Mother Shipton

Mother Shipton Investigated, Old and New London, Rare Verses, The Prophecie of Mother Shipton, and a collection of Bonus Material of scans of articles about Mother Shipton

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Excerpt:

Contents
Mother Shipton The Yorkshire Sibyl Investigated
Excerpt from Old and New London: Volume 5
The Old "Mother Red Cap," In 1746.
The Assembly Rooms, Kentish Town, 1750.
Rare Verses of Mother Shipton
The Prophecie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of Henry the Eighth
Chapter Five of Harrogate & Knaresborough
Amateur Radio Magazine published in 1968
The Girl's Own Paper
Life, Death and the Whole of the Wonderful Prophecies of Mother Shipton the Northern Prophetess

The present popular ideas about Mother Shipton herself are twofold, as set forth in cheap publications, mostly almanacs with her name on the cover. Some of these profess to give her authentic history with the marvellous elements sifted out; others include the miraculous incidents.

The following account of her life, as adapted to the more sober-minded readers of the present century, is summarised by me from a book entitled Mother Shipton and Nixon's Prophecies, compiled from original and scarce editions by S. Baker, published in 1797, by Denley, Gate Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, London. The pamphlet gives information about the life of Nixon, a Cheshire prophet, also about Ursula Shipton, for Ursula is the real name of our heroine. She is stated by Baker to have been born in July 1488, in the reign of Henry VII, near Knaresborough, Yorkshire. She was baptised by the Abbot of Beverley, by the name of Ursula Sonthiel. "Her stature," adds her biographer, "was larger than common, her body crooked, her face frightful; but her understanding extraordinary."

Baker states that she was a pious person, who at the age of twenty-four was courted by one Toby Shipton, a builder, of Skipton, a village four miles north of York; soon afterwards they were married. She became known as Mother Shipton, and acquired fame by means of her extraordinary predictions.

When Cardinal Wolsey intended to remove his residence to York, she announced that he would never reach that city. The Cardinal sent three lords of his retinue in disguise, to inquire whether she had made such a prediction, and to threaten her if she persisted in it. She was then living in a village called Dring Houses, a mile to the west of the city. The retainers, led by a guide named Beasly, knocked at the door.