hundreds of years previously. They had a most pernicious effect upon the
mind of the vulgar, as they induced a belief in fatalism. By taking away
the hope of recovery--that greatest balm in every malady--they increased
threefold the ravages of the disease. One singular prediction almost drove
the unhappy people mad. An ancient couplet, preserved for ages by
tradition, foretold, that in the year 1630 the devil would poison all
Milan. Early one morning in April, and before the pestilence had reached
its height, the passengers were surprised to see that all the doors in the
principal streets of the city were marked with a curious daub, or spot, as
if a sponge, filled with the purulent matter of the plague-sores, had been
pressed against them. The whole population were speedily in movement to
remark the strange appearance, and the greatest alarm spread rapidly.
Every means was taken to discover the perpetrators, but in vain. At last
the ancient prophecy was remembered, and prayers were offered up in all
the churches, that the machinations of the Evil One might be defeated.
Many persons were of opinion that the emissaries of foreign powers were
employed to spread infectious poison over the city; but by far the greater
number were convinced that the powers of hell had conspired against them,
and that the infection was spread by supernatural agencies. In the mean
time the plague increased fearfully. Distrust and alarm took possession of
every mind. Every thing was believed to have been poisoned by the Devil;
the waters of the wells, the standing corn in the fields, and the fruit
upon the trees. It was believed that all objects of touch were poisoned;
the walls of the houses, the pavements of the streets, and the very
handles of the doors. The populace were raised to a pitch of ungovernable
fury. A strict watch was kept for the Devil's emissaries, and any man who
wanted to be rid of an enemy, had only to say that he had seen him
besmearing a door with ointment; his fate was certain death at the hands
of the mob. An old man, upwards of eighty years of age, a daily frequenter
of the church of St. Antonio, was seen, on rising from his knees, to wipe
with the skirt of his cloak the stool on which he was about to sit down. A
cry was raised immediately that he was besmearing the seat with poison. A
mob of women, by whom the church was crowded, seized hold of the feeble
old man, and dragged him out by the hair of his head, with horrid oaths
and imprecations. He was trailed in this manner through the mire to the
house of the municipal judge, that he might be put to the rack, and forced
to discover his accomplices; but he expired on the way. Many other victims
were sacrificed to the popular fury. One Mora, who appears to have been
half a chemist and half a barber, was accused of being in league with the
Devil to poison Milan. His house was surrounded, and a number of chemical
preparations were found. The poor man asserted, that they were intended as
preservatives against infection; but some physicians, to whom they were
submitted, declared they were poison, Mora was put to the rack, where he
for a long time asserted his innocence. He confessed at last, when his
courage was worn down by torture, that he was in league with the Devil and
foreign powers to poison the whole city; that he had anointed the doors,
and infected the fountains of water. He named several persons as his
accomplices, who were apprehended and put to a similar torture. They were
all found guilty, and executed. Mora's house was rased to the ground, and
a column erected on the spot, with an inscription to commemorate his
guilt.
While the public mind was filled with these marvellous occurrences, the
plague continued to increase. The crowds that were brought together to
witness the executions spread the infection among one another. But the
fury of their passions, and the extent of their credulity, kept pace with
the violence of the plague; every wonderful and preposterous story was
believed. One, in particular, occupied them to the exclusion, for a long
time, of every other. The Devil himself had been seen. He had taken a
house in Milan, in which he prepared his poisonous unguents, and furnished
them to his emissaries for distribution. One man had brooded over such
tales till he became firmly convinced that the wild nights of his own
fancy were realities. He stationed himself in the market-place of Milan,
and related the following story to the crowds that gathered round him. He
was standing, he said, at the door of the cathedral, late in the evening;
and when there was nobody nigh, he saw a dark-coloured chariot, drawn by
six milk-white horses, stop close beside him. The chariot was followed by
a numerous train of domestics in dark liveries, mounted on dark-coloured
steeds. In the chariot there sat a tall stranger of a majestic aspect; his
long black hair floated in the wind--fire flashed from his large black
eyes, and a curl of ineffable scorn dwelt upon his lips. The look of the
stranger was so sublime that he was awed, and trembled with fear when he
gazed upon him. His complexion was much darker than that of any man he had
ever seen, and the atmosphere around him was hot and suffocating. He
perceived immediately that he was a being of another world. The stranger,
seeing his trepidation, asked him blandly, yet majestically, to mount
beside him. He had no power to refuse, and before he was well aware that
he had moved, he found himself in the chariot. Onwards they went, with the
rapidity of the wind, the stranger speaking no word, until they stopped
before a door in the high-street of Milan. There was a crowd of people in
the street, but, to his great surprise, no one seemed to notice the
extraordinary equipage and its numerous train. From this he concluded that
they were invisible. The house at which they stopped appeared to be a
shop, but the interior was like a vast half-ruined palace. He went with
his mysterious guide through several large and dimly-lighted rooms. In one
of them, surrounded by huge pillars of marble, a senate of ghosts was
assembled, debating on the progress of the plague. Other parts of the
building were enveloped in the thickest darkness, illumined at intervals
by flashes of lightning, which allowed him to distinguish a number of
gibing and chattering skeletons, running about and pursuing each other, or
playing at leap-frog over one another's backs. At the rear of the mansion
was a wild, uncultivated plot of ground, in the midst of which arose a
black rock. Down its sides rushed with fearful noise a torrent of
poisonous water, which, insinuating itself through the soil, penetrated to
all the springs of the city, and rendered them unfit for use. After he had
been shewn all this, the stranger led him into another large chamber,
filled with gold and precious stones, all of which he offered him if he
would kneel down and worship him, and consent to smear the doors and
houses of Milan with a pestiferous salve which he held out to him. He now
knew him to be the Devil, and in that moment of temptation, prayed to God
to give him strength to resist. His prayer was heard--he refused the
bribe. The stranger scowled horribly upon him--a loud clap of thunder
burst over his head--the vivid lightning flashed in his eyes, and the next
moment he found himself standing alone at the porch of the cathedral. He
repeated this strange tale day after day, without any variation, and all
the populace were firm believers in its truth. Repeated search was made to
discover the mysterious house, but all in vain. The man pointed out
several as resembling it, which were searched by the police; but the Demon
of the Pestilence was not to be found, nor the hall of ghosts, nor the
poisonous fountain. But the minds of the people were so impressed with the
idea, that scores of witnesses, half crazed by disease, came forward to
swear that they also had seen the diabolical stranger, and had heard his
chariot, drawn by the milk-white steeds, rumbling over the streets at
midnight with a sound louder than thunder.
The number of persons who confessed that they were employed by the Devil
to distribute poison is almost incredible. An epidemic frenzy was abroad,
which seemed to be as contagious as the plague. Imagination was as
disordered as the body, and day after day persons came voluntarily forward
to accuse themselves. They generally had the marks of disease upon them,
and some died in the act of confession.
During the great plague of London, in 1665, the people listened with
similar avidity to the predictions of quacks and fanatics. Defoe says,
that at that time the people were more addicted to prophecies and
astronomical conjurations, dreams, and old wives' tales than ever they
were before or since. Almanacs, and their predictions, frightened them
terribly. Even the year before the plague broke out, they were greatly
alarmed by the comet which then appeared, and anticipated that famine,
pestilence, or fire would follow. Enthusiasts, while yet the disease had
made but little progress, ran about the streets, predicting that in a few
days London would be destroyed.
A still more singular instance of the faith in predictions occurred in
London in the year 1524. The city swarmed at that time with
fortune-tellers and astrologers, who were consulted daily by people of
every class in society on the secrets of futurity. As early as the month
of June 1523, several of them concurred in predicting that, on the 1st day
of February 1524, the waters of the Thames would swell to such a height as
to overflow the whole city of London, and wash away ten thousand houses.
The prophecy met implicit belief. It was reiterated with the utmost
confidence month after month, until so much alarm was excited that many
families packed up their goods, and removed into Kent and Essex. As the
time drew nigh, the number of these emigrants increased. In January,
droves of workmen might be seen, followed by their wives and children,
trudging on foot to the villages within fifteen or twenty miles, to await
the catastrophe. People of a higher class were also to be seen in wagons
and other vehicles bound on a similar errand. By the middle of January, at
least twenty thousand persons had quitted the doomed city, leaving nothing
but the bare walls of their homes to be swept away by the impending
floods. Many of the richer sort took up their abode on the heights of
Highgate, Hampstead, and Blackheath; and some erected tents as far away as
Waltham Abbey on the north, and Croydon on the south of the Thames.
Bolton, the prior of St. Bartholomew's, was so alarmed, that he erected,
at a very great expense, a sort of fortress at Harrow-on-the-Hill, which
he stocked with provisions for two months. On the 24th of January, a week
before the awful day which was to see the destruction of London, he
removed thither, with the brethren and officers of the priory and all his
household. A number of boats were conveyed in wagons to his fortress,
furnished abundantly with expert rowers, in case the flood, reaching so
high as Harrow, should force them to go farther for a resting-place. Many
wealthy citizens prayed to share his retreat; but the prior, with a
prudent forethought, admitted only his personal friends, and those who
brought stores of eatables for the blockade.
At last the morn, big with the fate of London, appeared in the east. The
wondering crowds were astir at an early hour to watch the rising of the
waters. The inundation, it was predicted, would be gradual, not sudden; so
that they expected to have plenty of time to escape as soon as they saw
the bosom of old Thames heave beyond the usual mark. But the majority were
too much alarmed to trust to this, and thought themselves safer ten or
twenty miles off. The Thames, unmindful of the foolish crowds upon its
banks, flowed on quietly as of yore. The tide ebbed at its usual hour,
flowed to its usual height, and then ebbed again, just as if twenty
astrologers had not pledged their words to the contrary. Blank were their
faces as evening approached, and as blank grew the faces of the citizens
to think that they had made such fools of themselves. At last night set
in, and the obstinate river would not lift its waters to sweep away even
one house out of the ten thousand. Still, however, the people were afraid
to go to sleep. Many hundreds remained up till dawn of the next day, lest
the deluge should come upon them like a thief in the night.
On the morrow, it was seriously discussed whether it would not be
advisable to duck the false prophets in the river. Luckily for them, they
thought of an expedient which allayed the popular fury. They asserted
that, by an error (a very slight one,) of a little figure, they had fixed
the date of this awful inundation a whole century too early. The stars
were right after all, and they, erring mortals, were wrong. The present
generation of cockneys was safe, and London would be washed away, not in
1524, but in 1624. At this announcement, Bolton the prior dismantled his
fortress, and the weary emigrants came back.
An eye-witness of the great fire of London, in an account preserved among
the Harleian Mss. in the British Museum, and published in the transactions
of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, relates another instance of the
credulity of the Londoners. The writer, who accompanied the Duke of York
day by day through the district included between the Fleet-bridge and the
Thames, states that, in their efforts to check the progress of the flames,
they were much impeded by the superstition of the people. Mother Shipton,
in one of her prophecies, had said that London would be reduced to ashes,
and they refused to make any efforts to prevent it.[53] A son of the
noted Sir Kenelm Digby, who was also a pretender to the gifts of prophecy,
persuaded them that no power on earth could prevent the fulfilment of the
prediction; for it was written in the great book of fate that London was
to be destroyed. Hundreds of persons, who might have rendered valuable
assistance, and saved whole parishes from devastation, folded their arms
and looked on. As many more gave themselves up, with the less compunction,
to plunder a city which they could not save.[54]
[53] This prophecy seems to have been that set forth at length in
the popular _Life of Mother Shipton_:
"When fate to England shall restore
A king to reign as heretofore,
Great death in London shall be though,
And many houses be laid low."
[54] The _London Saturday Journal_ of March 12th, 1842, contains
the following:--"An absurd report is gaining ground among the
weak-minded, that London will be destroyed by an earthquake
on the 17th of March, or St. Patrick's day. This rumour is
founded on the following ancient prophecies: one professing
to be pronounced in the year 1203; the other, by Dr. Dee the
astrologer, in 1598:
"In eighteen hundred and forty-two
Four things the sun shall view;
London's rich and famous town
Hungry earth shall swallow down.
Storm and rain in France shall be,
Till every river runs a sea.
Spain shall be rent in twain,
And famine waste the land again.
So say I, the Monk of Dree,
In the twelve hundredth year and three."
_Harleian Collection (British Museum)_,
800 b, fol. 319.
"The Lord have mercy on you all--
Prepare yourselves for dreadful fall
Of house and land and human soul--
The measure of your sins is full.
In the year one, eight, and forty-two,
Of the year that is so new;
In the third month of that sixteen,
It may be a day or two between--
Perhaps you'll soon be stiff and cold.
Dear Christian, be not stout and bold--
The mighty, kingly-proud will see
This comes to pass as my name's Dee."
1598. _Ms. in the British Museum_.
The alarm of the population of London did not on this
occasion extend beyond the wide circle of the uneducated
classes, but among them it equalled that recorded in the
text. It was soon afterwards stated that no such prophecy is
to be found in the Harleian Ms.
The prophecies of Mother Shipton are still believed in many of the rural
districts of England. In cottages and servants' halls her reputation is
great; and she rules, the most popular of British prophets, among all the
uneducated, or half-educated, portions of the community. She is generally
supposed to have been born at Knaresborough, in the reign of Henry VII.,
and to have sold her soul to the Devil for the power of foretelling future
events. Though during her lifetime she was looked upon as a witch, she yet
escaped the witch's fate, and died peaceably in her bed at an extreme old
age, near Clifton in Yorkshire. A stone is said to have been erected to
her memory in the churchyard of that place, with the following epitaph:
"Here lies she who never lied,
Whose skill often has been tried:
Her prophecies shall still survive,
And ever keep her name alive."
"Never a day passed," says her traditionary biography, "wherein, she did
not relate something remarkable, and that required the most serious
consideration. People flocked to her from far and near, her fame was so
great. They went to her of all sorts, both old and young, rich and poor,
especially young maidens, to be resolved of their doubts relating to
things to come; and all returned wonderfully satisfied in the explanations
she gave to their questions." Among the rest, went the Abbot of Beverley,
to whom she foretold the suppression of the monasteries by Henry VIII.,
his marriage with Anne Boleyn, the fires for heretics in Smithfield, and
the execution of Mary Queen of Scots. She also foretold the accession of
James I., adding that, with him,
"From the cold North
Every evil should come forth."
On a subsequent visit she uttered another prophecy, which, in the opinion
of her believers, still remains unfulfilled, but may be expected to be
realised during the present century:
"The time shall come when seas of blood
Shall mingle with a greater flood.
Great noise there shall be heard--great shouts and cries,
And seas shall thunder louder than the skies;
Then shall three lions fight with three and bring
Joy to a people, honour to a king.
That fiery year as soon as o'er,
Peace shall then be as before;
Plenty shall every where be found,
And men with swords shall plough the ground."
But the most famous of all her prophecies is one relating to London.
Thousands of persons still shudder to think of the woes that are to burst
over this unhappy realm, when London and Highgate are joined by one
continuous line of houses. This junction, which, if the rage for building
lasts much longer, in the same proportion as heretofore, bids fair to be
soon accomplished, was predicted by her shortly before her death.
Revolutions--the fall of mighty monarchs, and the shedding of much blood
are to signalise that event. The very angels, afflicted by our woes, are
to turn aside their heads, and weep for hapless Britain.
But great as is the fame of Mother Shipton, she ranks but second in the
list of British prophets. Merlin, the mighty Merlin, stands alone in his
high pre-eminence--the first and greatest. As old Drayton sings, in his
_Poly-olbion_:
"Of Merlin and his skill what region doth not hear?
The world shall still be full of Merlin every year.
A thousand lingering years his prophecies have run,
And scarcely shall have end till time itself be done."
Spenser, in his divine poem, has given us a powerful description of this
renowned seer--
"who had in magic more insight
Than ever him before, or after, living wight.
For he by words could call out of the sky
Both sun and moon, and make them him obey;
The land to sea, and sea to mainland dry,
And darksome night he eke could turn to day--
Huge hosts of men he could, alone, dismay.
And hosts of men and meanest things could frame,
Whenso him list his enemies to fray,
That to this day, for terror of his name,
The fiends do quake, when any him to them does name.
And soothe men say that he was not the sonne
Of mortal sire or other living wighte,
But wondrously begotten and begoune
By false illusion of a guileful sprite
On a faire ladye nun."
In these verses the poet has preserved the popular belief with regard to
Merlin, who is generally supposed to have been a contemporary of
Vortigern. Opinion is divided as to whether he were a real personage, or a
mere impersonation, formed by the poetic fancy of a credulous people. It
seems most probable that such a man did exist, and that, possessing
knowledge as much above the comprehension of his age, as that possessed by
Friar Bacon was beyond the reach of his, he was endowed by the wondering
crowd with the supernatural attributes that Spenser has enumerated.
Geoffrey of Monmouth translated Merlin's poetical odes, or prophecies,
into Latin prose; and he was much reverenced not only by Geoffrey, but by
most of the old annalists. In a _Life of Merlin, with his Prophecies and
Predictions interpreted and made good by our English Annals_, by Thomas
Heywood, published in the reign of Charles I., we find several of these
pretended prophecies. They seem, however, to have been all written by
Heywood himself. They are in terms too plain and positive to allow any one
to doubt for a moment of their having been composed _ex post facto_.
Speaking of Richard I., he says:
"The Lion's heart will 'gainst the Saracen rise,
And purchase from him many a glorious prize;
The rose and lily shall at first unite,
But, parting of the prey prove opposite. * * *
But while abroad these great acts shall be done,
All things at home shall to disorder run.
Cooped up and caged then shall the Lion be,
But, after sufferance, ransomed and set free."
The simple-minded Thomas Heywood gravely goes on to inform us, that all
these things actually came to pass. Upon Richard III. he is equally
luminous. He says:
"A hunch-backed monster, who with teeth is born,
The mockery of art and nature's scorn;
Who from the womb preposterously is hurled,
And with feet forward thrust into the world,
Shall, from the lower earth on which he stood,
Wade, every step he mounts, knee-deep in blood.
He shall to th' height of all his hopes aspire,
And, clothed in state, his ugly shape admire;
But, when he thinks himself most safe to stand,
From foreign parts a native whelp shall land."
Another of these prophecies after the event tells us that Henry
VIII. should take the power from Rome, "and bring it home unto
his British bower;" that he should "root out from the land all the
razored skulls;" and that he should neither spare "man in his rage
nor woman in his lust;" and that, in the time of his next successor
but one, "there should come in the fagot and the stake." Master
Heywood closes Merlin's prophecies at his own day, and does not give
even a glimpse of what was to befall England after his decease. Many
other prophecies, besides those quoted by him, were, he says, dispersed
abroad, in his day, under the name of Merlin; but he gives
his readers a taste of one only, and that is the following:
"When hempe is ripe and ready to pull,
Then, Englishman, beware thy skull."
This prophecy, which, one would think, ought to have put him in mind of
the gallows, at that time the not unusual fate of false prophets, he
explains thus: "In this word HEMPE be five letters. Now, by reckoning the
five successive princes from Henry VIII., this prophecy is easily
explained: H signifieth King Henry before-named; E, Edward, his son, the
sixth of that name; M, Mary, who succeeded him; P, Philip of Spain, who,
by marrying Queen Mary, participated with her in the English diadem; and,
lastly, E signifieth Queen Elizabeth, after whose death there was a great
feare that some troubles might have arisen about the crown." As this did
not happen, Heywood, who was a sly rogue in a small way, gets out of the
scrape by saying, "Yet proved this augury true, though not according to
the former expectation; for, after the peaceful inauguration of King
James, there was great mortality, not in London only, but through the
whole kingdom, and from which the nation was not quite clean in seven
years after."