Predictions of Christopher Love, Part 3
INTRODUCTION TO NIXON's CHESHIRE PROPHECY, BY THE AUTHOR of his LIFE.
THIS remarkable Prophecy has been carefully revised, …orrected, and improved; also some account given of our author, Robert Nixon, who was but a kind of ideot, and used to be employed in following the plough. He lived in some farmers' families, and was their drudge and jest.
At last, Thomas Cholmondeley, of Vale-Royal, Esq. took him into his house, and he lived there when he composed this Prophecy, which he delivered with as much gravity and solemnity as if he had been an oracle; and it was observed, that though the fool was a driveler, and could not speak common sense when he was uninspired, yet in delivering his Propecies 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 Nostradamus's or Merlin's, and come to pass as well as the best of Squire Bickerstaff's. It is pain enough that great men have in all ages had recourse to prophecy as well as the vulgar. I would not have all grave persons despise the inspirations of Nixon. The late French King gave audience to an inspired farrier, and rewarded him with an hundred pistoles for his prophetical intelligence; though by what I can learn, he did not come near our Nixon for gifts.
The simplicity, the circumstances, and history, of the Cheshire Prophecy, are so remarkable, that I hope the public will be as much delighted as I was myself.
By the way, this is not a prophecy of to-day; it is as old as the Powder plot, and the story will make it appear that there is as little imp…sture 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 to the reader to determine.
J. OLDMIXON.
THE PROPHECY.
IN the reign of King James the First, there lived a man, generally repu…ed a fool, whose name was Nixon. One day, when he returned home from ploughing in the field, he laid the things down which he had in his hands, and continuing for some time in a seemingly deep and thoughtful meditation, at length he pronounced in a loud voice, Now I will prophesy. And spoke as follows:
When a Raven shall build in a stone Lion'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 Cholmodeley's family; and this heir shall live to see England invaded by foreigners, who shall proceed 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 Cholmondeley's, he shall be instrumental in delivering the nation.
The person who then governs the nation will be in great trouble, and … 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 see happy days. A young new set of men 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. Cholmondeley'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 it shall 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 su…k 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 King's horses, while England shall be three times won and lost in one day.
THE original may be seen in several families in Cheshire, and in particular in the hands of Mr. Egerton of Oulton, with many other remarkable circumstances: as that Pecferton Wind mill should be removed to Ludditon Hill, that horses saddled should run about 'till their girts 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.
Now as for authorities to prove this Prophecy to be genuine, and how it has hitherto been accomplished, I might refer myself to the whole county of Chester, where it is in every one's mouth, and has been for these forty years. As much as I have of the manuscript was sent me by a person of sense and veracity, and as little disposed to believe visions as any body. There is something so very odd in the story, and so pat in the wording of it, that I cannot help giving it as I found it. The family of the Cholmondeley's 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 feat of that branch of the family, which kept our Prophet Nixon, is at Vale Royal, on the river Weaver in Delamere forest. It was formerly an Abbey founded by Edward I. and came to the Cholmondeley's from the famous family of the Holcro…ts. When Nixon prophesied, this family was near being extinct, the heir having married Sir Walter St. John's daughter, a lady not esteemed very young, who, notwithstanding being with child, fell in labour, and continued so for some days. During which time an eagle fat upon the house-top, and flew away when she was delivered, which proved to be 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 …oot of the ground.
In the parish of Budworth, a boy was born with three thumbs; he had also two heels on one foot▪— Lady Egerton, wishing well to another restoration, often instigated her husband to turn Peter, the miller of Negenshire mills, out of the mills; but he locoked upon it as a whimsy, and so permitted Peter still to ontinue there, in hopes of becoming 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 particulars that are more extraordinary than any I have yet mentioned. The noise of Nixon's predictions reaching the ears of King James the First, he would needs …ee this fool, who cried and made a…o 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 where people use to 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 particular 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, no body 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 that 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 Ham… ton 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-Phrophet's life and sayings transmitted by tradition from father to son in this county palatine; as, that when he lived with a farmer, before he was taken into Mr. Cholmondeley's family, he gored an …x 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 an herriot. This account, as whimsical and romantic as it is, was told to the Lady Cowper, in the year 1670, by Dr. Parric…, late Bishop of Ely, then Chaplain to S…r Walter St. John; and that Lady had the following farther particulars, relating to this Prophecy, and the fulfilling of many parts of it, from Mrs Chute, fister of Mrs. Cholmondeley, of Vale-Royal who affirmed, that a multitude of people gathering together to see the Eagle before mentioned, the bird was …rightened from her young▪ that she herself was one of them, and the cry among the people was, Nixon's Phrophecy is fulfil…ed, and we shall have a foreign King. She declared, that she read over the prophecy many times, when her sister was with child of the heir who now enjoys the estate. She particularly remembered membered that King James II. was plainly pointed at, and that it was foretold he would 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 at 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 that it perched on the edge of a great bow-window, which had a large border on the outside, and she and many others opened the window, to try to scare it away, but it would not stir till Mrs Cholmondeley was delivered; after which it took flight to a great tree over against the room her sister lay in, where having staid about three days, it flew away in the night. She affirmed further to the Lady Cowper, that the falling 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 very mill that is foretold: That he should kill two invaders who would 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 solds 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 sought up and down most parts in Cheshire; and that the last that ever would be fought in England should be on Delamere fo…est: That the heir of Oalton, whose name is E—n, and has married Earl Cholmondeley's si…ter, shall be hanged up at his own gate.
Lastly, He foretels great glory and prosperity to those who stand up in defence of their laws and liberties, and ruin and misery to those that should betray them. He says, the year before this would happen, bread-corn would be very dear, and that the year following 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, shall put an end to all. That afterwards the Church should fl…uri…h, 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 happened as Nixon said they would, adding, that the morning before the gardenwall fell, his neighbour Mr. Cholmondeley going to ride out a hunting, said, Nixon seldom fails, but now I think he will; for he foretold that this day …y garden wall would fall, and I think it looks as if it would stand 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 Pecserton mill, it was done by Sir John Crewe, 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 fulfill the Prophecy, he declared he never thought of it. I myself have inquired of a person who knows Mr. Cholmondeley'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, any one would be reckoned mad for making the least question of. As there are several particulars in this Prophecy which remain unfulfilled, so when they come to pass some other circumstances may be added, which are not convenient to be told now for private reasons, but will shortly appear.
If I had a mind to look into the antiquities of this county, I might …ind that Prodigies and Prophecies are no unusual things there. Cambden tells us, that at Brereton, not many miles from Vale Royal, which gave name to a famous, antient, numerous, and knightly family, there is a thing as strange as the perching 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 are s…en in a lake adjoining, the bodies of trees swimming upon the water for several days together. He likewise adds, that near the Abbey of St. Maurice, in Burgundy, there is a fish-pond, 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 Cambden relates in his description of Cheshire, and the opinion of the trees swimming in the lake near Brereton prevails all about the country to this day, only with this difference, that some say 'tis one log that swims, and some say many.
J. OLDMIXON.