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 ROBERT NIXON
 
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 NIXON'S 
 
 CHESHIRE PROPHECIES 
 
 Reprinted and Edited from the best sources, 
 
 AND 
 
 INCLUDING A COPY OF THE PROPHECY FROM AN 
 UNPUBLISHED MANUSCRIPT, 
 
 WITH AN 
 
 JntioDurtovi? lissai? on |3opuIav iivopf)rrtfs. 
 
 MANCHESTER ; 
 Abel Kywood & Son, 56 and 5S, Oldham Street. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 SiMPKiN, Marshall, & Cn. 
 1878.
 
 PREFACE. Hl3^P 
 
 The present is a re-issue of the collection of 
 Nixon's Prophecies put I'ortli in 1^73. and 
 forming the first attempt to present a complete 
 and accurate edition of those curious documents. 
 In reprinting, the opportunity- has been taken 
 of amplification and emendation. The present 
 edition will be found to contain a version of 
 the Prophecy not hitherto printed. For this 
 the publishers have to thank the courteous 
 liberality of Dr. Kendrick, of Warrington, 
 who has allowed them to make a transcript of 
 his manuscript. Those who care for Cheshire 
 antiquities, and those who are interested in 
 popular Prophecies will, it is hoped, find the 
 present issue adequate and satisfactory.
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 It is Cicero who says " I know of no nation 
 whatever, however civiHsed and learned, or 
 however barbarous and savage, which does not 
 beheve it possible that future events may be 
 indicated, and understood, and predicted, by 
 certain persons." It is certain that in every 
 age there have been persons either claiming, or 
 credited with a mysterious power of foreseeing 
 the future course of events. Amongst the 
 ancients prophecy was in high repute, and very 
 remarkable instances of the fulfilment of pro- 
 phecy are given by the classical writers. 
 
 In many of the ancient prophecies, an 
 ambiguity in the terms led to the expectation 
 of a different event from that by which it was 
 fulfilled. It was announced to Cambyses that 
 he would die at Ecbatana, by which he under- 
 stood the celebrated Median city, whereas he 
 really ended his days at an out-of-the-way 
 Ecbatana in Syria.'' 
 
 It was a belief of the ancient world that 
 the immediate approach of death cleared the 
 spiritual vision, and gave a foresight of the 
 things which were to be. So Homer makes 
 Patroclus prophecy the death of Hector, and 
 
 * Many instances of such ambiguous prophecies, both 
 ancient and modern, have been collected. See " Notes and 
 Queries," second series, iv. 201, 277 ; vii. 397. In Wanley's 
 "Wonders of the Little World," 1697, ^- '^m ^- '^-i there is 
 a long list of ancient and modern false or ambiguous 
 predictions.
 
 VI. 
 
 Hector predict that of Achilles, and so Jacob, 
 when he feels his end approaching, calls his 
 sons together to hear that which should befall 
 them. Socrates, Pythagoras, Xenophon, Dio- 
 doriis Siculus, Sextus Empiricus, S. Gregory, 
 Tertullian, all appear to have held this opinion.* 
 Both in ancient and modern days it has been 
 esteemed good policy on the part of governments 
 to prohibit prophecies, for predictions have 
 sometimes a tendency to cause their ov/n fulfil- 
 ment. One who believes himself predestined 
 to greatness will be on the look-out for oppor- 
 tunities of attaining it, and will probably not 
 always be over scrupulous as to the means. An 
 ambitious fatalist may easily become dangerous 
 in any state of society. Prophecies bearing 
 Merlin's name are of great antiquity. Giraldus 
 Cambrensis mentions them as old in his days.t 
 
 * See " Notes and Queries " ii. ii6, 435 ; xi. 550, where 
 most of the passages referred to above are given in full. 
 See also an extremely interesting paper in Sir Henry 
 Halford's Essays (3rd edition, 1S42, p. 87). 
 
 t Concerning Merlin the reader may consult the intro- 
 duction to the " Romance of Merlin," published by the 
 Early English Text Society ; Turner's " History of the ' 
 Anglo-Saxons," iii., 578. The common collection of the 
 prophecies bears the following title: " The Life and 
 Prophecies of Merlin, surnamed Ambrosius; with his 
 Predictions Interpreted (by Thomas Heywood). London, 
 1S13." In the last century a dispute arose as to the right 
 of way through Richmond Park, and this gave rise to a now 
 very rare book, entitled " Merlin's Life and Prophecies, 
 who flourished in the fifth century, and foretold the Fates 
 and Fortunes of all the Kings and Queens that have sat on 
 the British throne, from Vortigern down to his present 
 Majesty. His prediction relating to the late contest about 
 the Rights of Richmond Park, with some other events 
 relating thereto not yet come to pass, but no less wonderful 
 than those that have already happened. London, 1755."
 
 Vll. 
 
 The memory of Arthur was cherished, and 
 the return of the hero who personified the 
 national aspirations was looked for centuries 
 after the knight was dust and his good sword 
 rust. This faith was shared by all the remnants 
 of the Cymric race. The prophecies which 
 embodied these hopes played an important part 
 in the struggle between England and Scotland. 
 St. Malachi was born in 1094, and became 
 Archbishop of Armagh in 11 27. To him is 
 attributed a prophecy of the Popes, which has 
 not been without believers even amongst learned 
 Catholic writers ; but is now generally regarded 
 as having been forged about 1590 by an adherent 
 of Cardinal Simoncelli, in the then pending 
 papal election. '^'- It consists of a series of 
 mottoes, each designatmg a particular Pope ; 
 thus Martin V. is typified by the words 
 " Erigetur Colonna fortis," his family name 
 being Colonna. The " Blessed Joachim," a 
 well-known mediaeval prophet, was born in 
 1 1 II, in the Kingdom of Naples, but his 
 prophecies were not collected for about 150 
 years after his death. In an interview with 
 Richard Coeur de Lion, he warned him against 
 prosecuting his expedition into Palestine, and 
 predicted many things which did not happen, 
 amongst others, the slaughter of all the 
 Catholic priests in 1297 ! But it is now thought 
 that the prophecies bearing the name of Joachim 
 are the work of some Franciscan who lived at 
 the end of the fifteenth century, t 
 
 • " Biographie Universelle," xxiv. 264 ; " Notes and 
 Queries," 4th series, viii. 113, 296, and the references there 
 given. 
 
 \ " Biographie Universelle," xxi. 56G.
 
 The fame of Thomas Lermonth, the Rhymer 
 of Ercildoun, lias for some centuries been in 
 the mouths of Scotchmen. The day before the 
 death of King Alexander III. he told the Earl 
 of March that before the next noon such a tempest 
 should blow as Scotland had not felt for many 
 years. Next morning, being a clear, bright day, 
 the Earl taunted " true Thomas " with the 
 falsity of his prophecy ; but when the news 
 came of the King's sudden death, it was seen 
 that that was the storm which he had foretold. 
 It is difficult to fix the date of the Rhymer's 
 prophetical power. A person of his name was 
 alive in 1286. Dr. Murray thinks the prophecy 
 was manufactured just before the battle of 
 Bannockburn to put confidence into the dis- 
 pirited patriots of Scotland. The earliest 
 version known dates about 1400, and makes 
 the Scots win in the battle of Halidon Hill with 
 the slaughter of 6,000 Englishmen, while the 
 other texts, wise after the event, make the 
 Scots lose, as they actually did." 
 
 One of the best known of the prophecies of 
 the Rhymer preserved by oral tradition will 
 recall a well-known passage in Nixon, and it 
 appears that about the end of, the last century 
 there was a person named Douglas, who had 
 an excrescence which was recognised as a third 
 thumb, and who was thought by the supersti- 
 tious to be the man of the hour foretold by the 
 prophet. 
 
 In 1603 Waldegrave, the Edinburgh printer, 
 
 isssued the " Whole Prophesie of Scotland, 
 
 * See " The Romance and Prophecies of Thomas 
 
 of Ercildoun," edited by James A. H. Murray, LL.D. 
 
 (E. E. T. S., 1S75).
 
 IX. 
 
 England, and some part of France and Den- 
 mark, prophesied bee meruellous Merling, 
 Beid, Bertlingtoun, Thomas Rymour, Wald- 
 haiie, Eltraine, Banester, and Sibbilla, all 
 according in one."'* These appear to date 
 from the earlier part of the fifteenth century. 
 Some of the passages occur in many popular 
 prophecies, and will be found in Nixon not less 
 than in Rymer. 
 
 The verses attributed to Bede contain a 
 chronogram of the year 1480 ! It is clear that 
 trifling differences of dates were not thought 
 of much importance. 
 
 John Bridlington, called also " Brydlyng- 
 ton " and " Bertlington," was an Augustine 
 canon of that ilk in Yorkshire, and died in 
 1379. The " carmina vaticinalia " attributed 
 to him include the well-known " Cock of the 
 North " prophecy. 
 
 " Waldhaue " is intended for " St. Wal- 
 theof," or " Waldhave," Abbot of Melrose in 
 
 * This very curious volume was reprinted by the Ban- 
 natyne Club, in 1833. A much earlier version has been 
 printed by the Early English Text Society, from a MS. in 
 the Cambridge University Library. (" Bernardus de cura 
 rei Famularis, with some early Scottish prophecies." 
 Edited by J. Rawson Lumby, M.A. 1870.) Another of 
 these early metrical prophecies which has a great re- 
 semblance to those just named is printed in " Notes and 
 Queries," 4th series, iv. 81. The fullest elucidation of 
 this obscure part of the subject is that given by Dr. 
 Murray, to which we have already referred. See also 
 " Ballads from Manuscripts," edited by F. J. Furnivall 
 (London, 1872, vol. i., p. 316), for two prophecies in 
 rhyme on the state of England, having a very general 
 resemblance to the above-named collection. Mr. Furni- 
 vall prints also a piece of prophetical doggerel, headed 
 " Jhesu," about which he very candidly and judiciously 
 says, " I can make nothing of this prophecy."
 
 the 1 2th century — a man whose biography is 
 made up of marvels which a sceptical age 
 cannot tolerate or believe. 
 
 On the birth of his son, Henry V. is said to 
 have exclaimed, " God Lord ! I, Henry of 
 Monmouth, shall small time reign and much get ; 
 and Henry born at Windsorshall long time reign 
 and lose all ; but God's will be done." 
 
 The discovery of the New World brought 
 to light some old prophecies, for amongst the 
 ancient Mexicans we are told that there had 
 been for centuries predictions of a new race 
 who would seize their fatherland.* The dis- 
 covery of America is indeed supposed to have 
 been foretold by Seneca. I 
 
 Michel Nostradamus, in 1555, published 
 three hundred prophetical quatrains, one ol 
 which was supposed to contain an allusion to 
 the death of Henry H. of France. { His 
 reputation was such that the king declared 
 that all enemies of the physician should be 
 reckoned as his own. There are many modern 
 events which his admirers claim him to have 
 foretold, but it is at least curious to find, in a 
 work published in 1598, the following verse : — 
 Gand et Bruxelles marcheront contre Anvers ; 
 Sciiat lie Londrcs mettront a mart Icnr Roi : 
 Le sel et le sin lui seront a I'envers, 
 Pour eux avoir regne en desarroi. 
 
 * Howitt's " History of the Supernatural," 1863, i. 397. 
 t Hakewill's " Apologie,"' 1630, p. 249. 
 I Henry H.'s deatli has indeed been said to have been 
 predicted by Gaurico and Cardan, and the narrative ap- 
 peared to rest on good foundations, yet it is certain that 
 neither of those fortune-tellers had any premonition of the 
 event. {" Notes and Queries," 2nd series, iv. 353.)
 
 The execution of Charles I. was very natu- 
 rally said to be foreshadowed in the second 
 line.* 
 
 John Stoflerus predicted a great deluge to 
 take place in 1524. His prophecy excited 
 great terror. President Auriol, of Toulouse, 
 iSuilt four high pillars, with a boat on the top 
 of them. This, however, he had no occasion 
 to use, as the weather was both fine and dry. 
 The same astrologer fixed the end of the world 
 at 1586.1 A descendant of this man is said to 
 have inherited his prophetic spirit. Margaretta 
 Stoffell, or Stofflcr, who in 1847 is reported to 
 have predicted that between that date and 1856 
 Louis Phillippe would lose his crown, and for 
 a short time the working classes have power 
 in their hands, but lose it during foreign war. 
 After much confusion a Conservative party 
 would grasp the reins, and a certain prince 
 would lose his life in attempting to erect a 
 throne. Spain and Portugal, after much civil 
 war, would unite as the Pyrenean Republic. 
 The American and Asiatic dominions of Britain 
 would assert their independence, and her navy 
 be destroyed in a great sea fight. The Aus- 
 trian? would be driven out of Italy, and Rome 
 again become its capital. Germany would be 
 the scene of a great civil war, in which remote 
 Eastern nations would be invited to aid him, 
 by a German monarch. These barbarians 
 would be defeated, and a great city of the 
 
 * See " Les Propheties de M. Michel Nostradamus." 
 Lyon, i6gS, i2mo., " Varia, by J. Hain Friswell," Lond. 
 1866, 8vo. " Biographie Universelle," Paris, 1822, t. xxxi. 
 
 1 " Recreative Review," 1S21, i. 200.
 
 xu. 
 
 fatherland be burned to the ground, and its 
 site sown with salt. Poland would rise, and 
 the Vistula have upon its banks corpses 
 enough to feed all the ravens of the world 
 for a full century. Denmark, Sweden, and 
 Norway would combine as a Scandinavian 
 Republic, and the Russian power be over- 
 thrown by a combination of the powers in a 
 battle which would be the greatest and the 
 last the world should see. After this the 
 Kingdom of God upon earth. The only ac- 
 count of this prophecy I have met with is in 
 "All the Year Round" (N. S., vii. 375). 
 Even if it was published in 1847 — which I 
 greatly doubt — it cannot be looked upon as 
 very successful guessing. 
 
 Michel Stifelius preached a sermon in 
 which the end of the world was announced 
 for a certain day in 1533, and at the time 
 he had fixed a \iolent storm arose, which 
 made people feel certain that he had said 
 sooth. But when the storm passed over, and 
 the brave old world looked all tlie fairer for it, 
 the people, in a rage, dragged him from his 
 pulpit, and almost ended him. That the end 
 of the world had not come seems a strange 
 reason for half-murdering a grave divine."'' 
 
 The fondness of the English for prophecies 
 was a matter of early remark, and is satirically 
 alluded to by Philip de Comines. Such sayings 
 as 
 
 'Twixt Lapham forde and Shimpling thorne 
 England shall be wonne and lorne.t 
 
 * "Recreative Review," 1821, i. 200. 
 t " Notes and Queries," 3rd edition, xii. 479.
 
 Xlll. 
 
 And 
 
 When all England is aloft, 
 Weel are they that are in Christ's Croft ; 
 And where shud Christ's Croft be, 
 But between Ribble and Mersee.' 
 
 have always been current. Lord Bacon speaks 
 of a trivial prophecy which he heard in his 
 childhood, when " Queen Elizabeth was in the 
 flower of her years — 
 
 When hempe is spun 
 
 England's done. 
 
 Whereby it was generally conceived that after 
 the princes had reigned which had the principal 
 letters of that word hempe (which were Henry, 
 Edward, Mar)', Philip, and Elizabeth), England 
 should come to utter confusion, which, thanks 
 be to God, is verified in the change of the name, 
 for the king's style is now no more of England 
 but of Britain." He mentions another prophecy 
 generally supposed to point at the sailing of the 
 Spanish Armada : — 
 
 There shall be seen upon a day, 
 Between the Baugh and the May, 
 The black fleet of Norway.f 
 When that is come and gone, 
 England build houses of lime and stone, 
 For after war shall you have none. 
 
 Regiomontanus, the famous astronomer, is 
 said to have left an allusion — 
 
 Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus, 
 which was supposed to point to the same event. 
 
 Bacon, in the essay we have above quoted, 
 alludes to the legislative prohibition of prophecy, 
 and it is a fact that predictions have been the 
 
 * HoUingworth's " Mancuniensis." 
 t " The King of Spain's surname, as they say, is 
 Norway." — Bacon.
 
 subject of several English Acts of Parliament. 
 Thus by a statute passed in the fifth year of 
 Elizabeth's reign, all persons are forbidden to 
 set forth " any fond, fantastical, or false pro- 
 phecy, upon or by occasion of any arms, fields, 
 beasts, badges, or such other like tilings accus- 
 tomed in arms, cognizances, or signets, or upon, 
 or by reason of any time, year, or day, name, 
 bloodshed or war." 
 
 David Upan, or Unanthony's "prophecy" 
 about Charing Cross, is said to have been 
 printed in 1588 : — 
 
 To tell the truth, many one would wonder, 
 Charing Cross shall be broken asunder : 
 
 P shall Preach, 
 
 R shall Reach, 
 
 S shall Stand stiff. 
 
 " R signifies Roundhead. P Presbytery, S the 
 Soldier," &c." 
 
 Aubrey tells us that during the civil wars 
 Mr. Leonard Morehouse rescued from the 
 tailor's shears an ancient Latin MS., in which 
 the events of those troublous times were fore- 
 told. He gave it to Seth Ward, the Bishop of 
 Salisbury, and Aubrey saw it himself in 1649. 
 
 William Tyndal — not the famous reformer, 
 but " poor Vicar of Welling " — is said to have 
 written, about the beginning of Elizabeth's 
 reign, a prophecy of the civil wars.1 
 
 Amongst the Scottish reformers there were 
 not wanting persons believed to have prophetic 
 powers. George Wishart is supposed to have 
 foretold his own death by the agency of Cardinal 
 
 ■ " Miraculous Prophecies." v. 
 t Aubrey's " Miscellanies.."
 
 Beaton, and in the midst of the flames he pro- 
 phesied that the proud prelate who watched his 
 tortures should himself in a few daj-s die igno- 
 miniously in the place where he rested to see 
 the execution. And in effect the Cardinal was 
 hung from the window whence he had looked 
 forth upon the death of the reformer.* 
 
 William Lilly, the famous astrologer, pub- 
 lished several prophetical works, one of the 
 most famous of them being the Prophecy of 
 the White King, of which he gives the Latin 
 text and a long explanation of his own. He 
 gives also an early English translation of it. 
 
 " THE WHITE KINGS PROPHECIE. 
 
 Englished loni) since, as by the stile appeares. 
 
 " When the Lyon of Rightfulnesse is dead, 
 there shall rise, a White King in Brittaine, first 
 Flying, and after Riding, after Ligging down ; 
 and in this ligge down he shall be lymed, after 
 that he shall be led. And there shall be shewed 
 whether there be an other King : Then shall be 
 gadred togider much folke, and he shall take 
 helpe for him : And then there shall be Mer- 
 chandise of men (as of an Horse, or an Oxe :) 
 And there shall be sought helpe, and there 
 shall none arise, but bed for head : And then 
 shall one gone, theere the Sunne ariseth, 
 another there the Sunne gown downe : After 
 this, it shall be said by Brittaine (King is King) 
 King is no King. After this he shall raise up 
 his head, (and he shall be taken him to be a 
 
 • " Hov.itt '" ii. 85.
 
 XVI. 
 
 king, be many things to done, But wise men 
 Reading, And then shall a range of Gleeds, 
 and that ever each hath beraveing, he shall 
 have it for his owne, And this shall last seven 
 yeeres, Loe raveing and shedding of bloud : 
 And Ovens shall be made like Kyrkes, And 
 that as one sows another shall reape, and 
 death shall be better then wretched life, and 
 Charity shall be oi few men ; After then shall 
 come through the South witla the Sunne, on 
 Horse of tree, and upon all waves on the Sea, 
 the Chicken of the Eagle sailing into BriUaine, 
 and arriving anon, to the house of the Eagle, 
 he shall shew fellowship to them beasts. After 
 a yeare and a halfe shall be warre in BriUaine, 
 then shall a sooth be naught worth, and eveiy 
 man shall keepe his thing, and gotten other men's 
 goods. " AfterthewhiteKingfeebleshallgoeto- 
 wards the West, betlipped about with his folke, 
 to the old place been running water, then his 
 enemies shall meet him, and march in her 
 place shall be ordained about him in Hoast, 
 on the manner of a shield shall be formed, then 
 shall they fighten on Oven front, After the white 
 King shall into a Kirke-yard over a Hall. After 
 the Chicken of the Eagle shall nestle in the 
 highest Rooch of all BriUaine, nay he shall 
 naught be slain j'oung : nay he naught come 
 old, for then the Gentle worthines shall naught 
 suffer wrong be done to him, But when the 
 Realme is in peace then shall he die, and two 
 yeeres after shall come a new Rule from Heaven 
 and setle holy Kirke as hit shall ever more 
 stand, and bring three Countries into one, 
 England, Scotland, and Wales, unto the day of
 
 doome and the Holy Crosse be brought into 
 Christian mens hands, and there shall be 
 made a Temple that never was made, such 
 none. 
 
 The Originall hereof was found by the Lady 
 Poston of the County of Norfolke, amongst the evidences 
 of Edw. the fourth his titne." 
 
 The fire and plague of London were fore- 
 told by many persons — amongst them, Thomas 
 Reeve, in a sermon printed in 1657. Humphrey 
 White, a Quaker, in a pamphlet printed in 1660, 
 describing a " Vision which he saw concerning 
 London," describes in a striking manner the 
 burning and desolation which so soon after fell 
 upon the great citj'. Daniel Baker, in 1659, 
 wrote: "A fire, a consuming fire, shall be 
 kindled in the bowels of the earth, which 
 will scorch with burning heat all hypocrites, 
 unstable, double-minded workers of iniquitjs" 
 &c., which may be looked upon as having 
 been fulfilled, with certain qualifications.* One 
 of Lilly's Almanacks contained a picture of a 
 burning town, which was of course applied to 
 the Great Fire, and the astrologer was in con- 
 sequence examined before the Committee of 
 the House of Commons which sat to investigate 
 the cause of that disaster. Thomas Briggs, a 
 Quaker, preached in the streets of the city that 
 unless the people repented of their sins, London 
 should be destroyed. Another Friend, Thomas 
 Ibbit, of Huntingdonshire, came to London a 
 few days before the fire commenced, and, with 
 
 * " Notes and Queries," vii. 80, 173.
 
 XVlll. 
 
 his clothes all loose about him, " as if they had 
 been put on in haste, just out of bed," he went 
 about denouncing judgment by fire against the 
 doomed town. The terrible Fire of London 
 burst forth three days after Ibbit's first public 
 prophec}'.'" 
 
 Christopher Love, who was beheaded at 
 Tower Hill in August, 165 1, delivered certain 
 predictions couched in mj'sterious and inflated 
 language, but ending with a calculation on St. 
 John's Revelation " and the prophecy which 
 St. Jerome copied off, and translated out of 
 the Hebrew language, as it is written on Seth's 
 Pillar in Damascus." This pillar, says our 
 prophet, was built by Seth, and the inscription 
 on it written by Enoch. According to this 
 ancient authority, there were to be "great 
 earthquakes and commotions by sea and land 
 in 1779, wars in France and Germany in 
 1780, destruction of the Papacy in 1790, the 
 stars will wander and the moon turn as blood 
 in 1800, a great earthquake over all the v/orld 
 in 1805. God will be universally known by all : 
 then a general reformation and peace for ever, 
 when the people shall learn war no more."t 
 
 Lady Eleanor Audley, fifth daughter of the 
 Earl of Castlehaven, believed lierself to be 
 inspired by the spirit of Daniel the prophet, 
 and published sundry strange and wonderful 
 prophecies. She built her faith upon anagrams, 
 and thus proclaimed lier title to inspiration : — 
 
 Eleanor Audeley, 
 
 Reveale, Daniel. 
 
 Charles L she politely proclaimed to be the 
 
 • Howitt, ii. 301. t " Miraculous Prophecies," ii. p. 37.
 
 XIX. 
 
 Beast of prophecy ; and her husband, Sir John 
 Davies, having thrown some of her vaticinations 
 into the fire, she showed him his judgment 
 thus : — 
 
 John Daves 
 
 Jove's hand, 
 
 to which she added that within three years he 
 would die, which appears to have happened 
 accordingly. The Duke of Buckingham's death 
 was also foreshadowed by her ; and her credit 
 being thus advanced, she became so industrious 
 that she was cited before the Court of High 
 Commission, where she exhibited with much 
 confidence her anagrammatical commission of 
 prophecy. But Lamb, Dean of Arches, eifec- 
 tually settled her by producing this anagram 
 upon her name : — 
 
 Dame Eleanor Davies, 
 
 Never so mad a lady. 
 
 She survived this trial iS years, but we hear 
 no more of her prophecies. ■ 
 
 The Brahan Seer is said to have been born 
 in Lewis early in the 17th century. His last 
 prophecy asserted that the Seaforth estates 
 were to be inherited " by a white-hooded 
 lassie from the East." This, it seems, was 
 fulfilled in the person of Lady Hood, who, on 
 the death of her husband, Sir Samuel Hood, 
 came home from the East, arrayed in widow's 
 weeds, and bearing, of course, the name of 
 Hood.\ 
 
 • H. B. Wheatley : " Anagrams," 1862, p. 114. 
 
 t The Prophecies of the Brahan Seer (Coinneach Odhar 
 Fiosaiche). By Alex. Mackenzie, Editor of the " Celtic 
 Magazine." Inverness, 1S77.
 
 XX. 
 
 In the 17th century the predictions of Kot- 
 terus, Drabicius, and Poniatowski excited much 
 attention, and were collected into a volume by 
 J. A. Comenius, and printed in 1657, under the 
 title of" Lux in Tenebris." " The prophecies," 
 says Mr. Crossley, " all pictured in glowing 
 terms the approaching ruin of the House of 
 Austria, and the speedy downfall of the Pope, 
 and created an extraordinary sensation at the 
 time of their publication. Nothing, however, 
 came of these predictions." ■■ The siege of Vienna 
 by the Turks again called public attention to 
 the book, and, "had Vienna been taken, Dra- 
 bicius would have been more talked of than 
 the Grand Vizier." Drabicius was a Moravian, 
 born in 1588, and prophesied from 1638 to 1666, 
 altering the dates to suit the changes of the 
 times. He prophesied that he himself should 
 die peaceably in his bed, but, on the contrary, 
 after having embraced the Roman Catholic 
 faith, he fell into the clutches of the Impe- 
 rialists in 1 67 1, and his right hand was cut off, 
 his tongue cut out, and his body decapitated.! 
 Christina Poniatowski is said to have pro- 
 phesied the victory of Gustavus Adolphus and 
 the death of Wallenstein. She appears to have 
 been a born mystic, a fair saint ; but after some 
 years of prophetical inspiration, she fulfilled the 
 happier vocations of wife and mother, and dis- 
 turbed the Pope and the Kings no more witli 
 her burden of woes. [ 
 
 • Worthington's " Diary," i. 138. 
 
 t Worthington's " Diary," ii. 358. 
 
 { Concerning these three Moravian prophets the reader 
 
 may consult Bayle (art. Kotterus, Comenius, Drabicius) and 
 
 the life of Comenius prefixed to the English version of his 
 
 " School of Infancy." London, 1858.
 
 Amongst the Camisards were many persons 
 both old and young who were thought to be 
 endowed with prophetic gifts,* and thousands 
 hazarded life and limb, and suffered the most 
 terrible persecution, in the full faith of the 
 Divine nature of that inspiration which made 
 the Church of the Desert the wonder of 
 Europe. 
 
 The " Previsions of Orval," said to have 
 been written by Philip Olivarius in 1544, made 
 considerable sensation in 1848, as it contained 
 passages supposed to refer to the fall of the 
 Bourbons, &c. It is, however, known to have 
 been the forgery of a priest of the diocese of 
 Verdun, f 
 
 Jaspers, a Westphalian peasant, who died 
 in 1830, is said to have prophesied that a great 
 road would be carried through the forest of 
 Badelschwing, on which carriages without 
 horses would run, making a dreadful noise. 
 The railroad from Cologne to Minden now goes 
 through this district. He also prophesied that 
 Frederick William IV. would be the last King 
 of Prussia. The foundation of the German 
 Empire appears to confirm this prediction. { 
 
 Lady Hester Stanhope, amongst her otiier 
 eccentricities, kept a prophet, who not only 
 
 * An interesting account of these French prophets, by 
 William Howitt, will be found in the " Spiritual Magazine," 
 vi. 363, 406. Howitt is a firm believer in their real inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 t " Notes and Queries," 4th S., vii. 53. An English 
 translation was published in 1S48, and copious extracts are 
 given in " All the Year Round," N.S., vii. 375. 
 
 J " All the Year Round," N.S., vii. 373.
 
 xxu. 
 
 revealed to her the exact date of Napoleon's 
 escape from Elba, but also foretold tlie earth- 
 quake of Aleppo and Antioch. Dr. Wolff was 
 present at a party where a letter from Lady 
 Hester was read warning her friends against 
 visiting those places, and announcing their 
 approaching destruction. ■■■ 
 
 When Josephine, afterwards Empress of the 
 French, was a child, a negress foretold that she 
 would attain a more than queenly glory, but 
 would fall from it before her death. 
 
 Mademoiselle le Normand, a famous prophet 
 at the commencement of the present century, 
 died in 1843, after having been consulted by 
 many famous personages. Some curious in- 
 stances of the fulfilment of her predictions 
 are told. Thus she is said to have foretold 
 the fall of Robespierre, the future greatness 
 of Napoleon, the divorce of Josephine, &c. She 
 was several times imprisoned by order of Napo- 
 leon, but finally seems to have found prophesy 
 a profitable calling, and acquired an income of 
 2o,ooof., which she left chiefly to her nephew, 
 M. Hugo.f 
 
 In 1816 Thomas Martin, a working man of 
 La Beauce, had an interview with Louis XVIL, 
 told the King a secret which was believed to 
 have been known to the monarch alone, and 
 asserted that he had been divinely commis- 
 sioned to deliver certain admonitions predic- 
 
 * Hewitt's " History of the Supernatural," ii. 27. 
 
 t There is a long account of her in the " Spiritual 
 Mag.," 1866, N.S., i. 297, chiefly derived from her autobio- 
 graphy.
 
 XXUl. 
 
 tions. One of these has been applied to the 
 events of the late war, as it announces the 
 destruction of several French towns, &c., &c.* 
 
 Napoleon III. has been the object of much 
 occult learning. In 1 854 a bust of him appeared, 
 in which his beard was arranged in anunusual 
 manner, and a curious reader informed the public 
 that according to the rabbins those who parted 
 their beards in the mode adopted by the Em- 
 peror were invincible against the world, t 
 
 Numerical prophecies are very common, 
 and sometimes very curious. Louis IX. of 
 France was born in 1215 ; the sum of these 
 digits is 9. Charles VII. was born in 1402 ; 
 the sum of the digits is 7. Louis XII. was 
 bom in 1461 ; the sum of the digits is 12. 
 Louis XIV. was crowned in 1643 ; the sum of 
 the digits is 14. It will be observed that the 
 sum of the digits in each case is the same as 
 the number of the king in order of succession. 
 
 Louis XIII., called at the time Loys de 
 Bourbon, married Anne d'Autriche in 1615 ; 
 the sum of these digits is 13. Loys" name is 
 composed of 13 letters, so is Anne's ; the young 
 king and queen were only 13 years old at the 
 time of marriage ; Louis was the 13th king of 
 the name ; Anne was the 13th Anne of Austria. 
 
 The great French Revolution began in 1789 ; 
 the sum of the digits is 25, which added to 1789 
 gives 1814, the year of Napoleon's captivity at 
 
 * There is a long and tedious account of this affair, 
 entitled " Le Passe et I'Avenir." Paris, 1S32. See also 
 "Notes and Queries," vii. 32, and ." Spiritual Herald,'' 
 1S56, i. 129. 
 
 t "Notes and Queries," x. 285.
 
 XXIV. 
 
 Elba. Robespierre died 1794; the sum of the 
 digits added to the date gives 1815, the year of 
 the final overthrow of Napoleon. 
 
 Charles II. of England was born in 1630; 
 the sum of the digits is 10, which added to the 
 date makes 1640, the year the Parliament at- 
 tacked the kingly power. The sum of the digits 
 of 1640 is II, which added to the date makes 
 1 65 1, the year of the battle of Worcester, when 
 Charles II. was driven into exile. 
 
 George I. ascended the throne in 1714 ; the 
 sum of the digits is 13, which added to the date 
 gives 1727, the date of his death. 
 
 Louis XVI. ascended the throne in 1774, 
 which figures, added together, give the date of 
 his execution, thus : — 
 
 1774 
 I 
 
 7 
 7 
 
 4 
 
 1793 
 Equally curious is the result which this process 
 gives in a more recent case. Napoleon III. 
 was born 1808, and proclaimed Emperor in 
 1853. The Empress was born 1826, and was 
 married in 1853. Each of these figures added 
 together gives the date of abdication : — 
 
 1853 
 
 1853 
 
 1853 
 
 1853 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 8 
 
 
 
 8 
 
 5 
 3 
 
 2 
 6 
 
 5 
 3 
 
 1870 1870 1870 1870 
 
 • the date of their abdication.
 
 XXV. 
 
 In 1869 the Chevalier de Chatelain pub- 
 Hshed some verses of his own, attributing to 
 Nostradamus a prophecy that the Second 
 Empire should last "Dix-huit ans moins un 
 quart — et pas un jour de plus," a prediction 
 curiously fulfilled on the 2nd September, 1870.* 
 
 Very numerous are the popular prophecies 
 which foreboded the decline of France, and 
 the ruin ol her capital.! 
 
 Amongst those whose utterances have been 
 supposed to contain prophetical matter may be 
 named Anna Trapnel (1653), Swedenborg, 
 John Wilson, Dr. John Gill, Alstedius, John 
 Tellinghast, John Lacy, Bishop Newton, Paul 
 Grebnar, Walter Gostello, Napier of Merchis- 
 toun. Brother Robert (a French Monk), Wm. 
 Hackett, Brigitta, Lidwina, Hildegarde, and 
 some hundreds more. 
 
 To attempt to register even the names of 
 the modern prophets would be far beyond our 
 space and power. What has been given may 
 serve as a specimen of what remains untold. 
 
 " A long and curious list might be given of 
 prophets who have lived to see their pro- 
 phecies falsified. A still larger one might be 
 collected ol Apocalyptical interpreters, who, 
 like Beverley, the author of the 'Scripture 
 Line of Time,' and Hartlib's friend Sadler, the 
 author of ' Olbia,' have found it necessary to 
 be constantly fixing and refixing the periods of 
 the Millennium and second coming of Christ, 
 
 * "Notes and Queries,'" 4th series, vi. 396. 
 t An interesting article on these predictions, by D. 
 Blair, of Melbourne, will be found in " Notes and Queries,'' 
 4th series, vii. 542.
 
 from the provoking circumstance that the days 
 originally named for their accomplishment in 
 the life-time of the writers had passed by with- 
 out any extraordinary manifestation."* 
 
 Amongst English prophets none have at- 
 tained so large a fame as Nixon. Two of our 
 most famous novelists have alluded to the 
 prophet, for his vaticinations "were a subject 
 of general curiosity about the time of the Re- 
 bellion of 1745, to such a degree that Fielding 
 has introduced them, through the mouth of 
 Partridge, amongst the current superstitions 
 then popularly connected with the attempts of 
 the Adventurer," and, in our own day, Dickens 
 has put a reference to them in the mouth of 
 Sam Weller. Dr. Ormerod, our chief autho- 
 rity in all relating to Cheshire, says: "The 
 birth of this individual has been assigned to 
 the time of Edward IV. ; but a second story 
 also exists, which refers him to the time of 
 James I., a date palpably false, as many of the 
 supposed prophecies were to be fulfilled at an 
 antecedent period. He is said to have at 
 tracted the Royal notice by foretelling, in 
 Cheshire, the result of the Battle of Bosworth, 
 on recovering from a sudden stupor with which 
 he was seized while the battle was fighting in 
 Leicestershire, and to have been sent for to 
 Court shortly afterwards, where he was starved 
 to death through forgetfulness, in a manner 
 which he had himself predicted. The silence 
 of registers respecting him is of course ac- 
 counted for by the time he lived in. That of 
 the Harleian MSS. is more singular; but it 
 
 * James Crossley, F.S.A., in " VVorthington's Diary," ii. 5.
 
 must be remembered that those enormous 
 Cheshire collections are mostly copies of deeds, 
 and that the very few original narratives they 
 contain relate mostly to contemporary events. 
 Webb, in his "Itinerary," may possibly allude 
 to him as the author of ' Old Prophecies,' in 
 the account of Delamere, but obviously rejects 
 the story, if he does allude to it. It is, how- 
 ever, not impossible that the fiction may be of 
 some antiquity, for among all the prose vul- 
 garly printed as his prophecies, and referring, 
 in modem language, to places and families 
 unknown at his time, will be found some 
 prophecies of a more general nature, running 
 in metre which varies little from the poetry of 
 the day. 
 
 " Many instances of the fulfilment of his 
 trivial predictions are maintained in Cheshire, 
 such as the meeting of the Abbeys of Norton 
 and Vale Royal in the building of Acton bridge ; 
 the removal of a mill to Luddington Hill by 
 Sir John Crewe: and the draining of Ridley 
 Pool; but by far the most important is that 
 alluded to by Oldmixon, who says, in an edi- 
 tion of these prophecies, that in pursuance of 
 the prediction that an eagle should visit \^ale 
 Royal when the heir of that house was to be 
 born, an eagle did come, remained near the 
 house three days, and was seen by thousands 
 of people, and, among others, by the sister and 
 Mr. St. John, the brother of i\Irs. Cholmon- 
 deley, who were brought to the window by the 
 acclamations of the people. Oldmixon states 
 the story on the authority of Ladj' Cowper,
 
 xxvin. 
 
 who had it from Patrick, Bishop of Ely, chap- 
 lain to Sir Walter St. John, Mrs. Cholmon- 
 deley's father, and also from her sister.* 
 
 " If this could be established, Nixon might 
 be referred to the list of certain individuals, 
 among whom may be classed Henry VI., who 
 are said to have possessed a gift of this kind, 
 united with general weakness of understanding. 
 Oldmixon states that snow was on the ground, 
 which may accord with the birth of the person 
 referred to — Charles, eldest son of Thomas 
 Cholmondeley, Esq., by Anne St. John, on the 
 i2th January, 1684-5 '' ^"^^ he was also heir of 
 Vale Royal, his last surviving brother, by the 
 first marriage, having died in 1679. But it 
 must be remembered that he died as late as 
 1756, and was only the grandfather of the 
 present generation, and that this fulfilment of 
 a prophecy said to have been looked to for 
 generations by the county, and to have drawn 
 thousands to Vale Royal, is not in two subse- 
 quent generations supported by the slightest 
 memorandum, or even a single tradition pre- 
 served in a family it so much concerned. Under 
 these circumstances, the fact itself, and the very 
 material circumstance of the prophecy being in 
 circulation before the fact, must rest entirely on 
 the credibility given to Oldmixon." 
 
 Dr. Ormerod's incredulity is shared by Mr. T. 
 Worthington Barlow, the author of " Cheshire : 
 its Historical and Literary Associations " (Man- 
 chester, 1855 ; seepage 108) ; but it is important 
 
 • The local allusions in Nixon are, for the most part, 
 easily recognised. The Wanslow Lane mentioned in the 
 rhyming prophecy should be Swanlow Lane.
 
 XXIX. 
 
 here to recollect what does not appear to have 
 occurred to them, that as Oldmixon's pamphlet 
 had gone through a score of editions before 
 1756, had been printed at London, Liverpool, 
 Edinburgh, Glasgow, &c., and must have been 
 very extensively circulated in Cheshire and the 
 neighbouring counties, the chances are that if 
 the statements were incorrect, some one of the 
 many who must have known their inaccuracy 
 would have been eager to proclaim them false, 
 even though the persons most interested did 
 not care to do so. 
 
 " In the compilation of this work," continues 
 Dr. Ormerod," there has not occurred any direct 
 or collateral confirmation of the story, or the 
 previous prophecy, in any authentic document 
 whatsoever. A portrait, with the name of Nixon, 
 was engraved by Harding from a picture in the 
 possession of Owen Brereton, Esq., which he 
 picked up accidentally, in a very tattered state, 
 from some children in Cheshire, who used it as 
 a plaything ; but its connection with the person 
 it is reported to be the likeness of is altogether 
 imaginary."* 
 
 It will be seen from this extract that Dr. 
 Ormerod is somewhat sceptical even as to the 
 existence of the prophet. It is certainly singu- 
 lar that no printed account of him is to be 
 found before that issued by Oldmixon, about 
 1 714, whilst the metrical prophecies do not 
 seem to have been published until much later 
 in the century, although in their style they 
 exhibit signs of considerable antiquity. To 
 consider them as mere modern forgeries would 
 
 * " History of Cheshire," ii. 100.
 
 be very uncritical, for, however little value we 
 may attach to them as predictions of future 
 events, there can be no doubt that the language 
 in which they are conveyed is much more 
 ancient than that of the time when they were 
 first printed. Amongst the traditions still cur- 
 rent about the prophet is one which perpetuates 
 a very old saw. The Miller of Storeton Hill 
 asked Nixon which would be the most desirable 
 locality on the Day of Judgment. The answer 
 was " In God's croft, between Mersey and Dee." 
 Nixon's name has sometimes been attached 
 to productions with which he had no connec- 
 tion, and it is not always easy to separate the 
 genuine from the apocryphal. The following, 
 which is printed in the Chestev Miscellany 
 (1750), is evidently the work ol some sly 
 Jacobite hiding beneath the mask of the 
 ancient Cheshire prophet. It has been re- 
 printed in the Cheshiye and Lancashire Historical 
 Collector. 
 
 " Tuesday, December i, 1747. 
 
 "in Cheshire, Nov. 20, 1747. 
 
 " I doubt not, but most people in this 
 county, have heard of a stone found some time 
 ago in an adjacent township, where there was 
 once a great pool. This mere, Nixon prophesied, 
 should come to be mown and sown, which, 
 many years ago, by draining, came to pass. 
 The stone was discovered by the ploughs 
 striking upon it, and was, with no small diffi- 
 cult)', got out of the earth. I have now, by 
 the assistance of our exciseman (a University
 
 man, but of too much merit to get anything 
 worth while in the Church), put together the 
 letters upon it, and at length made out a legible 
 inscription, of which the following lines are a 
 translation : — 
 
 "TO POSTERITY. 
 
 " Whene'er this stone, now hid beneath the lake, 
 
 A steed shall trample, or a plough shall break. 
 
 Then, O my country ! shall thou groan distrest, 
 
 Grief swell thine eyes, and horror chill thy breast. 
 
 Through all thy streets, complaints too just, shall sound. 
 
 Loud as the billows breaking on the ground. 
 
 Then o'er thy fields shall scarlet dragons stray, 
 
 And rapine and pollution mark their way ; 
 
 These pests in swarms the peaceful vale shall fright, 
 
 Still fierce to threaten, still afraid to fight : 
 
 The plenteous year's whole product they'll devour, 
 
 And fruit insatiate pluck, and crop the flow'r : 
 
 And glutt'ning on the industrious peasant's spoil, 
 
 Rob without fear, and fatten without toil. 
 
 Then servile prelates, with their ser\'ile priests 
 
 Shall, self-debas'd, become the scoffer's jests. 
 
 Her once firm sons shall urge Britannia's doom. 
 
 And patriots erst shall parricides become. 
 
 In domes deprived of heaven's free gift, the light, 
 
 Shall Albion's sons endure a Greenland night. 
 
 Then edicts shall go forth the cars among. 
 
 And tax-clogged wheels drag heavily along. 
 
 O'er Europe's world shall discord stretch her wings. 
 
 Embroiling emperors, queens, and states, and kings. 
 
 On Belgia's soil shall British hosts be strewn. 
 
 Slain in her feuds, .and quarrels not their own.
 
 Then the proud lilies shall o'erspread the plain, 
 Repeat their triumphs, and enlarge the reign ; 
 While that once mighty terror of the field, 
 The lion, shall to these famed lilies yield ; 
 He, too, shall crouch to mean, ignoble force, 
 Cow'd, kick'd, and trampled by a wretched horse." 
 
 Leaving the reader, then, to give that 
 amount of belief or disbehef which he maj- 
 think proper, we invite his attention to the 
 following pages, as giving a faithful reprint of 
 all that is known on a subject which must be 
 interesting not only to every Cestrian, but to 
 every lover of the curious in literature and the 
 occult in science. 
 
 W. E. A. A.
 
 NIXON'S 
 CHESHIRE PROPHECY 
 
 AT LARGE; 
 
 Published from the Lady Cowper's Correct Copy, 
 WITH 
 
 HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL REMARKS, 
 
 AND 
 
 Several Instances wherein it is Fulfilled. 
 By JOHN OLDMIXON, Esq. 
 
 [First Published at London in 1714.]
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 This remarkable prophecy has been care- 
 fully revised; corrected, and improved ; also 
 some account given of our author, Robert 
 Nixon, who was but a kind of idiot, and used 
 to be employed in following the plough. He 
 had lived in some farmers' families, and was 
 their drudge and their jest. 
 
 At last Thomas Cholmondley, of Vale 
 Royal, Esq., took him into his house, where he 
 lived when he composed this prophecy, which 
 he delivered with as much gravity and solem- 
 nity as if he had been an oracle ; and it was 
 observed, that though the fool was a driveller, 
 and could not speak common sense when he was 
 uninspired, yet, in delivering his prophecies, 
 he spoke plainly and sensibly ; how truly will 
 be seen in the following pages. 
 
 As to the credit of this prophecy, I dare 
 say it is as well attested as any of Nostra- 
 damus's, or Merlin's and has come to pass as 
 well as the best of Squire Bickerstaft's, the 
 latter the greatest prophet of the last century.
 
 Now, I would not have anj'bod}' laugh at 
 it merely because it is a prophecy. Some un- 
 godly people think there has been no witch 
 since the Witch of Endor, nor no prophet since 
 Malachi ; but it is plain enough that great men 
 in all ages have had recourse to prophecy as 
 well as the vulgar. 
 
 Fortune-telling is in the low kind of pro- 
 phec}'; and yet those minor prophets, the for- 
 tune-tellers, have many advocates to argue 
 and, if you please, to prove the truth and 
 importance of their predictions. Not to give 
 instances out of ancient history of the wonders 
 performed by the English, Scots, and Irish 
 prophets, the most modern story furnishes us 
 with examples of the greatest monarchs that have 
 received comfort from the art of soothsaying. 
 I would not have all grave persons despise the 
 inspiration of Nixon. The late French King 
 gave audience to an inspired farrier, and 
 rewarded him with a hundred pistoles for his 
 prophetical intelligence; though, by what I 
 can learn, he did not come near our Nixon for 
 gifts. 
 
 The Cheshire Prophecy has so many odd- 
 nesses in it, that I am sure the reader will 
 De glad to see a thing which is as well known 
 in that County Palatine as Mother Shipton's 
 in Yorkshire.
 
 "The simplicity, the circumstances, the history 
 of the Cheshire prophecy are so remarkable, 
 that I could not help communicating it to the 
 public, who, I hope, will be as much delighted 
 with it as I was myself. 
 
 By the way, this is not a prophecy of to-day ; 
 it is older than the powder plot, and the story 
 will make it appear that there is as little 
 imposture in it as the Jacobites pretend there 
 is in the person it seems to have an eye to ; but 
 whether they are both impostures alike or not, 
 I leave the reader to determine. 
 
 [J. OLDMIXON.] 
 
 THE PROPHECY. 
 
 In the reign of King James I. there lived 
 a fool, whose name was Nixon. One day he 
 came in out of the field from plough, and laying 
 down the things he had in his hands, he 
 remained a little while in the dumps, and then 
 with a hoarse voice said, "Now I will prophesy." 
 Then he spoke as follows :
 
 "When a raven sliall build in a stone iTon's 
 mouth on the top of a church in Cheshire, then 
 a King of England shall be driven out of his 
 kingdom, and never return more. 
 
 "When an eagle shall sit on the top of the 
 house, then an heir shall be born to the Chol- 
 mondley's family ; and this heir shall live to see 
 England invaded by foreigners, who shall pro- 
 ceed so far as a town in Cheshire ; but a miller, 
 named Peter, shall be born with two heels on 
 one foot, and at that time living in a mill of 
 Mr. Cholmondley's, he shall be instrumental in 
 delivering the nation. The person who then 
 governs the nation will be in great trouble, and 
 sculk about; the invading king shall be killed, 
 laid across a horse's back like a calf, and led in 
 triumph. The miller having been instrumental 
 in it, shall bring forth the person that then 
 governs the kingdom, and be knighted for what 
 he has done ; and after that England shall see 
 happy days. A young new set of men of 
 virtuous manners shall come, who shall prosper, 
 and make a flourishing church for two hundred 
 years. 
 
 "As a token of the truth of all this, a wall 
 of Mr. Cholmondley's shall fall. If it fall 
 downwards, the church shall be oppressed, and 
 rise no more ; but if upwards, next the rising 
 hill on the side of it, then shall it flourish again.
 
 Under this wall shall be found the bones of a 
 British king. 
 
 " A pond shall run with blood three days, 
 and the cross-stone pillar in the forest sink so 
 low into the ground that a crow from the top 
 of it shall drink of the best blood in England. 
 
 " A boy shall be born with three thumbs, 
 and shall hold three kings' hoi'ses, while 
 England shall three times be won and lost in 
 one day." 
 
 The original may be seen in several fa- 
 milies in that county, and is particularly in the 
 hands of Mr. Egerton, of Olton, with many 
 other remarkables ; as, that Pecferton wind- 
 mill would be removed to Ludditon Hill ; that 
 there should be so great a slaughter of men 
 that horses saddled should run about till their 
 girths rotted away. But this is sufficient to 
 prove Nixon as great a prophet as Partridge, 
 and we shall give other proofs of it before we 
 have done with him. 
 
 I know your prophets are generally for 
 raw-head and bloody bones, and therefore do 
 not mind it much ; for I might add that Olton 
 Mill shall be driven with blood instead of water. 
 But these soothsayers are great butchers, and 
 every hall is with them a slaughter-house. 
 
 Now, as for authorities to prove this 
 prophecy to be genuine, and how it has been
 
 hitherto accomplished, I might refer mj'self 
 to the whole county of Cheshire, where 
 it is in everyone's mouth, and has been so 
 these forty years. As much as I have of the 
 manuscript was sent me by a person of sense 
 and veracity, as little partial to visions as any- 
 body. For my own part, I build nothing on 
 this or any other prophecy, only there is some- 
 thing so very odd in the storj', and so pat in 
 the wording of it, that I cannot help giving it 
 as I found it. 
 
 The family of the Cholmondleys is very 
 ancient in this county, and takes its name 
 from a place so called near Nantwich ; there 
 are also Cholmton and Cholmondeston ; but 
 the seat of that branch of the family which 
 kept our prophet Nixon is at Vale Royal, on 
 the river Weave, in Delamere Forest. It was 
 formerly an abbey* founded by Edward I., 
 and came to the Cholmondleys from the famous 
 family of the Holcrofts. When Nixon pro- 
 phecied, this family was near being extinct, 
 the heir having married Sir Walter St. John's 
 
 * A subsequent edition ofOldmixon's Tract adds this note: — 
 " It is reported that there is a room in this house, the door 
 and windows of which are kept closely fastened, and no one 
 is ever permitted to enter the same except the next heir, 
 when he attains his twenty-first year, at which time he goes 
 in alone, and when he returns it is shut up as before."
 
 daughter, a lady not esteemed very young, 
 who, notwithstanding, being with child, fell 
 in labour, and continued so for many days. 
 (During which time an eagle sat upon the 
 house-top, and flew away when she was de- 
 livered, which proved to be of a son). 
 
 A raven is also known to have built in a 
 stone lion's mouth in the steeple of the church 
 of Over, in the forest of Delamere. Not long 
 before the abdication of King James the wall 
 spoken of fell down, and fell upwards, and, in 
 removing the rubbish, were found the bones of 
 a man of more than ordinary size. A pond 
 at the same time ran with water that had 
 a reddish tincture, and was never known to 
 have done so before or since. 
 
 Headless Cross, in the forest, which in the 
 memory of man was several feet high, is now 
 sunk within half a foot of the ground. 
 
 In the parish of Budworth a boy was borni 
 about eighteen years ago, with three thumbs ; 
 the youth is still living there : and the miller, 
 Peter, lives in Nagginshire Mills, in expecta- 
 tion of fulfilling this prophecy on the person 
 of Perkin : he hath also two heels on one 
 foot, but I find he does not intend to make use 
 of them, for he is a bold Briton, and a loyal 
 subject to King George, zealous for the Pro- 
 testant succession in the illustrious House of
 
 Hanover, has a vote ior the knights of the 
 shire, and never fails to give it on the right 
 side; in a vford, Peter will prate or box for the 
 good cause that Nixon has listed him in, and 
 if he does not do the business, this must be 
 said of him, that no man will bid fairer for it ; 
 which the Lady Egerton was so apprehensive 
 of that, wishing well to another restoration, 
 she often instigated her husband to turn him 
 out of the mill; but he looked upon it as 
 whimsey, and so Peter still continues there, in 
 hopes of being as good a knight as Sir Philip, 
 his landlord, was. 
 
 Of this Peter I have been told that the 
 Lady Narcliff, of Chelsea, and the Lady St. 
 John, of Battersea, have often been heard to 
 talk, and that they both asserted the truth of 
 our prophecy and its accomplishment, with 
 many particulars which are more extraordinary 
 than any I have yet mentioned. 
 
 The noise of Nixon's predictions reaching 
 the ears of King James L, he would needs see 
 this fool, who cried and made ado that he 
 might not go to Court; and the reason that he 
 gave was, that he should be starved. (A very 
 whimsical fancy of his : Courts are not places 
 that people often starve in when they once 
 come there, whatever they did before.) The 
 King being informed of Nixon's refusing to
 
 come, said he would take jDarticular care that 
 he should not be starved, and ordered him to 
 be brought up. Nixon cried out he was sent for 
 again, and soon after the messenger arrived, 
 who brought him up from Cheshire. 
 
 How or whether he prophesied to his Majesty, 
 nobody can tell; but he is not the first fool that 
 has made a good Court prophet. That Nixon 
 might be well provided for, 'twas ordered he 
 should be kept in the kitchen, where he grew 
 so troublesome in licking and picking the meat, 
 that the cooks locked him up in a hole ; and 
 the King going on a sudden from Hampton- 
 Court to London, they forgot the fool in the 
 hurry, and he was really starved to death. 
 
 There are a great many passages of this 
 fool-prophet's life and sayings transmitted in 
 tradition from father to son in this County 
 Palatine ; as, that when he lived with a farmer 
 before he was taken into Mr. Cholmondley's 
 family, he goaded an ox so cruelly, that one of 
 the ploughmen threatened to beat him for 
 abusing his master's beast. Nixon said, " My 
 master's beast will not be his three days." A 
 life in an estate dropping in that time, the lord 
 of the manor took the same ox for a herriot. 
 This account, as whimsical and romantic as 
 it is, was told to the Lady Cowper, in the 
 year 1670, by Dr. Patrick, late Bishop of Ely,
 
 12 
 
 then chaplain to Sir Walter St. John ; and 
 that lady had the following further particu- 
 lars relating to this prophecy, and the ful- 
 filling of many parts of it, from Mrs. Chute, 
 sister to Mrs. Cholmondley, of Vale Royal, 
 who affirmed that a multitude of people 
 gathered together to see the eagle before- 
 mentioned, the bird was frightened from her 
 young ; that she herself was one of them, and 
 the cry among the people was, " Nixon's pro- 
 phecy is fulfilled, and we shall have a foreign 
 king." She declared that she read over the pro- 
 phecy many times, when her sister was with 
 child of the heir who now enjoys the estate. She 
 particularly remembers that King James II. was 
 plainly pointed at, and that it was foretold he 
 should endeavour to subvert the laws and 
 religion of this kingdom, for which reason they 
 would rise and turn him out ; that the eagle 
 of which Nixon prophesied perched in one of 
 the windows all the time her sister was in 
 labour. She said it was the biggest bird she 
 ever saw ; that it was in a deep snow, and it 
 perched on the edge of a great bow-window, 
 which had a large border on the outside, 
 and that she and many others opened the 
 window to try to scare it away, but it would 
 not stir till Mrs. Cholmondley was delivered, 
 after which it took flight to a great tree over
 
 13 
 
 against the room her sister lay in, where, having 
 stayed about three days, it flew away in the 
 night. She affirmed further to the Lady Cowper 
 that the faUing of the garden wall was a thing 
 not to be questioned, it being in so many 
 people's memory. That it was foretold that 
 the heir of Vale Royal should live to see 
 England invaded by foreigners, and that he 
 should fight bravely for his king and his 
 country: That the miller mentioned is alive, 
 and expects to be knighted, and is in the verj' 
 mill that is foretold : That he should kill two 
 invaders who should come in, the one from the 
 West, and the other from the North: that he 
 from the North should bring with him of all 
 nations, Swedes, Danes, Germans, and Dutch ; 
 and that in the folds of his garments he should 
 bring Fire and Famine, Plague and Murder: 
 That many great battles should be fought in 
 England, one upon London Bridge, which 
 would be so bloody that people would ride in 
 London streets up to their horses" bellies in 
 blood: that several other battles should be 
 fought up and down most parts in Cheshire ; 
 and that the last that ever would be fought 
 in England should be on Delamere Forest : 
 
 that the heir of Olton, whose name is E n, 
 
 and has married Earl Cholmondley's sister, 
 shall be hanged up at his own gate.
 
 14 
 
 Lastly, he foretells great glory and pros- 
 perity to those who stand up in defence of 
 their laws and liberties, and ruin and misery 
 to those that should betraj' them. He says, 
 the year before this would happen bread corn 
 would be verj- dear, and that the year follow- 
 ing more troubles should begin, which would 
 last three years; that the first would be 
 moderate, the second bloody, and the third 
 intolerable ; that unless they were shortened, 
 no mortal could bear them, and that there 
 were no mischiefs but what poor England 
 would feel at that time. But that George, 
 the SON of George, should put an end to all. 
 That afterwards the Church should flourish, and 
 England be the most glorious nation upon earth. 
 
 The same Lady Cowper was not content 
 to take these particulars from Mrs. Chute, but 
 she inquired of Sir Thomas Aston of the 
 truth of this prophecy; and he attested it was 
 in great reputation in Cheshire, and that the 
 facts were known by every one to have hap- 
 pened as Nixon said they would ; adding, that 
 the morning before the garden wall fell, his 
 neighbour, Mr. Cholmondley, going to ride out 
 a hunting, said, as he passed by it, "Nixon 
 seldom fails, but now I think he will, for he 
 foretold that this day my garden wall would 
 fall, and I think it looks as if it would stand
 
 15 
 
 these forty years : " that he had not been gone 
 a quarter of an hour before the wall split, and 
 fell upwards against the rising of the hill, 
 which, as Nixon would have it, was the presage 
 of a flourishing church. 
 
 As to the removal of Pecferton Mill, it was 
 done by Sir John Crew, the mill having lost its 
 trade there, for which he ordered it to be set 
 upon Ludditon Hill ; and, being asked if he 
 did it to fulfil the prophecy, he declared he 
 never thought of it. I myself have inquired 
 of a person who knov/s Mr. Cholmondley's 
 pond as well as Rosamond's, in St. James's 
 Park, and he assured me the falling of the 
 wall and the pond running blood, as they call 
 it, are facts which in Cheshire anyone would 
 be reckoned mad for making the least question 
 of them. 
 
 As there are several particulars in this pro- 
 phecy which remain unfulfilled, so, when the}' 
 come to pass, some other circumstances may 
 be added, which are not convenient to be told 
 till they be accomplished. 
 
 If I had a mind to look into the antiquities 
 of this county, I might find that prodigies and 
 prophecies are no unusual things there. Camb- 
 den tells us that at Brereton, not many miles 
 from Vale Royal, which gave name to a 
 famous ancient, numerous, and knightly family.
 
 i6 
 
 there is a thing as strange as the perching of 
 the eagle or the falling of the wall, which, he 
 says, was attested to him by many persons, 
 and was commonly believed ; that before any 
 heir of this family dies there ai^e seen, in a lake 
 adjoining, the bodies of trees swimming upon 
 the waters for several days together. He like- 
 wise adds that near the Abbey of St. Maurice, 
 in Burgundy, there is a fishpond in which a 
 number of fishes are put, equal to the number 
 of monks of that place; and if any one of them 
 happens to be sick, there is a fish seen floating 
 on the water ; and in case the fit of sickness 
 proves fatal to the monk, the fish foretells it by 
 its own death some days before. This the 
 learned Camden relates in his description of 
 Cheshire ; and the opinion of the trees swim- 
 ming in the lake near Brereton prevails all 
 about the country to this day, only with this 
 difference, that some say it is one log that 
 swims, and some say many. 
 
 Lancashire, which is not far off, has been 
 famous for witches, and I am afraid Cheshire 
 is a little infected by its neighbourhood. Those 
 that will not believe our prophecy, may leave 
 it alone ; but if hope is a good help to faith, I 
 shall not be long among the incredulous. 
 
 [J. OLDMIXON.]
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 ^i;ton, t|c €\p\m f r0}!|c,t; 
 
 CONTAINING 
 
 SEVERAL SURPRISING PASSAGES 
 
 OF 
 
 His Life and Prophecies, 
 
 NEVER BEFORE PRINTED, 
 
 IN A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN 
 
 AT NAMPTWICH TO HIS FRIEND 
 
 IN LONDON. 
 
 [First Published at Lonion in 1714.] 
 
 B
 
 LIFE OF NIXON, 
 
 THE CHESHIRE PROPHET. 
 
 Nantwich, Mar. 24, 1714. 
 
 Sir, — I have read over your Cheshire Pro- 
 phecy, and must needs say, that what you 
 have added is to be found in the original, 
 written in doggrel verse: I have read it over 
 and over; and though it is longer than your 
 Prophecy, yet I think the substance of it is 
 there; and I shall now give you some material 
 passages, which will serve to make your Pro- 
 phecy complete. To these I shall add a short 
 account of his life as I have been able to in- 
 form myself of it by old people. I could 
 meet with but one man who remembered the 
 Prophet, and that was old Woodman of Cop- 
 nal. He says, that Nixon was a short squab 
 fellow, had a great head, and goggle eyes; 
 that he used to drivel as he spoke, which was
 
 20 
 
 very rarely, and was extremely surly. He 
 particularly had a spite against children, and 
 would run after them to beat them when they 
 came in his way, especially if they made sport 
 with him, as he said they used to do, and him- 
 self among the rest, when he was a lad. He 
 was at first plough-boy to Farmer Crowton, 
 of Swanlow, and so stubborn, that they could 
 make him do nothing without beating. They 
 could seldom get anything out of him but 
 yes and no; and if he spoke much more, 
 'twas unintelligible ; nay, he would liardly say 
 no and yes, unless he was pinched by Hunger. 
 He had a very good stomach; and the report 
 was, that he would eat up a shoulder of 
 mutton at a meal, if they would let him, and 
 a good luncheon of bread and cheese after 
 it. The people had, it seems, a strange 
 reverence even for his stupidity; and they 
 took his silence to be like that of an oracle, 
 as portentious as if he prophesied. 
 
 The first time that he was found out to be 
 a prophet, was upon this occasion. Farmer 
 Crowton being one day at plough in a field, 
 near the River Weaver in Swanlow Parish, 
 and his boy Nixon following him, the boy 
 stopt on a sudden, dropt his bottle and budget 
 which he carried to field with him, and stood 
 motionless with his eyes fixed towards
 
 21 
 
 heaven. Neither words nor blows could get 
 him out of this trance for the space of an 
 hour. When he recovered, he took up the 
 things he had dropt, and followed the plough. 
 His master, and the men that were at work 
 in the same field, stood by him all the while, 
 taking him to be in a fit; but wondered still 
 that he stood upright, and did not fall down. 
 He himself seemed to be insensible of any 
 alteration that had happened to him. But 
 for about a quarter of an hour after, he talked 
 very rationally of several things that had 
 been done some time before, and dropt 
 expressions of others that were to be done; 
 which pi^esently made his master, and those 
 that were with him, conclude that Nixon's 
 dulness had something sacred in it ; and that 
 his words were oracles, especially when some 
 little things he foretold fell out according to 
 his Prediction. 'Twas with this farmer that 
 he lived when he prophesied of his master's 
 ox, as is mentioned in his prophec5% 
 
 I must correct some errors that you have 
 been led into by the imperfect copies of his 
 prophecy; as that about the Falling of the 
 wall, which some zealous People have applied 
 to the Church; whereas, in truth, it has a 
 literal reference to the State only. Wood- 
 man said, the common tradition has been,
 
 22 
 
 That when the wall belonging to Vale Royal 
 House fell down, it was to denote some re- 
 markable change in the government: That 
 if 'twas a serene day, and the wall fell in- 
 ward, it signified an advantageous and happy 
 change; but if it were a stormy day, and fell 
 outward, and any of the stones fell into the 
 brook, it signified the direct contrary. To this 
 he added, that the Cholmondley family, whose 
 seat it was, kept several workmen in yearly 
 pay to support the wall, and every month to 
 inspect it all round. That it was buttressed 
 both within and without ; and the week before 
 it fell, the workmen gave in their report, 
 that it was so strong, it might reasonably last 
 an hundred years without any repairs. 
 
 This, I assure you, is not only what the old 
 man told me, but what I have heard from seve- 
 ral others, and can get well attested, if it is 
 thought proper: As also the particulars of the 
 falling of the wall ; which are these : 
 
 "Upon the fourth of August, 1688, about 
 II o'clock in the forenoon, being a calm and 
 clear day, without the least breath of wind, that 
 wall fell flat inwards all at once, and not so 
 much as one single stone fell outwards." 
 
 This happening so little a while before the 
 Revolution, it was taken notice of as an acci- 
 dent which was verj^ much to our advantage.
 
 23 
 
 And as there was a greater rising for the Prince 
 of Orange in Cheshire than in any other county 
 in England, why may we not imagine that 
 Nixon's Prophec}' contributed very much to it ? 
 The objection to this may be that the owner 
 of the house, Thomas Cholmondley, Esq., was 
 a Jacobite ; and it is not hkely that anything 
 about him could bode well to the Revolution. 
 But his being a Jacobite gives the greater 
 authority to the prediction and the fulfilling of 
 it. For it is not likely that one who was an 
 enemy to the Prince of Orange should let a 
 miracle be wrought in his house in favour of 
 the happy change he soon after accomplished. 
 I should not have made this digression, had 
 not some silly people, almost as stupid as 
 Nixon, but by no means so well gifted in 
 prophecy, given out, that the falling of the 
 wall denoted the rising of the Pretender ; and 
 this, too, just as he was running away from 
 Scotland. 
 
 I cannot help observing to you upon this 
 occasion, that some of us in this county were 
 strangely spirited by your prophecy. When 
 the rebels advanced to Preston, we were told 
 that they intended to march through our 
 county into Flintshire and Denbighshire ; if 
 they had, their route must have been through 
 Delamere Forest, where Nixon lived and
 
 24 
 
 prophesied ; and the Miller Peter, with his 
 countrymen, were resolved to have given very 
 great credit to your prophecy, which is abused 
 when it has any interpretation applied to it 
 that has an eye to Popery and slavery: For as 
 great a fool as Nixon was, he was not so 
 stupid as our modern zealots, nor even dropt 
 a word against the Protestant religion. 
 
 To return to old Woodman: He informed 
 me further, that after it was known what a 
 prophet Farmer Crowton had in his family, 
 Mr. Cholmondley sent for the fellow, and 
 kept him at his house, giving him in charge 
 to his steward, whom he ordered to try 
 whether he could make anything of him, and 
 teach him to read. But Nixon's stupidity 
 increased upon him, the more the steward 
 endeavoured to improve him ; and the most 
 he could do with him, was to make him hold 
 his goad right, and drive oxen at plough. As 
 he was once in the field with the rest of Mr. 
 Cholmondley's servants, he let fall his goad 
 on a sudden, as he had dropt his budget and 
 bottle formerly. He stood motionless after 
 the same manner, with his eyes fixt towards 
 heaven. The servants talked to him, and beat 
 him to get him to his work, and all to no 
 purpose. He remained in a sort of trance 
 for the space of an hour ; and then recovering.
 
 25 
 
 he took up his goad, and went on with his 
 business, as though nothing had befallen him. 
 One of Mr. Cholmondley's men asked him, 
 What ailed him ? and why he stood there so 
 long ? To whom Nixon replied. That he had 
 seen those things which he could not tell 
 them, and which man never saw before. He 
 then discoursed to the servants that crowded 
 about him for nearly two hours, and spoke as 
 reasonably as the best of them could have 
 done, without any manner of hesitation in his 
 Discourse : 
 
 He foretold the Civil Wars, the death of 
 King Charles I., the restoration of King 
 Charles H., the abdication of King James 
 n., the Revolution and glorious war with 
 France, and the flourishing state of this 
 Kingdom afterwards : Adding, these things 
 will as certainly happen, as that I shall be 
 sent for by the King, and starved to death. 
 When he had finished his speech, he returned 
 to his natural dulness and silence ; and unless 
 he had been in one of his trances, he was 
 always dull and mute ; but while he was 
 uttering his prophecies, he spoke clearly and 
 with an air of assurance, that they would be 
 accomplished. The servants as soon as they 
 came home, told their master of this prodigy ; 
 and Mr. Cholmondley ordered them to write
 
 26 
 
 down as much of it as they could remember, 
 which they did, and it is preserved in that 
 family to this day ; together with some less 
 material hints, as hard weather, and scarcity 
 of provisions, &c., which would certainly 
 happen. That family has always locked it up 
 as a treasure, and whatever pains I have 
 taken to procure a copy of it, I could never 
 succeed, and despair now of getting it. Mr. 
 Egerton of Olton, who is nearly related to the 
 Cholmondley family, has a copy of it also, 
 but he will not part with it. Both of those 
 families do lay great stress on Nixon's pre- 
 dictions ; and I must tell you they are two of 
 the most ancient and honourable families in 
 our county. 
 
 You have mentioned Nixon's being sent for 
 to court by King James the First. Woodman 
 says it was thus: When he came to court 
 that King gave him in charge to one of his 
 officers, commanding him to keep him in 
 close confinement, and to make strict obser- 
 vations on his behaviour, that he might be 
 assured there was nothing of imposture in 
 him. This gentleman kept Nixon locked up, 
 and going in a hurry with the King to Theo- 
 bald's, he forgot to take care and leave him 
 provisions till his return ; by which means he 
 was starved to death. It must be observed.
 
 27 
 
 that Nixon could not speak, except it was im- 
 mediately after he came out of his trance, 
 and never could be brought to pronounce a 
 sensible word more than aye or no, as hath 
 been before observed, unless when he was 
 pronouncing his oracles. There happened 
 something wiUi respect to Nixon and his going 
 to court, like what I met with in the pamphlet 
 you sent me, called the Drummer of Ted- 
 worth : for as that drummer left off beating 
 when King Charles's courtiers came to be on 
 the watch with him, and would not satisfy 
 their curiosity ; so our clown of a prophet, 
 after he came to court, was entirely dumb, 
 and pronounced no more prophecies. It is said 
 he was not long there before he was starved 
 to death. Nixon was very grateful to his 
 Master Cholmondley ; he prophesied that the 
 heir to be born to the family, threescore and 
 ten years after, should be endowed with very 
 eminent qualifications, and arrive at greater 
 honors than any of his ancestors had done : 
 That he should distinguish himself by his 
 loyalty and services to the King then reigning ; 
 and that after the happy settlement which 
 would succeed the struggle, the peace would 
 be lasting, with a continued series of honors 
 and glory to the nation. This child, said 
 Nixon, shall be known by the appearance ol
 
 28 
 
 an eagle at the time of his birth, with the cir- 
 cumstances mentioned in your Prophecy. A 
 long time before the eagle appeared, the 
 country people used to look out for it, and as 
 often as the lady of Vale Royal lay in, they 
 would cry, Where is the eagle ? When will 
 Nixon's heir be born ? The appearance of 
 the eagle was about five and twenty years 
 ago : The lady who lay in was aunt to 
 Henry St. John, late Lord Bolingbroke ; when 
 she was in labour, she heard great shoutings 
 and acclamations of joy; and inquiring the 
 reason, was told, the eagle so long talked of 
 was come. Upon which her sister and Mr. J. 
 S., who are both living, went to the window, 
 saw the eagle sitting on a bough, and looked 
 at it above a quarter of an hour. It was seen 
 also by several thousands of people, and is 
 such a confirmation of Nixon's Prophecy, that 
 the truth of it is no where doubted of in this 
 county, by either gentle or simple. 
 
 There is some variation in the original 
 Prophecy from what is mentioned in your Pro- 
 phecy about the competitors for the kingdom ; 
 the Germans, Dutch, and Danes, are to con- 
 quer those that bring fire and famine, plague 
 and murder, in the folds of their garments ; 
 and we can understand none but the French 
 by such bloody invaders ; none but French
 
 29 
 
 Papists would bring such destructions among 
 Protestants. As for the Miller Peter, he was 
 born about the time of the Revolution ; and 
 Nixon prophesied that he should have two heels 
 on one foot, and be knighted ; the two heels he 
 hath already, but the spurs are not come to 
 his lot. Yet, however, the country people in 
 this neighbourhood have made a knight of 
 him these many years, and honest Peter the 
 Miller is Sir Peter in every one's mouth. 
 
 I must here correct an error of Mr. Addison 
 in his Freeholder, who has not read your Pro- 
 phecy with that attention and regard which a 
 thing of such importance deserves, for he gives 
 the Miller two thumbs, whereas Nixon gives 
 him two heels. A mistake in the text of a 
 prophecy is of a very dangerous consequence ; 
 and I doubt not, but upon this notice, in future 
 editions, this error will be corrected, and jus- 
 tice done to honest Peter the Miller. 
 
 I am, yours, 
 
 W. E.
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 • OF 
 
 Robert Nixon 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BRIDGE HOUSE. 
 
 [FIRST PUBLISHED 17—.]
 
 THE LI FE 
 
 OF 
 
 ROBERT NIXON 
 
 OF 
 
 THE BRIDGE HOUSE. 
 [First Published i 7 — .] 
 
 The Prophecy of Nixon has so often given 
 a name to the productions of authors of different 
 principles, that it is now almost become a doubt 
 whether such a person ever existed. Passing 
 through Cheshire, curiosity led me to inquire 
 what credit these legends bore amongst the 
 natives; and I was not a little surprised to 
 find with what confidence they related events 
 which have come to pass within the memory 
 of many of the inhabitants; and how strictty 
 they adhered to the notion that he would not 
 fail in the rest. Among this number was a
 
 34 
 
 namesake and descendant of the same family 
 with this famous idiot, who at this time Hves not 
 far from Vale Royal, from whom I had mostly 
 what follows, which he said he often heard his 
 father, and other ancient people in the country, 
 relate. I also obtained a manuscript copy, 
 which seemed to bear the appearance of anti- 
 quity. Mr. Gerrard, Mr. Grimes, and others 
 of the inhabitants of the forest of Delamere, 
 very obligingly told me what they knew, and 
 confirmed what was passed. 
 
 John, or Jonathan Nixon, the father of our 
 prophet, was an husbandman, who had the 
 lease of a farm from the abbey of Vale Royal, 
 to this day known bj' the name of Bark or 
 Bridge-house, in the parish of Over, near New- 
 church, and not far from Vale Royal, in the 
 forest of Delamere, which house is still kept 
 up and venerated by the natives of Cheshire 
 for nothing else, that I could hear of, but this 
 extraordinary person's birth, which took place 
 in Whitsuntide ; and he was christened by the 
 name of Robert in the year 1467, about the 
 seventh year of Edward IV., and from his 
 infancy he was remarkable for a stupidity and 
 invincible ignorance, so that it was with great 
 difficulty his parents could instruct him to 
 drive the team, tend the cattle, and such sorts 
 of rustic emploj-ment.
 
 35 
 
 His parents at their decease left the farm 
 and our Robert, then very young, to the care 
 of an elder brother, with whom he first gave 
 an instance of that foreknowledge which ren- 
 ders his name so famous. 
 
 As he was driving the team one day, whilst 
 his brother's man guided the plough, he pricked 
 an ox so very cruelly with his goad, that the 
 plough-holder threatened to acquaint his mas- 
 ter ; on which Nixon said the ox should not be 
 his brother's three days hence ; which accord- 
 ingly happened, for a life dropping in the 
 estate, the lord of the manor took the same ox 
 for an heriot." 
 
 During his residence here he was chiefly 
 distinguished for his simplicity ; seldom spoke, 
 and when he did, it was with so rough a voice 
 that it was painful to hear him; he was re- 
 markably satirical, and what he said had 
 generally some prophetic meaning. It was 
 about this time that the monk of Vale Royal 
 having displeased him, he said in an angry 
 tone : 
 
 When you the harrow come on high, 
 Soon a raven's nest will be, 
 
 which is well known to have come to pass in 
 
 * Or an acknowledgment which, by the tenure of some 
 estates, is given to every new lord of a manor.
 
 36 
 
 the person of the last abbot of that place, 
 whose name was Harrow. Being called before 
 Sir Thomas Holcroft, he was put to death for 
 denying the supremacy of King Henry VIII. 
 Having suppressed the abbey, the King gave 
 the domain to this knight and his heirs, who 
 bore a raven for their crest. 
 
 At another time he told them that Norton 
 and Vale Royal Abbeys should meet on Acton 
 Bridge — a thing at that time looked upon as 
 improbable ; yet those two abbeys being pulled 
 down, the stones were used for that purpose; 
 and, what was more improbable still, a small 
 thorn, growing in the abbey yard, would 
 become its door. We may easily guess no 
 one thought this last would ever come to 
 pass; and especially as it was understood 
 by everyone at that time of day that thorns 
 never grew so large. But this shows the 
 uncertain meaning of a prophecy, and that 
 what we understand one way is possibly 
 meant quite different ; so it happened in 
 this case, for at the Reformation the savage 
 ravagers, under the sanction of religion, 
 sought nothing but rapine and plunder to 
 enrich themselves; and under the name of 
 banishing superstition and pulling down idola- 
 try, spared not even the most revered linea-' 
 ments of antiquity, the most sacred piles, the
 
 37 
 
 most noble structures, or most valuable records 
 — books written by our naost venerable fore- 
 fathers and heroic ancestors. Pieces of the 
 nicest paint, or figures of their workman- 
 ship, being all lost — irrecoverably lost, in one 
 common fit of destructive zeal which every hue 
 and cry is too apt to raise in the breast of a 
 hot-headed bigot ; whilst the truly religious, 
 honest, and learned men, regret to this day the 
 loss those destructive times have occasioned. 
 Whilst these reached Vale Royal, this thorn 
 amongst the rest being cut down, was cast in 
 the doorway, to prevent sheep, which grazed 
 in the court, from going in. 
 
 But the Reformation he declares in still 
 plainer terms, for he says : 
 
 A time shall come when priests and monks 
 
 Shall have no churches nor houses, 
 
 And places where images stood 
 
 Lined letters shall be good; 
 
 English books thro' churches are spread, 
 
 There shall be no holy bread. 
 
 It is not my intention to recite every par- 
 ticular he is said to have foretold, which either 
 regard private families or past occasions ; how- 
 ever, it may not be amiss to mention what is 
 fresh in everyone's memory who lives near 
 Delamere Forest, and was vouched to me by 
 several of the oldest inhabitants :
 
 38 
 
 Thro' Weaver-hall shall be a lone,' 
 
 Ridley-park shall be sown and mown, 
 
 And Darnell-park shall be hacked and hewn. 
 
 The two wings of Weaver Hall are now stand- 
 ing, and between them is a cart road ; Ridley 
 Pool is filled up, and made good meadow land; 
 and in Darnel Park the trees are cut down, 
 and it is made into pasture ground. 
 
 I also was assured that he foretold the use 
 of broad wheels, &c. ; and that the town of 
 Northwich, now a considerable place of trade 
 for salt, will be destroyed by water: which is 
 expected to come to pass by the natives of 
 Cheshire as much as any other part of his pro- 
 phecy has done ; and some urge that the 
 navigable cuts lately made is the water meant ; 
 but whether a prejudice against those useful 
 improvements may not have given rise to this 
 notion, time alone can determine. 
 
 But what rendered Nixon the most noticed 
 was, that at the time when the battle of Bos- 
 worth Field was fought between King Richard 
 III. and King Henry VH., he stopped his 
 team on a sudden, and pointing with his whip 
 from one land to the other, cried, " Now, 
 Richard! Now, Harry!" several times, till at 
 last he said, "Now, Harry, get over that ditch, 
 
 ' The term used in this country for a lane.
 
 39 
 
 and you gain the day." The plough-holder, 
 amazed, related what had passed when he came 
 home, and the truth of the prediction was 
 verified by special messengers sent to announce 
 the proclamation of Henry King of England 
 on the field of battle. 
 
 The messenger, who went this circuit, 
 related on his return the prediction of Nixon 
 concerning the King's success; which, though 
 it had been confirmed by his arrival, had made 
 it no news to the natives of those parts; but 
 Henry, perhaps the wisest prince of his time, 
 not willing to be deceived, nor yet doubting 
 the dispensation of Providence, though by the 
 mouth of a fool, sent the same messenger back to 
 find Nixon, and to bring him before him. At 
 the moment the King gave his orders, our 
 prophet was in the town of Over, about which 
 he ran like a madman, declaring the King had 
 sent for him; and that he must go to Court, 
 and there be clammed, that is — be starved 
 to death ; such a declaration caused a great 
 deal of laughing in the town, to think that his 
 Majesty, so noted for his wisdom, should send 
 for a dirty drivelling clown to Court, and that, 
 being sent for, he should fear to be starved 
 there; but how great was their surprise in a 
 few days after, when the messenger, passing 
 through the town, demanded a guide to find
 
 40 
 
 Nixon, who (then turning the spit at his 
 brother's, at the Bark-house) cried, " He is 
 coming, he is now on the road for me;" but 
 the astonishment of the family can scarcely be 
 imagined, when on the messenger's arrival he 
 demanded Nixon in the King's name : the 
 people who before scoffed at his simple appear- 
 ance and odd sayings, and had pointed to the 
 very children to make him their sport, were 
 now confounded, on finding the most ridiculous 
 of all he ever foretold (in their opinion), become 
 a truth, which was vouched to their own eyes. 
 Whilst hurried through the country, Nixon 
 still loudly lamented that he was going to be 
 starved at Court. 
 
 He had no sooner arrived there, than the 
 cautious King, willing to make trial of his fore- 
 knowledge, devised the following scheme to 
 prove it. Having hid a valuable diamond ring, 
 which he commonly wore, after the most seem- 
 ingly strict inquiry, made through the palace, 
 whether anyone had seen it; he sent for Nixon, 
 telling him what a loss he had sustained, and 
 that if he could not help him to find it, he had 
 no hopes left. But how much surprised was 
 the King when he got for an answer that old 
 
 proverb. 
 
 He who hideth can find. 
 
 On which he declared with a smile, that he
 
 41 
 
 had done this only to try the prophet; but ever 
 after ordered that what he said should be 
 carefully put in writing. 
 
 To prevent Nixon's being starved, his Ma- 
 jesty gave orders for him to have the liberty 
 to range through the whole palace, and the 
 kitchen to be his more constant dwelling. 
 Besides which, an officer was appointed to 
 take care that he was neither misused nor 
 affronted by the servants, nor at a loss for any 
 necessary of life. Thus situated, one would 
 have thought want could never have reached 
 him ; yet, one day, as the King was going out 
 to his hunting-seat, Nixon ran to him crying, 
 and begged in the most moving terms that he 
 might not be left, for if he was his Majesty 
 would never see him again alive ; that he 
 should be starved ; that now was the time, and 
 if he was left he must die. 
 
 The King, whose thoughts were doubtless 
 fixed on the diversion he was going to, and 
 supposing the matter very unlikely to come to 
 pass, only said it was impossible, and recom- 
 mended him strongly to the officer's care; but 
 scarcely had the King gone from the palace 
 gate, when the servants mocked and teazed 
 Nixon to such a degree, that the officer, to 
 prevent these insults, locked him up in a 
 closet, and suffered no one but himself to
 
 42 
 
 attend on him, thinking that he should prevent 
 this part of his prophecy from coming true : 
 but a message of great importance coming 
 from the King to this very officer, he, in his 
 readiness to obey the royal command, forgot 
 to set poor Nixon at libertj', and though he 
 was but three days absent, when he recollected 
 his prisoner, he found him at his return dead, 
 as he had foretold, of hunger. 
 
 Thus evidenced, with what is passed, 
 stands his prophecy in every mouth in Che- 
 shire ; yet a greater affront cannot be given 
 than to ask a copy from the families said 
 to be possessed of it. Every means, it is 
 well known, has been used to smother the 
 truth, perplex the curious, and even to abolish 
 the very remembrance that such a one ever 
 existed, but from what reason cannot appear, 
 except that it is foretold that the heir of O — 
 is to meet with some ignominious death at his 
 own gate*, with other family events, which 
 though no person or time being perfectly' 
 distinguished, may perhaps occasion this 
 secrecy. 
 
 1 must also observe, that the cross on 
 Delamere Forest, that is, three steps and the 
 
 * A few years ago (since the above was written), Mr. 
 
 E , of O , was killed by a fall from his horse, at his 
 
 own gate, as he was returning from hunting.
 
 43 
 
 socket in which the cross formerly stood, are 
 now sunk within a few inches of the ground, 
 though all remembered to have seen it within 
 the memory of man, nearly six feet above, the 
 cross itself having been destroyed long since. 
 It is also remarkable, that Headless Cross is 
 mentioned by Merlin, de Rymer, and most 
 other English and Scotch Prophets, as the last 
 place in England on which it is supposed a 
 decisive action will happen : but as to any 
 fixed period, when the things will come to 
 pass, I cannot learn, being all mentioned with 
 the greatest uncertainty.
 
 THE ORIGINAL 
 
 PREDICTIONS 
 
 OF 
 
 Robert Nixon, 
 
 AS DELIVERED BY HIMSELF, 
 
 IN 
 
 DOGGREL VERSE ^ 
 
 Pnlilished from an Authentic Manuscript found 
 
 amongst the Papers of a Cheshire Gentleman, lately 
 
 deceased. 
 
 [First Published in i;
 
 THE ORIGINAL 
 
 Predictions of Robert Nixon, 
 
 AS DELIVERED BY HIMSELF, 
 
 IN 
 
 Doggrel Verse: 
 
 Published from an Authentic Manuscript found among the 
 Papers of a Cheshire Gentleman, lately deceased. 
 
 When a raven shall build in a stone lion's 
 
 mouth, 
 On a church top beside the Gre)' Forest; 
 Then shall a King of England be drove from 
 
 his crown, 
 And return no more. 
 
 When an eagle shall sit on the top of Vale- 
 Royal house; 
 
 Then shall an heir be born, who shall live to see 
 great troubles in England.
 
 48 
 
 There shall be a miller named Peter, with two 
 heels on one foot, who shall distinguish 
 himself bravelj', and be knighted by the 
 victor : 
 
 For foreign nations shall invade England, 
 But the invader shall be killed, 
 
 And laid across a horse's back. 
 
 And led in triumph. 
 
 A boy shall be born with three thumbs on one 
 hand, 
 Who shall hold three King's horses. 
 Whilst England three times is won and lost in 
 one daj'. 
 
 But after this shall be happy days, 
 
 A new set of people of virtuous manners 
 Shall live in peace. 
 But the wall of Vale-Royal next the pond shall 
 
 be the token of its truth, 
 For it shall fall: 
 
 If it fall downwards. 
 Then shall the church be sunk for ever: 
 
 But if it fall upwards against a hill, 
 Then shall the church and honest men live still. 
 
 Under this wall shall be found the bones of 
 a British King. 
 
 Peckforton mill shall be removed to Luding- 
 
 ton hill, [mill. 
 
 And three days' blood shall turn Noginshire
 
 49 
 
 But beware of a chance to the Lord of Oulton, 
 Lest he should be hanged at his own door. 
 
 A crow shall sit at the top of Headless Cross, 
 
 In the forest so grey, 
 And drink of the nobles' gentle blood so free, 
 Twenty hundred horses shall want masters, 
 
 Till their girths rot under their bellies. 
 
 Thro' our own money and our own men 
 
 Shall a dreadful war begin; 
 Between the sickle and the suck, 
 All England shall have a pluck; 
 And be several times forsworn, 
 And put to their wit's end, 
 That it shall not be known, whether to reap 
 
 their corn. 
 Bury their dead, or go to the field to fight. 
 
 A scarcity of bread-corn. 
 
 Foreign nations shall invade England with snow 
 
 on their helmets, 
 And shall bring plague, famine, and murder, 
 
 in the skirts of their garments. 
 
 A great tax will be granted, but never gathered. 
 
 Between a rick and two trees 
 A famous battle shall be. 
 
 London streets shall run with blood, 
 And at last shall sink.
 
 5° 
 
 So that it shall be fulfilled, 
 
 Lincoln was, London is, and York shall be, 
 
 The finest city of the three. 
 
 There will be three gates to London of im- 
 prisoned men for cowsters. 
 
 Then if you have three cows, at the first gate 
 sell one, and keep thee at home. 
 
 At the second gate sell the other two, and 
 keep thee at home. 
 
 At the last gate all shall be done. 
 
 When Summer in Winter shall come. 
 
 And peace is made at every man's home, 
 
 Then shall be danger of war ; 
 
 For though with peace at night the nation ring. 
 
 When men shall rise to war in the morning. 
 
 There will be a Winter council, a careful 
 
 Christmas, 
 And a bloody Lent. 
 
 In those days there shall be hatred and 
 
 bloodshed, 
 The father against the son, and the son 
 
 against his father; 
 That one may have a house for lifting the latch 
 
 of the door. 
 Landlords shall stand 
 With hat in their hands, 
 To desire tenants to hold their lands.
 
 51 
 
 Great wars and pressing of soldiers, 
 But at last clubs and clouted shoes shall carry 
 the day. 
 
 It will be good in these days for a man to sell 
 his goods and keep close at home. 
 
 The forty pounds in hand 
 
 Will be better than forty pounds a year in land. 
 
 The cock of the North shall be made to flee, 
 
 And his feathers shall be plucked for his pride ; 
 
 That he shall almost curse the day that he 
 was born. 
 
 One asked Nixon where he might be safe in 
 those days ? He answered, 
 "In God's croft, between the rivers Mersey 
 and Dee." 
 
 Scotland shall stand more or less. 
 
 Till it has brought England to a piteous case. 
 
 The Scots shall rule England one whole year. 
 
 Three years of great wars. 
 And in all countries great uproars. 
 The first is terrible, the second worse, but the 
 third unbearable. 
 
 Three great battles: 
 One at Northumberland Bridge, 
 One at Cumberland Bridge, 
 And the other the South side of Trent.
 
 52 
 
 Crows shall drink the blood of many nobles. 
 East shall rise against West, and North against 
 South. 
 
 Then take this for good, 
 Noginshire mill shall nin with blood, 
 And many shall fly down Wanslow lane. 
 
 A man shall come into England, 
 
 But the son of a King crown'd with thorns 
 
 Shall take from him the victory. 
 
 Many nobles shall fight, 
 
 But a bastard Duke shall win the day. 
 
 And so, without delay, 
 
 Set England in a right way. 
 
 A wolf from the East shall right eagerly come, 
 On the South side of Sandford, on a grey 
 Monday morn. 
 Where groves shall grow upon a green. 
 Beside green grey they shall flee 
 Into rocks, and many die. 
 They shall flee into Salt strand, 
 And. twenty thousand, without sword, shall die 
 each man. 
 
 The dark dragon over Sudsbrown, 
 Shall bring with him a royal band ; 
 
 But their lives shall be forlorn. 
 
 His head shall be in Staflbrd town, 
 
 His tail in Ireland.
 
 53 
 
 He shall boldly bring his men, thinking to win 
 
 renown ; 
 Beside a wall in a forest fair he shall be beaten 
 
 down. 
 On Hine's heath they shall begin this bloody 
 
 fight, 
 And with trained steel shall hew each other's 
 
 helmet bright : 
 But who shall win that day no one can tell. 
 
 A Duke out of Denmark shall him dight, 
 
 On a day in England, and make many a Lord 
 
 full low to light. 
 And the ladies cry, ' Well away,' 
 And the black fleet with main and might. 
 Their enemies full boldly there assail. 
 
 In Britain's land shall be a knight, 
 On them shall make a cruel fight. 
 
 A bitter boar with main and might 
 Shall bring a royal rout that day. 
 
 There shall die many a worthy knight, 
 
 And be driven into the fields green and grey, 
 
 They shall lose both field and fight. 
 
 The weary eagle shall to an island in the sea 
 
 retire. 
 Where leaves and herbs grow fresh and green, 
 There shall he meet a lady fair. 
 Who shall say, ' Go help thy friend in batde 
 
 slain.'
 
 54 
 
 Then by the counsel of that fair, 
 
 He eagerly will make to flee 
 Twenty-six standard of the enemy. 
 A rampant lion in silver set, in armour fair. 
 
 Shall help the eagle in that tide. 
 
 When many a knight shall die. 
 
 The bear that hath been long tied to a stake, 
 shall shake his chains, 
 That every man shall hear, and shall cause 
 much debate. 
 
 The bull and red rose shall stand in strife, 
 
 That shall turn England to much woe, 
 And cause many a man to lose his life. 
 
 In a forest stand oaks three, 
 
 Beside a headless cross ; 
 A well of blood shall run and ree. 
 
 Its cover shall be brass. 
 
 Which shall ne'er appear. 
 Till horses' feet have trod it bare. 
 Who wins it will declare. 
 The eagle shall so fight that day. 
 That ne'er a friend's from him away. 
 A hound without delay shall run the chace far 
 and near. 
 
 The dark dragon shall die in fight. 
 A lofty head the bear shall rear, 
 
 The wide wolf so shall light, [fiercely fight. 
 The bridled steed against his enemies will
 
 55 
 
 A fleet shall come out of the North, 
 
 Riding on a horse of trees. 
 A white hand beareth he, 
 
 And three wreaths so free. 
 That day the eagle shall him slay, 
 
 And on a hill set his banner straightway. 
 That lion who's forsaken been and forced to 
 flee, 
 
 Shall hear a woman shrilly say, 
 
 ' Thy friends are killed on yonder hill,' 
 
 Death to many a knight this day. 
 With that the lion bears his banner to a hill. 
 
 Within a forest that's so plain. 
 
 Beside a headless cross of stone, 
 There shall the eagle die that day. 
 And the red lion get renown. 
 A great battle shall be fought by crown'd 
 
 kings three ; 
 One shall die, and a bastard Duke will win the 
 day. 
 
 In Sandyford there lies a Stone, 
 
 A crown'd king shall lose his head on. 
 
 In those dreadful days, five wicked priests' 
 
 heads shall be sold for a penny. 
 Slaughter shall rage to such a degree, 
 
 And infants left by those that are slain, 
 That damsels shall with fear and glee, 
 
 Cry, ' Mother, mother, here's a man.'
 
 56 
 
 Between, seven, eight, and nine, 
 In England wonders shall be seen ; 
 Between nine and thirteen. 
 All sorrow shall be done. 
 
 Then rise up, Richard, son of Richard, 
 
 And bless tlie happy reign, 
 Thrice happy he who sees this time to come. 
 
 When England shall know rest and peace 
 again.
 
 PROPHECIES FROM OLD PAMPHLETS. 
 
 The famous Cheshire prophet, Nixon, be- 
 sides his prophecies relative to the fate of 
 private famihes, also predicted much of public 
 affairs, which we find literally verified by the 
 sequel. 
 
 On the Christmas before he went to court, 
 
 * 
 
 being among the ser\'ants at Mr. Cholmon- 
 deley's house, to the surprise of them all, he 
 suddenly started up, and said, 
 
 " I must prophesy." He went on, " If the 
 favourite" of a king shall be slain, the master's 
 neck shall be cleft in twain. And the men of 
 the Northt shall sell precious blood; yea, their 
 own blood. And they shall sacrifice a noble 
 warrior J to the idol, and hang up his flesh in 
 the high places; and a storm shall come out of 
 the North, which shall blow down the steeples 
 
 * The Duke of Buckingham (favourite of James, and 
 Charles I., who was beheaded), assassinated by J. Felton. 
 
 t The Scots, who sold their King, Charles I., for a large 
 sum of money, to the English rebels. 
 
 ; Suppose the Marquis of Montrose.
 
 58 
 
 of the South ; and the labourer shall rise 
 above his lord, and the harvest shall in part be 
 trampled down by horses, and the remainder 
 lie waste, to be devoured by birds. 
 
 " When an oak tree shall be softer than men's 
 hearts, then look for better times, but they be 
 but beginning. 
 
 " The departure of a great man's soul* shall 
 trouble a river hard by, and overthrow trees, 
 houses, and estates. From that part of the 
 house from whence the mischief came, you 
 must look for the cure. First comes joy, then 
 sorrow ; after mirth comes mourning. 
 
 " I see men, women and children, spotted t 
 like beasts, and their nearest and dearest 
 friends affrighted at them. I see towns on 
 fire, and innocent blood shed; but when men 
 and horses walk upon the water, then shall 
 come peace and plenty to the people, but 
 trouble is preparing for Kings; and the gyeat 
 yellow fruit \ shall come over to this country 
 and flourish ; and I see this tree take deep 
 root, and spread into a thousand branches, 
 
 ' Suppose Oliver Cromwell, at whose death the greatest 
 storm of wind happened that had been known in England. 
 
 t The Plague and Fire of London were here very plainly 
 foretold. 
 
 \ The Great Yellow Fruit, suppose the Prince of Orange, 
 King William III.
 
 59 
 
 which shall afterwards be at strife one with 
 another, because of their number ; and there 
 shall come a wind from the South, and the 
 West, which shall shake the tree. I see 
 multitudes of people running to and fro, and 
 talking in a strange tongue. And there shall 
 be a famine* in the midst of great plenty, and 
 earthquakes and storms shall level and purify 
 the earth." 
 
 After these sayings, which every one, with 
 the slightest knowledge of our history, will 
 instantly apply to those events which they so 
 wonderfully foretold, Nixon was silent, and 
 relapsed into his wonted fitupidity ; from which 
 he did not recover until many weeks after, 
 when he became again inspired, and gave vent 
 to those remarkable predictions which were 
 collected by Mr. Oldmixon. Those which we 
 have just now related, were taken down from 
 the prophet's mouth by the steward, in pursuance 
 of the orders of Mr. Cholmondley himself; 
 and the original manuscript is now in the hands 
 of a gentleman in Shropshire. 
 
 [The Editor presents his readers with a copy of a printed 
 paper, which several aged persons, residing near the 
 forest, have vouched for the authenticity.] 
 
 * This was said, in the book from whence these predic- 
 tions were extracted, to mean oppression of the poor.
 
 6o 
 
 A true and particular Account, of a strange and 
 surprising Vision, that was seen on the forest of 
 Ddamere, in Cheshire, on the i\.th of last Month. 
 
 As Nixon, in the reign of Henry VII., 
 prophesied many strange and wonderful things 
 that should come to pass, such as an heir being 
 born to Lord Cholmondley's family, which at 
 that time there was little reason to expect, 
 which came to pass ; and also of the eldest 
 son, or young Lord Cholmondley, should have 
 the misfortune to break his neck, by riding a 
 hunting, which accident really did happen, 
 and several other things already come to 
 pass according to the said prophecy ; but in 
 particular, of a wonderful battle or engagement, 
 that should be fought on the forest of Delamere, 
 and as it is now fully expected that we shall 
 have an invasion from our natural and inveterate 
 enemies, the French, it is also thought it will 
 be in the North of England ; and in all proba- 
 bility the said forest of Delamere may be the 
 place of action, or engagement ; and what 
 strengthens the belief more, is the vision that 
 was seen on the said forest on the 4th, as 
 follows : 
 
 As two ancient persons were walking over 
 the said forest, to their great surprise, they
 
 6i 
 
 saw at a distance before them, an army rise 
 out of the ground, drawn up with their proper 
 officers, and their commanders in front of them ; 
 and whilst they were looking at, and ruminating 
 upon so strange a sight, behold, to their 
 wonderful surprise and amazement, there arose 
 also another army out of the ground, a small 
 distance from the first, and farther in the 
 forest, which army was headed or commanded 
 by a man in royal apparel, who, after having 
 drawn up his army, marched to meet and 
 engage the first ; upon which a most bloody 
 battle ensued with fire arms, and many 
 appeared to be killed on both sides ; but being 
 so near each other, they laid down or grounded 
 their arms, and took to their swords, with 
 which great slaughter was made, and then 
 came to such close quarters that they put 
 up their swords and fought with theinhands; 
 all which engagements continued more than 
 three quarters of an hour ; during which time 
 the said two ancient people were spectators; 
 and at last the remains of the army that first 
 appeared, retreated towards the sea, and 
 vanished directly out of their sight ; whilst 
 the other army, which was commanded by 
 the man in royal apparel, marched victorious 
 out of the field as far as it was possible 
 to see them. These ancient people having
 
 62 
 
 spoken of the above vision, it came to the ears 
 of several gentlemen, who sent for and examined 
 them concerning the truth of it, which they 
 were ready to make oath of. 
 
 On the 6th of the same month, as seven 
 men were going to Chester, over the said 
 forest, about the middle of it they saw, to their 
 great astonishment, a vision much resembling 
 that which was seen on the 4th before, as 
 above described, only with this addition, that 
 the victorious army had many slain, to all 
 appearance, yet they resumed life again, and 
 joined their own army ; all which is looked 
 upon as a good omen, if in case England is 
 invaded by her enemies, that though the 
 nation be seemingly dead, and in divisions, yet 
 on the approach of the enemy they will have 
 in general one heart and one mind, and exert 
 themselves to repel our most inveterate 
 enemies. 
 
 As Nixon's prophecies are by some persons 
 thought fables, yet by what has come to pass, 
 it is now thought, and plainly appears, that 
 most of them have or will prove true ; for 
 which reason we have all occasion not only to 
 exert all our might, to repel by force our 
 enemies, but return from our abandoned and 
 wicked course of life, and make our continual 
 prayers to God for our protection and safety. 
 
 End of Nixon's Original Prophecies.
 
 A TRUE COPY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE PROPHECY 
 
 WILLIAM NIXON. 
 
 NOW FIRST PUBLISHED, 
 
 FROM A MANUSCRIPT IN THE POSSESSION 
 OF 
 
 JAS. KENDRICK, Esq., M.D., 
 
 OF 
 
 WARRINGTON.
 
 A TRUE COPY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 Prophecy of William Nixon. 
 
 [From a Manuscript in the possession of 
 James Kendrick, Esq., M.D., of Warrington.] 
 
 William Nixon wasborn upon White Sunday, 
 at the Bridge End House, in Over Parish, in 
 
 the reign of Edward IV., 1461; but in the reigns oi 
 Richard III. and Henry VII., it hath been told 
 by ancient persons that he foretold strange 
 things, that came to pass in and after his days. 
 He foretold the suppression of the abbeys, 
 which came to pass in the reign of Henry 
 VIII. As he passed by a great thorn tree in 
 the domain of the Abbey of Vale Royal, he 
 said that thorn tree should be a door to keep 
 beasts out. He said that when the harrow 
 came to the high altar, then it should be 
 demolished; which came to pass, for Abbot 
 
 E
 
 66 
 
 Harrow was the last abbot, and was put to 
 death by Sir Thomas Holcroft, who was Lord- 
 Marshal to Henry VHI. when he suppressed 
 the abbeys. 
 
 Also he said that the Abbey of Vale Royal 
 should make a raven's nest ; which came to 
 pass, for this said Sir Thomas Holcroft gave a 
 raven for his crest, who did build his house of 
 the demolished abbey. Moreover, he said that 
 Norton Abbey and Vale Royal should meet at 
 Acton Bridge ; which came to pass, for of the 
 stones of those buildings was that bridge made. 
 He said that houses should be turned into 
 smithies ; which came to pass, for most ancient 
 houses in those days had covers, or funnels, to 
 avoid smoke. He said a time should be that ^ 
 all sorts should have chimneys at their mouths; 
 which has come to pass generally. 
 
 He said Darnall Park should be hacked and 
 hewn, and Darnall Pool should run like a lone, 
 and Ridley Pool should be sown and mown ; 
 which has come to pass long since. 
 
 He said that when a raven should build in 
 a lion's mouth, then a king of England should 
 be driven out of his nation and never return. 
 An heir should be born to Cholmondley's 
 family, and an eagle sit on the top of the house. 
 The heir shall live to see England invaded by 
 foreigners, who shall come as far as Delamere
 
 67 
 
 Forest, in Cheshire — but a miller, named Peter, 
 shall be born, with two heels on one foot, and 
 at that time shall be living in a mill, near 
 Esquire Cholmondley's, and shall be instru- 
 mental in delivering the nation. A boy shall 
 be born with three thumbs, and shall hold three 
 king's horses, while England shall three times 
 be lost in one day ; the invader shall be killed, 
 and be laid across a horse's back, like a calf. 
 The miller shall knighted be by the victorious 
 prmce, and after that England shall see happy 
 days, and a man of valour, virtue, and worth, 
 shall again prosper, as a token of these things. 
 The wall of Esquire Cholmondley's house to- 
 wards the pool end shall fall, and if it fall 
 downwards, the Church shall be oppressed, 
 but if upwards, against the rising hill on the 
 side' of it, the Church shall flourish again. 
 Moreover, he said the bones of a British king 
 shall be found under it. 
 
 He said that Northwich should be destroyed 
 by rivers. It is conceived that he did not 
 mean the rivers that run under the bridge. 
 He said there should come a sad time, which 
 should end in bloody wars of some years, 
 which a Royal George should decide, and 
 England should suffer through her own men 
 and her own money. He said that it would 
 be worst with them that have the most, and
 
 68 
 
 best with them that had the least. Land- 
 lords should stand, with their hats in their 
 hands, desiring tenants to hold their land. He 
 said there should be a winter's counsel, a care- 
 ful Christmas, and a bloody Lent, and that 
 there should be such a fearful sad time that a 
 man should think himself happy if he could 
 bid old England adieu. 
 
 He said there should be so much bloodshed 
 that a man could have a house for pulling at 
 the latch strings. There would be three gates 
 to London for pressing of men for soldiers. 
 Then if thou have three horses with thee, at 
 the first gate sell one, and keep thee at home ; 
 and at the second gate sell the other two, and 
 keep thee at home ; at the last gate, busk and 
 boon, for all shall be done before thou come. 
 One asked him where a man should be safe 
 from the villanies of soldiers ? He said some 
 would say betwixt Mold and Mersey, but he 
 said in God's croft, and where should that be 
 but between the Mersey and Dee. 
 
 He being in Over Townsfields had a vision of 
 the battle that was then between Richard HI. 
 and Henry VH., which was in Bosworth Field, 
 in Leicestershire. Information was given to 
 the King, who sent horsemen for him, at 
 which time he was turning a spit in Sutton 
 Grange, now called the Bark House, and there
 
 69 
 
 he said to the folk in the house that there was 
 a man in Over coming for him to fetch him to 
 the King. They all laughed heartily ; but 
 when the messenger came into the house and 
 took him away, they were all amazed. When 
 he was brought to the Court the King thought 
 to prove him, and took his signet off his hand, 
 and hid it in the garden, and said: "Nixon, 
 I understand that thou canst tell anything ; 
 I have lost a precious jewel — canst thou tell 
 how I shall find it ? " To which he straightway 
 said — " He that hideth can find." The King 
 replied — " Art thou such a man ? " A noble- 
 man of the Court came to him to know what 
 must be his end. Nixon told him that he should 
 be thrown from his horse upon a stake, and 
 thereupon be killed. The same person dis- 
 guised himself, and came again. Nixon told 
 him he must be cast off his horse into water 
 and drowned, stung with an adder, and so die. 
 All despised and judged false what he had said 
 to the nobleman, but in a short time these 
 several ends came to pass. When, for a hunt- 
 ing excursion, the King left the Court, Nixon 
 said " I shall be famished to death." The King 
 replied, " Is not my Court able to sustain 
 thee ? " The nobleman having locked him up, 
 that no man might discourse with him, he was 
 forgotten, famished to death, and so died. He
 
 70 
 
 told many and several things not recorded 
 then, which came to pass. He said that there 
 was a man in Cornwall knew as much as he, 
 but he was not to disclose it. 
 
 When you hear without delay of a parliament 
 holden by a king and queen, then England and 
 Scotland shall rue what follows. There shall be 
 much strife betwixt a man and his wife. Then two 
 men shall seem to hold the crown before where 
 king crowned the Blue Boar with ; the rough 
 and ragged staff shall have never a bough nor 
 branch in England left, and Scotland shall stand, 
 both, more and less, till they have brought this 
 land in a woeful case ; then the bloody wounds in 
 Scotland shall arise, and in England make an 
 enterprise, and at Berwick-upon-Tweed shall 
 enter in twice. England shall be won and lost at 
 the starting of a horse. Three battles you 
 shall have — first at Northumberland, second at 
 Cumberland Bridge, the third upon the south 
 side of the Trent. Then the Scotch shall pro- 
 claim twenty pence per day, the English seven- 
 teen pence per day, and all the English shall go 
 to the other side. The Scotch shall govern 
 England for one whole year. The dragons out 
 of Ireland shall come and make war with 
 England for their abomination, so that London 
 shall run with blood, and at the last sink. 
 Then a fight shall be fought by a crowned
 
 71 
 
 king; but a bastard shall win the day, and he 
 shall, without any delay, help England into a 
 very nigh way, which hath and shall go to 
 decay for their sins. Great God's wrath hangs 
 over the heads of the wicked British harlots. 
 Five of their heads shall be sold for a penny. 
 Between seven hundred and nine, wonders in 
 England shall be seen. 
 
 Between nine and thirteen all sorrows shall 
 be gone, a wicked woman shall be the cause of 
 blame, which shall stand in the hands of a 
 large black crow; shall come into Britain with 
 him a young knight, whose name shall be 
 George Boever, of the kin of the king, crowned 
 with thorns, and shall be called Cousin to Jesse. 
 A child with a chaplet shall come over the sea 
 'with an eagle, so a Royal scion shall have no 
 part except Jesus, which died on Calvary, that 
 suffered His body to be pierced with spears. 
 The red rose and the dragon so fierce shall 
 be, and the draught of bulls with main and 
 might, that he shall be fain to take into a castle 
 made of lime and stone that he shall put most 
 trust to. His flesh shall be torn off him. 
 The cock of the North shall be forced to 
 flee. His feathers shall be plucked on every 
 side, and he shall curse the time that ever he 
 was born. He shall be put down for his pride. 
 The blue bear and the miller in England shall
 
 72 
 
 ride awaj' ; the untrue shall tremble and quake 
 for fear. A child with a chaplet shall invade 
 England for forty-seven days ; the miller shall 
 justice make. Then shall a bear come that hath 
 been long tied to the stake and shake his chains 
 that every man shall hear that hath caused 
 much debate. A dead man shall rise that was 
 buried in sight to make accord, reaching be- 
 tween two men, and which shall put the 
 right heir to his right. Then shall the dead 
 man say : This matter hath staid long in hand. 
 Rise up, Richard, and crown George the heir of 
 Edward. Before this shall be mickle ado. Both 
 the bull and the red rose shall stand in strife ; 
 they shall turn England to woe, and cause 
 many a man to lose his life between Ware and 
 Chester. Many a man lost his life that day. 
 The chief lord pertaining to the same there shall 
 be slain. Then shall a fellowship arise with 
 might and main, and come to Bushberry Heath, 
 and meet at a cross of stone. The raven and 
 miller shall be then slain, and many a knight 
 that never shall go home again. 
 
 The red rose and the dragon down, down 
 shall be cast. At Houndsley Heath a new 
 battle shall be ; to Charing Cross a battle shall 
 last and go down from Sutton to Tower Hill. 
 The bull shall light, he and his assistances 
 shall strive to drink their fills at wells that springs
 
 73 
 
 years two or three ; from thence he goeth to a 
 great castle, then an eagle will dwell in the 
 eyry of his enemy. Each one shall from their 
 castle go, and sail on the sea, and war on God's 
 enemies two or three. Then of the best in Eng- 
 land shall be the bull, and shall die at J ehosaphat, 
 besides Mount Calvary. A Royal George shall 
 procure a peace ; but often a peace should prove 
 but a false one, through a change in the state 
 opinions. He saith these would arise, and there 
 would be so much grudging and so much discon- 
 tent should arise in many endeavours to bring 
 in some ways of the late rebellion upon us. 
 He said there would follow woeful days that 
 should last so many years ; and before these 
 fearful times a raven should build her nest upon 
 the water battlement of Over Steeple, and 
 hatch her young ones therein, and Pecferton 
 Mill should be set on Luddington Hill, and a 
 cave or a tomb shall be discovered on Dela- 
 mere Forest. He said there should come such 
 a green winter that it shall not be known from 
 summer, but for the want of the leaves of the 
 trees. And he said that when peace is made, 
 at every man's door there shall be the most 
 danger ; for although all be at peace over night, 
 there shall be war the next morning, and then 
 shall all jails be filled with great men, and there 
 shall be so much hatred and malice that they
 
 74 
 
 will say, kill thou my landlord and I will kill 
 thine ; and the very children shall seek to take 
 away their parents' lives. He said, between 
 sickle and suck all England shall have pluck, 
 and shall be several times forswore and driven 
 to their wits, and be put to three straits, that they 
 shall not know what to do — whether raise their 
 corn, bury their dead, or go to the field to fight. 
 He said that foreign nations should invade 
 England, and come in with snow upon their 
 helmets. He said that there should be a great 
 groat granted, but never gathered ; and he said 
 at Yenslow a cock should crow, with four-and- 
 twenty bands of men, and never a captain to 
 lead them up ; and at the said cock crow, birds 
 on the bough shall sing, and their best wife shall 
 sing for joy of a little. 
 
 There are appointed five battles which shall 
 be fought before this comes to pass, the first at 
 Bramley, another beside the castle cave, the 
 third at Bearer, the fourth beside Troy that is 
 so fair, the fifth at Houndslow Heath shall be 
 strucken the last battle. Although in Ger- 
 many begins a dance which passes through 
 Italy, Spain, and France, then to Ireland it 
 shall leap, and then go over into Scotland. 
 But England shall pass the pipes. He that 
 will England win, in Ireland he must begin. 
 For England's men and England's money shall
 
 75 
 
 there be one double danger, which shall be the 
 cause, the one shall be the altering of the laws, 
 the other shall be who readeth right the loss of 
 a duke both kind and wight, well away and 
 woeful sorrows, and mischief goes on both even 
 and morrow. Lords and barons a promise will 
 make of God's holy words their parts to take. 
 The tattling pride and prate will cause great 
 slanders and great debate. Happy is he that 
 very time that can bid Old England farewell 
 and adieus. With woeful songs the landlord 
 shall sing, and wives and maids their hands 
 shall wring, and babes at the paps shall die in 
 the street ; all kind and kindred shall mourn 
 and weep ; alas for woe, what may be saved 
 when this poor island is thus betrayed. Castles 
 and towers and pleasant buildings shall be 
 destroyed and brought to ending care, then it 
 shall come to high and low, and to trust one 
 'another no man shall know. He that in bed 
 doth joy over night, the next morning is forced 
 to fight. Then shall arise wars, battles, and no 
 man shall know who shall get the victory for 
 the term of three years shall continue. A duke 
 out of Denmark shall him dight upon a day into 
 England, and make many lords full low to fight. 
 And the ladies cry well away and the black 
 fleet with main and might full bold upon their 
 enemies, they saj', in British land shall be a
 
 76 
 
 knight on them shall make a cruel fray, a battle 
 bore with main and might shall break a royal 
 heart, that day many a worthy knight shall be 
 driven into a field of green hay, and shall lose 
 both field and fight, and a crowned king shall 
 lose his life. Out of a den a wolf shall rise right 
 eagerly from the east, and shall come in upon 
 the south side — Sudford — upon a Monday morn- 
 ing grey. They shall be upon a green, besides 
 the green is grey. They shall flee into the last 
 stand into the south 20,000, without daunt of 
 sword they shall lose their lives each one. The 
 drake dragon, as I understand, comes over at 
 Sudburn ; his tail shall be in Ireland, his head 
 at Stafford town ; he shall so luckly bring in 
 men for the king to win renown. Besides a 
 well in a forest fair, it shall be beaten down. On 
 Houndslow Heath they shall begin this bloody 
 fight, and there with trained steed hew each 
 other. Who shall carry the game away no man 
 can tell right. The eagle so weary shall be with 
 fighting, I ween, he shall betake himself to an 
 island where leaves are fresh and green. There 
 shall he meet a fair lady, and she shall say 
 with a voice so clear, " Go help the men right 
 eagerly. Look where they be in battle !" Then 
 through consent of that fair lady and them 
 of the other side he shall make 26 standards to 
 fly. Then arampant lion, mighty ofpride, in silver
 
 77 
 
 set, and in armours fair shall help the eagle at 
 that day, where manj'^ worthy knights shall 
 die. In a forest, where there stand oaks three, 
 besides a headless cross, a well of blood shall 
 be covered with brass. On the cover is written : 
 Who shall win England ; which shall not be 
 found till it be trodden bare with horses' feet. 
 The eagle shall so fight that day, to him shall 
 draw his friends so dear, a hound without any 
 delay, shall run the chase both far and near. 
 The dark dragon shall die in the fight, the 
 bear shall hold his hand on high, the bridled 
 steed will against his enemies- fearlessly fight, 
 then shall Nogginshire Mill be turned with 
 blood, that stand below a pleasant ford. 
 Then beware of accidents to the lord of 
 Oulton. A fleet shall come out of the north, 
 riding on a horse of trees, the white hand 
 beareth he, with three wreaths of gold so free, 
 that day the eagle shall him slay, and set his 
 banner on a hill. This lion hath forsaken 
 been, and forced to flee into another land, and 
 there hath lain still till a woman shouts with 
 words so short, and saith to a worthy knight. 
 Thy friends are killed on a hill, death to many 
 a worthy knight. With that the lion rests his 
 banner upon a hill, within a forest that is so 
 plain, besides a headless cross of stone ; then 
 shall the eagle die that day. The red lion
 
 7» 
 
 shall get renown, the eagle there shall lose his 
 fame that he hath had this many a day. A 
 crow shall sit on the headless cross and drink 
 of the gentle blood so free, and carry their 
 flesh home to their young ones. As God hath 
 decreed it, so it must be, 20 hundred horses 
 run masterless till their girths rot under their 
 bellies, and never a man to take them up. So 
 ends the prediction of William Nixon.
 
 79 
 
 NIXON BIBLIOGRAPHY. 
 
 The pamphlets issued about Nixon will be found to consist 
 in varying proportions of [dl Prophecy from Lady Cowper's 
 copy, edited by Oldmixon ; to which was afterwards added 
 [6] Life by \V. E., [c] Life and Prophecies of Robert Nixon 
 of the Bridge House, [rf] Original Predictions in Rhyme, [e] 
 Prophecies from Old Pamphlets. 
 
 First Edition.— The Cheshire Prophecy, with Historical 
 and Political Remarks [By John Oldmixon] . London, 
 printed and sold by A. Baldwin in Warwick Lane. Price 3d. 
 [1714-] 
 
 Other Editions. — [a] Liverpool, 1715. [a] 3rd edition, 
 London, 1715, price 4d. The Life of Nixon, the Cheshire 
 Prophet ; containing several surprising passages of his Life 
 and Prophecies, never before printed. In a letter from 
 a gentleman at Namptwich to his Friend in London. 
 London, printed for J. Roberts, price 3d. [a,b] 6th edition 1 
 London, lyig, Svo. [a] Edinburgh, 1730. [iiT Glasgow, 
 1738." [n] Glasgow, (1740 ?) [a, b] roth edition, Lon°doni 
 1740, price 6d. Another, loth edition, s.a., Svo, pp. 24. 
 [a] 2ist edition, London, 1745, Svo. [a, b] London, 
 {1770?), i2mo. la,-b] New edition, with a beautiful frontis- 
 piece; London, 1784, Svo, pp. 30. [a, b] London, 1794, 
 i2mo. [a, if] Gainsborough, price 6d., 1800. [a, b] Lon- 
 don, (1800 ?), i2mo. [a, b, c, d, e] Chester, printed and 
 sold by W. Minshull, Svo, pp. iv. 38, with a frontispiece by 
 J. B. Pritchard. [a, b] London, (1815 ?), i2mo. [a, b] 
 55th edition, Warrington, (1815 ?). [a, b] Penrith, (1820 ?) 
 In, b] London (1820?), i2mo. [a, b] Hull, (1820?), i2mo. 
 L«, b] Birmingham, (1S20 ?), i2mo ; this is adorned with 
 the most wonderful portrait of Nixon that was ever imagined
 
 8o 
 
 by a chap-book artist, astonishing as are some of their per- 
 formanees. [a,b] Aylesbury, (1820 ?), lamo. [a,b,c,d,e1 
 London, Orlando Hodgson, 8vo, pp. 24. [rf] Manchester, 
 printed by J. Swindells, i2mo. [a, c, rf, e, likewise Jurieu's 
 Prophecy of the French Revolution, &c.] Halifax (1S50 ?), 
 i2mo. [a, c, d, e] Derby, (1850 ?). [c, d, e] Warrington, 
 1866, i2mo, pp. i5. 
 
 [a b] Miraculous Prophecies, Predictions, and Strange 
 Visions of sundry eminent men, &c., London, 1794, i2mo. 
 [a, b] The Strange and Wonderful Predictions of Mr. 
 Christopher Love, &c., Bradforth, no date, [d] Ballads 
 and Legends of Cheshire, by Major Egerton Leigh, London, 
 1867 (see page 175). [a, c] Wonderful Characters, by J. 
 H. Wilson, London, 1842, 8vo (see page 157). [c, e] 
 Palatine Anthology, by J. O. Halliwell, London, 1850, 410 
 (see p. i5i). Cheshire and Lancashire Historical Collector, 
 edited by T. Worthington Barlow, F.L.S., Manchester, 
 1855. Past! Present! and Future! Fairburn's edition of 
 the Wonderful Prophecies of the famous Mother Shipton, 
 the Yorkshire Witch. Together with the Remarkable Pre- 
 dictions (many of them yet unfulfilled) of Robert Nixon, 
 the Cheshire Prophet. London: J. Fairburn, 8vo, pp.24, 
 price 6d. 
 
 There is a Welsh translation of Nixon — Prophydoliaeth 
 Nixon wedi ci chyfansoddi ar fcsnr cerdd, gan yoscph jfohn — 
 no date, but before 1800. 
 
 The prophet is also introduced as a character in Mrs. 
 Wilbraham's novel, For and Against, London, 1858, 8vo, 
 2 vols. 
 
 ABEL HEVWOOD AND SONS, PRINTERS, MANCHESTER.
 
 
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