Lilly's edition gives the following more complete quotation from an older version:—
The North shall rue it wondrous sore,
But the South shall rue it for evermore.
When wars shall begin in the spring
Much wo to England it wild bring:
Then shall the Ladies cry well a-day,
That we ever liv'd to see this day.
Then best for them that have the least
And worst for them that have the most.
Not only is there this internal evidence of the pamphlets being more or less true copies of earlier records, but Lilly, in his Collection of Ancient and Modern Prophecies, published in 1645, makes this direct statement in the "introduction to the reader:"—
"Mother Shipton's" [prophecy] "was never yet questioned either for the verity or antiquity; the North of England hath many more of hers."
Did such a person as Mother Shipton ever live? Cardinal Wolsey was at Cawood in 1530, and the earliest record in existence of Mother Shipton, is dated 1641, leaving a gap of 111 years between the chief incident of her career and the oldest record thereof. But Lilly in 1645 speaks of various earlier records
