will come when you will be as low as I am, and that is a low one indeed. (The Duke was afterward beheaded.)
“My Lord Piercy said, And what say you of me? My Lord, said shee, shooe your horse in the quick and you shall doe well, but your bodie will be buried in Yorke pavement, and your head shall be stolne from the Barre and carried into France. At which they all laughed, saying, that would be a great lop between the head and the body. (This proved true, for hee rose in rebellion in the north, and by not flying when hee might, hee was taken and beheaded in Yorke, where his body was buried, and his head was stolne away and carried into France, tempore Eliz. Reg.)
“Then said the Lord Darcy, And what thinke you of me? She said, You have made a great gunne, shoot it off, for it will never doe you any good; you are going to warre, you will paine many a man but will kill none. So they went away.
“Not long after the Cardinall came to Cawood, and going to the top of the tower, he asked, where stands Yorke and how far it was thither; and said that one said he should never see Yorke; Nay, said one, shee said you might see Yorke, but never come at it. He vowed to burne her when he came to Yorke. Then they shewed him York, and told him it was but eight miles thence, he said that he would soon be there; but being sent for by the king, he dyed in his way to London at Leicester of a Laske. And Shipton’s wife said to Mr. Besley, yonder is a fine stall built for the Cardinall in the Minster of gold, pearle, and precious stones; gee and present one of the pillers to King Henry, and he did so.”
It would seem that some of the versions of this prophecy previously printed could not be reconciled with the facts as they occurred, so the author places a note in the margin, “Note that this prophecie was never exactly printed before.”
Furthermore, she prophesied that the day would come when the north should rue it wondrous sore, and the south should rue it evermore; when hares should kindle on the cold hearthstone, and lads should marry ladies and bring them home. This the editor supposes to refer to the suppression of religious houses, and says that the natural phenomenon referred to did actually occur at Lord Will. Howard’s house at Naworth. I do not know what truth there may be in this last statement, but a similar prophecy is attributed to Thomas the Rhymer with respect to his residence, and also to Waldhave. The truth however seems to be that the idea was borrowed from an old MS. in the Harleian collection, where it is used to indicate utter desolation, and not applied to any particular locality.
Among others who visited her was the Abbot of Beverley, who desired to discover what would be the result to him of the disputes raging between Henry VIII. and his order. He came disguised, but he had no chance of maintaining it against a prophetess who could see her customers through a door. No sooner had he knocked than she called out, “Come in, Mr. Abbot, for you are not so much disguised but the fox may be seen through the sheep’s skin; it is not those clothes makes a lay person, no more than a long gown makes a man a lawyer; come, take a stool and sit down, for you shall not goe away unsatisfied of what you desire.” The prophecy, however, with which she favoured him had less reference to his own particular case than to that of his order and Cardinal Wolsey; still it is said to have been sufficient to send him away in great admiration of her powers, though it is stated that at the time he was utterly unable to understand what she meant.
The coming of King James she foretold, and also that when he was in London his “tayle should be at Edinborough,” which, as every reader of history knows, was the case, and that it extended a good way beyond that city. “And when there is a Lord Maior at Yorke let him beware of a stab;” a caution not uttered without a reason, for we are told a Lord Mayor whose house was in the Minster at York was killed with three stabs. Apparently there are bad days in store for the citizens of London for at another time she said, “The time will come when England shall tremble and quake for feare of a dead man that shal be heard to speak; Then will the Dragon give the Bull a great snap, and when the one is down they will go to London town: Then there will be a great battell between England and Scotland, and they will be pacified for a time; and when they come to Brammamore they fight, and are againe pacified for a time; then there will be a great battell between England and Scotland at Scotmore: Then will a raven sit on the cross, and drinke as much blood of nobles as of the comons; then woe is me, for London shal be destroyed for ever after.” Here the editor puts a note in the margin running thus. It is to be noted and admired that this cross in Shipton’s dayes was a tall stone cross, which ever since hath been by degrees sinking into the ground, and now is sunke so low that a raven may sit upon the top of it, and reach with her bill to the ground.
One more extract, which as the events predicted have not yet come to pass, possibly remain to be fulfilled, and I close my notice of a book which, without the cover, would probably fetch, at a sale at Sotheby & Wilkinson’s, or Puttick & Simpson’s, twenty times its weight in gold. “There will come a woman with one eye and she shall tread in many men’s bloud to the knee; and a man leaning on a staffe by her, she shall say to him, What art thou? and he shall say, I am the King of Scots and she shall say, Goe with me to my house, for there are three knights, and he will goe with her, and stay there three dayes and three nights; then will England be lost, and they will cry twice a day, England is lost. Then there will be three knights in Petergate in Yorke, and the one shall not know of the other. There shall be a child born in Pomfret with three thumbs, and those three knights will give him three horses to holde while they winne England, and all noble blood shall be gone but one; and they shall carry him to Sheriff Hatton’s castle, six miles from York, and he shall dye ther, and they shall chuse ther an Earl in the field, and hanging their horses on a thorne, will rue the time that ever they were borne to see so much bloodshed. Then they