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Husband to turn him out of the Mill, but to no Purpose.
I am credibly informed, that the Lady Narcliff of Chelsea, and the Lady St. John of Battersea, used to talk of this same Peter; and they both asserted the Truth of this Prophecy, and its Accomplishment, with other Remarkables.
The Noise of Nixon at last reached the Ears of King James VI. who sent for him: But he refused to go, alledging, That he should be starved. The King, being informed of Nixon’s foolish Refusal, said, He would take care that he should not be starved, and ordered him to be brought up to Town.—But whether he prophesied to the King, is uncertain; yet he is not the first Fool that has made a good Court-prophet.
Now, that Nixon might be the better provided for, he was order’d to be kept in the Kitchen; but he grew so very troublesom in licking and picking the Meat, that the Cooks lock’d him up in a Hole: And the King going suddenly from Hampton-court to London, they forgot the Fool in the Hurry; so that he was starved to Death at the King’s Court, according as he had before foretold.
There are divers Passages of our Prophet’s Life and Sayings transmitted froth Father to Son in this Country; to wit, That, when he lived with a Farmer, he goared an Ox so unmercifully, that one of the Plowmen threatned to beat him for abusing the Beast. Nixon said, That the Beast should not be his Master’s three Days. Now mark the Event: A Life in an Estate falling at that Time, the Lord of the Manour took the said Ox for an Herriot. As whimsical as this Account may seem to some, it was told to the Lady Cowper, in the Year 1610, by Dr. Patrick late Bishop of Ely, then Chaplain to Sir Walter St. John; and that Lady had the following Particulars relating to this Prophecy, and the Fulfilling of many Parts of it, from Madam Cholmondley’s Sister, who affirmed as follows.
That a Multitude of People gathering together to see the Eagle before-mentioned, the Bird was frighted
