on stock sensationalized accounts of witchcraft, the supernatural andthe life of the vagabond and the marginalized poor which were Head’s speci-ality. The latter sections, describing the prophetic history of the previous twohundred years, are mainly taken from the major chroniclers of the late six-teenth and seventeenth centuries. The intersection between the two worldswas provided by the episodes in which Shipton divined the future for two heirs,placed loosely under Henry VIII at a time of war with the French. This was aperiod very familiar to the readers of chapbook literature. Few such stories were placed in a clearly defined historical past, but two at least located them-selves at such a time. Long Meg of Westminster, which appeared in print for the first time in 1582, described a Lancashire woman coming to HenryVIII’s London, meeting Sir Thomas More, and going to Boulogne to fight


85

143 STC H1275 (London, 1666). Sir Christopher Minnes (more usually Myngs; d. 1666)died heroically after attacking the Dutch vice-admiral de Liefde at the battle of NorthForeland: Diary of Samuel Pepys, ed. Latham and Matthews, vol. 6, p. 278; vol. 7, pp. 150, 155, 160, 165–6, 180; ODNB.144 STC H1253 ([London], 1673). This is a scurrilous account of London; cf. EdwardGodfrey Cox, A Reference Guide to the Literature of Travel, 3 vols (Seattle, 1938), II, pp. 472–3.145 STC H1277 (for N.C., 1674). In the style of the Isle of Pines, Gulliver’s Travels, etc. Coxsuggests that the Irish Hy Brasil, the land of the ever-young, situated far out in the WesternSea, might be the inspiration for Brazile: Cox, Literature of Travel, II, p. 473. Al-man-sir, orRhodomontados of the most Horrible, Terrible, and Invincible Captain, Sir Frederick Fightall, by[Jaques Gaultier] (London, 1672) (STC G381) has been wrongly ascribed to Head.146 STC H1265A (n.p., 1673). Also: Hic et Ubique: or, the Humors of Dublin (London,1663) (STC H1255); Jackson’s Recantation (London, 1674) (STC H1256); Nugae Venales,2nd edn (London, 1675) (STC H1266); Proteus Redivivus: Or the Art of Wheedling (London,1675) (STC H1272); The Miss Displayed (London, 1675) (STC H1264); The Life and Deathof the English Rogue (London, 1679) (STC H1262).147 Allan H. Lanner, ‘Richard Head’s Theophrastan Characters, Notes and Queries 215(1970), p. 259; Margaret C. Katanka, ‘Goodman’s “Holland’s Leaguer” (1632) – FurtherExamples of the Plagiarism of Richard Head’, Notes and Queries 219 (1974), pp. 415–17;as well as being, without doubt, ‘palpable invention’: Fletcher, Harrogate and Knaresborough,p. 54. The play of 1668–71 is also plagiarized from Middleton’s Chaste Maid in Cheapside:McManaway, ‘Massinger’, p. 296.

the French. More famously, Jack of Newbury described a wealthy Berkshireclothier who impressed his queen, Catherine of Aragon, when he providedwell-clad mounted and foot soldiers for the Flodden campaign.148 That said,the process of selection and adaptation is itself suggestive of Head’s attitudesand those of his audience.

One aspect of this change is seen in the approach to Shipton herself. A possibly old and single woman, seen in the editions of the 1640s, was trans-formed in the Head edition into a witch: the daughter of the devil, ugly,malevolent, marginalized yet imbued with a power that wins her the respectof her neighbours. Immediately on her birth, those present were struck by ‘the strange and unparalleled Physiognomy of the Child, which was so mis-shapen, that it is altogether impossible to express it fully in words, or the mostingenious to Limn her in colours, though many persons of eminent quali-fications in that Art have often attempted it, but without success’. Head goesinto depth in describing Shipton’s face:

very great goggling, but sharp and fiery eyes, her nose of an incredible andunproportionable length, having in it many crooks and turnings, adorned withmany strange Pimples of divers colours, as red, blew, and mixt, which like Vapoursof Brimston gave such a lustre to her affrighted spectators in the dead time of theNight, that one of them confest several times in my hearing, that her Nurse neededno other light to assist her in the performance of her duty: Her Cheeks were of ablack swarthy Complexion, much like a mixture of the Black and yellow juandies;wrinkled, shrivelled and very hollow, insomuch, that as the Ribs of her Body, so the impression of her teeth were easily to be discerned, through both sides of herface, answering one side to the other, like the notches in a Valley, excepting onlytwo of them which stood quite out of her mouth, in imitation of the Tushes of awild Bore, or the Tooth of an Elephant, a thing so strange in an Infant that no agecan parallel: Her Chin was of the same complexion as her Face, turning up towardsher mouth . . .

Her neck was malformed, causing her body to be twisted, and ‘her left side wasquite turned the contrary way, as if her body had been screw’d together pieceafter piece ; and not rightly placed: her left shoulder hanging just Perpendicu-lar to her Fundament’ (pp. 10–13).149 Shipton appeared to be associated withcats, possibly as familiars: even as a baby, she frightened her neighbours whenthey entered the house and a ‘very strange noise [was] heard in the next Roomto them, as if it had been a consort of Catts’.150 At other times, the animals


86

148 Spufford, Small Books, pp. 238–45, discusses the small numbers of realistic historicalnovels and analyses these two examples.149 Shipton also had the ability to alter her shape, as when as a baby she might be found‘stretcht out to a prodigious length, taller than the tallest living, and at other times as muchdecreased or shortned’.150 Cf. the ‘two great black Catts’ which appear later in the same incident.

associated with Shipton were definitely her father, who visited ‘sometimesvisibly in the form of a Cat, Dog, or Hog; at other times invisibly by noises’.Shipton also had imps, who joined in the torment of her neighbours, as whenthey were forced to dance round a pair of Yarwingles, ‘carrying upon every oneof their shoulders an Imp in the likeness of a Monkey or Ape, which hung closeupon them; and when ever they slackened their pace, these Sprits pricked themforward’. Shipton was also able to summon up unearthly sounds and music, suchas the ‘noise like the treading of people upon stones . . . [and] very sweet musicalharmony of several notes’ which signalled the conclusion of this incident. Shecould make inanimate objects move, as when ‘the Chairs and Stools wouldfrequently march upstairs and down, and they usually plaid below at Bowleswith the Trenchers and dishes’ (pp. 13–14). Shipton combined extraordinaryability at school, learning to read remarkably rapidly, with eccentric behaviour,talking and laughing to herself,151 and it was this that drew others intoconversation which revealed her powers of foresight (pp. 14–15).

This transformation of the figure of Mother Shipton herself is interestinggiven seventeenth-century attitudes to both prophecy and witchcraft. Headappears to have deliberately subverted the conventions of radical Protestantprophesying in his portrayal of Shipton. She is in many way similar to the marginal figures, old, single, poor women, whose very marginalization gavethem access to other-worldly inspiration. Yet this inspiration is here clearlylinked to the trappings of witchcraft, carried to levels of burlesque. The abilityto foretell the future had always been something which the godly ‘prophet’and the witch had shared. The previous absence of any explanation for thesource of Shipton’s inspiration was now decisively replaced by a definitivecategorization as witchcraft and the work of the devil. This is a clear attackon those who spoke inspired words, which fits with Head’s attitude to radicalProtestant sects. It does set up a potentially uneasy tension over the validityof the words Shipton speaks, however. Now clearly identified as a witch, shenonetheless prophesies the victory of monarchy and conformist Anglicanism.The reader is left to trust the daughter of Satan as an authority on which tobase the triumph of God’s design for church and state.152

Another important change occurred in the approach to Shipton’s locality.The Head version of the prophecies, and its successors, became far less specificabout the geographical location of the prophecies themselves. While Headrecounted the story of Wolsey’s visit to Yorkshire, he abandoned many of theother York-oriented prophecies153 and added texts which were far more clearly


87

151 ‘She hath been often seen when alone, to laugh heartily; at other times to talk by herself, uttering very strange riddles, which occasioned some of the more sober sort to conversewith her, receiving such strange things from her, as required a long study to find out themeaning.’152 Margery A. Kingsley, Transforming the Word: Prophecy, Poetry, and Politics in England,1650–1742 (Newark and London, 2001).153 The 1686 edition, in chs 6 and 7, retains the Wolsey visit and its associated prophecy

national in their location. Head’s acute understanding of the markets for whichhe wrote told him that mentions of Colton Hagge and Bramham Moor were likely to be incomprehensible to the majority of his readers in Englandin the 1660s. The uprooting of the prophecy from its local origins in theRestoration period is therefore one of the most important contributions ofHead to the tradition. It might well be argued, however, that in doing so hedid it a great disservice, for although Shipton was now more clearly nationallyrelevant, her loss of a local base meant she had forfeited the ability to find newvigour in that locality. In this sense, Shipton’s relative decline in the eigh-teenth century stands in sharp contrast to the success of Nixon, born fromintensely local origins at just the time that Shipton was being generalized.

As in its treatment of the York location, the Richard Head edition of theprophecy changed dramatically the personalities it presented. Head removedthe specific detail of the Wolsey visit to York, with his three noble messengers.Instead, Head adopted the device of using a fictional ‘Abbot of Beverley’154

to replace Reginald Beasley as the man who, having seen the power ofShipton’s foresight, invited her to speak at greater length about things to come.The only other local characters in the prophecy are the villagers and justicestormented by Shipton and her mother during the prophetess’s youth, andgeneric petitioners seeking her advice: ‘a young Heir’ hoping to divine thetime of his father’s death, and another ‘young Heir’ desirous of knowingwhether it would be safe to join an expedition to France early in Henry VIII’stime (pp. 15–17). The prophecies that the ‘Abbot of Beverley’ elicits aregeneral ones regarding the political and religious experience of the countryfrom the reign of Henry VIII to the late seventeenth century. They can becharacterized briefly as being Protestant, especially in the sense of beingvirulently anti-papal and anti-Jesuit, but faultlessly conformist. They are alsofaultlessly royalist, praising monarchs and monarchy and violently denouncingthe opponents of Charles I and his son during the English civil war.

The anti-Catholicism of Head’s work is clearest in its commentary on thereigns of Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth (pp. 23–37). Mary, ‘by restoringPopery, and the Persecutions that the professors of the Gospel suffered in hertime, is said to bring the Kingdom to annoy’. Specific reference is made to thepersecution of Protestants in her reign, and their death is described asmartyrdom: ‘Great was the number of Martyrs burned in Smithfield in thisQueens Reign, under the Bloody hands of Bonner Bishop of London, and Dr.Story Dean of St. Pauls.’ Elizabeth, treated to a paean of unqualified praise, iscredited with seeing ‘Popery banished, and reformation established ; theMinisters of the Gospel advanced, and the Shaveling Priests, Monks andFryers, depressed’. On a more positively Protestant note, there is little beyond


88

of Wolsey’s failure to reach York; it also retains the prophecy of Ouse Bridge and TrinityChurch, but nothing else of York.154 Beverley was the site of two friaries, one Dominican and the other Franciscan.

a positive reference to ‘Romes trash’ being ‘swept away’. This is explained inrelation to ‘The People in each place beating down Superstitious Pictures andImages, which blind and misguided zeal had set up.’ The religion of theprophecy is therefore icono-phobic; but positive mentions of ‘Bells [that] rangsuch Changes in Religion, that the Mass was put down, and the CommonPrayer set up’ suggest this Protestantism was firmly anti-Puritan. The civil waris portrayed as a struggle, in part, against ‘the Dragon of Presbytery’. TheScottish church is mocked for self-righteousness, and in particular for rejecting‘the Common-prayer’ and bishops. The Long Parliament is condemned for itsactions, in church and state, with some significant oppositions:

by them was Episcopacy voted down and Presbytery voted up, by them was theCommon-prayer denyed, and the Directory exalted ; they were the first that broughtthat strange Riddle into the World, that a man may fight for and against his King;by them was the Oath Ex Officio condemned, and the Covenant (far worse)applauded ; in sum, by them was the Church and State turned topsey turvey.

The religious outlook of the Head edition of the Shipton prophecy wastherefore that of the Anglicanism of the 1660s: based on the Book of CommonPrayer and enthusiastic about practices such as bell-ringing which radicalProtestants considered to be reminiscent of popish and superstitious practices;scornful of Presbytery (pp. 34–48).

The religion expressed by Head is also intensely monarchical: there is virtually no difference between his attitude to resistance to the Protestantreligion and to the Protestant monarchy. Indeed, the prophecy that ‘TheLocusts sent from the seven hills, The English Rose shall seek to kill’ causes Headto detail several attempts to assassinate Elizabeth before and during her reign. The pro-royal attitude adopted by Head in his interpretation of theprophecies even extended to Queen Mary. If anything, his commentary on an ultimately hostile prophetic account is an attempt to exculpate her for thepersecutions of her reign. The blame is put at the door of her advisers,especially the Catholic clergy: ‘take her in her self, secluded from bloodyCouncillors, and she was a most Merciful, Pious, Just Prince’. The same atti-tude emerges in Head’s discussion of Cardinal Pole. Otherwise an enemy of Protestantism, Pole is described by Head in terms of his royal descent, withsuggestions that he was sympathetic to the Protestant cause. Positive com-ments about Protestant monarchs are even more unrestrained. Edward VI isthe only exception: the events of his reign are described, but he receives nospecific comment as to his character. Jane Grey was, however, a ‘woman ofmost rare and incomparable perfections’, ‘the mirror of her time, for herReligion and Education’. The praise of Elizabeth is even more generous: shewas

the Mirrour of her Sex and Age, who for above forty years, to the admiration ofenvy it self, managed the affairs of this Kingdom; having when she began, few


89

friends that durst help, and leaving no Foes when she died that could hurt her;acting her part so well whilst here she Reigned that History can scarcely afford usone Prince to be matched to her Fame, in all considerable particulars.

James I is less extravagantly lauded, although his reign is described as a timewhen ‘War shall give place to Peace’. Praise is reserved for two of his child-ren: Elizabeth, who married ‘the illustrious’ Frederick, elector palatine, andpossessed ‘all the endowments both of Body and mind, which make to thecompleating of a Princess’; and Henry, his heir, a pious prince ‘of most excel-lent parts’. If anything, however, the most fulsome praise is reserved for CharlesI: ‘of all his contemporary Princes throughout the whole World; of whom when all is said that can be spoken, yet doth all come farr short of his deservedpraises’. Charles II is, interestingly, not discussed at any length; praise isrestricted to a mention of his ‘happy Restoration’.

Royal servants are also lavishly praised. This is particularly clear for thereign of Charles I. George Villiers, duke of Buckingham, is described as ‘thegreatest man in favour of those times’; Thomas Wentworth, earl of Strafford,as ‘wise Strafford’; and Laud as ‘Reverend Laud’. This is chiefly because thecomplement of Head’s extravagant praise for the monarchy is condemnationof plots against the crown and its servants, which form a major part of thecommentary on the prophecies relating to the century before the English civilwar. The comments on the conspiracies against Elizabeth have already beenmentioned; there is also a detailed account of the Gunpowder Plot. These plotsare ascribed to Catholic malcontents; from the start of Charles I’s reign,however, the enemy of monarchy is defined as popular or democratic forces.Buckingham is described as favoured by the king and ‘thereupon (as it is mostcommonly seen) most hated of the People’. Cromwell represented tyranny: heis described as a ‘Bloody’ or a ‘Blood-thirsty’ tyrant. The Restoration is seento have ended ‘Oligarchical Confusions’ during which the land ‘groaned underthe pressures of a Company of Mechanical (and therein the worst sort of)Tyrants’.

This religious and political outlook provides clues to the attitudes of boththe author and his audience. The views expressed in his other works areconsistent enough with those of the 1667 edition of the prophecy to allow us to accept that Head’s outlook, formed perhaps through the death of hisparents at the hands of Catholic rebels in Ireland, and then by the experienceof growing up in the England of the civil war and Commonwealth, was a majorinfluence on the text. On the other hand, Head’s dependence on his publishersand their market meant that it is unlikely that he would have written what is perhaps his most overtly political work without a view to his audience.155


90

155 Ann Maxwell, who entered for it at the Stationers’ Company, was the widow of DavidMaxwell, whose business was taken up by Peter Lillicrap on David’s death, c. 1665.Although Lillicrap suffered imprisonment for alleged seditious printing in 1663, he seems

This was a text that would find an appreciative audience only among thosewho shared its extremely positive view of monarchy and church. In anyconsideration of the readership of the Head edition of the prophecy, it shouldalso be noted that he provides a very large amount of detail in the explanationof Shipton’s words. For example, in order to explain the prophecy of Wolsey’sdissolution of monastic houses, and the inspiration this gave for the latersystematic dissolution pursued under Henry VIII, Head provides the followingdetail:

Cardinal Wolsey (who is here intended by the Miter’d Peacock), in the height of hisPride, and vastness of his undertakings to erect two fair Colledges, one at Ipswichwhere he was born, the other at Oxford where he was bred; and finding himselfunable to endow them at his own Charges; he obtained License of Pope Clementthe Seventh, Anno 1525, to suppress forty small Monasteries in England, and to Laytheir old Lands to his new Foundations, which was done accordingly ; and the poorpeople that lived in them, turned out of doors; many of the Clergy were very muchagainst this action of Wolseys, especially, John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, allegingfor the same an Apologue out of Æsop, that the Iron Head of the Axe, craved a Handleof the Wood of Oaks, only to cut off the seere boughs of the tree; but when it was acompleat instrumental Axe, it felled down all the Wood; applying it That the suppressingof those smaller Houses, would in fine prove destructive to all the rest; which came topass accordingly; for King Henry seeing the Cardinals Power to extend so far, as to suppress these lower Shrubs, he thought his prerogative might stretch so far as tofell down the Great Trees; and soon after dissolved the Priory of Christs Church nighAldgate in London, now known by the Name of Dukes-place, and which was therichest in Lands, and Ornaments, of all the Priories in London, or Middlesex; andwhich was a forerunner of the Dissolution of all the rest; and which not long aftercame to pass.

The provision of the information that Wolsey dissolved monastic housesin order to endow his collegiate foundations is in some way demanded by the words of the prophecy explained here. There is also the possibility thatthe inspiration given to Henry by this action might need explanation. Yet the supporting evidence here, especially the information about the dissolu-tion in 1532 of the house of Augustinian canons at Aldgate, known as ChristChurch, one of the richest houses of the order in England, suggests anexpectation from the audience that the prophecy should be backed by theprovision of very detailed evidence.156 A similar case occurs in discussion of


91

to have effectively made a case for his long-standing royalism and support for the regime,and gained his release: CSPD, 1663–1664, pp. 179, 180, 213–14, 230, 267, 268. Annentered a recognizance of £200 not to print any unlicensed books or pamphlets on 15 August 1667, that is just a fortnight before her entry for Mother Shipton: CSPD, 1667,p. 390.156 Founded by Queen Maud in 1107, with the assistance of Anselm, the house shared withMerton an ascendancy over the order in England; Henry A. Harben, A Dictionary of London:

Edward VI’s reign. Explaining the phrase, ‘Then shall Commons rise in Armes’,the commentary details the counties in which the revolt took place, iden-tifies Robert Kett and Henry Arundel as the leaders of the rebellions in EastAnglia and the West Country respectively; and explains the means by whichthey were defeated. At other times, this provision of detailed evidence takesthe form of listing names, as for example with the bishops of Edward VI’s reign, and those who replaced them in Mary’s time. Thirteen of the formerand fourteen of the latter are named. There is even, in the account of the execution of Mary, queen of Scots, a quotation from a primary source, the‘Burial Register of the Cathedral at Peterborough’. All of this adds to ourpicture of the audience for the 1667 text: it was aimed at people who sharedHead’s view of monarchy and church, and who possessed an appetite for, andthe contextual knowledge to help them assimilate, fairly detailed historicalknowledge. In confirmation of the same point, Head’s use of Latin phrases such as in fine and his reference to authors such as Æsop suggest an educatedaudience was intended.157 This appreciation of the potentially educated natureof the audience for Head’s edition is added to by the realization that heintended it not simply for reading, but as an aide-mémoire for the learning ofhistory. In some ways the description of recent history provided by propheciessuch as Shipton’s provided a catechism of recent events – to help the populaceremember the key events of their history. This was assisted by the fact thatmany elements were rhymed, and that their deliberately allusive nature gavethem an attractive mystery. Nonetheless, they were able to carry a heavyweight of interpretation with them. Richard Head argued in the preface to hisedition of the prophecies that they might:

serve to them whose leisure will not permit to read, or want of money forbid to buymore Voluminous Authors; this (I say) may serve to them instead of a Chronicle,wherein they may find related the chiefest matters performed in each King andQueens Reign since the time wherein she flourished.

Head’s version of the prophecy did not achieve a monopoly. The Colesedition, first produced by Francis Coles and later by W. Thackeray, and thedirect successor of the 1641 publication, continued to be reproduced until the end of the century. Another edition of the 1663 Mother Shipton’s Prophesiesappeared in 1678.158 The same period also produced Fore-warn’d, Fore-arm’d;By a Collection of Five Prophetical Predictions, Published by Mr William Lilly


92

Being Notes Topographical and Historical Relating to the Streets and Principal Buildings in theCity of London (London, 1918).157 It should also be noted that as soon as versions of this work survive, i.e. from the 1677edition, black letter is not used in the typography, an indication that the readership wasnot intended to be mainly those of low rank.158 By T.P. for Francis Coles, 1663, new edition printed by A.P. and T.H. for Francis Coles:STC S3448A.

Forty Years Ago . . . and One of Mother Shipton’s, in 1682,159 and two editions of Mother Shipton’s Prophesies, in 1685, one in London and the other inEdinburgh.160 Finally, at the start of the next century, another edition of MotherShipton’s Prophesies appeared, in 1700.161 Given this frequency and variety, it is not surprising that Shipton became part of the common currency of con-versation. Theatrical prologues, for example, referred to Shipton in passing or to illustrate points. In 1683, ‘A Prologue for a Company of Players leavingLondon for York, upon their first appearance’ concluded ‘Tho London theMetropolis be known; York has the grandeur in reversion. And Shipton’sProphecies may now prove true; Since we have London left to wait on you.’162

In January 1689/90, The Treacherous Brothers, a play by George Powell, madereference in its prologue to the Shipton prophecy that so many men would diethat there would be left just one man for every seven women.163

Another version, which appeared for the first time in 1686 as sold by J. Conyers, illustrates well how Shipton might be presented in ways whichcontrasted with Head’s account.164 There is an immediate difference of lengthbetween the two editions. The edition of 1686 is considerably shorter, runningto only nine chapters, as opposed to fifteen. If length and therefore price are allowed to stand as a major indicator of the market intended for the work,this edition seems to have been an attempt to make prophecy more accessibleto the chapbook-buying public. And, although the work is heavily based onHead’s edition, it exhibits considerable differences.

The first difference is one of emphasis. Although the 1686 edition repre-sents a considerable reduction in the space devoted to Shipton’s birth and earlyyears, these still represent a far larger proportion of the whole work than they


93

159 STC F1556A (BL 8610. bb. 32).160 Previously for Francis Coles, printed for W. Thackeray: STC S3449. There was also anedition in 1685 produced in Edinburgh: STC S3456.161 Previously for Francis Coles, for W. Thackeray, 1685, London, 1700: STC S3450.162 Danchin, Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration, I, pp. 340–1.163 Danchin, Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration, II, pp. 791–3.164 The Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton ([London], [1686]) (STC S5848;BL, C.40.g.21). Other work Conyers produced in the period: J. G., Strange News fromPlymouth (London, 1684) (STC G41); Murther upon Murther: Or a True and Faithful Relation(London, 1684) (STC M3090); The Catalogue of Contented Cuckolds (London, 1685?) (STCC1307, 1307A); Thomas D’Urfey, The Constant Lover (London, 1685–8) (STC D2717);An Excellent New Play-House Song, Called, Love for Money (London, 1688) (STC E3809);The Garland of Mirth (London, 1688) (STC G260). Also for W. H.: The Time-Servers: Ora Touch of the Times (London, 1681) (STC T1278); N. N., Vox Clamantis, or a Cry (London,1683) (STC N63); The Speech of Sir William Wentworth (London, 1685) (STC W1363);William Nicholson, A Plain, but Full Exposition of the Catechisme (London, 1686; anotheredn 1689) (STC N1120); The Quakers Address to the House of Commons (London, 1690)(STC Q10); John Tanner, Angelus Britannicus: An Ephemeris for . . . 1689 (33rd impression,London, 1689) (STC A2526); (34th impression, London, 1690) (STC A2527); JohnWhalley, England’s Mercury: or an Emphemeris for . . . 1690 (London, 1690) (STC A2644).

did in the 1667 edition.165 Since the main content of these sections is a near-slapstick rendition of amusing anecdotes about her supernatural power tohumiliate her neighbours, this adaptation would suggest an intended audiencewhich was less concerned with acquiring serious knowledge of the country’spast and future. The edition of 1686 is closer to the 1641 text and there-fore retains more references to the personalities and locations of York. Forexample, Master Beasley is still there, acting as the guide to the three lordssent by Cardinal Wolsey, although they are not named.166 In fact, one smalldetail is added: Shipton’s dwelling is located at Dringhouses (‘Ring-houses’),a crown manor near York which the corporation had attempted to buy in 1566 and 1571.167 Between Dringhouses and the city was Hob Moor, and it was on Hob Moor that the effigy of a knight came to be erected. The mancommemorated was apparently of the Ross/Roos family, the monument nodoubt taken from one of the dissolved monastic houses of the area. At somepoint not long before 1736, the pasture-masters of Micklegate ward had set itup and inscribed it with the verse, ‘This statue long Hob’s name has bore, /Who was a knight in days of yore, / And gave this common to the poor.’ Itseems that the statue soon became associated with Mother Shipton. Thiswould seem to imply that the location of Shipton’s dwelling at Dringhouses,first made in print in 1686, later resulted in the reattribution of the monumentformerly associated with Hob – this happening presumably some time after1736 when Drake was so clear that it belonged to Hob.168 The prophecy ofTrinity Church and Ouse Bridge is retained. On the other hand, as in Head,the other York-centred prophecies were abandoned in favour of a rapidtransition to a general prophecy expressing the history of England in the periodfrom the Reformation to the Restoration. Also as in Head’s version, the ‘Abbotof Beverley’ is used as a device to introduce these more general prophecies.

The 1686 version represents, in its passages of these general prophecies (andtherefore in its account of the recent history of the country), a considerablecondensation of Head’s account. Many of its elements are simple transcrip-tions of the prophecies recorded by Head; its commentary, however, differssignificantly, even if it is so much shorter. It is if anything more positivelyProtestant. Edward VI, largely unpraised in the 1667 edition, is described as a‘sweet Pious Prince’, ‘in whose time the Protestant Religion was established,and the Popish Superstitions swept out’. The abbreviation of this versionleaves Mary as ‘called Alecto (a name of one of the Furies) for her cruelty tothe Protestants’, without any of the equivocation Head entered. Elizabeth’s


94

165 Fletcher, Harrogate and Knaresborough, p. 55, argues that the reduction of detail onShipton’s supernatural parentage is significant.166 The lords’ specific prophecies are also simplified, to a catch-all ‘your Grace will be as lowas I am, and that is a low one indeed. Which proved true, for shortly after he was beheaded.’167 Palliser, Tudor York, p. 266.168 Drake, Eboracum, p. 398.

Protestantism is not mentioned, and she is simply ‘extreamly beloved by herSubjects, and dreaded by her Enemies’. Much of the force of the interpreta-tion of events after 1603 is removed in the 1686 version: James’s reign is stillcharacterized as ‘peaceful’; but the description of Charles’s reign focuses on his ‘Execrable murther’ and makes no comment about his enemies or thereasons for their actions. In particular, there is no attack on Presbytery,although trouble is seen as originating in the North. The aftermath of Charles’sexecution is summed up briefly as ‘Cromwells Usurpations, The Committee ofSafetys Confusions, and our Gracious Soveraigns Miraculous Restauration’.

An even clearer sign, however, of the continuing openness of the traditionto competing interpretations is the way Head’s The Life and Death of MotherShipton was republished after 1667. It reappeared in 1677, and had further editions in 1684 (both from Benjamin Harris),169 1687, when the publisherwas W. Harris,170 and in 1694 and 1697, when it was J. Back who had takenon the work.171

What gave the reworking of the tradition sustained vigour was the inten-sification of political crisis from 1672–4 onwards, because of the war with theDutch and the growing concern over religious issues which eventually focusedon the Catholicism of the duke of York. In 1677 and 1684,172 the publisher of Head’s work, Benjamin Harris, was an Anabaptist who published theDomestick Intelligence and was notorious in the 1670s for his violent anti-Catholicism and close connection with the supporters of Exclusion.173 He was said to be ‘frequent’ with Slingsby Bethel, leading member of the GreenRibbon Club, and to have been present at the Southwark election when Bethelstood as a candidate. Harris was successfully prosecuted in February 1680.174

After Harris was arrested in 1681, Bethel visited him in Newgate.175 Sufferingthe pillory for printing a Protestant Petition in 1681, he managed to continue


95

169 (London, 1684) (BL, 8631.aaa.12).170 STC H1259 (BL, 8610. d. 26.): for W. Harris. Harris was a bookseller active in London in the years around 1690: Henry R. Plomer, A Dictionary of Booksellers and Printerswho were at Work in England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 ([Oxford], 1922), p. 147.171 STC H1260–61 (for J. Back, and by W. Onley for J. Back respectively).172 1684: STC H1258 (BL, 8631. aaa. 12.): for Benj. Harris.173 CSPD, 1679–1680, pp. 391–2, 396–7; Knights found his name on seven oppositiontracts in the period 1678–81 (Mark Knights, Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678–1681(Cambridge, 1994), pp. 160, 162, 163, 176, 263, 300); cf. James Sutherland, The RestorationNewspaper and its Development (Cambridge, 1986), pp. 186–93; Timothy Crist, ‘FrancisSmith and the Opposition Press in England, 1660–1688’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis,University of Cambridge, 1977), pp. 112–21; Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers1668 to 1725, pp. 144–6; CSPD, 1680–1681, p. 489 (4 October 1681, Thomas Watson toLord Alington; Thomas Percival, associate of Shaftesbury, goes to him for printing); thirty-six titles as a whole according to Wing Index.174 Knights, Politics and Opinion, p. 263.175 Mercurius Bifrons, no. 2; 24 February 1681; Heraclitus Ridens, no. 17, 24 May 1681.

his business even from prison; the accession of James II drove him to leaveEngland for America, and set up a book shop in Boston in 1686.176

The format of the 1677 edition suggests that the additions at that timerelated to the second Dutch War, the great fire of Southwark, and the situationin 1677 itself, when England was presented as being the lone bastion of peace and relatively free trading in Europe.177 After explicit references to theseevents was added a sequence of six prophecies without commentary. Theseseemed to relate to war between the empire and France, and to the promiseoffered by the marriage between Orange and Stuart, along with less specificprophecies relating to a meteor and northern star, associated with the year1683.178 The 1684 edition retained the first two of the additional propheciesof 1677, those relating to the empire and house of Orange, but abandoned the rest. In their place it presented further prophecies, relating to the PopishPlot, a recent plot against the king and his brother, the freezing of the Thamesin the winter of 1683–4, and the siege of Vienna in 1683. Although overtlyloyalist in the commentary on the plot, the author directly refused to commenton the Popish Plot and was clearly anti-Catholic in one passage where herefused to be explicit about the probable meaning.179 Four completely new prophecies were then added, and they were overwhelmingly anti-Catholic in their tone.180 Another major addition in 1684 was an account of JohnHolwell’s ferociously anti-Catholic astrological predictions.181 Holwell hadproduced a prediction based on the comet of 1677, and had made a significantimpact with his Catastrophe mundi of 1682; by 1684, when the new edition of Shipton appeared, he had provoked a vigorous Catholic response from JohnMerrifield.182 Shipton therefore gave Harris an oppositionist voice even afterhis prosecution.183 And this ideologically committed opponent of the regimeproduced, even more clearly than his predecessor, a juxtaposition of the obsceneabsurdities of Head’s Shipton with the gravity of his anti-Catholicism.


96

176 Plomer, Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers 1668 to 1725, p. 145; Sutherland, RestorationNewspaper, pp. 186–93. Towards the end of 1695 he returned to England and began printingagain; he probably ceased printing in 1701 and died about 1708 (p. 146).177 The Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1677), p. 49.178 Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1677), p. 50.179 The Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1684), pp. 47–8.180 Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1684), p. 49.181 Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1684), pp. 50–4.182 A New Prophecy; or, a Prophetical Discourse of the Blazing-Star, that appeared April the23d, 1677. Being a Full Account of the Events . . . which Threaten . . . England, Scotland . . .as likewise . . . France, Holland, &c. (London, 1679); Catastrophe mundi: or, Europe’s ManyMutations until the Year 1701 (London, [1682]); An Appendix to Holvvel’s Catastrophe mundi:Being an Astrological Discourse of the Rise, Growth and Continuation of the Othoman Family,with the Nativities of the present French king, Emperors of Germany and Turky (London, 1683);John Merrifield, Catastasis Mundi: Or the True State, Vigor and Growing Greatness ofChristendom, under the Influences of the Last Triple Conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter. . . . AlsoHolwell’s . . . Falsehoods Discovered, etc. (London, 1684).183 Pace Crist, ‘Francis Smith’, p. 121.

Given the political circumstances at its publication in 1687, it is unsurpris-ing that all of this additional material was omitted from the next edition ofHead’s Life and Death of Mother Shipton. This edition concludes the Head pro-phecies abruptly with that beginning ‘And men on tops of houses go’, for 1666,adding only three deliberately obscure generic prophecies of disaster, ‘seas ofblood’ and ‘[g]reat noise’.184 Its publisher almost certainly carried forwardBenjamin Harris’s political outlook, if without the freedom to express it.

Many of the characteristics of the 1684 edition were continued in that of 1694, although with an augmented title-page that introduced a reference tothe Dropping Well at Knaresborough as the site of Shipton’s birth. In a verycrude addition, however, after the word ‘FINIS’ which had concluded theHolwell section in 1684, were placed six pages of prophecies, essentially relatingto events from the Revolution, such as the reduction of Irish rebellion, andthen moving on to predict success for the empire and England against France.185

When the text was issued again, in 1697, these six pages of prophecies weredropped, but the account of Holwell’s predictions was amended.186

The major versions of the Shipton prophecy of the seventeenth centurytherefore exhibit a transition from an intensely locally based tradition, usedduring a civil war in which its locality fortuitously proved highly significant;taken up first by some of the less prominent London booksellers, and thenadopted by some of the bigger marketers of ballads, in whose stock the pro-phecy benefited from an excellent distribution network while not beingtrivialized to the level of the more frivolous ballads. It was then seized on bythe expert publicist, in the person of Head, capitalizing on a coincidental rela-tionship with the Great Fire of London. He made the prophecy a mock heroichymn to monarchy and Anglican orthodoxy, and found a market for it as suchin the period before 1688. Yet there was also scope for a simplified andshortened version, drawing on Head’s original, but aimed at a broader market,and which accentuated the Protestantism of the text and down-played its monarchism, and for republications of Head’s work with additions from a more radical Protestant and Exclusionist perspective. In Head’s version, andeven more clearly in these, we see the creative tension between the absurdityof the characterization of the prophetess on the one hand, and the gravity of her predictions on the other. As in the Birth of Merlin, scepticism can sitalongside belief, mockery alongside serious engagement, without this resultingfor the audience in weakness or collapse. The boom in publication, experi-enced from 1641 to about 1700, however, subsided thereafter. Importantly,although republished through the reigns of James II and William and Mary,


97

184 The Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1687), p. 30.185 The Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London, 1694), pp. 55–60.186 The explanations of Holwell’s words were drawn from other astrologers, identified byinitials: CD, JP, JC, JG, PS, JP, DS and BC: The Life and Death of Mother Shipton (London,1697), pp. 58–60.

the text was not internally revised to take account of the crucial events of thisperiod; nor did it fortuitously seem relevant to them, either in its locality (nowso thoroughly obliterated) or the events described. The eighteenth centurywas not kind to the Shipton prophecy; its politics and locality, in the formprovided by Head, were no longer appropriate to the conditions of the time.Its place would be taken by another prophecy which dealt more directly withthe concerns of the time, that of Nixon, the Cheshire prophet.


98

3

Prophecy and the Revolution settlement

The century after the Restoration has been seen as conclusively fatal for somany of the ‘predictive’ cultures of the early modern period. It undoubtedlysaw a rising tide of scepticism about astrology, challenged by changingunderstandings of the heavens. Patrick Curry and Keith Thomas, for example,both found in these years a growing pattern of scepticism and disbelief whichmade astrologers like John Partridge laughing stocks for many.1 In addition,although latitudinarianism expressed a continuing faith in the biblical patternof history well into the eighteenth century, it also saw the beginnings of a more effective challenge to biblical prophecy. Some have gone so far as to findin these years nothing less than ‘reason’s’ victory.2

It is possible to find evidence which provides some support for this in grow-ing scepticism about aspects of ancient prophecy, especially of Arthurianismand Merlin. Compared to the period before 1660, there was far less interestin, for example, Merlin; even when he did appear, as in The Morning-star, itmight be with a commentary critical of most of the texts associated with hisname.3 Some even went so far as to mock ancient prophecies associated withhis name. In his Famous Prediction of Merlin, published in half-sheet in 1709and in the Miscellany in 1711, Jonathan Swift moved from his earlier attackon the partisan astrology of John Partridge (1708–9) into mockery of ancientprophecy.4 He believed it had made such an impression that it guaranteed thesuccess of his 1711 ‘Windsor prophecy’ – an attack on the duchess of Somerset,

99

1 Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1989);Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Sudies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth andSeventeenth Century England (London, 1971).2 John Spurr, ‘“Rational Religion” in Restoration England’, Journal of the History of Ideas49 (1988), pp. 563–85.3 The Morning-star out of the North (London, 1680).4 A Famous Prediction of Merlin, the British Wizard, written above a Thousand Years Ago, andRelating to this Present Year (London, 1708; reprinted in The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift,ed. Herbert Davis, 14 vols (Oxford, 1939–68), vol. II, Bickerstaff Papers and Pamphlets onthe Church (1957), pp. xxiii–iv, 165–70). This is notable for adopting some characteristicsof a scholarly edition: reproducing the black letter of the supposed original, providing details

a Whig noblewoman who was close to the queen – and recognition for itsauthor, in spite of its anonymous form.5

We should not exaggerate the speed of this change, however. For example,William E. Burns has recently demonstrated that the tendency in discussionof the Exclusion Crisis to focus on Lockean contractualism and civic repub-licanism has led to the omission of an important strand of prophetic ideasinfluencing many participants. Many Whigs, seeking the exclusion of theCatholic James, duke of York, from the succession, continued to see the worldin terms of a struggle between the true church and antichrist in the form of Rome, and to see this in apocalyptic and millenarian terms. Sometimes this had astrological foundations, encouraged by the conjunction of Saturnand Jupiter in Leo in 1682–3. Other manifestations were related to ancientprophecy.6 Notable amongst these were the works of Ezerel Tonge7 and theanonymous author of The Morning-star out of the North. The latter text includeda wide range of material supportive of Protestantism and predictive of the fall of Rome, including for example Paul Grebner, James Usher and FabianWithers.8 After the Tory victory of 1681, there was a recognition that perhapsthere might come an initial period of papal triumph before the final defeat of Rome, seen for example in a 1682 prophecy concerning the return of poperyinto England.9 This link between astrological material and ancient prophecywas also seen in the work of Benjamin Keach which responded to theRevolution of 1688.10


100

of the publication in 1530 by John Haukyns, and adding explanatory notes. Dr Johnsonapparently believed in the prophecy (p. xxiv). See note 151 below on this.

5 [Jonathan Swift], The W[in]ds[o]r Prophecy (‘London’ [sic, for Edinburgh], 1711);Jonathan Swift, Journal to Stella, ed. Harold Williams, 2 vols paginated through (Oxford,1974; Prose Works, vol. 15), pp. 444–7, 454.

6 William E. Burns, ‘A Whig Apocalypse: Astrology, Millenarianism, and Politics inEngland during the Restoration Crisis, 1678–1683’, in Millenarianism and Messianism inEarly Modern European Culture, vol. III, The Millenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts ofScience, Politics, and Everyday Anglo American Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,ed. James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 2001), pp. 29–41.

7 Ezerel Tonge, The Northern Star: The British Monarchy: Or, the Northern the FourthUniversal Monarchy; Charles II, and his Successors, the Founders of the Northern, Last, Fourth,and Most Happy Monarchy. Being a Collection of Many Choice Ancient and Modern Prophecies:Wherein also the Fates of the Roman, French, and Spanish Monarchies are Occasionally Set Out(London, 1680).

8 Morning-star.9 The Mystery of Ambras Merlins, Standardbearer Wolf, and Last Boar of Cornwal, with

Sundry other Misterious Prophecys, . . . Unfolded in the Following Treatise on the Signification. . . of that Prodigious Comet seen . . . anno 1680, with the Blazing Star, 1682 . . . Written bya Lover of his Country’s Peace. Prophecyes Concerning the Return of Popery (London, 1682)(STC P3675).10 Benjamin Keach, Antichrist Stormed; or Mystery, Babylon, the Great Whore, and GreatCity, Proved to be the Present Church of Rome; . . . Also an Examination and Confutation of

The treatment of astrologically inspired text as ancient prophecy tradition,as seen in the case of Nostradamus, also flourished in this period. In 1678,appended to a lengthier account of the long-established prophecy attributedto Truswell, Nostradamus was used rather sparingly to emphasize Frenchtyranny.11 It was only in 1681 that Nostradamus’s words at some length reacheda wider audience, when his predictions were seized on by an opponent of the duke of York. Nostradamus emerged as a prophet of the succession of alegitimate son of Charles II, indeed the succession of this son to the thronesof England, Scotland and Ireland, but also to that of France, and further of a European conquest.12 A similarly crude, but less specific, ambition under-lay the narrative of future events extracted by the anonymous author of ACollection of Twenty-Three Prophecies, in response to the Revolution.13 But thesame events had some months earlier produced a more subtle work. In thiscase, Nostradamus’s interpreters exemplify a shift to a multilayered interpre-tation. William Atwood, writing in 1689, seems at first to dismiss those whoacted on the basis of prophecy, contrasting them to the earl of Macclesfield,his dedicatee, who acted on principle. The work includes a dense discussionof the legitimacy of the Revolution, requiring complex analysis of historicaland legal sources. Yet very soon Atwood’s commitment to the prophecyemerges – not only is this not simply a device to manipulate the credulous, itseems to carry more weight.14

Indeed Swift badly miscalculated in thinking that mockery of ancientprophecy as seen in the ‘Windsor prophecy’ would undermine the duchess’splace in Queen Anne’s affections. In fact, so strong was the reliance of thequeen on Somerset that she reacted violently against Swift’s writing, and italmost certainly cost him the deanery of Wells and a bishopric.15 If the pro-phecy was intended to make the queen’s relationship untenable because of theinherent absurdity of the medium, it failed. Even Swift was therefore brought

PROPHECY AND THE REVOLUTION SETTLEMENT

101

what Mr. Jurien hath Lately Written Concerning the Effusion of the Vials, . . . Likewise a BriefReview of D. T. Goodwin’s Exposition of the 11th Chapter of the Revelations, etc. (London,1689).11 The Fortune of France, from the Prophectical Predictions of Mr. Truswell, the Recorder ofLincoln, and Michael Nostradamus (London, 1678).12 J. B. Philalelos, Good and Joyful News for England: Or, The Prophecy of the RenownedMichael Nostradamus (London, 1681); includes: ‘A second sheet, further blazoning uponthe blazing-star’, signed at end: C. N., i.e. Christopher Ness (1621–1705), and with acolophon which reads: ‘Published by L. Curtiss, on Ludgate-hill, 1681’.13 Michel de Notredame, A Collection of Twenty-Three Prophecies (London, 1690).14 William Atwood, Wonderful Predictions of Nostredamus, Grebner, David Pareaus, andAntonius Torquatus (London, 1689), e.g. a. The work is closely associated, through anadvertisement and references (e.g. at [A1v]), with Sir Robert Atkyns, a central figure inWhig ideology and politics.15 Philip Roberts, ‘Swift, Queen Anne and “The Windsor Prophecy”‘, Philological Quarterly49 (1970), pp. 254–8; The Diary of Sir David Hamilton, 1709–1714, ed. Philip Roberts(Oxford, 1975), pp. 40–1 (26–9 January, 15 February 1712).

to an appreciation that mockery of ancient prophecy might be dangerous.Indeed it has recently been argued that Alexander Pope, who himself partici-pated in the mockery of Whig astrology and prophecy, used prophetic themesin his Windsor-Forest directly to counter Partridge and his fellows.16

It is therefore worth considering another ancient prophecy current in thiskey period, in an attempt to determine the scope and nature of continuedbelief and the limits of scepticism. Although to an English man or woman ofthe early eighteenth century the name of the prophet Nixon would have beenfamiliar, memories of this Cheshire prophet have now almost completely faded. Those eighteenth-century English people, and their children and grandchildren, would have known that Nixon lived either during the reignsof Edward IV, Richard III and Henry VII, or under James I. They would haveknown his prophetic foreknowledge of the outcome of the battle of Bosworth,of the Dissolution of the monasteries, and of events in Cheshire, in particu-lar his prophecy of the miraculous birth of an heir to the Cholmondeley of Vale Royal family in 1685. More directly relevant to their own experience,however, was Nixon’s forecast that England was shortly to suffer invasion and dynastic overthrow. These momentous predictions first drew nationalattention in printed form at the end of the reign of Queen Anne, yet likeShipton’s they betray earlier, local, roots. This chapter therefore allows us toexamine the way in which a prophetic tradition might be created anddeveloped within a region over two hundred years, and the reasons and mannerof its promotion to national celebrity at a time when many would assume sucha success to have become impossible.

We will never know when Nixon’s prophecy was composed. We can befairly sure that there never was a man called Nixon who uttered thesepredictions in advance of the events they purported to foretell. But whetherthe core prophecy was put together at one time by one man or woman, orwhether it was a slow emergence from a variety of sources, is unclear. Theearliest surviving record of the prophecy attributed to Nixon is in a manuscriptformerly preserved at Vale Royal.17 On folio 23r., the final prophecy of thevolume, which seems to be have been added in the late sixteenth or earlyseventeenth century, is introduced as follows: ‘William Nickson propesi andhee was borne in the Reane Edward the 4 and in henre 7 hee for tould strangethings that Came to pass both in and after his dayes.’18


102

16 (London, 1713); Pat Rogers, The Symbolic Design of Windsor-Forest: Iconography, Pageant,and Prophecy in Pope’s Early Work (Newark, 2004), esp. pp. 210–16. Mockery: e.g. TheDunciad: An Heroic Poem ([London], 1728).17 The volume was deposited at the county record office by Lord Delamere in 1943 havingbeen kept in the library at Vale Royal: note in list, CCRO. CCRO, DDX 123.18 Tim Thornton, ‘Reshaping the Local Future: The Development and Uses of ProvincialPolitical Prophecy, 1300–1900’, in Prophecy: The Power of Inspired Language in History,1300–2000, ed. Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton (Stroud, 1997), pp. 51–67, esp. pp. 55,63.

Like Yorkshire, Cheshire possessed a vigorous local prophetic culture. Thisparticularly showed itself in the county’s tradition of alliterative verse. Thisincluded by the early sixteenth century a group of poems which described thecounty’s history, in particular its role in the Tudor victory at Bosworth and in subsequent military campaigns, especially that of Flodden. One particularlywell-documented Cheshire gentleman, Humphrey Newton of Pownall,provides a good example of the way these alliterative traditions of the county,old and new, were blended with myth and prophecy. In a memorandum,probably no later than the mid-1520s, he recorded that ‘Thomas Perkynsonsang a song of Thomas Ersholedon & the quene of ffeiree Rehersyng the batellof Stoke fild & the batell at Branston of deth of the kynges of Scotts’.19

Newton’s visitor went on,

& also rehersyn that a lion shuld come out of walys & also a dragon & lond in werallthat eny woman shuld have rowme to milke her cowe w[i]t[h] mony thousands &on a wennysday after to drive don Chester walls & after to feght in the fforestdelamar w[i]t[h] a kyng of the southe which shuld have hundreds of ml & thatshu[ld] feght ii or iii days & then ther shuld come a plogh of yew w[i]t[h] clubbez& clot chone & take parte & wyn alle & ther the kyng shuld be kylled w[i]t[h]many an other to the nowmber of lxi ml & never kyng after bot iiii wardens untodomysday.

It is almost certain therefore that Delamere Forest was already home to theprophet Nixon. William Webb, in his account of the forest in his ‘Vale-Royallof England’, written in the early 1620s, refers to an author of ‘old prophecies’,suggesting that the prophecies retailed in the 1520s were now taking shapeunder one author’s name, perhaps Nixon’s, and were then current in the areaof Delamere Forest.20 A few years earlier, Michael Drayton had made allusionto prophecy in his account of the shire. Drayton’s Poly-Olbion is constructedaround rivers, but when he wrote of the Weaver and the Dee, commenting‘[m]uch strife there hath arose in their prophetick skill’, the location seemstelling of a connection with Delamere and therefore Nixon.21


103

19 Bodl., MS. Lat. misc. c.66, fol. 104. Deborah Marsh, ‘Humphrey Newton of Newton andPownall (1466–1536): A Gentleman of Cheshire and his Commonplace Book’(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Keele, 1995).20 William Webb, ‘The Vale-Royall of England’, in The Vale-Royall of England, or theCounty Palatine of Chester Illustrated (London, 1656), p. 118. According to Ormerod,Chester, II, p. 183, he ‘obviously rejects the story if he does allude to it’; this reads too muchinto Webb’s admittedly slightly flippant tone. ‘I also let passe some old Prophecies, someconceited names of Trees, of Mosse-pits, Pools, long shots of old Archers, as also theHorserace one or two, & the latter new found Well, which I hope I may take leave to leaveuntouched, because I suppose my long Journey in this little Hundred, hath well nigh tiredmy Reader already.’ The well, for example, is a well-attested phenomenon: Phyllis M.Hembry, The English Spa 1560–1815: A Social History (London, 1990), pp. 19–20.21 Michael Drayton, Poly-Olbion (4th volume of his Works), ed. J. William Hebel (Oxford,1933), p. 221.

The immediately striking thing about Nixon’s prophecy is its identification,even more strongly than in the case of Shipton, with one locality. In the titlesof so many editions, Nixon’s is the Cheshire prophecy, and its links withCheshire were strong in its origin and remained so in spite of the later morewidespread fame of the prophecy. Its content frequently refers to localities inthe county. This was in part possible because Cheshire was a county whereidentities were strong and pronounced: the county palatine of Chester, thehundred of Eddisbury, the forest of Delamere and the immediate locality ofVale Royal Abbey, Over township and Whitegate parish. The places namedin the earliest manuscript version of the Nixon prophecy are concentrated in a small area of northern Cheshire, very close to Vale Royal. The first partof the prophecy relates to the dissolution of two abbeys: Vale Royal andNorton. Together, they were the most important monastic houses in centraland northern Cheshire.22 The next location to be mentioned is Darnall Park,which was to be ‘hacked and hewed’, and soon after Darnall Pool. Theconnection between Vale Royal and Darnhall was very strong. It was theoriginal proposed site for the monastery, and remained a manor of Vale RoyalAbbey. Even in 1538, in the last desperate days before the dissolution of theirhouse, the monks were unwilling to release the manor when faced by a demandfrom Thomas Cromwell, the abbot claiming it was vital for the monastery’ssurvival.23 Then ‘Windle Pool’ – sometimes identified as Ridley Pool, in thesouth of the county – is mentioned as being fated to dry out and be grassedover.24

The prophecy moves on to deal with the most important urban centre in north-central Cheshire, Northwich, which Nixon said would be destroyed‘by riveres’. By the sixteenth century, Northwich was already well establishedas a centre of the salt industry. There are then mentions of England andLondon, the latter the conventional reference to the city’s three gates. Theprophecy returns to Cheshire with a reference to a time of troubles in whichsafety might be sought in God’s Croft. Although this place is sometimes said


104

22 For Vale Royal, see below, pp. 107–14; Norton is described in VCH Cheshire, III, pp. 165–71; Patrick Greene, Norton Priory: The Archaeology of a Medieval Religious House(Cambridge, 1989). Their relatively compact spheres of influence, contrasting withChester’s generalized spread across the county, are well illustrated by the map of theappropriated churches and granges of the Cheshire monasteries, B. M. C. Husain, Cheshireunder the Norman Earls, 1066–1237 (Chester, 1973), p. 126; cf. the map of Norton’sproperties in Greene, Norton Priory, p. 4. The only real exceptions to this pattern areprovided by the appropriated Birkenhead Priory churches at Davenham and Bowden.23 Cf. below, pp. 113–14, where the impact of the dissolution of Vale Royal is dealt within detail.24 Both the Kendrick and Cowper MSS make this Ridley Pool: [W. E. A. Axon], Nixon’sCheshire Prophecies Reprinted and Edited from the Best Sources, and Including a Copy of theProphecy from an Unpublished Manuscript, with an Introductory Essay on Popular Prophecies(Manchester and London, 1878), p. 66.

to be in the precise centre of the county of Cheshire,25 in the earliest versionof the prophecy Nixon is said to have denied that the place of safety wasbetween ‘marse and morres’;26 rather it was ‘betwixt moris and dee’, presumablyMersey and Dee. On this interpretation, God’s Croft is the Wirral. Thepeculiar status of the Wirral peninsula implied here is perhaps partly due to itsisolation and its role as a forest.27 Within the immediate Cheshire context of the prophecy discussed so far, this is the farthest departure from the ValeRoyal–Norton axis; yet the Wirral is only about twenty miles from Vale Royal,and appears to occupy a position in the text as both local yet distant andstrange enough to hold a mystical reputation as a place of safety.

The next set of locations dealt with by the prophecy provides the contextfor Nixon’s delivery of some of his most famous predictions. They show thatnot only the predictions but the prophecy itself were placed in the vicinity ofVale Royal. Over is mentioned next, because it was allegedly in the town fieldthere that Nixon was working when he saw the vision that foretold the out-come of the battle of Bosworth.28 Over manor was one of the most importantholdings of the abbot of Vale Royal, and the site of an important market. Inthe early seventeenth century, therefore, the prophecy was extremely localized,and it remained so in other early versions. It is at this point that the earliestversion of the Nixon prophecy breaks off, but later versions continue to locatethemselves in a very similar area.

This sense of place is a significant indicator of the sources for Nixon’sprophecy, its initial audience and its authorship. What is more important,however, is that this focus on Cheshire, and indeed a small area of Cheshire,was retained when the prophecy achieved national renown and even when


105

25 Cf. the other God’s crofts, places of safety in the centre of the counties of Lancashireand Yorkshire: Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 5 (1903), p. 20.26 The Kendrick MS makes this ‘Mold and Mersey’, the Cowper MS ‘moule & Morrice’.27 Cf. its fourteenth-century characterization, by someone writing in south-west Cheshirenot many miles from Vale Royal, as ‘the wyldrenesse of Wyrale’: Sir Gawain and the GreenKnight, ed. J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, 2nd edn (Oxford, 1967), line 696; A. C.Spearing, The ‘Gawain’-Poet: A Critical Study (Cambridge, 1970), p. 2; A. McIntosh, ‘ANew Approach to Middle English Dialectology’, English Studies 44 (1953), pp. 1–11; M. J.Bennett, ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Literary Achievement of the NorthWest Midlands: The Historical Background’, Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979), pp.63–88; Michael J. Bennett, Community, Class, and Careerism: Cheshire and Lancashire Societyin the Age of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, 1983), pp. 231–5; R. W. V. Elliott,‘Staffordshire and Cheshire Landscapes in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’, NorthStaffordshire Journal of Field Studies 17 (1977), pp. 20–49; cf. the treatment of Wirral inDrayton, Poly-Olbion.28 Aubrey mentions a man in Warminster using two sheaves to foretell the outcome ofBosworth: ‘Miscellanies’, in John Aubrey, Three Prose Works: Miscellanies, Remaines ofGentilisme and Judaisme, Observations, ed. John Buchanan-Brown (Fontwell, Sussex, 1972),pp. 1–125, at p. 70; this is noticed in W. E. A. Axon, Cheshire Gleanings (Manchester andLondon, 1884), p. 236.

it was published. At that point, the Cheshire location could no longer bedismissed as the product of the limited horizons of those who created andsustained the tradition; it reflected the perceptions of the national audiencefor Nixon’s work. Unlike the Shipton prophecy, the impact of this change didnot destroy the relationship to the original locality. This suggests strongly thatRichard Head’s decision to remove the Yorkshire elements from the Shiptontradition was not necessitated by the expectations of his audience. Readers inLondon, in Edinburgh, or in Cumbria or the West Midlands were willing in the early eighteenth century to ponder the fate of their country throughprophecies centred on a few square miles in northern Cheshire.

Another major reason for the continuing importance of Cheshire localitiesfor the Nixon prophecies was the political culture of the county itself. It wasnatural for those in the county who created and sustained the prophecy toconceive of the world in these terms. The county, and communities and locali-ties within it, were proud of their identity and possessed the cultural andinstitutional mechanisms to promote and defend that identity. In the medievaland early modern period, the palatinate of Chester was a semi-autonomouspart of the territories of the English king. It had its own administrative andjudicial system and its political structure was distinct from that of the rest of England.29 This was supported by a strong local culture of independence,including a set of local historical traditions, such as those ones relating to Chester’s foundation by giants and the British king Leil, and to the grantof the earldom of Chester to Hugh Lupus by William the Conqueror.30

Cheshire culture was therefore strong and exclusive in asserting the county’sautonomy in the early modern period. The identity of the seven hundreds of Cheshire, the main administrative subdivisions below the county itself, was less strong. But even so, they had a clear identity and history. The homeof the Nixon prophecy was Eddisbury hundred in the north-west of the county.The core of the hundred, and the meeting place for its inhabitants, was thefort of Eddisbury. This Iron Age hill fort had been refortified by the Saxonsagainst the Vikings: it was one of a string of forts across the North West builtby the lady of the Mercians, Æthelflæd, to protect the midlands from the Danes and Norsemen.31 The work of Æthelflæd was celebrated in local


106

29 General introductions to this administrative system can be found in VCH Cheshire, II,pp. 1–55; Dorothy J. Clayton, The Administration of the County Palatine of Chester,1442–1485, Chetham Society 3rd ser. 35 (Manchester, 1990), chs IV–VI; P. H. W. Booth,The Financial Administration of the Lordship and County of Chester, 1272–1377, ChethamSociety 3rd ser. XXVIII (Manchester, 1981); Tim Thornton, Cheshire and the Tudor State,1480–1560 (Woodbridge, 2000).30 Tim Thornton, ‘Opposition Drama and the Resolution of Disputes in Early TudorEngland: Cardinal Wolsey and the Abbot of Chester’, Bulletin of the John Rylands UniversityLibrary of Manchester 81 (1999), pp. 25–47.31 On Æthelflæd, Pauline Stafford, The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester,1985), pp. 111–14, 136–7.

tradition and appeared, for example, in the chronicle of the Chester monkRanulph Higden and the work of Henry Bradshaw, who saw her as a countessof Chester.32 Eddisbury hundred was dominated by the forest of Delamere and Mondrem: the old hill fort of Eddisbury itself was located at the heart of the forest of Delamere. These forests, and the other Cheshire forests ofMacclesfield and Wirral, were created after the Norman conquest to be hunt-ing reserves for the earl of Chester. They had their own administrative systemwhich operated in parallel with the normal administration of the shire. Themajor offices of the forest were prestigious and tended to be held by greatfamilies.33

One of the most influential landowners in the area covered by the forest ofMara and Mondrem and the hundred of Eddisbury was the abbey of Vale Royal.This abbey, its estate and successor gentry house form another major focus of identity in the area. Vale Royal was a house of Cistercian monks foundedby Edward I, probably as thanksgiving for his safety from shipwreck return-ing from France in 1263–4.34 The buildings were planned on a grandiose scale, and intended as the greatest foundation of its kind in England. Theabbey became a major landlord in the area and, under increasingly stableleadership in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, it exertedconsiderable influence over its locality. That locality included Over, thetownship that forms the stage for the Nixon story. There was a particularcharacter to Over that made it famous across Cheshire. Despite its small size,it had the trappings of a much larger town. Daniel King included it in hissurvey of Cheshire ‘because of the prerogatives it hath’, and in 1774 DrJohnson commented on Over as a ‘mean old town, without any manufacture,but I think, a corporation’. Over’s mayor became a proverbial figure of fun inCheshire. As the Cheshire proverb ran,

For honours great and profits smallThe Mayor of Over beats them all.35

The dissolution proved little threat to the continuing focus of its neigh-bourhood on Vale Royal. The parochial system, organized around the tenants


107

32 Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, vol. VI, ed. J. R. Lumby (London, 1876), p. 442; HenryBradshaw, The Life of Saint Werburge of Chester, ed. Carl Horstmann, EETS o.s. 88 (London,1887), pp. 152–3, lines 639–52.33 Clayton, Administration of Chester, p. 225.34 VCH Cheshire, III, p. 156.35 Joseph C. Bridge, Cheshire Proverbs and Other Sayings and Rhymes Connected with the Cityand County Palatine of Chester (Chester and London, 1917), p. 57. This was not quite true.Each year two juries were impanelled in the court of the lord of Over, one for Over knownas the grand jury. The grand jury returned a list of twelve names, from which the abbot ofVale Royal, who controlled the borough, nominated a mayor, who had some small powers:Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 182.

of the abbey, was sustained in the new parish of Whitegate.36 There wasphysical continuity too: the property was purchased by Sir Thomas Holcroft,and with the majority of the estates of the abbey he obtained the imme-diate site and monastic buildings, making them the core of his new house.37

The owners of Vale Royal made vigorous efforts to identify themselves withthe tradition of authority represented by the abbey through the medium of the architecture of the new house. In the Oak Bedroom at the house, fourinscriptions referred to great moments in the life of Vale Royal. There was amention of the foundation of the monastery by Edward I, and Henry VII’s visitin 1495 was recalled. From the more recent past came the hunting expeditionof James I in 1617: ‘King James was royally received by the Lady MaryCholmondeley at Vale-Royal, August 1st, 1617, and held his court here forfour dayes during which time he slept in this chamber.’38 The stained glass of the house adopted a gothick style to present images of the foundation andother key events in Vale Royal’s history.39

The strength of identity of all these entities is reflected in Nixon’s prophecy.The abbey and house of Vale Royal, the township of Over, the parishes of Over and Whitegate, the forest of Delamere, the hundred of Eddisbury andthe county palatine of Chester were unusually self-confident and assertive of their own traditions and identity. This local political culture provided thebasis on which Nixon’s popularity was built. Its continuing success dependedon a more general acceptance among its audience that locality mattered inthe fate of their country.

The same intense sense of context and locality is evident in the person-alities represented in the prophecy. The Nixon tradition has two elements.There are the various introductions to the prophecy, describing the life of theprophet and the circumstances in which it was delivered. And there are the various versions of the prophecy itself. In each element people appear.Some are historical figures, others are mythical.

Considering first the real people who are used in the introduction to pro-vide a context to the prophecy, the most important figure is undoubtedly Henry VII. Henry hears about the incident in which Nixon saw the battle


108

36 The parish was created by statute, 33 Henry VIII, c. 32. This was the result of disputescaused by the attempts of Ralph Donne, vicar of Over, to force the tenants of the abbey toattend Over church; the papal bulls which had granted to the tenants and inhabitants ofthe abbey’s lands the privilege of using their church had been destroyed by the king’s‘surveiors’: SR, III, 871; Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 24 (1929), item 5493 (p. 27).37 VCH Cheshire, III, p. 164.38 Tunstall, ‘The Story of Vale Royal – II’, p. 23.39 Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 18 (1923), item 4473 (p. 105); J. P. Rylands and R. Stewart-Brown,‘Armorial Glass at Vale Royal, Spurstow Hall, Uckington Hall and Tarporley Rectory, inthe County of Chester’, The Genealogist xxxviii (1922), pp. 1–14, 61–70; William Wells,Stained and Painted Glass: Burrell Collection: The Corporation of the City of Glasgow, GlasgowArt Gallery and Museum (Glasgow, 1965).

of Bosworth and summons him to court. There he tests Nixon’s powers ofvision by hiding his ring. And there one of Henry’s noblemen is offended byNixon’s predictions of his death and has him locked in a room where he meetshis death. Henry VII is a shadowy and little understood figure, as controversyamong historians as to the character of his reign testifies, but in the earlymodern period his memory resonated in the memories of English people.40

It was, for example, to the economic conditions of Henry’s reign that the rebelsof East Anglia referred in the demands made by Robert Kett in 1549. Inflation,population increase and changes to agricultural practice disorientated therebels; they referred back to the remembered stability of Henry VII’s reign.41

Henry’s reign, and especially its start at the battle of Bosworth, thereforerepresented a crucial starting point in the English past. The authors of Nixon’sprophecy, in choosing Henry’s reign as a context, demonstrated how thisliminal quality had been acquired by it in the field of popular culture.42

Another factor helps explain the prominence of the king in the Cheshireprophecy of Nixon. This is the importance of Cheshire men in the victory of Bosworth and therefore in putting Henry Tudor on the English throne.Cheshire men were in contact with Henry during his exile in Brittany andFrance. Most importantly, the decision of the Stanley family, whose sphere of influence included Cheshire, to throw their weight behind Henry’s attempton the throne placed Cheshire men in the forefront of the Bosworth cam-paign and its preliminaries. The Cheshireman Humphrey Brereton of Malpas,sent to Henry in Brittany with money by Thomas, Lord Stanley, during the reign of Richard III, should perhaps not have been as surprised as he wasto be greeted, on approaching the town where Henry was staying, by a manwho came from very near Brereton’s own home.43 At Bosworth, the Stanleys’intervention may have been crucial; one of Sir John Savage the younger’s men,


109

40 S. B. Chrimes, Henry VII, 2nd edn (London, 1977); Alexander Grant, Henry VII: TheImportance of his Reign in English History (London, 1985); G. R. Elton, ‘Henry VII: Rapacityand Remorse’, Cambridge Historical Journal 1 (1958), pp. 21–39, reprinted in Studies in Tudorand Stuart Politics and Government, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1974–92), vol. I, pp. 45–65; T. B.Pugh, ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’, in The Tudor Nobility, ed. G. W. Bernard(Manchester, 1992), pp. 49–101.41 Anthony Fletcher and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, 4th edn (Harlow andNew York, 1997), pp. 144–6 (from BL, Harleian MS 304, fol. 75).42 Cf. Keith Thomas, The Perception of the Past in Early Modern England, The CreightonTrust Lecture 1983 (London, 1983), pp. 11–15; note the absence of the alternative viewof medieval corruption noted by Thomas.43 Michael Jones, ‘Richard III and the Stanleys’, in Richard III and the North, ed. RosemaryHorrox, University of Hull, Centre for Regional and Local History, Studies in Regionaland Local History 6 (Hull, 1986), pp. 27–50, esp. pp. 35–41; Rosemary Horrox, Richard III:A Study in Service, paperback edn (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 206–7; Ralph A. Griffiths andRoger S. Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty (Gloucester, 1985), pp. 91–6; BishopPercy’s Folio Manuscript, ed. J. W. Hales and F. J. Furnivall, 3 vols (London, 1867–8), III,p. 347, lines 670–6.

Thomas Woodshawe, was by some accounts the man who killed Richardhimself.44

The people of Cheshire remembered well their importance in giving HenryTudor the crown. Henry showed his gratitude to them, individually45 andcollectively, as when in 1486, negotiating over the Cheshire tax called themise, county representatives won an immediate concession from the royalcommissioners ‘in consideracon of the greet costes & expenses that they hauelate made at the filde [of Bosworth] with the kyngez grace’.46 As the battle itselfreceded into the past, it remained an important element in the culture of theshire. Much of the poetry composed in the late fifteenth and early sixteenthcenturies in Cheshire celebrates events surrounding Bosworth Field. Workssuch as The Song of the Lady Bessy and Bosworth Field centre on the exploits of Cheshire people in 1485 and appropriate the victory to the valour of the county. This development in Cheshire culture was partly sponsored by theStanley family, and partly by some of the major families of Cheshire; butbecame part of the culture of the shire beyond a small group of the countyelite.47

Henry VII is also significant in connection with one of the central locationsof the prophecy, Vale Royal Abbey, because the king visited the monastery on his trip to Cheshire in 1495.48 The visit to the county was remembered inCheshire at large and at Vale Royal.49 In the later versions of the prophecyrecorded by John Oldmixon and his successors, the role of Henry VII is filledby James I. This substitution reflects the importance of the link between JamesI, Cheshire and Vale Royal.50 James was notable for being the first monarchsince Henry VII to actually set foot in the county. This occurred in 1617, when


110

44 Charles Ross, Richard III (London, 1981), pp. 220–5; Michael Jones, Bosworth 1485:Psychology of a Battle (Stroud, 2002), pp. 167–70; Raymond J. Skinner, ‘ThomasWoodshawe, “Grasiour” and Regicide’, The Ricardian IX (no. 121) (June 1993), pp. 417–25;cf. the alternative identification, Ralph Rudyard, ‘Notes and Queries’, The Ricardian V (no. 73) (June 1981), pp. 366–7.45 E.g. Sir John Savage, junior, 7 March 1486: CPR, 1485–1494, pp. 101–2.46 PRO, CHES 2/158, m.3. This contrasted with the experience of Flintshire and the Welshprincipality, where the first collection was set for Michaelmas 1486: Calendar of AncientCorrespondence Concerning Wales, ed. J. Goronwy Edwards, Board of Celtic Studies,University of Wales, History and Law Series 2 (Cardiff, 1935), pp. 223–4.47 David A. Lawton, ‘Scottish Field: Alliterative Verse and Stanley Encomium in the PercyFolio’, Leeds Studies in English n.s. X (1978), pp. 42–57.48 Samuel Bentley, Excerpta Historica: Or, Illustrations of English History (London, 1831),pp. 103–4; Thornton, Cheshire and the Tudor State, pp. 174–9.49 E.g. in the Chester annals, ‘This Year King Hen. 7. and Queen, with many Lords withthem, came to Chester’: William Smith, ‘The Vale-Royall of England’, in The Vale-Royallof England (London, 1656).50 It is notable that James was also substituted for another Tudor monarch in another poemfrom the region, that on Henry VIII in the Percy folio MS: ‘Listen Jolly Gentlemen’, BishopPercy’s Folio Manuscript, I, pp. 130–1.

the king was returning from a visit to Scotland.51 As the representative of anew dynasty who was not wholly appreciated in his new English kingdom,James found support from the other territories he came to rule. He made hisson Henry prince of Wales and earl of Chester in a ceremony that prominentlyfeatured speeches in the Welsh language, and leeks were worn at his court onSt David’s Day.52 Many aspects of the palatinate of Chester which had beenneglected during the reign of Elizabeth when there was no recognized heir to the throne were revived for the new earl Henry and continued to developafter his death once his brother Charles had been granted the title.53 DuringJames’s journey through Cheshire in 1617, it was Vale Royal that acted as thebase for his activities. He arrived there on 21 August and did not ultimatelydepart until the following Monday.54 It was from Vale Royal on 23 August thatJames made a trip to Chester. The city laid on a splendid welcome for him.55

James’s order of priorities is clear, however. He spent only five hours in Chesterand soon returned to Vale Royal.56 There on Sunday he heard a sermon, inWhitegate church, preached by the dean of Chester, Thomas Mallory,57 andon Monday enjoyed good hunting around the house – which, for a king whospent perhaps half of his period on the English throne on progress and hunting,was high praise.58 James also appreciated the qualities of the mistress of ValeRoyal. Lady Mary Cholmondeley was described by the king as the ‘Bold Lady


111

51 Cf. his visit to Carlisle, the first by an English king since 1355: R. T. Spence, ‘A RoyalProgress in the North: James I at Carlisle Castle and the Feast of Brougham, August 1617’,Northern History 27 (1991), pp. 41–89.52 Roy Strong, Henry, Prince of Wales: and England’s Lost Renaissance (London, 1986), pp. 141–2, 152–3; Pauline Croft, ‘The Parliamentary Installation of Henry, Prince of Wales’,Historical Research LXV (1992), pp. 177–93; Witty Apophthegms Delivered at Severall Times,and upon Severall Occasions, by King James, King Charls, the Marquess of Worcester, FrancisLord Bacon, and Sir Thomas Moore, ed. [Thomas Bayly] (London, 1658): ‘a good andcommendable fashion’.53 Tim Thornton, ‘Dynasty and Territory in the Early Modern Period: The Princes of Walesand their Western British Inheritance’, Welsh History Review 20 (2000), pp. 1–33.54 John Nichols, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King James theFirst, his Royal Consort, Family, and Court, 4 vols (London, 1828), III, pp. 406–10. His visitwas important enough to receive a special record in the Whitegate parish register – ‘Thesame daye, the 21st daye of Auguste, being Thursdaye, King James came to Vale Royall,and there kept his court untill Monday after’: Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 153.55 The council agreed to spend £100 on the reception, and later recompensed KendrickeEaton, who had prepared the banquet: Margaret Groombridge, A Calendar of Chester CityCouncil Minutes, 1603–1642, RSLC CVI (Blackpool, 1966), pp. 84, 94. Nichols, Progressesof James the First, III, pp. 408–9.56 Nichols, Progresses of James the First, III, pp. 406–10.57 Nichols, Progresses of James the First, III, pp. 406–10.58 He knighted John Done at Utkinton shortly after leaving Vale Royal in gratitude for his arranging the hunting at Vale Royal: Nichols, Progresses of James the First, III, p. 410.

of Cheshire’.59 The Cholmondeleys were very proud of this royal visit: it wascelebrated in an inscription in one of the main rooms in the house as one ofthe major episodes in the history of Vale Royal.60

It is significant that the prophecy in all its forms uses an English king as acentral locating figure. Nixon’s may have been a Cheshire prophecy but it was placed in context by reference to English kings. Yet it is also significantthat both the monarchs concerned were men with strong Cheshire links.There was no role for Henry VIII or Elizabeth, in spite of their prominence inthe history of the period, but instead for the less widely celebrated Henry VIIand James I, men with greater relevance for Cheshire itself and for the localityof the prophecy. The other point of significance to be noted here is that Henryand James stand alone. Their noble courtier is not named and seems to be littlemore than a symbol. In addition, he plays a malevolent role, being responsiblefor the death of Nixon. No other national ‘English’ figures are used to helplocate the prophecy.

In some later versions of the prophecy, one of the men involved in the pre-dictions themselves from the very beginning is also given a role in the contextof Nixon’s life. This is Abbot John Hareware of Vale Royal, who allegedly took Nixon into his house: as abbot he was the most important figure in thesociety of the area. Hareware is referred to in the prophecy under the name ofthe ‘Harrow’: when the Harrow came to the high altar, Nixon allegedlyforetold, the monastery of Vale Royal would be dissolved. After a period ofrelative peace and good government, Hareware’s accession as abbot in 1535resulted in considerable disruption.61 His importance in the prophecy reflectsa troubled abbacy culminating in the controversial dissolution of the house.He was in origin probably a local man, having begun his monastic career at the abbey of Combermere.62 He had then become abbot of Hulton inStaffordshire, where his career had been marked by allegations of corruption


112

59 John T. Hopkins, ‘“Such a Twin Likeness there was in the Pair”: An Investigation into the Painting of the Cholmondeley Sisters’, THSLC 141 (1992 for 1991), pp. 1–37,esp. pp. 7–14.60 The visit lingered too in the memory of the people of the city of Chester, althoughslightly more grudgingly: in 1630, one annalist recorded that the crowd of knights, esquiresand gentlemen drawn by a visit from the countess of Derby exceeded even the numberpresent for King James: Nichols, Progresses of James the First, III, p. 408, citing BL, HarleianMS 2125.61 The exception in the years immediately before 1535 was a dispute over the valuableliving of Llanbadarn Vawr: PRO, C 1/480/1; /493/49 (writ dated 5 June 1527); The LedgerBook of Vale Royal Abbey, ed. John Brownbill, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire,LXVIII (Manchester, 1914), p. 90.62 John Hareware made this claim when faced with a privy seal letter demanding paymentof 200 marks. He said he had paid the money to Thomas Averey (Cromwell’s servant) bythe hands of Geoffrey Chamber; this he said had discharged the obligation: PRO, E321/41/40.

and violence.63 His election at Vale Royal was controversial: no less a figurethan Anne Boleyn intervened.64 There are clear signs that Hareware’s electionmeant the rejection of some of the past alliances of the community at ValeRoyal: Hareware’s prosecution over his alleged refusal to pay Robert Dutton,the bastard son of the powerful Cheshire gentleman Laurence Dutton, £110for two obligations given to Laurence by a previous abbot in 1515 and 1517suggests an alliance of twenty years’ standing had been broken.65 The arrivalof Hareware as abbot produced a rash of cases in Westminster and localcourts.66

In the late 1530s, however, Hareware faced a sterner test of his powers, in the form of Henry VIII’s intensifying campaign against the monasteries, and in particular the attentions of Henry’s minister, Thomas Cromwell. In1536 Cromwell was appointed steward of the monastery, in place of the earlof Shrewsbury, in an attempt to win his support and favour, but this was notenough: in 1538 Cromwell put pressure on Hareware to grant him a lease ofDarnhall, pressure which Hareware was not in the event able to resist.67

Hareware realized that his best policy now lay in leasing the lands of his abbey.His caution proved right, for on 7 September 1538, Vale Royal Abbey wassurrendered to the royal commissioner, Thomas Holcroft. Hareware showedhis determined character by attempting, ineffectively, to resist this surrender.68

Hareware’s possible continuing obstruction may be the reason for chargesmade against him before the court of the abbey itself, in the name if not thepresence of its steward, Thomas Cromwell himself, on 31 March 1539. Theoffences alleged suggest the ruthlessness of the abbot’s rule, and their topicalityand mentions of the Pilgrimage of Grace ensured his fall.69 It was alleged thathe agreed to the murder of one of his monks, Hugh Chalenor, and that Hughhad said to his nephew the day before his death that he feared his life was in danger at the monastery. Hareware was said to have threatened RichardNightingale, a tenant of the monastery, that if he went to serve the king during the Pilgrimage, he would be put out of his house. A more generalcontempt for the king’s proceedings was apparent from the alleged actions and words of one of Hareware’s associates, his brother Nicholas, the vicar of


113

63 Previous violence at Hulton: PRO, STAC 2/21/230; ‘Star Chamber Proceedings. HenryVIII. and Edward VI.’, Collections for a History of Staffordshire (1912), pp. 1–207, at pp. 25–6.Apart from this, he does not seem to have used or been prosecuted in Star Chamber.64 A. J. Kettle, ‘The Abbey of Vale Royal’, VCH Cheshire, III, p. 162. PRO, SP 1/84, fol.197 (LP, vii. 868 (misdated to 1534), viii. 1056 (which locates the episode in 1535)).65 PRO, C 1/772/41.66 PRO, C 1/732/23, /752/53; PRO, CHES 15/1/174–6.67 Darnhall was worth £44 6s. 8d.: Valor ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII, 6 vols (London,1810–34), V, pp. 208–9.68 BL, Harleian MS 604, fol. 62 (Three Chapters of Letters Relating to the Suppression of theMonasteries, ed. Thomas Wright, Camden Society o.s. 26 (London, 1843), pp. 244–5).69 Bodl., Tanner MS 343, fol. 17 (Ormerod, Chester, II, pp. 152–3).

Weaverham.70 It was alleged by the jury that the vicar of Weaverham hadthrown away a licence concurring a marriage issued in the name of the king’sofficers in his role as head of the Church of England, saying that it was notlawful, and that the king was not lawfully married. The source of theseallegations is suggested by the endorsement to the indictments, ‘To my brother,Thomas Holcrofte, be thes d[elivere]d with speede’. This suggests that JohnHolcroft or another close relative of Thomas’s was actually present during the court proceedings, no doubt to ensure that the correct indictments wererecorded. The fate of Hareware is unclear, but it is likely that he suffered forhis resistance to the dissolution, since he does not appear in the pension rollsfor the reigns of Henry VIII or Mary.71

Hareware is significant, however, in terms of the nature of the prophecy.He was clearly a larger than life figure, and his memory lived on. Not least, itlived on in the prophecy. The question must be, whether the abbot’s reputationindependent of the prophecy was what ensured its inclusion, or whether it wasthe oral tradition of the prophecy alone, springing from near the abbey andproximate to the time of Hareware’s abbacy, that ensured the immortality ofHareware’s name. The most likely explanation is that the subsequent ownersof the site of Vale Royal saw the value both of the link to its pre-dissolutionhistory and the validation for the dissolution represented by Hareware’s namein the prophecy.

Thomas Holcroft also features prominently in the prophecy. Nixonallegedly prophesied that the eagle would build its nest in the abbey of ValeRoyal, and since the eagle was the badge of Thomas Holcroft, this was inter-preted as anticipating Holcroft’s acquisition of the site. Holcroft initially leased the site and then eventually in 1544 bought it, along with many of itsgranges. Its new owner intended to make Vale Royal his home, and the abbeydid not completely disappear. While he demolished the abbey church, Holcroftretained many of the recently rebuilt conventual buildings as the core of the house he built on the site.72 Holcroft had risen in the service of HenryVIII. He was the second son of John Holcroft of Holcroft Hall near Leigh in Lancashire; he and his brother John served in a variety of capacities,


114

70 Nicholas, described as vicar of Weaverham, was one of the creditors of Robert Bostock,of Moulton in the parish of Davenham, who made his will on 31 March 1537: CheshireSheaf 3rd ser. 26 (1934), item 5830 (p. 35). In 1523 the vicar was William Brereton;however, on 11 April in that year a caveat was entered at Lichfield showing the nextvacancy had been granted to Roger Wygston, esq., Robert Harware, merchant, RichardHassall, gent., William Harware and Roger Harware. Nicholas appears again as vicar in1542; by September 1554 Thomas Runcorn appears. The first appointment under the statedpatronage of Thomas Holcroft was that of William Holcroft on 6 April 1557: Ormerod,Chester, I, p. 117.71 Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 153.72 VCH Cheshire, III, p. 164; G. D. Halland, ‘Preliminary Notes on the History andDevelopment of the Building’, in Vale Royal Abbey and House (Winsford, 1977), pp. 26–33.

Thomas being in particular a specialist in Scottish affairs, knighted at Leithin 1544.73

The rationale for the appearance of Thomas Holcroft in the prophecydepends on the date of its composition. Holcroft enjoyed a long and successfullife, only dying in 1595. He was succeeded at Vale Royal by his son, also Sir Thomas, who became a member of the privy chamber.74 In spite of thislong tenure, and the secure succession of an adult son and heir, the prophecyserved a useful purpose for the Holcrofts. At this period, a prophecy of thedissolution of the monastery and its purchase by the Holcrofts helped counterthe possibility of Catholic restoration and the re-establishment of the monas-teries, a not-impossible scenario. The inclusion of predictions about Holcroftmay have been particularly useful to a newcomer to the county. Although the dissolution provided opportunities for outsiders to obtain land in thecounty, their experience of trying to enter Cheshire society, even at this time,was not a happy one. There were few significant entries to Cheshire gentrysociety at this time, yet Holcroft was able to integrate relatively quickly, forexample being elected to the two parliaments of 1553 and that of April 1554,for Cheshire.75 This ease of integration is represented by the appearance inthe prophecy, and it is possible that the acceptance of the Holcrofts wasfacilitated by this entry into the prophecy traditions of the county.

It seems clear that the initial core of the Nixon prophecy tradition haddeveloped before a recognition of the Cholmondeley ownership of the sitebecame relevant or necessary. In 1615/16 the second Sir Thomas Holcroft ofVale Royal sold the abbey to Lady Mary Cholmondeley, widow of Sir HughCholmondeley of Cholmondeley and daughter and sole heir of ChristopherHolford of Holford.76 This may serve as a useful terminus ante quem for theprophecy, since a date in the 1590s or 1610s has already been suggested. Bornin 1552, MP and sheriff, Sir Hugh Cholmondeley of Cholmondeley was a remarkably influential figure, later being referred to by another Cheshiregentleman as ‘justly esteemed the father of his country for fifty years’.77

Sir Hugh and Lady Mary’s fourth son was Thomas, born on 2 March 1594/5 atHolford, his mother’s home. This Thomas married Elizabeth, sole daughter andheiress of John Minshull of Minshull, thereby obtaining an inheritance whichMary Cholmondeley’s purchase of Vale Royal was intended to augment.78


115

73 The House of Commons, 1509–1558, ed. S. T. Bindoff, 3 vols (London, 1982), II, pp. 373–5; Ormerod, Chester, II, pp. 153–4.74 Commons, 1509–1558, II, pp. 372–3 (Sir John, d. 1560), 373–5 (Sir Thomas, d. 1558);The House of Commons, 1558–1603, ed. P. W. Hasler (London, 1981), II, pp. 326–7 (SirThomas II, d. 1620); Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 154.75 Thornton, Cheshire and the Tudor State, pp. 33–4.76 Commons, 1558–1603, II, pp. 326–7 (Sir Thomas disposed of all his property, 1611–16,and retired to London where he died, after falling downstairs, in 1620).77 Sir John Crewe of Utkinton, 1701/2, cited by Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 156.78 Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 157.

It is to a particularly traumatic period in the history of the Cholmondeleyfamily that their direct contribution to the prophecy belongs. This was thethreatened extinction of the male line of the family in the later seventeenthcentury. Thomas Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, the son of Sir Hugh, had died in January 1652/3. His marriage produced three daughters and no fewerthan seven sons, of whom the first two died young, leaving Thomas II toinherit. Like Thomas I, he fathered many children, but all the five sons of thefirst marriage of Thomas Cholmondeley II, to Jane Tollemache, were dead bythe end of 1679.79 His first wife having died in childbirth in 1666, on 20 May1684, a few months short of his fifty-seventh birthday, Thomas married Anne,the daughter of Sir Walter St John. And though she had by then reached theage of 34, on 12 January 1684/5 an heir, Charles, was finally born.80

It is worth recalling that this is precisely the period when, traditionally, ithas been assumed that a rise in rationalism and scepticism was doing mostdamage to the influence of ancient prophecy. This was the period of a decliningbelief in Arthur and Merlin, and we have already seen how it saw a dilu-tion of the Shipton tradition. Yet these years saw the rapid development of the Nixon tradition and its emergence from a strictly local milieu to nationalprominence. Whatever the supposed rise in ‘rationalism’, and especially if itwas driven by essentially political forces, the reality was that locally, in Cheshire, and nationally in the 1680s, the pattern of the development ofevents seemed harder than ever to understand rationally. The coincidence of these events with the momentous period of the reign of James II and, to anextent, the parallels with national events they exhibited,81 provided thecircumstances to take a local family prophecy onto the national stage. In manyminds, rationalism had made little impact; in many others, its adoption didnot exclude a recognition of the apparent predictive power of prophetictradition. This ambiguity and inconsistency was accommodated through thefilters of humour and self-deprecation.

A similar filter existed in the ambiguity and inconsistency of centre–localityrelationships in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England. The central


116

79 Robert, first son, b. 1651, d. 1679 (leaving a daughter Elizabeth, who married JohnAtherton of Atherton and left issue); Thomas, second son, b. 1658, d. 1659; John, thirdson, b. 1660, d. 1661; Hugh, fourth son, b. 1662, d. 1664; Francis, fifth son, b. 1663, d. 1664.Of seven daughters, three died within two years of their birth; Jane (b. 1655) died in 1681without issue; Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Vernon of Hodnet, without issue; Mary becamethe wife of John Egerton of Egerton and Oulton, again without issue; and Anne alone,married to Thomas Bankes of Winstanley, produced children: Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 158.80 Ormerod, Chester, II, pp. 157–8.81 In Jacobite eyes, there can be little doubt that the story of the miraculous birth of a maleheir when all hope of the continuation of the line seemed lost struck chords with theexperience of James II himself. At the time, in 1685, the Cholmondeleys were one of theleading Tory families in the shire, and their impending demise would have threatened Torydominance, only recently recovered from the Whigs.

power of the state, and the overweening size of the metropolis, may have beenmore evident than ever before, but the discourses of power remained less stark.In fact, it can be argued that the local context of Cheshire was in the periodaround 1688 a key to politics nationally, so it was natural that a local traditionof ancient prophecy took centre stage, becoming national while remainingintensely local.82 The importance of the Nixon prophecy can only beunderstood when it is seen in the context of the political society of Cheshirewhich produced it. The legacy of the civil wars and interregnum in the countywas bitterness and hatred which culminated, after twenty years of tension, inthe explosive events of the 1680s when local political life interacted, deci-sively, in the wider events of 1688–9.83 Cheshire, more than any other county,experienced the clash between the supporters of William of Orange and ofJames Stuart; at least in the eyes of many contemporary observers, Cheshirewas cradle both of Revolution and of Jacobite resistance. This understandingfacilitated the development from the county’s tradition of the Nixon prophecyas the key prophetic tradition of the eighteenth century, exemplifying theheritage and aspirations of both Jacobites and their opponents.

The response of James Scott duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s bastard son,to the defeat of Exclusion in 1681 was to make a progress through the northmidland counties in 1682. Support for Monmouth, demonstrated on thisoccasion by thousands of ordinary Cheshire people, and elsewhere, for exampleby Robert Cotton, one of Cheshire’s MPs in the parliaments of the ExclusionCrisis,84 gave the Tories the opportunity they needed to counter-attack.Resistance continued, however, and the accession of James to the throne in1685, and his call for elections to a parliament, produced a ferociously foughtparliamentary election campaign.85 Monmouth’s rebellion too seriouslydisturbed Cheshire. Henry, Lord Delamer, who had recently succeeded hisfather and who was determined to put the county’s militia (to the number of20,000 men) in arms for Monmouth, left London after hearing on 27 May1685 that Monmouth had sailed. Nothing came of the attempt in Cheshire


117

82 A point made a few years later by a Whig: ‘[A]s there was a greater rising for the Princeof Orange in Cheshire, than in any other county in England, why may we not imagine that Nixon’s Prophecy contributed very much to it?’ Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large.Published from the Lady Cowper’s Correct Copy. With Historical and Political Remarks: and Several Instances wherein it is Fulfilled (London, 1719), pp. 24–5.83 As will become apparent, this departs from the revisionist tradition (e.g. John Morrill,‘Parliamentary Representation, 1543–1974’, VCH Cheshire, II, pp. 114–27 (‘The CountySeats, 1660–1832’), esp. pp. 115–25; P. J. Challinor, ‘Restoration and Exclusion in theCounty of Cheshire’, BJRL 64 (1981–2), pp. 360–85); cf. the alternative perspectives inStephen W. Baskerville, ‘The Management of the Tory Interest in Lancashire and Cheshire,1714–1747’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1976).84 E.g. CCRO, DDX 7/1, 2 (Sheaf, 14 November 1969, 21 November 1969, pp. 41–3).85 The House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. Basil Duke Henning, 3 vols (London, 1983), I,p. 151.

because of the prompt action of the supporters of the king there. Delamer was tried in 1686 for treason, but the jury decided his vote in the Lords againstthe bill attainting Monmouth was not evidence proving complicity in therebellion.86

The pro-Catholic policies of James II had a catastrophic effect on the Toriesof Cheshire. Thomas Cholmondeley of Vale Royal represented very well their dilemma. He had begun to show concern for the fate of the church as hedrifted out of the influence of the inner circles of the court in the 1670s, and,although elected for Cheshire in 1685, within a couple of years found himselfaccused for criticizing James II’s actions against the Church of England.87

Study of the victory of William III has recently shifted toward an emphasison the attitudes and events on the Dutch side of the North Sea which madehis invasion possible.88 Yet William’s invasion succeeded primarily because ofthe precipitate departure of James from Salisbury and thence from England. Itmay be that even without this William would have triumphed, but at the veryleast his success would have taken a different form. One of the major causesof James’s departure was the actions of Lord Delamer. Delamer and CharlesGerard, earl of Macclesfield, were involved in conspiracy from a year beforethe final demise of James’s reign. Delamer, partly motivated by a desire to pre-empt any similar actions by the earl of Derby, but also by a determination to set forth an agenda more clearly Orangist than any other nobleman in the conspiracy would tolerate, began to move a week before William leftExeter.89 He issued a strident call to arms, marshalled his men at Bowden andmarched with his main ally Lord Cholmondeley to Newcastle-under-Lyme.90


118

86 Howard Hodson, Cheshire, 1660–1780: Restoration to Industrial Revolution (Chester,1978), p. 15. The only eyewitness against him was proven to have perjured himself: JohnDalrymple, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, 1771–88), II, p. 54 (James IIto William of Orange, 15 January 1685/6). It was recalled at his funeral that ever after 14January was a day of prayer in the family: Richard Wroe, A Sermon at the Funeral of the RightHonourable Henry, Earl of Warrington, Baron Delamer of Dunham-Massy, Lord Lieutenant ofthe County-Palatine of Chester; and one of the Lords of their Majesties Most Honourable PrivyCouncil, Preached at Bowden in Cheshire (London, 1694), pp. 24–5.87 Commons, 1660–1690, II, p. 65.88 E.g. Dale Eugene Hoak, ‘The Anglo-Dutch Revolution of 1688–89’, in The World ofWilliam and Mary: Anglo-Dutch Perspectives on the Revolution of 1688–89, ed. Dale EugeneHoak and Mordechai Feingold (Stanford, Calif., 1996), pp. 1–26, 265–73.89 News of William’s second, successful, landing reached the north on 7 November 1688:David H. Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North: Aspects of the Revolution of 1688(Hamden, Conn., 1976), p. 84. See ibid., pp. 85–6, for Delamer’s motivations and anargument that his action should be seen as part of the general plan against James,contradicting A. C. Wood, ‘The Revolution of 1688 in the North of England’, Transactionsof the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 44 (1941 for 1940), pp. 72–104, esp. p. 82; andAndrew Browning, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds, 1632–1712, 3 vols(Glasgow, 1944–51), I, p. 397.90 Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North, pp. 84–9. For Cholmondeley involvement

They then moved to Nottingham, where Delamer left Cholmondeley and roderapidly through the Welsh marches, making contact with William at Bristol.91

Not only was Delamer, the leading Cheshire Whig, the leader of this lightningmove, but the majority of his horse were also Cheshiremen, essentially thecore of men he brought with him from home,92 including gentry such as HenryBrooke, John Egerton, Thomas Minshull, and Thomas Warburton.93 Theking’s notorious nose-bleeds, a key symptom of his psychological collapse,began to trouble him around the time he received news of the Cheshiremen’smarch.94

The importance of the actions of Delamer should not overshadow those ofthe supporters of James in Cheshire. Nixon’s prophecy was not the product


119

in preparation of the plot, CCRO, DCH K/10 (letters from J. Colley to William Adams,24 November 1688, and [Viscount] C[holmondeley] to same, 25 December 1688).91 Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North, p. 94.92 BL, Add. MS 41,805, fols 249–50 (C. R[eynolds] to Philip Froude, 21 November 1688,reporting 600 horse in Nottingham), 260–1 (Peter Naylor to same, from Warrington, 21 November 1688, reporting that at Holmes Chapel the force consisted of 400 horse);Hosford, n. 46. Peter Shakerley, writing to Lieut.-Gen. Robert Werden on the same day,put the force which gathered at Bowden at 200–250, but in Chester he was not so wellplaced as Naylor to comment: BL, Add. MS 38,695, fol. 86.93 Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North, p. 88; he mentions Samuel Finney of Fulshawand Captain Thomas Latham (CCRO, DFF 38/35, fols 52–3 (MS ‘History of the Parish ofWilmslow’, c. 1785, by Samuel Finney III)); John Egerton, Thomas Warburton, LordCholmondeley, Delamer’s brother-in-law Mainwaring (BL, Add. MS 38,695, fol. 86(Shakerley to Werden, 21 November 1688)); William Lawton, Randolph Holme, HenryBrooke, Thomas Minshull, and (possibly) Sir John Bland: Bodl., MS Don. C39, fol. 11(newsletter to [Sir Daniel Fleming], ? November 1688); Henry Kirke, ‘Dr. Clegg, Ministerand Physician, in the 17th and 18th Centuries’, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological andNatural History Society XXXV (1913), pp. 1–74, at p. 10. William Fleming described theforce as ‘gentlemen, and tradesmen of very great fortunes’; he numbered them at 250 horse,‘well armed’: Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, The Manuscripts of S. H. LeFleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall (1890), p. 222. Sir Thomas Fotherley told Clarendon that atHungerford on 7 December the force numbered about 200, ‘very shabby fellows, pitifullymounted, and worse armed’: Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers Preserved in the BodleianLibrary, ed. H. O. Coxe et al., 5 vols (Oxford and London, 1869–1970), II, pp. 218–19. Itmay be significant that Thomas Warburton was a captain of Delamer’s regiment of horseon 31 December 1688; his captains on 2 September 1689 were Robert Broadnax, ThomasLatham, Joseph Stroud, George Bermingham (? Delamer’s nephew), John Wright, andRichard Minshull: C. Dalton (ed.), English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 6 vols(London, 1892–1904), III, p. 25.94 Peter Shakerley wrote to Lieut.-Gen. Werden to deny a rumour of 5,000 horse: BL, Add.MS 38,695, fol. 86 (Shakerley to Werden, 21 November 1688). Hosford, Nottingham, Noblesand the North, p. 95: ‘rumor generated by their movement had contributed to the generalconfusion and disorganisation on the royalist side’; A. A. Mitchell, ‘The Revolution of1688 and the Flight of James II’, History Today XV (1965), pp. 496–504, at p. 500;nosebleeds – PRO, SP 44/97, fol. 19 (Earl of Middleton to Lord Preston); [John Oldmixon],The History of England during the Reigns of the Royal House of Stuart (London, 1730), pp. 756–7. Delamer was created earl of Warrington 17 April 1690.

of a society entirely committed to the cause of revolution. The earl of Derby’ssecret support for the conspiracy meant that any decisive action on behalf ofthe king was unlikely in Cheshire,95 but there were those among the deputylieutenants who were willing to try to rally support. Some were clearly likelyto be sympathetic to the rebels, men such as Sir Willoughby Aston, who wasclosely allied to the Mainwarings. Derby’s determination to remain apparentlyloyal, however, meant that he forwarded commands for the militia to be raised,and collected and sent on reports of rebel actions.96 Francis Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, Charles’s uncle, was therefore able to play a prominent role inattempting to organize some resistance in Cheshire. Immediately following theRevolution, Francis was excluded from parliament, becoming in his own words‘ye first example of this kind, to be imprison’d for refusing ye oaths’ of allegiance,and, if later information is correct, he was one of five men in Lancashire andCheshire to have received commissions from James II to raise regiments of horseand foot in 1689.97 His efforts were in vain, but this was not the only sign ofroyalist activity in the North West. Thanks to companies of volunteers, mainlypapists, raised by Viscount Molyneux and in the command of Colonel Gage,Chester was the scene of the only active resistance to the Revolution, and theiractivities were widely reported throughout the country.98

In 1688–9 Cheshire therefore witnessed some of the most decisive actionson either side of the revolutionary struggle. When the Nixon prophecy foretoldthe events of the Revolution, centred around Delamere Forest and the new-born nephew of Francis Cholmondeley, the resonances were obvious to thepopulation of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century Britain. Whatmore natural than to dramatize visions of the past around continuities in theforetold history of the region? In fact, the first testimony of the prophecy beingcurrent nationally comes in 1691, from the author of a translation of elementsfrom Nostradamus’s prophecy, who referred to the ‘famous stories we have ofNickson’s’.99


120

95 Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North, p. 87. When Derby read the order to stopDelamer, he ‘smiled . . . and said the king should have given him his commission sooner,that the men might have been raised and ready’: HMC, Le Fleming, p. 222.96 Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North, p. 87: ‘While Derby technically fulfilled his part of the bargain, he moved so cautiously that at worst the king could have accusedhim of being dilatory.’ He forwarded a copy of Delamer’s declaration promptly to ViscountPreston.97 JRUL, Legh of Lyme, Francis Cholmondeley to Peter Legh the elder, 9 January 1689;The Jacobite Trials at Manchester in 1694, ed. William Beamont, Chetham Society XXVIII([Manchester], 1853), pp. 17, 30 (information of John Lunt and George Wilson, 1694).98 Hosford, Nottingham, Nobles and the North, pp. 104–7. Peter Shakerley attempted toargue that the men of the garrison were well disciplined: BL, Add MS 38,695, fol. 19 (PeterShakerley to William Blathwaite, 7 July 1688).99 The Predictions of Nostradamus before the Year 1558 . . . Considered in a Letter to a Friend,etc. (N1398; London, 1691), p. 8; it recurs in the same form in the 1697 edition: ThePredictions of Nostradamus, before the Year 1558 . . . ([London], [169[7]]), p. 8.

It was in this volatile atmosphere that Nixon’s prophecy was transformedfrom being simply a Cheshire tradition to a story of national politicalsignificance. The custodians of the prophecy, the Cholmondeleys, may havebegun after 1696 slowly to shift their position away from opposition to thesitting monarch; yet Francis Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, entrusted with theweighty task of the upbringing of Richard, heir to the increasingly importantGrosvenor interest, and of his brothers after the death of Sir Thomas inFebruary 1702, was a Jacobite. He had spent time at the court in exile in 1655and, although elected to parliament in 1689, he did not participate as herefused to take the oaths.100 By 1700, Thomas Cholmondeley was over 70;Francis was his only surviving brother; and since the miraculous CharlesCholmondeley was barely 17 when his father finally died early in 1702, andhad several years of education still ahead of him (he entered the MiddleTemple in 1709), Francis had an important role in the family until his deathin the summer of 1713.101 In 1715, Charles Cholmondeley was, by someaccounts, a possible Jacobite. As late as 1721, his name was included in a listof prominent English Jacobites sent to the court of the Stuarts in Rome, butby this stage it is unlikely that he was so staunch a potential rebel as he hadbeen six years before.102 It should be noted that throughout his subsequentvery prominent political career in Cheshire he was known to those to whomhe offered himself as a candidate, and his colleagues in parliament, as thesubject of one of Nixon’s prophecies. Charles was the long-awaited heir whosebirth had been prophesied. This, together with the problems of the Whigs,provided him with the opportunity for an extraordinarily long grasp onpolitical power.

To this point, we have been considering a tradition which was oral andmanuscript only, and which nonetheless achieved remarkable currency. Thetransition to print needs explanation and examination. The particularcircumstances played a part: the death of Francis Cholmondeley, the approach-ing death of Queen Anne, and the possibility that Charles Cholmondeley’s


121

100 Commons, 1660–1690, II, pp. 63–4; Correspondence of the Family of Hatton: Being ChieflyLetters Addressed to Christopher, First Viscount Hatton, 1601–1704, ed. Edward MaundeThompson, Camden Society n.s. 22–3 ([Westminster], 1878), II, p. 140 (Mr Cholmley’srefusal to pay fees to allow the suing of a habeas corpus – glossed as Thomas, but more likelyFrancis); BL, Add. MS 36,913, fol. 232 (1695). Lettice (d. January 1610/11), the wife ofSir Richard Grosvenor, was the sister of Thomas Cholmondeley (d. 1653) and thereforeFrancis’s aunt: Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 157. Morrill dates the change much earlier: VCHCheshire.101 Ormerod, Chester, II, pp. 157–8; I, pp. 550–1 (Charles only married in July 1714).102 The House of Commons, 1715–1754, ed. Romney Sedgwick, 3 vols (London, 1970), I,pp. 550–1. His refusal to support a compromise Whig–Tory ticket in 1714–15 cost him a seat in the election of 1715, though he retained much Tory support: Stephen W.Baskerville, Peter Adman and Katharine F. Beedham, ‘“Praefering a Whigg to aWhimsical”: The Cheshire Election of 1715 Reconsidered’, BJRL 74(3) (Autumn 1992),pp. 139–68.

political allegiances might be up for grabs. It was, however, also a sign of thedetermination of the Whigs to control this tradition – but it was fated also toshow that attempts to exert control through printing were to be only partiallysuccessful.103

The Nixon prophecy was first printed thanks to the main Whig printinghouse, that of the Baldwins and their successor, James Roberts. The CheshireProphecy, with Historical and Political Remarks was printed and sold by AbigailBaldwin, widow of Richard Baldwin, and so the date of the edition must bebefore her death in the autumn of 1713.104 This was an interpretation ofNixon’s prophecy which emphasized the inevitable failure of a future invasionattempt by the Pretender, attributing this to his defeat at the hands of a Cheshire miller, and the future prosperity of the church, signified by the fall of a wall at Vale Royal. The next edition, The Cheshire Prophesy withHistorical and Political Remarks,105 was printed and sold by James Roberts, theBaldwins’ son-in-law, who succeeded to their trade publishing business on Abigail’s death. He soon controlled the largest trade publishing shop in London, producing more books and pamphlets than anyone else in thefollowing twenty years.106 The second edition of the prophecy must thereforedate from no earlier than late 1713, and no later than 1715, when our firstdefinite date is provided by Roberts’s third edition, A True Copy of Nixon’sCheshire Prophecy.107 The publication was almost certainly inspired, however,by Edmund Curll. The use of the Roberts trade publishing operation was


122

103 Jacqueline Simpson, ‘Nixon’s Prophecies in their Historical Setting’, Folklore 86 (1975),pp. 201–7, identified an uncomplicated connection to Hanoverian propaganda; Ian Sellers,‘Nixon, the Cheshire Prophet and his Interpreters’, Folklore 92 (1981), pp. 30–42, preferredto see publication as an attempt ‘to forestall Nixon’s being utilized by the forces of rebellion’(p. 31).104 Henry R. Plomer, A Dictionary of the Booksellers and Printers who were at work in England,Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 (London, 1922), p. 15 (he misnames her Ann); LeonaRostenberg, ‘Richard and Anne [sic] Baldwin, Whig Patriot Publishers’, Papers of theBibliographical Society of America 47 (1953), pp. 1–42 (which treats them as publishers inthe modern sense of the word). Richard Baldwin (publishing from 1681) was one of theleading figures in the London book market of his day (Michael Treadwell’s ‘TradePublishers’), and the chief Whig publisher, until his death in 1698: ibid., pp. 15–17; MichaelTreadwell, ‘London Trade Publishers 1675–1750’, The Library 6th ser. IV (1982), pp. 99–134, esp. pp. 108–10. The date 1714 was ascribed to this edition in the Axonbibliography, but the date is almost certainly too late.105 Dated by the BL catalogue to c. 1713: BL, c. 175 i. 16. (6.).106 After an unprecedented term of four years (1729–32) as master of the Stationers’Company he relaxed his efforts somewhat; it is only after this period that others took upthe publication of Nixon’s prophecy: J. M. Treadwell, ‘London Printers and Printing Housesin 1705’, Publishing History 7 (1980), pp. 43–4; Treadwell, ‘London Trade Publishers’, p. 110.107 Another indication is provided by the length, 20 pages rather than 18, and the price,which was now 4d. where it had been 3d at the first edition. Roberts was advertising Nixonin November 1715: J. P. W. Rogers, ‘Congreve’s First Biographer: The Identity of “Charles

accustomed practice for Curll. Roberts would supervise the actual distribu-tion and sale of the book, Curll its promotion.108 Given Curll’s influence and methods, it may well be that the inspiration for the work came from himwell before the work itself was published. This may mean that Curll realizedthe opportunity, or indeed need, for a Whig interpretation of Nixon as earlyas 1711 or 1712.109

Curll’s relationship with John Oldmixon (1673–1742) provided him with an editor/author for the text.110 If the publishing house had impeccableWhig credentials, then so did the editor of the prophecy. Oldmixon, a notori-ous Whig propagandist,111 originated from near Bridgwater in Somerset.112 Hemade his name among the Whig hierarchy as a poet and playwright from about 1696, and soon switched his attention to historical writing and politicalpamphleteering. Whig influence is evident, for example, in his History ofAddresses of 1709–10, which criticized the professions of loyalty presented to


123

Wilson”’, Modern Language Quarterly 31 (1970), pp. 330–44, at p. 336n. The MonthlyCatalogue, 1714–17, English Bibliographical Sources, ser. 1, no. 1 (London, 1964), III, p. 2, shows an advertisement in May/June 1716, of the Life with the Nantwich letter, at3d. Ralph Straus, The Unspeakable Curll: Being Some Account of Edmund Curll, Bookseller;to Which is Added a Full List of his Books (London, 1927), pp. 236–7, 307–12.108 Straus, Curll, esp. pp. 77–97; Pat Rogers, ‘The Conduct of the Earl of Nottingham: Curll, Oldmixon and the Finch Family’, Review of English Studies n.s. XXI (1970), pp. 175–81. Daniel and Samuel Lysons affirmed that the prophecy was actually printed byCurll in 1714: Magna Britannia, vol. II. ii, Cheshire ([London], 1810), p. 815. The first editiondefinitely directly ascribed to Curll is that of 1740, calling itself the seventh edition(described on the title-page as printed for E. Curll, in Rere-Street, Covent-Garden; and J. Pemberton, in Fleet-Street; and sold by C. Corbett, Bookseller and Publisher, at Addison’sHead, against St Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet-Street. Price 6d.). Baldwin had at least eightOldmixon books and one journal 1711–13; September 1714 to December 1716, Robertshad at least 14.109 Straus, Curll, esp. p. 67.110 The relationship between the two is summarized in Rogers, ‘Congreve’s FirstBiographer’, pp. 335–6. Rogers found no evidence of contact between the two men after1717; he did, however, notice the ‘continued interest in Nixon’ on Curll’s part, citing asevidence the edition of 1740. Rogers could find no edition of Nixon before the 7th editionof 1740; given that the previous edition is almost certainly the 6th, by Roberts, of 1719,this production cannot really be allowed to support the idea of continued contact betweenCurll and Oldmixon between 1717 and 1740.111 ODNB; The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, vol. 2: 1660–1800, new edn,ed. George Watson and Ian Willison (London, 1971), pp. 1708–10; Pat Rogers, ‘PossibleAdditions to the Oldmixon Canon’, Notes and Queries n.s. 17 (vol. 215 of the continuousseries) (1970), pp. 297–300.112 Pat Rogers, ‘John Oldmixon’s Family’, Notes and Queries n.s. 17 (vol. 215 of thecontinuous series) (1970), pp. 293–7; J. P. W. Rogers, ‘John Oldmixon in Bridgwater,1716–30’, Somerset Archaeology and Natural History 113 (1969 for 1968–9), pp. 86–98,emphasizes the connections of Oldmixon with the town of his birth, but also the problemshe experienced there as customs official later in life.

the sovereign during such crises as that which was then being experienced.113

Oldmixon was a client of the Whig politician Arthur Mainwaring(1668–1712), who had strong Cheshire connections.114 Arthur was the grand-son of Sir Arthur Mainwaring of Ightfield in Shropshire and the cousin ofCharles Cholmondeley of Vale Royal, through his mother Katherine, one ofthe sisters of Charles’s father Thomas.115 Mainwaring knew the Cholmondeleysvery well, for after study at Oxford and at the Inner Temple (in 1687), he wentto stay with Sir Francis Cholmondeley, Charles’s uncle. In company like this,it is no surprise that Mainwaring began his adult life as a staunch Jacobite, in the tradition of his family and that of his mother and Sir Francis.116

Yet although, on arriving in London to live with his father, Mainwaring at first employed his literary talents in attacks on William and Mary, in a piececalled ‘Tarquin and Tullia’ (1689),117 the Cheshire Whig grandee LordDelamer, in ‘The King of Hearts’ (1689), and probably, in Suum Cuique in thesame year,118 the possibility of comprehension in the church, he underwent a conversion.119 Signs of a change of partisanship may be found in his work with John Dryden and Thomas Southerne to help William Congreve prepareThe Old Batchelour for the stage in 1693.120 He caught the eye of LordCholmondeley, the most important Cheshire Whig at court but a man withmany Tory contacts in his home shire, and Richard Boyle, earl of Burlington,and was introduced to Lord Somers.121 In November 1701, he received thepost of commissioner of customs, worth £1,200 per annum, and soon after


124

113 The British Empire in America: Containing the History of the Discovery, Settlement, Progressand Present State of all the British Colonies on the Continent and Islands of America: In TwoVolumes: Being an Account of the Country, Soil, Climate, Product and Trade of Them . . . WithCurious Maps of the Several Places . . . By Herman Moll, Geographer (London, 1708); TheHistory of Addresses. By One Very Near a Kin to the Author of the Tale of a Tub (London,1709); ODNB.114 Swift vs. Mainwaring: The Examiner and The Medley, ed. Frank H. Ellis (Oxford, 1985),pp. xlix–liv; Frank H. Ellis, ‘Arthur Mainwaring as Reader of Swift’s Examiner’, Yearbookof English Studies 11 (1981), pp. 49–66; ODNB.115 Ormerod, Chester, ii. pp. 157–8.116 Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714, ed. George deF. Lord et al., 7 vols (New Haven and London, 1963–75), vol. 5: 1688–1697, ed. William J.Cameron (1971), pp. 46–7.117 Poems on Affairs of State, V, pp. 46–54.118 Poems on Affairs of State, V, pp. 83–94, 117–22.119 Ellis, ‘Mainwaring as Reader of Swift’s Examiner’, pp. 51–2, speculates that the periodaround 1699 was crucial, citing the mellowed attitude to Burnet displayed in The BrawnyBishop’s Complaint.120 William Congreve: Letters and Documents, ed. John C. Hodges (London, 1964), p. 151;Pierre Danchin, The Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration, 1660–1700, 4 parts in 7 vols(Nancy, 1981–8), iii, p. 94.121 Robert Cholmondeley was granted an Irish viscounty in 1661; he was made a baron, ofWich Malbank, 10 April 1689, and created earl of Cholmondeley in 1706. He died 18 January 1725. For Cholmondeley’s role in Cheshire politics, cf. above, pp. 118–19.

began writing vigorously on behalf of the Whig cause, producing two poems,The History and Fall of the Conformity Bill (January 1704?)122 and An Addressto our Sovereign Lady. Most significantly, however, in 1707 he entered the serviceof the duchess of Marlborough, for whom acted as secretary, accompanist and spokesperson.123

As a man who had first gained the attention of important members of the regime through his abilities with the pen, Mainwaring appreciated theimportance of the press to the Whig cause.124 In October 1710, at the sug-gestion of Mainwaring, Oldmixon began The Medley. Like its short-livedpredecessor, the Whig Examiner, the Medley was largely Mainwaring’s work.These newspapers were a response to, and attempt to counter, the ToryExaminer amid the fevered atmosphere generated by the Sacheverell affair.125

Oldmixon’s propagandist work continued in 1712 with The Dutch BarrierOur’s, or, The Interest of England and Holland Inseperable, which responded to the Conduct of the Allies; and The Secret History of Europe, which supportedthe same general theme, showing the dangers posed by the growing power of France.126 It was amidst this torrent of partisan writing that Oldmixonproduced his Nixon. Mainwaring died in February 1713, to initially scornfulobituaries from his enemies, many of which focused on his irregular rela-tionship with the actress Mrs Anne Oldfield.127 Oldmixon eventuallyresponded with the far more hagiographic The Life and Posthumous Works ofArthur Mainwaring, Esq.128 Oldmixon celebrated Mainwaring’s unswervingresistance towards closer relations with France; in acting as his literary executor


125

122 Poems on Affairs of State, VII: 1704–1714, ed. Frank H. Ellis (New Haven and London,1975), pp. 3–14.123 Poems on Affairs of State, VII, p. 307. Mainwaring composed A New Ballad: To the Tuneof Fair Rosamund for her February–July 1708, and accompanied her on the harpsichord:Poems on Affairs of State, VII, p. 307; Henry L. Snyder, ‘The Prologues and Epilogues ofArthur Mainwaring’, Philological Quarterly 50 (1971), pp. 610–29, at pp. 615–16; HALS,Cowper MSS, box 12, I, 27.124 Henry L. Snyder, ‘Arthur Mainwaring and the Whig Press, 1710–1712’, in Literatur alsKritik des Lebens. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Ludwig Borinski, ed. Rudolph Haas et al.(Heidelberg, 1975), pp. 120–36, numbers about thirty-five political pamphlets andbroadsides in prose, 1704–12; cf. about twenty-five in verse (Poems on Affairs of State,passim).125 Swift vs. Mainwaring, passim.126 The Dutch Barrier Our’s, or, The Interest of England and Holland Inseperable: WithReflections on the Insolent Treatment the Emperor and States-General have Met with from theAuthor of the Conduct and his Brethren: To Which is Added, an Enquiry into the Causes of the Clamour against the Dutch, Particularly with Reference to the Fishery (London, 1712); TheSecret History of Europe . . . The Whole Collected from Authentick Memoirs as well Manuscriptas Printed with Editions (London, 1712).127 ODNB; William Oldys, Memoirs of Mrs. Anne Oldfield (London, 1741). They had metin 1703 in Bath, and lived together until Mainwaring’s death. He wrote many prologuesand epilogues for her: Snyder, ‘Prologues and Epilogues of Mainwaring’, p. 612.128 The Life and Posthumous Works of Arthur Mainwaring, Esq. (London, 1715).

and biographer, he was keeping alight the flame not only of his patron’sreputation but also of his politics. In 1714, Oldmixon produced his ArcanaGallica: or the Secret History of France for the Last Century, which againpurported to reveal the threats to liberty posed by France;129 his Memoirs ofNorth-Britain (1715)130 and Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration to the PresentTimes (1716) demonstrated the similarly dangerous threats from Jacobites inScotland and Ireland.131

Whatever Mainwaring and Oldmixon’s understanding of the role of thepress, the context of the early editions of Nixon continued to demonstrate the importance of the locality and of local tradition. The most acute imme-diate test of the Hanoverian succession came in the Jacobite rebellions of 1715and, although Jacobite forces reached no further south than Preston, that test was perceived as possibly focusing on Cheshire. It was soon after claimedthat the prophecy had been cheering to the Hanoverian cause in Cheshire asit was feared the route of the anti-government forces lay towards Flintshireand Denbighshire, through Delamere Forest.132 Since this was the site ofNixon’s activities, his prophecies gained particular relevance, especially since(in a Whig account) miller Peter was ready to oppose James Stuart inDelamere, with ‘such a reception, as would have given very great credit to yourprophecy’. This relevance was noted in London too, shortly after the OldPretender had returned to exile: Joseph Addison, in The Freeholder of 12 March17[16], scornfully dismissed the hopes of the opponents of ‘our present happysettlement’, saying that they were ‘reduced to the poor comfort of prodigiesand old womens’ fables. . . . Nay, I have been lately shown a written prophecythat is handed among them with great secrecy, by which it appears their chiefreliance at present is upon a Cheshire miller who was born with two thumbsupon one hand.’133

Meanwhile, Oldmixon’s continued production of editions of Nixon wentalongside his continued writing of anti-French and pro-Whig propaganda. As well as being fired by a sense of personal injustice, having only receivedthe far from lucrative post of collector of the port of Bridgwater in return forhis hard work for the Whig cause, he soon showed concerns over the betrayalof all that the Glorious Revolution stood for. His False Steps of the Ministry afterthe Revolution (1714) criticized the behaviour of ministers after 1688, and


126

129 John Oldmixon, Arcana Gallica: or the Secret History of France for the Last Century.Shewing by what Steps the French Ministers Destroy’d the Liberties of that Nation in General,and the Protestant Religion in Particular, etc. (London, 1714).130 John Oldmixon, Memoirs of North-Britain . . . In which it is Prov’d, that the Scots Nationhave always been Zealous in the Defence of the Protestant Religion and Liberty, etc. (London,1715).131 Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration to the Present Times (London, 1716); ODNB.132 Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy (London, 1719), p. 25.133 The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, with Notes by Richard Hurd, revisededn by Henry G. Bohn, 6 vols (London and New York, 1892), IV, pp. 485–8, esp. pp. 487–8.

by implication contemporary events after the accession of George I.134 Hencehis likely acceptance of, and possibly active involvement in, an addition tothe Nixon prophecy in 1716, which accentuated the radicalism of theinterpretation of the prophecy.

This addition, in the form of an account of the prophet written by a W. E.,later identified as William Evers, also demonstrates the continuing power of the non-print tradition surrounding Nixon, many months after Oldmixon’sedition had appeared.135 Evers differs from Oldmixon in two ways: he is moreaggressively Hanoverian even than Oldmixon and he is keen to correctOldmixon on several points. The letter suggests in particular fears among thoseresponsible for the initial publication that Oldmixon’s edition was notcategorical enough in its interpretation. Its printing in 1713 had not stifledthe interpretation of the prophecy tradition; in fact the contrary seems to havebeen the case.

This new account of Nixon is cast in the form of a letter from Evers toOldmixon. It is dated at Nantwich, allegedly on 24 March 1715.136 Everscompared Oldmixon’s version of the prophecy with what he described as ‘theoriginal, written in doggrel verse’ and wanted to add ‘some material passageswhich will serve to make your prophecy compleat’. Evers also added a shortaccount of Nixon’s life, based on the recollections of old people including one,‘old Woodman’ of ‘Copnal [Coppenhall]’, who could actually personallyremember the prophet. These recollections reinforced the picture of Nixon as a physical oddity who spoke rarely and, according to Evers, was particu-larly hostile to children. Nixon’s initial employment at the plough is attributedby Evers to farmer Crowton of Swanlow. It was while ploughing for Crowtonnear the river Weaver that he first entered a prophetic trance, Evers alleged;he then entered the Cholmondeley household.

Evers’s political position is clear from his interpretation of history. Withsignificant phraseology, Evers stresses that Nixon foretold ‘the abdication of King James II. the Revolution, and glorious war with France, and theflourishing state of this kingdom afterwards’. Evers’s position is also apparentin his concern over what are described as ‘errors’ which had crept intoOldmixon’s version of the prophecy as a result of ‘imperfect copies of hisprophecy’. These errors were either Jacobite-inspired or might unconsciously


127

134 The False Steps of the Ministry after the Revolution, Shewing that the Lenity and Moderationof that Government was the Occasion of all the Factions that have since Endanger’d theConstitution; With Some Reflections on the License of the Pulpit and Press. In a Letter to Lord—- (London, 1714). Although Queen Caroline’s interest was to give him some hopes offurther reward in 1730, these were not fulfilled, and when he died in 1742 Oldmixon wasa bitter man: ODNB.135 Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy (London, 1719), pp. 21–32.136 There are grounds for scepticism about this date: it refers to a piece by Joseph Addisonpublished in The Freeholder in March 1716 (p. 30), and at the very least, therefore, theletter was amended for publication at some point. Cf. n. 133, above.

have presented the Jacobites with propaganda opportunities: Evers stressedthat the Nixon prophecy was abused ‘when any interpretation is applied to it that has an eye to popery and slavery’. Partly this was a recognition that, inattempting to reshape so thoroughly a Jacobite tradition, Oldmixon hadallowed several elements to remain in it which could only continue to givehope to his enemies. A strict reading of the chronology of the events at ValeRoyal in 1685, for example, implied that it was James II who was the king who suffered foreign invasion and was then restored; the exiled monarch fittedvery well the picture of a king in great trouble, skulking about. Evers did notcomment on this, but he was very careful to deal with other possible‘misreadings’. For example, the fall of the wall at Vale Royal should not havebeen related to the fate of the church, as Oldmixon’s account had implied, hesaid, but only to that of the state. On the authority of Woodman, Evers saidthat the tradition in the area had been that if the wall fell inward in calmweather, then the remarkable change that was to come over government wouldbe ‘advantageous and happy’, while if it fell outwards on a stormy day, the‘direct contrary’ was signified. The Cholmondeley family, Jacobites at the time,had kept several workmen employed inspecting the wall every month andmaintaining it, Evers alleged. Evers gives ‘the particulars of the falling of thewall’ in the form of reported speech, emphasizing that he could ‘get [it] wellattested, if it is thought proper’. Since the change of government whichfollowed the incident was in Evers’s eyes highly ‘advantageous and happy’, the testimony he reported emphasized that ‘not so much as one single stonefell outwards’. The final correction which Evers makes to Oldmixon’s versionof the prophecy is to stress that he was wrong to make the invaders who will ‘bring fire and famine, plague and murder, in the folds of their garments’Germans, Dutch, and Danes. For anti-Jacobites, this was a particularlyembarrassing passage in the prophecy, given that the Revolution was effectedby a Dutch prince, with Danish assistance, and when a north German electorhad saved the Protestant cause on the death of Queen Anne and was resistingthe Pretender. Instead, Evers insisted (on no good evidence from within theprophecy) that ‘we can understand none but the French by such bloodyinvaders; none but French Papists would bring such destructions amongProtestants’.

The complexity of the tradition’s appearance in print is further evident from assessment of other figures influential in the bringing of Nixon to thepress. The importance of the Cholmondeley connection is again indicated by the origin of the text used by Oldmixon: ‘Lady Cowper’s correct copy’.137

Oldmixon says that the text of the prophecy was passed in 1670 by Simon


128

137 On William Cowper, ODNB. The Cowpers of Overlegh near Chester, who were closelyconnected to the Cholmondeleys of Vale Royal, claimed a connection with WilliamCowper. Charles Cholmondeley’s third son and eventual heir was Thomas, born on 24 June1726. His brothers Thomas and Charles had both died within two years of birth, and so he

Patrick to Sarah, Lady Cowper, the wife of the prominent Whig politician SirWilliam Cowper.138 Her son, William, made his name as a barrister while also pursuing a political career. After high-profile and controversial appear-ances in cases such as the attempted prosecution of Lord Halifax for failure in his duties as auditor of the Exchequer, he was made Lord Keeper in 1705,partly through the influence of the duchess of Marlborough. His partisanWhiggery showed itself strongly when he presided at the trial of Dr Sacheverellin 1710 and voted for his condemnation. When the succeeding election drovethe Whigs from office, Cowper insisted on resigning, in spite of the protesta-tions of Robert Harley. He then concentrated his energies on opposition. Both he and his second wife, Mary, whom he married in 1706, were strongsupporters of the Hanoverians; Mary is likely to be the ‘Lady Cowper’ to whomOldmixon refers.139 While William was appointed by George I as one of the‘lords justices’ in whom supreme power was vested during the interregnum,and became his first Lord Chancellor, Mary became a lady of the bedchamberto Caroline, princess of Wales. She had previously corresponded with Carolinefor some years, and shared her husband’s ardently held Whig principles. In1714 it was she who prepared a French translation of his tract ‘An impartialHistory of the Parties’, which was designed for the instruction of the new king.Lord Cowper’s support for extreme measures against the Jacobite threat – suchas the revival of the Riot Act – is echoed by the forceful sentiments seen inLady Cowper’s diary.140 Oldmixon admired the Cowpers, at least in partbecause they shared a Whig outlook mistrusting the corruptions which bothfelt affected the true cause of 1689 and then the Hanoverian succession.Oldmixon can be found writing in Cowper’s praise as early as 1707 and as lateas 1735.141

Oldmixon’s edition can therefore be firmly located to a background in Whigpropaganda associated with highly placed figures. Given this, how does he


129

was from an early age the obvious successor to Vale Royal. He married Dorothy, the seconddaughter of Edmund Cowper; she was born in February 1746 and they married in 1764.138 Commons, 1660–1690, ii, pp. 165–6. She copied a text into her commonplace book inabout 1703: HALS, Panshanger MSS, D/EP F36 (Commonplace Book of Sarah Cowper,c. 1670– c. 1705), unpag., following letter of instruction dated 19 July 1703.139 Although she herself denied it: HALS, Panshanger MSS, D/EP F203/50, 51 – ‘ye writerof this letter is mistaken I am not ye prophecy Lady Cowper’.140 Diary of Mary Countess Cowper, Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales,1714–1720, ed. Spenser Cowper, 2nd edn (London, 1865).141 Pat Rogers, ‘John Oldmixon and a Translation of Boileau’, Revue de Littérature Comparéexliii (1969), pp. 509–13, at pp. 511–13; Pat Rogers, ‘Daniel Defoe, John Oldmixon and theBristol Riot of 1714’, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 92(1974 for 1973), pp. 145–56, at p. 152; John Oldmixon, The History of England, during theReigns of King William and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, King George I (London, 1735), p. 746.Cowper, although described by some as a Jacobite, went into opposition in 1721 becausehe held true to the principles of 1689 and the Hanoverian succession, and rejected anythingwhich to him smacked of corruption: Clyve Jones, ‘Jacobitism and the Historian: The Case

tackle prophecy at a time seen as one in which scepticism of such phenomenawas spreading well beyond the elite? It was clearly an issue for him: hisintroduction immediately tackles the key question of whether he would treatthe prophecy seriously. He explains that the prophecy had been carefully‘revised, corrected, and improved’. He also establishes that some account ofRobert Nixon, whom he describes as a ‘kind of ideot’, would be provided.Oldmixon then sets out clearly his faith in the prophecy. It might be that thephrase ‘I dare say it is as well attested as any of Nostradamus’s or Merlin’s, andcome to pass as well as the best of Squire Bickerstaff’s’ (a reference to Swift’smocking of John Partridge) could imply a certain degree of scepticism.142 Thisepisode has been seen as one of the final nails in the coffin of astrologicalprediction, but Oldmixon’s reference to Partridge may be more complex: it appears flippant, but Partridge’s politics were akin to Oldmixon’s own, andif he had been made a figure of fun by Swift, that was due to Swift’s anger atthe attacks of this former republican on the church. Since Partridge’s fame hadbeen guaranteed by a prophecy, apparently fulfilled, of the fall of James II, theconnection between him and Oldmixon’s work on Nixon was especiallystrong.143 Oldmixon goes further. He says,

It is plain enough, that great men in all ages had recourse to prophecy as well asthe vulgar. I would not have all grave persons despise the inspiration of Nixon. Thelate French king gave audience to an inspired Farrier,144 and rewarded him with an hundred pistoles for his prophetical intelligence; though by what I can learn, hedid not come near to our Nixon for gifts. The simplicity, the circumstances, andhistory, of the Cheshire Prophecy, are so remarkable, that I hope the public will beas much delighted as I was myself.


130

of William, 1st Earl Cowper’, Albion 23 (1991), pp. 681–96; idem, ‘William, first EarlCowper, Country Whiggery, and the Leadership of the Opposition in the House of Lords,1720–1723’, in Lords of Parliament: Studies, 1714–1914, ed. R. W. Davis (Stanford, Calif.,1995), pp. 24–43, 191–7; pace Linda Colley, In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party,1714–1760 (Cambridge, 1982). Cowper had been involved in a tense struggle with Walpoleand Viscount Townshend through the mid-1710s, believing that they were intending toremove him from the post of Lord Chancellor. This had been one of the factors behind theso-called Whig ‘schism’ of 1717: David Lemmings, ‘Lord Chancellor Cowper and theWhigs, 1714–16’, Parliamentary History 9 (1990), pp. 163–74.142 Jonathan Swift, The Complete Poems, ed. Pat Rogers (New Haven and London, 1983),pp. 93–6, notes on pp. 627–9.143 Prose Works of Swift, ed. Davis, vol. II, Bickerstaff Papers and Pamphlets, passim, and esp.p. x on the political background to the exchanges. Curry, Prophecy and Power, pp. 89–91,and B. S. Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500–1800 (London,1979), pp. 244–5, 281, for example, place too much emphasis on the effects of Swift’sridicule: cf. the comments of Joseph M. Levine, Dr. Woodward’s Shield: History, Science andSatire in Augustan England (Berkeley, Calif., 1977).144 In the mid-fifteenth century, Jean Trahinier, blacksmith, was the focus for a group whichhad previously surrounded Jean Carrier: Noël Valois, La France et le Grand Schismed’Occident, 4 vols (Paris, 1896–1902), iv, pp. 475–7.

The introduction also makes clear Oldmixon’s political intention. Stressingthe antiquity of the prophecy, he states that ‘there is as little imposture in itas the Jacobites pretend there is in the person it seems to have an eye to’. TheJacobite threat, partly through the prophecy itself, is the main target; andOldmixon’s loyalty to the Hanoverians is proclaimed from the verse printedon the title-page – ‘NIXON, from ’mongst the dark decrees of Fate, Says,GEORGE the Son of GEORGE shall make us great!’ Oldmixon’s approach is therefore set out early in the work: faced by Jacobite reliance on prophecy,he responds not by rubbishing them for their irrationality and credulity, butby arguing they misused the prophet’s words.145 Historical criticism has beenrecruited not to undermine a prophecy tradition but to validate it.

Oldmixon’s version then moves almost immediately into the prophecyitself. The prefatory paragraph simply places Nixon in the reign of James I,that he was ‘generally reputed a fool’, and that once coming home fromploughing, he said ‘Now I wil prophecy’. His version of the prophecy itself is short and consists of six paragraphs. The first states that when a raven builds in a stone lion’s mouth on the top of a church in Cheshire, a king ofEngland shall be driven from his realm and never return. The second sectionof the prophecy says that when an eagle sits on the top of the house, an heirshall be born to the Cholmondeley family, who shall live to see Englandinvaded by foreigners; these invaders will reach a town in Cheshire, but amiller, named Peter, with two heels on one foot, and living in a mill ownedby Mr Cholmondeley, shall be instrumental in delivering the nation. This iscontinued in the third section, which states that the ruler of England at thattime will be in great trouble and skulk about, but that the invader, who is nowcalled a king, will be killed, laid across a horse’s back, and led away in triumph.The miller will ‘bring forth’ the ruler, who will knight him, and thereafterEngland ‘will see happy days’. A new group of men, young and virtuous, willcome who will create a church, which will flourish for two hundred years. Thefourth passage’s prophecy suggests that, as a token of this, a wall belonging toMr Cholmondeley shall fall. If this wall falls downwards, the church shall beoppressed and never rise again, but if it falls upwards, against the upward slope,


131

145 Note that Oldmixon chose to sign his edition of Nixon, something he reserved for thepublications of which he was proudest. Political hack work for the likes of Curll often wentunsigned: e.g. controversy surrounding Harley’s clerk, William Gregg, in 1711: [JohnOldmixon?], The Conference; Or, Gregg’s Ghost (London, 1711); [John Oldmixon], A Letterto the Seven Lords of the Committee Appointed to Examine Gregg (London, 1711). Cf. [JohnOldmixon], The Catholick Poet; or, Protestant Barnaby’s Sorrowful Lamentation: An ExcellentNew Ballad (London, 1716): Pope (its target) only seems to have realized this was byOldmixon when Curll himself revealed the fact in The Curliad: Pat Rogers, ‘The CatholickPoet (1716): John Oldmixon’s Attack on Pope’, Bodleian Library Record VIII (1967–72),pp. 277–84. On the other hand, there is little in Oldmixon’s other work to suggest he wasespecially proud of the Nixon edition: it is briefly mentioned in his Essay on Criticism: Asit Regards Design, Thought, and Expression, in Prose and Verse (London, 1728), p. 15.

then the church shall flourish again. Under the wall will be found the bonesof a British king. The fifth and sixth paragraphs are not part of this centralprediction. The fifth relates to a pond which shall run with blood for threedays, and the ‘Cross-stone Pillar in the Forest’, which shall sink into the groundso that a crow sitting upon it can drink ‘the best blood in England’. The sixthparagraph states that a boy will be born with three thumbs who will hold threekings’ horses while England is ‘three times won and lost in a day’.

Oldmixon then begins his discussion of the prophecy as he gives it; onceagain some apparent cynicism is eventually outweighed by belief. He says thatthe original is to be found in the hands of several Cheshire families, inparticular Mr Egerton of Oulton. John Egerton, who was born in 1656 anddied in 1732, married two members of the Cholmondeley clan, first Mary,daughter of Thomas Cholmondeley of Vale Royal in 1681, and then in 1686Elizabeth daughter of Robert, Viscount Cholmondeley. Elizabeth survived until1727.146 Egerton’s first wife Mary was therefore the half-sister of the CharlesCholmondeley who was the subject of the miraculous birth in the prophecy.Initially, Oldmixon appears to be doubting the validity of such prophecies, for when he says that the originals of the prophecy also discuss other eventsof local significance, such as the removal of Peckforton mill to Ludington hill, he says that this is enough to prove that Nixon is as great a prophecy as Partridge, and this might have been construed as a sceptical comment. As already stated, however, the congruence between the political outlook of Oldmixon and Partridge may mean outright criticism is not implied here.Oldmixon’s remark, on the prophecy that Oulton mill will be driven by blood,that ‘these soothsayers are great butchers, and every hall is with them a greatslaughterhouse’, also suggests an amused detachment at least. He appears toset little store by the fact that the prophecy has been so popular in Cheshire‘these forty years’, but then notes that ‘there is something very odd in the story, and so pat in the wording of it, that I cannot help giving it as I foundit’. It is therefore not surprising that at this point there is a definite change intone in Oldmixon’s discussion of Nixon, and the account becomes much moreserious.

Oldmixon goes on to explain the background to the prophecy in somehistorical detail, a further sign of the extent to which historical method hasbeen recruited to the validation of ancient prophecy. He describes the originsof the Cholmondeleys at the village of Cholmondeston near Nantwich, andthe way that the cadet branch came to Vale Royal. This then moves into anassertion by Oldmixon of the accuracy of the prophecy through an account ofits fulfilment. He tells how the Cholmondeleys of Vale Royal were close tofailing in the male line, since the heir had married the daughter of Sir WalterSt John, ‘a lady not esteemed very young’; but she conceived and during thetime she was in labour, Oldmixon tells, an eagle sat on the ‘house-top’ and


132

146 Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 222.

flew away when she gave birth to a son. Oldmixon then continues to informhis readers of how other parts of the prophecy had come true: the raven hadbuilt in the stone lion’s mouth, the wall had fallen, upwards, the bones of anunusually large man had been discovered, and a pond had run red at aroundthe same time – the period of the abdication of James II. Thus Oldmixon tellshis readers, with just a slight variation in terminology and a slight note ofscepticism – not saying that the pond ran with blood, but only that it wasreddish in colour – that the prophecy has been fulfilled and that this occurredaround the year 1688. The effect of this tempering of language, suggesting initself the application of reason, is in the end to blunt outright scepticism.Oldmixon then moves to describe part of the prophecy which he implies isabout to be fulfilled – Headless Cross, to be identified with the ‘Cross-stonePillar’ of the prophecy, is according to him only half a foot from the ground,although within living memory it had been several feet high. In Budworthparish, Oldmixon says, about eighteen years previously, a boy was born withthree thumbs. And a man called Peter lives in Noginshire (i.e. Oulton) mill,with two heels on one foot. The prophecy of the failed invasion is thereforeabout to come true. Indeed this becomes clearer when he says that Peter‘intends to make use of them [the two heels] in the interest of King George,for he is a bold Briton, and a loyal service, zealous for the Protestant successionin the illustrious house of Hanover’. As proof of this, Oldmixon says that Peterhas a vote in the elections for the knights of the shire, and ‘never fails to give it on the right side’. A note of scepticism appears again, but it is still slight: Lady Egerton, a Jacobite, had urged her husband to evict Peter, but herhusband had refused, seeing it all as ‘a whimsy’. Lady Egerton was Catherine,wife of Sir Philip Egerton (d. 1698); she was the daughter and heir of PiersConway of Hendre in Flintshire and survived her husband, dying in 1707.147

Oldmixon adds that Lady Narcliff of Chelsea and Lady St John of Battersea,‘together with several other persons of credit and fashion’, believe in the story.

After a short digression, describing Nixon’s death at James I’s court, lockedin a hole by the cooks, Oldmixon rapidly returns to the subject of the fulfilmentof the prophecies.148 This section allows Oldmixon to marshal and display his authorities for the truthfulness of the prophecy. They are an extremelyimpressive group, socially and politically highly respected and influential.Oldmixon’s sources for the veracity of the prophecy and its fulfilment are mainly taken from connections of the St John family, of which LadyCholmondeley was a member. Anne Cholmondeley was the eldest daughterof Sir Walter St John of Battersea. His ancestors had held Lydiard Tregoze


133

147 Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 222. Philip was suspected of Jacobite involvement in 1695: BL,Add. MS 36,913, fol. 232.148 Most immediately, he recounts the story of how Nixon predicted that the ox he hadgoaded would soon no longer be the property of his master, only for it to be removed as aheriot.

in Wiltshire since the fifteenth century; while three brothers had died for the king in the civil war, Sir Walter had been converted into a strongparliamentarian, marrying Johanna, daughter of the radical Oliver St John.After the Restoration, while a conforming Anglican, he showed himself adefender of Presbyterians and lost office for his actions against the court in theExclusion Crisis.149 Given this background, the marriage between his daughterand Thomas Cholmondeley of Vale Royal on 20 May 1684 seems in need ofexplanation. She survived until 1742, and if her religion and politics remainedin any sense closer to those of her father than those of her husband, she mayhave been a force pushing the Cholmondeleys towards loyalism and away fromJacobitism, and may also have represented a channel whereby the Nixonprophecy might be recruited for loyalist or even Whig ends. Johanna St Johnwas reputedly the patroness of the dissenting ministers Daniel Burgess andThomas Manton.150 But there was another strong political tradition that wasmanifesting itself in the St John family. Sir Walter and Johanna’s grandson,Henry St John, the flamboyant future earl of Bolingbroke, served as Secretaryat War, 1704–8, then Secretary of State, first for the North and then for the South, 1710–14, before fleeing to the service of the Old Pretender on theaccession of George I. Since he was probably brought up by his grandparentsduring the years before Anne’s marriage and at least until 1687, the futureBolingbroke’s association with his aunt Anne and his Cholmondeley kin wasstrengthened.151 Oldmixon’s reliance on members of Bolingbroke’s immediatefamily for the reliability of his Whig interpretation of the Nixon prophecymust have achieved a particular resonance in the minds of his readers. CharlesCholmondeley, they would have realized, was the cousin of Bolingbroke,through his mother Anne. Oldmixon says that the account he prints was givento Lady Cowper in 1670 by Dr Simon Patrick, later bishop of Ely, who wasthen chaplain to Sir Walter St John. Patrick was a staunch Whig churchman,who had begun as a Presbyterian minister but had secretly been ordained in 1654 and in the following year took the post of chaplain to St John.152 The


134

149 Commons, 1660–1690, III, p. 384; H. T. Dickinson, ‘Henry St. John: A Reappraisal of the Young Bolingbroke’, Journal of British Studies VII/2 (May 1968), pp. 33–55, esp. pp. 33–7; idem, Bolingbroke (London, 1970), pp. 1–3; VCH Wiltshire, IX, p. 79; John GeorgeTaylor, Our Lady of Batersey: The Story of Battersea Church and Parish Told from OriginalSources (London (Chelsea), 1925), pp. 78–81.150 Sir Walter died in 1708, Johanna his wife on 17 January 1704: Taylor, Our Lady ofBatersey, p. 83.151 Taylor, Our Lady of Batersey, p. 88; Dickinson, ‘Henry St. John’, pp. 35–7.152 ‘The Autobiography of Symon Patrick’, in The Works of Symon Patrick, D.D., SometimeBishop of Ely. Including his Autobiography, ed. Alexander Taylor, 9 vols (Oxford, 1858), IX, pp. 405–569; for the connection to Sir Walter St John and his wife, pp. 426–8; Taylor,Our Lady of Batersey, p. 313; J. H. Overton, Life in the English Church (1600–1714) (London,1885); Gilbert Burnet, History of his own Time, 2nd edn, 6 vols (Oxford, 1833); T. Chamberlain, ‘Memoir of Bishop Patrick’, in his edition of The Parable of the Pilgrim:

latter had him appointed as vicar of Battersea in 1658. In 1662 the patronageof William, earl of Bedford, gave Patrick the living of St Paul’s, CoventGarden; in 1671 he became a royal chaplain and in 1672 received a prebendat Westminster. Patrick’s eminence was an uncomfortable one under James II,for he was one of those chosen to dispute with two Roman Catholic priestswhen the king was seeking to persuade Lord Treasurer Rochester to convert,and in 1687 he resisted attempts to have the declaration of indulgence readin church. After 1688 he rapidly rose to the episcopal bench, first at Chichesterin 1689 and then at Ely in 1691. During sixteen years in Ely he was active, forexample, as one of the five founder members of the Society for the Propagationof Christian Knowledge. This activity, along with prodigious writing, meantthat such a witness to the story was extremely valuable; he had only been deadabout seven years when Oldmixon’s edition appeared.153

On all these authorities, however plausible the detail, it must be concededwe have essentially only Oldmixon’s word for their belief in the prophecy. Yetat the very heart of his account lies Mary, Lady Cowper, and her involvementcan be corroborated by documents in her own hand. This central figure in the new regime investigated the prophecy and its fulfilment and wrote anaccount which seems to be connected to, even if it is not the direct origin of,Oldmixon’s discussion.154 Further support for the story was given by Johanna,the sister of Lady Cholmondeley, who married George Chute of Stockwell inSurrey.155 Mrs Chute, as Oldmixon calls her, recalled that a crowd of peoplehad gathered to see the eagle that had sat on the roof of the house at ValeRoyal. Mrs Chute said that she herself had been one of the crowd, and that ashout had gone up that Nixon’s prophecy was fulfilled and the English would


135

Written to a Friend, The Englishman’s Library (London, 1839); ODNB. The date oftransmission from Patrick to Lady Cowper would make her Sarah, the wife of Sir WilliamCowper, a Whig MP who sat for Hertford in 1679–81, 1688–90, 1695–9, and who died in1705. Sarah was the daughter of Samuel Holled, a London merchant. The date is also beforethe fulfilment of the prophecy of the miraculous birth. The date rules out Mary Cowper,second wife of William, as the recipient of the prophecy from Patrick; she was born in 1685and married him in 1706. She cannot therefore be the sole ‘Lady Cowper’ with influenceover the prophecy, as I have implied elsewhere, although she is the obvious channel oftransmission to Oldmixon’s circle.153 He is described as ‘Dr. Patrick, late Bishop of Ely’. Evidence of Patrick’s closerelationship with the St Johns includes his often reprinted work, The Heart’s Ease, or aRemedy against Trouble, written for Lady St. John (e.g. London, 1660; London, 1671; London,1676; London, 1682).154 HALS, Panshanger MSS, D/EP, F211, fol. 3. She and her mother-in-law were not alonein their interests: in January 1715 Charles Talbot, duke of Shrewsbury, wrote to LordCowper on the subject of an alleged prophecy: ibid., F57/3.155 Sir Walter had five daughters: Taylor, Our Lady of Batersey, p. 322. Johanna marriedChute in 1675 and a daughter, Johanna, was born the following year (pp. 83, 87, 322).Barbara, who married Sir John Topp of Gloucestershire on 29 March 1684/5, died before1793; another daughter, Elizabeth, died in 1702.

have a foreign king. She had read over the prophecy many times while hersister was pregnant, and people had said that James II, then king,156 wasbelieved to be the king who would subvert the laws and religion of the realm,for which he would be expelled from the country. Since the birth of CharlesCholmondeley occurred on 12 January 1685, the coincidence with the acces-sion of James II, just before noon on 6 February,157 must have seemed obvious.The eagle, ‘the biggest bird she ever saw’, had sat in one of the windows allthe time her sister was in labour, in spite of efforts to drive it away. Once thechild had been born, the eagle had flown to a nearby tree and stayed there forthree days before disappearing into the night. Mrs Chute confirmed LadyCowper’s account, saying that the fall of the wall presaged the future invasionof England, and that the heir of Vale Royal, Charles Cholmondeley, wouldlive to fight bravely for his king and country. She then added further detailsof the prophecies: the miller was alive and expecting to be knighted, and theenemies he would face would come from the west and from the north; the enemy who came from the north would bring with him Swedes, Danes,Germans and Dutch, and ‘in the folds of his garments he would bring fire andfamine, plague and murder’. Many great battles would be fought in England,including one on London Bridge so bloody that people would ride up to theirhorses’ bellies in blood. Many battles would also be fought in Cheshire, andthe last ever to be fought in England would occur in Delamere Forest. Theheir of Oulton, John Egerton, thinly disguised as E...n, but identified as havingmarried the sister of the earl of Cholmondeley, ‘would be hanged up at his own gate’. This is a reference to John Egerton, who had been married to, ashis second wife, the earl’s daughter since 1686; John was still alive at the timeof the publication of the prophecy, dying, eventually, at the age of well over70, in 1733.158 This is an astonishingly bold prophecy of doom for an importantCheshire gentleman who was alive at the time.159 It underlines the sense inwhich the prophecy related directly to important people who were living atthe time of its publication.


136

156 When the miraculous birth took place, Charles II, not James, was king. The problemwith the chronology here may reflect Oldmixon’s forceful treatment of the prophecy tomake it fit his own ends, or the memory of his sources.157 Bodl. MS Eng Hist c 711 (Whitley), fol. 26v; John Miller, Charles II (London, 1991),p. 381.158 Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 222. His heir, Philip (inherited 1733, d. 1762), was the son ofJohn’s brother Philip, who was the rector of Astbury and died in 1727, because John diedwithout having produced heirs of his own body.159 This may represent a further Jacobite survival, as John voted for the compromisecandidates in 1715 and for the Whigs in 1722, only thereafter returning to the Tories:Baskerville, Adman and Beedham, ‘“Praefering a Whigg to a Whimsical”’, p. 167; or a relicof the non-juring past of Sir Philip Egerton, well known to Arthur Mainwaring during histime with the Cholmondeleys: Oldmixon, Life and Posthumous Works of Arthur Mainwaring,p. 4; BL, Add. MS 36,913, fol. 232.

These prophecies, as retold by Mrs Chute, then become more general inintent, telling of ‘great glory and prosperity’ for those who ‘stand up in defenceof their laws and liberties’, and ruin for those that did not. The year beforethis, bread would be very dear, and the year after, troubles would begin thatwould last three years, growing in intensity until in the third year they would be ‘intolerable’. The prophecy was then related back to the present withthe prophecy that George, son of George, would bring an end to all, afterwhich the church would flourish and ‘England be the most glorious nationupon earth’. This is a clear reference to George, created prince of Wales on 27 September 1714, son of George I.160 Strenuous efforts were made to winpopular affection for George II, especially through his links to his principality,duchy and earldom, Cheshire, Cornwall and Wales;161 the links between hiswife, Caroline, and the source for the Nixon MS, Lady Cowper, have alreadybeen noticed.

To return to Oldmixon’s account, we find him still concerned with thereliability of the prophecies. He tells us that Lady Cowper was not contentwith the testimony of Mrs Chute alone, and so enquired of Sir Thomas Astonabout the prophecy. Sir Thomas Aston was the son of Sir Willoughby Astonand his wife Mary, the daughter of John Offley of Madeley, and the grandsonof Sir Thomas, who had died of his wounds fighting for the king in 1645. Sir Thomas was born on 17 January 1666, so he had turned 19 just after New Year 1685, when the miraculous Cholmondeley birth occurred.162 TheAstons were the Cholmondeleys’ neighbours, and Thomas was able to supportthe idea that Nixon had a very great reputation in Cheshire. He was personallyable to recall how Mr Cholmondeley, going out to hunt on the day that hiswall famously fell, had said that ‘Nixon seldom fails, but now I think he will;for he foretold that this day my garden wall would fall, and I think it looks as if it would stand these forty years’. Not a quarter of an hour after they left,the wall had fallen, and it had fallen upwards, so Aston confirmed the futureof a flourishing church.163 During the 1680s, Sir Thomas’s father, proud son


137

160 CP, III, p. 448. Some editions give as a footnote the original version of this prophecyas relating to Richard son of Richard, an unusually candid admission that the achievementof a flourishing church and a glorious name abroad was not to belong to the house ofHanover, but almost certainly originally to Richard III, son of Richard, duke of York: LesleyCoote and Tim Thornton, ‘Richard, Son of Richard: Richard III and Political Prophecy’,Historical Research 73 (2000), pp. 321–30.161 Thornton, ‘Dynasty and Territory’, pp. 1–33.162 Sir Thomas married Catherine, daughter and coheir of William Widdrington, esq.; hedied on 16 January 1725. His son, Sir Thomas, married Rebecca, daughter of John Shishof Greenwich. This Thomas died abroad in 1743–4, and the inheritance passed throughhis eldest sister, Catherine, who married Henry Hervey, fourth son of John, earl of Bristol,in March 1730: Ormerod, Chester, I, p. 725.163 Sir Willoughby Aston’s diary confirms that hunting was taking place in January 1685,although his piles prevent him from taking part: Liverpool Record Office, MS 920/MD/173.

of a royalist martyr, appears to have been pushed unwillingly into support for Exclusion by a fear of the consequences of James’s Catholicism; his viewswere therefore diverging from those of Thomas and Francis Cholmondeley,yet the families were still close enough for Sir Thomas’s testimony to carryweight.164

Oldmixon had apparently checked other aspects of the prophecy, for herecords that the removal of Peckforton mill to Luddington hill had beencarried out by Sir John Crewe.165 Sir John had said that he had moved the millbecause it had lost its trade in Peckforton; ‘being asked if he did it to fulfil the prophecy, he declared he never thought of it’.166 Crewe was a connectionof Sir Thomas Aston, whom Oldmixon had already cited, for Sir John Crewe’swife Mary Aston was his eldest sister.167

Oldmixon had himself checked with an (unfortunately unnamed) person‘who knows Mr. Cholmondeley’s pond as well as Rosamond’s in St. James’spark’, and he assured him that the falling of the wall and the running of thepond red with blood are ‘facts which in Cheshire any one would be reckonedmad for making the least question of them’. This is not direct testimony, onlyanother assertion of the general belief in the prophecy and its fulfilment inCheshire.

Oldmixon has now finished his discussion of the trustworthiness of theprophecy. He adds that there are several particulars in the prophecy whichremain unfulfilled, but apparently confidently believes that they shortly willbe fulfilled. He then moves to suggest that study of the ‘antiquities’ of Cheshirewould support the idea that ‘prodigies and prophecies are not unusual thingsthere’. This provides instances of the way in which prophecy and the super-natural were accepted by respectable sources. Once again, he chooses a reliablesource, Camden, and a well-known story: the tale that at the mere at Brereton,before the heir to the family of the same name dies, there were seen ‘the bodiesof trees swimming upon the water for several days together’.168 Oldmixon says


138

164 Liverpool Record Office, MS 920/MD/173; he is used as an example of supporters ofthe High Church fearing tolerance of Catholicism would bring in Nonconformity inChallinor, ‘Restoration and Exclusion’, p. 383.165 Peckforton Hall and its associated estate had been sold by George Peckforton to SirJohn in the late seventeenth century: Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 304.166 Sir John died in May 1711, leaving as his only heir his sister, Elizabeth Crewe, whoherself died in 1715 and whose two children left no heirs. Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 249. Thefailure to refer to Sir John as deceased may imply he was still alive when Oldmixon wrote,placing at least some of his researches as early as the spring of 1711.167 Sir John Crewe was the first son of John Crewe of Utkinton, who had married Mary,coheir of Sir John Done of Utkinton, Eddisbury and Flaxyards. He had inherited Utkintonfrom this alliance, and married Mary, daughter of Thomas Wagstaff of Tachebrook,Warwickshire, who died in 1696, and then Mary, the daughter of Sir Willoughby Aston:Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 249.168 Camden, Britannia (London, 1600), pp. 543–4; Philip Sidney, ‘The 7 Wonders of England’ (Poems, ed. William A. Ringler, Jr (Oxford, 1962, corrected reprint 1971),

that this story was still widely believed in Cheshire in his day. Camden had saidthat this was ‘attested to him by many persons, and was commonly believed’;and he had provided a parallel case, of the abbey of St Maurice (Vienne,Burgundy), where a fish will die in the fishpond whenever one of the monks isabout to pass away.169 In conclusion, Oldmixon, perhaps a little mischievously,suggests that Cheshire has become ‘infected’ by its proximity to Lancashire, acounty ‘famous for its witches’. But he then adds that although those who willnot believe the prophecy may leave it alone, ‘if hope is a good help to faith, Ishall not be long among the incredulous’. The mixture of detailed apparentlycredulous factual reporting and amused scepticism that runs throughout thepiece is therefore eventually resolved in favour of belief.

The complex but ultimately positive account of Nixon proved very popular.Editions of Oldmixon’s version of the prophecy came thick and fast after 1714.By 1719 it was in its sixth edition, suggesting that the excitement generatedby the Jacobite rebellion of 1715 had supported more than one edition ayear.170 There was a lull until the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth editionsappeared in 1740, all produced by Edmund Curll; he produced the thirteenthand fourteenth editions in 1742.171 The threat from the Young Pretender thenproduced another rush of editions, still under Curll’s imprint: fifteenth,sixteenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first editions are all recorded in the year 1745, so the text clearly went through at least seveneditions that year.172 Given the importance of the Jacobite threat to thedevelopment of the prophecy, it is notable that the other early tradition ofpublication in Britain was in Scotland: from Edinburgh (1730), followed bytwo from Glasgow (one 1738, another perhaps 1740). This was part of an anti-Jacobite campaign in Scotland which also drew on (and attempted to counterJacobite use of) Thomas of Erceldoun, both directly and through PatrickGordon’s History of Robert the Bruce,173 and Merlin.174


139

pp. 149–51, at ll. 11–14 (p. 150)). Cf., for this and other death omens, Axon, CheshireGleanings, pp. 84–7.169 Leonardus Vairus, Trois livres des charmes, sorcelages, ou enchantemens (Paris, 1583), pp. 386–7.170 Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 5th edn (London, 1716); Life of Nixon (London,1716; ESTC N55124); Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 6th edn (London, 1719).171 Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th edns (London, 1740); Nixon’sCheshire Prophecy at Large, 13th, 14th edns (London, 1742).172 Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 15th, 16th, 18th, 19th, 20th, 21st edns (London,1745).173 Patrick Gordon, The Famous History of the Renown’d and Valiant Prince, Robert Sirnamed,the Bruce, King of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1718; Glasgow, 1753); David Allen, ‘ “ArthurRedivivus”: Politics and Patriotism in Reformation Scotland’, Arthurian Literature XV, ed.James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy (1997), pp. 185–204, p. 202; Francis Douglas, The Historyof the Rebellion in 1745 and 1746, Extracted from the Scots Magazine (Aberdeen, 1755), p. 28; Dougal Graham, The Collected Writings of Dougal Graham: ‘Skellat’ Bellman of Glasgow,ed. George MacGregor, 2 vols (Glasgow, 1883), vol. I, p. 103; William Donaldson, The

Yet this flood of Whig versions of the prophecy did not diminish thecomplexity of the Nixon tradition. The currency of the Nixon prophecy inIreland no later than 1715 is suggested by the parallels between it and aneighteenth-century Irish prophecy.175 Possibly this was through its recentpublication, and possibly through an oral tradition. The publication of Nixon’s prophecy in Liverpool in 1715, however, conclusively illustrates thefact that Oldmixon’s edition was a response to an extremely vigorous local oraltradition that was only gradually and partially moving into the print culture.Bookselling had only emerged in Liverpool very late, around 1690; printingbegan soon after, through Samuel Terry in about 1712.176 Terry printed Nixon’sProphesy for Daniel Birchall in 1715, the publisher’s foreword clearly estab-lishing a loyalist agenda. Birchall describes the manner of circulation of theprophecies:

The various Accounts that have heretofore been courant in Cheshire, concerningthis Famous Prophet, and the particular and surprizing Accomplishment of manyof his Predictions, hath inclined some curious Persons, (who by reason of vicinityand Experience, had the greatest advantage for Information) to make a Collectionthereof, of which Copies have been transmitted from Hand to Hand, and theparticular Stories therein as plentifully dispersed, in conversation, to those who hadnot the Capacity to acquaint themselves with the M.S. by which means, not only


140

Jacobite Song: Political Myth and National Identity (Aberdeen, 1988), pp. 45–6; James Fraser,Chronicles of the Frasers: The Wardlaw Manuscript Entitled ‘Polichronicon seu policraticatemporum, or, The True Genealogy of the Frasers’, 916–1674, ed. William Mackay, ScottishHistorical Society o.s. 47 (Edinburgh, 1905), pp. 295–6, 338, 356, 496–7; James Philip ofAlmerieclose, The Grameid: An Heroic Poem Descriptive of the Campaign of Viscount Dundeein 1689 and Other Poems, ed. Alexander D. Murdoch, Scottish Historical Society o.s. 3(Edinburgh, 1888), pp. 20–1; cf., for its significance in the early seventeenth century, above,pp. 57–9.174 Alexander Pennecuik, A Geographical, Historical Description of the Shire of Tweeddale(Edinburgh, 1715), reprinted in The Works of Alexander Pennecuik (Leith, 1815), e.g. p.253; Allen, ‘“Arthur Redivivus”’, p. 203.175 The earliest printing of this account must be dated after 4 August 1715 (when the eventsdescribed took place) and before the end of November 1715, since the story had beenbrought to England by a Protestant minister ‘in November last, about the time of ourgreatest trouble and danger’, i.e. during the Old Pretender’s invasion. A Strange andWonderful Relation of the Sweeming of Stones, and of a Bloody Battel of Three Kings in Ireland([Edinburgh], [1715?]); reprinted in The Spottiswoode Miscellany: A Collection of OriginalPapers and Tracts, Illustrative Chiefly of the Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, ed.James Maidment, II (Edinburgh, 1845), pp. 524–7, and from there, with discussion byWilliam E. A. Axon, ‘An Irish Analogue of Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy’, Transactions ofthe Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society VII (1890 for 1889), pp. 130–3.176 A. H. Arkle, ‘Early Liverpool Printers,’ THSLC 68 (n.s. 32) (1916), pp. 73–84, esp. p. 73; Lancashire Printed Books: A Bibliography of all the Books Printed in Lancashire down tothe Year 1800, ed. Arthur John Hawkes (Wigan, 1925), pp. xxiii–xxiv, 147–8; Arkle, ‘EarlyLiverpool Printers,’ pp. 73–84; The Book Trade in Liverpool to 1805: A Directory, ed. M. R.Perkin (Liverpool, 1981), p. 29.

Cheshire, but its neighbouring Counties have, in some measure, had Notices of thisso Famed NIXON, by general Reports of such particular Circumstances as haveoccasionally occurr’d to the Memory of their Informers, which Hints, (as it isreasonable to suppose) did but raise a desire in all, to have more fully made knownto them, what tho’ thus in Parcels, and imperfectly related, appear’d to them soextraordinary and entertaining.

Birchall’s response was to seize the opportunity to publish a manuscript, theappearance of which indicated ‘its Antiquity’, which came into his hands‘some Days since’.177

It was in the 1720s or 1730s, in spite of the lull in publication in England,that the prophecy was first heard by Horace Walpole.178 In the 1730s, at leastone government source was sufficiently impressed with Nixon’s wordsthreatening invasion to keep them on record.179 For this reason, and judgingby his impression at that time that the prophecy was chiefly associated withthe Jacobites, we must assume the predominance of the manuscript or oraltradition distinct from the printed one. Nixon’s popularity in Jacobite circlesis clear from Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones, in which Partridge’s reason for citing the prophecy to Jones at their meeting was that ‘Partridge was in Trutha Jacobite, and had concluded that Jones was of the same Party, and was nowproceeding to join the Rebels’.180 For Partridge, reference to the oral traditionof the prophecy and its interpretation was a shibboleth of allegiance.181

The form of continuing Jacobite reworkings of the prophecy can be seen,for example, in a manuscript formerly in the possession of James Kendrick.Drawing on many of the earliest themes of the prophecy, this version gives an account in which the reign of a young knight called George, clearly theHanoverian king, results in general chaos and strife.182 Some such reworkings


141

177 Nixon’s Prophesy: Containing Nixon’s Prophesy; Containing Many Strange and WonderfulPredictions: To Which is Added an Account of those Already Fulfilled, and those that yet Remain.With Historical Remarks: Together with a Particular Relation of the Most Noted Passages in theLife and Death of the said Nixon. Extracted from an Ancient Manuscript, Never Publish’d Before(Liverpool, 1715), p. 3.178 He refers to hearing it at school, i.e. Eton, which he attended 1727–34: Horace Walpole’sCorrespondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory, ed. W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace,with the assistance of Edwine M. Martz, Volume III (London, 1965) (vol. 34 of The YaleEdition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis, 48 vols (1937–83)), pp. 43–4.179 BL, Add. MS 19,030, fol. 376. I owe this reference to the kindness of Philip Woodfine.180 Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones A Foundling, introduced by Martin C.Battestin, text edited by Fredson Bowers, 2 vols (Oxford, 1974), I, pp. 440–1 (book VIII,ch. 9).181 There may be another subtext here: Fielding’s antipathy to Oldmixon and his contemptfor his work is clear from a parody, supposedly of the work of Humphrey Newmixon,published in the Covent Garden Journal in 1752: Pat Rogers, ‘Fielding’s Parody of Oldmixon’,Philological Quarterly XLIX (1970), pp. 262–6.182 Printed by William Axon: Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies (Manchester and London, 1878).

were explicitly Catholic. One, from after 1746, described how the heir of Vale Royal’s first word would be ‘Pope’, and that ‘he shou’d dy for hisReligion’.183 Another version some years later talked of the fall of the wall atVale Royal on the prince of Wales’s birth; had Charles Cholmondeley set tolive until England’s troubles were over; and again said his first word was ‘Pope’and that he would die for religion.184

The revival of editions of the work produced from a Hanoverian perspectivein 1740 and 1745, therefore, reflects a belated attempt to use the press tocounter the power of the continuing manuscript and oral Jacobite tradition.In fact, although the instance may be unique, it was still possible for theJacobite perspective to appear in print. In 1747, a letter was sent by Jacobitepartisans to the Chester Courant describing how, at the site of a mere whichNixon correctly prophesied would be drained, sown and mown, a great stonehad been ploughed up.185 This stone, extracted from the ground with greatdifficulty, was found to be covered with an inscription which told how scarletdragons, easily interpreted as meaning British soldiers, would overwhelm thecountry and crush the peasantry with taxes.

Then o’er thy Fields shall scarlet Dragons stray,And Rapine and Pollution make their Way.

The shedding of British blood on foreign soil would be the prelude to fearfuldays.

Following the failure of the 1745, there was something of a lull in Londonpublications of Nixon. While it remained in the Jacobite oral and manuscripttradition, the reduced threat from Jacobitism seems to have allowed the shiftof the prophecy into a different frame of reference, that of a loyalist anti-French position.186 Probably in 1758, the important firm of Dicey reproduced


142

The Jacobite intention of the author of this version of the prophecy was recognized bySellers, ‘Nixon’, pp. 34–5.183 Stonyhurst College, MS A III 11(18), p. 19: this manuscript is eighteenth-century indate but must be later than 1746, when it notes that the Ribble ran dry (p. 17). It was saidthat the Nixon passages were taken from a copy ‘found att Mr Dodds at Sandway Head nearDellamore Forrest’ (p. 20).184 NLW, Brogyntyn MS 2795, pp. 10–12.185 Described by those who printed it as ‘the work of some sly Jacobite’: The ChesterMiscellany being a Collection of Several Pieces, both in Prose and Verse, which were in the ChesterCourant from January 1745, to May 1750 (Chester, 1750), p. 273; reprinted in The Lancashireand Cheshire Historical Collector, ed. T. Worthington Barlow, 2 vols (Manchester andLondon, 1855), vol. 2, pp. 4–5 (vol. 1 published Manchester, 1853); the letter was publishedin the Courant of Tuesday 1 December 1747 and dated ‘—- in Cheshire, Nov. 20 1747’; cf.W. E. A. Axon, Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies: A New and Complete Edition (Manchester,1873), pp. 55–6.186 Nixon therefore reinforced, and was reinforced by, the emphasis of some contemporarythinking on Britishness: Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, 2nd edn(London, 2003).

the prophecy, a likely stimulus for the publication being the victory that yearover the French at Krefeld.187

Given the complexity of reactions to the Nixon tradition in the first halfof the eighteenth century, we should look again at the fate during this periodof Merlin, whom we left earlier in this chapter as the target of Swift’s wit. Someof the contrasts which might explain their contrasting fortunes are now clearer.While Nixon could rely on what seemed recent and credible witnesses,Merlin’s historical contextualization was falling away as ‘British history’ andthe Arthur story were more and more widely disbelieved.188 Yet the result was not the complete disappearance of Merlin but an even more pronouncedconjunction of the serious with the disreputable, even burlesque, which wehave found to be such an important element in the role of ancient prophecyin British political culture in the eighteenth century.

Humour was apparent in such works as ‘Merlin the British Enchanter’(1724)189 or ‘The Enchanter, or, Harlequin Merlin’ of the same decade.190 Thecomplexity of the processes of transmission and interpretation involved evenin the eighteenth century is clear in the role of Merlin in Queen Caroline’sredesign of Richmond Palace gardens in 1735. One feature of this scheme was a so-called Hermitage and ‘Merlin’s Cave’. The iconography of this wason one level perfectly clear: the queen was promoting a sense of the excellenceof British science and culture, and identifying the Hanoverians with it; but she was also calling to mind an alleged ancient prophecy by Merlin of the accession of the Hanoverians.191 Of course, this was met with scorn by Caroline’s opponents. In particular, the poet Stephen Duck, appointedlibrarian of the collections at Richmond, was mocked.192 Yet the queen’sinterest in Merlin and, possibly, Mother Shipton, coincided with a burst of less critical treatment on the London stage. The Opera of Operas of 1733,193


143

187 James Pottinger also produced an edition, in 1759, allegedly his eleventh edition.Pottinger was known for his production of political satires. Henry R. Plomer, A Dictionaryof the Printers and Booksellers who were at Work in England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1726to 1775 (London, 1968), pp. 201–2.188 David Allen, ‘Sceptical Medievalism: The Problem of Arthurian Historicity in theScottish Enlightenment’, in Medievalism and the Academy, I, ed. Leslie J. Workman,Kathleen Verduin and David D. Metzger, Studies in Medievalism 9 (Cambridge, 1999),pp. 98–122.189 On 2 September 1724 William Rufus Chetwood played Bussle Head in this: ODNB.190 Lost; Musgrave Heighington, composer: ODNB.191 Judith Colton, ‘Merlin’s Cave and Queen Caroline: Garden Art as PoliticalPropaganda’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 10 (1967), pp. 1–20; Howard M. Colvin et al., TheHistory of the King’s Works, 6 vols (London, 1963–82), v, pp. 224–5.192 ‘S[tephe]n D[uc]k’, The Year of Wonders: Being a Literal and Poetical Translation of an OldLatin Prophecy, Found near Merlin’s Cave (n.p., 1737?); Rose Mary Davis, Stephen Duck, theThresher-Poet, University of Maine Studies 2nd ser. 8 (Orono, Maine, 1926). 193 William Hatchett, The Opera of Operas, Or, Tom Thumb the Great / Alter’d from The

a collaborative adaptation of Fielding’s Tragedy of Tragedies of 1731,194

exploited the queen’s emblems from Merlin’s Cave, and in contrast toFielding’s play ended with political reconciliation. The Royal Chace, or, Merlin’sCave of 1736, written by Edward Phillips and John Earnest Gaillard, includedvisual depictions of Caroline’s Hermitage and Merlin’s Cave and was verysuccessful, with performances continuing until late in the century.195 Thedesigns for Merlin’s Cave became fashionable, to the benefit of the draftsman,and Edmund Curll exploited a demand for a description, along with prophecytexts.196 Jane Brereton’s Merlin: A Poem, dedicated to Caroline, demonstratesthe way Merlin, even while set in contrast to Newtonian science, had becomea medium for support for the crown.197

Caroline was willing to associate herself with the idea that Merlin hadprophesied the accession of the Hanoverians – and clearly believed that sucha statement would strike an appropriate chord with the population at large.198

But the meaning of her works at Richmond was more opaque when some of the figures at the very heart of the ensemble came into question. One of theother figures was usually identified as Elizabeth of York, queen of Henry VII;another, however, is sometimes called a nurse, sometimes a witch, but at othertimes Mother Shipton.199 We have no categorical confirmation of this, but,whatever Caroline intended it to mean, her confection was interpreted as a grouping including the two most prominent British prophetic figures of the seventeenth century, and in Shipton the one apparently most mocked, asa result of Head’s treatment. So it is with this demonstration of the complexityof interpretation and reception, of the juxtapositon of credulity and scepticism,that we must eventually return to consideration of Mother Shipton.


144

Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great; and Set to Musick after the Italian Manner (London,1733). 194 The Tragedy of Tragedies, Or, The Liee [sic] and Death of Tom Thumb the Great (London,1731).195 A New Dramatic Entertainment Called The Royal Chace, or, Merlin’s Cave: With SeveralNew Comic Scenes of Action Introduced into the Grotesque Performance of Jupiter and Europa(London, 1736). It added to an old pantomime of Rich’s: ODNB; Richard Leveridge sangMerlin: ODNB.196 Daily Post and Advertiser, 27 January 1736: Giffard’s designs for Merlin’s Cave were wellapproved of, so Devoto, who made the Draughts, ‘has had several Copies bespoke by theNobility’. Devoto also did designs for A Hint of the Theatres, or, Merlin in Labour, June 1740– which includes a view of Merlin’s Cave in Richmond. ODNB. Devoto further preparedscenes for Harlequin Student, or, The Fall of Pantomime, 3 March 1741 – including theHermitage in Richmond: Harlequin Student, Or, The Fall of Pantomime with the Restorationof the Drama: An Entertainment (London, 1741). Edmund Curll, The Rarities of Richmond:Being Exact Descriptions of the Royal Hermitage and Merlin’s Cave. With his Life and Prophecies(London, 1736).197 (London, 1725 [i.e. 1735]), esp. pp. 11–12.198 Frederick Kielmansegge, Diary of a Journey to England in the Years 1761–1762, trans.Countess Kielmansegge (London, 1902), pp. 74–5.199 Davis, Stephen Duck, pp. 73–9; Colton, ‘Merlin’s Cave’, p. 11.

4

The re-rooting and survival of ancient prophecy

This chapter will consider why ancient prophecy was able to survive in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, at precisely the time when themodernization narratives of Thomas, Capp and others might suggest it wasalready effectively dismissed and marginalized, a relic of the past. Even someof those who have urged the continuities in prophetic culture after 1660 have found the later eighteenth century as a period in which it lost its force.1The traditions of Merlin and Nixon will be examined to assess the thesis that particular factors lay behind their decline. In particular, however, we will address the remarkable revival of interest in Mother Shipton, the circum-stances of ancient prophecy’s most severe trial, the scandal surroundingCharles Hindley’s forged prophecy of 1881, and the continuing legacy ofpolitical prophecy in the twentieth century.

If Nixon was recruited neatly into a new discourse of national identity in the 1750s, then the tradition faced new challenges in the 1770s. Now itwas the new ‘philosophical’ and critical historiography of men such as EdwardGibbon which might be applied to Nixon’s words. In 1774 a new version of the life appeared.2 Bearing the publisher’s imprint of R. Snagg, this pur-ported to be a return to the authentic Nixon, and the author’s contempt forOldmixon and the distortions and inaccuracies of previous historians is evi-dent throughout. He is scornful of Oldmixon’s chronology, urging (wrongly)that the Cholmondeleys only acquired Vale Royal in Charles I’s reign, andtherefore arguing that Oldmixon was wrong to identify James I as the king in the prophecy. The third important emphasis in the new Life is its criticismof Oldmixon for being too sensitive to early eighteenth-century politicalimperatives. If anything, Merlin was more vulnerable still to this challenge.

145

1 Margery A. Kingsley, Transforming the Word: Prophecy, Poetry, and Politics in England,1650–1742 (Newark and London, 2001).2 One precondition for, although not an important determinant of, the revival of thetradition was the failure of the Stationers’ Company’s control in the 1770s. OriginalPredictions (London, 1774). Ian Sellers, ‘Nixon, the Cheshire Prophet, and his Interpreters’,Folklore 92(1) (1981), pp. 34–5, 35–6.

Scepticism about Arthur and Merlin themselves interacted with a disdain forthe literature which had celebrated them, so that the eighteenth century sawa complete break in publication of the Morte Darthur, for example.3

Even so, this was not a victory for outright scepticism. The author of thenew life of Nixon was especially keen to urge that the most socially disruptiveof the prophecies, predicting that landlords would stand with hat in hand,related simply to ‘the present migrations from Scotland, Ireland and some partsof England’.4 This of course implies some possible validity in the prophecy; thecommentator’s scepticism applies to blatantly political references which he seesas being invented by Oldmixon, not to the prophecy as a whole. Events wereto give added force to this continuing germ of credulity. Just as Horace Walpoleand others were shaken from their belief in the possibility of apolitical historyby the French revolution, so the 1790s saw the interpretation of Nixon’s pro-phecy taking on a new vigour. Ironically, we have an impression from Walpoleof the power of the prophecy and his scepticism towards it written just beforethe breaking of the storm which destroyed these beliefs. On 24 February 1789,he wrote to Anne, countess of Upper Ossory commenting sceptically on herworries about the possible implications of George III’s madness.

Yet I will hope we shall realize no old prophecies. What the one you refer to was,I do not recollect; but it sounds something like Nixon’s, an old Cheshire prediction,that I have lived to see revived and stillborn again two or three times, as often asthe Jacobites were meditating or reviving rebellion. I heard it first when I was atschool and it frightened me terribly. We were to swim in blood up to our chins inthe time of George the son of George; which circumstance looked exceedinglyprobable; and does again with equal or no more probability. A miller with twothumbs (a wonderfully striking phenomenon, though I do not remember its beingspecified that both were to be on the same hand, though one devoutly concludedso) was to set all to rights again, and such a marvellous miller was said to exist –but enough of these fooleries. . . .5


146

3 David R. Carlson, ‘Arthur Before and After the Revolution: The Blome-Stansby Editionof Malory (1634) and Brittains Glory (1684)’, in Culture and the King: The Social Implicationsof the Arthurian Legend: Essays in Honor of Valerie M. Lagorio, ed. Martin B. Shichtman andJames P. Carley (Albany, NY, 1994), pp. 234–53; Barry Gaines, ‘The Editions of Maloryin the Early Nineteenth Century’, Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 68 (1974),pp. 1–17. Note that the Merlin of Dryden (King Arthur, or The British Worthy (London,1691)) and Richard Blackmore (Prince Arthur (London, 1695)) has lost connection withthe tradition of ancient prophecy.4 The serious intention of the work is suggested by the fact that its publisher, Snagg, alsoproduced literature such as an edition of Congreve around this time: Henry R. Plomer, ADictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at work in England, Scotland, and Irelandfrom 1726 to 1775 (London, 1968), p. 233.5 Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory, ed. W. S. Lewis andA. Dayle Wallace, with the assistance of Edwine M. Martz, Volume III (London, 1965) (vol. 34 of The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis (48 vols in47, 1937–83), pp. 43–4.

The storm did indeed break, and swept away such scepticism. Amidst theinvasion scares of the period, Nixon’s warnings of invaders with snow on theirhelmets suddenly seemed relevant again.6 Nixon texts, as yet unadapted,appeared in many of the collections of prophetic texts published from 1792 to1796.7 These collections contained many new texts, and the 1790s saw arevival of interest across the whole of society, from the poorest of those whobought the chapbooks to educated thinkers like Mrs Piozzi, and representinga range of sentiments from radical Protestant millenarianism to loyalism.8 Itis significant that although Merlin remained relatively insignificant in ancientprophecy in these years,9 and republication of the Nixon prophecy occurredfirst in London, the first signs of a renovation of the tradition in the 1790s areto be found in its original home, Cheshire. The popularity of the prophecy in educated circles in Cheshire is suggested by the appearance in 1793 of aportrait of Nixon, published along with a short account of the prophet,10 and

RE-ROOTING AND SURVIVAL OF ANCIENT PROPHECY

147

6 Hester Lynch Piozzi, concerned at the safety of Bristol from invasion, suggested to theRev. Robert Gray ‘if they come now, we shall be invaded by men with snow upon theirhelmets, as Nixon the Cheshire ideot predicted long ago’: The Piozzi Letters: Correspondenceof Hester Lynch Piozzi 1784–1821 (Formerly Mrs. Thrale), 4 vols, continuing, ed. Edward A.Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom, vol. 3, 1799–1804 (Newark, London and Toronto, 1993), p. 499 (Brynbella, 9 January 1804).

7 The Strange and Wonderfulle Predictions of Mr. C. Love. . . . (Dublin, 1792); MiraculousProphecies, Predictions and Strange Visions of Sundry Eminent Men (London, 1794); WonderfulProphecies (London, 1794); The Prophetical Mirror: Being a Collection of Prophecies, ChieflyPredictive of the Present Tumultuous Times (London, 1795?); Past, Present and to Come(London, 1795?). Sellers, ‘Nixon’, p. 36.

8 For the encouragement provided by the Revolution for millenarian and other ideas, seeClarke Garrett, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution in France and England(Baltimore and London, 1975); Robert Darnton, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenmentin France (Cambridge, Mass., 1968); W. H. Oliver, Prophets and Millennialists: The Uses ofBiblical Prophecy in England from the 1790s to the 1840s ([Auckland and Oxford], 1978);Sellers, ‘Nixon’, pp. 36–7.

9 Although his name remained a shorthand term for predictive power in almanacs, andhis burlesque characterization was familiar on the stage: Charles Dibdin, Plot, Songs,Chorusses, &c. in the Comic Pantomime, Called Wizard’s Wake: Or, Harlequin and Merlin(London, 1803). He was also used as vehicle for political satire: A Prophecy of Merlin(London, 1762).10 The Biographical Mirrour, Comprising a Series of Ancient and Modern English Portraits, ofEminent and Distinguished Persons, from Original Pictures and Drawings (London, 1795), pp. 58–9. The portrait of Nixon appears opposite p. 58; it is inscribed as published ‘16 Jul.1793, S. Harding del., E. Harding junr. sc.’ Nixon appears in highly respectable company:the portraits immediately before and after him are those of Gilbert Sheldon, MichaelMohun, the cavalier actor, Henry Brooke, playwright, and Samuel Ogden, Woodwardianprofessor at Cambridge. The Nixon entry is reproduced in J. Granger, A Biographical Historyof England from Egbert the Great to the Revolution, 5th edn, 6 vols (London, 1824), II, p. 210.According to the article, ‘many traditions relating to him are still current in theneighbourhood of Vale-Royal, where his story is implicitly believed’.

allegedly based on an original found outside a cottage in Delamere Forest byOwen Salisbury Brereton.11 Brereton was an active and respected antiquarianwho was interested in Cheshire’s past and had published in Archaeologiain 1789.12 Further, two new prophecies appeared in 1795, the first new textsfor over twenty years, and again it was from Cheshire and its immediatevicinity that the tradition drew new strength. While the portrait published by Brereton suggests the interest expressed by the gentry in Nixon, the newtexts indicate the fascination for the prophet among the whole range ofCheshire people. The new sets of Nixon prophecies appeared in an editionfrom Chester, published by William Minshull.13 One was entitled ‘Predictionsfrom a Collection of Old Pamphlets’ and was supposed to have once been inthe hands of the Cholmondeleys but to have now passed into the hands of a Shropshire gentleman. Without much more than a sentence of introduc-tion, saying that Nixon prophesied on public as well as private affairs, thisversion launches into a thinly disguised prophetic history of the seventeenthcentury, many parts of which are explained for the reader in footnotes. Nixonwas said to have prophesied the execution of Charles I following the assassi-nation of his favourite Buckingham, for example. Eventually we come, in oneof the most crass pieces of symbolism in any Nixon prophecy, to the arrival of William of Orange: ‘the great yellow fruit shall come over to this country,and flourish’. More obscure is the intention of the prediction that the tree shallbear a thousand branches, but that these shall be ‘at strife one with another’.This cannot refer to offspring of William of Orange and Mary, since theirmarriage produced no children; more probably it is a reference to internalpolitical conflicts and party strife. The wind from the south and west thatwould shake the tree is presumably the wars with France and the loss ofAmerican colonies. But another prediction, of multitudes of people runningto and fro, and talking in a strange tongue, seems incomprehensible. In oneof the footnotes to the account, a prediction of famine in the midst of greatplenty is interpreted as implying the oppression of the poor, but the ending of the prophecy in deliberately obscure and the general nature of the pre-dictions is strongly suggested by the final idea of earthquakes and storms thatshall ‘level and purify the earth’.


148

11 Brereton’s report of the discovery describes how he stopped a mile from Vale Royal onhis way to visit Mr Cholmondeley; taking shelter in a cottage by the road-side, he steppedon a piece of canvas, which on examination proved to be an oil painting. The woman wholived in the cottage thereupon said ‘Lord! it is our Nixon’s head, which was thrown out ofthe Hall-house the other day, and I brought it home.’ Biographical Mirrour, p. 59. The imagewas reproduced in Anthologia Hibernica: or, Monthly Collections of Science, Belles Lettres, andHistory (Dublin, [1793–4]), for January 1794.12 O. S. Brereton, ‘Exhibition of Coloured Drawing of a Window in Brereton Church’,Archaeologia IX (1789), pp. 368–9.13 The Original Predictions of Robert Nixon, Commonly Called the Cheshire Prophet: In DoggrelVerse (Chester, 179?).

Politically, the ‘Predictions from a Collection of Old Pamphlets’ appear to be supportive of both Montrose and Cromwell, but also to favour theRestoration of Charles II. Its endorsement of the Glorious Revolution is oddlyqualified by the strange reference to conflict between scions of the house ofOrange. The ideological outlook of the author of this new version is thereforeaccepting of the events of the previous century and focused on forthcomingchaos. Perhaps most significant is the unusually complex gloss to the referenceto famine in the midst of plenty, relating it to the oppression of the poor. The circumlocution of the note, ‘This was said in the book from whence these predictions were extracted, to mean oppression of the poor’, suggestseither embarrassment at this sentiment, or more likely an attempt to give the gloss additional antiquity and validity. This general relevance to the woes of the poor was the main focus of this new edition, with a relativelypedestrian run-through of political events to ape earlier versions. The secondof the new prophecies to appear in 1795 was entitled ‘The original predictionsof Robert Nixon, as delivered by himself, in doggrel verse: published from an authentic manuscript, found amongst the papers of a Cheshire gentleman,lately deceased’, and was supposed to have once been in the hands of theCholmondeleys, like the ‘Predictions from a Collection of Old Pamphlets’.

It was, however, only in 1799 that Nixon received a thorough revision inprint to take account directly of recent political events. Henry Mozley ofGainsborough issued an edition which included, as well as Oldmixon, the 1774new version, and the ‘Original Predictions’, a vision seen in Delamere Forest‘on the 14th of last month’. Two armies rose out of the ground. The armycommanded by a figure in royal dress was defeated, but the dead soldiers roseagain and their foes retreated towards the sea – a thinly disguised loyalistprophecy of recovery and eventual victory. The vision did not draw on any ofthe alleged words of Nixon, but its location, in the place where Nixon hadprophesied, associated it with him.

The third sign of the revived interest in the Nixon prophecy was that itmade the transition into the Welsh language. The year 1793 also saw theprinting of the prophecy in Welsh, as Prophydoliaeth Nixon. This underlinedthe importance of Cheshire as a key point in the interaction of three of theelements in the composite kingdom ruled by the English. The prophecy itselfhad initially probably included reference to Wales, and the prospect of a battlethat would decide the kingdom’s fate being fought in Delamere Forest was of direct and local relevance to the people of North Wales at least. In the earlynineteenth century, the prophecy continued to be published in Wales, forexample as Daroganau a phrophwydoliaeth hynod.14

It is at this point that the publication history of the work diversifies, with different texts of the prophecy being produced by different publishers in different towns across England and Scotland – and for what seem to have


149

14 (Caernarfon, [1820?]).

been diverse markets, from the cheap chapbook to works from the mostrespectable scientific and learned publisher. We have already mentioned oneimportant series of editions, that from Chester itself (1796-1801) by WilliamMinshull, one of three brothers involved in the book trade.15 John Poole (n.d.,but probably 1771-95) and John Tushingham (1812) also produced editionsin Chester around this time, and a little later the text was taken up by JohnGresty (1868), first when he was publishing alone and later as Gresty andBurghall.16 Just over the border in Lancashire, a Manchester publisher, J. Swindells of Hanging Bridge, published the prophecy. The Swindells familyappear to have begun their printing operation in the 1780s working on hymnbooks and psalms.17 Yet in about 1792 G. Swindells set up a new printing officeat Hanging Bridge, and his output suddenly expanded and entered newterritories. That year he was responsible for The Manchester Songster and A New Garland containing Three Excellent New Songs.18 By 1795 he had reachedthe tenth in the series of collections called A New Garland; his output wasstrongly loyalist in tone.19 He died in 1796, and his widow, Alice, took on thebusiness. Although she continued to produce chapbooks of the kind of BlueBeard; or Female Curiosity, a more practical note is struck by her productionof The Experienced English Housekeeper, and a return to religious material isapparent in Nicholas Alain Gilbert’s The Crown and Glory of Christianity, orYoung Man’s Guide.20 Also in the North West, several editions were producedin Warrington. These included what was called the fifty-fifth edition, in about1815, and a further edition in 1866. More interesting, however, is WilliamEyres, who produced an edition of Nixon at Warrington in 1796. Eyres was the grandson of a bookseller active in Warrington at the very beginning


150

15 The Book Trade in Cheshire to 1850: A Directory, ed. D. Nuttall (Liverpool, 1992), p. 25;R. Stewart Brown, ‘The Stationers, Booksellers and Printers of Chester to about 1800’,THSLC lxxxiii (1931), pp. 101–52, at pp. 135–8. The third brother, John, died in 1785.For their links in Shropshire, see L. C. Lloyd, ‘The Book Trade in Shropshire . . . to about1800’, Transactions of the Shropshire Archaeological Society xlviii (1935–6), pp. 65–142,145–200.16 John Poole: The Strange and Wonderful Predictions of Mr. Christopher Love (Chester,[1795?]): Book Trade in Cheshire to 1850, p. 28 (imprints 1771–95; succeeded by widow M. and son Thomas Poole senior, whose imprints 1800–11. Thomas Poole junior c. 1812–1850+: pp. 28–9). John Tushingham: ibid., p. 35 (imprints 1812–15). John Gresty:ibid., p. 18 (imprints either side of 1850; no reference in this book to a Gresty–Burghillpartnership).17 G. Swindells produced Richard Challoner, The Wonders of God in the Wilderness(Manchester, 1786); Cornelius Bagley, Select Hymns from Various Authors (Manchester,1789); Cornelius Bagley, Select Psalms from the Old and New Versions (Manchester, 1789).18 The dating of the latter is speculative.19 This work has on its title-page the legend ‘Death, or speedy exportation to the Jacobins.God save the king.’20 All three works dated c. 1796–9 in Lancashire Printed Books: A Bibliography of all the BooksPrinted in Lancashire down to the Year 1800, ed. Arthur John Hawkes (Wigan, 1925), p. 105.

of the eighteenth century and began printing about 1756. He differed fromthe likes of Minshull in Chester or the Swindells in Manchester in that hiswork included a large number of scientific and other scholarly publications,including Priestley’s History and Present State of Electricity of 1767. The learnedassociates of the Warrington Academy provided many of his authors andreaders, but he was also well known for the quality of his work in Manchester,where the Literary and Philosophical Society chose to print with him,21 andeven in London. Alongside the edition of Nixon in 1796 appeared Hints onthe Proposed Medical Reform, by a Member of the London Corporation of Surgeons,the author of which was actually John Lewis, secretary of the corporation.22

Then, again just outside Cheshire, there was a Liverpool edition, printed byJ. Lang, Water St., for J. Hopper and Son, booksellers, of Castle St. Anotherimportant publisher of the text was Thomas Richardson of Derby, about 1850.He also published as of Derby, London and Dublin, and in London with Hurst,Chance, and Company (c. 1850).

Further afield, the prophecy was published by Henry Mozley in Gains-borough, as we have already seen, in Birmingham, Aylesbury, Hull, Penrith,Diss (1845?) and Halifax (1850?). The new prophecy texts first came to London in Past, Present and to Come! of 1796.23 Orlando Hodgson, W.S.Johnson, Dean and Munday, D. McDonald junior (1813), and Hodgson andCo. were among the London publishers who produced later editions of theprophecy.

The proliferation of these publications suggests the continuing popularityof Nixon in the nineteenth century. This popularity extended from the urban and rural poor, the consumers of cheap chapbooks, through the middleclasses and even to educated elites. The prophecy tradition did not ossify but continued to have elements added and interpretations developed to suit contemporary conditions. When John Clare came to list the ‘superstitioustales’ of which his father had been so fond around the turn of the eighteenthand nineteenth centuries, ‘Old Nixon’s Prophesies’ headed the list.24 Acontinuing awareness of Nixon even in the South of England was noted as late as 1875 by the Rev. Frances Kilvert, who met a Wiltshire countryman who told him how ‘there was once a prophet named Saxon who was born a peasant boy and used to drive plough oxen’ and died by starvation in a


151

21 Lancashire Printed Books, ed. Hawkes, p. xxiii.22 For these and other works produced by Eyres, see Lancashire Printed Books, ed. Hawkes,pp. xxiii–xxiv, 147–8.23 Past, Present and to Come! (London, 1796).24 John Clare’s ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’ describes ‘superstitous tales . . . hawked about thestreets for a penny, such as Old Nixon’s Prophecies, Mother Bunches Fairy Tales, andMother Shipton’s Legacy, etc., etc.’: Sketches in the Life of John Clare, written by himself, ed.Edmund Blunden (London, 1931), p. 46, cited in Margaret Spufford, Small Books andPleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and its Readership in Seventeenth-Century England (London,1981), p. 3.

gentleman’s house.25 The prophet also found continuing fame among a middle-class audience. He was occasionally used to help evoke a romanticized viewof medieval Cheshire, as for example in Mrs Frances Wilbraham’s novel Forand Against (1858), which describes the effects of the Wars of the Roses onthe society of fifteenth-century Cheshire.26 Here Nixon, speaking in Cheshiredialect, casts a sudden pall over the happy atmosphere. Wilbraham adapts theprophecy to her purpose, making the prediction of the passage on the wintercouncil foretell the doom of the gallant Cheshire gentry in the allegedlyfratricidal battle of Blore Heath. Nixon was also sustained among the associatesof the gentry families with whom he had always been associated. H. E.Delamere, writing an account of the coats of arms on the ceiling of the saloonat Vale Royal in 1844, included extracts from Ormerod, Lysons and King on Nixon, framing them with comments which expressed no criticism orscepticism of the prophecy.27 More frequently, however, this audience waspresented with images of Nixon expressive of rustic charm, simplicity and evenstupidity. The prime example of this is in Dickens’s Pickwick Papers (1836–7),where Sam observes to Mr. Weller,

‘. . . you’ve been a prophecyin’ avay wery fine, like a red-faced Nixon, as thesixpenny boks gives picters on.’

‘Who wos he, Sammy?’ inquired Mr. Weller.‘Never mind who he wos,’ retorted Sam; ‘he warn’t a coachman; that’s enough

for you.’28

Early in the nineteenth century, the frequent publication of the prophecysuggests Nixon’s continuing popularity. From soon after 1850, however, levels of publication declined suddenly and to virtually nothing. Kilvert’sWiltshireman may in 1875 have recalled an approximation of Nixon’s name,but already in 1849 in Norfolk Nixon’s prophecies were no longer associatedwith his name.29 In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Nixontradition appears to have been retreating into its regional base. Although therewere no new full-length versions of the life or prophecies themselves, newprophecies and interpretations continued to appear there. Two new verses ofprophecy are first recorded in 1868, both referring to contemporary events in


152

25 Francis Kilvert, Diaries, ed. William Plomer, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London, 1960), III, pp. 154–5.26 Mrs Frances M. Wilbraham, For and Against, or Queen Margaret’s Badge: A DomesticChronicle of the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols (London, 1858): ch. III, ‘Of the Cheshire ProphetRobert Nixon’, I, pp. 48–71.27 CCRO, DBC 2309/1/11, pp. 40–4.28 Charles Dickens, The Pickwick Papers, ed. J. Kinsley, The Clarendon Dickens (Oxford,1986), ch. 43, p. 668.29 John Gunn, ‘Proverbs, Adages and Popular Superstitions, Still Preserved in the Parishof Irstead’, Norfolk Archaeology II (1849), pp. 291–308, at p. 292.

the North West: to the construction of the railway bridge between Runcornand Widnes, and the threat of the disestablishment of the Irish church.30

At the very end of the nineteenth century, the John Murray handbook forShropshire and Cheshire still referred to Nixon briefly as a prophet ‘whosecelebrity was so great that even to this day his prophecies are quoted by thecountry people’.31 The crisis of 1914 revived memories of Nixon in Cheshire,and it was said that he had prophesied that ‘after the war there shall be nomore Germania’.32 In the 1930s the Cheshire Sheaf carried a supposed extractfrom Nixon predicting the parliamentarian seizure of the civic insignia ofChester following the siege of 1644:

Soe longe as Chester huggs its Sword and MaceSoe longe shall Chester never know disgrace:But lett they baubles from her breast be torne,Then shall the Citie straightway be folorne.33

It was even possible for a new version of Nixon to be issued in the 1970s,complete with detailed explanations of the text with relation to contemporaryevents. R. C. Harper pointed out the parallels between Nixon’s propheciesand, for example, ‘the balance of Parliamentary power being held by the ScotsNats. [The Scots shall rule England one whole year] . . . and I.R.A. bombers[the Dragons out of Ireland shall come and make war with England for theirabomination so that London shall run with blood]’.34

In part this retreat was due to a rising tide of scepticism towards Nixon fromthe early nineteenth century, especially, but not exclusively, from antiquarianwriters. Daniel and Samuel Lysons’s volume on Cheshire, published in 1810,pointed out the problems with the story, such as the fact that Nixon was


153

30 Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 11 (1914), p. 94 – they had both appeared in a number of localpapers with accompanying explanation signed by ‘A Cheshire man born’. The latter wasreproduced in William Beamont, A History of the Castle of Halton and the Priory or Abbeyof Norton (Warrington, 1873). The threat posed by Irish Nationalism and Catholicism wasfelt to be great, as the reaction to the 1867 Chester ‘raid’ showed: W. J. Lowe, ‘LancashireFenianism, 1864–71’, THSLC 126 (1976), pp. 156–85, esp. pp. 171–6.31 A Handbook for Residents and Travellers in Shropshire and Cheshire, 3rd edn, revised(London, 1897), p. 109.32 Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 11 (1914), p. 97. It encouraged some resurgence of other prophets,as C. W. C. Oman noted in his presidential address to the Royal Historical Society soonafterwards: TRHS 4th ser. I (1918), pp. 1–27, esp. p. 25: he mentions Nostradamus,Trithemius and Mother Shipton, but not Nixon.33 Cheshire Sheaf 3rd ser. 33 (1938), p. 58.34 H. C. Harper, Nixon the Cheshire Prophet, to which is Appended The Original Predictions ofRobert Nixon, as Declared by Himself in Doggerel Verse and a Selection of Prophecies RecordedElsewhere, 2nd edn (Hereford, 1978), unpaginated – there is a copy of this pamphlet in theChester City Library. The pamphlet concludes with an advertisement for Sangreal, ‘a newquarterly journal of the Mysteries Crafts and Folk Traditions of Britain’.

alleged to have lived at two periods, in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries,and that the Cheshire historians William Webb and the several RandleHolmes made no mention of him.35 At this stage, scepticism stood in the faceof continuing widespread belief in the prophet: the Lysons call him ‘thecelebrated Nixon’, and emphasize that many traditions relating to him were still current in the vicinity of Vale Royal and were ‘implicitly believed’,and that the guide to Hampton Court palace was accustomed to point out two places where Nixon was supposed to have been imprisoned and starved. The Lysons themselves were less condemnatory when they observed that theowners of Vale Royal kept the prophecies strictly secret, ‘on account of the prophecies which they contain relating to the Cholmondeleys, and otherCheshire families’, and that the Nixon prophecy of the birth of the heir toVale Royal appeared to have been fulfilled, noting that the events occurreddefinitely after Nixon’s time.36 Ormerod’s History of the City and County Palatineof Cheshire, however, first published in 1819, in its discussion of Over townshipdevotes less than one page to an account of Nixon which concludes with a forceful dismissal of the prophet’s historicity.37 J. O. Halliwell’s PalatineAnthology of 1850 was sceptical too, as was T. Worthington Barlow’s Cheshire:Its Historical and Literary Associations, published five years later.38 Egerton Leigh treats the stories as simply legends in his Ballads and Legends of Cheshireof 1867.39 Perhaps the ultimate example of the sceptical antiquarian study ofthe prophecy was the work by W. E. A. Axon of 1873, which received a secondedition in 1878. Although he attempted to provide a number of editions ofNixon texts and was prepared to consider these as potentially of some antiquityand interest, Axon gave reasons for doubting Nixon’s historicity, such as the fact that there was no printed account of the prophecy before about 1714.40 The advance of such scepticism led to the complete omission of Nixonfrom some influential books on Cheshire in the nineteenth and twentiethcenturies.41


154

35 Daniel and Samuel Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. II. ii, Cheshire ([London], 1810), pp. 814–16.36 Lysons, Cheshire, pp. 815–16.37 Ormerod, Chester, II, p. 183: ‘In the compilation of this work there has not occurred anydirect or collateral confirmation of the story [of the birth of Charles Cholmondeley], or theprevious prophecy, in any authentic document whatsoever.’38 Palatine Anthology: A Collection of Poems and Ancient Ballads Relating to Lancashire andCheshire, ed. J. O. Halliwell-Phillips (London, 1850); T. Worthington Barlow, Cheshire: ItsHistorical and Literary Associations (Manchester, 1855), p. 108.39 Egerton Leigh, Ballads and Legends of Cheshire (London, 1867), pp. 175–85.40 [W. E. A. Axon], Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies; A New and Complete Edition, Reprintedfrom the Best Sources, with an Introductory Essay on Popular Prophecies (Manchester, 1873);Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies Reprinted and Edited from the Best Sources, and Including a Copyof the Prophecy from an Unpublished Manuscript, with an Introductory Essay on PopularProphecies (Manchester, 1878) – esp. p. xxviii.41 E.g., in spite of its sub-title, Arthur Mee, The King’s England: Cheshire: The RomanticNorth-West (London, 1938), pp. 179–80 (on Over).

As David Vincent has noted, there was also a self-conscious challenge to ‘superstition’ in the way in which working-class self-identity was written bypolitical radicals in the nineteenth century, and this included a challenge toprophecy.42 Nixon was a target of the growing body of works with a nationalfocus targeted at ‘superstitious’ phenomena, such as G. H. Wilson’s WonderfulCharacters of 1842.43 Charles Mackay’s Extraordinary Popular Delusions of 1869 noted that ‘a belief in [Nixon’s] power has not been entirely effacted bythe light of advancing knowledge’ and the story is held up with those ofMother Shipton and Merlin as a prime example of the credulity of the massof the population.44 Further, this coincides with what has been seen as the dateof the crisis of popular astrology, as almanacs were transformed to omit manyof their traditional astrological elements.45

Yet Nixon’s experience contrasts starkly with that of Shipton’s prophecy.Nixon did not suffer from a general revolution towards rationality. Specificfactors are more important. Nixon was first printed in a form highly relevantto the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries; this topicality wasinitially a reason for the prophecy’s great success, but once this immediaterelevance was lost, there was little in the prophecy of a more general natureto attract the reader. It was the prophecy of the Glorious Revolution, andRevolution politics meant increasingly little, while in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries possible invading forces rarely seemed likely to marchinto England with snow on their helmets. The highly specific nature of theprophecy also told against it once sceptical antiquarian commentators turnedto deal with it in the nineteenth century. Nixon could too easily be caughtout on detail, and did not possess the readily accessible publication historyfrom the seventeenth century which helped give Mother Shipton somecontinuing appeal in their eyes. Then again, in the eyes of the popular marketfor prophecy, Nixon lost out to the competition from Shipton, who by themid-nineteenth century was offering detailed prognostications on contem-porary events. And finally, while Shipton had, as we shall see, a specific localeand site to which devotees could go to celebrate her reputation, sanctionedby the local gentry, Nixon did not and his name was officially ignored by thenineteenth-century Cholmondeleys. While keeping a copy of the prophecyin their library and a cage for prophetic eagles in their grounds, so safeguardingtheir succession, they did nothing to encourage visitors to the key sites of the


155

42 David Vincent, ‘The Decline of the Oral Tradition in Popular Culture’, in PopularCulture and Custom in Nineteenth-Century England, ed. Robert D. Storch (London, Canberraand New York, 1982), pp. 20–47.43 G. H. Wilson, Wonderful Characters: Comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of the MostRemarkable Persons, of Every Age and Nation (London, 1842).44 Charles Mackay, Memoirs of Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, 3 vols (London,1841), I, pp. 196–201, esp. p. 196.45 Maureen Perkins, Visions of the Future: Almanacs, Time, and Cultural Change 1775–1870(Oxford, 1996), pp. 117–22, sees the crucial years as 1869–70.

Nixon legend, to the point of denying any knowledge of the prophecy. Nixonwas finished; but popular political prophecy was not dead.

The continuing influence of the popular belief in Mother Shipton wasbriefly alluded to at the end of the preceding chapter. Queen Caroline’s figuresin her Merlin’s Cave may not have been intended to include Mother Shipton,but that is how they were soon perceived. It is not, perhaps, surprising, there-fore, that the London stage at this point was host to ‘Mother Shipton’s Wish;or Harlequin’s Origin’ (24 January 1735).46 In the 1730s, around the time ofthe repeal of the Witchcraft Act, a writer who may have been Henry Fieldingreferred obliquely on several occasions to Mother Shipton, for example in hisattack on James Pitt, whom he described as Mother Osborne.47 There was alsothe 1740 edition of Shipton’s prophecies produced by J. Tyrrel, Past, Present,and To Come, with a further edition in 1743.48 George Colman senior wrotea pantomime Mother Shipton (26 December 1770), with music by SamuelArnold.49 The name ‘Mother Shipton’ for the moth Callistege Mi, in place ofits previous name the ‘Mask’, seems to have first appeared in the early 1770s.50

A satire on contemporary parliamentary politics, attributed to Shipton, SaintStephen’s Tripod, was published in 1782. It was certainly directed at an audi-ence that included members of the elite. It makes no concession to the readerin its language; the allusive style demands considerable understanding of the personalities of the House of Commons. Nor does the text include anyextract from a prophecy previously published.51 Mother Shipton Triumphant, or,Harlequin’s Museum was performed in 1792.52


156

46 Designed by John Devoto: ODNB.47 Martin C. Battestin, New Essays by Henry Fielding: His Contributions to The Craftsman(1734–1739) and Other Early Journalism (Charlottesville, 1989), pp. 36, 131–2.48 J. Tyrrel, Past, Present, and To Come: Or, Mother Shipton’s Yorkshire Prophecy (London,1740); published by Francis Noble, who with his brother John commenced a circulatinglibrary in Holburn in about 1739; he operated a separate publishing business until he diedin 1792: Plomer, Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers 1726 to 1775, p. 182. Past, Present,and To Come: Or, the Renowned Mother Shipton’s Most Surprizing Yorkshire Prophecies(London, 1743).49 The Overture, Songs, and Comic Tunes in the Pantomine [i.e. Pantomime] EntertainmentCall’d Mother Shipton: As Perform’d at the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden (London, [1770]).Charles Lee Lewes appeared as Harlequin in Mother Shipton in the 1770–1 season: ODNB.50 Moses Harris uses the name ‘Mask’ in the 1760s in The Aurelian (London, 1766; newedn by Robert Mays, Twickenham, 1986), p. 97, but ‘Shipton’ in his The English Lepidoptera:Or, the Aurelian’s Pocket Companion (London, 1775), pp. 43–4. Bernard Skinner, ColourIdentification Guide to Moths of the British Isles (Macrolepidoptera), 2nd edn (London, 1998),p. 159.51 Saint Stephen’s Tripod: or, Mother Shipton in the Lower H**se (London, 1782). Thepublisher was George Kearsley, a well-known producer of radical texts, including Wilkes’sNorth Briton: Plomer, Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers 1726 to 1775, pp. 143–4 (active1758–97); he was the successor and great-nephew of Jacob Robinson, an importantpublisher in mid-century London: Michael Treadwell, ‘London Trade Publishers1675–1750’, The Library 6th ser. IV (1982), pp. 99–134, p. 112n.52 A Correct Account of the Celebrated Pantomime Entertainment of Harlequin’s Museum; Or,Mother Shipton Triumphant (London, 1793).

Although through the century the easiest access to the Shipton propheciesprobably came from the Diceys’ chapbook version,53 by comparison to Nixonthe publication history of the Shipton tradition is remarkably thin in theeighteenth century. As J. S. Fletcher pointed out, few new editions appeareduntil the 1790s; this, however, was the beginning of a dramatic revival, withnearly forty separate editions between 1800 and 1881.54 It has previously beenargued that Richard Head’s reworking of the Shipton tradition did it no servicesin the long run. He recreated Shipton as a commentary on the history ofEngland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and he all but eradicatedthe association with Yorkshire. By making the prophecy national in geo-graphical relevance and highly specific in political significance, he underminedits essential adaptability. These changes led to the lack of interest expressedin the tradition in the eighteenth century; Nixon’s prophecy served theinterests of all sides far better. One of the factors which ultimately savedShipton from oblivion, however, was the one element of re-rooting whichHead perpetrated, and this was the location of Shipton’s birthplace, and to alesser extent the site of her burial. For it was from the locality of Knaresboroughthat Shipton was to gain much strength in the late eighteenth and nineteenthcenturies.

The place of Shipton’s birth is one locality which is not clearly defined inthe 1641 version of the prophecy. The only clues are the implication that shewas in or near York, provided by the fact that the king’s noble messengers arriveat the King’s House near York before making their final enquiries after herwhereabouts, and that they do so by talking to Master Beasley, a prominentmember of the York legal community. Interestingly, there are signs in the latereditions of the prophecy that this vagueness permitted something of acontroversy to develop over the prophetess’s birthplace. In the 1677 RichardHead edition, the first chapter begins with a statement that in 1486 ‘therelived a Woman called Agatha Shipton, at a place called Naseborough’ and thatKnaresborough was the place of Mother Shipton’s birth. By 1686, however,the new version of that year was categorical that Shipton was a Yorkshire-woman, but confessed that ‘the particular place is very much disputed, becauseseveral Towns have pretended to the honour of her Birth; But the mostcredible and received opinion ascribes it to Naseborough’.

It is therefore important to establish the nature of Knaresborough’s localityand community in the Middle Ages, and to explain how it suddenly emergedfrom relative isolation to become one of the most celebrated and visited placesin the North of England in the seventeenth century. The continuities betweenwhat was in the Middle Ages, despite strong ties to the crown, a relativelyclosed community and the newly cosmopolitan resort of the early modern


157

53 For the Diceys: Victor E. Neuburg, ‘The Diceys and the Chapbook Trade’, The Library5th ser. 24 (1969), pp. 219–31.54 J. S. Fletcher, Harrogate and Knaresborough (London and New York, 1920), p. 51.

period will be stressed to show how Knaresborough retained an identity of its own, even when its population was frequently boosted by large numbers of incomers. In particular, it is important to note the ways that tourism, in itsvarious forms, developed, and was managed and exploited: the ways thelocality was ‘supplied’, and the things that visitors and external consumers‘demanded’ of it.

In many ways, Knaresborough was one of the parts of northern England with the strongest and most direct ties to the crown. The honour of Knares-borough emerged in the thirty years after the Domesday survey; a coherentunit emerged when the lands of the area, formerly distributed among five majorlandholders, were largely retained by the crown after 1069.55 By the middle of the twelfth century crown control of the area had been organized into thehonour of Knaresborough and the lordship of Aldborough, the former dividedbetween the Forest and the Liberty.56 Through a mixture of dynastic failureand deliberate planning, the honour remained closely associated with thecrown and the wider royal family through the medieval period. There was notsimply a long-standing royal connection with Knaresborough; it was one ofthe few bulwarks of the king’s authority in the North. His position in Yorkshirewas almost entirely dependent on his two honours of Knaresborough andScarborough and their castles, and he spent more on them than any others.57

It was not purely in administrative and defensive terms that Knaresboroughplayed an important local and regional role. Knaresborough also had an activetown life; it was first recorded as a borough in 1169. Its market first appears in 1206, its fair in 1304, and these were enshrined in the earliest charter,granted to Piers Gaveston as lord of the honour in 1310.58 Knaresborough’sposition was advantageous, between the uplands, rich in cattle and sheep andproductive of lead, and the lowland region producing grain. The area alsoproduced iron from the ironstone deposits of the area from Kirkby Overblowto the Washburn valley and upper Nidderdale. In addition, Knaresboroughbenefited from the development of the textile industry in rural Yorkshire atthe expense of towns like York and Beverley, partly through the use of foreignexpertise.59 That said, Knaresborough’s economic importance did not extendbeyond its regional hinterland.


158

55 For the period of the conquest and its aftermath, A History of Harrogate andKnaresborough, ed. Bernard Jennings (Huddersfield, 1970), chs 2–4.56 The importance of the forest as late as the seventeenth century is indicated by the disputeover the receiver and collector of the honour, the forestership and the keeping of BiltonPark involving Sir Henry Slingsby in 1615; he estimated the annual profits at £475 6s. 8d.:J. T. Cliffe, The Yorkshire Gentry from the Reformation to the Civil War (London, 1969), p. 89.57 Despite further expenditure under Edward II, the castle was unable, however, to resistits seizure by Thomas of Lancaster’s supporters.58 CChR, III, 1300–1326, pp. 139–40 (York, 16 August 1310).59 Among those working in the industry were a group of Flemish weavers, including twomen called John Brabanner at Ripley and Spofforth, whose names in the Poll Tax records

Knaresborough’s importance in its locality also found an expression in thegrowth of the cult of St Robert of Knaresborough.60 Robert, son of a leadingcitizen of York, Toki Flos, came to Knaresborough in the late twelfth centuryto lead the life of a hermit. It seems that initially his relationship with Williamde Stuteville, lord of the honour, was poor. Terrifying dreams of three men‘blacker than ynd’ who threatened William with burning rods and iron clubsbrought him to change his attitude. Robert’s brother Walter, who followedtheir father into the mayoralty of York, helped him build a chapel in honourof the Holy Cross. As Robert’s fame spread, Brian de l’Isle, William deStuteville’s successor as lord of the honour of Knaresborough, allegedly broughtKing John to visit him, and the king gave Robert half a carucate of land in thewood of Swinesco in February 1216.61 Although Robert’s miracles frequentlyinvolved him confronting the rich and powerful,62 this was a conventionalsaintly history of bringing the proud to a true appreciation of their Christianduty – and especially perhaps an attack on hunting and forest laws.63 In anycase, important noblemen and clerics soon became associated with the cult of the hermit. He was regarded as a saint at least by 1252, when Pope InnocentIV granted an indulgence to those who would ‘help in completing themonastery of St. Robert of Knaresborough where that saint’s body is buried’.64

The most prominent lay patron of the cult and of the Trinitarian friars who built their house over the saint’s body at Knaresborough was Richard ofCornwall. He was granted the honour of Knaresborough in 1235, and gave acharter to the friars in 1257.65 The friars also received patronage from Edmund


159

of 1379 recorded their origin in Brabant: History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed.Jennings, pp. 94–5.60 The main primary source for the life of St Robert is The Metrical Life of St. Robert ofKnaresborough, together with the other Middle English Pieces in British Museum MS. Egerton3143, ed. J. Bazire, EETS o.s. 228 (London, 1953); the best recent review of the saint’ssignificance is Brian Golding, ‘The Hermit and the Hunter’, in The Cloister and the World:Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. John Blair and Brian Golding(Oxford, 1996), pp. 95–117. For the history of the house, ‘The Trinitarian Friars ofKnaresborough’, VCH Yorkshire, III, pp. 296–300.61 Rotuli litterarum clausarum, ed. T. D. Hardy, 2 vols (London, 1824), I, p. 249.62 Which led History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, to see him as a ‘spiritualRobin Hood’ resisting the ‘Norman ruling class’: pp. 97–8.63 Golding, ‘Hermit and the Hunter’, esp. pp. 110–17.64 Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers (Regesta Romanorum Pontificum) relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Papal Letters, ed. W. H. Bliss et al., Petitions to the Pope, ed. W. H.Bliss (London, 1893–), I, p. 277; Les Registres d’Innocent IV, ed. Élie Berger, 4 vols (Paris,1884–1921), III, p. 59, no. 5738. The miraculous reputation of St Robert is apparent in, e.g., The Chronicles of William de Rishanger, of the Barons’ Wars. The Miracles of Simonde Montfort, ed. James Orchard Halliwell, Camden Society o.s. 15 (London, 1840), pp. 92,108–9.65 CChR, I, p. 19; N. Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall (Oxford, 1947), p. 90; CChR,II, pp. 240–1. A Trinitarian, Ralph, was Richard’s proctor at Rome in 1246; another,

earl of Cornwall in the 1280s.66 The friars were members of an order foundedin France in 1197 with the purpose of ransoming prisoners from the HolyLand.67 The crusading interests of Richard were therefore among the reasonsfor it being Trinitarians who took over the original hermitage. In addition,however, the English houses of the order frequently developed from hospi-tals and hospices, so it was also important that Robert’s foundation may havehad such functions from early in its history, connected with the springs of Knaresborough and the surrounding area, as witnessed by its connectionswith lepers.68

Despite such powerful patrons, the house’s influence was never primarilyfelt in material terms. The fourteenth century saw a major set-back for thehouse. The raid by the Scots in 1318 cost the friary dear,69 but recovery even-tually came, beginning in the latter part of the century. The number of friars recovered from just six in 1360 to eleven in 1375.70 The direct influenceof the monastery as a landlord was limited: the temporalities were valued atonly £24 11s. per annum in the Valor Ecclesiasticus; the spiritualities onlyextended to the five rectories of Hampsthwaite, Pannal, Thorner, Fewston andWhixley.71 This does not seem to have limited the influence of the saint cult:


160

William de Wolvele, acted as his emissary to the Pope in 1259 and served as his treasurerin the early 1260s: Denholm-Young, Richard of Cornwall, pp. 52, 57n, 100, 120.66 CChR, I, pp. 240–1; VCH Yorkshire, III, p. 297.67 It never had a large presence in England, numbering just ten houses with sixty-eightfriars in the middle of the fourteenth century: M. Gray, The Trinitarian Order in England:Excavations at Thelsford Priory, ed. Lorna Watts and Philip Rahtz, BAR British Ser. 226(Oxford, 1993), esp. pp. 10–15; H. F. Chettle, ‘The Trinitarian Friars and Easton Royal’,Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine li (1945–7), pp. 365–77; P. Deslandres,L’ordre des trinitaires pour la rachat des captifs, 2 vols (Toulouse and Paris, 1903); R. vonKralik, Geschichte des Trinitarieordens (Vienna, 1919); David Knowles, The Religious Ordersin England, I (Cambridge, 1948), pp. 201–2.68 Rotuli hundredorum temp. Hen. III & Edw. I. in Turr’ lond’ et in curia receptae scaccarijWestm. asservati, 2 vols ([London], 1812–18), I, p. 133 (the minister and brethren held fifteen oxgangs and two tofts formerly belonging to the lepers); both suggestions are made by Golding, ‘Hermit and the Hunter’, pp. 106–7. Cf. Grainge’s observation that near the Dropping Well is a piece of ground known as Spittlecroft: William Grainge,The History and Topography of Harrogate, and the Forest of Knaresborough (London, 1871),p. 258.69 W. J. Kaye, Records of Harrogate (Leeds and Harrogate, 1922), p. xvii; The Chronicle ofLanercost 1272–1346, ed. Herbert Maxwell (Glasgow, 1913), p. 235.70 VCH Yorkshire, III, p. 298; PRO, C 145/82/2; Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae,auctoritate P. Nicholai IV, circa A.D.1291 (London, 1802), pp. 323–37; Historical Papers andLetters from Northern Registers, ed. James Raine, RS 61 (London, 1873), pp. 280–1.71 Valor ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII, 6 vols (London, 1810–34), V, pp. 254–5. The netvalue, in total, was only £35 11s. 1d. In the early thirteenth century, Hampsthwaite wasregarded as a chapel of Aldborough: CPR, 1225–1232, p. 174; VCH Yorkshire, III, p. 83.The friary was granted the appropriation of four churches, Pannal in the aftermath of itsdestruction in the Scottish raids, Fewston, which had been given by Edmund of Cornwall,

in any case, the direct experience of the rule of the minister of the friary (asthe head of houses of Trinitarians was known) could be unpleasant.72 Robert’simportance as a hermit-saint was appreciated in other houses dedicated to suchfigures, such as Dale Abbey in Derbyshire, where elements from his story were displayed in stained glass.73 In fact, the popularity of the cult of St Robert among the population of the region appears to have grown throughthe fourteenth and fifteenth centuries: many pilgrims were visiting the shrinein the early fifteenth century, and wills show frequent gifts from inhabitantsof the Knaresborough area and more widely in Yorkshire and the North. Sir John Depeden, lord of Healaugh, left £3 6s. 8d. in 1402, William Bardsay,vicar of Nidd, 3s. 4d. in 1461 and William Lambert, rector of Gainford, 10s.in 1480.74 In the locality, the honour of Knaresborough, bequests were veryfrequent.75 Henry Tudor, his mother Margaret Beaufort and her then husbandSir Henry Stafford joined the confraternity in 1465, and the earl and countessof Northumberland were brethren of the house at the turn of the sixteenthcentury; Richard III granted the house remission of ‘an halfendelle of an


161

in 1349, Whixley in 1361 and Thorner in 1444. CPR, 1317–1321, p. 310; CPR, 1348–1350,p. 254; CPR, 1358–1361, p. 352 (confirmed 1375: Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers,IV, pp. 205–6); CPR, 1441–1446, p. 226. (Licence to appropriate the latter was given in1394: CPR, 1391–1396, p. 381; the advowson had been granted them by John of Gaunt,who was given the advowson of the house of St Robert by Edward III in 1372: VCHYorkshire, III, p. 298, citing BL, Cott. Charter XV, 1.)72 The records of the honour’s courts show fines for obstructing highways and enclosing,and a case of abduction in 1440: History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 106. A case of illegal hunting in 1482: Kaye, Records of Harrogate, p. 179.73 H. M. Colvin, ‘Medieval Glass from Dale Abbey’, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeologicaland Natural History Society lx (n.s. xiii) (1939), pp. 129–41, esp. pp. 138–41; W. H. St JohnHope, ‘Chronicle of the Abbey of St. Mary de Parco Stanley, or Dale, Derbyshire’, ibid. v(1883), pp. 1–29.74 Testamenta Eboracensia, 6 vols, Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (London andDurham, 1836–1902), I, pp. 297 (Depeden), 411 (Sir John Bygod of ‘Steteryngton’, 1426);Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers, V, p. 509 (faculty re. pilgrimages, 1402); VCHYorkshire, III, p. 299; Acts of the Chapter of the Collegiate Church of SS. Peter and Wilfrid,Ripon, A.D. 1452 to A.D. 1506, ed. J. T. Fowler, Surtees Society lxiv (Durham, 1875 for1874), pp. 99–100 (Bardsay); Testamenta Eboracensia, III, pp. 254–5.75 Wills and Administrations in the Knaresborough Court Rolls, ed. Francis Collins, vol. 1,Surtees Society 104 (Durham, 1902), pp. 1–29: 41 pre-1540 wills, with seven makingbequests to the house or brethren of St Robert (pp. 2, 5–7, 8–9, 16–17, 19–20, 23–4, 29).Cf. Acts of the Chapter of Ripon: bequests in 1454, 1459, 1461, 1470, 1471, 1476, 1467, 1506(pp. 29, 87, 101, 148, 169, 175, 230, 326; Ripon liberty adjoined the honour of Knares-borough: ibid., pp. 340–1); and William Brigg, ‘Testamenta Leodiensia’, in Miscellanea,Publications of the Thoresby Society iv (Leeds, 1895), pp. 1–16, 139–47, at p. 1; G. D.Lumb, ‘Testamenta Leodiensia’, in Miscellanea, Publications of the Thoresby Society ix(Leeds, 1899), pp. 81–96, 161–92, 246–77, at pp. 161, 186, 265, 269, 276; Robert Beilby,‘Wills of Leeds and District’, in Miscellanea, Publications of the Thoresby Society xxii(Leeds, 1915), pp. 85–102, 235–64, at pp. 88, 95, 102, 235, 239, 240, 254, 255.

halff of an hoole disme’.76 The relative success of the cult in the late medievalperiod is also indicated by the composition of a life of the saint early in thefifteenth century by a friar of the house.77 At the start of the sixteenth cen-tury, the leadership of the Trinitarian order in England of Oswald, minister ofthe Knaresborough house, saw him innovatively using the printing presses of de Worde and Pynson to produce letters of confraternity for the order.78

It is, however, striking that Robert’s popularity did not penetrate far beyondthe immediate hinterland of Knaresborough. Even in the archdeaconry of Richmond, there is little sign of devotion to his cult, and south of the Trentbequests to the Knaresborough convent were few and far between in the laterMiddle Ages.79


162

76 Michael K. Jones and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady MargaretBeaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 47–8; The Regulations andEstablishment of the Household of Henry Algernon Percy, the Fifth Earl of Northumberland: athis Castles of Wressle and Leckonfield in Yorkshire: begun anno domini MDXII, new edn(London, 1905), p. 347; British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 4 vols (Gloucester, 1979–82), I, p. 93 (fol. 29). Letters of confraternity exist for Henry and Lady Fitzhugh, 1412, and Robert and Agnes Plumpton, 1480: YAS, DD56/Add.1987/1A/1–2. A grant of privileges by the minister in 1473, to Thomas Popley: EcclesiasticalDocuments, ed. Joseph Hunter, Camden Society o.s. 8 (London, 1840), pp. 78–9.77 Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, ed. John Richard Walbran, vol. 1, SurteesSociety 42 (Durham, 1863 for 1862); this MS then belonged to the duke of Newcastle, andthe English Life had already been printed from it for the Roxburgh Club. Cf. the EgertonMS printed as Metrical Life of St. Robert, ed. Bazire.78 STC, 2nd edn, II, p. 8; 14077C.121B–C (1526–7).79 Wills and Inventories from the Registry of the Archdeaconry of Richmond, Extending overPortions of the Counties of York, Westmerland, Cumberland, and Lancaster, ed. James Raine,Surtees Society XXVI (Durham, 1853) (fourteen wills before 1540, none with a relevantbequest). For the South of England, this is based on a survey of the printed wills in SomersetMedieval Wills (2nd Series), 1501–1530, with Some Somerset Wills Preserved at Lambeth, ed.F. W. Weaver, Somerset Record Society 19 (Taunton, 1903); Somerset Medieval Wills (3rdSeries), 1531–1558, ed. F. W. Weaver, Somerset Record Society 21 (Taunton, 1905);‘English Wills, 1498–1526’, ed. A. F. Cirket, Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical andRecord Society XXXVII (1957), pp. 1–82; Bedfordshire Wills, 1480–1519, ed. Patricia Bell,Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical and Record Society XLV (Bedford, 1966);Bedfordshire Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1383–1548, ed. MargaretMcGregor, Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical and Record Society LVIII ([Bedford],1979). Even Lincolnshire people seem to have shown little interest: Lincoln Wills, Volume.I, A.D. 1271–1526, ed. C. W. Foster, Lincoln Record Society 5 (Lincoln, 1914); LincolnWills, Volume. II, A.D. 1505–May 1530, ed. C. W. Foster, Lincoln Record Society 10(Lincoln, 1918 for 1914); and Lincoln Wills, Volume. III, A.D. 1530–1532, ed. C. W. Foster,Lincoln Record Society 24 (Lincoln, 1930), produce only two mentions of St Robert:Richard Clerke of Lincoln, 1528, silver spoon and 40d. to the house of St Robert ofKnaresborough; and Robert Brown of Wells, 1531, 4d. to the ‘gylde of St. Robert ofKnavesborow’ (II, pp. 89–90; III, p. 118).

So Knaresborough’s contacts were essentially local and at most regional,strengthening though these may have been in the fifteenth century. Whattransformed the situation was the development of interest in the springs inthe area, which occurred from the end of the sixteenth century. Knares-borough’s Dropping Well had been the subject of fascination for visitors atleast since the early sixteenth century. In 1538 John Leland described

a welle of a wonderful nature caullid Droping welle. For out of the great rokkes byit distillith water continually into it. This water is so could, and of such a nature,that what thing so ever faullith oute of the rokkes ynto this pitte, or ys caste in, orgrowith about the rokke and is touchid of this water, growith ynto stone: or els sumsand, or other fine ground that is about the rokkes, cummithe doune with thecontinualle droping of the springes in the rokkes, and clevith on such thinges as ittakith, and so clevith aboute it and givith it by continuance the shape of a stone.

There was ons, as I hard say, a conduct of stone made to convey water from thiswelle over Nid to the priory of Knaresburgh; but this was decayed afore thedissolution of the house.80

Even so, the probable medical use of the spring water in the monasticsettlement seems to have declined, as Leland implies, even before Robert’shouse was dissolved. Knaresborough was transformed by the discovery nearby,especially in the Harrogate area, of a new mineral spring. The early 1570s sawthe first publications of physicians promoting the benefits of drinking water orbathing in it.81 In 1571 William Slingsby, the fourth son of Thomas Slingsbyof Scriven, living at that time near the Stray, discovered a spring of chalybeatewater (i.e. impregnated with salts of iron). Slingsby had travelled on thecontinent of Europe and was therefore particularly familiar with health resortssuch as Spa in the Ardennes and the potential benefit offered by the spring.It was he who sponsored the paving and walling of the area around the sourcewhich was soon to become known as the Tewit Well.82 The news of the wellwas spread by a small group of physicians based in and around York. Especially


163

80 The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1536–1539, ed. Lucy Toulmin Smith, 5 vols (London, 1907), I, p. 86.81 William Turner was the prime exponent of the spa at Bath, writing from an Anglicantheological position: The Seconde Parte of William Turners Herball. . . . Here vnto is Ioynedalso a Booke of the Bath of Baeth in Englande (Collen, 1562: STC 24366). See John Jones,The Bathes of Bathes Ayde: Wonderful and Most Excellent, Agaynst Very Many Sicknesses. . . (London, 1572) (STC 14724a3); and for the North of England, idem, The Benefit ofthe Auncient Bathes of Buckstones: Which Cureth most Greeuous Sicknesses: Neuer beforePublished (London, 1572) (STC 14724a7).82 Confusion over which member of the Slingsby family discovered the well is resolved inthe introductory notes to Edmund Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, or the English Spa Fountain:Being a Briefe Treatise of the Acide, or tart Fountaine in the Forest of Knaresborow, in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. As also a Relation of the other Medicinall Waters in the said Forest (London,1626; reprinted with an introduction by James Rutherford and biographical notes by

prominent among them was Timothy Bright. Born and educated in Cambridge,and with a spell in Paris, Bright took his doctorate of medicine in 1579, andby 1584 he was physician at St Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He cameto Yorkshire as a result of his presentation in July 1591 to the church ofMethley near Leeds.83 It was Bright who probably gave the new-found well itsname.84 Bright was a man of considerable ability and some reputation andtherefore made a good publicist for Tewit well. Able to read Hebrew and Syriacas well as Greek, Latin and Italian, he also promoted a scheme of shorthandin his book Characterie.85 Beside Bright, the other major exponent of the well’sbenefits in the late sixteenth century was Dr Hunton, another physician, ofNewark on Trent. Neither Bright nor he published any account of the well at Harrogate; this was left to Edmund Deane. Deane was a generation youngerthan either Bright or Hunton, being born near Halifax in 1572. He waseducated in medicine in Oxford, coming to York to practise in 1614.86 Deane’sacquaintance with Bright was therefore short, but enough to inspire him topublish Spadacrene Anglica; or the English Spaw-Fountaine in 1626.87 In the sameyear, another work on the well was published, this time by Michael Stanhope,second son of Sir Edward Stanhope of Grimston. Stanhope’s work, News outof Yorkshire, described the wells and was followed by another work of the samekind, Cures without Care, in 1632.88

The Harrogate waters had therefore been commended to the public by aleading physician and by a man with strong family connections to the elite of


164

Alexander Butler, Bristol and London, 1922), pp. 35–41, 83–6. Cf. the failure of WilliamHarrison to mention Knaresborough in his catalogue of ‘baths and hot welles’ in 1577 inhis description of England included in Holinshed’s Chronicles: ch. 23, or ch. 14, book 2, inthe 1577 edition.83 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 44–9.84 This is based on Deane’s statement that Bright began the use of the term ‘Spaw’ aboutthirty years before the publication of Deane’s book – in other words in about 1596. Thiswould accord with Bright’s interest beginning almost immediately after he arrived in theNorth: Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, p. 47.85 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 44–9.86 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 19–30.87 Edmund Deane, Spadacrene Anglica; or, the English Spaw-Fountaine: Being a Briefe Treatiseof the Acide, or tart Fountaine in the Forest of Knaresborow, in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. Asalso a Relation of other medicinall Waters in the said Forest (London, 1626 (STC 6441)).Spadacrene Anglica, the English Spaw, or, the Glory of Knaresborough, Springing from SeverallFamous Fountains there Adjacent, Called the Vitrioll, Sulphurous and Dropping Wells; and also other Minerall Waters. Their Nature, Physicall Use, Situation, and Many Admirable Curesbeing Exactly Exprest in the Subsequent Treatise of the Learned Dr. Dean, and the SedulousObservations of the Ingenius Michael Stanhope Esquire. Wherein it is Proved by Reason andExperience, that the Vitrioline Fountain is Equall, and not Inferiour, to the German Spaw.Published, with other Additions, by Iohn Taylor, Apothecary in York (York, 1649).88 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 51–6. Cures without Care: Or,A Summons to all Such who Finde Little or no Helpe by the Use of Ordinary Physick, to Repaireto the Northern Spaw (London, 1632).

pre-civil war England. Stanhope’s father, Sir Edward Stanhope of Grimston,was himself the second son of Sir Michael Stanhope, executed for treason in1552 for his links with the Seymours.89 The dedications of Stanhope’s workssuggest one of the reasons for and consequences of the growing popularity ofthe Harrogate spa. News out of Yorkshire was dedicated to Lady KatherineStanhope, the wife of Lord Philip Stanhope, heir of Sir Michael Stanhope,executed in 1552.90 Cures without Care was addressed to Thomas Wentworth,earl of Strafford, and the increasing eminence of his audience suggests thatStanhope was catering for the upper gentry and nobility of the North ofEngland, who were increasingly drawn to Harrogate for what became a summerseason.91 The duchess of Buckingham, Lady Vavasour (wife of Sir Thomas),and the wife of the Lord Mayor of York were among the visitors who benefitedfrom the powers of the well in this period, suggesting a national reputationwas being created.92 To this was added the fact that foreign travel to the origi-nal medicinal well at Spa in what is now Belgium but was then the bishopricof Liège was being made hazardous by the drift to war on the continent ofEurope. As Deane urged, those visiting Knaresborough and Harrogate were at‘lesse hazard and danger of their lives, spoiling and robbing’ than if they soughta similar cure abroad.93

An additional motivation behind the writing on Harrogate lay in thestruggle for control of the water which had important religious connotations.In spite of the indications we have from Leland that the Dropping Well wasno longer exploited in the early Tudor period, in the late sixteenth centurythere clearly remained a strong tradition of pilgrimage to two wells, St Robert’sand St Mungo’s. Deane describes how ‘great concourse of people have dailygathered and flocked to them both neere, and a farre off, as is most commonlyseene, when any new thing is first found out’. Its reputation grew, he observed,‘even unto incredible wonders and miracles, or rather fictions, and lyes. Allwhich commeth to passe as wee may well suppose, through our overmuch


165

89 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 55–6.90 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, p. 56.91 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, p. 52. The dedication toWentworth is intriguing when set in the context of Sir William Wentworth’s recollectionthat his father, unable to produce a son, went to ‘the well att St. Anne of Buxtons’ afterseeing a vision, and that Sir William was conceived as a result: Wentworth Papers,1597–1628, ed. J. P. Cooper, Camden Society 4th ser. 12 (London, 1973), p. 28.92 Sections from Cures without Care describing cures are reprinted in Grainge, History andTopography of Harrogate, pp. 129–30, 133–4; also cured were Mrs Sadler, daughter of SirEdward Coke, Lady Hoyh of York and Mrs Fairweather of York. Sir Thomas Vavasour ofSkellingthorpe (Lincolnshire.) and Ham (Surrey) (1560–1620) married Mary, daughterand heir of John Dodge of Copes (Suffolk), widow of Peter Houghton, alderman of London;his wealth allowed considerable building works at Ham House: The House of Commons,1558–1603, ed. P. W. Hasler, 3 vols (London, 1981), III, pp. 553–5.93 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, p. 64.

English credulity, or (as I may better say) rather superstition.’94 Deane waskeen to point out that these were ‘springs of pure, and simple waters meerely,without any mixture at all of minerals to make them become medicinable’.95

The devotion to these wells was therefore clearly superstitious. Bright, Deaneand Stanhope all disapproved of this tradition, and their enthusiasm for thenew well and contempt for the old, non-mineral, springs almost certainlyrepresent an attempt to appropriate and supersede a Catholic use of the site.96

Even so, this was appropriation not obliteration, and the overwhelminglyconservative and even recusant gentry of the area, including the Slingsbys whohad first promoted the new well, may well have found attractive this limitedchange of custom.97 St Mungo’s well seems to have continued to be a popularresort, and more likely because of its miraculous than its mineral attributes. In1652, Dr French in his York-shire spaw wrote that it had ‘of late regained itsreputation’ and found it ‘worthy of a place amongst the four famous wells of Knaresborow’.98 In 1661, John Ray noted that ‘a great number of poor peopleresort to bathe themselves’ at the well, but that it ‘operates (if at all) by itsextraordinary coldness and astringency’; the far less sceptical MarmadukeRawdon in 1664 called it a ‘well of greate virtue, doinge very greate curesuppon thosse that have weake limbs’.99 In the 1680s Ralph Thoresby visitedit, and a Lancashire physician, Dr Clayton, published a book on it in 1696.The well was even credited with giving Sir Henry Slingsby back the use of hislegs around this time.100 In 1714, Nicholas Blundell bathed several times


166

94 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 72–3.95 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, p. 73. Cf. the continuing worship

of St Ann associated with the spring at Buxton: Thomas Hobbes, De mirabilibus pecci, Beingthe Wonders of the Peak in Darby-shire, commonly Called the Devil’s Arse of Peak, written1626–8, 1st edn 1636, sig. Blv.; reprinted from the edition of 1678, London, William Crook,in Thomæ Hobbes Malmesburiensis Opera Quæ Latine Scripsit Omnia, ed. WilliamMolesworth, 5 vols (London, 1839–45), V (1845), pp. 319–40.

96 David Harley, ‘Religious and Professional Interests in Northern Spa Literature,1625–1775’, Bulletin of the Society for the Social History of Medicine 35 (December 1984), pp. 14–16.

97 William Slingsby was listed as a recusant in 1604; he was buried in Knaresborough, 8 October 1606: Kaye, Records of Harrogate, pp. xxix, 73.

98 D. H. Atkinson, Ralph Thoresby, the Topographer; His Town and Times, 2 vols (Leeds,1885), I, notes to follow p. 197. John French, The York-shire spaw; or, A Treatise of FourFamous Medicinal Wells . . . near Knaresborow in York-shire (London, 1652); another edn(London, 1654).

99 Memorials of John Ray, Consisting of his Life by Dr. Derham; Biographical and CriticalNotices by Sir J.E. Smith, and Cuvier and Dupetit Thomas. With his Itineraries, etc., ed. EdwinLankester, Ray Society (London, 1846), p. 142; The Life of Marmaduke Rawdon of York, or,Marmaduke Rawdon the Second of that Name, ed. Robert Davies, Camden Society LXXXV(London, 1863), p. 118 (Rawdon referred to the cure of children with rickets, and foundthere ‘greate resort of people’).100 Atkinson, Thoresby, I, notes to follow p. 197: citing Sir John Floyer and Dr Edward

during a visit to the area.101 Even in the seventeenth century, there remainedstrong links between spa visiting, including that at Harrogate, and religiousand political dissidence. Partly this was due to the importance of the con-tinental Spa to the exiled Catholic community: it was at Spa that many of the defeated rebels of 1569 went on reaching continental Europe, and in 1615it was the community at Spa which was given the right by the Pope to elect a Roman Catholic archbishop of Canterbury.102 One of those who accom-panied Mary, queen of Scots, to England, appears to have chosen to settle atHaverah Park near the forest of Knaresborough.103 It is particularly strikingthat even in the 1680s a high proportion of visitors to the spa might beCatholics: in 1682, Ralph Thoresby complained in his diary that ‘the most ofthe guests at this house are Papists’, and during the same trip found himselfengaged in ‘ineffectual discourses’ with ‘Torycal Papists’.104 In the closing yearsof the century, Celia Fiennes noted the presence of ‘several Papists there about’who said their prayers at St Mungo’s well, and told the story of a Catholicwoman who lodged in the same house at Knaresborough and made herself arelic by dipping her handkerchief in the ‘blood’ exposed when a body was dug up among some nearby ruins.105

Although the chief interest subsequent writers have found in the work ofDeane and Stanhope is their emphasis on the benefits of the Tewit well, bothpromoted the town of Knaresborough in their writing. In Spadacrene AnglicaDeane commented that Knaresborough offered suitable accommodation – theonly really suitable accommodation for his middle-class and gentry audience– in the close vicinity. ‘In brief, there is nothing wanting, that may fitly servefor a good and commodious habitation, and the content and entertainmentof strangers.’106 The effect of this publicity for Knaresborough was dramatic.Almost immediately after the publication of Deane’s and Stanhope’s works on the waters, a sudden flow of visitors came to the town to take the waters.Their number and quality were such that they were cited in 1642 as a reason


167

Baynard, Psukhrolousia: The History of Cold Bathing: Both Ancient and Modern (London,1706). The use of the well is here credited with keeping the North of England free of rickets.101 The Great Diurnal of Nicolas Blundell of Little Crosby, Lancashire, ed. J. J. Bagley, vol. 2,1712–1719, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 112 ([Chester], 1970), p. 103 (24–6June 1714).102 CSPD, Addenda 1566–1579, pp. 295, 354, 365, 496; CSPD, 1611–1618, pp. 285, 300,392.103 As recalled in 1730 by John Hobson when he met Mr Douglas of Leeds, ‘collector ofthe fraight’: ‘The Journal of Mr. John Hobson, late of Dodworth Green’, ed. CharlesJackson, Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,Surtees Society LXV (Durham, 1877 for 1875), p. 297.104 Atkinson, Thoresby, I, p. 153.105 The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, ed. Christopher Morris (London, 1949), p. 79.106 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 67–8.

for ensuring that the town had a suitable vicar.107 The king’s physician, SirTheodore Mayerne, was among those persuaded by the benefits of the spring,recommending them to one of his Scottish clients, James, Lord Livingstoneof Almond, in June 1638.108 In 1641, the officers of the English army whichwas ineffectively facing the Scots, along with local gentlemen, resorted to the spa at Knaresborough.109 Deane’s book went into a second edition in 1649and a third in 1654.110 In the latter year, the town and its surroundings weredescribed in glowing terms by John Evelyn,111 and before the century was out he was echoed by other such diarist-visitors as John Ray, MarmadukeRawdon, Oliver Heywood, Thomas Baskerville and Celia Fiennes.112 RalphThoresby’s annual summer visits in the early 1680s show clearly how a seasonwas developing, at least for visitors from Yorkshire.113 By 1688, it was plausiblefor the earl of Danby to use a visit to the Harrogate spa as an excuse to leaveLondon for Yorkshire as James II’s regime faced its crisis.114 There were otherspas with which Knaresborough had to compete, especially for Yorkshirepeople Scarborough. This coastal resort in many ways outstripped Harrogate


168

107 The Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, of Scriven, Bart: Now First Published Entire from the MS.A Reprint of Sir Henry Slingsby’s Trial, his Rare Tract, ‘A Father’s Legacy.’ Written in the TowerImmediately before his Death, and Extracts from Family Correspondence and Papers, with Notices,and a Genealogical Memoir, ed. Daniel Parsons (London, 1836), pp. 329–31; History ofHarrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 223. 108 CSPD, 1637–1638, p. 526; he spent a fortnight there, but with little benefit, for theheavy rain had spoiled the spring water (ibid., pp. 599–600).109 The Fairfax Correspondence: Memoirs of the Reign of Charles the First, ed. George W.Jonson, 2 vols (London, 1848), II, pp. 214–15 (Thomas Stockdale to Lord Fairfax, Baronof Cameron, 23 July 1641). The earl of Holland reportedly did not like the waters; LordFauconberg was among the company at the spa.110 Spadacrene Anglica (York, 1649); another edition (York, 1654).111 From the tower of the minster at York on 17 August 1654, Evelyn saw ‘the Spaus ofKnarsbrough, & all the invirons of that admirable Country’: The Diary of John Evelyn, ed.E. S. de Beer, 6 vols (Oxford, 1955), vol. III, Kalendarium, 1650–1672, pp. 128–9.112 Memorials of John Ray, pp. 139–42 (1661). Life of Marmaduke Rawdon, pp. 117–18(1664). Heywood met with friends from Leeds and elsewhere and ‘found comfortableimployment’ (1666): The Rev. Oliver Heywood, B.A. 1630–1702; His Autobiography,Diaries, Anecdote and Event Books; Illustrating the General and Family History of Yorkshire andLancashire, ed. J. Horsfall Turner, 4 vols, vol. 1 (Brighouse, 1882), pp. 229, 256 (anothervisit, 1668). Thomas Baskerville, ‘A Journey into the North with my Friend Mr.Washborne, Student of Christ Church, Oxford’, HMC Portland, II (1893), p. 314 (1695).Journeys of Celia Fiennes, pp. 79–81 (1697).113 The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., Author of the Topography of Leeds. (1677–1724.)Now First Published from the Original Manuscript, ed. Joseph Hunter, 2 vols (London, 1830),I, pp. 29, 54, 86; Atkinson, Thoresby, I, p. 69 (June 1679), 88–9 (August 1680), 113–15(June 1681), 153, 155–6 (July and August 1682), 211 (July 1683).114 Memoirs of Sir John Reresby: The Complete Text and a Selection from his Letters, ed. AndrewBrowning, 2nd edn, with preface and notes by Mary K. Geiter and W. A. Speck (London,1991), pp. 515–16 (‘pretending . . . to drinke the sulfer water at Knaisbrough’).

for popularity and facilities provided, but the fierce pamphlet war betweensupporters of the two spas115 helped to maintain Knaresborough’s trade andHarrogate sustained an important place among the spas of Britain in theseventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

The growth of facilities for visitors in Harrogate itself meant thatKnaresborough’s prime role in the tourist trade declined from the end of theseventeenth century. Daniel Defoe in 1717, like most others, stayed in Knares-borough and travelled by coach to take the waters in Harrogate, but a few years later the flow of day-trippers had shifted. Now visitors stayed in Harrogateand made the journey over to Knaresborough.116

The beauty of the locality of the Harrogate spa had always been part of itsattraction.117 In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries an important part


169

115 Scarborough was preferred by Dr Robert Wittie in 1669; in 1670 Dr George Tonstallreplied that, although once a devotee of the Scarborough cure, he now foundKnaresborough much superior. Robert Witty, Scarbrough Spaw or a Description of the Natureand Vertues of the Spaw (York, 1660: STC W3231); another edition (York, 1667: STCW3232); W. Simpson, Hydrologia Chymica: or the Chymical Anatomy of the Scarborough andother Spaws in Yorkshire. Wherein are Interspersed, Some Animadversions upon Dr. Wittie’slately Published Treatise of the Scarborough Spaw. Also, a Short Description of the Spaws atMalton and Knarsbrough (London, 1669: STC S3833); Robert Witty, Pyrologia Mimica, oran Answer to Hydrologia Chymica of William Sympson Pilo-Chymico-Medicus; In defence ofScarbrough-Spaw. Also a vindication of the Rational Method and Practice of Physic calledGalenical, and a Reconciliation betwixt that the Chymical (London, 1669: STC W3230);George Tonstall, Scarborough Spaw Spagyrically Anatomized, an. 1670; and a New Year’s Giftfor Dr. Witty (London, 1670: STC T1889); (this was accompanied by recommendatoryverses by John Thoresby, father of Ralph, who had a manuscript of the work in hiscollection, and James Illingworth, president of Emmanuel College, Cambridge); RobertWitty, Scarbroughs Spagyrical Anatomizer Dissected, or an Answer to all the Dr. Tonstall hathObjected in his Book against Scarborough Spaw (London, 1672: STC W3233); GeorgeTonstall, A New-years-gift for Doctor Witty; or the Dissector Anatomized (London, 1672: STCT1888); William Simpson, A Discourse of the Sulphur-bath at Knarsbourgh (London, 1675:STC S3830); William Simpson, Zymologia Physica, or a Brief Philisophical Discourse ofFermentation, From a New Hypothesis of Acidum and Sulphur. . . . With an AdditionalDiscourse of the Sulphur Bath at Knaresborough (London, 1675: STC S3840); Robert Witty,Fons Scarburgensis: sive tractatus (London, 1678: STC W3227); William Simpson, TheHistory of the Scarborough Spaw (London, 1679: STC S3832).116 Daniel Defoe, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, introduced by G. D. H.Cole and D. C. Browning (London, 1974; based on the 1926 edition, with the addition ofThe Tour through Scotland; formerly two vols, now as one, but with former pagination), II,pp. 211–13. Reginald Lennard, ‘The Watering Places’, in Englishmen at Rest and Play: SomePhases of English Leisure, 1558–1714, ed. Reginald Lennard (Oxford, 1931), pp. 1–78, at p.45, notes that this first edition of Defoe’s Tour does not mention Harrogate by name, onlyKnaresborough, while the 1762 edition refers to the ‘small Village’ of Harrogate: [DanielDefoe], A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 6th edn, 4 vols (London, 1762), vol.III, p. 123.117 Deane had referred to the fruitful valleys in the area, and its clear water and dry andpure air: Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, p. 68.

of that natural beauty was the Nidd gorge at Knaresborough and the DroppingWell. In about 1739 Sir Henry Slingsby improved the walks and planted moretrees in the Dropping Well estate by the river; one, called according to sparesort convention Long Walk, led from the High Bridge to the Dropping Well, the other, the Short Walk, from the Low Bridge to the Well. Engravingsof the scene in this period conjure up the ideal romantic landscape to whichSir Henry was contributing, with ruined castle, river gorge and dramatic rocksand trees, as well as the Dropping Well itself.118

The association of Mother Shipton with Knaresborough, first seen in Head’swork of 1667, therefore coincided with the expansion of Knaresborough and Harrogate as spa towns and their celebration in published discussions oftheir resources. It is likely that Knaresborough’s growing popularity as a spa,and the concomitant spread in the reputation of the Dropping Well, con-tributed to Head’s choice of Shipton’s birthplace. What is striking is thatHead’s identification was not prominently reflected on the local level. TheDropping Well, identified by Head as the prophetess’s birthplace, had been aconsistent feature of the literature about the Harrogate waters, but no authoritywriting about Knaresborough and the well at this point mentioned Shipton.Deane had described the four other springs in the area of the Tewit Well. ‘Thefirst is the Dropping-well, knowne almost to all, who have travelled unto thisplace. The water whereof distilleth and trickleth downe from the hangingRocke over it, not onley dropping wise, but also falling in many pretty littlestreames.’ Deane commented on the way the waters rose from the earth beforedropping over the crag, and criticized Camden for his failure to observe thiscorrectly. Otherwise, his only comment was that ‘divers inhabitants there-abouts’ said that its waters were ‘very effectual in staying any flux of the body’. This is strangely non-committal – Deane ends his brief observation withthe phrase ‘which thing I easily beleeve’. Neither Deane, nor John Ray in 1661,nor Marmaduke Rawdon in 1664, nor Ralph Thoresby in 1681, leaves anymention of Shipton in their accounts of the well; nor in any other writer inthe early seventeenth century, although they write about the Dropping Well,is there any indication of a connection with Mother Shipton.119 ThomasBaskerville in about 1695 did not even mention the Dropping Well.120 Mostconclusively of all, two years later, Celia Fiennes described the Dropping Well


170

118 On 21 February 1769, Savile Slingsby, writing to his brother Charles, described plans to replant trees in ‘dropping well walk’ which had been blown down: YAS, DD56/M/8.119 Deane, Spadacrene Anglica, ed. Rutherford and Butler, pp. 77–9; Memorials of John Ray,pp. 140–1. Ray was unimpressed by the Dropping Well: ‘any other running water that fallsdown a precipice might as well be called a dropping-well’; he was, however, a self-confessedsceptic, admitting on his visit to Holywell that ‘I have learned, that to distrust is nervussapientiæ’ (p. 128). Life of Marmaduke Rawdon, p. 118; Diary of Ralph Thoresby, I, p. 87 (11and 12 July); Atkinson, Thoresby, I, p. 115.120 Baskerville, ‘Journey into the North’, p. 314.

and its surroundings in detail, noting there was ‘an arbour and the Companyused to come and eat a Supper there in an evening, to have the pleaseingprospect, and the murmering shower to divert their eare’. Given this, andFiennes’s careful description of the petrifying effects of the well, and hercollection of moss ‘crisp’d and perfect Stone’, it is hard to believe that anythingon the site obviously referred to Shipton.121

The well was on the recognized tourist trail at least from 1705, yet there isstill little sign of an accepted association between Mother Shipton and theDropping Well in the early eighteenth century. In that year Joseph Taylor, onhis way to Scotland, passed through Knaresborough – his guide advised ‘by theway to see the dropping well’.122 Defoe, visiting in 1717, mentioned the wellbriefly, as ‘that in a little cave [where] a petrifying water drops from the roofof the cavity, which, as they say, turns wood into stone’.123 Even in the mid-1760s, George Beaumont and Captain Henry Disney described the DroppingWell, but not Mother Shipton.124 The first sign of a connection betweenShipton and Knaresborough is to be found in the account by Richard Pococke,bishop of Meath/Ossory, of his visit to Knaresborough in 1750. After describingthe Dropping Well and the action of the spring water, he continued:


171

121 Journeys of Celia Fiennes, pp. 80–1. The petrifying effect was so well known as to be usedby William Nicolson to describe the ‘Petrifactions, in the Liver of an Oxe’, which he sawat a Royal Society meeting on 5 December 1705: The London Diaries of William Nicholson,Bishop of Carlisle, 1702–1718, ed. Clyve Jones and Geoffrey Holmes (Oxford, 1985), p. 319.122 Joseph Taylor, A Journey to Edenborough in Scotland, ed. William Cowan (Edinburgh,1903), pp. 47–8. The following year, Nicholas Blundell visited, but left no furtherdescription: Great Diurnal of Nicolas Blundell, vol. 1, 1702–1711, p. 113 (18 June 1706).123 Defoe, Tour, p. 212. There is no mention of Shipton, although there is of the DroppingWell, in Herman Moll, A New Description of England and Wales with the Adjacent Islands(London, 1724), p. 289.124 George Beaumont and Captain Henry Disney, A New Tour Thro’ England, Perform’dthe Summers of 1765, 1766, and 1767 (London, n.d.), p. 127. The Autobiography of Dr.Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk, 1722–1805, ed. John Hill Burton, new edn (London andEdinburgh, 1910), pp. 454–64, 473–80, records two visits, in 1763 and 1764, but neitherappears to have included a visit to Knaresborough and there is no mention of the DroppingWell. England Illustrated, or, a Compendium of the Natural History, Geography, Topography,and Antiquities Ecclesiastical and Civil, of England and Wales, 2 vols (London, 1764), II, p. 371, mentions the strength of the well, but not Shipton. Amory’s Life and Opinions ofJohn Buncle (1756) includes incidents set in Knaresborough and Harrogate, but does notmention the prophetic connections of the well: Thomas Amory, The Life and Opinions of John Buncle, Esquire, introduced by Ernest A. Baker (London and New York, 1904), pp. 302–25, esp. pp. 323–5, for a description of the Dropping Well and its properties (‘adelightful scene’ in the context of its riverside setting, p. 324). Smollett’s Humphry Clinkerdoes not apparently set foot in Knaresborough during his visit to Harrogate: TobiasSmollett, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, ed. Lewis M. Knapp (London, New York andToronto, 1966), pp. 157–79.

Near the dropping well is the sign of Mother Shipton, who as tradition saies wasborn here, which is signifyed by these lines, –

Near to this petrifying wellI first drew breath, as records tell.125

The growing interest in the well is clear in the sixth edition of Defoe’s Tour,of 1762, which expanded the account of Knaresborough to include a descrip-tion of a walk along the side of the Nidd to the well, the musical sound of thewater running over the rock, and the petrified moss. It then stated, ‘Traditiontells us, that, near this Rock, the famous Mother Shipton was born.’126 A poemof 1764 refers to ‘Shipton’s Cot’, and Thomas Pennant, in 1773, confirms thatthe association with Shipton was firmly promoted at the well.127 By 1792, theDropping Well could be referred to as situated ‘at the back of the MotherShipton’s Public House’.128

Even so, the last quarter of the eighteenth century often sees no acknow-ledgement of the prophetess in connection with the well.129 The main


172

125 The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, Successively Bishop of Meath and ofOssory during 1750, 1751, and Later Years, ed. James Joel Cartwright, 2 vols, CamdenSociety XLII (Westminster, 1888) (vol. 1); XLIV (Westminster, 1889) (vol. 2), I, p. 54.Pococke was more interested in prehistoric and Roman remains.126 [Defoe], Tour (1762), III, pp. 124–5 (the fifth edition had appeared in 1753).127 Trifles from Harrogate ([Harrogate], 1797), p. 22; Thomas Pennant, A Tour from Alston-Moor to Harrogate, and Brimham Crags (London, 1804), pp. 103–4. The visit occurred inthe summer of 1773, but the material was updated as late as 1777: Thomas Pennant, TheLiterary Life of the Late Thomas Pennant, by Himself (London, 1793), pp. 18, 29, 32.128 The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours through England and Wales of the Hon. JohnByng . . . Between the years 1781 and 1794, ed. C. Bruyn Andrews, 4 vols (London, 1934–8),iii, p. 43. ‘The woman who shows the well was very foolish, and offensive.’ A further thoughless direct indication that visitors were aware of the Shipton connection came in HenrySkrine, Three Successive Tours in the North of England, and Great Part of Scotland. Interspersedwith Descriptions of the Scenes they Presented, and Occasional Observations on the State ofSociety, and the Manners and Customs of the People (London, 1795), p. xi: the Nidd ‘receivesin its passage a tributary stream from the Dropping Well, famous in ancient legend’.129 For example, William Bray’s Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire, including Partof Buckingham, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton, Bedford, and Hertford-Shires(London, 1778), pp. 141–3, describes the ‘famous dropping well’, but without reference toany legendary associations; William MacRitchie, a minister from Clunie in Perthshire, in1795 made no mention at all of the Dropping Well, in spite of spending some time inHarrogate: Diary of a Tour Through Great Britain in 1795, ed. David MacRitchie (London,1897), pp. 114–18. Thomas Gray’s The Traveller’s Companion, in a Tour through Englandand Wales; Containing a Catalogue of the Antiquities, Houses, Parks, Plantations, Scenes, andSituations, in England and Wales, Arranged According to the Alphabetical Order of the SeveralCounties, a new edition by Thomas Northmore (London, [1800]), does not even list theNidd gorge as a sight worth seeing, although it does Studley Park (p. 168). William Gilpin,visiting in 1772, described Knaresborough forest as ‘wild, bleak, unornamented’ andHarrogate as ‘a cheerless, unpleasant village’: Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque

exception to this pattern came in poetry and travel guides descriptive of thearea. The striking thing about this exception is that it is restricted in thelocation of publication, essentially the locality of Knaresborough, and in the years in which it occurred, essentially the half-century from about 1790.Guides with a more national scope, such as The New British Traveller, simplymentioned the Dropping Well as a petrifying spring.130 The pioneer in theproduction and marketing of this local genre was Ely Hargrove. He occupiedpremises called Library House on Regent Parade,131 which mildly impressedeven educated visitors;132 and he is best known for his History of Knaresboroughwhich was published by him in 1769 and in later editions.133 He marketedmany local works which included references to Shipton. The Beauties ofHarrogate and Knaresbro’, published in Ripon for local sale in the two towns,included perhaps the longest description of the well and its connection withMother Shipton yet to be produced.

Mytholigists might, in this case lay odds,That silvan deities, and water gods;


173

Beauty, Made in the Year 1772, on Several Parts of England, 2 vols (London, 1786), II, pp. 203–4. Cf. York Minster Library, Additional MS 141, p. 9 (1790s).130 George Augustus Walpoole, The New British Traveller (London, ?1784 [i.e. ? incatalogue]), p. 435; identical reference in the later version, The New and Complete EnglishTraveller, revised by William Hugh Dalton (London, 1794?), p. 435. Also William Mavor,The British Tourist, Or, Traveller’s Pocket Companion, through England, Wales, Scotland, andIreland, Comprehending the Most Celebrated Modern Tours in the British Islands, and SeveralOriginals, 3rd edn, 6 vols (London, 1809), vol. IV, pp. 279–80.131 A Catalogue of Hargroves’ Circulating Library, at Harrogate; Containing a ValuableCollection of Books, Which are lent out, Agreeable to the Conditions, Specified in the FollowingPages (Knaresborough, n.d.), gives an indication of the books available to visitors; strangelyit does not include many works of local interest, virtually the only example being Walker’swork on Harrogate water (no. 492). One reason for this may have been Hargrove’sdetermination to maximize sales of his own publications on the region: the catalogueincludes advertisements for the second edition of A Week in Harrogate, Garnett’s Treatiseon Harrogate Waters, Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fairfax, Guide to all the Watering and Sea-bathingPlaces within 112 miles from Harrogate, and Ancient Customs of the Forest of Knaresborough;an appendix concluded with further advertisements, including The Harrogate Guide.Hargrove was therefore in a strong position to be a monopoly purveyor of information aboutthe locality to visitors.132 George Saville Carey, The Balnea: Or, an Impartial Description of all the Popular WateringPlaces in England, 3rd edn (London, 1801), p. 194; cf. A Catalogue of Hargrove’s CirculatingLibrary at Harrogate (York, 1801): 1,500 volumes.133 The History of the Castle and Town of Knaresbrough [sic]; with Remarks on Spofforth,Rippon, Aldborough, Boroughbridge, Ribston, &c. ([Knaresborough], 1769): note that thisdoes not refer to Shipton; [Ely Hargrove], The History of the Castle, Town, and Forest ofKnaresborough; with Harrogate, and its Medicinal Waters, the Antiquities and Remarkable Placesto be seen in the Neighbourhood, Eminent for their Situation, and Celebrated in Ancient History,[new edition] (York, 1775).

As dryads, naiades, rural nymphs, and fawns,Who haunt the fountains, rivers, woods, and lawns;In darken’d days, ere learning did appear,Might be suppos’d to hold their meetings here:From whence arose that legendary tale,Of Mother Shipton dwelling in this vale:Traditions tell, and far the mouth of fame,Hath spread the predicts of the Yorkshire Dame;The bodeing Sibil told what would betide;But Britons hath a true and better guide:As for her facts we cannot truely tell,Therefore adieu unto the Dropping Well.

A footnote is appended to the words ‘Mother Shipton’ stating that she was‘[b]orn about the year 1488’, followed by verses in the following form:

Mark well her Grot don’t miss this Place,Nor startle at her haggard face;As you are come to see the Well,Pray take a peep into her Cell.134

This note and the last couplet of the main verse suggest that the poetrecognized that his audience’s prime purpose in coming to the Long Walk wasnot to visit a shrine to the prophetess, and that they might well be scepticalabout the truth of the claims about Shipton. A few years later, in 1812, anotherpoetical account of Harrogate, this time cast in narrative form, referred directlyto Shipton. The first edition of Barbara Hoole’s A Season at Harrogate, whichis cast in the form of a series of letters from the supposed author, BenjaminBlunderhead, to his mother, included a description of a trip to Knaresborough,in the course of which the author referred to ‘The fam’d Dropping-Well which turns all things to stone’.135 In the closely related A Week at Harrogate,intended as letters not to Blunderhead’s mother but to his friend Simon, thereis a more direct reference to Shipton.

The Dropping-Well next, we then went to behold,Of which, such a number of stories are told:The top of the rock is ten yards from the ground,


174

134 The Beauties of Harrogate and Knaresbro’. A Poem (Ripon, 1798); sold by E. Hargrove,Knaresborough and Harrogate, 6d.135 Barbara Hoole (Mrs Hofland), A Season at Harrogate; In a Series of Poetical Epistles, fromBenjamin Blunderhead, Esquire, to his Mother, in Derbyshire: with Useful and Copious Notes,descriptive of the Objects most Worthy of Attention in the Vicinity of Harrogate (Knaresborough,1812) (reprinted 1904, Harrogate Museum, under a slightly different title), p. 32. For Hoole,a prolific authoress who kept a girls’ school in Harrogate from 1805, see Grainge, Historyand Topography of Harrogate, p. 185 (he dates A Season to 1811, at p. 148).

From which, quick descend, with a musical sound,Small streams, without number, which constantly flow,Turning all into stone, which they fall on below!And, near to this rock, I’d forgotten to tell,Did SHIPTON, the prophetess, formerly dwell.136

Similar themes appeared in another poem in the same tradition that appearedin 1833. Thomas Lister’s Poems Descriptive of Harrogate and its Vicinity, indescribing a visit to Knaresborough, made brief mention of ‘scenes, where thecharm’d thought may dwell, / The Sybil’s Cave – the wond’rous droppingwell’.137

Local histories and guides, following in this poetical tradition, tended to repeat accounts of Shipton in connection with the well.138 Hargrove diedin 1818 and his successor in Harrogate was W. Langdale; the Langdale familyhad a well-established reputation in the publishing and bookselling businessfor some years previously from their shop in Ripon.139 The Tourist’s Companion,published by T. Langdale in Ripon, which had its second edition in 1818,described the petrifying effect of the ‘celebrated DROPPING WELL’, and thenrecounted:

Beneath these cliffs and near the spring was born, about the year 1487, thatcelebrated personage, Mother Shipton, the wife of Tobias Shipton. Many wonderfultales are told of her knowledge of future events, which are said to have beendelivered to the Abbot of Beverley, the MSS. of which are yet preserved.140

M. Calvert’s History of Knaresborough, published in the town itself in 1844,followed a physical description of the well with a brief account of Shipton,


175

136 Barbara Hofland, A Week at Harrogate: A Poem: In a Series of Letters, Addresses fromBenjamin Blunderhead, Esq., to his Friend Simon (Knaresborough, 1812; 2nd edn, 1814), p. 86 (same in 3rd edn (Knaresborough, 1818), at p. 36). This is attributed to David Lewisin Grainge, History and Topography of Harrogate, p. 259. Cf. his The Landscape, and OtherPoems (York, 1815), which included a long poetic description of Knaresborough, dated1814, mentioning, ‘The petrifying Dropping Well, / Of which such wond’ous tales they tell’(p. 11).137 Thomas Lister, Poems Descriptive of Harrogate and its Vicinity, together with Lines on MonkBretton Observatory, near Barnsley (Leeds, 1833), p. 12. Cf. John Nicholson, The AiredalePoet’s Walk through Knaresbrough, and its Vicinity (Knaresbrough, 1826), p. 7.138 It should, however, be noted that the earliest account of the region, Thomas Gent, TheAntient and Modern History of the Loyal Town of Rippon (York, 1733), did not mention theDropping Well in its description of Knaresborough (pp. 45–50).139 Grainge, History and Topography of Harrogate, p. 188, says Library House, Hargrove’spremises, was at the time of publication (1871) occupied by ‘the Misses Langdale’.140 The Tourist’s Companion; Being a Concise Description and History of Ripon, Studley Park,Fountains Abbey, Hackfall, Brimham Craggs [.]; Intended as a Guide to Persons Visiting thosePlaces (Ripon, 1817), pp. 86–7. The book described how a variety of petrified articles couldbe viewed at the public house adjoining the site. Almost exactly the same formulae were

mainly taken from the Life of 1687.141 Men like Calvert, originally a druggistby trade,142 and the Langdales were very important in creating and sustain-ing traditions surrounding the neighbourhood of the spa, and they were clearlywilling to incorporate mention of Shipton. Others with greater aspirations toscholarly reliability also wrote guides, however, and they tended to make littleor no mention of either the Dropping Well or Shipton. Hargrove’s own Historyof Knaresborough did not in 1769 mention her, and in the edition of 1775simply stated, in the midst of a discussion of the Long Walk, ‘tradition tells us, that near this rock the famous Yorkshire Sybil, Mother Shipton, wasborn’.143 This work had some pretension to scholarship, as it quoted exten-sively from primary source material, drawn from, and properly referenced to,Rymer’s Foedera. Such scepticism was particularly apparent in J. R. Walbran’sPictorial Pocket Guide to Ripon and Harrogate, published in 1844. Walbran, an early student of Fountains Abbey, was a corresponding member of theSociety of Antiquaries of Scotland, and honorary member of the Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-Tyne, and the local Secretary of the Archae-ological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.144 The scepticism appears tohave begun to affect even the more credulous tradition of Langdale’s guides,145

and The Illustrated Hand-book for Harrogate, of 1858, described the Dropping


176

used in the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th editions, respectively 1818 (pp. 83–4), 1822 (pp. 88–9),1826 (pp. 97–8) and 1828 (pp. 97–8). Hargrove’s The Yorkshire Gazetteer, or, a Dictionaryof the Towns, Villages, and Hamlets; Monasteries and Castles; Principal Mountains, Rivers,&c.; in the County of York, and Ainsty, or County of the City of York: Describing the Situationof Each, and the Various Elements by which some of them have been Distinguished, 2nd edn(Knaresborough, 1812), pp. 127–8, 169, makes only the briefest reference to the history ofboth Knaresborough and Harrogate, with no mention of Shipton, and refers the reader tothe author’s History of Knaresborough and Harrogate Guide.141 M. Calvert, A History of Knaresborough: Comprising an Accurate and Detailed Account ofthe Castle, the Forest, and the Several Townships included in the said Parish (Knaresborough,1844).142 Grainge, History and Topography of Harrogate, p. 261 (d. 3 December 1862, aged 92).143 History of the Castle and Town of Knaresbrough (1769); [Hargrove], History of the Castle,Town, and Forest of Knaresborough (1775), p. 17.144 John Richard Walbran, The Pictorial Pocket Guide to Ripon and Harrogate: WithTopographical Observations on Studley-Royal, Brimham Rocks, Hackfall and the MonasticRemains of Fountains and Bolton (Ripon, 1844), pp. 89–101: this is a brief description of thehistory of the spa, followed by a description of the wells, in which the Dropping Well doesnot feature, the focus being on medicinal water. Cf. his A Guide to Ripon, Harrogate,Fountains Abbey, Bolton Priory, and Several Places of Interest in their Vicinity, 5th edn (Ripon,1851); title-page for membership of learned societies (7th edn, Ripon, 1859, follows suit).145 A later version of the guide, William Langdale, Langdale’s New Harrogate Guide: Beingan Accurate Description and History of the Most Remarkable Places in the Neighbourhood: Witha Variety of Information Useful to Visitors, 8th edn (Harrogate, ?1850), p. 28, borrowed theaccount almost verbatim, but added the information that the Dropping Well was theproperty of Sir Charles Slingsby, bart., and that the adjoining public house was kept by Mr

Well, but referred only briefly to Shipton: ‘Tradition states that here was born the famous Yorkshire witch known by the name of Mother Shipton.’146

More directly damning was William White’s History, Gazetteer, and Directoryof the West-Riding of Yorkshire of 1838:

Tradition relates that the famous Yorkshire sibyl, Mother Shipton, was born nearthis rock, towards the latter end of the 15th century, and that she delivered to theAbbot of Beverley those wonderful prophecies, which in ages of ignorance servedto amuse the childish, and impose upon the credulous.147

The scepticism of the authors of most of the guides had a further consequence.Since they were also the publishers of the local newspapers, these newspapersalso remained relatively silent on the subject of Mother Shipton.148

By the beginning of the twentieth century, all guides and histories ofKnaresborough, Harrogate and Yorkshire in general adopted the most scepticalpossible tone towards the Yorkshire prophetess. W. K. Wheater published theinfluential Knaresborough and its Rulers in 1907, and was clear in his views:‘Leland’s silence as to Mother Shipton is fatal to her claims’.149

It should also be noted that Shipton’s role in Knaresborough had a powerfulcompetitor, in the attraction possessed by the case of the murderer EugeneAram in the popular imagination. A. B. Granville, who visited in 1839, notedwith some irony that the other attractions, historical and natural, of the placewere no longer regarded with any interest: ‘At present, however, one objectalone gives an all-absorbing interest to Knaresborough, and attracts thither,


177

G. Howe, and added a sceptical note by stating that the MSS were ‘said to be preserved [myemphasis]’. The Stranger’s Introduction to Harrogate; containing a Variety of Useful Information,Relating to the Accommodation, the Recreations, and the Different Mineral Waters, of thisCelebrated Watering Place, 3rd edn (Leeds, 1830), pp. 23–4, did not even mention Shiptonin its account of the Dropping Well.146 The Illustrated Hand-book for Harrogate, with Excursions in the Neighbourhood; Compiled by the Editors of the ‘Harrogate Advertiser’. Also, Incorporated by Permission,Observations on the Medical Springs of Harrogate, by George Kennion, M.D. (Harrogate, 1858),p. 131. G. Kennion, Observations on the Mineral Springs of Harrogate, was published in 1857.147 William White, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of the West-Riding of Yorkshire, 2 vols(Leeds, 1838), II, p. 782. Cf. the emphasis on the vulgarity of the well in Handbook forTravellers in Yorkshire (London, 1867), pp. 239–40, although this does still briefly repeatthe report of Shipton’s birth there. The fourth edition (London, 1904), p. 288, lessenedthe disapproving tone and continued to refer to Shipton’s birth.148 E.g. Harrogate Advertiser, 20 August 1881.149 W. K. Wheater, Knaresborough and its Rulers (Leeds, 1907), p. 200; he had previously,in his Handbook for Tourists in Yorkshire and Complete History of the County, 2 vols (Leeds,1891), p. 344, in quotation marks, as if to disassociate himself from the idea, stated ‘“It isdistinguished as being the place where the renowned Yorkshire prophetess, Mother Shipton,was born.”’

at some time or other, all the visiters at Harrogate, who care little or nothingfor all the natural and artificial wonders just enumerated.’150

Alongside this greater scepticism in this local literature of history andtopography, Harrogate and Knaresborough were also described in the manyguides to mineral waters in Britain and Europe. This was a far more consistentlysceptical tradition. For example, Joshua Walker’s Essay on the Waters ofHarrowgate and Thorp-arch of 1784 was willing to pass comment on Knares-borough’s ‘beautiful, romantic situation’, to describe the way the Nidd gorgewas ‘beautifully ornamented with hanging foliage’, even to see in the ruins ofthe castle a ‘lamentable example of the rage of party and the devastations oftime’, but the Dropping Well simply called forth a lengthy chemical analysis.151

This meant that just as Harrogate’s fortunes took a dramatic turn for thebetter, with the increased interest of the duchy of Lancaster and the difficultiesof Scarborough, the local topographical and poetic tradition had turned a sceptical eye on the Shipton story.152 Even so, such scepticism at a time ofhuge growth in Harrogate’s popularity left tremendous scope for the continueddevelopment of the Shipton tradition. The year 1781 allegedly saw 1,556visitors; this number had grown to 2,468 in 1795. This was a considerablegrowth, but nothing compared to that of the following thirty years: in 1839,during the season alone, 20,586 visitors were recorded.153 Despite a slightdecline in the 1840s, growth resumed and by 1901 visitor numbers stood at around 75,000 a year.154 Harrogate’s role remained regional until relativelylate, and the identification and propagation of Shipton as a Yorkshire pro-phetess was therefore intensified, but once Harrogate’s market broadened (for example thanks to improving communication links by road and rail (from1848–51)), it meant that by 1910, more than one in eight visitors was from London. Harrogate found a place in the more national pattern of eliteleisure, which now included a move from the London season, via a period in Harrogate, to Scotland for the grouse shooting.155 Growth in visiting


178

150 A. B. Granville, The Spas of England, and Principal Sea-Bathing Places, 3 vols (London,1841), vol. I, Northern Spas, p. 93. Cf. the novel by Edward George Earle Lytton, BulwerLytton, Eugene Aram: A Tale (London, 1832).151 Joshua Walker, An Essay on the Waters of Harrowgate and Thorp-arch in Yorkshire,Containing Directions for their Use in Diseases: To which are Prefixed, Observations on MineralWaters in General and the Method of Analysing them (London, 1784).152 Frederick Alderson, The Inland Resorts and Spas of Britain (Newton Abbot, 1973), p. 75,argues for the importance of the duchy’s interest.153 These figures exclude servants in each case. The first two are taken from Hargrove (5thedn, 1798), the third from Robert Mitton, curate of St John’s Chapel (Kaye, Records ofHarrogate, pp. 82–95), and the fourth was computed from the visitor lists in the HarrogateAdvertiser by Granville (Spas of England, I, p. 62). They are discussed in History of Harrogateand Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 289. See ibid., pp. 290–9, for an account of the expansionof spa facilities in these years.154 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 311.155 William A. R. Thomson, Spas that Heal (London, 1978), p. 100.

continued after the First World War: 96,000 treatments had been provided atthe baths in 1901, but this had risen to 110,000–120,000 per annum in themid- to late 1920s.156 It was only from the late 1920s that the fashion for tak-ing the waters began its decline.157 By the 1940s the number of treatments was half the level of the 1920s, and although the creation of the NationalHealth Service provided a temporary growth in the number of patients dealtwith, the end of this contract in 1968 signalled the end of the spa. Nonetheless,the growth of the conference trade from the 1950s still meant that Harrogateremained a major centre for tourism.158

Part of the answer to the problem of the assimilation of Mother Shipton tothe location of Knaresborough lies in the continuing importance of Catholicpilgrimage there in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Aswe have already seen, observers found many papists among their fellow visitors,and these pilgrims had a series of sites to visit and structures of support andexplanation. Although we only get the briefest glimpses of it, there was stillin the late seventeenth century a site in Knaresborough centred on the cultof St Robert. John Ray, visiting in 1661, gives the fullest indication of thetrappings of this cult. He describes a statue of St Robert in his chapel; therewas still apparently stained-glass in the church representing scenes from thesaint’s life, such as his ploughing with a pair of bucks, and his grant of his lastcow to a cripple. Most importantly, he described an old woman, ‘who in a greatmeasure gets her living by showing strangers this chapel’ of St Robert. Sherecounted ‘many stories out of the legend of St. Robert’, stories which wereapparently so vivid that Ray recorded the one relating to the saint’s meetingwith King John in some detail.159 Ray does not mention where these storiescame from, but other writers suggest that a manuscript Life of the saint wasavailable for visitors to view. Ralph Thoresby transcribed ‘the heads of St. Robert’s life from an old manuscript’ during a visit to Knaresborough in1681; Celia Fiennes may have seen the same manuscript.160 The presence inthe Nidd gorge at Knaresborough of a guide devoted to the shrines of St Robertallowed for a transition to tourism of the Dropping Well under the auspices of the Mother Shipton legend. It can even be argued that what drove thedevelopment of Shipton’s cult in Knaresborough was not visitor demand butthe pre-existence of these structures to support Catholic visitors and their need to find a new role as Catholic interest declined. The guide appears to have primarily served Shipton’s well, at least for the non-Catholic visitor,


179

156 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 441.157 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 443.158 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, pp. 445–8.159 Memorials of John Ray, pp. 140–1.160 Atkinson, Thoresby, I, p. 115; Journeys of Celia Fiennes, p. 79 (‘there was a Manuscriptwith a long story of this St. Robert’). Francis Drake, Eboracum: Or the History and Antiquitiesof the City of York, from its Original to the Present Times (London, 1736), pp. 372–4, providesa life copied from ‘an ancient manuscript’; a life was still kept in his cell, but it was imperfect.

at least from 1705. In that year Joseph Taylor was advised by his guide ‘by the way to see the dropping well, whereupon we dismounted and went to it,thro’ an Old Woman’s house, who shows it to Travellers’.161 At the end of the eighteenth century, the manner in which the duke of Rutland was shownKnaresborough appears to differ little from that of a century before, exceptthat its Catholic emphasis on St Robert had gone. Rutland described the visitto the Dropping Well:

An old woman, whom age had brought to the last stage of debility, opened the gate.. . . At a cottager’s house hard by, we observed, among other things, wigs, bird-nests,&c. &c. which had been reduced to a consistency sufficiently hard to bear a polish.

An old woman still controlled access; now the relics of the saint had beenreplaced by the relics of the prophet and her well. St Robert’s cave was stillpart of the itinerary, but it had become a ‘hermit’s cell’, the attribution to St Robert had to be explained by Rutland to his readers, and the thing whichfirst caught his attention was that the site was shown to visitors by a womanwhose son was covered in hair ‘exactly similar to the wool of a sheep’.162

Pennant, in 1777, was the first witness to another important element, the saleof printed works on Shipton at ‘a neighbouring cottage’.163 It was, however,St Robert’s cave and not the Dropping Well which most clearly had a guard-ian when Sir Richard Colt Hoare visited in 1800; and a ‘little book is sold by the person who shews these premises, giving an abstract of the life of St.Robert’. It was in fact with a Life of St Robert that printing in Knaresboroughbegan.164

The other necessary precondition for the development of the Shipton cultat the Dropping Well was the acquiescence, at the very least, of the Slingsbyfamily. Once again there is a strong element of continuity with the cult of St Robert. Sir Henry Slingsby, the prominent royalist, was associated directlywith the cult of St Robert of Knaresborough when he was buried under what


180

161 Taylor, Journey to Edenborough, ed. Cowan, pp. 47–8.162 Journal of a Tour to the Northern Parts of Great Britain (London, 1813), pp. 118–20. Itshould be noted that Rutland did not actually refer to Mother Shipton in connection withthe well. His visit took place on 15 August 1796. Sir Richard Colt Hoare’s ‘Journal’ of 1800implies a tour along the banks of the Nidd, but there is no mention of either Shipton or aguardian: ‘The dropping well is a singular sport of nature and its waters are of a petrifyingquality. The approach both to and from it through a thick grove of trees on the banks of the river, affords a succession of pleasing scenery’: Cardiff Central Library, MS 4.302,vol. 5, fol. 39.163 Pennant, Tour from Alston-Moor, pp. 103–4.164 Cardiff Central Library, MS 4.302, vol. 5, fol. 39; Piety Display’d, in the Holy Life andDeath of St. Robert, the Hermit at Knaresborough (Knaresborough, 1787); W. H. Allnutt,‘Notes on the Introduction of Printing Presses into the Smaller Towns of England andWales, after 1750 to the End of the Century’, The Library n.s. II (1901), pp. 242–59, at p. 253.

was claimed as the same gravestone.165 The Slingsby family may well havebeen the ones who controlled access to the manuscript Life of the saint seenby late seventeenth-century visitors.166 We have already seen that in about1739 Sir Henry Slingsby improved the walks along the river. The first clearlink between the well and the prophetess appears just ten years later.167 Thereis no doubt that, if they had wished, the Slingsbys could have prevented accessto the Dropping Well and thereby ended the nascent Shipton connection. Itis therefore worth exploring the attitudes of the Slingsbys and their neighbours,the gentry who were an important part of the creation of the Shipton story asexpressed in Knaresborough.

We have already noted the continuing strength of Catholicism in thelocality of Knaresborough in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; thisstrength was equally reflected among the gentry of the area. The area aroundPateley Bridge, Ripon, Spofforth and Knaresborough was a noted centre ofrecusancy.168 Families such as the Knaresboroughs of Ferrensby, the Tankardsof Boroughbridge, the Bickerdikes of Farnham and the Plumptons of Plumptonremained committed to the Roman church, and the families of Mallory ofStudley, Ingilby of Ripley and Yorke of Gouthwaite conformed only in theyears between 1617 and 1638.169 The religion of the Slingsby family, like thatof many of the Yorkshire gentry, was complex.170 On the whole, there is littledoubt that the heads of the family were Protestants. Francis Slingsby set the pattern: he was described by contemporaries as a Protestant, but he had


181

165 John Richard Walbran, Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, Surtees SocietyXLII (Durham, 1863 for 1862), p. 170. On 7 November 1693, payments were made for‘pollishing the Tomb stone upon old Sir Henry Slingesby and Cutting the Epitaph’, andfor ‘dressing’ the coats of arms and repairing broken monuments in the choir atKnaresborough church: YAS, DD 56/J/1/8, unfol. For Sir Henry as a royalist martyr, see thepoem in YAS, DD 56/P, and the tract Sir Henry Slingsby, A Father’s Legacy. Sir H.Slingsbey’s Instructions to his Sonnes. Written a Little before his Death. (His Letter to a Personof Quality, etc.) (London, 1658), which includes his epitaph at pp. 94–6, reprinted as AFather’s Legacy: Sir Henry Slingesbys Instructions to his Sons Written a Little before his Death(York, 1706), which included his epitaph and a representation of his tombstone.166 If the identification made by Bazire holds good; Metrical Life of St. Robert, ed. Bazire,pp. 8–9. Cf. the reference to the MS made by Nicolas Roscarrock, who saw it by the favourof Mr Francis Slingsby (citing Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 3041, fols 377r–9v).167 Rutland in the 1790s explained that ‘Sir Thomas Slingsby, its owner [i.e. the owner ofthe Dropping Well estate along the river], with a laudable intention of forwarding thepleasures of the inhabitants of Knaresborough, has allowed a pathway to be cut through it’:Journal of a Tour to the Northern Parts, p. 118.168 Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry, p. 193, citing Richard Huddleston, A Short and Plain Way tothe Faith and Church, ed. John Huddleston (1608–98, Richard’s nephew) (London, 1688:STC H3257), fol. 5.169 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 121.170 The religion of the Slingsbys is surveyed in Susan Elizabeth Ellen Pitts, ‘The Slingsbysof Scriven, c. 1600–1688’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1994), pp. 144–53.

Catholic relatives. His wife Mary’s religion is nowhere directly described, but as the sister of the Percy earls of Northumberland she was clearly exposedto a Catholic milieu.171 Their son, Henry I, has been described as a ‘Puritan’,although this may exaggerate his views; there is no doubt, however, that his wife, Frances, daughter of William Vavasour of Weston, was a Catholic.172

Henry’s uncle William, discoverer of the spa, is likely to have been the WilliamSlingsby, gent., who was listed as a Roman Catholic living at Knaresboroughin 1604.173 If the Slingsbys were Protestant, at least in the person of the headof the family, then it is likely that until the early seventeenth century this was a Protestantism largely of convenience, allowing them to bridge the gapbetween their local sphere of influence, with its largely Catholic environ-ment, and the wider and even metropolitan connections upon which tenureof their local office depended. Henry II, however, was a Protestant: in 1640 he was a supporter of the bill to remove the votes of the bishops in the Houseof Lords.174 He was, however, unhappy with the abolition of episcopacy aspotentially too disruptive.175 Thomas, his son, was supportive of mainstream


182

171 Pitts, ‘Slingsbys of Scriven’, pp. 144–5; David Stuart Robinson, ‘The Local OfficeHolders of Elizabethan Yorkshire’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1980),pp. 9, 365–6; Joseph Foster, Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire, 3 vols in 2 (London,1874): West Riding, II; Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, pp. 395–8; CSPD Addenda, 1566–1579,pp. 85, 93, 95, 96, 97.172 Also, one of his daughters, Alice, married the ‘schismatic’ Thomas Waterton; the couplewere convicted for recusancy: Pitts, ‘Slingsbys of Scriven’, pp. 145–6; History of Harrogateand Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 121; Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, pp. 408–9; G. R. Smith,Without Touch of Dishonour: The Life and Death of Sir Henry Slingsby 1602–1658 (Kineton,1968), pp. 8, 25–6; Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry, pp. 184, 276; YAS, DD56/M/2/7; J. W. Walker, ‘The Burghs of Lincolnshire and the Watertons of Yorkshire’, YAJ XXX (1931),pp. 311–419; Hugh Aveling, Northern Catholics: The Catholic Recusants of the North Ridingof Yorkshire, 1558–1790 (London and Dublin, 1966), pp. 203–4. One of Henry’s Percyrelatives, Mary, the abbess of a continental nunnery, failed to persuade him to change hisreligion, and he appears to have tried to convert the wife of one of his fellow prisoners inthe Fleet (Lady Jane Englefield) to Protestantism: Slingsby MSS, DD56/M/2 (1 February1626), DD56/M/2/56, 57 (? September and ? October 1617). There are even signs that oneof his daughters was attracted to ‘Brownism’: Slingsby MSS, DD149/23, Anne Slingsby toSir Henry I, 12 July 1617.173 A List of the Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604, ed. E. Peacock (London,1872), p. 33; History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 121. The identificationis made by Pitts, ‘Slingsbys of Scriven’, p. 146.174 Pitts, ‘Slingsbys of Scriven’, pp. 148–9; Cliffe, Yorkshire Gentry, pp. 71, 267; J. T. Cliffe,Puritans in Conflict: The Puritan Gentry during and after the Civil Wars (London, 1988), pp. 43–5, 197–202; Irvonwy Morgan, Prince Charles’s Puritan Chaplain (London, 1957), pp. 30–1; David Mathew, The Age of Charles I (London, 1951), pp. 290–5; Smith, WithoutTouch of Dishonour, pp. 27, 42; Aveling, Northern Catholics, p. 273.175 Pitts, ‘Slingsbys of Scriven’, pp. 149–50; Nottingham UL, Galway MS 12714, fols 4,28–9 (Diary); Archbishop Neile was unwilling to allow his private chapel at Redhouse to be consecrated for fear of encouraging conventicles: p. 151; cf. his objections in 1638 to

Anglicanism, and this conformity, at the end of the seventeenth century, wentalong with good relations with Catholic kin.176

Thomas’s attitudes are significant, for he lived at the beginning of thehundred-year period in which Shipton became firmly attached in the popularimagination to Knaresborough and the Dropping Well. Sir Thomas’s son, Sir Henry, who succeeded his father in 1726 and served in almost all theparliaments from 1714 to 1763 (when he died), was a Tory with strong Jacobiteconnections.177 Although from this point on the borough’s MPs were controlledby the Devonshire interest for the Whigs, Sir Henry’s successors remainedstaunch Tories and were in many ways the natural leaders of the strong Torysentiment of the borough.178 In 1784, for example, Sir Thomas Turner Slingsbyattempted to bring long-leaseholders to the polls against the Devonshire can-didates.179 Throughout the period in which the Shipton prophecy wasbecoming attached to the Dropping Well, the Slingsbys were therefore likelyto be supportive of a tradition, as set out by Head in 1667 and by Samuel Bakerin 1797, which affirmed a conservative support for the Anglican church, ahostility to Catholicism and Nonconformity, and a vigorous loyalism.

A third crucial element to the development of the Shipton connection atKnaresborough was the association of visits to the well with a public house.In 1796, Rutland found a cottage housing the petrified wonders produced bythe well;180 but the inn soon took on at least part of this purpose. Even in the1750s, the motto which later appeared on the inn sign, ‘Near to this petrifyingwell / I first drew breath, as records tell’, was noted by Richard Pococke, thefirst man to describe directly the Shipton connection with the well.181 Once


183

the ‘late impos’d ceremonies of bowing & adoring towards ye altar’: Diary of Sir HenrySlingsby, p. 8. His wife was the daughter of the Catholic Lord Fauconberg; one of her sistersmarried Sir Walter Vavasour of Haslewood, and her younger brother was Lord Belasis ofWorlaby, an outspoken Catholic: Mathew, Age of Charles I, p. 294.176 Pitts, ‘Slingsbys of Scriven’, pp. 152–3; she cites The House of Commons, 1660–1690,ed. Basil Duke Henning, 3 vols (London, 1983), III, pp. 440–1; C. M. Keen, ‘YorkshirePolitics, 1658–1688’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Sheffield, 1990), pp. 295,306–9, 323, 358.177 The House of Commons, 1715–1754, ed. Romney Sedgwick, 3 vols (London, 1970), II,p. 425; The House of Commons, 1754–1790, ed. Lewis Namier and John Brooke, 3 vols(London, 1964), III, pp. 443–4.178 Sir Henry died childless in 1763, and he had sold fifteen burgages to the duke ofDevonshire in 1762: History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, pp. 162–4. In1705, £5 3s. 9d. was ‘spent on the ffreeholders of Knarsb’, Scotton [etc.] . . . who ingagedtheir votes for Sir John Kay vpon my masters acc’t (tho they did not go in to vote) [contentsof brackets deleted]’: YAS, DD 56/J/1/8, unfol.179 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, p. 355. Cf. p. 368 for the laternineteenth century: Scriven described by a Liberal as one of several ‘miserable dependentvillages’.180 Journal of a Tour to the Northern Parts, p. 119.181 Travels of Pococke, I, p. 54.

this connection existed, there was a direct economic incentive on the part ofthe inn-keeper to promote visits to the well through the Shipton cult. Thefirst sign of a property explicitly called ‘Dropping Well House’ appears in 1761,when it was empty. Shortly afterwards, in 1763–4, money was spent on repairsthere, and it was during that period that Samuel Tilson appeared as tenant,paying £2 10s. in annual rent.182 By 1837, George Howe, now the tenant, waspaying £18. By comparison, the tenant of another tourist site, Fort Montagu,Richard Hill, was paying just 10s. at that time.183 When the estate was sold byC. H. R. Slingsby in 1916, the inn, well and cave, with three closes of grassland, were leased to J. W. Simpson for £110 per annum. At that point, the innconsisted of a smoke room, bar, two sitting rooms, kitchen, four bedrooms,bathroom and WC, yard, WC, wash house, stabling for four horses, garage andpetrol house, and other outbuildings. Adjoining it were gardens sloping to theNidd and, adjoining them, the ‘“Museum”’.184

The full paraphernalia of the tourism site of the Dropping Well and MotherShipton’s cave expanded dramatically in the late nineteenth century and earlytwentieth. As well as the sale of lives of the prophetess, there were numerouseditions of postcards of her and her cave and well.185 The site’s mass appealtranscended social classes, for the well was visited by Queen Mary; there werevisits by Queen Alexandra, Princess Victoria, Empress Marie of Russia, KingManuel of Portugal and his mother Queen Amelie, and Prince Christopher of Greece in 1911.186 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there were further sites which were associated with the prophetess, most notablyMother Shipton’s grave, a sculptured stone near Clifton which was seen as hermemorial.187 This failed to achieve the popularity of the Dropping Well as avisitor site. It lacked the crucial ingredients which Knaresborough possessed:


184

182 YAS, DD 56/J/2/6 (rental Michaelmas 1761); /7 (payments 1 October and 1 November1763 and 12 May 1764; and rental Michaelmas 1763).183 YAS, DD 56/J/12, p. 27 and passim (rentals, 1835–43).184 Auction Catalogue, Richardson and Trotter, 4 Lendal, York, 15 August 1916: a copyis to be found at YAS, DD56/Add. 1966/9/A/6.185 Examples are to be found in Harrogate Public Library, in the Box marked ‘MotherShipton Pamphlets’.186 History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Jennings, pp. 431, 433.187 In reality it was a mutilated stone effigy of a knight in armour, probably taken from StMary’s Abbey in York. It may have originally been set up as a boundary stone, not expresslyfor the association with the prophetess; it is now in the Yorkshire Museum: Notes andQueries 4th ser. II (1868), p. 84. (Probably the early fourteenth-century effigy of a knightof the Ros family on Hob Moor, it bore the names of the pasture masters who erected it inc. 1717, and also the date 1757, but the inscription was already nearly defaced in 1818, sothe reattribution is early nineteenth-century: Palliser, Tudor York, p. 236; Robert Davies,Walks through the City of York (London, 1880), pp. 97–9; Royal Commission on HistoricalMonuments in England, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York, vol.III, South-West of the Ouse (London, 1972), p. 58; William Hargrove, History and Descriptionof the Ancient City of York, Comprising all the Most Interesting Information, Already Published

a structure to receive and guide visitors, and the ready demand provided by a large local tourist population.

It can therefore be argued that the Shipton prophecy, born from a distinctlylocal origin, only survived because Head had helped firmly locate the DroppingWell as the birthplace of the prophetess. The further fortuitous develop-ment of the spa at Harrogate and its associated tourism facilitated the survivalof the prophecy tradition; as the spa reached new heights of popularity in thelate eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, so Shipton returned from relativeobscurity. Indeed, it is doubtful if she would have survived to the present day in the popular imagination if she had not achieved this connection withsuch an evocative and important element in the English landscape.

The growth of Harrogate fortuitously coincided with the other essentialingredient of the revival of Mother Shipton. This was the extraordinary poli-tical situation of the 1790s, especially the collapse of the French monarchyand its consequences. Therefore, although at Knaresborough Shipton’sDropping Well was being shown to tourists from at least the middle of thecentury, and although there was a continuity of interest through the cen-tury,188 the major revival in the publication history of the prophecy only began in 1797. The events of the 1780s and 1790s revolutionized the tradition,however. It is important, given the earlier argument of the prominence of theNixon tradition in the eighteenth century, that it was in conjunction with the Cheshire prophecy that Shipton re-emerged. Samuel Baker’s MotherShipton and Nixon’s Prophecies Wonders !!! Past, Present, and to Come! Compiledfrom the Original Editions, a duodecimo of 1797, helped bring Shipton again toa mass audience.189 Once republished, she regained a reputation of her ownwith tremendous rapidity. In the same year Baker had produced Wonders !!!Past, Present, and to Come! which was limited to the ‘strange Prophecies and Uncommon Predictions of the Famous Mother Shipton, generally known by theAppellation of the Yorkshire Prophetess’. Probably subsequent in the year twofurther versions appeared: Mother Shipton’s Legacy, or, a Favourite Fortune Book,a York production,190 and The Life and History of the Famous Mother Shipton


185

in Drake’s Eboracum, 2 vols in 3 (York, 1818), III, p. 513; Drake, Eboracum, p. 398.) Cf. theother supposed memorial to Shipton at Orchard-Wyndham in Somerset, which was in facta poor copy, from an engraving in Gordon’s Itinerarium Septentrionale, of a Roman memorialstone at Ellenborough. On an Inscribed Stone, at Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, called ‘OldMother Shipton’s Tomb’ (Bristol, Taunton, Williton and Minehead, 1879), p. 32; ‘The Endof the World’ in 1881–2, According to Mother Shipton, The Great Pyramid of Glizeh, and otherAncient Prophecies Relating to Russia and Turkey (London, 1880), p. 114.188 See above, pp. 171–2.189 (London, 1797) (BL, 117. d. 44. (1.)).190 BL, 117. d. 44 (2); BL, 8631.a.1. It appears to have been this edition which John Clare’sfather possessed and valued highly, if John’s memory served him right at the time of thewriting of his ‘Shepherd’s Calendar’: he talks of ‘superstitous tales . . . hawked about thestreets for a penny, such as Old Nixon’s Prophecies, Mother Bunches Fairy Tales, and

and her Daughter Peggy, from J. Davenport in London. This represented aconsiderable innovation in the tradition, for as well as giving Shipton adaughter, it claimed to be Collected from the Antient Caledonian Chronicle in theScottish Dialect and located its story at ‘Melross’.191 If a contest then ensued asto Shipton’s origins, it seems to have been rapidly resolved again in favour ofKnaresborough, however, because the Scottish connection is not invokedagain. Editions followed from Newcastle, Hull, Coventry, York and Derby, fromaround 1800.192

Another sign of this interest in Shipton in the early nineteenth century is the appearance of portraits of the prophetess in 1792–3 and 1804. In 1792,Rackstow’s Museum in Fleet Street included ‘a figure of Mother Shipton’ andwhat was claimed as her skull.193 In 1793, an engraving of Shipton drawn ina chariot drawn by a reindeer or stag appeared in Wonderful Magazine.194 Wehave already seen how Nixon’s portrait was a subject of discussion among theelite, at least of the Cheshire gentry. Shipton’s portrait also appears to havebeen known among the gentry of Yorkshire and further afield, and was nowmore widely published for such an audience. In 1804, R. S. Kirby and J. Scottin London produced an engraving from an original drawing by the notedscholar Sir William Ouseley showing Shipton with the devil.195

The revival of publication of Shipton did not depend entirely on therecovery of printed texts. The market for her work, and in large part theoriginal impetus for its republication, came from the continuity of the oral and


186

Mother Shipton’s Legacy, etc., etc.’: Sketches in the Life of John Clare, p. 46, cited in Spufford,Small Books, p. 3.191 (London, 1797); attributed to Henry Moine. Further edition (Dunbar, [1800?]) (NLS).192 The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton ([Newcastle], [c. 1800]) (NLS); The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton (Hull,[between c. 1803 and 1825?]) (Bodl.); The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies ofMother Shipton (York, 1809).193 Notes and Queries 4th ser. IV (1869), p. 213. There was also a waxwork of Shiptonamong those on display at Westminster Abbey: W. H. Harrison, Mother Shipton Investigated:The Result of Investigation in the British Museum Library, of the Literature Pertaining to theYorkshire Sybil (London, 1881), p. 62. An earlier picture, representing Shipton’s prophecyof male deaths leading to a disproportionate ratio of women to men, appears to have hungin the Crown and Woolpack Inn in Stilton, on the Great North Road; it was dated thenas c. 1750: Notes and Queries 4th ser. II (1868), p. 117.194 A brief survey of these magazines is provided by Michael Harris in his review of BernardCapp’s Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500–1800, Publishing History 8(1980), pp. 87–104, at pp. 93–4.195 There is a copy in the Harrogate Public Library, in the Box marked ‘Mother ShiptonPamphlets’. The date of publication is given as 30 April 1804; it is described as being takenfrom an original oil painting in the possession of Sir William’s father, Ralph Ouseley, esq.,of York. The picture was published in Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum, vol. II(1820), p. 145. Cf. a further supposed portrait, of Shipton along with Albertus Magnus,Friar Bacon and Dr Faustus, published in Gentleman’s Magazine CI (November 1831), pp. 401, 486.

manuscript tradition. Francis Drake in the 1730s, in his history of York, notedthe prophecy connected with Wolsey’s abortive journey to York, and statedthat it was ‘fresh in the mouths of our country people at this day’.196

The new texts associated with Shipton were, however, of crucial importancein reviving interest in her tradition. The Head edition and its successors hadconcluded with the events of 1666 and soon after; no general words relatingto future events were appended, and this had been a major problem for thevitality of the tradition once the issues of the late seventeenth century fadedfrom popular concerns. In 1797, however, Shipton appeared with new pro-phecies, with a distinctly contemporary relevance. First, several coupletsbrought the prophecy up to date, foretelling the failure of James II’sCatholicizing schemes; the union of Scotland and England; and the Englishvictory over the Spanish, ‘And of the Whiskers clear the Main.’ The con-temporary comment was summed up in seven lines, foretelling the end ofmonarchy and episcopacy due to civil discord.

From about 1820, there is a considerable divergence in the pattern andapproach of editions of Shipton. It is apparent that many works of the nextsixty years presented themselves as, and in some cases actually were, editionsof specific previous editions of the prophecy. One of the first examples of thisdevelopment is the edition of the 1687 edition of Richard Head’s The Life and Death of Mother Shipton, produced by J. Barker, printer, of Great RussellSt., Covent Garden, in about 1820. The historiographical trend of the period,which was increasingly concerned to establish and publish accurate texts forimportant chronicles and other important historical texts, had its counterpartin the Shipton tradition. The foundation of the Camden Society, and the rapidestablishment of provincial equivalents, such as the Chetham Society and theSurtees Society, reflected this scholarly activity.197 Shipton therefore might beacceptable in the most learned circles. This reached its apogee in such facsimilereproductions as those of the 1641 edition produced by E. W. Ashbee and JohnTuckett in 1869.198

The second strand to this development of the Shipton tradition was theuse of her name in connection with cheap books of fortune-telling, by suchmethods as reading tea leaves or coffee grinds, palmistry and cards. Few of thesewere concerned to expound Shipton’s prophecies, established or invented, or


187

196 Drake, Eboracum, p. 450.197 Philippa Levine, The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians andArchaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886 (Cambridge, 1986).198 The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (London, 1869),vol. 6 of Ashbee’s ‘Occasional Facsimile Reprints’. There was, therefore, no simpledisappearance of ‘light literature’ of this kind from the ‘respectable’ library, but rather itsrepresentation, pace T. A. Birrell, ‘Reading as Pastime: The Place of Light Literature inSome Gentlemen’s Libraries of the 17th Century’, in Property of a Gentleman: TheFormation, Organisation and Dispersal of the Private Library 1620–1920, ed. Robin Myers andMichael Harris, St Paul’s Bibliographies (Winchester, 1991), pp. 113–31.

even to describe her history; she herself became in them variously a witch anda gypsy. They did, however, ensure that Shipton’s name, and by extension hermainstream prophetic tradition, remained central in the minds of the mass ofthe population. Mother Shipton’s appearance in fortune-telling and dreambooks was only one of the ways in which her reputation was capitalized on bythe publishers. She also appeared in almanacs; and almanacs were seen as agood place to advertise editions of her prophecies and life. One example, fromthe height of the fascination with Shipton in 1881, is the advertisement for a six-penny ‘Birth, Life and Death’, produced by R. March and Co.199 Suchinstances seem logical, but less so is the use of Mother Shipton as an imageand trade name for soap. ‘Mother Shipton’s Soap’ was advertised at 3d. perbar, with the slogan ‘No Boiling’.200

The third strand to the nineteenth-century publication history of theprophecy was, unsurprisingly, a continuation of that seen before: the repub-lication, almost unchanged, of the core of her prophecies, especially in theversion created by Richard Head, with contemporary additions. These versionslacked any antiquarian sense of the text as an historical object from the past. An example of the way this might follow an agenda outside the Englishpolitical mainstream is the Liverpool edition of 1878 in which Shipton is associated with prophecies of the liberation of Ireland.201 In the 1830s and 1840s to the north of Hastings, as in so many places, Mother Shipton was‘quite a text book that country people quoted’.202

Even then, in this welter of print, the vitality of the Shipton oral tradition,and its strength in local context, is evident. In Irstead, Norfolk, in 1849 it waspossible to hear a complex vision of the future, interwoven with the local pastand topography, associated with the key themes of the Shipton tradition. Theman with three thumbs appeared, at a battle for England, but this time on theNorwich road; the fall of churches was associated with Keswick church andBromholm Priory.203 In a very different context, too, the openness of educatedsociety to discussion through the medium is illustrated by the anecdote ofrepartee in the office of The Sun in the aftermath of the Cato St. conspiracy


188

199 From the 1881 almanac in Harrogate Public Library, in the Box marked ‘MotherShipton Pamphlets’. Cf. her continuing role on the stage: [Henry Carey], Dragon of Wantley;Or, Harlequin & Old Mother Shipton (pantomime programme, 13–25 February 1871, TheatreRoyal Drury Lane).200 The Manchester and Salford Co-operative Herald (January 1898), p. 12. I owe this referenceto Peter Gurney. Cf. an advert card for this product, in Harrogate Public Library, in theBox marked ‘Mother Shipton Pamphlets’.201 The Life, Death, and Prophecies of Mother Shipton ([Liverpool], [1878]). For the Irishpopulation of Lancashire, the largest in any English county, and its active Fenianism, seeLowe, ‘Lancashire Fenianism’, pp. 156–85.202 William Tinsley, Random Recollections of an Old Publisher, 2 vols (London, 1900), p. 177.203 Gunn, ‘Proverbs’, pp. 292–304.

in 1820, in which John Taylor, the editor, showed himself willing to believein a Shipton prophecy of its failure.204

It was the first of the print traditions, that purporting to scholarly accuracy,which ultimately played a major role in disrupting the continuity and coher-ence of popular prophecy as a political language in Britain. In 1862, CharlesHindley, then a Brighton bookseller, produced what he described as a‘verbatim’ reprint of the 1687 version of Richard Head’s The Life, Propheciesand Death of the Famous Mother Shipton.205 The reason for the success of thevolumes was that they combined an apparent claim to scholarly accuracy (in 1873 he produced in the Old Booksellers’ Miscellany, which he edited, afacsimile edition of The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raign of King Henrythe Eighth, London, 1641)206 with some startling newly-discovered prophecies.These new prophecies brought Shipton right up to date. Hindley, in 1862,now had Shipton apparently predicting railways, the London underground,the Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition. Most excitingly of all, however,Shipton now clearly prophesied the end of the world in 1881.

Why Hindley chose to do this is unclear. It may be connected to the factthat 1862 saw a cause célèbre engulfing one of the prime exponents of revivedastrology, Zadkiel (alias Richard James Morrison). Having apparently foretoldthe Prince Consort’s death, for which he was attacked in the Daily Telegraphin January 1862, Zadkiel sued Rear Admiral Sir Edward Belcher for libel – and won, but received only 20s. in damages.207 Hindley’s own account of the Shipton affair, some years later, highlights his interest in pointing up theabsurdity of any such predictive claims; yet hindsight colours this view, and atthe time there was again an equivocal response to Zadkiel and more particu-larly to Shipton. Zadkiel’s prophetic accuracy was mentioned in court by one Alderman Humphery.208 Shipton’s apparently new-found prophecy simplyraised her profile.

Hindley admitted to his fraud in 1873. This seems to have resulted ulti-mately from a question about the 1881 prophecy from Simeon Rayner in Notes and Queries.209 This prompted incisive critical comments from no lesser figures than the philologist Walter W. Skeat and antiquarian J. CharlesCox.210 Although there was some defence of at least a seventeenth-century


189

204 ‘The End of the World’ in 1881–2, pp. 18–19.205 ([Brighton], 1862). Publication details from Bodleian copy and listing.206 Old Book Collector’s Miscellany, vol. 3, ed. Charles Hindley (London, 1873).207 Ellic Howe, Astrology and the Third Reich (Wellingborough, 1967, revised and expandedtrade paperback edition, 1984), pp. 43–6; Patrick Curry, A Confusion of Prophets: Victorianand Edwardian Astrology (London, 1992), pp. 61–106, and passim for the revival of ‘judicial’astrology.208 Curry, Confusion of Prophets, p. 77.209 Notes and Queries 4th ser. 10 (7 December 1872), p. 450.210 Notes and Queries 4th ser. 10 (21 December 1872), p. 502.

provenance,211 on 26 April 1873 a notice was published that ‘Mr. CharlesHindley, of Brighton, in a letter to us, has made a clean breast of havingfabricated the Prophecy quoted at page 450 of our last volume, with some tenothers included in his reprint of a chapbook version, published in 1862.’212

This was not, however, a crushing blow to interest in Shipton. Hindley’stext itself appeared again in 1877;213 and, in the same year, Hindley publishedwhat he claimed were Mother Shipton’s Prophecies. Copied from the originalManuscript in the British Museum.214 As 1881 approached, the prophecy wasstill influential enough to stir up controversy. In 1879 it was the subject of abitter attack on false prophecy, from a biblical perspective, in Who was MotherShipton?: Will the Old Woman Bring the World to an End in 1881?215 Vigorousscepticism was apparent in ‘The End of the World’ in 1881–2, which denouncedShipton’s prophecies as ‘baseless and devoid of truth’.216 George Sims, mockingfears in 1880 of Anglican collapse should dissenters be allowed burial in con-secrated ground, in his poem ‘The Burials Bill’ awarded to Bishop ChristopherWordsworth of Lincoln and Shipton ‘the laurels of the seer’, for Wordsworth’sprediction of the fall of the church.217 On the other hand, William H.Harrison, editor of the Spiritualist, published an investigation which concludedthat Shipton was a real historical personality.218 Purchasers of the IllustratedPolice News in October 1881 received a large illustrated supplement on theprophetess. The inhabitants of Yeovil were prepared in 1879 for an earthquakeas a presage of events two years later. And the prophecy claimed at least onecasualty, a girl who allegedly died from the fear it evoked.219

In 1881, however, Shipton’s prophecy failed to be fulfilled. This, combinedwith Hindley’s earlier revelation, was damaging to the credibility of the pro-phecy. The Shipton tradition, like that of Nixon, had always rested on atension between scepticism and belief, which its vagueness fostered andsustained through even the most difficult periods. What had now changed wasthat the popular imagination had been seized by an extraordinarily specific


190

211 Notes and Queries 4th ser. 11 (18 January 1873), p. 60, from Edward Rimbault; therewas further scepticism, over chronology, in the 8 March number (p. 206).212 Notes and Queries 4th ser. 11 (26 April 1873), p. 355.213 ([London, 1877]) (BL, 8630.bbb.1).214 (London, 1877) (BL, 8632.aaa.8); cf. the huge increases in circulation achieved byZadkiel’s almanac after 1862: Curry, Confusion of Prophets, pp. 107–8.215 Who was Mother Shipton?: Will the Old Woman Bring the World to an End in 1881?(London, [1879]).216 ‘The End of the World’ in 1881–2, pp. 1–20.217 George Robert Sims, ‘The Burials Bill’, in ‘The Lifeboat and other Poems’, Ballads andPoems (London, [1883]), p. 123.218 Harrison, Mother Shipton Investigated.219 Illustrated Police News (8 October 1881); ‘The End of the World’ in 1881–2, p. 5 (quotingPall Mall Gazette (April 1879)); Somerset County Herald (26 November 1881), cited inOwen Davies, Witchcraft Magic and Culture 1736–1951 (Manchester and New York, 1999),p. 142.

prophecy which had proved wrong; but more than that, it had been provedwrong having been dressed in the trappings of scholarly respectability andscientific reliability. It would now be much harder for a commentator or editor to take up Shipton’s words, pass over those which seemed inconvenientwith an amused smile, and then advocate a new, favourable and intriguingpossibility for the future based on the old, previously ‘misunderstood’ text, ora conveniently rediscovered new one.

The effect of the Hindley fiasco on the Shipton prophecy is apparent fromits publication history. The following year, Heywood’s of Manchester producedwhat must have seemed the final chapter of the academic treatment ofShipton. A volume probably edited and introduced by W. E. A. Axon cata-logued the credulities and crass manipulations of the previous years beforepresenting the three main seventeenth-century versions, now laid bare as thedelusions of a naive age.220

Yet ancient prophecy retained great strengths during the period before 1881,one of the main ones being that as the world changed more rapidly so it hadat once more to explain and more to legitimate. It is remarkable how many of the local prophecies connected to Shipton, which only begin to survivefrom the late nineteenth century, are associated in their fulfilment with thecoming of the railways. A useful sample for this purpose is provided by thosedescribed by William Grainge in an article in the Palatine Note-book in April1881.221 After a general reference to citations of prophecies of late or earlysprings, Grainge referred to Shipton’s general prophecy (created by Hindley)that ‘When carriages without horses run, Old England will be quite undone’,and noted its connection with the spread of the railways. Grainge then fol-lowed this with a prophecy from the Harrogate and York areas relating to the fall of the viaduct across the Nidd at Knaresborough; another from Pickhillin the North Riding that the town would not thrive until a certain family died out and a barrow was cut open, as it was by the Leeds Northern Railwayin 1851; then later in the piece with another from Ulleskelfe-on-the-Wharfe,just south of Tadcaster, that a public road should run through its barn and its spring should dry up, both of which were effected by the York and NorthMidland Railway (Leeds–York). Other major engineering works – and theirsometimes catastrophic consequences – caused Shipton to be invoked.Fewston, in the Washburn valley to the north of Otley, suffered a serious move-ment of land possibly connected with the construction there of large reservoirsby the Leeds Corporation, and again Shipton was said to have foreseen the


191

220 Mother Shipton: A Collection of the Earliest Editions of her Prophecies (Manchester, [1882]).221 W[illiam] G[rainge], ‘Mother Shipton’, The Palatine Note-book for 1881. For theIntercommunication of Antiquaries, Bibliophiles, and other Investigators into the History andLiterature of the Counties of Lancaster, Chester, &c. (Manchester, Chester and Liverpool,1881), pp. 64–6. There is no sign in the article that he was selecting prophecies for anyother reason than to catalogue their variety and wide distribution in the North of England.

events, in this case, dramatically, associating them with the coming of the endof the world. Intriguingly, Fewston had been associated with Knaresboroughthrough the appropriation of its church to the house of St Robert.222

There are also signs that the interest in the Shipton story in the 1860s and 1870s triggered an expansion in the geographical area in which the oral tradition invoked her authority. An example of this appears to be the WestCountry, where, for example, the attribution of a memorial stone to theprophetess cannot be dated earlier than the nineteenth century.223

None of this fundamentally changed in and after 1881. One of the themesof this book has been the remarkable continuities in prophecy as a popularpolitical language in Britain. The year 1881 was an important blow to thiscontinuity. In particular, it contributed to the erosion of the inclusive tradi-tion, in which elites and mass were both, in their different ways, entwined.There were specific reasons for this: the rise of theosophy, which was at itsmost influential from about 1884 to the time of the First World War, servedto provide a focus for interest in alternatives to conventional beliefs.224 YetShipton’s prophecies appeared in print again, in almanacs and in their ownright, in 1918 in Leeds.225 In 1905 it was even possible, in the respectable pagesof Yorkshire Notes and Queries, to find an enquiry from Herbert Jowett ofBradford answered with an enthusiastic repetition of the prophecies, includingthat of 1881. Its failure – and forgery – were passed over in silence, the respon-dent noting ‘her memory is much honoured by those of her own country,especially in Yorkshire’.226 In Yorkshire at least, 1881 was replaced by 1981 or1991 as the expected year of doom.227 What saved Shipton from oblivion onceagain was therefore the power of locality. Almost certainly, the main marketfor the prophecy was now to be found in Yorkshire, with its centre firmly inKnaresborough and Harrogate.228 Tourism to the Dropping Well had not


192

222 Cf. ‘Cymro’, ‘Ancient Welsh Prophecies Fulfilled’, Archaeologia Cambrensis III (1848),p. 77.223 On an Inscribed Stone, at Orchard Wyndham; cf. above, pp. 184–5, on this stone.224 As it did to astrology: Ellic Howe, Urania’s Children (London, 1967), p. 54.225 E.g. Burdekin’s Old Moore’s Almanack and Advertising Compendium (York, 1887), unpag.;Burdekin’s Old Moore’s Almanack (York, 1899), unpag. A further edition in 1947: The Lifeand Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil better known as Mother Shipton, ed. J. C. Simpson (Leeds,1947).226 Percival Procter, ‘Mother Shipton’, Yorkshire Notes and Queries I (1905), pp. 64–5; cf.Arthur W. Millar, ‘Mother Shipton’, ibid., II (1906), pp. 20–5. But even the scepticalWilliam Tinsley repeated the 1881 prophecy without reference to its forgery: RandomRecollections, p. 183. Sir Walter William Strickland, ‘Mother Shipton or the Droppin Wellat Knaresboro’ (BL, 011648. ff.62; no later than 1924).227 Life and Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil, ed. Simpson, p. 27.228 Some scepticism is of course evident, though it might describe itself as ‘heresy’:‘Wakeman’, ‘Around the Ridings’, Yorkshire Life Illustrated XI (no. 7) (July 1957), pp. 9–11;cf. the more typically equivocal F. A. Carter, ‘New Light on Mother Shipton?’ YorkshireLife XXII (no. 9) (September 1968), p. 79.

declined even in the worst years of the 1881 scandal. Shipton’s Well evenreceived a visit from royalty, in the person of Queen Mary after the First World War.229 This is not, therefore, in any sense a modernization narrative.For the astonishing power of ancient prophecy re-emerged from the early yearsof the century. Prophecy still offered an attractive solution in an ever morerapidly changing world, in which so much change seemed inexplicable andunexpected, and in which ties between the past and the present offeredconsolation and meaning. ‘Superstition’ might be discredited in working-classradicals’ eyes, but even there a tension existed in seeing in tradition andcustom some of the values and aspirations which they held dear.230 And it istoo easy to give disproportionate weight to the autobiographies of politicaland religious radicals in assessing general trends in non-elite attitudes.231 Inthe parallel world of the almanac, the rapid disappearance of astrologicalcontent in the 1860s and 1870s may be read as the death of popular astrology– but it is more likely, given the dramatic decline in circulations whichresulted, to be a sign of the influence of the highly motivated lobbying of theSociety for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge.232 Almanacs too had tendedto trade heavily on weather predictions, which were both easy to find fault in and now open to competition from meteorological science, as forecastsbegan to be published in national papers in 1862.233 Yet, however ambitiousthe claims of the new ‘scientists’ of society and politics, they could not offer a similarly powerful competitor in prediction to threaten ancient prophecy.The year 1881 was a serious blow to prophecy as a popular political language,but it was not its final death-knell.


193

229 Arnold Kellett, Historic Knaresborough (Otley, 1991), p. 85.230 Vincent, ‘Decline of the Oral Tradition’, pp. 38–9; William Stafford, Socialism,Radicalism and Nostalgia: Social Criticism in Britain, 1775–1830 (Cambridge, 1987).231 Cf. the tension between the expressions of scepticism and the lengthy account of theprophecy in the radical William Tinsley, Random Recollections, vol. 1, pp. 177–83.232 The developments are outlined in Perkins, Visions of the Future, pp. 117–22, althoughshe tends to give priority to a change in belief amongst readers. Note the suggestive upturnin sales in the early 1880s at the time of excitement generated by Hindley/Shipton: p. 88.233 Perkins, Visions of the Future, pp. 215–29.

5

Conclusions

The introduction to this book set out its intention to address three contentiousareas of recent historiography. I have argued that ancient prophecy representeda powerful political, religious and social language that was never undercomplete elite control, and yet which could never be completely ignored bythe elite. I have suggested that this was partially to do with the vitality of regional political cultures in the English, and the British, monarchy well into the early modern period. And I have urged that this indicates a strongcontinuity in non-rational elements to the political culture of this country. Where prophetic traditions waned, they did so because the usefulness of thelanguage they represented declined: Nixon in particular and, to a certainextent, Merlin ceased to offer an approach to the political and social issues ofthe later nineteenth century. Nixon’s tradition also suffered from the frag-mentation of the political, social and economic coherence of the regionalculture from which it originated. This did not, of course, mean the end ofancient prophecy, because the continuing and developing relevance of theShipton tradition demonstrated that continuing relevance was possible, andits regional base in Yorkshire, far from declining, achieved a startling growthin self-identity and confidence.

It is worthwhile briefly returning to set this in the context of some majorrecent work in the field perhaps most closely allied to ancient prophecy,astrology, Curry’s Prophecy and Power.1 The claims of ancient prophecy and ofastrology to predict the future were similar, and many men who practised theanalysis of the stars also studied ancient prophecy. Both also had an elementof decoding within their methods, and took as their ‘texts’ phenomena whichwere allegedly created by non-human forces. One of the first impressionsprovided by such a contextualization is that, studied alone, astrology providesa dangerously partial picture. Curry’s account of astrology suggests that its‘death’ in educated circles in the early eighteenth century could be interpretedas a sign of the victory of a bourgeois rationalist hegemony, which was onlybroken by a fracturing of the gentry hegemony beginning in the 1790s and

194

1 Patrick Curry, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1989).

developing in the 1820s and 1830s.2 Yet although the astrologer may havebecome ‘a laughing stock in educated and coffee-house circles’, Swift’s attackon Partridge came only shortly before the massive outburst of interest, fromacross the social spectrum, in the Nixon prophecy. The same point might be made about the study of individual prophecies: a study simply of Shiptonand Merlin might have gone to confirm Curry’s picture of gentry rationalismtriumphant in the eighteenth century, given the infrequency of their publica-tion in the ninety years after 1700 and their frequently comedic context. Therise of Nixon, however, suggests the shortcomings of such an interpretation.

Part of the reason for Curry’s belief in the failure of ‘prophetic’ elements in English politics lies in his choice of a field of study. Astrology was morevulnerable than ancient prophecy to the attacks of sceptics. The codes itsought to interpret were fixed, as they had been mapped in the constellationsthousands of years previously. The methods that were used to interpret themwere almost as fixed, seeking as they did to base themselves in scientificmathematical precision. Prophecy on the other hand was far more inherentlyliterary and verbal, and was based on a body of texts that were allusive, notprecise, and which, far from being harnessed by those who controlled the printmedium, as Adam Fox and his predecessors would argue,3 could be reinventedand added to through the creativeness of oral and manuscript culture and themendacious imperatives of politics. Further, rather than being universal, or atleast international, as astrology was, ancient prophecy was local and regional.In some ways this provides a commentary on the creation of the historicalprofession, for a precision even remotely similar to that found in astrology andastronomy only came to the study of ancient prophecy with the nineteenth-century academic obsession with primary texts and the study of diplomatics.Astrology therefore suffered in the eighteenth century, ancient prophecy onlyin the nineteenth. Men like Ashbee and Hindley, encouraged at least to apethe methods of the new academic history, finally committed Mother Shiptonto predictions which were not fulfilled, while historians and philologists likeWalter W. Skeat dissected prophecies that had come to pass and showed themto be ‘forgeries’ too. The determination to see the past in its own terms has inthis sense been one of the main challenges to the capacity of the past to speakto the future. On the other hand, the continuing vitality of the Shiptontradition indicates the degree to which the methodologies of nineteenth- andtwentieth-century academic history have failed to enter the terms of popular

CONCLUSIONS

195

2 Curry, Prophecy and Power, pp. 166–7.3 Cf. Carl B. Estabrook’s observation that ‘it is difficult to accept the notion that theappearance of print technology in an English provincial city in the late seventeenth centurynecessarily placed the hearts and minds of nearby villagers in the hands of urban printersor permitted cities to exert a greater cultural influence over their rural environs as animmediate consequence of the urban renaissance’: Urbane and Rustic England: Cultural Tiesand Social Spheres in the Provinces 1660–1780 (Stanford, Calif., 1998), p. 186. On p. 171 hesummarizes evidence that ‘small books’ were more likely to be found in urban collections.

political and historical discourse – a failure distinct even in comparison to therecord of the methodology and assumptions of the physical sciences. The masseducation system which attempts to inculcate this historical method (positivistor relativist) at an elementary level may in fact simply arm more complex anddeeper rooted perceptions of the relevance of the past.4

Curry’s interpretation therefore springs in large part from his decision tostudy the narrow field of astrology. Yet Curry’s account, like those of manyothers who have discussed astrology or prophecy, explicitly seeks a wider con-text. This context is a modernization narrative based in an analysis of classrelations. Curry believed that a hegemony was established in educated circlesby the beginning of the eighteenth century which saw, for example, comets as astronomical and eschatological, but not astrological, objects. Plebeianastrology survived the century simply because ‘little need was perceived (andtherefore little effort made) to make any concessions in order to hegemonicallyconvince [sic] – as distinct from simply dominate, threaten or contain – those beyond the patrician pale’. That imperative came in the nineteenthcentury with the need to impose a sense of work time in place of natural time.Yet this determination to endow a modernization narrative with the trap-pings of Gramscian ideas only thinly conceals the difficulty of showing thatastrology was opposed to concepts of work time, or that the ‘hegemony’ whichfought against it was anything other than the rhetoric of small groups of oftenprofessionally self-interested scientific rationalists, many of whom themselves,on closer examination, fit less comfortably into the mould of pure rationalismthan we are led to expect.5 The continuing appeal of the Nixon and Shiptontraditions in ‘bourgeois’, ‘rationalist’ circles, albeit in an equivocal context ofan amused fascination, suggests the difficulty faced by those attempting toapply a rigidly class analysis here.

Curry’s analysis of astrology, because of the nature of the subject matter,more or less directly implies another important argument. The geographical


196

4 The fundamental unknowability of the future, and the irrelevance to it of the past, asargued by Hume in his Philosophical Essays: Concerning Human Understanding (London,1748) (no future event can be seen or foretold, everything conceivable is possible – so wecannot find any necessary connections between events, and our assumption of the likenessof past and future is flawed), means we are ‘left adrift with the meaningless, valueless worldHume described’: Richard H. Popkin, ‘Predicting, Divining, Prophecying and Foretellingfrom Nostradamus to Hume’, History of European Ideas 5 (1984), pp. 117–35, esp. p. 130.An unpalatable message, which still almost inevitably falls on deaf ears.5 Still less the difficulty of showing that plebeian astrology was in fact successfully‘hegemonically convinced’: cf. the continuing success of the astrological almanacs (above,pp. 189–90) and the appearance of newspaper astrology (Sunday Express, 24 August 1930,on the occasion of Princess Margaret’s birth): Ellic Howe, Astrology and the Third Reich(Wellingborough, 1967), p. 68. Ignoring this, Curry (in his A Confusion of Prophets:Victorian and Edwardian Astrology (London, 1992)) values the later astrologers as isolatedoddities, standing out against the hegemony – and so valued by him as an ideologicallycommitted relativist.

spaces in which astrological theories were advanced and countered weredefined in terms of nation states.6 State formation in Britain is therefore centralto the analysis: it creates and is created by a unified ideological space. Ancientprophecy, on the other hand, suggests the continuing importance of the localand the regional. The power of the palatine county of Cheshire, until the legaland constitutional reforms and the social and economic changes of the lateeighteenth and nineteenth centuries, provided a political culture which could be drawn upon more widely. Although in the end Cheshire’s coherencedeclined, and with it the influence of its local prophecy, Yorkshire’s grew. Legaland jurisdictional regionalism meant less, but in popular culture other factorsmore than compensated for this loss, not simply in the intensified experienceof the other, but in the shared experience of work and leisure, production andconsumption.7

Ancient prophecy therefore remained a central language for the discussionof political and social affairs in early modern England, and it remained alanguage which could never be completely controlled by political elites. Theinfinite variability of the past, and its potential messages for the future, werenot captured by print or dulled by scientific rationalism.

CONCLUSIONS

197

6 Curry, Prophecy and Power, pp. 153–4, a contrast drawn between England and France,with the latter’s advanced political and religious centralization emphasized.7 Owen Davies has argued that the decline in witchcraft was due not to progress of thehistory of ideas, but to cultural factors. A decline in belief, he suggested, was consequenton a decline in accusations, not vice versa. So while Obelkevitch had argued that therewas a decline in witchcraft in the nineteenth century thanks to a depersonalization andbelittling of the witch figure, Davies placed more emphasis on changes which createdcommunities where accusations were no longer ‘applicable or expedient’. As a result, noone built a reputation through a pattern of accusations, and belief died: James Obelkevitch,Religion and Rural Society: South Lindsey 1825–1875 (Oxford, 1976); Owen Davies,Witchcraft Magic and Culture 1736–1951 (Manchester and New York, 1999), pp. 279–93.

Bibliography

Primary sources: MSS

Aberystwyth, National Library of Wales

MS 441CBrogyntyn MS 2795Brogyntyn MS 3349Dynevor MS 884(1) Peniarth MS 414

Cambridge, Cambridge University Library

MS Ff. 5. 48

Cardiff, Central Library

MS 4.302, vol. 5

Chester, Cheshire County Record Office

DBC 2309/1/11DCH K/10DDX 123DFF 38/35 (MS ‘History of the Parish of Wilmslow’, c. 1785, by Samuel Finney

III)

Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland

MS 1746

Hertford, Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies

Cowper MSS, box 12, I, 27

198

Panshanger MSS, D/EP F36 (Commonplace Book of Sarah Cowper, c. 1670–c. 1705)

Panshanger MSS, D/EP, F57/3Panshanger MSS, D/EP F203/50, 51Panshanger MSS, D/EP, F211

Leeds, Yorkshire Archaeological Society

Slingsby MSS DD 56/J/1/8DD 56/J/2/6 (rental Michaelmas 1761); /7 (payments 1 Oct. and 1 Nov.

1763 and 12 May 1764; and rental Michaelmas 1763)DD 56/J/12 (rentals, 1835–43)DD 56/M/2/7DD 56/M/2/56, 57DD 56/M/8DD 56/PDD 149/23DD 56/Add. 1966/9/A/6 (Auction Catalogue, Richardson and Trotter,

4 Lendal, York, 15 Aug. 1916)DD 56/Add. 1987/1A/1–2

Liverpool, Liverpool Record Office

MS 920/MD/173 (Diary of Sir Willoughby Aston)

London, British Library

Arundel MS 66Add. MS 19,030Add. MS 38,695Add. MS 41,805Add. MS 46,846Cotton MS Cleopatra E.iv.84**Cotton MS Cleopatra E.viCotton MS Titus B.iCotton MS Vespasian B.xviCotton MS Vitellius E.xMS Cotton Rolls ii. 23Harleian MS 296Harleian MS 604Harleian MS 1576 (Nicholas Sotherton)Lansdowne MS 2

BIBLIOGRAPHY

199

London, Lambeth Palace Library

MS 527

London, The National Archives: Public Record Office

C 1 Early Chancery ProceedingsC 145 Miscellaneous Inquisitions 1218–1485CHES 2 Chester Administrative EnrolmentsCHES 15 Chester Exchequer PleadingsE 321 Court of Augmentations and Court of General Surveyors, legal

proceedingsPROB 11SP 1 Letters and papers, Henry VIII, general seriesSP 44/97 State Papers: Entry Books 1660–1828STAC 2 Star Chamber Proceedings, Henry VIIISTAC 4 Star Chamber Proceedings, Philip and Mary

University of Nottingham, Hallward Library

Middleton MS Mi. Dc. 7Galway MS 12,714

Oxford, Bodleian Library

MS Ashmole 788 (Philip Kynder’s book)MS Ashmole 1835MS Bodley 623MS Don. C39MS Eng Hist c 711MS Lat. misc. c 66MS Lyell 35Rawlinson MS B 475Rawlinson MS C 813Tanner MS 343

Stonyhurst College

MS A III 11(18)


200

Washington DC, Folger Shakespeare Library

Loseley MS L. b. 546

York, Minster Library

Additional MS 141

Primary sources: printed

Acts of the Chapter of the Collegiate Church of SS. Peter and Wilfrid, Ripon, A.D.1452 to A.D. 1506, ed. J. T. Fowler, Surtees Society lxiv (Durham, 1875 for1874)

Acts of the Privy Council of England, n.s., ed. John Roche Dasent and others(London, 1890–), 1542–1547, etc.

Adamson, Patrick, Serenissimi ac nobilissimi Scotiae Angliae Hybernie HenriciStuardi et Mariae Reginae (Paris, 1566)

The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, with Notes by Richard Hurd, revised edn by Henry G. Bohn, 6 vols (London and New York, 1892)

Alexander, William, The Monarchick Tragedies (London, 1604) (STC 343)Amory, Thomas, The Life and Opinions of John Buncle, Esquire, introduced by

Ernest A. Baker (London and New York, 1904)André, Bernard, ‘De vita atque gestis Henrici Septimi historia’, Memorials of

King Henry the Seventh, ed. James Gairdner, RS 10 (London, 1858)Historia Regis Henrici Septimi a Bernardo Andrea tholosate conscripta; necnon alia

quædam ad eundum regem spectantia, ed. James Gairdner, RS 10 (London,1858)

Andrew of Wyntoun, The Original Chronicle, ed. F. J. Amours, 6 vols, ScottishText Society 1st ser. 50, 53–4, 56–7, 63 (Edinburgh, 1903–14)

Animaduersions vppon the Annotacions and Corrections of some Imperfections ofImpressiones of Chaucers Workes: (Sett Downe before Tyme, and Nowe)Reprinted in the Yere of oure Lorde 1598 / Sett Downe by Francis Thynne . . .Now Newly Edited from the MS. in the Bridgewater Library, with FreshCollections for the Lives of William Thynne, the Chaucer Editor, and FrancisThynne, his Son, and a Reprint of the Only Known Fragment of ‘The Pilgrim’sTale’, ed. F. J. Furnivall, Chaucer Society 2nd ser. 13 (London, 1875)

Anthologia Hibernica: Or, Monthly Collections of Science, Belles Lettres, andHistory (Dublin, [1793–4])

Atwood, William, Wonderful Predictions of Nostredamus, Grebner, DavidPareaus, and Antonius Torquatus (London, 1689)

Aubrey, John, Three Prose Works: Miscellanies, Remaines of Gentilisme andJudaisme, Observations, ed. John Buchanan-Brown (Fontwell, Sussex, 1972)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

201

The Autobiography of Dr. Alexander Carlyle of Inveresk, 1722–1805, ed. JohnHill Burton, new edn (London and Edinburgh, 1910)

Axon, W. E. A., Mother Shipton: A Collection of the Earliest Editions of herProphecies (Manchester, [1882])

Axon, W. E. A., Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies: A New and Complete Edition,Reprinted from the Best Sources, with an Introductory Essay on PopularProphecies (Manchester, 1873)

[Axon, W. E. A.], Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecies Reprinted and Edited from the BestSources, and Including a Copy of the Prophecy from an Unpublished Manuscript,with an Introductory Essay on Popular Prophecies (Manchester [printed],London, 1878)

Bacon, Francis, The Historie of the Raigne of King Henry the Seventh (London,1622) (STC 1159, 1160)

Bagley, Cornelius, Select Hymns from Various Authors (Manchester, 1789)Bagley, Cornelius, Select Psalms from the Old and New Versions (Manchester,

1789)Baker, Samuel, Mother Shipton and Nixon’s Prophecies . . . Compiled from the

Original Editions (London, 1797) (BL, 117. d. 44. (1.))Bale, John, Illustrium Maioris Britanniæ scriptorum, hoc est, Angliæ, Cambriæ,

ac Scotiæ summariu, in quasdam centurias diuisum, cum diuersitate doctrinaruatq; annoru recta supputatione per omnes ætates a Iapheto sanctissimi Noah filio,ad annum domini M.D.XLVIII. (Additio . . . pro sexta centuria.) (Basileae,1557, 1559)

Bale, John, The Image of Bothe Churches: After Reulacion of Saynt Iohan theEuangelyst ([Antwerp, 1545?]) (STC 196.5)

Bale, John, Index Britanniae Scriptorum: John Bale’s Index of British and OtherWriters, ed. Reginald Lane Poole and Mary Bateson, with an introductionby Caroline Brett and James P. Carley (Cambridge, 1990)

Bannatyne, Richard, Memorials of Transactions in Scotland, A.D. MDLXIX –A.D. MDLXXIII (Edinburgh, 1836)

Barbour, John, The Bruce, ed. A. A. M. Duncan (Edinburgh, 1997)Barbour’s Bruce: A Fredome is a Noble Thing! ed. Matthew P. McDiarmid and

James A. C. Stevenson, 3 vols, Scottish Text Society 4th ser. 12–13, 15(Edinburgh, 1980–5)

Barlowe, William, and William Roy, Rede Me and be Nott Wrothe ([Strasburg,1528]) (STC 1462.7)

Baskerville, Thomas, ‘A Journey into the North with my Friend Mr.Washborne, Student of Christ Church, Oxford’, Royal Commission onHistorical Manuscripts, The Manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland,Preserved at Welbeck Abbey, ed. F. H. B. Daniell et al., 10 vols (London,1891–1931), vol. II (1893)

Beamont, William, A History of the Castle of Halton and the Priory or Abbey ofNorton (Warrington, 1873)

Beaumont, George, and Captain Henry Disney, A New Tour Thro’ England,Perform’d the Summers of 1765, 1766, and 1767 (London, n.d.)


202

The Beauties of Harrogate and Knaresbro’. A Poem (Ripon, 1798)Bedfordshire Wills, 1480–1519, ed. Patricia Bell, Publications of the

Bedfordshire Historical and Record Society XLV (Bedford, 1966)Bedfordshire Wills Proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury, 1383–1548, ed.

Margaret McGregor, Publications of the Bedfordshire Historical and RecordSociety LVIII ([Bedford], 1979)

Beilby, Robert, ‘Wills of Leeds and District, in Miscellanea, Publications of theThoresby Society xxii (Leeds, 1915), pp. 85–102, 235–64

Bentley, Samuel, Excerpta Historica: Or, Illustrations of English History (London,1831)

The Biographical Mirrour, Comprising a Series of Ancient and Modern EnglishPortraits, of Eminent and Distinguished Persons, from Original Pictures andDrawings (London, 1795)

Birrel, Robert, ‘The Diary of Robert Birrel’, in Fragments of Scotish History, ed.J. G. Dalyell (Edinburgh, 1798)

Bishop Percy’s Folio Manuscript: Ballads and Romances, ed. John W. Hales andFrederick J. Furnivall (London, 1867–8)

Blackmore, Richard, Prince Arthur (London, 1695)Boece, Hector, Heir Beginnis the Hystory and Croniklis of Scotland, trans. John

Bellenden (Edinburgh, [1540?]) (STC 3203)Boece, Hector, Scotorum historiæ a prima gentis origine ([Paris], [1527])Boece, Hector, Scotorum historiæ a prima gentis origine (Paris, 1574)Bower, Walter, Scotichronicon, general editor D. E. R. Watt, vol. 5, Books 9

and 10, ed. Simon Taylor and D. E. R. Watt, with Brian Scott (Aberdeen,1990)

Bradshaw, Henry, The Life of Saint Werburge of Chester, ed. Carl Horstmann,EETS o.s. 88 (London, 1887)

Bray, William, Sketch of a Tour into Derbyshire and Yorkshire, including Part ofBuckingham, Warwick, Leicester, Nottingham, Northampton, Bedford, andHertford-Shires (London, 1778)

Brereton, Jane, Merlin: A Poem (London, 1725 [i.e. 1735])Brereton, O. S., ‘Exhibition of Coloured Drawing of a Window in Brereton

Church’, Archaeologia IX (1789), pp. 368–9Brigg, William, ‘Testamenta Leodiensia’, in Miscellanea, Publications of the

Thoresby Society iv (Leeds, 1895), pp. 1–16, 139–47British Library Harleian Manuscript 433, ed. Rosemary Horrox, 4 vols

(Gloucester, 1979–82)Buchanan, George, The History of Scotland, trans. James Aikman, 4 vols

(Glasgow, 1827)Buchanan, George, Opera (Edinburgh, 1715)Buchanan, George, Rerum Scoticarum Historia (Edinburgh, 1582) (STC 3991)Burdekin’s Old Moore’s Almanack (York, 1899)Burdekin’s Old Moore’s Almanack and Advertising Compendium (York,

1887)Burnet, Gilbert, History of his own Time, 2nd edn, 6 vols (Oxford, 1833)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

203

Calendar of Ancient Correspondence Concerning Wales, ed. J. Goronwy Edwards,Board of Celtic Studies, University of Wales, History and Law Ser. 2(Cardiff, 1935)

Calendar of Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 6 vols (London,1903–20)

Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers Preserved in the Bodleian Library, ed.H. O. Coxe et al., 5 vols (Oxford and London, 1869–1970)

Calendar of Close Rolls (London, 1898–)Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers (Regesta Romanorum Pontificum)

Relating to Great Britain and Ireland. Papal Letters, ed. W. H. Bliss et al.,Petitions to the Pope, ed. W. H. Bliss (London, 1893–)

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland,Papal Letters, vol. I: A.D. 1198–1304, ed. W. H. Bliss (London, 1893)

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland,Papal Letters, vol. IV: A.D. 1362–1404, ed. W. H. Bliss and J. A. Twemlow(London, 1902)

Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland,Papal Letters, vol. V: A.D. 1396–1404, ed. W. H. Bliss and J. A. Twemlow(London, 1904)

Calendar of the Fine Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 22 vols (London,1911–62)

Calendar of Letters, Despatches, and State Papers, Relating to the Negotiationsbetween England and Spain, preserved in the archives at Vienna, Simancas,Besancon and Brussels, ed. Royall Tyler, 13 vols (London, 1904–54), vol. IV/i: 1529–1530

A Calendar of the Middle Temple Records, ed. Charles Henry Hopwood (London,1903)

Calendar of the Patent Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office (London, 1901–)Calendar of State Papers and Manuscripts, Relating to English Affairs Existing in

the Archives and Collection of Venice, and in Other Libraries of Northern Italy,ed. Rawdon Brown (London, 1864–), 1520–1526

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles I., Preserved inthe State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office, ed. JohnBruce, 23 vols (London, 1858–97)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Charles II, 28 vols(London, 1860–1938)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Edward VI, 1547–1553,Preserved in the Public Record Office, ed. C. S. Knighton (London, 1992)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Edward VI, Mary,Elizabeth Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public RecordOffice 1547–1580, ed. Robert Lemon (London, 1856)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth, Addenda,1566–1579, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1871)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reigns of Elizabeth and James I


204

Preserved in Her Majesty’s Public Record Office: Addenda, 1580–1625, ed.Mary Anne Everett Green (London, 1872)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of Elizabeth Preserved inHer Majesty’s Public Record Office: 1591–1594, ed. Mary Anne EverettGreen (London, 1867)

Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Series, of the Reign of James I., 1603–[1625],Preserved in the State Paper Department of Her Majesty’s Public Record Office,ed. Mary Anne Everett Green, 5 vols (London, 1857–72)

Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Ireland, of the Reigns of Henry VIII,Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth, vol. 1: 1509–1573, ed. Hans ClaudeHamilton (London, 1860)

Calendar of the State Papers Relating to Scotland, Preserved in Her Majesty’s PublicRecord Office, 2 vols (London, 1858), vol. I: A.D. 1509–1589, ed. M. J.Thorpe.

Calvert, M., A History of Knaresborough: Comprising an Accurate and DetailedAccount of the Castle, the Forest, and the Several Townships included in the saidParish (Knaresborough, 1844)

Camden, William, Annales rerum Anglicarum, et Hibernicarum, regnanteElizabetha, ad annum salutis M. D. LXXXIX (London, 1615) (STC 4996)

Camden, William, Britannia (London, 1600) (STC 4507)Carey, George Saville, The Balnea: Or, an Impartial Description of all the Popular

Watering Places in England, 3rd edn (London, 1801)[Carey, Henry], Dragon of Wantley; Or, Harlequin & Old Mother Shipton

(pantomime programme, 13–25 February 1871, Theatre Royal Drury Lane)Carter, F. A., ‘New Light on Mother Shipton?’ Yorkshire Life XXII (no. 9)

(September 1968), p. 79A Catalogue of Hargroves’ Circulating Library, at Harrogate; Containing a Valuable

Collection of Books, Which are lent out, Agreeable to the Conditions, Specifiedin the Following Pages (Knaresborough, n.d.)

A Catalogue of Hargrove’s Circulating Library at Harrogate (York, 1801)Cavendish, George, The Life and Death of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. Richard S.

Sylvester, EETS o.s. 243 (London, 1959 for 1957)Cavendish, George, The Life of Cardinal Wolsey, ed. Samuel Weller Singer, 2nd

edn (London, 1827)Challoner, Richard, The Wonders of God in the Wilderness (Manchester, 1786)Chamberlain, T., ‘Memoir of Bishop Patrick’, in his edn of The Parable of the

Pilgrim: Written to a Friend, The Englishman’s Library (London, 1839)Cheshire SheafThe Chester Miscellany being a Collection of Several Pieces, both in Prose and Verse,

which were in the Chester Courant from January 1745, to May 1750 (Chester,1750)

The Chester Mystery Cycle, ed. R. M. Lumiansky and David Mills, 2 vols, EETSsupplementary ser. 3, 9 (Oxford, 1974, 1986)

Chillon, C. W., ‘The Inventory of a Provincial Bookseller’s Stock of 1644’,The Library 6th ser. I (1979), pp. 126–43

BIBLIOGRAPHY

205

The Chronicle of Lanercost 1272–1346, ed. Herbert Maxwell (Glasgow, 1913)The Chronicle of Queen Jane, and of Two Years of Queen Mary, and Especially of

the Rebellion of Sir T. Wyat, written by a resident in the Tower of London, ed.J. G. Nichols, Camden Society o.s. 48 (London, 1850)

The Chronicles of William de Rishanger, of the Barons’ Wars. The Miracles of Simonde Montfort, ed. James Orchard Halliwell, Camden Society o.s. 15 (London,1840)

Clare, John, Sketches in the Life of John Clare, Written by Himself, ed. EdmundBlunden (London, 1931)

Climsell, Richard, The Kind Hearted Creature: or the Prettest [sic] Jest that Er’eYou Knew, (London, [?1640]) (STC 5425)

Climsell, Richard, The Praise of London: Or, a Delicate New Ditty (London,[?1632]) (STC 5428.5)

Coke, Edward, The Fourth Part of the Institutes of the Laws of England:Concerning the Jurisdiction of Courts (London, 1797)

Colville, John, Oratio funebris exequiis Elizabethæ nuperæ Angliæ, Hiberniæ &c.Reginæ destinata (Paris, 1604)

The Complaynt of Scotlande wyth ane Exortatione to the Thre Estaits to be Vigilantein the Deffens of their Public Veil. 1549, with an Appendix of ContemporaryEnglish Tracts, viz. The Just Declaration of Henry VIII (1542), The Exhortacionof James Harrysone, Scottisheman (1547), The Epistle of the Lord ProtectorSomerset (1548), The Epitome of Nicholas Bodrugan alias Adams (1548),ed. James A. H. Murray, EETS extra ser. 17, 18 (London, 1872–3)

‘The Confessions of Richard Bishop and Robert Seyman’, Norfolk ArchaeologyI (1847), pp. 209–23

William Congreve: Letters and Documents, ed. John C. Hodges (London, 1964)A Correct Account of the Celebrated Pantomime Entertainment of Harlequin’s

Museum; or, Mother Shipton Triumphant (London, 1793)Correspondence of the Family of Hatton: Being Chiefly Letters Addressed to

Christopher, First Viscount Hatton, 1601–1704, ed. Edward MaundeThompson, Camden Society n.s. 22–3 ([Westminster], 1878)

The Coucher Book of Furness Abbey, ed. J. Brownbill, 2 vols, Chetham Societyn.s. 9, 11; 74, 76, 78 (Manchester, 1886–7, 1915–16, 1919)

[The Court of Venus. With the Pilgrim’s Tale. In Verse] ([T. Gybson, 1538?])(STC 24650)

The Court of Venus, ed. Russell A. Fraser (Durham, NC, 1955)Curll, Edmund, The Rarities of Richmond: Being Exact Descriptions of the Royal

Hermitage and Merlin’s Cave. With his Life and Prophecies (London, 1736)‘Cymro’, ‘Ancient Welsh Prophecies Fulfilled’, Archaeologia Cambrensis III

(1848), p. 77Daily Post and Advertiser (27 January 1736)Dalton, C. (ed.), English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 6 vols (London,

1892–1904)Danchin, Pierre, The Prologues and Epilogues of the Restoration, 1660–1700,

4 parts in 7 vols (Nancy, 1981–8)


206

Davenant, William, and Inigo Jones, Britannia Triumphans (London, 1637 [i.e. 1638]) (STC 14718)

Deane, Edmund, Spadacrene Anglica, or the English Spa Fountain: Being a BriefeTreatise of the Acide, or Tart Fountaine in the Forest of Knaresborow, in theWest-Riding of Yorkshire. As also a Relation of the other Medicinall Waters inthe said Forest (London, 1626) (STC 6441) (reprinted with an introductionby James Rutherford and biographical notes by Alexander Butler (Bristoland London, 1922))

Deane, Edmund, Spadacrene Anglica, the English Spaw, or, the Glory ofKnaresborough, Springing from Severall Famous Fountains there Adjacent, calledthe Vitrioll, Sulphurous and Dropping Wells; and also other Minerall Waters.Their Nature, Physicall Use, Situation, and many Admirable Cures being exactlyExprest in the Subsequent Treatise of the Learned Dr. Dean, and the SedulousObservations of the Ingenius Michael Stanhope Esquire. Wherein it is Proved byReason and Experience, that the Vitrioline Fountain is Equall, and not Inferiour,to the German Spaw. Published, with other Additions, by Iohn Taylor,Apothecary in York (York, 1649) (STC D491)

Deane, Edmund, Spadacrene Anglica, or the English Spaw-fountaine (York, 1654)(STC D491A)

[Defoe, Daniel], A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain, 6th edn, 4 vols(London, 1762)

Defoe, Daniel, A Tour Through the Whole Island of Great Britain, introduced byG. D. H. Cole and D. C. Browning (London, 1974; based on the 1926 edn,with the addition of The Tour through Scotland; formerly two vols, now asone, but with former pagination)

Depositions from the Castle of York relating to Offences Committed in the NorthernCounties in the Seventeenth Century, ed. James Raine, Surtees Society 40(Durham, 1861)

Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 3rd Report (1842), App. II, part vi: ‘TheFirst Part of the Inventory and Calendar of the Contents of the Baga deSecretis’, pp. 213–68

Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, 53rd Report (1892), App. II: ‘Conspiracyagainst Henry VII.’, pp. 30–6

The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer, 6 vols (Oxford, 1955), vol. III,Kalendarium, 1650–1672

Diary of John Rous, Incumbent of Santon Downham, Suffolk, from 1625 to 1642, ed. Mary Anne Everett Green, Camden Society o.s. 66 ([London],1856)

Diary of Mary Countess Cowper, Lady of the Bedchamber to the Princess of Wales,1714–1720, ed. Spenser Cowper, 2nd edn (London, 1865)

The Diary of Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S., Author of the Topography of Leeds.(1677–1724.) Now First Published from the Original Manuscript, ed. JosephHunter, 2 vols (London, 1830)

The Diary of Sir Henry Slingsby, of Scriven, Bart: Now First Published Entire fromthe MS. A Reprint of Sir Henry Slingsby’s Trial, his Rare Tract, ‘A Father’s

BIBLIOGRAPHY

207

Legacy.’ Written in the Tower Immediately Before his Death, and Extracts fromFamily Correspondence and Papers, with Notices, and a Genealogical Memoir,ed. Daniel Parsons (London, 1836)

Dibdin, Charles, Plot, Songs, Chorusses, &c. in the Comic Pantomime, CalledWizard’s Wake: Or, Harlequin and Merlin (London, 1803)

Dickens, Charles, The Pickwick Papers, ed. J. Kinsley, The Clarendon Dickens(Oxford, 1986)

Douglas, Francis, The History of the Rebellion in 1745 and 1746, Extracted fromthe Scots Magazine (Aberdeen, 1755)

Drake, Francis, Eboracum: Or the History and Antiquities of the City of York, fromits Original to the Present Times (London, 1736)

Drayton, Michael, Poly-Olbion (4th vol. of his Works), ed. J. William Hebel(Oxford, 1933)

Drummond of Hawthornden, William, ‘Forth Feasting: A Panegyricke to theKings Most Excellent Majesty’, in William Drummond of Hawthornden,Poems and Prose, ed. Robert H. Macdonald (Edinburgh and London, 1976)

Dryden, John, King Arthur, or The British Worthy (London, 1691)‘D[uc]k, S[tephe]n’, The Year of Wonders: Being a Literal and Poetical Translation

of an Old Latin Prophecy, Found near Merlin’s Cave (n.p., 1737?)Ecclesiastical Documents, ed. Joseph Hunter, Camden Society o.s. 8 (London,

1840)Ellis, Henry, Original Letters, Illustrative of English History; From Autographs in

the British Museum, the State Paper Office, &c., with Notes and Illustrations,3rd ser., 4 vols (London, 1846)

England Illustrated, or, a Compendium of the Natural History, Geography,Topography, and Antiquities Ecclesiastical and Civil, of England and Wales, 2 vols (London, 1764)

‘English Wills, 1498–1526’, ed. A. F. Cirket, Publications of the BedfordshireHistorical and Record Society XXXVII (1957), pp. 1–82

Excerpta Historica; or, Illustrations of English History (London, 1831)Faculty Office Registers 1534–1549: A Calendar of the First Two Registers of

the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Faculty Office, ed. D. S. Chambers (Oxford,1966)

The Fairfax Correspondence: Memoirs of the Reign of Charles the First, ed. GeorgeW. Jonson, 2 vols (London, 1848)

Farrow, M. A., Index of Wills Proved in the Consistory Court of Norwich and nowPreserved in the District Probate Registry at Norwich, 1550–1603, NorfolkRecord Society xxi (Norwich, 1950)

Fielding, Henry, The History of Tom Jones A Foundling, introduced by MartinC. Battestin, text edited by Fredson Bowers, 2 vols (Oxford, 1974)

Fielding, Henry, New Essays by Henry Fielding: His Contributions to TheCraftsman (1734–1739) and Other Early Journalism, ed. Martin C. Battestin(Charlottesville, Va., 1989)

Fielding, Henry, The Tragedy of Tragedies, or, The Life [sic] and Death of TomThumb the Great (London, 1731)


208

Five Strange and Wonderfull Prophesies and Predictions of Severall Men ForetoldLong Since: All Which are Likely to Come to Passe in these our Distracted Times(n.p., 1651) (STC F1123)

Floyer, Sir John, and Dr Edward Baynard, Psukhrolousia: The History of ColdBathing: Both Ancient and Modern (London, 1706)

Fore-warn’d, Fore-arm’d; By a Collection of Five Prophetical Predictions, Publishedby Mr William Lilly Forty Years Ago . . . and One of Mother Shipton’s (London,1682) (STC F1556A)

Forrest, William, ‘The Pleasaunt Poesye of Princelie Practise’, in SecretumSecretorum: Nine English Versions, ed. M. A. Manzalaoui, vol. 1: Text, EETSo.s. 276 (Oxford, 1977), pp. 392–534

The Fortune of France, from the Prophectical Predictions of Mr. Truswell, theRecorder of Lincoln, and Michael Nostradamus (London, 1678)

Foureteen Strange Prophesies: Besides Mother Shiptons, and Mr Saltmarsh . . .Whereto is Added the Predictions of . . . John Saltmarsh, to his Excellency, andthe Counsell of his Army. And the Manner of his Death . . . With New MarginallNotes on Mother Shipton’s Prophesies (Smithfield, 1648 [i.e. 1649]) (STCS3444)

Foxe, John, The First Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History Contayning the Actesand Monuments of Thynges Passed in Euery Kynges Tyme in this Realme,Especially in the Church of England / Newly . . . Inlarged by the Author(London, 1570); The Second Volume of the Ecclesiasticall History Contayningthe Actes and Monuments (London, 1570) (STC 1223)

Fraser, James, Chronicles of the Frasers: The Wardlaw Manuscript Entitled‘Polichronicon seu policratica temporum, or, The True Genealogy of the Frasers’,916–1674, ed. William Mackay, Scottsh Historical Society o.s. 47(Edinburgh, 1905)

French, John, The York-shire Spaw; Or, A treatise of Four Famous Medicinal Wells. . . near Knaresborow in York-shire (London, 1652 (STC F2175)); anotheredn, 1654 (STC F2176)

Gairdner, J. (ed.), Letters and Papers Illustrative of the Reigns of Richard III andHenry VII, RS 24 (London, 1861–3)

[Gaultier, Jaques], Al-man-sir, or Rhodomontados of the most Horrible, Terrible,and Invincible Captain, Sir Frederick Fightall (London, 1672) (STC G381)

Gent, Thomas, The Antient and Modern History of the Loyal Town of Rippon(York, 1733) Gentleman’s Magazine

Gilpin, William, Observations, Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made inthe Year 1772, on Several Parts of England, 2 vols (London, 1786)

Gordon, Patrick, The Famous History of the Renown’d and Valiant Prince, RobertSirnamed, the Bruce, King of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1718; Glasgow, 1753)

Gordon, Patrick, The Famous Historie of the Renouned and Valiant Prince RobertSurnamed the Bruce King of Scotland (Dort, 1615) (STC 12066)

Gordon, Patrick, of Ruthven, A Short Abridgement of Britane’s Distemper, fromthe Yeare of God M.DC.XXXIX. to M.DC.XLIX., ed. [John Dunn], SpaldingClub 10 (Aberdeen, 1844)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

209

Graham, Dougal, The Collected Writings of Dougal Graham: ‘Skellat’ Bellman ofGlasgow, ed. George MacGregor, 2 vols (Glasgow, 1883)

G[rainge], W[illiam], ‘Mother Shipton’, The Palatine Note-book for 1881: Forthe Intercommunication of Antiquaries, Bibliophiles, and other Investigators intothe History and Literature of the Counties of Lancaster, Chester, &c.(Manchester, Chester and Liverpool, 1881), pp. 64–6

Granger, J., A Biographical History of England from Egbert the Great to theRevolution, 5th edn, 6 vols (London, 1824)

Granville, A. B., The Spas of England, and Principal Sea-Bathing Places, 3 vols(London, 1841), vol. I, Northern Spas

Gray, Thomas, The Traveller’s Companion, in a Tour through England and Wales;Containing a Catalogue of the Antiquities, Houses, Parks, Plantations, Scenes,and Situations, in England and Wales, Arranged According to the AlphabeticalOrder of the Several Counties, a new edn by Thomas Northmore (London,[1800])

The Great Diurnal of Nicolas Blundell of Little Crosby, Lancashire, ed. J. J. Bagley,3 vols, Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire 110, 112, 114 ([Chester],1968–72)

Groombridge, Margaret, A Calendar of Chester City Council Minutes,1603–1642, RSLC CVI (Blackpool, 1966)

Gunn, John, ‘Proverbs, Adages and Popular Superstitions, Still Preserved inthe Parish of Irstead’, Norfolk Archaeology II (1849), pp. 291–308

[Gybson, Thomas], The Sum of the Actes and Decrees made by Dyuers Byshopesof Rome ([London], [1538]) (STC 21307a.5)

[Gybson, Thomas], The Sum of the Actes and Decrees made by Dyuerse Bysshops([London], [1539?]) (STC 21307a.7)

Halliwell, James Orchard, Letters of the Kings of England, 2 vols (London, 1846)

Hamilton, David, The Diary of Sir David Hamilton, 1709–1714, ed. PhilipRoberts (Oxford, 1975)

A Handbook for Residents and Travellers in Shropshire and Cheshire, 3rd edn,revised (London, 1897)

Handbook for Travellers in Yorkshire (London, 1867); 4th edn (London, 1904)

Harbert, William, A Prophesie of Cadwallader, Last King of the Britaines(London, 1604) (STC 12752)

Harlequin Student, or, The Fall of Pantomime with the Restoration of the Drama:An Entertainment (London, 1741)

Hargrove, Ely, The History of the Castle and Town of Knaresbrough [sic]; withRemarks on Spofforth, Rippon, Aldborough, Boroughbridge, Ribston, &c.([Knaresborough], 1769)

[Hargrove, Ely], The History of the Castle, Town, and Forest of Knaresborough;with Harrogate, and its Medicinal Waters, the Antiquities and Remarkable Placesto be seen in the Neighbourhood, Eminent for their Situation, and Celebrated inAncient History, [new edn] (York, 1775)


210

Hargrove, Ely, The Yorkshire Gazetteer, or, a Dictionary of the Towns, Villages,and Hamlets; Monasteries and Castles; Principal Mountains, Rivers, &c.; inthe County of York, and Ainsty, or County of the City of York: Describing theSituation of Each, and the Various Elements by which some of them have beenDistinguished, 2nd edn (Knaresborough, 1812)

Hargrove, William, History and Description of the Ancient City of York,Comprising all the Most Interesting Information, Already Published in Drake’sEboracum, 2 vols (York, 1818)

Harington, Sir John, A Tract on the Succession to the Crown (A.D. 1602), ed.Clements R. Markham, Roxburghe Club (London, 1880)

Harman, Thomas, A Caueat for Commen Cursetors Vvlgarely Called Uagabones(London, [1567]) (STC 12787)

Harper, H. C., Nixon the Cheshire Prophet, to Which is Appended The OriginalPredictions of Robert Nixon, as Declared by Himself in Doggerel Verse and aSelection of Prophecies Recorded Elsewhere, 2nd edn (Hereford, 1978)

Harpsfield, Nicholas, The Life and Death of Sr Thomas Moore, Knight, sometimesLord High Chancellor of England, written in the Tyme of Queene Marie, EETSo.s. 186 (London, 1932)

Harris, Moses, The Aurelian (London, 1766; new edn by Robert Mays,Twickenham, 1986)

Harris, Moses, The English Lepidoptera: Or, the Aurelian’s Pocket Companion(London, 1775)

Harrogate Advertiser, 20 August 1881Harvey, John, A Discoursive Probleme Concerning Prophecies (London, 1588)

(STC 12908)Hatchett, William, The Opera of Operas, or, Tom Thumb the Great / Alter’d

from The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great; and Set to Musick after theItalian Manner (London, 1733)

Head, Richard, The English Rogue Described (London, 1665) (STC H1246)

Head, Richard, The Floating Island, or a New Discovery, relating the StrangeAdventure on a late Voyage from Lambethana to Villa Franca ([London], 1673)(STC H1253)

Head, Richard, Hic et Ubique: or, the Humors of Dublin (London, 1663) (STCH1255)

Head, Richard, Jackson’s Recantation (London, 1674) (STC H1256)Head, Richard, The Life and Death of Mother Shipton . . . : Strangely

Preserved amongst other Writings belonging to an old Monastery in York-shire,and now Published for the Information of Posterity (London, 1677) (STCH1257)

Head, Richard, The Life and Death of Mother Shipton . . . : Strangely Preservedamongst other Writings belonging to an old Monastery in York-shire, and nowPublished for the Information of Posterity (London, 1684) (STC H1258)

Head, Richard, The Life and Death of Mother Shipton . . . : Strangely Preservedamongst other Writings belonging to an old Monastery in York-shire, and now

BIBLIOGRAPHY

211

Published for the Information of Posterity (London, 1687) (STC H1259) (BL, 8610. d. 26.)



Head, Richard, The Life and Death of the English Rogue (London, 1679) (STCH1262)

Head, Richard, The Miss Displayed (London, 1675) (STC H1264)Head, Richard, Nugae Venales, 2nd edn (London, 1675) (STC H1266)Head, Richard, Proteus Redivivus: Or the Art of Wheedling (London, 1675)

(STC H1272)Head, Richard, The Red Sea, a Description of the Sea-fight between the English

and Dutch, with an Elegy on Sir C. Minnes (London, 1666) (STC H1275)

Head, Richard, Western Wonder, or O, Brazile, an Inchanted Island discovered(London, 1674) (STC H1277)

Heraclitus Ridens (1 February 1681–22 August 1682)Herbert, Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, The History of England under Henry

VIII (London, 1870)Here Begynneth a Lytel Treatyse of ye Byrth & Prophecye of Marlyn (London,

1510; another edition, 1529) (STC 17841; 17841.3)Heywood, Oliver, The Rev. Oliver Heywood, B.A. 1630–1702; His Auto-

biography, Diaries, Anecdote and Event Books; Illustrating the General and Family History of Yorkshire and Lancashire, ed. J. Horsfall Turner, 4 vols,vol. 1 (Brighouse, 1882)

Heywood, Thomas, The Life of Merlin, Sirnamed Ambrosius (London, 1641)(STC H1786)

Higden, Ranulph, Polychronicon (London, 1482) (STC 13438)Higden, Ranulph, Polychronicon Ranulphi Higden, ed. C. Babington and Joseph

Rawson Lumby, 9 vols, RS 41 (London, 1865–86)Historical Papers and Letters from Northern Registers, ed. James Raine, RS 61

(London, 1873)Historical Poems of the XIVth and XVth Centuries, ed. Rossell H. Robbins (New

York, 1959)Hobbes, Thomas, De mirabilibus pecci, carmen: Being the Wonders of the Peak in

Darby-shire, commonly Called the Devil’s Arse of Peak, 1st edn (London,1627) (STC 13537); reprinted from the 4th edn (London, 1678) (STCH2224), in Thomæ Hobbes Malmesburiensis Opera Quæ Latine ScripsitOmnia, ed. William Molesworth, 5 vols (London, 1839–45), vol. V, pp. 323–40

Hofland, Barbara, A Week at Harrogate: A Poem: In a Series of Letters, Addressesfrom Benjamin Blunderhead, Esq., to his Friend Simon (Knaresborough, 1812;


212

2nd edn, Knaresborough, 1813, 1814; 3rd edn, Knaresborough, 1818; as1812)

Holinshed, Raphael, The Firste[-Laste] Volume of the Chronicles of England,Scotlande, and Irelande: Conteyning, the Description and Chronicles of England,from the First Inhabiting Vnto the Conquest. The Description and Chronicles of Scotland, From the First Originall of the Scottes Nation, till the Yeare of ourLorde. 1571. The Description and Chronicles of Yrelande, Likewise from theFirste Originall of that Nation, Vntill the Yeare. 1547, 2 vols (London, [1577])(STC 13568, 13568.5, 13568a, 13568b)

Holwell, John, An Appendix to Holvvel’s Catastrophe Mundi: Being anAstrological Discourse of the Rise, Growth and Continuation of the OthomanFamily, with the Nativities of the Present French king, Emperors of Germanyand Turky (London, 1683) (STC H2515)

Holwell, John, Catastrophe mundi: Or, Europe’s Many Mutations until the Year1701 (London, [1682]) (STC H2516)

Holwell, John, A New Prophecy; or, a Prophetical Discourse of the Blazing-Star,that appeared April the 23d, 1677. Being a Full Account of the Events . . . whichThreaten . . . England, Scotland . . . as likewise . . . France, Holland, &c.(London, 1679) (STC H2518)

Hoole, Barbara (Mrs. Hofland), A Season at Harrogate; In a Series of PoeticalEpistles, from Benjamin Blunderhead, Esquire, to his Mother, in Derbyshire:With Useful and Copious Notes, descriptive of the Objects most Worthy ofAttention in the Vicinity of Harrogate (Knaresborough, 1812) (reprintedHarrogate, 1904, under a slightly different title)

Howell, James, Bella Scot-Anglica: A Brief of all the Battells, and MartiallEncounters which have Happened ’twixt England and Scotland, from all Timesto this Present (London, 1648)

Huddleston, Richard, A Short and Plain Way to the Faith and Church, ed. JohnHuddleston (London, 1688) (STC H3257)

Index of Wills in the York Registry, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, RecordSer. XIV, 1554–1568 (n.p., 1893)

The Illustrated Hand-book for Harrogate, with Excursions in the Neighbourhood;Compiled by the Editors of the ‘Harrogate Advertiser’. Also, Incorporated byPermission, Observations on the Medical Springs of Harrogate, by GeorgeKennion, M.D. (Harrogate, 1858)

The Itinerary of John Leland in or about the years 1536–1539, ed. Lucy ToulminSmith, 5 vols (London, 1907)

Jackson, Charles (ed.), ‘The Journal of Mr. John Hobson, late of DodworthGreen’, Yorkshire Diaries and Autobiographies in the Seventeenth and EighteenthCenturies, vol. I, Surtees Society LXV (Durham, 1877 for 1875), pp. 245–329

The Jacobite Trials at Manchester in 1694, ed. William Beamont, ChethamSociety XXVIII ([Manchester], 1853)

Jones, John, The Bathes of Bathes Ayde: Wonderful and Most Excellent, AgaynstVery Many Sicknesses . . . (London, 1572) (STC 14724a3)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

213

Jones, John, The Benefit of the Auncient Bathes of Buckstones: Which Cureth MostGreeuous Sicknesses: Neuer Before Published (London, 1572) (STC 14724a7)

Journals of the House of Lords ([London, 1771?–])The Journeys of Celia Fiennes, ed. Christopher Morris (London, 1949)Joye, George, The Exposicion of Daniel the Prophete / Gathered Oute of Philip

Melanchton / Iohan Ecolampadius / Chonrade Pellicane & out of IohanDraconite. &c. By George Ioye: A Prophecye Diligently to be Noted of alEmprowrs & Kinges in These Laste Dayes . . . (Geneue, 1545) (STC 14823)

Joye, George, The Exposicio[n] of Daniell the Prophete / Gathered out of PhilipMelanchton , Iho[n] Ecolampadius, Chonrade Pellicane, and oute of IhonDraconite &c. By George Ioye: A Prophecie Diligentlye to bee Noted of alEmperoures and Kinges, in these Last Daies . . . (London, 1550) (STC 14824)

Joye, George, The Prophete Isaye, Translated into Englysshe (Straszburg [i.e.Antwerp], 1531) (STC 2777)

Keach, Benjamin, Antichrist Stormed; or Mystery, Babylon, the Great Whore,and Great City, Proved to be the Present Church of Rome; . . . Also anExamination and Confutation of what Mr. Jurien hath Lately WrittenConcerning the Effusion of the Vials, . . . Likewise a Brief Review of D. T.Goodwin’s Exposition of the 11th Chapter of the Revelations, etc. (London,1689) (STC K44)

Kielmansegge, Frederick, Diary of a Journey to England in the Years 1761–1762,trans. Countess Kielmansegge (London, 1902)

Kilvert, Francis, Diaries, ed. William Plomer, 2nd edn, 3 vols (London, 1960)

Kirby’s Wonderful and Eccentric Museum, 6 vols (London, 1820)The Lancashire and Cheshire Historical Collector, ed. T. Worthington Barlow,

2 vols (Manchester and London, 1855)Langdale, William, Langdale’s New Harrogate Guide: Being an Accurate

Description and History of the Most Remarkable Places in the Neighbourhood:With a Variety of Information Useful to Visitors, 8th edn (Harrogate, ?1850)

The Late Expedicion in Scotlande: Made by the Kynges Hyghnys Armye, Vnder theConduit of the Ryght Honorable the Erle of Hertforde, the Yere of our Lorde God1544 (London, 1544) (STC 22270)

‘The Late Expedition in Scotland, Made by the King’s Highness’ army, underthe Conduct of the Right Honourable the Earl of Hertford, the Year of OurLord God 1544’, in Tudor Tracts, 1532–1588, ed. A. F. Pollard (Westminster,1903), pp. 37–51

The Ledger Book of Vale Royal Abbey, ed. John Brownbill, Record Society ofLancashire and Cheshire LXVIII (Manchester, 1914)

Leigh, Egerton, Ballads and Legends of Cheshire (London, 1867)Lesley, John, The Historie of Scotland, trans. James Dalrymple (1596), ed. E. G.

Cody and William Murison, 2 vols, Scottish Text Society o.s. 5, 14, 19, 34(Edinburgh, 1888–95)

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, of the Reign of Henry VIII, Preservedin the Public Record Office, the British Museum, and elsewhere in England, ed.


214

J. S. Brewer, J. Gairdner and R. H. Brodie, 21 vols (London 1862–1910);Addenda, i (London, 1929–32)

Letters of Queen Margaret of Anjou and Bishop Beckington and others, Written inthe Reigns of Henry V. and Henry VI. From a MS. found at Emral in Flintshire,ed. Cecil Monro, Camden Society o.s. 86 (Westminster, 1863)

Lewis, David, The Landscape, and Other Poems (York, 1815)Le Wright, Raoul, Nuncius propheticus: sive, Syllabus selectiss. vaticiniorum

theologico-mathematicorum : quae ultimam hanc mundi senectutem, necnonperturbatum ecclesiae, & Reip. Anglicanae statum respicere videntur (London,1642) (STC L1853)

The Life and History of the Famous Mother Shipton and her Daughter Peggy(London, 1797); attrib. to Henry Moine. Further edn (Dunbar, [1800?])

The Life and Prophecies of Ursula Sontheil better known as Mother Shipton, ed. J. C. Simpson (Leeds, 1947)

The Life, Death, and Prophecies of Mother Shipton ([Liverpool], [1878])The Life of Marmaduke Rawdon of York, or, Marmaduke Rawdon the Second of

that Name, ed. Robert Davies, Camden Society LXXXV (London, 1863)The Life of Nixon, the Cheshire Prophet. Containing several surprizing passages

of his life and prophecies. Never before Printed. In a Letter from a Gentleman ofNamptwich, to his Friend in London (London, 1716) (Oxford, Oriel College;ESTC N55124)

The Life, Prophecies and Death of the Famous Mother Shipton ([Brighton], 1862)

The Life, Prophecies and Death of the Famous Mother Shipton, [ed. C. Hindley]([London, 1877]) (BL, 8630.bbb.1).

Lilly, William, A Collection of Ancient and Moderne Prophesies concerning thesePresent Times . . . The Nativities of T. Earle of Strafford and W. Laud . . .Archbishop of Canterbury . . . And the Speech Intended by the Earle of Straffordto have been Spoken at his Death (London, 1645) (STC L2217)

Lilly, William, Mercurius Propheticus, or, A Collection of Some Old Predictions([London], 1643[4]) (STC M1769)

Lilly, William, A Prophesy of the White King; and Dreadfull Dead-man Explaned:to which is Added the Prophecie of Sibylla Tiburtina, and Prediction of JohnKepler: all of Especial Concernment for These Times (London, 1644) (STCL2240)

Lincoln Wills Registered in the District Probate Registry in Lincoln, vol. I: A.D.1271–1526, ed. C. W. Foster, Lincoln Record Society 5 (Lincoln, 1914)

Lincoln Wills Registered in the District Probate Registry in Lincoln, vol. II: A.D.1505–May 1530, ed. C. W. Foster, Lincoln Record Society 10 (Lincoln,1918 for 1914)

Lincoln Wills Registered in the District Probate Registry in Lincoln, vol. III: A.D.1530–1532, ed. C. W. Foster, Lincoln Record Society 24 (Lincoln, 1930)

Lindsay, David, Ane Dialog betuix Experience and ane Courteor. Off the MiserabillEstait of the Warld . . . ([Rouen?], 1558) (STC 15674.5)

Lindsay, David, The Poetical Works, ed. David Laing, 3 vols (Edinburgh, 1879)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

215

Lindsay of Pitscottie, Robert, The Historie and Cronicles of Scotland, ed. Æ. J. G. Mackay (c. 1579), 3 vols, Scottish Text Society o.s. 42–3, 60(Edinburgh, 1899–1911)

A List of the Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604, ed. E. Peacock(London, 1872)

Lister, Thomas, Poems Descriptive of Harrogate and its Vicinity, Together withLines on Monk Bretton Observatory, near Barnsley (Leeds, 1833)

Llwyd, Humphrey, Cronica Walliae, ed. Ieuan M. Williams (Cardiff, 2002)The London Diaries of William Nicholson, Bishop of Carlisle, 1702–1718,

ed. Clyve Jones and Geoffrey Holmes (Oxford, 1985)Lumb, G. D., ‘Testamenta Leodiensia’, in Miscellanea, Publications of the

Thoresby Society ix (Leeds, 1899), pp. 81–96, 161–92, 246–77Lytton, Edward George Earle, Bulwer Lytton, Eugene Aram: A Tale (London,

1832)Mackay, Charles, Memoirs of Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds,

3 vols (London, 1841)MacRitchie, William, Diary of a Tour Through Great Britain in 1795, ed. David

MacRitchie (London, 1897)Major, John, Historia majoris Britanniae: tam Angliae quam Scotiae ([Paris,

1521])Major, John, A History of Greater Britain as well England as Scotland, ed. A.

Constable, Scottish History Society o.s. 10 (Edinburgh, 1892)The Manchester and Salford Co-operative Herald (January 1898)Mavor, William, The British Tourist, Or, Traveller’s Pocket Companion, through

England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, Comprehending the Most CelebratedModern Tours in the British Islands, and Several Originals, 3rd edn, 6 vols(London, 1809)

Maxwell, James, Admirable and Notable Prophecies, Uttered in Former Times by24 Famous Romain Cathoickes, Concerning the Church of Romes Defection,Tribulation, and Reformation (London, 1615) (STC 17698)

Melville, Andrew, Principis Scoti-Britannorum natalia (Edinburgh, 1594),reprinted in George Buchanan, The Political Poetry, ed. Paul J. McGinnisand Arthur H. Williamson, Scottish History Society 5th ser. 8 (Edinburgh,1995), pp. 276–81

Memoirs of Sir John Reresby: The Complete Text and a Selection from his Letters,ed. Andrew Browning; 2nd edn, ed. Mary K. Geiter and W. A. Speck(London, 1991)

Memorials of John Ray, Consisting of his Life by Dr. Derham; Biographical andCritical Notices by Sir J.E. Smith, and Cuvier and Dupetit Thomas. With hisItineraries, etc., ed. Edwin Lankester, Ray Society (London, 1846)

Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, ed. John Richard Walbran,vol. I, Surtees Society 42 (Durham, 1863 for 1862)

Mercurius Bifrons, no. 2; 24 February 1681Merrifield, John, Catastasis Mundi: Or the True State, Vigor and Growing

Greatness of Christendom, Under the Influences of the Last Triple Conjunction


216

of Saturn and Jupiter. . . . Also Holwell’s . . . Falsehoods Discovered, etc.(London, 1684) (STC M1845)

A Mery P[ro]nosticacion for the Yere of Chrystes Incarnacyon a Thousande FyueHundreth Fortye [and] Foure ([London], 1544) (STC 394.5)

The Metrical Life of St. Robert of Knaresborough, together with the other MiddleEnglish Pieces in British Museum MS. Egerton 3143, ed. J. Bazire, EETS o.s. 228 (London, 1953)

Millar, Arthur W., ‘Mother Shipton’, Yorkshire Notes and Queries II (1906), pp. 20–5

Miraculous Prophecies, Predictions and Strange Visions of Sundry Eminent Men(London, 1794)

Moeder Schiptons Prophecyen van Engelandt: Ofte de Prophecyen van SchiptonsVrouw, gepropheteert in het Jaer 1509, ten tijden van Koningh Henricus denAchtsten Koning van Engelandt (The Hague, 1667)

Moll, Herman, A New Description of England and Wales with the Adjacent Islands(London, 1724)

Monipennie, John, The Abridgement or Summarie of the Scots Chronicles(London, 1612, and many subsequent edns) (STC 18014)

The Monthly Catalogue, 1714–17, English Bibliographical Sources, ser. 1, no. 1 (London, 1964)

The Morning-star Out of the North (London, 1680) (STC M2805)Mother Shiptons Christmas Carrols (London, 1668) (STC S3442)Mother Shipton’s Legacy, or, a Favourite Fortune Book (York, 1797)Mother Shipton’s Prophesies (London, 1663; new edn, 1678) (STC S3448A)Mother Shipton’s Prophesies (London, 1685; London, 1700) (STC S3450)Mother Shipton’s Prophecies. Copied from the original Manuscript in the British

Museum (London, 1877) (BL, 8632.aaa.8).The Muster Returns for Divers Hundreds in the County of Norfolk, 1569, 1572,

1574 and 1577, transcribed by M. A. Farrow and edited by H. L. Bradfer-Lawrence and Percy Millican, Norfolk Record Society vi–vii (Fakenhamand Reading, 1935–6)

The Mystery of Ambras Merlins, Standardbearer Wolf, and Last Boar of Cornwal,with Sundry Other Misterious Prophecys, . . . Unfolded in the Following Treatiseon the Signification . . . of that Prodigious Comet seen . . . anno 1680, with theBlazing Star, 1682 . . . Written by a Lover of his Country’s Peace. ProphecyesConcerning the Return of Popery (London, 1682) (STC P3675)

Neville, Alexander, De furoribus Norfolciensium Ketto duce, liber unus (London,1575) (STC 18478)

A New Dramatic Entertainment Called The Royal Chace, or, Merlin’s Cave: WithSeveral New Comic Scenes of Action Introduced into the Grotesque Performanceof Jupiter and Europa (London, 1736)

Nicholson, John, The Airedale Poet’s Walk through Knaresbrough, and its Vicinity(Knaresbrough, 1826)

Nicolas, Nicholas Harris, ‘Instructions Given by King Henry the Eighth toJohn Becket the Usher, and John Wrothe the Sewer of his Chamber,

BIBLIOGRAPHY

217

Relative to their Journey into Cornwall, for the Purpose of Inquiring intothe Conduct of William Kendall’, Archaeologia xxii (1829), pp. 20–5

Nine Notable Prophecies (London, 1644) (STC N1160)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 6th edn (London, 1719)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 7th edn (London, 1740)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 10th edn (London, 1740)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 15th edn (London, 1745)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 18th edn (London, 1745)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 20th edn (London, 1745)Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy at Large, 21st edn (London, 1745)Nixon’s Prophesy: Containing Nixon’s Prophesy; Containing Many Strange and

Wonderful Predictions: To Which is Added an Account of those Already Fulfilled,and Those that Yet Remain. With Historical Remarks: Together with a ParticularRelation of the Most Noted Passages in the Life and Death of the said Nixon.Extracted from an Ancient Manuscript, never Publish’d Before (Liverpool, 1715)

Norwich Consistory Court Depositions, 1499–1512 and 1518–1530, calendaredby E. D. Stone, revised and arranged by B. Cozens-Hardy, Norfolk RecordSociety x ([London], 1938)

Notredame, Michel de, A Collection of Twenty-Three Prophecies (London, 1690)

Notredame, Michel de, The Predictions of Nostradamus before the Year 1558. . . Considered in a Letter to a Friend, etc. (London, 1691) (STC N1398)

Notredame, Michel de, The Predictions of Nostradamus, before the year 1558. . . ([London], [169[7]]) (STC N1398A)

Notredame, Michel de, The True Prophecies or Prognostications of M.Nostradamus . . . translated and commented by T. de Garencières (London,1672; London, 1685)

Old Book Collector’s Miscellany, vol. 3, ed. Charles Hindley (London, 1873)Oldmixon, John, Arcana Gallica: or the Secret History of France for the Last

Century. Shewing by what Steps the French Ministers Destroy’d the Liberties ofthat Nation in General, and the Protestant Religion in Particular, etc. (London,1714)

Oldmixon, John, The British Empire in America: Containing the History of theDiscovery, Settlement, Progress and Present State of all the British Colonies onthe Continent and Islands of America: In Two Volumes: Being an Account ofthe Country, Soil, Climate, Product and Trade of Them . . . With Curious Mapsof the Several Places . . . By Herman Moll, Geographer (London, 1708)

[Oldmixon, John], The Catholick Poet; or, Protestant Barnaby’s SorrowfulLamentation: An Excellent New Ballad (London, 1716)

[Oldmixon, John?], The Conference; Or, Gregg’s Ghost (London, 1711)Oldmixon, John, The Dutch Barrier Our’s, or, The Interest of England and

Holland Inseperable: With Reflections on the Insolent Treatment the Emperorand States-General have Met with from the Author of the Conduct and hisBrethren: To Which is Added, an Enquiry into the Causes of the Clamour againstthe Dutch, Particularly with Reference to the Fishery (London, 1712)


218

Oldmixon, John, Essay on Criticism: As it Regards Design, Thought, andExpression, in Prose and Verse (London, 1728)

Oldmixon, John, The False Steps of the Ministry after the Revolution, Shewingthat the Lenity and Moderation of that Government was the Occasion of all theFactions that have since Endanger’d the Constitution; With Some Reflections onthe License of the Pulpit and Press. In a Letter to Lord —- (London, 1714)

Oldmixon, John, The History of Addresses. By One Very Near a Kin to the Authorof the Tale of a Tub (London, 1709)

Oldmixon, John, The History of England, during the Reigns of King William andQueen Mary, Queen Anne, King George I (London, 1735)

[Oldmixon, John], The History of England during the Reigns of the Royal Houseof Stuart (London, 1730)

[Oldmixon, John], A Letter to the Seven Lords of the Committee Appointed toExamine Gregg (London, 1711)

Oldmixon, John, The Life and Posthumous Works of Arthur Mainwaring, Esq.(London, 1715)

Oldmixon, John, Memoirs of Ireland from the Restoration to the Present Times(London, 1716)

Oldmixon, John, Memoirs of North-Britain . . . In which it is Prov’d, that theScots Nation have always been Zealous in the Defence of the Protestant Religionand Liberty, etc. (London, 1715)

Oldmixon, John, The Secret History of Europe . . . The Whole Collected fromAuthentick Memoirs as well Manuscript as Printed with Editions (London,1712)

Oldys, William, Memoirs of Mrs. Anne Oldfield (London, 1741)On an Inscribed Stone, at Orchard Wyndham, Somerset, Called ‘Old Mother

Shipton’s Tomb’ [letters reprinted from the West Somerset Free Press, etc.](Bristol, Taunton, Williton and Minehead, 1879)

Original Predictions (London, 1774)The Original Predictions of Robert Nixon, Commonly Called the Cheshire Prophet:

In Doggrel Verse (Chester, [1797?])Osiander, Andreas, The Conjectures of the Ende of the Worlde (Gathered out of

Scripture by A. Oseander, and) Translated by G. Joye ([Geneva?], 1548) (STC18877)

The Overture, Songs, and Comic Tunes in the Pantomine [i.e. Pantomime]Entertainment Call’d Mother Shipton: As Perform’d at the Theatre Royal inCovent Garden (London, [1770])

Palatine Anthology: A Collection of Poems and Ancient Ballads Relating toLancashire and Cheshire, ed. J. O. Halliwell-Phillips (London, 1850)

Palliser, D. M., and D. G. Selwyn, ‘The Stock of a York Stationer, 1538’, TheLibrary 5th ser. XXVII (1972), pp. 207–19

Parker, Martin, The Distressed Virgin: Or, the False Young Man and the ConstantMaid (London, [1633]) (STC 19228)

Parker, Martin, No Naturall Mother, but a Monster (London, [1634]) (STC19261)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

219

Parker, Martin, Robin Conscience, or, Conscionable Robin (London, 1635) (STC19266)

Past, Present and to Come (London, 1795?)Past, Present, and To Come: Or, the Renowned Mother Shipton’s Most Surprizing

Yorkshire Prophecies (London, 1743)The Paston Letters, ed. James Gairdner, 6 vols in 1 (Gloucester, 1983, reprinted

from the 1904 Library edn)Paston Letters and Papers of the Fifteenth Century, ed. Norman Davis, 2 vols

(Oxford, 1971–[7])Patrick, Symon, ‘The Autobiography of Symon Patrick’, in The Works of

Symon Patrick, D.D., Sometime Bishop of Ely. Including his Autobiography,ed. Alexander Taylor, 9 vols (Oxford, 1858), IX, pp. 405–569

Patrick, Symon, The Heart’s Ease, or a Remedy against Trouble, written for LadySt. John (London, 1660; London, 1671; London, 1676; London, 1682)(STC P809, P810, P811, P812)

Patten, William, The Expedicion into Scotlande of the Most Woorthely FortunatePrince Edward, Duke of Somerset (London, 1548) (STC 19476.5)

Pennant, Thomas, The Literary Life of the Late Thomas Pennant, by Himself(London, 1793)

Pennant, Thomas, A Tour from Alston-Moor to Harrogate, and Brimham Crags(London, 1804)

Pennecuik, Alexander, A Geographical, Historical Description of the Shire of Tweeddale (Edinburgh, 1715) (reprinted in The Works of AlexanderPennecuik (Leith, 1815))

The Diary of Samuel Pepys: A New and Complete Transcription, ed. RobertLatham and William Matthews, 10 vols (London, 1970–83)

Philalelos, J. B., Good and Joyful News for England: Or, The Prophecy of theRenowned Michael Nostradamus (London, 1681)

Philip, James, of Almerieclose, The Grameid: An Heroic Poem Descriptive of the Campaign of Viscount Dundee in 1689 and Other Poems, ed. AlexanderD. Murdoch, Scottish Historical Society o.s. 3 (Edinburgh, 1888)

Piety Display’d, in the Holy Life and Death of St. Robert, the Hermit atKnaresborough (Knaresborough, 1787)

The Piozzi Letters: Correspondence of Hester Lynch Piozzi 1784–1821 (FormerlyMrs. Thrale), ed. Edward A. Bloom and Lillian D. Bloom, 4 vols,continuing, vol. 3, 1799–1804 (Newark, London and Toronto, 1993)

Plomer, H. R., ‘A Printer’s Bill in the Seventeenth Century’, The Libraryn.s. 7 (1906), pp. 32–45

Plumpton Letters and Papers, Camden Society 5th ser. 8 (Cambridge, 1996)Poems on Affairs of State: Augustan Satirical Verse, 1660–1714, ed. George deF.

Lord et al., 7 vols (New Haven and London, 1963–75), vol. 5: 1688–1697,ed. William J. Cameron (1971); vol. 7: 1704–1714, ed. Frank H. Ellis(1975)

Pollard, A. F. (ed.), The Reign of Henry VII from Contemporary Sources, 3 vols(London, 1913–14)


220

Pope, Alexander, The Dunciad: An Heroic Poem ([London], 1728)Pope, Alexander, Windsor-Forest (London, 1713)Procter, Percival, ‘Mother Shipton’, Yorkshire Notes and Queries I (1905),

pp. 64–5A Prophecy of Merlin (London, 1762)The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (London,

1641) (STC S3445)The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth, Ashbee’s

Occasional Facsimile Reprints 6 (London, 1869)The Prophetical Mirror: Being a Collection of Prophecies, Chiefly Predictive of the

Present Tumultuous Times (London, 1795?)Pym, John, The Substance of Mr. Pymms Speach to the Lords in Parliament

(London, 1641) (STC P4299)The Register of Thetford Priory, ed. David Dymond, 2 vols, Norfolk Record

Society lix–lx (Oxford, 1995–6)Les Registres d’Innocent IV, ed. Élie Berger, 4 vols (Paris, 1884–1921), vol. IIIThe Regulations and Establishment of the Household of Henry Algernon Percy, the

Fifth Earl of Northumberland: At his Castles of Wressle and Leckonfield inYorkshire: Begun anno domini MDXII, new edn (London, 1905)

The Reports of Sir John Spelman, ed. J. H. Baker, 2 vols, Selden Society 93–4(London, 1977)

Richard Rolle, Prose and Verse, ed. S. J. Ogilvie-Thomson, EETS o.s. 293(Oxford, 1988)

The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas of Erceldoune, ed. James A. H. Murray,EETS o.s. 61 (London, 1875))

Roper, William, The Lyfe of Sir Thomas Moore, Knighte, ed. Elsie VaughanHitchcock, EETS o.s. 197 (London, 1935)

Rotuli hundredorum temp. Hen. III & Edw. I. in Turr’ lond’ et in curia receptaescaccarij Westm. asservati, 2 vols ([London], 1812–18)

Rotuli litterarum clausarum, ed. T. D. Hardy, 2 vols (London, 1824)Rotuli parliamentorum, ed. J. Strachey and others, 6 vols (London, 1767–77)Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, A Calendar of the Shrewsbury

and Talbot Papers in Lambeth Palace Library and the College of Arms, ed.Catharine Jamison, Gordon Richard Batho and E. G. W. Bill, 2 vols,Historic Manuscripts Commission, joint publications 6–7 (London,1966–71)

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, The Manuscripts of S. H. LeFleming, Esq., of Rydal Hall (London, 1890)

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Report on Manuscripts in theWelsh Language, ed. J. G. Evans, 3 vols (London, 1898–1910),

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Report on the Manuscripts of LordMiddleton, preserved at Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire (London, 1911)

Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, Report on the Manuscripts of theEarl of Denbigh, preserved at Newnham Paddox, Warwickshire, 5 vols (London,1873–1911)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

221

Rutland, John Henry Manners, duke of, Journal of a Tour to the Northern Partsof Great Britain (London, 1813)

St John Hope, W. H., ‘Chronicle of the Abbey of St. Mary de Parco Stanley,or Dale, Derbyshire’, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and NaturalHistory Society v (1883), pp. 1–29

Saint Stephen’s Tripod: or, Mother Shipton in the Lower H**se (London, 1782)Saltmarsh, John, A Letter from the Army (London, 1647) (STC S490)Saltmarsh, John, Sparkles of Glory (London, 1647) (STC S504)Saltmarsh, John, Wonderfull Predictions Declared in a Message . . . to . . . Sir

Thomas Fairfax (London, 1648) (STC S507)Scott, Alexander, The Poems of Alexander Scott, ed. Alexander Karley Donald,

EETS extra ser. 85 (London, 1902)The Second Part of Mother Shipton’s Prophecies (London, 1651?) (STC S3451)Seven Severall Strange Prophecies (London, 1642) (STC S2739); (another

edition, London, 1643) (STC S2740)‘Shakespeare, William’ and ‘William Rowley’, The Birth of Merlin; Or, The

Childe hath Found his Father (London, 1662)Shiptons Prophesie (London, 1651) (STC S3447)Sidney, Philip, Poems, ed. William A. Ringler, Jr (Oxford, 1962, corrected

reprint 1971)Simpson, W., Hydrologia Chymica: Or the Chymical Anatomy of the Scarborough

and other Spaws in Yorkshire. Wherein are Interspersed, Some Animadversionsupon Dr. Wittie’s Lately Published Treatise of the Scarborough Spaw. Also, aShort Description of the Spaws at Malton and Knarsbrough (London, 1669)(STC S3833)

Simpson, William, A Discourse of the Sulphur-bath at Knarsbourgh (London,1675) (STC S3830)

Simpson, William, The History of the Scarborough Spaw (London, 1679) (STCS3832)

Simpson, William, Zymologia Physica, or a Brief Philisophical Discourse ofFermentation, From a New Hypothesis of Acidum and Sulphur. . . . With anAdditional Discourse of the Sulphur Bath at Knaresborough (London, 1675)(STC S3840)

Sims, George Robert, ‘The Burials Bill’, in ‘The Lifeboat and other Poems’,Ballads and Poems (London, [1883])

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, ed. J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, 2ndedn (Oxford, 1967)

Sixe Strange Prophesies Predicting Wonderful Events ([London], 1642) (STCS3923)

Skrine, Henry, Three Successive Tours in the North of England, and Great Partof Scotland. Interspersed with Descriptions of the Scenes they Presented, andOccasional Observations on the State of Society, and the Manners and Customsof the People (London, 1795)

Slingsby, Sir Henry, A Father’s Legacy: Sir Henry Slingesbys Instructions to hisSons Written a Little Before his Death (York, 1706)


222

Slingsby, Sir Henry, A Father’s Legacy. Sir H. Slingsbey’s Instructions to hisSonnes. Written a Little before his Death. (His Letter to a Person of Quality,etc.) (London, 1658) (STC S3995)

Smith, William, ‘The Vale-Royall of England’, The Vale-Royall of England(London, 1656) (STC K488)

Smollett, Tobias, The Expedition of Humphry Clinker, ed. Lewis M. Knapp(London, New York and Toronto, 1966)

Somerset Medieval Wills (2nd Series), 1501–1530, with Some Somerset WillsPreserved at Lambeth, ed. F. W. Weaver, Somerset Record Society 19(Taunton, 1903)

Somerset Medieval Wills (3rd Series), 1531–1558, ed. F. W. Weaver, SomersetRecord Society 21 (Taunton, 1905)

Sotherton, Nicholas, The Commoyson in Norfolk 1549, ed. Susan Yaxley(Stibbard, 1987)

Sotherton, Nicholas, ‘“The Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549”: A Narrative ofPopular Rebellion in Sixteenth-Century England’, ed. Barrett L. Beer,Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies 6 (1976), pp. 73–99

Stafford, Anthony, Honour and Vertue, Triumphing over the Grave (London,1640) (STC 23126)

Stanhope, Michael, Cures without Care: Or, A Summons to all Such who FindeLittle or no Helpe by the Use of Ordinary Physick, to Repaire to the NorthernSpaw (London, 1632) (STC 23226)

‘Star Chamber Proceedings. Henry VIII. and Edward VI.’, Collections for aHistory of Staffordshire (1912), pp. 1–207

State Papers, Published under the Authority of His Majesty’s Commission: KingHenry the Eighth, 11 vols (London, 1830–52)

Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols in 12 (London, 1810–28)The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton

([Newcastle], [c. 1800])The Strange and Wonderful History and Prophecies of Mother Shipton (Hull,

[between c. 1803 and 1825?])The Strange and Wonderful History of Mother Shipton ([London], [1686]) (STC

S5848)The Strange and Wonderfulle Predictions of Mr. C. Love. . . . (Dublin, 1792)The Strange and Wonderful Predictions of Mr. Christopher Love (Chester, [1795?])A Strange and Wonderful Relation of the Sweeming of Stones, and of a Bloody Battel

of Three Kings in Ireland ([Edinburgh], 1715?]); reprinted in The SpottiswoodeMiscellany: A Collection of Original Papers and Tracts, Illustrative Chiefly ofthe Civil and Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, ed. James Maidment,Spottiswoode Society II (Edinburgh, 1845), pp. 524–7

The Stranger’s Introduction to Harrogate; Containing a Variety of UsefulInformation, Relating to the Accommodation, the Recreations, and the DifferentMineral Waters, of this Celebrated Watering Place, 3rd edn (Leeds, 1830)

A Survey of London by John Stow Reprinted from the Text of 1603, ed. CharlesLethbridge Kingsford, 2 vols (Oxford, 1908)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

The Survey of the County of York, Taken by John de Kirkby, Commonly CalledKirkby’s Inquest. Also Inquisitions of Knights’ Fees, the Nomina Villarum forYorkshire, and an Appendix of Illustrative Documents, Surtees Society 49(Durham, 1867 for 1866)

Swift, Jonathan, The Complete Poems, ed. Pat Rogers (New Haven andLondon, 1983)

[Swift, Jonathan], A Famous Prediction of Merlin, the British Wizard, Writtenabove a Thousand Years Ago, and Relating to this Present Year (London, 1708)(reprinted in The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis, 14 vols(Oxford, 1939–68), vol. II, Bickerstaff Papers and Pamphlets on the Church(1957), pp. xxiii–xxiv, 165–70).

Swift, Jonathan, Journal to Stella, ed. Harold Williams, 2 vols paginated through(Oxford, 1974; Prose Works, vol. 15)

Swift, Jonathan, The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, ed. Herbert Davis, 14 vols(Oxford, 1939–68), vol. II, Bickerstaff Papers and Pamphlets on the Church(1957)

[Swift, Jonathan], The W[in]ds[o]r Prophecy (‘London’ [sic, for Edinburgh],1711)

Swift vs. Mainwaring: The Examiner and The Medley, ed. Frank H. Ellis(Oxford, 1985)

Syms, Christopher, The Swords Apology, and Necessity in the Act of Reformation(London, 1644) (STC S6364)

[Greek – Ta ton mouson eisodia]: The Muses Welcome to the High and MightiePrince James, by the Grace of God King of Great Britaine, France and Ireland,Defender of the Faith &c.: at his M. Happie Returne to his Old and NativeKingdome of Scotland, after XIII. Yeers Absence, in anno 1617, ed. JohnAdamson (Edinburgh, 1618) (STC 140, 140.5, 141)

Taxatio ecclesiastica Angliae et Walliae, auctoritate P. Nicholai IV, circa A.D.1291(London, 1802)

Taylor, John, The Carriers Cosmographie; Or a Briefe Relation of the Innes in andneere London (London, 1637) (STC 23740)

Taylor, Joseph, A Journey to Edenborough in Scotland, ed. William Cowan(Edinburgh, 1903)

Testamenta Eboracensia, 6 vols, Surtees Society 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (Londonand Durham, 1836–1902)

Thompson, Thomas, The English Rouge a Nevv Comedy (London, 1668) (STCT1008)

T[hompson], T[homas], The Life of Mother Shipton: A New Comedy (London,1668–9?) (STC T1009)

Thompson, Thomas, Midsummer-moon; Or, the Livery Man’s Complaint(London, 1682) (STC T1011)

The Thornton Manuscript: (Lincoln Cathedral MS. 91), ed. D. S. Brewer and A. E. B. Owen (London, 1977)

Three Chapters of Letters Relating to the Suppression of the Monasteries, ed. Thomas Wright, Camden Society o.s. 26 (London, 1843)


224

Tinsley, William, Random Recollections of an Old Publisher, 2 vols (London,1900)

Tonge, Ezerel, The Northern Star: The British Monarchy: Or, the Northern theFourth Universal Monarchy; Charles II, and his Successors, the Founders of theNorthern, Last, Fourth, and Most Happy Monarchy. Being a Collection of ManyChoice Ancient and Modern Prophecies: Wherein also the Fates of the Roman,French, and Spanish Monarchies are Occasionally Set Out (London, 1680)(STC T1879)

Tonstall, George, A New-Years-Gift for Doctor Witty; or the Dissector Anatomized(London, 1672) (STC T1888)

Tonstall, George, Scarborough Spaw Spagyrically Anatomized, an. 1670; and aNew Year’s Gift for Dr. Witty (London, 1670) (STC T1889)

The Torrington Diaries: Containing the Tours through England and Wales of theHon. John Byng . . . Between the Years 1781 and 1794, ed. C. Bruyn Andrews,4 vols (London, 1934–8)

The Tourist’s Companion; Being a Concise Description and History of Ripon,Studley Park, Fountains Abbey, Hackfall, Brimham Craggs . . . ; Intended as a Guide to Persons Visiting those Places (Ripon, 1817) (2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th edns, respectively 1818, 1822, 1826, 1828)

The Towneley Plays, ed. Martin Stevens and A. C. Crawley, 2 vols, EETSsupplementary ser. 13 (Oxford, 1994)

A Transcript of the Registers of the Worshipful Company of Stationers; from1640–1708 A.D., 3 vols (London, 1913)

The Travels through England of Dr. Richard Pococke, Successively Bishop of Meathand of Ossory during 1750, 1751, and Later Years, ed. James Joel Cartwright,2 vols, Camden Society XLII, XLIV (Westminster, 1888–9)

Trevisa, John, Dialogus inter Militem et Clericum; Richard fitzRalph’s Sermon:‘Defensio Curatorum; and Methodius: ‘þe Bygynnyng of þe World and þe Endeof Worldes’, ed. Aaron Jentiers Perry, EETS o.s. 167 (London, 1925)

Trifles from Harrogate ([Harrogate], 1797)Tudor Royal Proclamations, ed. Paul L. Hughes and James F. Larkin, 3 vols (New

Haven, 1964–9)Turner, William, The Seconde Parte of William Turners Herball . . . Here vnto is

Ioyned also a Booke of the Bath of Baeth in Englande (Collen, 1562) (STC24366)

Twelve Strange Proehecies besides Mother Shiptons (London, 1648) (STC T3405)(noted by Thomason in May 1648)

Two Strange Prophesies, Predicting Wonderfull Events to Betide this Yeere of Danger;Named Mother Shipton (London, 1642) (STC T3537)

Tyrrel, J., Past, Present, and To Come: Or, Mother Shipton’s Yorkshire Prophecy(London, 1740)

Underhill, Edward, ‘Autobiography of Edward Underhill’, in Narratives of the Days of the Reformation: Chiefly from the Manuscripts of John Foxe theMartyrologist: with Two Contemporary Biographies of Archbishop Cranmer, ed.John Gough Nichols, Camden Society o.s. 77 (Westminster, 1859)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

225

Vairus, Leonardus, Trois livres des charmes, sorcelages, ou enchantemens (Paris,1583)

Valor ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII, 6 vols (London, 1810–34)Vergil, Polydore, Anglicae historiae libri xxvi (Basileae, 1534)Vergil, Polydore, Three Books of Polydore Vergil’s English History, Comprising the

Reigns of Henry VI., Edward IV., and Richard III. ed. Henry Ellis, CamdenSociety o.s. 29 (London, 1844)

The Visitation of Norfolk anno domini 1664 made by Sir Edward Bysshe, Knt.,Clarenceux King of Arms, ed. A. W. Hughes Clarke and Arthur Campling,2 vols, Norfolk Record Society iv–v (London, 1933–4)

The Visitation of Yorkshire, Made in the Years 1584/5, by Robert Glover, SomersetHerald; to which is added the Subsequent Visitation by Richard St George, NorroyKing of Arms, with Several Additional Pedigrees, ed. Joseph Foster (London,1875)

Visitations of the North, or, Some early Heraldic Visitations of, and Collections ofPedigrees Relating to, the North of England, ed. F. W. Dendy and C. H. HunterBlair, 4 vols, Surtees Society 122, 133, 144, 146 (Durham, 1912–32)

The Voyage of Sir Nicholas Carewe to the Emperor Charles V in the Year 1529, ed. R. J. Knecht, Roxburghe Club 223 (Cambridge, 1959)

W., I., Certaine Affirmations in Defence of the Pulling Down of Communion Rails,by a Gentleman of Worth . . . Answered (London, September 1641) (STCW39)

‘Wakeman’, ‘Around the Ridings’, Yorkshire Life Illustrated XI (no. 7) (July1957), pp. 9–11

Walbran, John Richard, A Guide to Ripon, Harrogate, Fountains Abbey, BoltonPriory, and Several Places of Interest in their Vicinity, 5th edn (Ripon, 1851);7th edn (Ripon, 1859)

Walbran, John Richard, Memorials of the Abbey of St. Mary of Fountains, 3 vols,Surtees Society 42, 67, 130 (Durham, 1863–1918)

Walbran, John Richard, The Pictorial Pocket Guide to Ripon and Harrogate: WithTopographical Observations on Studley-Royal, Brimham Rocks, Hackfall andthe Monastic Remains of Fountains and Bolton (Ripon, 1844)

Walker, Joshua, An Essay on the Waters of Harrowgate and Thorp-arch inYorkshire, Containing Directions for their Use in Diseases: To which are Prefixed,Observations on Mineral Waters in General and the Method of Analysing Them(London, 1784)

Walpole, Horace, Horace Walpole’s Correspondence with the Countess of Upper Ossory, ed. W. S. Lewis and A. Dayle Wallace, with the assistance of Edwine M. Martz, Volume III (London, 1965) (vol. 34 of The Yale Edition of Horace Walpole’s Correspondence, ed. W. S. Lewis (48 vols, 1937–83))

Walpoole, George Augustus, The New and Complete English Traveller, revisedby William Hugh Dalton (London, 1794?)

Walpoole, George Augustus, The New British Traveller (London, ?1784 [i.e. ?in catalogue])


226

Ward, H. D., and J. A. Herbert, Catalogue of Romances in the Department ofManuscripts in the British Museum, 3 vols (London, 1883–1910)

Webb, William, ‘The Vale-Royall of England’, The Vale-Royall of England, orthe County Palatine of Chester Illustrated (London, 1656) (STC K488)

Wentworth Papers, 1597–1628, ed. J. P. Cooper, Camden Society 4th ser. 12(London, 1973)

Wheater, W. K., Handbook for Tourists in Yorkshire and Complete History of theCounty, 2 vols (Leeds, 1891)

Wheater, W. K., Knaresborough and its Rulers (Leeds, 1907)White, William, History, Gazetteer, and Directory of the West-Riding of Yorkshire,

2 vols (Leeds, 1838)Whitelock, Bulstrode, Memorials of the English Affairs from the Beginning of the

Reign of Charles the First to the Happy Restoration of King Charles the Second,4 vols (Oxford, 1853)

Who was Mother Shipton?: Will the Old Woman Bring the World to an End in1881? (London, [1879])

The Whole Prophesie of Scotland, England, & Somepart of France, and Denmark,Prophesied bee Meruellous Merling, Beid, Bertlingtoun, Thomas Rymour,Waldhaue, Eltraine, Banester, and Sibbilla, all According in one: ContainingMany Strange and Meruelous Things ([London?], 1603) (STC 17841.7)

Wilbraham, Mrs. Frances M., For and Against, or Queen Margaret’s Badge: ADomestic Chronicle of the Fifteenth Century, 2 vols (London, 1858)

Wills and Administrations in the Knaresborough Court Rolls, ed. Francis Collins,vol. 1, Surtees Society 104 (Durham, 1902)

Wills and Inventories from the Registry of the Archdeaconry of Richmond, Extendingover Portions of the Counties of York, Westmerland, Cumberland, and Lancaster,ed. James Raine, Surtees Society XXVI (Durham, 1853)

Wilson, G. H., Wonderful Characters: Comprising Memoirs and Anecdotes of theMost Remarkable Persons, of Every Age and Nation (London, 1842)

Wiltshire Visitation Pedigrees, 1623, with additional pedigrees and arms collected byThomas Lyte of Lyte’s Cary, Co. Somerset 1628, ed. G. D. Squibb, HarleianSociety 105–6 (London, 1953–4)

Witty, Robert, Fons Scarburgensis: sive tractatus (London, 1678) (STC W3227)Witty, Robert, Pyrologia Mimica, or an Answer to Hydrologia Chymica of

William Sympson Pilo-Chymico-Medicus; In Defence of Scarbrough-Spaw. Also a Vindication of the Rational Method and Practice of Physic called Galenical, and a Reconciliation betwixt that the Chymical (London, 1669)(STC W3230)

Witty, Robert, Scarbrough Spaw or a Description of the Nature and Vertues of the spaw (York, 1660) (STC W3231); another edn (York, 1667) (STCW3232)

Witty, Robert, Scarbroughs Spagyrical Anatomizer Dissected, or an Answer to allthe Dr. Tonstall hath Objected in his Book against Scarborough Spaw (London,1672) (STC W3233)

Witty Apophthegms Delivered at Severall Times, and upon Severall Occasions, by

BIBLIOGRAPHY

227

King James, King Charls, the Marquess of Worcester, Francis Lord Bacon, andSir Thomas Moore, ed. [Thomas Bayly] (London, 1658)

Wonderful Prophecies (London, 1794)Wroe, Richard, A Sermon at the Funeral of the Right Honourable Henry, Earl of

Warrington, Baron Delamer of Dunham-Massy, Lord Lieutenant of the County-Palatine of Chester; and one of the Lords of their Majesties Most HonourablePrivy Council, Preached at Bowden in Cheshire (London, 1694) (STCW3728)

York Civic Records, ed. Angelo Raine et al., 8 vols, Yorkshire ArchaeologicalSociety, Record Ser. XCVIII, CIII, CVI, CX, CXII, CXV, CXIX, CXXXVIII(Wakefield, 1939–78)

Yorkshire Star Chamber Proceedings, II, ed. H. B. McCall, YorkshireArchaeological Society, Record Ser. XLV (Leeds, 1911 for 1910)

Secondary sources

The Agrarian History of England and Wales, e.g. vol. 3, 1348–1500, ed. EdwardMiller (Cambridge, 1991); vol. 4, 1500–1640, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge,1967); vol. 5, 1640–1750, ed. Joan Thirsk (Cambridge, 1984)

Alderson, Frederick, The Inland Resorts and Spas of Britain (Newton Abbot,1973)

Allen, David, ‘ “Arthur Redivivus”: Politics and Patriotism in ReformationScotland’, in Arthurian Literature XV, ed. James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy(Cambridge, 1997), pp. 185–204

Allen, David, ‘Sceptical Medievalism: The Problem of Arthurian Historicityin the Scottish Enlightenment’, in Medievalism and the Academy, I, ed. LeslieJ. Workman, Kathleen Verduin and David D. Metzger, Studies inMedievalism 9 (Cambridge, 1999), pp. 98–122

Allen, Don Cameron, The Star-Crossed Renaissance: The Quarrel aboutAstrology and its Influence in England (London, 1966)

Allnutt, W. H., ‘Notes on the Introduction of Printing Presses into the SmallerTowns of England and Wales, after 1750 to the End of the Century’, TheLibrary n.s. II (1901), pp. 242–59

Anglo, Sydney, ‘The British History in Early Tudor Propaganda – with anAppendix of Manuscript Pedigrees of the Kings of England, Henry VI toHenry VIII’, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library, Manchester 44 (1961–2),pp. 17–48

Arkle, A. H., ‘Early Liverpool Printers,’ THSLC 68, n.s. 32 (1933), pp. 73–84Arthurson, Ian, The Perkin Warbeck Conspiracy 1491–1499 (Stroud, 1994)Atkinson, D. H., Ralph Thoresby, the Topographer; His Town and Times, 2 vols

(Leeds, 1885)Aungier, George James, The History and Antiquities of Syon Monastery, the Parish

of Isleworth, and the Chapelry of Hounslow: Compiled from Public Records,Ancient Manuscripts, Ecclesiastical and Other Authentic Documents ([London],1840)


228

Aveling, Hugh, Northern Catholics: The Catholic Recusants of the North Ridingof Yorkshire, 1558–1790 (London and Dublin, 1966)

Axon, W. E. A., Cheshire Gleanings (Manchester and London, 1884)Axon, William E. A., ‘An Irish Analogue of Nixon’s Cheshire Prophecy’,

Transactions of the Lancashire and Cheshire Antiquarian Society VII (1890 for1889), pp. 130–3

Barlow, T. Worthington, Cheshire: Its Historical and Literary Associations(Manchester, 1855)

Baskerville, Stephen W., Peter Adman and Katharine F. Beedham, ‘“Praeferinga Whigg to a Whimsical”: The Cheshire Election of 1715 Reconsidered’,BJRL 74(3) (Autumn 1992), pp. 139–68

Bauckham, Richard, Tudor Apocalypse: Sixteenth Century Apocalypticism,Millenarianism and the English Reformation: from John Bale to John Foxe andThomas Brightman (Appleford and Abingdon, 1978)

Bean, J. M. W., The Estates of the Percy Family, 1416–1537 (London, 1958)Beer, Barrett L., Rebellion and Riot: Popular Disorder in England during the Reign

of Edward VI (Kent, Ohio, 1982)Bell, Walter George, The Great Fire of London in 1666 (London, 1920; popular

edn, 1923)Bellamy, John, The Tudor Law of Treason: An Introduction (London, Toronto

and Buffalo, 1979)Bennett, M. J., ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Literary

Achievement of the North West Midlands: the Historical Background’,Journal of Medieval History 5 (1979), pp. 63–88

Bennett, Michael, Community, Class and Careerism: Cheshire and LancashireSociety in the Age of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Cambridge, 1983)

Bernard, George W., ‘New Perspectives or Old Complexities?’ EHR 115(2000), pp. 113–20

Bernard, George, The Power of the Early Tudor Nobility: A Study of the Fourthand Fifth Earls of Shrewsbury (Brighton, 1985)

Binns, Jack, ‘Scarborough and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Transactions of theScarborough Archaeological and Historical Society 33 (1997), pp. 23–39

Birrell, T. A., ‘Reading as Pastime: The Place of Light Literature in SomeGentlemen’s Libraries of the 17th Century’, in Property of a Gentleman: TheFormation, Organisation and Dispersal of the Private Library 1620–1920, ed. Robin Myers and Michael Harris, St. Paul’s Bibliographies (Winchester,1991), pp. 113–31

Blackburn, William, ‘Spenser’s Merlin’, Renaissance and Reformation 16 (n.s. 4) (1980), pp. 179–98

Blagden, Cyprian, ‘The Distribution of Almanacs’, Studies in Bibliography XI(1958), pp. 107–16

Blomefield, Francis, An Essay towards a Topographical History of the County ofNorfolk, 5 vols (Fersfield, 1739–75)

Boffey, Julia, ‘Proverbial Chaucer and the Chaucer Canon’, Readings from theMargins: Textual Studies, Chaucer, and Medieval Literature (HuntingtonLibrary Quarterly, 58:1 (1996)), ed. Seth Lerer, pp. 37–47

BIBLIOGRAPHY

229

The Book Trade in Cheshire to 1850: A Directory, ed. D. Nuttall (Liverpool,1992)

The Book Trade in Liverpool to 1805: A Directory, ed. M. R. Perkin (Liverpool,1981)

Booth, P. H. W., The Financial Administration of the Lordship and County ofChester, 1272–1377, Chetham Society 3rd ser. XXVIII (Manchester, 1981)

Bostridge, Ian, Witchcraft and its Transformations c. 1650–c. 1750 (Oxford,1997)

Boys, William, Collections for an History of Sandwich in Kent, with Notices of theOther Cinque Ports and Members and of Richborough (Canterbury, 1792)

Bridge, Joseph C., Cheshire Proverbs and Other Sayings and Rhymes Connectedwith the City and County Palatine of Chester (Chester and London, 1917)

Brigden, Susan, London and the Reformation, corrected edn (Oxford, 1991)Brinkley, Roberta Florence, Arthurian Legend in the Seventeenth Century

(Baltimore, Md., 1932)Britnell, Jennifer, ‘Jean Lemaire de Belges and Prophecy’, Journal of the Warburg

and Courtauld Institutes 42 (1979), pp. 144–66Britnell, Richard, ‘Penitence and Prophecy: George Cavendish on the Last

State of Cardinal Wolsey’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History 48 (1997), pp. 263–81

Brown, R. Stewart, ‘The Stationers, Booksellers and Printers of Chester toabout 1800’, THSLC lxxxiii (1931), pp. 101–52

Browning, Andrew, Thomas Osborne, Earl of Danby and Duke of Leeds,1632–1712, 3 vols (Glasgow, 1944–51)

Bumpus, Francesca, ‘The “Middling Sort” in the Lordship of Blakemere,Shropshire, c. 1380–1420’, in Social Attitudes and Political Structures in theFifteenth Century, The Fifteenth Century 7, ed. Tim Thornton (Stroud,2000), pp. 202–19

Burke, Peter, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (London, 1978)Burns, William E., ‘A Whig Apocalypse: Astrology, Millenarianism, and

Politics in England during the Restoration Crisis, 1678–1683’, in Millen-arianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, vol. III, TheMillenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts of Science, Politics, and Everyday AngloAmerican Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. James E. Forceand Richard H. Popkin (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 2001)

Bush, M. L., The Pilgrimage of Grace: A Study of the Rebel Armies of October1536 (Manchester, 1996)

Bush, Michael L., ‘Protector Somerset and the 1549 Rebellions: A Post-Revision Questioned’, EHR 115 (2000), pp. 103–12

The Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, vol. 2: 1660–1800, new edn,ed. George Watson and Ian Willison (London, 1971)

Capp, Bernard, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs 1500–1800(London and Boston, 1979)

Carlson, David R., ‘Arthur Before and After the Revolution: The Blome-Stansby Edition of Malory (1634) and Brittains Glory (1684)’, in Culture


230

and the King: The Social Implications of the Arthurian Legend: Essays in Honorof Valerie M. Lagorio, ed. Martin B. Shichtman and James P. Carley (Albany,NY, 1994), pp. 234–53

Carpenter, Christine, ‘Gentry and Community in Medieval England’, Journalof British Studies 33(4) (October 1995), pp. 340–80

Carpenter, Christine, Locality and Polity: A Study of Warwickshire LandedSociety, 1401–1499 (Cambridge, 1992)

Carpenter, Christine, The Wars of the Roses: Politics and the Constitution inEngland, c. 1437–1509 (Cambridge, 1997)

Challinor, P. J., ‘Restoration and Exclusion in the County of Cheshire’, BJRL64 (1981–2), pp. 360–85

Chartier, Roger, The Cultural Uses of Print in Early Modern France, trans. LydiaC. Cochrane (Princeton, 1987)

Chettle, H. F., ‘The Trinitarian Friars and Easton Royal’, WiltshireArchaeological and Natural History Magazine li (1945–7), pp. 365–77

Chrimes, S. B., Henry VII (London, 1972; 2nd edn, London, 1977)Clayton, Dorothy J., The Administration of the County Palatine of Chester,

1442–1485, Chetham Society 3rd ser. 35 (Manchester, 1990)Cleary, J. M., ‘Dr. Morys Clynnog’s Invasion Projects of 1575–1576’, Recusant

History 8 (1965–6), pp. 300–22Cliffe, J. T., Puritans in Conflict: The Puritan Gentry during and after the Civil

Wars (London, 1988)Cliffe, J. T., The Yorkshire Gentry from the Reformation to the Civil War (London,

1969)Cockayne, G. E., The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Great Britain

and the United Kingdom Extant, Extinct or Dormant, ed. V Gibbs et al. (13vols in 14; new edn, revised and much enlarged, London, 1910–59)

Cohen, A., ‘Prophecy and Madness: Women Visionaries during the PuritanRevolution’, Journal of Psychohistory 11 (1984), pp. 411–30

Colley, Linda, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707–1837, 2nd edn (London, 2003)

Colley, Linda, In Defiance of Oligarchy: The Tory Party, 1714–1760 (Cambridge,1982)

Colton, Judith, ‘Merlin’s Cave and Queen Caroline: Garden Art as PoliticalPropaganda’, Eighteenth-Century Studies 10 (1967), pp. 1–20

Colvin, H. M., ‘Medieval Glass from Dale Abbey’, Journal of the DerbyshireArchaeological and Natural History Society lx (n.s. xiii) (1939), pp. 129–41

Colvin, Howard M., et al., The History of the King’s Works, 6 vols (London,1963–82)

Condon, Margaret, ‘The Kaleidoscope of Treason: Fragments from theBosworth Story’, The Ricardian VII (1986), pp. 208–12

Cooper, J. P. D., Propaganda and the Tudor State: Political Culture in the WestCountry (Oxford, 2003)

Coote, Lesley A., Prophecy and Public Affairs in Later Medieval England(Woodbridge, 2000)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

231

Coote, Lesley, and Tim Thornton, ‘Richard, Son of Richard: Richard III andPolitical Prophecy’, Historical Research 73 (2000), pp. 321–30

Costomiris, Robert, ‘Some New Light on the Early Career of William Thynne,Chief Clerk of the Kitchen of Henry VIII and Editor of Chaucer’, TheLibrary 7th ser. 4 (2003), pp. 3–15

Cox, Edward Godfrey, A Reference Guide to the Literature of Travel, 3 vols(Seattle, 1938)

Cressy, David, Literacy and the Social Order: Reading and Writing in Tudor andStuart England (Cambridge, 1980)

Croft, Pauline, ‘The Parliamentary Installation of Henry, Prince of Wales’,Historical Research LXV (1992), pp. 177–93

Currin, John M., ‘“To Traffic with War”? Henry VII and the French Campaignof 1492’, in The English Experience in France c. 1450–1558: War, Diplomacy,and Cultural Exchange, ed. David Grummitt (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 106–31

Curry, Patrick, A Confusion of Prophets: Victorian and Edwardian Astrology(London, 1992)

Curry, Patrick, Prophecy and Power: Astrology in Early Modern England(Princeton, 1989)

Cust, Richard, ‘Politics and the Electorate in the 1620s’, in Conflict in EarlyStuart England: Studies in Religion and Politics, 1603–1642, ed. Richard Custand Ann Hughes (Harlow, 1989), pp. 134–67

Dalrymple, David, Remarks on the History of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1773)Dalrymple, John, Memoirs of Great Britain and Ireland (Edinburgh, 1771–88)Dane, Joseph A., ‘Bibliographical History versus Bibliographical Evidence:

The Plowman’s Tale and Early Chaucer Editions’, BJRL 78 (1996), pp. 47–61Daniel, A. E., London City Churches, 2nd edn (n.p., 1907)Darnton, Robert, Mesmerism and the End of the Enlightenment in France

(Cambridge, Mass., 1968)Davies, C. S. L., ‘Popular Religion and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, in Order and

Disorder in Early Modern England, ed. A. Fletcher and J. Stevenson(Cambridge, 1985), pp. 58–91

Davies, C. S. L., review of Jansen, Political Protest and Prophecy, EHR cx (1995),pp. 722–3

Davies, Owen, Witchcraft Magic and Culture 1736–1951 (Manchester and NewYork, 1999)

Davies, Robert, Walks through the City of York (London, 1880)Davis, Rose Mary, Stephen Duck, the Thresher-Poet, University of Maine Studies

2nd ser. 8 (Orono, Me., 1926)Denholm-Young, N., Richard of Cornwall (Oxford, 1947)Deslandres, P., L’ordre des trinitaires pour la rachat des captifs, 2 vols (Toulouse

and Paris, 1903)Dickens, A. G., Lollards and Protestants in the Diocese of York, 1509–1558

(Oxford, 1959)Dickens, A. G., ‘Some Popular Reactions to the Edwardian Reformation in

Yorkshire’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 34 (1939), pp. 151–69


232

Dickinson, H. T., Bolingbroke (London, 1970)Dickinson, H. T., ‘Henry St. John: A Reappraisal of the Young Bolingbroke’,

Journal of British Studies VII/2 (May 1968), pp. 33–55Dobin, Howard, Merlin’s Disciples: Prophecy, Poetry, and Power in Renaissance

England (Stanford, Calif., 1990)Dobson, R. B., and John Taylor, Rymes of Robin Hood: An Introduction to the

English Outlaw, revised edn (Stroud, 1997)Dodds, Madeleine Hope, and Ruth Dodds, The Pilgrimage of Grace, 1536–1537

and the Exeter Conspiracy, 1538, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1915)Donaldson, William, The Jacobite Song: Political Myth and National Identity

(Aberdeen, 1988)Duff, E. Gordon, The English Provincial Printers, Stationers and Bookbinders to

1557 (Cambridge, 1912)Dugdale, William, The Antiquities of Warwickshire Illustrated: From Records,

Leiger-books, Manuscripts, Charters, Evidences, Tombes, and Armes, 2nd edn,ed. William Thomas, 2 vols (London, 1730)

Eckhardt, Caroline D., ‘The First English Translations of the ProphetiaMerlini’, The Library 6th ser. IV (1984), pp. 25–34

Elliott, R. W. V., ‘Staffordshire and Cheshire Landscapes in Sir Gawain and theGreen Knight’, North Staffordshire Journal of Field Studies 17 (1977), pp. 20–49

Ellis, Frank H., ‘Arthur Mainwaring as Reader of Swift’s Examiner’, Yearbookof English Studies 11 (1981), pp. 49–66

Ellis, Steven G., Tudor Frontiers and Noble Power: The Making of the British State(Oxford, 1995)

Elton, G. R., ‘Henry VII: Rapacity and Remorse’, Cambridge Historical Journal1 (1958), pp. 21–39 (reprinted in Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics andGovernment, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1974–92), vol. I, pp. 45–65)

Elton, G. R., Policy and Police: The Enforcement of the Reformation in the Age ofThomas Cromwell (London, 1972)

Elton, G. R., ‘Politics and the Pilgrimage of Grace’, in After the Reformation:Essays in Honour of J. H. Hexter, ed. Barbara C. Malament (Manchester,1980), pp. 25–56 (reprinted in Studies in Tudor and Stuart Politics andGovernment, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1974–92), vol. 3, Papers and Reviews,1973–1981 (1983), pp. 183–215)

Elton, G. R., Reform and Reformation: England, 1509–1558 (London, 1977)Elton, G. R., Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal

(London, 1973)Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500,

3 vols (Oxford, 1957–9)Emden, A. B., A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford: A.D. 1501 to

1540 (Oxford, 1974)Faith, Rosamund, The English Peasantry and the Growth of Lordship (London,

1997)Firth, Katharine R., The Apocalyptic Tradition in Reformation Britain 1530–1645

(Oxford, 1979)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

233

Fletcher, Anthony, The Outbreak of the English Civil War, corrected paperbackedn (London, 1985)

Fletcher, Anthony, and Diarmaid MacCulloch, Tudor Rebellions, 4th edn(Harlow and New York, 1997)

Fletcher, J. S., Harrogate and Knaresborough (London and New York, 1920)Forni, Kathleen, The Chaucerian Apocrypha: A Counterfeit Canon (Gainesville,

Fl., 2001)Foster, Joseph, Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire, 3 vols in 2 (London,

1874), West Riding, II Fox, A., ‘Prophecies and Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII’, in Reassessing

the Henrician Age: Humanism, Politics and Reform, 1500–1550, ed. A. Foxand J. Guy (Oxford, 1989), pp. 77–94

Fox, Adam, ‘Custom, Memory and the Authority of Writing’, in The Experienceof Authority in Early Modern England, ed. Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and SteveHindle (Basingstoke and London, 1996), pp. 89–116

Fox, Adam, Oral and Literate Culture in England, 1500–1700 (Oxford, 2000)Friedman, J. B., ‘Books, Owners and Makers in Fifteenth-Century Yorkshire:

The Evidence of Some Wills and Extant Manuscripts’, in Latin andVernacular: Studies in Late-Medieval Texts and Manuscripts, ed. A. J. Minnis(Cambridge and Wolfeboro, NH, 1989), pp. 111–27

Friedman, Jerome, Miracles and the Pulp Press: The Battle of the Frogs andFairford’s Flies (London, 1993)

Gaines, Barry, ‘The Editions of Malory in the Early Nineteenth Century’,Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 68 (1974), pp. 1–17

Gairdner, James, Lollardy and the Reformation in England: An Historical Survey,4 vols (London, 1908–13)

Games, G., ‘ “To Justify the Ways of God to Men”: The Prophetic Role ofMinisters in Early New England’, in Prophecy: The Power of InspiredLanguage in History 1300–2000, ed. Bertrand Taithe and Tim Thornton(Stroud, 1997), pp. 85–100

Garrett, Clarke, Respectable Folly: Millenarians and the French Revolution inFrance and England (Baltimore and London, 1975)

Gillespie, Vincent, and A. I. Doyle (eds), Syon Abbey, with the Libraries of theCarthusians, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues 9 (London,2001)

Godfrey, W. H., The Priory of St Pancras, Lewes: A Short Historical Guide to theRuins at Southover (Lewes, 1927)

Goheen, Robert, ‘Peasant Politics? Village Community and the Crown in Fifteenth-Century England’, American Historical Review 96 (1991), pp. 42–62

Goldberg, P. J. P., ‘Lay Book Ownership in Late Medieval York: The Evidenceof Wills’, The Library 6th ser. xvi (1994), pp. 181–9

Golding, Brian, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertine Order, c. 1130 – c. 1300 (Oxford, 1995)

Golding, Brian, ‘The Hermit and the Hunter’, in The Cloister and the World:


234

Essays in Medieval History in Honour of Barbara Harvey, ed. John Blair andBrian Golding (Oxford, 1996), pp. 95–117

Goldthorp, L. M., ‘The Franciscans and Dominicans in Yorkshire. Part I: TheGrey Friars’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 32 (1934–6), pp. 264–320

Goodman, Anthony, ‘Henry VII and Christian Renewal’, in Religion andHumanism, ed. Keith Robbins, Studies in Church History 17 (Oxford,1981), pp. 115–25

Graham, Rose, ‘The Finance of Malton Priory, 1244–1257’, in EnglishEcclesiastical Studies: Being Some Essays in Research in Medieval History(London, 1929), pp. 247–70

Graham, Rose, S. Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines: A History of theOnly English Monastic Order (London, 1901)

Grainge, William, The History and Topography of Harrogate, and the Forest ofKnaresborough (London, 1871)

Gransden, Antonia, ‘Antiquarian Studies in Fifteenth-Century England’, TheAntiquaries’ Journal 60 (1980), pp. 75–97

Grant, Alexander, Henry VII: The Importance of his Reign in English History(London, 1985)

Gray, Margaret, The Trinitarian Order in England: Excavations at Thelsford Priory, ed. Lorna Watts and Philip Rahtz, BAR British Ser. 226 (Oxford,1993)

Greene, Patrick, Norton Priory: The Archaeology of a Medieval Religious House(Cambridge, 1989)

Griffiths, R. A., The Reign of Henry VI: The Exercise of Royal Authority,1422–1461 (London, 1981)

Griffiths, Ralph A., and Roger S. Thomas, The Making of the Tudor Dynasty(Gloucester, 1985)

Gunn, S. J., Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, 1484–1545 (Oxford, 1988)Gunn, S. J., ‘Peers, Commons and Gentry in the Lincolnshire Revolt of 1536’,

Past and Present 123 (May 1989), pp. 52–79Guy, J. A., The Cardinal’s Court: The Impact of Thomas Wolsey in Star Chamber

(Hassocks, Sussex, 1977)Guy, J. A., ‘Wolsey and the Parliament of 1523’, in Law and Government under

the Tudors: Essays Presented to Sir Geoffrey Elton, ed. Claire Cross, DavidLoades and J. J. Scarisbrick (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 1–18

Guy, J. A., ‘Wolsey and the Tudor Polity’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church, Stateand Art, ed. S. J. Gunn and P. G. Lindley (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 54–75

Gwyn, Peter, The King’s Cardinal: The Rise and Fall of Thomas Wolsey (London,1990)

Haigh, Christopher, ‘Anticlericalism and the English Reformation’, History68 (1983), pp. 391–407

Haigh, C. A. (ed.), The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987)Halland, G. D., ‘Preliminary Notes on the History and Development of the

Building’, in Vale Royal Abbey and House (Winsford, 1977), pp. 26–33Harben, Henry A., A Dictionary of London: Being Notes Topographical and

BIBLIOGRAPHY

235

Historical Relating to the Streets and Principal Buildings in the City of London(London, 1918)

Harley, David, ‘Religious and Professional Interests in Northern Spa Literature,1625–1775’, Bulletin of the Society for the Social History of Medicine 35(December 1984), pp. 14–16

Harris, Michael, Review of Bernard Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press:English Almanacs 1500–1800 in Publishing History 8 (1980), pp. 87–104

Harris, Tim, London Crowds in the Reign of Charles II: Propaganda and Politicsfrom the Restoration to the Exclusion Crisis (Cambridge, 1987)

Harris, Tim, ‘The Problem of Popular Political Culture in Seventeenth-Century London’, History of European Ideas 10 (1989), pp. 43–58

Harrison, W. H., Mother Shipton Investigated: The Result of Investigation in theBritish Museum Library, of the Literature Pertaining to the Yorkshire Sybil(London, 1881)

Harvey, I. M. W., Jack Cade’s Rebellion (Oxford, 1991)Hawes, Timothy (ed.), An Index to Norwich City Officers, 1453–1835, Norfolk

Record Society lii (Norwich, 1989 for 1986)Hembry, Phyllis M., The English Spa 1560–1815: A Social History (London,

1990)Hill, Betty, ‘Trinity College Cambridge Ms. B.14.52, and William Patten’,

Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 4 (1964–8), pp. 192–200Hill, Christopher, (ed.), The English Revolution 1640: Three Essays (London,

1940)Hilton, R. H., A Medieval Society: The West Midlands at the End of the Thirteenth

Century (1966, reissued Cambridge, 1983)Hirst, D., The Representative of the People? (Cambridge, 1975)A History of Harrogate and Knaresborough, ed. Bernard Jennings (Huddersfield,

1970)Hoak, Dale Eugene, ‘The Anglo-Dutch Revolution of 1688–89’, in The World

of William and Mary: Anglo-Dutch Perspectives on the Revolution of 1688–89,ed. Dale Eugene Hoak and Mordechai Feingold (Stanford, Calif., 1996),pp. 1–26, 265–73

Hodgson, John, A History of Northumberland, 3 vols in 7 (Newcastle uponTyne, 1820–58)

Hodson, Howard, Cheshire, 1660–1780: Restoration to Industrial Revolution(Chester, 1978)

Holmes, Clive, ‘The County Community in Stuart Historiography’, Journal ofBritish Studies XIX (1980), pp. 54–73

Holmes, Clive, Seventeenth-Century Lincolnshire (Lincoln, 1980)Holt, J. C., Robin Hood, revised edn (London, 1989)Hopkins, John T., ‘ “Such a Twin Likeness there was in the Pair”: An

Investigation into the Painting of the Cholmondeley Sisters’, THSLC 141(1992 for 1991), pp. 1–37

Horrox, Rosemary, Richard III: A Study in Service, paperback edn (Cambridge,1991)


236

Hosford, David H., Nottingham, Nobles and the North: Aspects of the Revolutionof 1688 (Hamden, Conn., 1976)

The House of Commons, 1509–1558, ed. S. T. Bindoff, 3 vols (London, 1982)The House of Commons, 1558–1603, ed. P. W. Hasler, 3 vols (London, 1981)The House of Commons, 1660–1690, ed. Basil Duke Henning, 3 vols (London,

1983)The House of Commons, 1715–1754, ed. Romney Sedgwick, 3 vols (London,

1970)The House of Commons, 1754–1790, ed. Lewis Namier and John Brooke,

3 vols (London, 1964)Howe, Ellic, Astrology and the Third Reich (Wellingborough, 1967; revised and

expanded trade paperback edn, 1984)Howe, Ellic, Urania’s Children (London, 1967)Hoyle, R. W., The Pilgrimage of Grace and the Politics of the 1530s (Oxford, 2001)Hoyle, R. W., ‘Thomas Master’s Narrative of the Pilgrimage of Grace’, Northern

History XXI (1985), pp. 53–79Hughes, Ann L., ‘Warwickshire on the Eve of the Civil War: A “County

Community”?’ Midland History VII (1982), pp. 42–72Husain, B. M. C., Cheshire under the Norman Earls, 1066–1237 (Chester, 1973)Hutchins, John, The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset , 3rd edn,

ed. William Shipp and James Whitworth Hodson, 4 vols (Westminster,1861–70 [1874])

Ingram, Martin, Church Courts, Sex and Marriage in England, 1570–1640(Cambridge, 1987)

Ives, E. W., ‘Faction at the Court of Henry VIII: The Fall of Anne Boleyn’,History 57 (1972), pp. 169–88

Ives, E. W., Faction in Tudor England (London, 1979; revised edn 1986)Ives, E. W., ‘The Fall of Wolsey’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art,

ed. S. J. Gunn and P. G. Lindley (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 286–315Ives, Eric, The Life and Death of Anne Boleyn: ‘The Most Happy’ (Malden, Mass.

and Oxford, 2004)Jackson, William A., ‘Robert Waldegrave and the Books He Printed or

Published in 1603’, The Library 5th ser. XIII (1958), pp. 224–33James, M. R., ‘Obedience and Dissent in Henrician England’, Past and Present

xlviii (August 1970), pp. 3–78 (reprinted in Society, Politics and Culture:Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986; paperback edn, 1998),pp. 188–269)

James, Mervyn, ‘The Concept of Order and the Rising of 1569’, Past andPresent lx (August 1973), pp. 49–83 (reprinted in Society, Politics andCulture: Studies in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1986; paperback edn,1988), pp. 270–307)

James, Mervyn, Society, Politics and Culture: Studies in Early Modern England(Cambridge, 1986)

Jansen, Sharon L., Dangerous Talk and Strange Behaviour: Women and PopularResistance to the Reforms of Henry VIII (Basingstoke, 1996)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

237

Jansen, Sharon L., ‘The Paston Family, “Hogan the Prophet,” and Sixteenth-Century Political Prophecy’, Manuscripta 39 (1995), pp. 137–47

Jansen, Sharon L., Political Protest and Prophecy under Henry VIII (Woodbridge,1991)

Jansen Jaech, Sharon L., ‘British Library MS Sloane 2578 and Popular Unrestin England, 1554–1556’, Manuscripta XXIX (1985), pp. 30–41

Jewell, Helen M., The North–South Divide: The Origins of NorthernConsciousness in England (Manchester, 1994)

Jones, Clyve, ‘Jacobitism and the Historian: The Case of William, 1st EarlCowper’, Albion, 23 (1991), 681–96

Jones, Clyve, ‘William, First Earl Cowper, Country Whiggery, and theLeadership of the Opposition in the House of Lords, 1720–1723’, in Lordsof Parliament: Studies, 1714–1914, ed. R. W. Davis (Stanford, Calif., 1995),pp. 24–43, 191–7

Jones, Michael, Bosworth 1485: Psychology of a Battle (Stroud, 2002)Jones, Michael, ‘Richard III and the Stanleys’, in Richard III and the North,

ed. Rosemary Horrox, University of Hull Centre for Regional and LocalHistory, Studies in Regional and Local History 6 (Hull, 1986), pp. 27–50

Jones, Michael K., and Malcolm G. Underwood, The King’s Mother: Lady Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby (Cambridge, 1992)

Justice, Steven, Writing and Rebellion: England in 1381 (Berkeley and London,1994)

Katanka, Margaret C., ‘Goodman’s “Holland’s Leaguer” (1632) – FurtherExamples of the Plagiarism of Richard Head’, Notes and Queries 219 (1974),pp. 415–17

Kaye, W. J., Records of Harrogate (Leeds and Harrogate, 1922)Kellett, Arnold, Historic Knaresborough (Otley, 1991)Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn, ‘Prophecy and Suspicion: Closet Radicalism,

Reformist Politics, and the Vogue for Hildegardiana in Ricardian England’,Speculum 75 (2000), pp. 318–41

Kermode, Jenny, Medieval Merchants: York, Beverley and Hull in the Later MiddleAges (Cambridge, 1998)

Kerrigan, John, ‘Revision, Adaptation, and the Fool in King Lear’, in TheDivision of Kingdoms, ed. Gary Taylor and Michael Warren (Oxford, 1983),pp. 195–239

Kingsley, Margery A., Transforming the Word: Prophecy, Poetry, and Politics inEngland, 1650–1742 (Newark and London, 2001)

Kirke, Henry, ‘Dr. Clegg, Minister and Physician, in the 17th and 18thCenturies’, Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History SocietyXXXV (1913), pp. 1–74

Kishlansky, Mark, Parliamentary Selection: Social and Political Choice in EarlyModern England (Cambridge, 1986)

Klaasen, Walter, Living at the End of Ages: Apocalyptic Expectation in the RadicalReformation (Lanham, NY and London, 1992)


238

Knecht, Robert J., ‘Sir Nicholas Carew’s Journey through France in 1529’, inThe English Experience in France c. 1450–1558: War, Diplomacy and CulturalExchange, ed. David Grummitt (Aldershot, 2002), pp. 160–81

Knight, Charles Brunton, A History of the City of York, 2nd edn (York andLondon, 1944)

Knight, Stephen, Robin Hood: A Complete Study of the English Outlaw (Oxford,1994)

Knights, Mark, Politics and Opinion in Crisis, 1678–1681 (Cambridge, 1994)Knowles, David, The Religious Orders in England, I (Cambridge, 1948)Kuhn, Sherman M., et al. (eds.), Middle English Dictionary (Ann Arbor, Mich.,

1954–)Lambert, Sheila, ‘The Beginning of Printing for the House of Commons,

1640–42’, The Library 6th ser. III (1981), pp. 43–61Lancashire Printed Books: A Bibliography of all the Books Printed in Lancashire

down to the Year 1800, ed. Arthur John Hawkes (Wigan, 1925)Lanner, Allan H., ‘Richard Head’s Theophrastan Characters, Notes and Queries

215 (1970), p. 259Laslett, Peter, The World We Have Lost: England before the Industrial Age,

2nd edn (London, 1971)Lawton, David A., ‘Scottish Field: Alliterative Verse and Stanley Encomium

in the Percy Folio’, Leeds Studies in English n.s. X (1978), pp. 42–57Lehmberg, Stanford E., The Later Parliaments of Henry VIII 1536–1547

(Cambridge, 1977)Lehmberg, Stanford E., The Reformation Parliament, 1529–1536 (London,

1970)Lemmings, David, ‘Lord Chancellor Cowper and the Whigs, 1714–16’,

Parliamentary History 9 (1990), pp. 163–74Le Neve, John, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae, 1300–1541, vol. 9: Exeter Diocese,

compiled by J. M. Horn (London, 1964)Lennard, Reginald, ‘The Watering Places’, in Englishmen at Rest and Play: Some

Phases of English Leisure, 1558–1714, ed. Reginald Lennard (Oxford, 1931),pp. 1–78

Levine, Joseph M., Dr. Woodward’s Shield: History, Science and Satire inAugustan England (Berkeley, Calif., 1977)

Levine, Philippa, The Amateur and the Professional: Antiquarians, Historians andArchaeologists in Victorian England, 1838–1886 (Cambridge, 1986)

Lindley, P. G., ‘Playing Check-mate with Royal Majesty? Wolsey’s Patronageof Italian Renaissance Sculpture’, in Cardinal Wolsey: Church, State and Art,ed. S. J. Gunn and P. G. Lindley (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 261–85

Lloyd, L. C., ‘The Book Trade in Shropshire . . . to about 1800’, Transactionsof the Shropshire Archaeological Society xlviii (1935–6), pp. 65–142, 145–200

Lomas, Richard, North-East England in the Middle Ages (Edinburgh, 1992)Lowe, W. J., ‘Lancashire Fenianism, 1864–71’, THSLC 126 (1976), pp. 156–85Luckett, Dominic A., ‘Crown Patronage and Political Morality in Early Tudor

England: The Case of Giles, Lord Daubeney’, EHR 110 (1995), pp. 578–95

BIBLIOGRAPHY

239

Lyle, E. B., ‘The Relationship between Thomas the Rhymer and Thomas ofErceldoun’, Leeds Studies in English n.s. 4 (1970), pp. 23–30

Lynch, Michael, ‘Queen Mary’s Triumph: The Baptismal Celebrations atStirling in December 1566’, Scottish Historical Review lxix (1990), pp. 1–21

Lysons, Daniel and Samuel, Magna Britannia, vol. II. ii, Cheshire ([London],1810)

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, ‘Kett’s Rebellion in Context’, Past and Present 84(August 1979), pp. 36–59

MacCulloch, Diarmaid, Suffolk and the Tudors: Politics and Religion in an EnglishCounty 1500–1600 (Oxford, 1986)

McIntosh, A., ‘A New Approach to Middle English Dialectology’, EnglishStudies 44 (1953), pp. 1–11

Mack, Phyllis, Visionary Women: Ecstatic Prophecy in Seventeenth-CenturyEngland (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London, 1992)

McManaway, J. G., ‘Philip Massinger and the Restoration Journal’, ELH: AJournal of English Literary History I (1934), pp. 276–304

Maddicott, J. R., ‘The Birth and Setting of the Ballads of Robin Hood’, EHR93 (1978), pp. 276–99.

Mason, Wilmer G., ‘The Annual Output of Wing-Listed Titles, 1649–1684’,The Library 5th ser. 29 (1974), pp. 219–20

Mathew, David, The Age of Charles I (London, 1951)Mee, Arthur, The King’s England: Cheshire: The Romantic North-West (London,

1938)A Memoir of the York Press with Notices of Authors, Printers, and Stationers, in

the Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. Robert Davies(Westminster, 1868)

Merriman, Marcus, ‘Home Thoughts from Abroad: National Consciousnessand Scottish Exiles in the Mid-Sixteenth Century’, in Social and PoliticalIdentities in Western History, ed. Claus Bjørn, Alexander Grant and Keith J.Stringer (Copenhagen, 1994), pp. 90–117

Miller, Helen, Henry VIII and the English Nobility (Oxford, 1986)Miller, John, Charles II (London, 1991)Mitchell, A. A., ‘The Revolution of 1688 and the Flight of James II’, History

Today XV (1965), pp. 496–504Moran, Jo Ann Hoeppner, Education and Learning in the City of York,

1300–1500, Borthwick Papers 55 (York, 1979)Moran, Jo Ann Hoeppner, The Growth of Schooling, 1340–1548: Learning,

Literacy, and Laicization in Pre-Reformation York Diocese (Princeton, NJ,1985)

Morgan, Ceridwen Lloyd, ‘Prophecy and Welsh Nationhood in the FifteenthCentury’, Transactions of the Honourable Society of Cymmrodorion (1985),pp. 9–26

Morgan, Irvonwy, Prince Charles’s Puritan Chaplain (London, 1957)Morrill, J. S., Cheshire 1630–1660: County Government and Society during the

English Revolution (London, 1974)


240

Morris, Richard K., ‘The Architecture of Arthurian Enthusiasm: CastleSymbolism in the Reigns of Edward I and his Successors’, in Armies,Chivalry and Warfare in Medieval Britain and France: Proceedings of the 1995Harlaxton Symposium, ed. Matthew Strickland (Stamford, 1998), pp. 63–81

Moseley, C. W. R. D., ‘Richard Head’s “The English Rogue”: A ModernMandeville?’ Yearbook of English Studies 1 (1971), pp. 102–7

Muller, James Arthur, Stephen Gardiner and the Tudor Reaction (London, 1926)Murphy, Beverley A., Bastard Prince: Henry VIII’s Lost Son (Stroud, 2001)Musgrave, Frank, The North of England: A History from Roman Times to the

Present (Oxford, 1990)Neuburg, Victor E., ‘The Diceys and the Chapbook Trade’, The Library 5th

ser. 24 (1969), pp. 219–31Nichols, John, The Progresses, Processions, and Magnificent Festivities, of King

James the First, his Royal Consort, Family, and Court, 4 vols (London, 1828)Noble, Mark, A History of the College of Arms: And the Lives of all the Kings,

Heralds, and Pursuivants from the Reign of Richard III, Founder of the College,until the Present Time (London, 1804)

‘Notes and Queries’, The Ricardian V (no. 73) (June 1981), pp. 366–7O’Kill, Brian, ‘The Printed Works of William Patten (c. 1510–c.1600)’,

Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 7 (1977–80), pp. 28–45Oliver, W. H., Prophets and Millennialists: The Uses of Biblical Prophecy in

England from the 1790s to the 1840s ([Auckland and Oxford], 1978)Oman, C. W. C., presidential address to the Royal Historical Society, TRHS

4th ser. I (1918), pp. 1–27Ormerod, George, History of the County Palatine and City of Chester, 2nd edn

revised and enlarged by Thomas Helsby, 3 vols (London, 1882)Overton, J. H., Life in the English Church (1600–1714) (London, 1885)Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: From the Earliest Times to the Year 2000,

ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison (Oxford, 2004)Palliser, D. M., Tudor York (Oxford, 1979)Pantzer, Katherine F., STC, vol. 3, A Printers’ and Publishers’ Index. Other

Indexes & Appendices. Cumulative Addenda & Corrigenda (London, 1991)Parker, Derek, Familiar to All: William Lilly and Astrology in the Seventeenth

Century (London, 1975)The Peasants Revolt of 1381, ed. R. B. Dobson, 2nd edn (London, 1983)Perkins, Maureen, Visions of the Future: Almanacs, Time, and Cultural Change

1775–1870 (Oxford, 1996)Plomer, Henry R., A Dictionary of Booksellers and Printers who were at Work in

England, Scotland and Ireland from 1668 to 1725 ([Oxford], 1922)Plomer, Henry R., A Dictionary of the Printers and Booksellers who were at work

in England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1726 to 1775 (London, 1932)Pollard, A. F., Henry VIII (London, Paris and New York, 1902)Pollard, A. F., Wolsey (London, New York [etc.], 1929)Pollard, A. J., ‘The Tyranny of Richard III’, Journal of Medieval History 3

(1977), pp. 147–65

BIBLIOGRAPHY

241

Popkin, Richard H., ‘Predicting, Divining, Prophecying and Foretelling fromNostradamus to Hume’, History of European Ideas 5 (1984), pp. 117–35

Popular Culture in England, c. 1550–1800, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke, 1995)

Porter, Stephen, The Great Fire of London (Stroud, 1996)Powell, E., Kingship, Law and Society: Criminal Justice in the Reign of Henry V

(Oxford, 1989) Pugh, T. B., ‘Henry VII and the English Nobility’, in The Tudor Nobility,

ed. G. W. Bernard (Manchester, 1992), pp. 49–110Purkiss, Diane, ‘Producing the Voice, Consuming the Body: Women Prophets

of the Seventeenth Century’, in Women, Writing, History, 1640–1740, ed. I. Grundy and S. Wiseman (London, 1992), pp. 139–58

Reay, Barry (ed.), Popular Culture in Seventeenth-Century England, new edn(London, 1988)

Redworth, Glyn, In Defence of the Church Catholic: The Life of Stephen Gardiner(Oxford, 1990)

Reeves, Marjorie, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages: A Studyin Joachimism (Oxford, 1969)

Ritchie, Paula E., Mary of Guise in Scotland, 1548–1560: A Political Career(East Linton, 2002)

Roberts, Philip, ‘Swift, Queen Anne and “The Windsor Prophecy”’, PhilologicalQuarterly 49 (1970), pp. 254–8

Robinson, W. R. B., ‘Knighted Welsh Landowners, 1485–1558: A ProvisionalList’, Welsh History Review 13 (1987), pp. 282–98

Robinson, W. R. B., ‘The Marriages of Knighted Welsh Landowners,1485–1558’, National Library of Wales Journal 25 (1987–8), pp. 387–98

Rogers, Pat, ‘The Catholick Poet (1716): John Oldmixon’s Attack on Pope’,Bodleian Library Record VIII (1967–72), pp. 277–84

Rogers, Pat, ‘The Conduct of the Earl of Nottingham: Curll, Oldmixon andthe Finch Family’, Review of English Studies n.s. XXI (1970), pp. 175–81

Rogers, J. P. W., ‘Congreve’s First Biographer: The Identity of “CharlesWilson”’, Modern Language Quarterly 31 (1970), pp. 330–44

Rogers, Pat, ‘Daniel Defoe, John Oldmixon and the Bristol Riot of 1714’,Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 92 (1974for 1973), pp. 145–56

Rogers, Pat, ‘Fielding’s Parody of Oldmixon’, Philological Quarterly XLIX(1970), pp. 262–6

Rogers, Pat, ‘John Oldmixon and a Translation of Boileau’, Revue de LittératureComparée xliii (1969), pp. 509–13

Rogers, J. P. W., ‘John Oldmixon in Bridgwater, 1716–30’, Somerset Archaeologyand Natural History 113 (1969 for 1968–9), pp. 86–98

Rogers, Pat, ‘John Oldmixon’s Family’, Notes and Queries n.s. 17 (vol. 215 ofthe continuous series) (1970), pp. 293–7

Rogers, Pat, ‘Possible Additions to the Oldmixon Canon’, Notes and Queriesn.s. 17 (vol. 215 of the continuous series) (1970), pp. 297–300


242

Rogers, Pat, The Symbolic Design of Windsor-Forest: Iconography, Pageant, andProphecy in Pope’s Early Work (Newark, 2004)

Ross, Charles, Richard III (London, 1981)Rostenberg, Leona, ‘Richard and Anne [sic] Baldwin, Whig Patriot Publishers’,

Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 47 (1953), pp. 1–42Royal Commission on Historical Monuments in England, An Inventory of the

Historical Monuments in the City of York, vol. III, South-West of the Ouse(London, 1972)

Russell, Frederic William, Kett’s Rebellion in Norfolk: Being a History of the GreatCivil Commotion that Occurred at the Time of the Reformation, in the Reign ofEdward VI. Founded on the ‘Commoyson in Norfolk, 1549,’ by N. Sotherton;and the ‘De Furoribus Norfolciensium’ of Nevylle; and Corroborated by Extractsfrom the Privy Council Register, Documents preserved in the State Paper andother Record Offices, the Harleian and other MSS. . . . With Illustrations(London, 1859)

Rylands, J. P., and R. Stewart-Brown, ‘Armorial Glass at Vale Royal, SpurstowHall, Uckington Hall and Tarporley Rectory, in the County of Chester’,The Genealogist xxxviii (1922), pp. 1–14, 61–70

Salzman, Paul, ‘Alterations to The English Rogue’, The Library 6th ser. IV(1982), pp. 49–52

Scott, Kathleen L., Later Gothic Manuscripts, 1390–1490, 2 vols (London,1996)

Sedgwick, Romney, House of Commons, 1715–1754, 3 vols (London, 1970)Sellers, Ian, ‘Nixon, the Cheshire Prophet, and his Interpreters’, Folklore 92(1)

(1981), pp. 34–5Shagan, Ethan H., Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge,

2003)Shagan, Ethan H., ‘Protector Somerset and the 1549 Rebellions: New Sources

and New Perspectives’, EHR 114 (1999), pp. 34–63Shagan, Ethan H., ‘Rumours and Popular Politics in the Reign of Henry VIII’,

in The Politics of the Excluded, ed. Tim Harris (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 30–66Sharpe, J. A., ‘The People and the Law’, in Popular Culture in Seventeenth-

Century England, ed. Barry Reay (London, 1985), pp. 244–70Simpson, Jacqueline, ‘Nixon’s Prophecies in their Historical Setting’, Folklore

86 (1975), pp. 201–7Skinner, Bernard, Colour Identification Guide to Moths of the British Isles

(Macrolepidoptera), 2nd edn (London, 1998)Skinner, Raymond J., ‘Thomas Woodshawe, “Grasiour” and Regicide’, The

Ricardian IX (no. 121) (June 1993), pp. 417–25Smith, A. Hassell, County and Court: Government and Politics in Norfolk,

1558–1603 (Oxford, 1974)Smith, G. R., Without Touch of Dishonour: The Life and Death of Sir Henry

Slingsby 1602–1658 (Kineton, 1968)Smith, Leslie, ‘Notes on the Garencières Family’, Notes and Queries 197

(1952), pp. 4–9

BIBLIOGRAPHY

243

Smith, Nigel, Literature and Revolution in England, 1640–1660 (New Havenand London, 1994)

Smith, Nigel, Perfection Proclaimed: Language and Literature in English RadicalReligion, 1640–1660 (Oxford, 1989)

Smith, R. B., Land and Politics in the England of Henry VIII: The West Riding ofYorkshire, 1530–1546 (Oxford, 1970)

Snyder, Henry L., ‘Arthur Mainwaring and the Whig Press, 1710–1712’, inLiteratur als Kritik des Lebens. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von LudwigBorinski, ed. Rudolph Haas et al. (Heidelberg, 1975), pp. 120–36

Snyder, Henry L., ‘The Prologues and Epilogues of Arthur Mainwaring’,Philological Quarterly 50 (1971), pp. 610–29

Sommerville, C. John, ‘On the Distribution of Religious and Occult Literaturein Seventeenth-Century England’, The Library 5th ser. 29 (1974), pp. 221–5

Spearing, A. C., The ‘Gawain’-Poet: A Critical Study (Cambridge, 1970)Speck, W. A., Tory and Whig: The Struggle in the Constituencies, 1701–1715

(London, 1970)Spence, R. T., ‘A Royal Progress in the North: James I at Carlisle Castle

and the Feast of Brougham, August 1617’, Northern History 27 (1991), pp. 41–89

Spufford, Margaret, Small Books and Pleasant Histories: Popular Fiction and itsReadership in Seventeenth-Century England (London, 1981)

Spurr, John, ‘“Rational Religion” in Restoration England’, Journal of the Historyof Ideas 49 (1988), pp. 563–85

Stafford, Pauline, The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages (Leicester, 1985)Stafford, William, Socialism, Radicalism and Nostalgia: Social Criticism in Britain,

1775–1830 (Cambridge, 1987)Starkey, David, ‘The Age of the Household: Politics, Society and the Arts,

c. 1350–c.1550’, The Later Middle Ages, ed. Stephen Medcalf (London,1981), pp. 225–90

Starkey, David, ‘King Henry and King Arthur’, in Arthurian Literature XVI,ed. James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy (Woodbridge, 1988), pp. 171–96

Starkey, David, The Reign of Henry VIII: Personalities and Politics (London,1985)

Stewart, Alasdair M., ‘The Final Folios of Adam Abell’s “Roit or Quheill of Tyme”: An Observantine Friar’s Reflections on the 1520s and 30s’, inStewart Style, 1513–1542: Essays on the Court of James V, ed. Janet HadleyWilliams (East Linton, 1996), pp. 227–53

Straus, Ralph, The Unspeakable Curll: Being Some Account of Edmund Curll,Bookseller; to Which is Added a Full List of his Books (London, 1927)

Strong, Roy, Henry, Prince of Wales: and England’s Lost Renaissance (London,1986)

Strype, John, The Life and Acts of Matthew Parker, the First Archbishop ofCanterbury, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, 4 vols (Oxford, 1821)

Sutherland, James, The Restoration Newspaper and its Development (Cambridge,1986)


244

Sutton, Anne F., and Livia Visser-Fuchs, ‘Richard III’s Books, 7 and 8: Guidodelle Colonne’s Historia Destructionis Troiae and Geoffrey of Monmouth’sHistoria Regum Britanniae with The Prophecy of the Eagle and Commentary:The Interest of these Books to Richard III and Later Owners’, The Ricardian8 (no. 109) (1990), pp. 403–13

Sutton, Anne F., and Livia Visser-Fuchs, Richard III’s Books: Ideal and Realityin the Life of a Medieval Prince (Stroud, 1997)

Sykes, D. F. E., The History of Huddersfield and its Vicinity (Huddersfield, 1898)Taylor, Gary, ‘King Lear: The Date and Authorship of the Folio Edition’, in

The Division of Kingdoms, ed. Gary Taylor and Michael Warren (Oxford,1983), pp. 351–451

Taylor, John George, Our Lady of Batersey: The Story of Battersea Church andParish Told from Original Sources (London (Chelsea), 1925)

Thomas, Keith, The Perception of the Past in Early Modern England, TheCreighton Trust Lecture, 1983 (London, 1983)

Thomas, Keith, Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs inSixteenth and Seventeenth Century England (London, 1971)

Thomson, J. A. F., The Later Lollards, 1414–1520 (London, 1965)Thomson, William A. R., Spas that Heal (London, 1978)Thornton, Tim, Cheshire and the Tudor State, 1480–1560 (Woodbridge, 2000)Thornton, Tim, ‘Dynasty and Territory in the Early Modern Period: The

Princes of Wales and their Western British Inheritance’, Welsh HistoryReview 20 (2000), pp. 1–33

Thornton, Tim, ‘Opposition Drama and the Resolution of Disputes in EarlyTudor England: Cardinal Wolsey and the Abbot of Chester’, BJRL 81(1999), pp. 25–47

Thornton, Tim, ‘Reshaping the Local Future: The Development and Uses of Provincial Political Prophecy, 1300–1900’, in Prophecy: The Power ofInspired Language in History, 1300–2000, ed. Bertrand Taithe and TimThornton (Stroud, 1997), pp. 51–67

Treadwell, J. M., ‘London Printers and Printing Houses in 1705’, PublishingHistory 7 (1980), pp. 43–4

Treadwell, Michael, ‘London Trade Publishers 1675–1750’, The Library6th ser. IV (1982), pp. 99–134

Tunstall, ‘The Story of Vale Royal – II’Tyerman, Christopher, England and the Crusades, 1095–1588 (Chicago,

1988)Vale, M. G. A., Piety, Charity, and Literacy among the Yorkshire Gentry,

1370–1480, Borthwick Papers 50 (York, 1976)Valois, Noël, La France et le Grand Schisme d’Occident, 4 vols (Paris,

1896–1902)The Victoria History of the County of Chester, ed. B. E. Harris et al. (London,

1979–)The Victoria History of the County of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, ed.

H. Arthur Doubleday et al. (London, 1900– )

BIBLIOGRAPHY

245

The Victoria History of the County of Kent, ed. William Page et al. (London,1908–)

The Victoria History of the County of Middlesex, ed. William Page et al. (London,1911–)

The Victoria History of the County of Surrey, ed. H. E. Malden et al. (London,1902–)

The Victoria History of the County of Warwick, ed. H. Arthur Doubleday,William Page et al. (London, 1904–)

The Victoria History of the County of Wiltshire, ed. R. B Pugh and ElizabethCrittall (London, 1953–)

The Victoria History of the County of Worcester, ed. J. W. Willis-Bund, H. ArthurDoubleday et al. (London, 1901–)

The Victoria History of the County of York, ed. William Page, 4 vols (London,1907–25)

The Victoria History of the County of York: The City of York, ed. P. M. Tillott(London, 1961)

The Victoria History of the County of York: The East Riding, ed. K. J. Allison et al. (London, 1969–)

The Victoria History of the County of York: The North Riding, ed. William Page(London, 1914–)

Vincent, David, ‘The Decline of the Oral Tradition in Popular Culture’, inPopular Culture and Custom in Nineteenth-Century England, ed. Robert D. Storch (London, Canberra and New York, 1982), pp. 20–47

von Kralik, R., Geschichte des Trinitarieordens (Vienna, 1919)Wagner, Anthony Richard, Heralds and Heraldry in the Middle Ages: An

Inquiry into the Growth of the Armorial Function of Heralds, 2nd edn (Oxford,1956)

Walker, J. W., ‘The Burghs of Lincolnshire and the Watertons of Yorkshire’,YAJ XXX (1931), pp. 311–419

Walsham, Alexandra, ‘ “Frantick Hacket”: Prophecy, Sorcery, Insanity, and the Elizabethan Puritan Movement’, Historical Journal 41 (1998), pp. 27–66

Watt, Tessa, Cheap Print and Popular Piety, 1550–1640 (Cambridge, 1991)Watts, John, Henry VI and the Politics of Kingship (Cambridge, 1996)Wawn, Andrew, ‘Chaucer, “The Plowman’s Tale” and Reformation

Propaganda: The Testimonies of Thomas Godfray and “I Playne Piers”’BJRL 56 (1973–4), pp. 174–92

Wedel, Theodore Otto, The Mediaeval Attitude toward Astrology Particularly inEngland, Yale Studies in English 60 (New Haven and London, 1920)

Wedgewood, Josiah C., History of Parliament 1439–1509, 2 vols (London,1936–8), vol. 1: Biographies of the Members of the Commons House1439–1509

Wells, William, Stained and Painted Glass: Burrell Collection: The Corporationof the City of Glasgow, Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum (Glasgow, 1965)

Whitaker, Thomas D., Loidis and Elmete (Leeds, 1816–[20])


246

Williams, Janet Hadley, ‘David Lyndsay and the Making of King James V’, inStewart Style, 1513–1542: Essays on the Court of James V, ed. Janet HadleyWilliams (East Linton, 1996), pp. 201–26

Williams, J. E. H., ‘James V, David Lyndsay, and the Bannatyne ManuscriptPoem of the Gyre Carling’, Studies in Scottish Literature XXVI (1991), pp. 164–71

Williams, W. Llewelyn, ‘A Welsh Insurrection’, Y Cymmrodor XVI (1903), pp. 1–93

Williamson, A. H., ‘Britain and the Beast: The Apocalypse and theSeventeenth-Century Debate about the Creation of the British State’, inMillenarianism and Messianism in Early Modern European Culture, vol. III,The Millenarian Turn: Millenarian Contexts of Science, Politics, and EverydayAnglo American Life in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, ed. James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 2001),pp. 15–27

Williamson, Arthur H., ‘Number and National Consciousness: The EdinburghMathematicians and Scottish Political Culture at the Union of theCrowns’, in Scots and Britons: Scottish Political Thought and the Union of 1603,ed. Roger A. Mason (Cambridge, 1994), pp. 187–212

Wilson, Derek, A Tudor Tapestry: Men, Women and Society in ReformationEngland (London, 1972)

Wing, Donald, A Gallery of Ghosts: Books Published Between 1641–1700 NotFound in the Short-Title Catalogue ([New York], 1967)

Wolffe, B. P., Henry VI, paperback edn (London, 1983)Wood, A. C., ‘The Revolution of 1688 in the North of England’, Transactions

of the Thoroton Society of Nottinghamshire 44 (1941 for 1940), pp. 72–104Wood, Andy, ‘Custom, Identity and Resistance: English Free Miners and their

Law, c.1550–1800’, in The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England,ed. Paul Griffiths, Adam Fox and Steve Hindle (Basingstoke and London,1996), pp. 249–85

Wrightson, Keith, ‘The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England’, inThe Experience of Authority in Early Modern England, ed. Paul Griffiths,Adam Fox and Steve Hindle (Basingstoke, 1996), pp. 11–46

Theses and dissertations

Baskerville, Stephen W., ‘The Management of the Tory Interest in Lancashireand Cheshire, 1714–1747’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University ofOxford, 1976)

Crist, Timothy, ‘Francis Smith and the Opposition Press in England,1660–1688’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1977)

Duggan, Christopher Randall, ‘The Advent of Political Thought-Control inEngland: Seditious and Treasonable Speech, 1485–1547’ (unpublishedPh.D. thesis, Northwestern University, 1993)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

247

Etheridge, D. T., ‘Political Prophecy in Tudor England’ (unpublished Ph.D.thesis, University of Wales (Swansea), 1979)

Gladwin, Frances M., ‘Popular Prophecy in Sixteenth-Century England: ByMouth and Pen in the Alehouse and from the Pulpit’ (unpublished Ph.D.thesis, University of Adelaide, 1997)

Holford, M. L., ‘Locality, Culture and Identity in Late Medieval Yorkshire, c. 1270–c. 1540’ (unpublished D.Phil. thesis, University of York, 2001)

Keen, C. M., ‘Yorkshire Politics, 1658–1688’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis,University of Sheffield, 1990)

Kermode, Jennifer Isobel, ‘The Merchants of York, Beverley, and Hull in theFourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries’, 2 vols (unpublished Ph.D. thesis,University of Sheffield, 1990)

Marsh, Deborah, ‘Humphrey Newton of Newton and Pownall (1466–1536):A Gentleman of Cheshire and his Commonplace Book’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Keele, 1995)

Newman, Susan Aileen, ‘The Broadside Ballads of Martin Parker: ABibliographical and Critical Study’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Universityof Birmingham, 1975)

Pitts, Susan Elizabeth Ellen, ‘The Slingsbys of Scriven, c. 1600–1688’(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1994)

Robinson, David Stuart, ‘The Local Office Holders of Elizabethan Yorkshire’(unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Leeds, 1980)

Thomson, R. S., ‘The Development of the Broadside Ballad Trade and itsInfluence upon the Transmission of English Folksongs’ (unpublished Ph.D.thesis, University of Cambridge, 1974)


248

1381 peasants’ revolt 31549 rebellions 41, 50–1, 92, 1091569 rebellion 66, 1671583 astrological conjunction 551588 eclipses 55, 561715 rebellion 139, 1401745 rebellion 142

A Briefe Relation of the Scots HostileEntrance 77

A Collection of Twenty-Three Prophecies101

ABC, KLM 36Abell, Adam 47Aberdeen university 47acts of parliament

1429–30 (parliamentary elections) 31541–2 (prophecies ‘uppon Declaration

of Names’) 261736 Witchcraft Act 156

Adamson, Patrick 49Addison, Joseph 126Aesop 91, 92Æthelflæd, lady of the Mercians 106–7Agar, Thomas 63, 71agriculture 109Aire, river 62–3Albany, duke of, see Stewart, AlexanderAlbert, prince consort 189Albertus Magnus 186Aldborough (Yorks., WR) 158, 160alehouse 35Alexander, bishop, of Lincoln 16Alexander III, king of Scotland 46, 58Alexander IV, pope 160Alexandra of Denmark, queen, wife of

Edward VII 184All Souls’ College, Oxford 29almanacs 9, 26, 55, 147, 155, 188, 190,

192, 193altar rails 76Amadas, Elizabeth 30–1, 52Amadas, John 31Amadas, Robert 30–1

Amelie, queen, of Portugal 184America 96, 148Amory, Thomas 171Anabaptism 95André, Bernard 15Andrew, Reginald 16–17Andrew, Reginald, of Melksham (Wilts.)

17Andrew, Richard 17Andrewes, Lancelot

Institutiones Piae 76Anglicanism 76, 87, 97Anglo, Sydney 15Anne, queen of England 100, 101, 102,

121, 128Anne of Cleves, queen of England 41,

42Anselm 91Antichrist 17, 100Aquinas, Thomas 5Aram, Eugene 177Archaeologia 148Archaeological Institute of Great Britain

and Ireland 176archery 103Ardennes 163Ariosto

Orlando Furioso 54Arminianism 76Arnold, Samuel 156Arthur 1, 15, 49, 53–4, 99, 116, 143, 146Arthur Tudor, prince of Wales 15, 18Arundel, Henry 92Ashbee, E. W. 187, 195Ashmole, Elias 55Aske, Robert 43assizes 24Astbury (Ches.) 136Aston, Catherine, wife of Sir Thomas

Aston, daughter of WilliamWiddrington 137

Aston, Mary, wife of Sir WillougbyAston, daughter of John Offley ofMadeley 137

249

Index

Aston, Rebecca, wife of Sir ThomasAston (d. 1743–4), daughter of John Shish of Greenwich 137

Aston, Sir Thomas (d. 1645) 137–8Aston, Sir Thomas (d. 1725) 137, 138Aston, Sir Thomas (d. 1743–4) 137Aston, Sir Willoughby 120, 137–8Astraea 49astrology 9, 15, 18, 23, 26, 53, 55, 56, 57,

80, 85, 96, 99, 100, 101, 130, 155,189, 192, 193, 194–5, 196, 197

Atherton, Elizabeth, wife of JohnAtherton, daughter of RobertCholmondeley 116

Atkyns, Sir Robert 101Atwood, William 101Averey, Thomas 112Awdeley, J. 77Axon, W. E. A. 154, 191Aylesbury (Bucks.) 151Ayton (co. Durham) 36–7Ayton, William de 35

Back, J. 95Bacon, Francis 18Bacon, Friar Roger 186Bagotte, Geoffrey 29Baker, Sir John 31Baker, Samuel 183, 185Baldwin, Abigail 122Baldwin, Richard 122Bale, John 41, 56

The Image of Bothe Churches 56ballads 5, 51, 75, 76, 77–8, 97Balliol, Edward, king of Scots 45Banister (prophet) 25Bankes, Anne, wife of Thomas Bankes

of Winstanley, daughter of ThomasCholmondeley (II) 116

Bankes, Thomas, of Winstanley 116Barbour, John 45

Bruce 45Bardney Abbey (Lincs.) 36Bardsay, William 161Barker, J. 186Barker, Robert 44Barlby (Yorks., ER) 34Barlow, T. Worthington 154

Cheshire: Its Historical and LiteraryAssociations 154

Barret, Alice 84Barton, Elizabeth, ‘The Nun of Kent’

30Barton, William 27

Baskerville, Thomas 168, 170Bath (Som.) 43, 125, 163Beasley, Edward 70–1Beasley, John 70Beasley, Reginald 61, 69–72, 74, 88, 94,

157Beasley, William 71Beauchamp family 28Beaufort, Margaret 161Beaumont, George 171Beckinsall, John 23Beckwith family 36Becon, Thomas 31Bede 11, 36, 59Bedford, earl/duke of, see Russell, WilliamBedyll, Thomas 27Beforth, Thomas 35Belasis, John, Lord Belasis of Worlaby

(d. 1689) 183Belasis, Thomas, Lord Fauconberg

(d. 1653) 168, 183Belcher, Rear Admiral Sir Edward 189Bellenden, John 47bells 89Bentley, William 35Berkshire 86Bermingham, George 119Berthelet, Thomas 26Berwick 25, 76Bethel, Slingsby 95Beverley (Yorks., ER) 35, 158Beverley, ‘abbot of’ 88, 94, 175, 177

Dominican friary 88Franciscan friary 88

Bible, biblical prophecy 11, 53, 55–6, 57,99

Bickerdike family of Farnham 181Bickerstaff, Squire 130Bigod, Sir Francis 34Bilton Park (Yorks., WR) 158Binns, Otwell 75Birchall, Daniel 140–1Birkenhead Priory (Ches.) 104Birmingham (War.) 151Birrel, Robert 57Bishop Percy Folio Manuscript 59, 110bishops 182Blackmore, Richard

Prince Arthur 146Bland, Sir John 119Blore Heath, battle of 152Blue Beard; or Female Curiosity 150Blundell, Nicholas 166–7, 171‘Blunderhead, Benjamin’ 174

INDEX

250

Boece, Hector 47Boleyn, Anne, queen of England 20–2,

24, 27, 30, 32, 40, 43, 44, 66, 113Boleyn, George, Lord Rochford 21Bolingbroke, viscount/earl of, see St John,

HenryBonner, Edmund, bishop of London 31,

88Book of Common Prayer 89book ownership 72bookbinders 72booksellers 60, 76–7, 84, 97Booth, Henry, Lord Delamer (d. 1694)

117–20, 124Boroby, Friar, of Scarborough 35–6, 38Boroughbridge (Yorks., WR) 70Bostock, Robert 114Boston (Lincs.) 96Boswell, James 6Bosworth Field 110Bosworth Field, battle of 12, 17, 62, 63,

102, 103, 105, 109–10Boulogne 18, 85Bowden (Ches.) 104, 118, 119Bower, Walter 46

Scotichronicon 46Boyle, Richard, earl of Burlington 124Brabanner, John 158Brabant 159Bradford-upon-Avon (Wilts.) 43Bradley, Thomas 36–7Bradshaw, Henry 107Bramham Moor (Yorks., WR) 62–3,

88Brandon, Charles, duke of Suffolk

(d. 1545) 65–8, 73, 74, 75, 88, 94sons 66

Brandon, Mary, wife of Charles, duke ofSuffolk, daughter of Henry VII 66

Brasted (Kent) 82Bray, Edmund, Lord Bray (d. 1539) 43Bray, Reginald 17Brereton (Ches.) 138Brereton, Humphrey, of Malpas 109Brereton, Jane

Merlin: A Poem 144Brereton, Owen Salusbury 148Brereton, William, vicar of Weaverham

114Brereton family, of Brereton 138Bridgwater (Som.) 123, 126Bright, Timothy 164, 166

Characterie 164Brightman, Thomas 56

Brighton (Sussex) 189Bristol (Som.) 64, 119, 147Bristol, earl of, see Hervey, John‘Britannia Triumphans’ 53‘British history’ 15, 47, 53–4, 143Britishness 142Brittany 15, 17, 109Broadnax, Robert 119Bromholm Priory (Norfolk) 188Brompton (Yorks., NR) 34Brooke, Henry 119, 147Broughton, John 32–3Brown, Robert 162Brownism 182Bruce, Robert 45–6, 59Bruce family 45Brutus 59Buchanan, George 49Buckingham, duke of, see Villiers, George;

duchess of, see Villiers, KatherineBuckton, William 37Budgegood, Anthony 18–19Budworth (Ches.) 133Bulkeley, Thomas 48Bullinger, Heinrich 55Burgess, Daniel 134Burke, Edmund 6Burlington, earl of, see Boyle, RichardBurnet, Gilbert, bishop of Salisbury 124Burns, William E. 100Burton, Sir John 67Buxton (Derby.) 165–6

St Anne’s Well 165–6

Cade, Jack, rebellion of (1450) 3, 5Cadwaladr 15, 30Caesar, Gaius Julius 21Calais 16Calder, river (‘Cadron’) 62–3Calvert, M. 175–6Calvin, John 55–6Cambridge 41, 164

Emmanuel College 169Camden, William 138–9, 170Camden Society 187Capp, Bernard 9, 145Cardinal College, Oxford 69, 91Carlisle (Cumbria) 111Carlisle herald, see Hawley, ThomasCaroline, queen 127, 156

as princess of Wales 129, 137Carpenter, Christine 5Carrier, Jean 130Carthusians 42

INDEX

251

Castle Bolton (Yorks., NR) 24Castle-Carlton (Lincs.) 38Catherine of Aragon, queen of England

30, 66, 86Catholics, Catholicism 25, 55, 71, 78,

88, 90, 95, 96, 118, 120, 128, 135,138, 142, 153, 166, 167, 179–83, 187

Cato St conspiracy 188Cavendish, George 18, 67, 68, 69Cavendish family, dukes of Devonshire

183Cawood (Yorks., WR) 61, 63, 67, 68,

82Chaloner, Hugh 113Chamber, Geoffrey 112chapbooks 4, 5, 6, 7, 75, 85, 93, 147, 150,

151, 157, 190Chapman, Friar Richard, of Scarborough

35, 38Chapuys, Eustace 21, 29, 43Charles I, king of Engand 54–5, 64, 75,

78–9, 80–1, 88, 90, 95, 134, 137,145, 148, 168

as prince of Wales 58–9, 111Charles II, king of England 81–2, 88, 90,

96, 101, 117, 136, 149Charles V, emperor 21, 24Chartier, Roger 5Chaucer, Geoffrey 40

‘Chaucer’s prophecy’ 40Chaumont, Gace de 63Cheeselade, Thomas 27Chelsea (London) 23Cheshire 8, 102, 103, 104, 106, 107,

109–10, 111, 112, 115, 116, 117,119–22, 124, 126, 130, 131, 132,135, 138, 139, 140, 141, 146, 147, 148, 149, 151, 152–4, 186, 197

palatinate 8, 104, 106, 108, 111Cheshire Sheaf 153Chester 103, 106, 107, 110, 111, 119,

120, 148, 150, 153council 111Dean of, see Thomas Mallorymystery cycle 65

Chester, earl/dom of 107, 137Chester Courant 142Chetham Society 187Chirk (Denb.) 17chivalry 6Cholmley, Sir Roger 35Cholmondeley, Anne, wife of Thomas

Cholmondeley (II) of Vale Royal,daughter of Sir Walter St John 116,132–4, 136

Cholmondeley, Charles 116–22, 124, 128,132, 134, 136, 137, 142

Cholmondeley, Charles, son of Charles128

Cholmondeley, Dorothy, wife of ThomasCholmondeley (b. 1726), daughter of Edmund Cowper 129

Cholmondeley, Elizabeth, daughter ofJohn Minshull of Minshull, wife ofThomas Cholmondeley 115

Cholmondeley, Francis (1663–4) 116Cholmondeley, Sir Francis 120–1, 124,

138Cholmondeley, Hugh (1662–4) 116Cholmondeley, Sir Hugh 115, 116Cholmondeley, Jane (1655–81) 116Cholmondeley, Jane, née Tollemache,

wife of Thomas Cholmondeley (II) of Vale Royal 116

Cholmondeley, John (1660–1) 116Cholmondeley, Lady Mary 108, 111–12,

115Cholmondeley, Robert 116Cholmondeley, Robert, viscount

Cholmondeley, lord Cholmondeley,earl of Cholmondeley (d. 1725)118–19, 124

Cholmondeley, Thomas (1658–9) 116Cholmondeley, Thomas (b. 1726) 128–9Cholmondeley, Thomas (I) (1595–1653)

115–16, 121Cholmondeley, Thomas (II), son of

Thomas (I) of Vale Royal 116, 118,121, 124, 134, 137, 138

Cholmondeley, Thomas, Lord Delamere102

Cholmondeley, Thomas, son of Charles(d. young) 128

Cholmondeley family 12Cholmondeley household 127Cholmondeley of Vale Royal family 102,

112, 115–16, 121, 128, 131, 132,134, 136, 145, 148–9, 154, 155–6

Cholmondeston (Ches.) 132Christ Church nigh Aldgate, London,

Augustinian priory 91Christopher, prince, of Greece 184Church of England 118, 122, 128, 134,

137, 163, 183Churchill, Sarah, duchess of Marlborough

125, 129

INDEX

252

Chute, Johanna, daughter of GeorgeChute 135

Chute, Johanna, daughter of Sir Walter St John, wife of George Chute ofStockwell 135–7

Cicero 73civic republicanism 100Clare, John 1, 151, 185Clarendon, earl of, see Hyde, EdwardClayton, Dr 166Clement VII, pope 91clergy 32–3Clerke, Richard 162Cliburne, Richard 25Clifford, Henry, earl of Cumberland

(d. 1542) 68Clifford family 34, 68Clifton (York) 184Climsell, Richard 78Clunie (Perthshire) 172Clynnog, Dr Morys 25Cock, William 64‘Cock of the North’ 35–6Coelson, Christopher 63, 71coffee grinds 187coffee-houses 195Coke, Sir Edward 165Cole, Henry 23Coles, Francis 77–8, 81, 92Colman, George, senior 156

Mother Shipton 156Colton (Lancs.) 33Colton (Yorks., WR) 63

Colton Hagge 62–4, 88Combermere Abbey (Ches.) 112comets 31, 196

comet of 1677 96Commons, House of 3–4Complaynt of Scotland 49Comprehension (religious) 124Comyn, Sir John 45conference trade 179Congreve, William 124, 146

The Old Batchelour 124Constantine 59Conway, Sir Hugh 16Conyers, J. 93Conyers family 37, 38Coppenhall (Ches.) 127Cornwall, duchy of 137Cornwall, earl of, see Edmund,

earl of CornwallCornysshe, [William?] 16Cotton, Robert 117

council, privy 42, 51council/councillors, royal 3, 31, 35Council in the Marches of Wales 27Council in the North 70court 118, 134court, Scottish 46Courtenay, Gertrude, marchioness

of Exeter (d. 1558) 23Courtenay, Henry, marquis of Exeter

(exec. 1539) 19, 23courtiers 3Covenant 89Coventry (War.) 186Cowper, Mary, lady Cowper 129, 135, 137Cowper, Sarah, lady Cowper, wife of Sir

William Cowper, daughter of SamuelHolled 129, 134, 135, 136

Cowper, Sir William (d. 1705) 128, 135Cowper, William 129–30Cox, J. Charles 189Cranford (Middx.) 29Cresswell, Catherine 43Cresswell, Percivall 43Crewe, Elizabeth 138Crewe, John, of Utkinton 138Crewe, Sir John 138Crewe, Sir John, of Utkinton 115Crewe, Mary, wife of John Crewe of

Utkinton, daughter of Sir John Doneof Utkinton 138

Crewe, Mary, wife of Sir John Crewe,daughter of Sir Willoughby Aston138

Crewe, Mary, wife of Sir John Crewe,daughter of Thomas Wagstaff ofTachebrook (War.) 138

Croft, Thomas 28Croft-on-Tees (Yorks., NR) 36‘Cromme and Christ Cross row’ 36Cromwell, Gregory 19, 31Cromwell, Oliver 54, 81, 90, 95, 149Cromwell, Thomas 18–22, 25, 27, 28, 31,

34, 35, 37, 39, 41, 42, 43, 50, 66,104, 112, 113

Crone, Edward 21Crouch, Humphrey

A Pleasant New Song . . . 77Crowton, farmer 127‘crumme’ prophecy 36crusade 17, 44, 58, 59, 160Crystal Palace 189Cumberland 34Cumberland, earl of, see CliffordCumbria 106

INDEX

253

Cures without Care 164–5Curll, Edmund 122–3, 139, 144Curry, Patrick 99

Prophecy and Power: Astrology in EarlyModern England 9, 194–6

custom, manorial 6customary law 7

Dacre, Leonard 25Dacre family 34–5Daily Telegraph 189Dale Abbey (Derby.) 161Dalton, Lawrence 38Dalyvell, Robert 45Danby, earl of, see Osborne, ThomasDanes 59, 60, 128, 136Darcy, Sir Arthur 67Darcy, Thomas, Lord Darcy (exec. 1537)

43, 65–8, 73, 75, 88, 94Darius, Silvester 30Darnall Park (Ches.) 104Darnall Pool (Ches.) 104Darnhall (Ches.) 113Daunce, Elizabeth, wife of William

Daunce, daughter of Thomas More23

Daunce, William, of Cassiobury (Herts.)23

Davenham (Ches.) 104, 114Davenport, J. 185Davies, Owen

Witchcraft, Magic and Culture1736–1951 197

Davy, John 14, 19–20, 50‘Deadman’ 30, 42, 51, 80Dean and Munday 151Deane, Edmund 164, 165–6, 167, 168,

170Spadacrene Anglica 164, 168

Dee, river 103, 105Defoe, Daniel 169, 171, 172Delamer, lord, see Booth, HenryDelamere, H. E. 152Delamere, lord, see Cholmondeley,

ThomasDelamere forest 11, 103, 104, 107, 108,

120, 126, 136, 142, 147, 149Denbigh, lady, see Fielding, ElizabethDenbighshire 126Depeden, Sir John 161Derby 151, 186Derby, earl of, see Stanley, Edward Derby, Thomas 32devil 86–7

Devonshire, dukes of, see Cavendish family

Devoto, John 144, 156Dicey, firm 142–3, 157Dickens, Charles 152

Pickwick Papers 152Dicson, William 32–3Digby, George, lord Digby (d. 1677) 79diplomatics 195Discontented Married Man 77Disestablishment of the Church of Ireland

153Disney, Captain Henry 171Diss (Norfolk) 151Dissolution of the monasteries 91, 102,

104, 107, 112, 115Dobson, John, vicar of Muston 35Dodge, John, of Copes (Suffolk) 165Domestick Intelligence 95Done, John, of Utkinton 111Donne, Ralph 108Doomsday 56Douglas, Mr, of Leeds 167Dover (Kent) 31–2

harbour 32Maisondieu 32

Drake, Francis 94, 187Drayton, Michael 54, 103

Poly-Olbion 103dream-books 188Dringhouses (York) 94Dropping Well 97, 160, 163, 165, 170–81,

183–5, 192–3; see also KnaresboroughDrummond, William, of Hawthornden 59Dryden, John 124

King Arthur, or The British Worthy 146Dublin 151Duck, Stephen 143Dudley, John, earl of Warwick, duke of

Northumberland (exec. 1553) 51‘dun cow’ prophecy 68Dunbar 46Dunbar, Patrick de, earl of Dunbar (called

earl of March) 46, 58Durham 33

archdeacon of (c. 1534) 70Dussindale (Norfolk) 50Dutch, Holland 95, 118, 128, 136Dutch War, Second 96Dutton, Laurence 113Dutton, Ralph 113

‘eagle’s chick’ 81earthquake 190

INDEX

254

East Anglia 4, 67, 69, 109East Bradenham (Norfolk) 41Eaton, Kendricke 111eclipses 55Eddisbury (Ches.) 106–7

Eddisbury hundred 104, 106–7, 108Edinburgh 57, 62–3, 93, 106, 139Edmund, earl of Cornwall 159–60education 72, 196Edward I, king of England 107, 108Edward II, king of England 158Edward III, king of England 161Edward IV, king of England 15, 39, 75,

102Edward VI, king of England 44, 48, 50–1,

56, 88, 89, 92, 94Edward, prince of Wales, son of Henry VI

17Edwards, John 17‘Egelred’, king 60Egerton, Catherine, wife of Sir Philip

Egerton, daughter of Piers Conway ofHendre (Flints.) 133

Egerton, Elizabeth, wife of John Egerton,daughter of Robert, viscountCholmondeley 132, 136

Egerton, John, of Egerton and Oulton116, 119, 132, 136

Egerton, Mary, wife of John Egerton ofEgerton and Oulton, daughter ofThomas Cholmondeley (II) 116, 131

Egerton, Sir Philip (d. 1698) 133, 136Egerton, Philip (d. 1727) 136Egerton, Philip (d. 1762) 136Elder, John 47elections 3–4, 117, 121, 129, 133Elizabeth I, queen of England 17, 24–5,

41, 54, 58, 88, 89–90, 94–5, 111, 112

Elizabeth, daughter of James VI/I 90Elizabeth of York, queen of England 18,

110, 144Ellenborough (Cumbria) 185Elton, Geoffrey 27–8Elviden, Lawrence 27Engagement (1647) 80Englefield, Lady Jane 182English Civil War 2, 4, 8, 54, 75, 80, 81,

82, 88, 89, 90, 97, 117, 134, 149Epistle (1548) 47–8Erasmus

Adages 73Erceldoun, Thomas of, see ThomasEssex 30

Eure, Katherine, wife of Sir Ralph, daughter of William de Ayton (late 14C) 35

Eure, Ralph, son of William lord Eure 37Eure, Sir Ralph 34–5, 37Eure, Thomas, son of William lord Eure

37Eure, William, lord Eure (d. 1548) 37Eure family 34–7, 51Evelyn, John 168Evers, William 127–8Examiner, The 125Exclusion 76, 95, 97, 100, 117, 134, 138Exeter (Devon) 19, 64, 118Exeter, marquis of, see Courtenay, HenryExeter, see of 28Eyres, William 150–1

Fairfax, Sir Thomas 82Fairfax, Thomas, Lord Fairfax (d. 1671)

54Fairweather, Mrs, of York 165Farnley Wood conspiracy 82Fauconberg, Lord, see Belasis, ThomasFaustus, Dr 186Fayery, Robert, portcullis pursuivant 43–4,

52Felde, Thomas, abbot of Burton 17, 18Felton, Richard, prior of Malton 34Fenianism 188Feron, alias Ferne, Robert 29Fewston (Yorks., WR) 160, 191–2Fielding, Elizabeth, lady Denbigh

(d. 1670) 82Fielding, Henry 1, 141, 156

Tom Jones 141The Tragedy of Tragedies 144

Fiennes, Celia 167, 168, 170–1, 179Finney, Samuel 119First World War 153, 179, 192, 193Fisher, John, bishop of Rochester 91Fitzhugh, Elizabeth, lady Fitzhugh (d.

1427), wife of Henry Fitzhugh 162Fitzhugh, Henry, lord Fitzhugh (d. 1425)

162FitzPatrick, Anne FitzRoy, countess of

Upper Ossory (d. 1804) 146Fitzroy, Henry, duke of Richmond 18Flanders 21, 35, 43Fleet prison 44Fleming, William 119Flemish 158Fletcher, J. S. 157Flintshire 110, 126

INDEX

255

Flodden Field, battle of 86, 103Flos, Toki 159folksingers, folksong 6Forrest, William 50fortune-telling 187–8Foster, John 72Fotherley, Sir Thomas 119Fountains Abbey (Yorks., WR) 176Fox, Adam 6–7, 195Foxe, John 56

Acts and Monuments 56France, the French 3, 17, 18, 19, 25, 35,

39, 41, 42, 44, 48–9, 57, 65, 80,85–6, 88, 96, 97, 101, 107, 109, 125,126, 127, 128, 130, 142–3, 148, 160,185, 196

‘France and Flanders shall arise’ 35franchise 3–4Francis, dauphin/king of France 48–9Frederick, elector palatine 90Freefolk by Bray (Hants.) 17Freeholder, The 126French, John 166

York-shire spaw 166French Revolution 146–7Friedman, Jerome 10, 81–2Furness Abbey (Lancs.) 32–3, 70Furter, Michael 37

Gadbury, John 80Gage, Colonel 120Gage, Sir John 19Gaillard, John Earnest

with Edward Phillips, The Royal Chace,or, Merlin’s Cave 144

Gainford (co. Durham) 161Gainsborough (Lincs.) 149Gainsford, Anne 20Galtresse, forest of (Yorks.) 40Gardiner, Germaine 23Gardiner, Stephen 23Garencières, Theophilus 57Garendon, abbot of (Leics.) 30Gaveston, Piers 158Gebons, Agnes, wife of William, sister

of John Veysey, bishop of Exeter 28

Gebons, John 28Gebons, Thomas 27–8Gebons, Thomas, junior 28gentry 33, 38–9, 41, 75Geoffrey of Monmouth 16, 44, 50, 55, 80George I, king of England 127, 129, 133,

134, 137

George II, king of England 136as prince of Wales 136

George III, king of England 146Gerard, Charles, earl of Macclesfield

(d. 1694) 101, 118Germany, Germans 25, 128, 136, 153giants 106Gibbon, Edward 145Gilbert, Nicholas Alain 150

The Crown and Glory of Christianity 150

Gilbertines 33Gilpin, William 172Glasgow 59, 139Glasgow university 47‘Gledesmore’, battle of 45Glorious Revolution 2, 76, 97, 101, 117,

119–20, 126, 127, 149, 155Gordon, Alexander

Itinerarium Septentrionale 185Gordon, Patrick 58–9, 139

Famous Historie of … Robert Surnamedthe Bruce 58–9, 139

Graham, James, marquess of Montrose(exec. 1650) 149

Graham, Richard, Viscount Preston (d. 1695) 120

Grainge, William 191Gramsci, Antonio 196Granada 17Granville, A. B. 177Gray, Robert 147Graythwaite (Lancs.) 33Great Exhibition 189Great Fire of London 83, 97Great North Road 76, 186‘great tradition’ 5Grebner, Paul 100Greek language 164Green Ribbon Club 95Gregg, William 131Gresham, Sir John 14, 19, 20Gresty, John 150Gresty and Burghall 150Grey, Jane 89Grey, Leonard 18Grey, Thomas, marquis of Dorset

(d. 1530) 18–19Griffith, John 23Grosvenor, Lettice, wife of Sir Richard

Grosvenor 121Grosvenor, Richard 121Grosvenor, Sir Thomas 121Gruffydd, Rhys ap (exec. 1531) 22–3, 45

INDEX

256

Guinevere 21Guisborough Priory (Yorks., NR) 36Gunn, S. J. 2Gunpowder Plot 90Gybson, Thomas 21–2gypsy 187

Hale, John 28–30, 42Hales, Chistopher 32Halidon Hill, battle of 46Halifax (Yorks., WR) 151, 164Halifax, Lord, see Montague,

CharlesHallamshire 68Halliwell, J. O. 154

Palatine Anthology 154Ham House 165Hamilton family 49Hampsthwaite (Yorks., WR) 160Hampton Court 154Hanoverian dynasty 126, 127, 129, 131,

133, 141, 142, 143–4Harbert, William

A Prophesie of Cadwallader 53Hareware, John, abbot of Vale Royal

112–14Hareware, Nicholas 113–14Hareware, Robert 114Hareware, Roger 114Hareware, William 114Hargrove, Ely 173, 175

The Beauties of Harrogate and Knaresbro’ 173

History of Knaresborough 173, 176Harington, Sir John 57Harlequin 156Harley, Robert 129Harman, Thomas

A Caueat for Commen Cursetors 84Harper, R. C. 153Harper, Richard 77, 78, 79harpsichord 125Harrington, John 33Harris, Benjamin 95–7Harris, Moses 156Harris, Tim 2, 4Harris, W. 95Harrison, William 164Harrison, William H. 78, 190Harrogate (Yorks., WR) 163–5, 167,

168–72, 174–9, 185, 191, 192St Mungo’s Well 165, 166, 167Stray 163Tewit Well 163–4, 170

Harvey, JohnA Discoursive Probleme Concerning

Prophecies 80Hassall, Richard 114Hastings (Sussex) 188Haukyns, John 100Haverah Park (Yorks., WR) 167Hawley, Thomas 44Hawnby (Yorks., NR) 36Head, Richard 76, 83–95, 97, 98, 106,

144, 157, 170, 183, 185, 187, 188,189

The English Rogue 83–4The Life and Death of Mother Shipton 83,

91, 95, 187, 189Headless Cross (Ches.) 133Healaugh (Yorks., WR) 161Hebrew 164HEMPE 57Henry VI, king of England 3, 15, 18Henry VII, king of England 14–18, 24, 45,

102, 108–10, 112, 144as earl of Richmond 161

Henry VIII, king of England 10, 17, 18,20–1, 24, 26, 27, 28–9, 30, 33, 34,42, 43, 50, 57, 65, 68, 69, 75, 85, 88,91, 110, 112, 113, 114

Henry, prince of Wales, son of James VI/I57, 58, 90, 111

heptarchy 57heralds 3, 43–4Hermitage, Richmond Palace Gardens

143–4Heron, Giles 23Heron, John 23Hertford, earl of, see Seymour, EdwardHervey, Catherine, wife of Henry Hervey

137Hervey, Henry 137Hervey, John, earl of Bristol 137Heslerton (Yorks., ER) 82Heywood, Joan, wife of John, daughter

of John Rastell 23Heywood, John 23Heywood, Oliver 168Heywood, Thomas

The Life of Merlin 55Heywood’s of Manchester 191Higden, Ranulph 45, 107

Polychronicon 49, 60High Church 138Hill, Christopher 2Hill, Richard 184Hindley, Charles 145, 189–91, 193, 195

INDEX

257

Hirst, Derek 3–4Hoare, Sir Richard Colt 180Hob Moor (York) 94, 184Hobson, John 167Hodgson, Orlando 151Hodgson and Co. 151Hogan, Anthony, of Great Dunham

(Norfolk) 40Hogan, Anthony, rector of East

Bradenham and Necton 41Hogan, Bridget, wife of Robert Hogan

(d. 1532), daughter of Sir RichardFowler of Hambledon (Bucks.) andRycote (Oxon.) 41

Hogan, Henry 40Hogan, John 41Hogan, Ralph 40Hogan, Robert, grandson of Robert

(d. 1547) 41Hogan, Robert, of East Bradenham

(d. 1532) 39–40, 41Hogan, Robert, of East Bradenham

(d. 1547) 40–1, 51Hogan, Susan, wife of Thomas Hogan,

daughter of Sir Edward Echingham ofBarsham (Suffolk) 41

Hogan, Thomas 41Hogan, William 39Hogan, William (1473) 39Hogan family 39, 52Hogan of East Bradenham family 39–40Holcroft, John, junior 114Holcroft, John, senior 114Holcroft, Sir Thomas (d. 1620) 115Holcroft, Thomas 108, 113, 114, 115Holcroft, William 114Holford (Ches.) 115Holford, Christopher, of Holford 115Holinshed, Raphael

Chronicles 164Holland, see DutchHolland, earl of, see Rich, HenryHolled, Samuel 135Holme, Randolph 119Holmes, Randle 154Holwell, John 96, 97

Catastrophe mundi 96Holy Land 17, 160Holy Roman Empire 96, 97Holywell (Flints.) 170Hoole, Barbara 174

A Season at Harrogate 174A Week at Harrogate 174

Hopper, J. 151

Horbury (Yorks., WR) 65Hornyold, John 51horseracing 103hospitals 160Hotham, Sir John 82Houghton, Peter 165Hounslow, prior of 29House of Commons 156House of Lords 26, 76, 78, 182Howard, Elizabeth, duchess of Norfolk

(d. 1558) 30, 40Howard, Henry, earl of Surrey

(exec. 1546) 41Howard, Lady Katherine 23Howard, Thomas, 2nd duke of Norfolk

(d. 1524) 23Howard, Thomas, 3rd duke of Norfolk

(d. 1554) 18, 23, 35, 37, 43Howard, Thomas, 4th duke of Norfolk

(exec. 1572) 25Howard family 39, 41Howe, G. 177, 183Hoyh, Lady, of York 165Huddersfield (Yorks., WR) 75Hugh Lupus 106Hull (Yorks., ER) 77, 151, 186Hulton Abbey (Staffs.) 112–13Humphery, Alderman 189Hungerford (Berks.) 119Hunmanby (Yorks., ER) 36‘hunt is up, the’ 41hunting, shooting 111, 137, 159, 161, 178Hunton, Dr 164Hurlok, William 25, 27, 42Hurst, Chance and Company 151Hussee, John 29Hussey, John, Lord Hussey (exec. 1537)

43Hy Brasil 85Hyde, Edward, earl of Clarendon

(d. 1674) 119Hyde, Laurence, earl of Rochester

(d. 1711) 135

Ilchester (Som.) 27, 42Illingworth, James 169Illustrated Police News 190images 89inflation 3, 109Ingilby family of Ripley 181Ingram, Martin 4Inner Temple 124Innocent IV, pope 159insanity 30

INDEX

258

Institution of a Christian Man 21Interregnum 117Ipswich (Suffolk) 91IRA 153Ireland, the Irish 17, 20, 44, 50, 90, 97,

101, 126, 140, 146, 153, 188Ireland, John 23Ireland, Roger 23Irish nationalism 153Iron Age 106Irstead (Norfolk) 188Isabella of Portugal 24Isleworth (Middx.) 28–9Islington (Middx.) 23Italian language 164Italy 17

Jack of Newbury 86Jacobites 116, 117, 121, 124, 126, 127–8,

129, 131, 134, 136, 139, 141–2, 146,183

James I, king of England 24James II, king of England 96, 97, 116–20,

127, 128, 130, 132, 135, 136, 137,168, 187

as duke of York 95, 96, 100, 101James IV, king of Scotland 103James V, king of Scotland 22, 45–6, 48James VI/I 45, 48, 49, 54, 57–8, 59, 64,

90, 95, 102, 108, 110, 111–12, 131,133, 145

Basilikon Doron 58Jansen, Sharon 10Jenney, William 39Jenny, Christopher 34Jerusalem 58Jesuits 88John, king of England 159, 179John of Bridlington 16John ‘of Gaunt’, duke of Lancaster 161Johnson, Samuel 6, 100, 107Johnson, W. S. 151Jones, Richard 25Jonson, Ben 54Jowett, Herbert 192Joye, George 56Julius II, pope 17Jupiter 100

‘Kaber-rig plot’ 82Kay, Sir John 183Keach, Benjamin 100Kearsley, George 156Kendrick, James 141

Kent 30, 31Keswick (Norfolk) 188Kett, Robert 92, 109Kilvert, Francis 151, 152King, Daniel 107, 152‘King and the Cobbler, the’ 75King’s Bench, court of 27King’s Hall, Cambridge 29Kingston, William 68Kirby, R. S. 186Kirkbride, Richard 25Kirkby Overblow (Yorks., WR) 158Kishlansky, Mark 4kitchen, royal 39Knaresborough (Yorks., WR) 11, 60, 67,

68, 70, 71, 157–61, 163, 164, 165,166, 167–83, 185, 186, 191–2

castle 159–63Dropping Well House 184Fort Montagu 184High Bridge 170Long Walk 170, 174, 176, 181Low Bridge 170Short Walk 170, 181Spittlecroft 160Trinitarian friars 178see also Dropping Well

Knaresborough family of Ferrensby 181Krefeld, battle of (1758) 143Kynder, Philip 55

Lambert, François 21Lambert, William 161Lamberton, William, archbishop of

St Andrews 45Lancashire 25, 85, 105, 120, 139, 150,

166, 188Lancaster, duchy of 67, 178Lancaster, duke of, see John ‘of Gaunt’Lancaster, earl of, see Thomas, earl of

LancasterLancaster, Geoffrey 33–4Lancaster herald 43Lang, J. 151Langdale, T. 175–6Langdale, W. 175–6Langdale, William 36–7, 38Langley, William 36, 38Larke, John 23Lascelles, John 43Laslett, Peter 10‘last world emperor’ 17, 59Late Newes from the North 77Latham, Gilbert 43

INDEX

259

Latham, Thomas 119Latimer, Hugh, bishop of Worcester 21Latin 92, 164latitudinarianism 99Laud, William 90Lawton, William 119Laynam family 42, 52Laynam the prophet 25, 43Layng, William 35Layton, Richard 19lead 158Lee, Rowland, bishop of Lichfield 28Leeds (Yorks., WR) 63, 164, 168, 191,

192corporation 191

Leeds Northern Railway 191Leeds Priory (Kent) 32leeks 111Legate, Robert 32–3legislation against prophecy 16Leicester 68Leigh, Egerton 154

Ballads and Legends of Cheshire 154Leil, king 106Leith 115Leland, John 163, 165, 177Lennox, earl of, see Stewart, MatthewLeo 100lepers 160Lesley, John, bishop of Ross 49Leveridge, Richard 144Lewes (Sussex) 19

Priory 19Lewes, Charles Lee 156Lewis, John 151

Hints on the Proposed Medical Reform151

Liberal party 183Lichfield (Staffs.) 114Liefde, de 85Liège 165Lillicrap, Peter 84, 90–1Lilly, William 55, 75, 79, 80–2, 92

Collection of Ancient and ModernProphecies 80

Prophecy of the White King 80World’s Catastrophe 55

Lincolnshire 9, 66, 67–8Lincolnshire rebellion (1536) 66Lindsay, Robert, of Pitscottie 50L’Isle, Brian de 159Lisle, viscount, see Plantagenet,

ArthurLisle family 19

Lister, Thomas 175Poems Descriptive of Harrogate 175

‘little tradition’ 5Liverpool (Lancs.) 140, 151, 188Livingstone, James, Lord Livingstone

of Almond (d. 1674) 168Llanbadarn Vawr (Radnors.) 112Locke, John 100Lollard 56, 73Londesborough (Yorks., ER) 34London 4, 22, 27, 34, 44, 45, 51, 56, 58,

60, 62, 63, 64, 66, 68, 76–7, 78, 83,85, 91, 93, 97, 104, 106, 117, 122,126, 143, 147, 151, 153, 156, 164,168, 177, 186; see also Ludgate;Tower of London

London Bridge 62, 136St James Garlick Hithe 62underground railway 189

Long Meg of Westminster 85Long Newton (co. Durham) 40Long Parliament 89Lord Chancellor (1546), see Wriothesley,

Thomaslordship 3Lovelich, Henry

Merlin 54Low Countries 57Lowndes, Richard 60, 64, 76–7, 79Ludgate 76Ludington mill (Ches.) 132, 138Lunsford, Colonel Thomas 78lute 42Luther, Martin 55–6Lydiard Tregoze (Wilts.) 133–4Lyndesey, Sir David

‘The Dreme’ 46Lysons, Daniel 152, 153Lysons, Samuel 152, 153Lytton, Edward George Earle, Bulwer

Lytton 178

Macclesfield, earl of, see Gerard, Charles

Macclesfield forest (Ches.) 107Machado, Roger, Richmond herald 44Mackay, Charles 155

Extraordinary Popular Delusions 155MacRitchie, William 172magic 9Mainwaring, Arthur 124–6

An Address to our Sovereign Lady 125The History and Fall of the Conformity

Bill 124

INDEX

260

‘The King of Hearts’ 124A New Ballad: To the Tune of Fair

Rosamund 125Suum Cuique 124‘Tarquin and Tullia’ 124

Mainwaring, Sir Arthur 124Mainwaring, Katherine, mother of Arthur

Mainwaring, daughter of ThomasCholmondeley of Vale Royal (II) 124

Mainwaring family 120Mair, John 47, 53Mallory, Thomas 111Mallory family of Studley 181Malory, Sir Thomas 54, 55Malton (Yorks., NR) 34, 35, 38;

see also New Malton, Old MaltonMalton Priory 33–4, 37; see also Todde,

WilliamManchester 150, 151

Hanging Bridge 150Literary and Philosophical Society 151

Manners, John Henry, duke of Rutland(d. 1857) 180, 181, 183

Manton, Thomas 134Manuel, king, of Portugal 184manuscript culture, transmission 7, 121,

140–2, 187, 195March, earl of, see Dunbar, Patrick deMarch, R., and Co. 188Margaret of Burgundy 15Margaret Tudor, daughter of Henry VII

45Marie, empress, of Russia 184Market Weighton (Yorks., ER) 34Marlborough, duchess of, see Churchill,

SarahMarprelate tracts 58Marshall, Dr 24‘Marvels of Merlin’ 33Mary I, queen of England 50–1, 88, 89,

92, 94, 114marriage to Philip II of Spain 51

Mary II, queen of England 97, 124, 148Mary, princess, daughter of Henry VIII 24Mary, queen of Scots 48–9, 92, 167Mary of Teck, queen, wife of George V

184, 193mask moth 156mass 89Matilda, queen of England 91Maurice, Sir William 48Maxwell, Ann 83–4, 90–1Maxwell, David 84, 90Mayerne, Sir Theodore 168

McDonald, D., junior 151Mede, Joseph 56medicine 21, 27, 164–6Medley, The 125Melancthon, Philipp 55–6Melrose 186Melville, Andrew 57Mercians 106Mercurin de Gattinara 24Merlin 1, 7, 11, 21–2, 24, 28, 29, 35, 36,

44, 49, 50, 53–5, 57, 59, 99, 116,130, 139, 143–4, 145–6, 147, 155,194, 195

Ambrosius 16Silvester 16

Merlin, prose 54‘Merlin’s Cave’, Richmond Palace

Gardens 143–4, 156Merrifield, John 96Mersey, river 105Merton Priory (Surrey) 91meteor 96meteorology 193Methley (Yorks., WR) 164Methodius, pseudo- 34–5, 37, 38, 51Middle Temple 71, 121Middlesex 91Middleton, Colonel Thomas 83Middleton, Thomas

A Chaste Maid in Cheapside 85milkmaids 6millenarianism, millennium 3, 17, 56,

100, 147Minnes, Sir Christopher, see MyngsMinshull, Richard 119Minshull, Thomas 119Minshull, William 148, 150–1mise 110Mitton, Robert 178Mohun, Michael 147Moine, Henry 186Molineux, John 24Molyneux, Caryll, Viscount Molyneux

(d. 1700) 120Mompesson, Alice 42Mompesson, Edmund 42Mompesson, John 42Mompesson, Thomas 42, 43Mompesson of Bathampton family 42Mondrem forest (Ches.), see Delamere

forestMonipennie, John

Abridgement or Summarie of the ScotsChronicles 58

INDEX

261

Montague, Charles, Lord Halifax (d. 1715) 129

Montague, lord, see Pole, HenryMontrose, marquess of, see Graham, JamesMore, Sir Thomas 23, 85Mores (York bookseller) 73Morning-star out of the North, The 99–100Morrill, John 8Morrison, Richard James (alias Zadkiel)

189Morte Darthur 146‘Mother Bunch’ 151, 186‘Mother Osborne’ 156Mother Shipton 1, 7, 9, 11, 12, 53, 60–9,

73–83, 85–98, 102, 104, 106, 116,143–4, 145, 153, 155, 156–7,170–81, 183–93, 194, 195, 196

Mother Shipton moth (Callistege Mi) 156Mother Shipton Triumphant 156‘Mother Shipton’s Wish’ 156Moulton (Ches.) 114Moushold Heath (Norfolk) 50Mozley, Henry 149Müntzer, Thomas 55Murray, John 153Musselburgh Field, battle of 48Muston (Yorks., ER) 35Myngs, Sir Christopher (alias Minnes)

84–5

Nantwich (Ches.) 127, 132Narcliff, Lady, of Chelsea 133National Health Service 179navy 83Naylor, Peter 119Neile, Richard, archbishop of York 182Ness, Christopher 101Neville, Sir Edward 23Neville, Sir John, of the Chevet (Yorks.,

WR) 30–1Neville, Sir Thomas, son of George, Lord

Bergavenny 31Neville, William, son of John, Lord

Latimer 25New Malton (Yorks., NR) 35Newark on Trent (Notts.) 164Newcastle-upon-Tyne 37, 60, 64, 186

Observant Friary 37Newcastle, duke of, see Pelham, HenryNewcastle-under-Lyme (Staffs.) 118Newgate prison 95newspapers 177, 193, 196Newton, Humphey 103Newtonian science 144

Nicolson, William 171Nidd (Yorks., WR) 161Nidd, river 163, 170, 172, 178, 179,

180–1, 184, 191Nidderdale 158Nightingale, Richard 113Nixon 1, 7, 9, 11, 12, 88, 98, 102–9, 111,

116–17, 119–23, 126–8, 130–5, 137,139, 140–1, 143, 145–8, 150–6, 157,186, 190, 194, 195, 196

Noble, Francis 156Noble, John 156nonconformity 138, 183Norfolk 40, 152Norfolk, duke of, see Howard, ThomasNorman Conquest 107Normans 59, 60, 159North Foreland, battle of 85North Sea 73Northallerton (Yorks., NR) 45northern star 96Northfleet (Kent) 29Northmoor (Oxon.) 29Northumberland, countess of, see Percy,

Catherine (d. 1542)Northumberland, duke of, see Dudley,

JohnNorthumberland, earl of, see Percy,

Henry (d. 1527); Percy, Thomas (d. 1537); Percy, Thomas (exec. 1572)

Northwich (Ches.) 104Norton Priory/Abbey (Ches.) 104,

105Norway 36Norwich 40, 64, 188Nostradamus 56, 101, 120, 130, 153Notes and Queries 189Nottingham 79, 119Nottinghamshire 31nurse 144

Oeclampadius, John 56Ogden, Samuel 147Old Malton (Yorks., ER) 35Oldfield, Anne 125Oldmixon, John 110, 123–4, 125–8, 129,

130, 131–5, 137–40, 145–6, 149Arcana Gallica 126The Dutch Barrier Our’s 125False Steps of the Ministry 126History of Addresses 123The Life and Posthumous Works of

Arthur Mainwaring, Esq. 125

INDEX

262

Memoirs of Ireland 126Memoirs of North-Britain 126The Secret History of Europe 125

Opera of Operas, The 143–4oral culture 6, 7, 75, 82, 121, 140, 141–2,

186–8, 191–2, 195Orange, house of 96, 148–9Orchard-Wyndham (Som.) 185Ormerod, George 152, 153Osborne, Thomas, earl of Danby

(d. 1712) 168Osiander, Andreas 55–6Oswald, minister of Trinitarians of

Knaresborough 162Otley (Yorks., WR) 191Ottomans 17Oulton mill (Ches.) 132, 133Oundle (Northants.) 79Ouse, river 63Ouseley, Ralph 186Ouseley, Sir William 186Over (Ches.) 104, 105, 107, 108, 154Oversole, Richard 45Oxford 72, 164Oxford, earl of, see Vere, John deOxford university 124; see also Cardinal

College

Page, Richard 69Paicock, John 36Paicock, Michael 36palatinate, see Cheshire palmistry 187Pannal (Yorks., WR) 160pantomime 144papacy 25, 44, 56–7, 59, 79, 88–9, 94, 100Paris 164Parker, Martin 78Parker, Matthew 43parliament 16, 26, 31, 70, 77, 115, 117,

118, 120, 121, 153, 182, 183Partridge (Tom Jones) 141Partridge, John 99, 102, 130, 132, 195Passenger, T. 84Paston family 39Pateley Bridge (Yorks., NR) 181patriarchy 7Patrick, Simon, bishop of Chichester and

Ely 128–9, 135Patten, William 48, 50Paul V, pope 166peasantry 3, 32Peckforton, George 138Peckforton Hall (Ches.) 138

Peckforton mill (Ches.) 132, 138Pele, Roger, abbot of Furness 32–3Pelham, Henry, duke of Newcastle

(d. 1864) 162Pennant, Thomas 172, 180Penrith (Cumbria) 151Pepys, Samuel 1, 83Percy, Catherine, countess of

Northumberland (d. 1542), wife ofHenry Percy 161

Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland (d. 1527) 34, 161

Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland (d. 1537) 66–7

Percy, Mary 182Percy, Thomas 12Percy, Thomas, earl of Northumberland

(exec. 1572) 12, 65, 66, 69, 71, 72,73, 75, 80, 88, 94

Percy family 34, 36, 68, 182Perkynson, Thomas 103Perth 59Peterborough

cathedral 50, 92Phillips, Edward

and John Earnest Gaillard, The RoyalChace, or, Merlin’s Cave 144

Pickhill (Yorks., NR) 191Picts 59Pilgrimage of Grace 3, 11, 32–4, 35–6, 43,

66, 113Pilgrim’s Tale, The 22Pinkie, battle of (1547) 48Piozzi, Hester Lynch, Mrs 147Pitt, James 156Plantagenet, Arthur, Viscount Lisle 29Plantagenet, Richard, duke of York 137playing cards 187Plumpton, Agnes 162Plumpton, Robert 162Plumpton family of Plumpton 181Pocklington (Yorks., ER) 34Pococke, Richard, bishop of Meath/Ossory

171, 183poetry 103Pole, Henry, lord Montague (exec. 1539)

23Pole, Reginald, Cardinal 23, 89poll tax 158Pollard, Richard 19Pontefract (‘Pomfret’) (Yorks., WR)

honour 62–3, 67Poole, John 150Poole, M. 150

INDEX

263

Poole, Thomas, junior 150Poole, Thomas, senior 150poor 85pope 30; see also Alexander IV, Clement

VII, Julius II, Paul VPope, Alexander

Windsor-Forest 102, 131Popish Plot 96Popley, Thomas 162population increase 109Portcullis pursuivant, see Fayery, Robert

44postcards 184Poulett, George 20Powell, George

The Treacherous Brothers 93Powell, Ted 5preachers, preaching 5prehistory 172Presbyterianism 89, 95, 134Preston (Lancs.) 126Preston, viscount, see Graham, Richard‘Pretender, old’, ‘young’, see Stuart,

Charles Edward; Stuart, JamesFrancis Edward

Priestley, JosephHistory and Present State of Electricity

151Prince (ship) 83print, printing 5–6, 21–2, 38, 51, 54, 55,

57, 58, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 122, 125,140, 150–1, 162, 180, 185–92, 195

proclamation 3, 37, 78prognostications 43, 55, 57Prophecy of the eagle 16prophesying (speaking/interpreting word

of God) 10–11prophesyings 87Protestant Petition (1681) 95Protestantism 4, 10, 22, 43, 47, 48, 49, 50,

51, 55, 56, 58, 59, 73, 87, 88, 89, 94,95, 97, 100, 128, 132, 140, 147,181–2

Pym, John 76Pynson, Richard 162

Rackstow’s Museum, Fleet St 186Radcliffe, Robert, earl of Sussex (d. 1542)

66railways 153, 178, 189, 191Raine, James 37Ralph, Trinitarian friar 159Rastell, John 23rationalism 116, 155, 194–5, 197

Rawdon, Marmaduke 166, 168, 170Rawlinson, William 32–3Ray, John 166, 168, 170, 179Rayner, Simeon 189recusancy 182Redhouse (Yorks., WR) 182Reformation 5, 7, 11, 23, 33, 94Regiomontanus 56regionalism 1, 8, 194reindeer 186religion 5reservoirs 191Restoration 76, 81, 82, 88, 90, 94, 95, 99,

134, 149Revelation 56Rhymer, Thomas the, see ThomasRibble, river 142Rich, Henry, earl of Holland (exec. 1649)

168Rich, John 144Richard, Lewis ap 19Richard III, king of England 62, 102,

109–10, 137, 161Richard of Cornwall 159–60Richardson, Thomas 151Richmond, archdeaconry of 162Richmond, duke of, see Fitzroy, HenryRichmond, earl of, see Henry VIIRichmond herald, see Machado, RogerRichmond Palace 143–4rickets 166–7Ridley Pool (Ches.) 104Rimbault, Edward 190Riot Act 129Ripley 158Ripon (Yorks., WR) 70, 161, 173, 175,

181Roberts, James 122–3Robertson, Bell 6Robin Hood 11–12, 159Robinson, Jacob 156Rochester, earl of, see Hyde, LaurenceRoman remains 172, 185romance 6Rome 121Rome, see papacyRos family 184‘Rosamond’s pool’, St James’s Park 138Roscarrock, Nicolas 181Rose tavern, Newgate 44Ross family/Roos family 94Rosse, Stephen 35Rothwell (Yorks., WR) 66Rous, John 60

INDEX

264

Rowley, William 57Birth of Merlin 57, 97

Royal Society 171Rudston (Yorks., ER) 36Runcorn (Ches.) 153Runcorn, Thomas 114Rupert, prince 83Russell, John, lord Russell (d. 1555) 37Russell, William, earl/duke of Bedford

(d. 1700) 135Rutland, duke of, see Manners, John

HenryRymer, Thomas 176

Foedera 176

Sacheverell, Henry 125, 129Sadler, Mrs, daughter of Sir Edward Coke

165St Andrews university 47St Ann 166St Augustine 55St Bartholomew’s Hospital 164St Brigitta 16St David’s Day 111St John, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Walter

St John 135St John, Henry, viscount Bolingbroke,

earl of Bolingbroke (d. 1751) 134St John, Johanna, daughter of Oliver

St John, wife of Sir Walter St John134

St John, Lady, of Battersea 133St John, Sir Walter 116, 132, 133, 134–5St Katherine’s Hospital by the Tower 43St Maurice Abbey (Vienne, Burgundy)

139St Oswald’s Hospital, Worcester 29St Osyth (Essex) 39St Patrick’s purgatory 20St Paul’s cathedral 44, 88St Paul’s church, Covent Garden 135St Robert of Knaresborough 159, 161–2,

165, 179, 180–1, 192Saint Stephen’s Tripod 156St Thomas a Becket 21Salisbury (Wilts.) 64, 118salt 104Saltmarsh, John 82Saltonstall, Wye

Complaint of Time against the . . . Scots(1639) 77

Salvan, Lady Anne 70Sandwich (Kent) 32Sandys, Windsor 83

Sangreal 153Saturn 100Savage, Sir John, the younger 109, 110Saxons 15, 57, 60, 106Scarborough (Yorks., NR) 35–6, 37, 70,

158, 168–9, 178Carmelite Friary (Whitefriars) 35, 36,

37, 38Castle 35–6, 158Dominican Friary (Blackfriars) 35, 37Franciscan Friary (Greyfriars) 35, 37, 38St Mary’s Church 38

scepticism 57, 99, 146–7, 153–5, 170, 176,177–8, 190, 192

science 143Scotland, Scots 6, 25, 30, 31, 37, 45–50,

57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 73, 75, 78, 80, 81,82, 89, 101, 103, 111, 115, 126, 139,146, 149, 153, 160, 168, 171, 177,186

Union with England 187Scott, Alexander 48Scott, J. 186Scott, James, duke of Monmouth

117–18Scottish Nationalist Party 153Scriven (Yorks., WR) 183Scrope, Richard, of Castlecombe (Wilts.)

31Scrope, Stephen 31Scudamore, John, viscount Scudamore

(d. 1671) 83sculpture 69‘Seton field’ (interpreted at Pinkie, 1547)

48sexual politics 4Seymour, Edward, earl of Hertford, duke

of Somerset (exec. 1552) 20, 47–8,50

Seymour, Elizabeth, duchess of Somerset(d. 1722) 99–100, 101

Seymour, Jane, queen of England 43, 44Seymour family 165Shagan, Ethan 5, 6Shakerley, Peter 119, 120Shakespeare, William 57

King Lear 57Sheldon, Gilbert 147Sheriff Hutton, lordship of (Yorks., NR)

40castle 61–3

Shipton, Mother, see Mother ShiptonShipton, Tobias 175Shish, John 137

INDEX

265

Shrewsbury, duke of, see Talbot, CharlesShrewsbury, earl of, see Talbot, Francis;

Talbot, GeorgeShropshire 148, 150, 153Simpson, J. W. 184Sims, George 190Singleton, Robert 22, 32Skeat, Walter W. 189, 195Skelton, John 40Skelton in Overton (Yorks., NR) 71Skipton (Yorks., WR) 68Skydmore, Thomas 29, 42Slanye, Richard 32, 45Slingsby, Anne, daughter of Henry

Slingsby (I) 182Slingsby, C. H. R. 184Slingsby, Charles 170Slingsby, Sir Charles 176Slingsby, Frances, wife of Henry Slingsby

(I), daughter of William Vavasour ofWeston 182

Slingsby, Francis 71, 181–2Slingsby, Gylford 71Slingsby, Henry (I), son of Francis 158,

182Slingsby, Henry (II) 60, 180–3Slingsby, Sir Henry (III), son of Sir

Thomas 166, 170, 181, 183Slingsby, Mary, wife of Francis Slingsby

182Slingsby, Savile 170Slingsby, Sir Thomas (d. 1726), son of

Henry (II) 182–3Slingsby, Sir Thomas Turner 181, 183Slingsby, Thomas 163Slingsby, William, discoverer of the Tewit

Well 71, 163, 166, 182Slingsby family 71, 166, 180–1Smith, G. 77Smith, Joshua 75Smithfield 27, 88Smollett, Tobias 171Smyth, Richard 27Snagg, R. 145Snaith (Yorks., WR) 67soap 188Society for the Diffusion of Useful

Knowledge 193Society for the Propagation of Christian

Knowledge 135Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-on-

Tyne 176Society of Antiquaries of Scotland 176Sockburn (co. Durham) 36

Somers, John, Lord Somers (d. 1716) 124Somerset, duke of, see Seymour, Edward,

duke of SomersetSong of the Lady Bessy, The 110Southerne, Thomas 124Southwark (London) 95Southwark, great fire of 96Southwell, Sir Richard 41Southwell, Sir Robert 31Spa 163, 165, 167Spain, the Spanish 17, 21, 24, 57, 79, 187Speck, Bill 4Spenser, Edmund 54

The Faerie Queene 54Spiritualist, The 190Spofforth (Yorks., WR) 67, 158, 181springs 163Spufford, Margaret 6Stafford, Sir Henry 161stag 186Staincross wapentake (Yorks.) 67Stanhope, Sir Edward 164, 165Stanhope, Lady Katherine 165Stanhope, Michael 164–5, 166, 167

News out of Yorkshire 164–5Stanhope, Sir Michael 165Stanhope, Philip, Lord Stanhope

(d. 1656) 165Stanley, Charlotte, countess of Derby

(d. 1664) 112Stanley, Edward, earl of Derby (d. 1572)

66Stanley, Thomas, Lord Stanley (d. 1504)

109Stanley, William, earl of Derby (d. 1702)

118, 120Stanley family 109Stapleton, Sir Brian 31Stapleton, Richard 36–7, 38Star Chamber 70, 113stationers 72Stationers’ Company 122, 145Stewart, Alexander, duke of Albany

(d. 1485) 45Stewart, Matthew, earl of Lennox

(d. 1571) 48Stilton (Cambs.) 186

Crown and Woolpack Inn 186Stirling 49, 59Stoke by Clare College (Suffolk) 43Stoke Field, battle of 103Stokesley, John, bishop of London 27Strafford, earl of, see Wentworth, ThomasStrickland, Sir Walter William 192

INDEX

266

Stroud, Joseph 119Stuart, Charles Edward, the ‘Young

Pretender’ 139Stuart, house of 96, 121Stuart, James Francis Edward, the

‘Old Pretender’ 122, 126, 134, 140Studley Park (Yorks., WR) 172Stuteville, William de 159succession 45, 48–9Suffolk 60Suffolk, duke of, see Brandon,

CharlesSun, The 188–9superstition 9, 155, 165Surgeons, Corporation of 151Surrey, earl of, see Howard, HenrySurtees Society 187Sussex 6, 19Sussex, earl of, see Radcliffe, Robert,

earl of SussexSutton Coldfield (War.) 27Sutton Valence (Kent) 29Swaffham (Norfolk) 41sweating sickness 66Sweden, Swedes 136Swift, Jonathan 99–100, 101–2, 130, 143,

195The Conduct of the Allies 125Famous Prediction of Merlin 99Miscellany 99‘Windsor prophecy’ 99–100, 101

Swindells, Alice 150–1Swindells, G. 150–1Swindells, J. 150–1Swinesco (in Knaresborough; Yorks., WR)

159Syms, Christopher 81–2Syon monastery (Middx.) 29Syriac language 164

Tadcaster (Yorks., WR) 191Tailboys, Elizabeth Lady 18Talbot, Charles, duke of Shrewsbury

(d. 1718) 135Talbot, Francis, 5th earl of Shrewsbury

(d. 1590) 70Talbot, George, 4th earl of Shrewsbury

(d. 1538) 113Talbot family 68Tankard family of Boroughbridge 181Taylor, J. 189Taylor, Joseph 171, 180tea leaves 187Temple Hirst (Yorks., WR) 67

Temple Newsam (Yorks., WR) 48, 66, 67Terry, Samuel 140textiles 158Thackeray, W. 92Thames, river 62, 96theatre 93, 143, 147, 188theosophy 192Thetford (Norfolk) 41

Thetford Priory 40Thirsk (Yorks., NR) 70Thomas, earl of Lancaster 158Thomas, Keith 1, 9, 11, 99, 145Thomas of Erceldoun, alias the Rhymer

11, 35, 45–7, 49–50, 57–8, 59, 80,103, 139

Thomason, George 78, 79, 81, 82Thompson, Thomas 83–4

The Life of Mother Shipton 83–4, 85Thomson, R. S. 6Thoresby, John 169Thoresby, Ralph 166, 167, 168, 169, 170,

179Thorner (Yorks., WR) 160–1Thornton MS (Lincoln Cathedral, MS

91) 46Thwaytes, William 34Thynne, William 40Tilson, Samuel 184Tinsley, William 192, 193tobacco 79Todde, William, prior of Malton 33–4, 37,

38Toki Flos, see Flos, TokiTompson, John 32Tonge, Ezerel 100Tonstall, George 169Topp, Barbara, daughter of Sir Walter

St John, wife of Sir John Topp 135Tory party 100, 116, 117–18, 121, 124,

125, 167, 183tourism 158, 171, 178–9, 184–5Tower of London 29, 30, 39, 68, 78Towneley cycle of plays 65Townshend, Charles, viscount

Townshend (d. 1738) 130townsmen 38–9Trahinier, Jean 130treason 23, 27, 30, 32, 44, 165Trithemius 153Trowbridge (Wilts.) 43True Cross 50Truswell, Mr 101Tuckett, John 187Turks 17, 25, 59

INDEX

267

Turner, William 163Tushingham, John 150Two Strange Prophecies 77, 79Tyrrel, J. 156

Ulleskelfe-on-the-Wharfe (Yorks., WR)191

Upper Ossory, countess of, see FitzPatrick,Anne FitzRoy

Usher, James 100Utkinton (Ches.) 138Uvedale, William, of Wickham 16

V., T. 79vagabonds 85Vale Royal 102, 108, 111–12, 114, 115,

120, 122, 128, 129, 134, 136, 142,145, 147, 148, 152, 154

Abbey 104, 105, 107–8, 110, 112–13,114

abbot 107Valor Ecclesiasticus 160Vavasour, Lady Mary, wife of Sir Thomas,

daughter of John Dodge of Copes(Suffolk) 165

Vavasour, Sir Thomas 165Vavasour, Sir Walter, of Haslewood 183Ven, Christopher 36Vere, John de, earl of Oxford (d. 1513)

39Vergil, Polydore 15, 53Vernon, Elizabeth, wife of Sir Thomas

Vernon of Hodnet, daughter ofThomas Cholmondeley (II) 116

Veysey, Christopher 28Veysey, John, bishop of Exeter 27–8Victoria, princess royal 184Vienna 96Vikings 106Villiers, George, duke of Buckingham

(d. 1628) 90, 148Villiers, Katherine, duchess of

Buckingham (d. 1649) 165Vincent, David 155

Wakefield (Yorks., WR) 65Walbran, John Richard 176

Pictorial Guide to Ripon and Harrogate176

Waldegrave, Robert 57Wales, the Welsh 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22,

23, 25, 27, 44, 45, 50, 55, 103, 149principality 110, 137Welsh language 111, 149

Walker, Joshua 178Essay on the Waters of Harrowgate 178

Wall, Thomas, Windsor herald 44Wallop, Sir John 20Walpole, Horace 1, 141, 146Walpole, Robert, earl of Orford (d. 1745)

130Walsh, Sir Walter 67Walter, brother of St Robert of

Knaresborough 159Warbeck, Perkin 15, 16Warburton, John 119Warburton, Thomas 119Warminster (Wilts.) 42, 105Warrington 150

Academy 151Wars of the Roses 152Warton, William 24Warwick, earl of, see Dudley, JohnWarwickshire 8Washburn, river/valley 158, 191Waterton, Alice, wife of Thomas

Waterton, daughter of HenrySlingsby (I) 182

Waterton, Thomas 182Watt, Tessa 4, 5–6Watts, John 5waxworks 186weather prediction 193Weaver, river 103, 127Weaverham (Ches.) 113–14Weaverthorpe (Yorks., ER) 34, 35Webb, William 103, 154well 103‘Wellome’ (?Yorks., ER) 34Wells, deanery of 101Welsh marches 119Wendon, Ralph 27–8Wentworth, Thomas, earl of Strafford

(exec. 1641) 90, 165Wentworth, Sir Thomas 67Wentworth, Sir William 165Werden, Robert 119West Acre Priory (Norfolk) 41West Indies 79West Midlands 106Westminster 19, 113Westminster Abbey 23, 135, 186Westminster palace 40Westmorland 33, 34, 35Weston, William 42Wetherby (Yorks., WR) 63Whalley, John 31Wharfe, river 63

INDEX

268

Wheater, W. K. 177Knaresborough and its Rulers 177

Whetnall, George 31Whetnall, William 31Whig Examiner, The 125Whig history 2Whig party 100, 101, 116, 117, 119, 121,

122, 123, 124–5, 126, 129, 134, 135,136, 140, 183

Whitby Abbey (Yorks., NR) 37White, William 177‘white king’ 75, 80–1Whitegate (Ches.) 104, 108, 111Whitehall 75Whixley (Yorks., WR) 160–1Whole Prophesie of Scotland . . . 57–8, 61Widdrington, William 137Widnes (Ches.) 153Wilbraham, Frances 152

For and Against 152Wilkes, John

North Briton 156William III, ‘of Orange’, king of England

97, 117, 118–19, 124, 148William the Conqueror, king of England

106Willoughby, Sir Thomas CJCP 31Wilson, G. H. 155

Wonderful Characters 155Wiltshire 42, 151, 152Wimborne Minster (Dorset) 42Winchester (Hants.) 15Winchester College 29‘Windle Pool’ (Ches.) 104Windsor herald, see Wall, ThomasWingham (Kent) 29Wirral (Ches.) 105Wirral forest (Ches.) 107Witchcraft Act (1736) 156witches, witchcraft 10, 74, 85–7, 144, 156,

188Withers, Fabian 100Wittie, Robert 169Wogan, Sir John 40Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal 12, 18–19, 34,

42, 60–1, 65, 66–9, 73, 74, 75, 82,87, 88, 91, 94, 187

Wolvele, William de 160women 11‘Woodman, old’ 127, 128Woodnesborough (Kent) 31–2, 45Woodshawe, Thomas 110Woodville family 16

Elizabeth, queen of England 16wool 69Worcester 15Worde, Wynkyn de 162Wordsworth, Christopher, bishop of

Lincoln 190working class 155Wressle (Yorks., ER) 67Wright, John 119Wrightson, Keith 7Wriothesley, Thomas 33, 44Wyatt, George 20–1Wygston, Roger 114Wyntoun, Andrew 46

yeomen 3, 33, 39Yeovil (Som.) 190York 11, 12, 60–6, 68–73, 75–6, 78,

80, 81, 82, 87, 88, 93, 94, 157, 159, 163, 164, 165, 168, 186–7, 191

All Saints’ Church, North St 73Augustinian Friary 37Holgate 62–3Holgate Bar 62, 73Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate 62–4,

88, 94King’s House 61, 157Knavesmire 62–3mayoralty 159, 165Micklegate ward 94Minster 63, 69, 72, 168Monk Bar 62, 73Ouse Bridge 62–4, 72, 73, 88, 94 Petergate 62St Crux Church, Pavement 62, 65St Mary Bishophill Junior 62–3St Peter’s Abbey 184Stokton Moor 62–4walls 62, 73Walmgate Bar 62, 73Yorkshire Museum 184

York, archbishop of 63York and North Midland Railway 191Yorke family of Gouthwaite 181Yorkshire 31, 33, 50, 64, 67, 72, 73, 77,

78, 87, 94, 103, 105, 106, 157, 164,168, 174, 177, 186, 192, 194, 197

Yorkshire Notes and Queries 192Yoye, John 36

Zadkiel (alias Richard James Morrison)189

INDEX

269