added to the dark speech of the prophetess
by those who remembered in what manner he
actually died. But whether the wife of Shipton
(as she is modestly styled) uttered the
words set down for her or not, the association
of her name with such high personages
affords evidence, at all events, of the repute in
which she was popularly held.

Of all her contemporaneous admirers Mr.
Besly seems to have been the most devoted
and the most favoured. It was to him the
great lords addressed themselves before they
ventured to approach Dame Ursula's habitation;
and he it was who knew the way in,
which the rest did not. I look upon Besly
as a sort of semi-wizard, who was in the habit
of shutting up his shop in the Micklegate
earlier than his neighbours, in order to go
and pass his evenings with Mother Shipton—
Toby being defunct—and propitiating her
with a horn-handle to her stick of his own
workmanship, he being, probably, a dealer
in horn-ware, combs, lanthorns, drinking-
utensils, and so forth; but propitiating her
still more by the rapt attention which he
gave to her prophecies, and the leading questions
by which he brought them out. And it
is, no doubt, to Besly that we are indebted
for the preservation of such of the sayings of
the wife of Shipton as are extant. I infer so
much, as well from what has already appeared
as from what more I propose to take from the
curious volume already mentioned. It proceeds
thus:

"Mr. Besly seeing these things fall out as
she had foretold" (this is not absolutely the
fact, if it be true as is generally stated, that
Mother Shipton died in fifteen hundred and
fifty-one, three years before the Duke of
Suffolk) "desired her to tell him some more
prophecies." The old lady opened upon him
like a flood-gate. "Mr. Besly," said she, "before
that Owse bridge and Trinity Church meet,
they shall build in the day and it shall fall in
the night, untill they get the highest stone of
Trinity steeple to be the lowest stone of
Owse bridge." The editor of this collection
of prophecies, acting as chorus throughout,
gives a note of explanation here: "This
came to passe; for Trinity steeple in Yorke
was blown downe with a tempest, and Owse
bridge was broken down with a great flood;
and what they did with repairing the bridge
in the day-time with the stone of the steeple
fell down in the night, until they remembering
the prophesie, laid the highest stone of the
steeple for foundation of the bridge, and then
the worke stood. And by this was partly
verified another of Mother Shipton's prophesies,
viz., That her maid should live to drive
her cow over Trinity steeple."

A mystical announcement of wide-spread-
ing evil came next:

"The day will come that the North shall
rue it wondrous sore, but the South shall rue
it for evermore; when Hares kindle on cold
hearth-stones; and lads shall marry ladies
and bring them home; then shall you have
a yeare of pining, hunger, and then a dearth
without Corne, a woful day shall be seene
in England, a King and a Queene." Chorus
observes upon this: "Supposed to be meant
by suppression of Abbies and other religious
houses; and at the Lord Wil. Howard's
house at Naworth, a Hare came and kindled
in his kitchen upon his hearth." Very good,
but how about the king and queen? Did
she mean Philip and Mary? But the prophecy
seems to have been left unfinished.
Perhaps it was too much for the nerves of
Mr. Besly!

Mother Shipton next tried her hand at
this story.

"The first coming of the King of Scots
shall be at Holgate town, but he shall not
come in through the Barre, and when the
King of the North shall be at London, his
tayle shall be at Edinborough." Says the
interpreter: "This was fulfilled in K. James
comming in (to York); for such multitudes
of people stood at Holgate bar to behold
him that, to avoid the presse, he was forced
to ride another way." Respecting the latter
part of the prophecy, he observes: "When
K. James was at London, his children were
at Edinbrough, preparing to come to England."

Domestic subjects follow: "After this
shall water come over Owse bridge, and a
windmill shall be set on a tower; and an
elme tree shall lie at every man's doore; and
at that time women shall wear great hats
and great bands." Chorus remarks: "This
is verified by the conducting of water into
Yorke streets through bored elmes; and the
conduit-house hath a windmill on the top
that draws up the water." Of the women's
great hats and bands he says nothing: they
were, probably, not so remarkable as the
great petticoats of the present day.

"And when," continues Ursula, "there is a
lord-mayor at Yorke, let him beware of a
stab. When two knights shall fall out in
the castle yard, they shall never be kindly all
their lives after. When all Colton hath
borne crops of corne, seven yeares after you
shall heare newes, then shall two judges goe
in and out at Walmgate barre." Here follow
the commentaries: "A lord-mayor, whose
house was in the Minster yard in York, was
killed with three stabs. Sir T. Wentworth
and Sir John Savill, in choosing knights in
the shire, in the castle yard at Yorke, did so
fall out that they were never well reconciled.
Colton hagge, in her time, was woodland
ground, full of trees, which bore corne seven
yeares, and the seventh yeare after this was
the yeare of the cumming in of the Scots,
and their taking of Newcastle. In the year
sixteen hundred and six, two judges of assize
went out at a gate in Yorke, where never any
judges were knowne to goe out before."
More remarkable things than these happen
in our times unpredicted by Mother Shipton.