Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 52.djvu/129

 butes his election at Brasenose to the anxiety of the fellows to secure an ignorant head, who would not require them to put off their habitual sloth (Collections, ed. Doble, iii. passim). When in London he resided in Goodman's Fields. He was vice-chancellor of his university 1718–22, and, dying in 1745, was buried in the chapel at Brasenose, where he is commemorated by an epitaph (by Dr. Frewin) and a bust (cf., Gresham Professors, p. 234; , Hist. of the Univ. of Oxford, i. 255). William's youngest brother, John, became a Spanish merchant, was English consul at Lisbon 1710–20, died unmarried, and was buried at St. Andrew's, Holborn, on 24 Sept. 1747.



SHIPTON,, reputed prophetess, is, in all likelihood, a wholly mythical personage. No reference to her of earlier date than 1641 is extant. In that year there was published an anonymous tract entitled ‘The Prophecie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry 8th, foretelling the death of Cardinall Wolsey, the Lord Percy, and others, as also what should happen in insuing Times’ (London, 4to). According to this doubtful authority, Wolsey, after his nomination to the archbishopric of York, learnt that ‘Mother Shipton’ had prophesied that he should never visit the city of York, and in consequence sent three friends, the Duke of Suffolk, Lords Percy and Darcy, to threaten her with punishment unless she recanted her prophecy. But the old woman stood firm, hospitably entertained the envoys, and at their invitation foretold in somewhat mysterious phraseology their own future fortunes and many events that were to befall the kingdom. Most of her predictions related to the city of York and its neighbourhood, but some of them were interpreted to mean the approach of the civil wars, and one to foretell the fire of London in 1666. The story of Wolsey's relations with ‘Mother Shipton’ is unconfirmed by contemporary evidence. The pamphlet, which bore on the title-page an alleged portrait of the prophetess, was probably compiled in York, and may have embodied some local traditions respecting a reputed witch named Shipton. But later local historians, while noticing her widespread reputation, adduce no corroborative testimony from local sources (cf., Eboracum, p. 450; Hargrove, Knaresborough; Notes and Queries, 4th ser. ii. 83–4). In all essentials the narrative of 1641 was doubtless a fiction to which current political excitement and some plausibility of invention lent interest. It at once achieved a large circulation, and the original edition became rare. Mr. E. W. Ashbee issued a facsimile reprint in 1869, and Charles Hindley included it in his ‘Miscellanea Antiqua Anglicana’ (1871, 8vo). Imitations were from the first numerous. One tract, of which only the title survives, supplied ‘A True Coppy of Mother Shipton's Last Prophesies: as they were taken from one Joane Waller in 1625, who died in March last 1641, being 94 yeares of age, of whom Mother Shipton had “prophesied that she would live to hear of Wars within this Kingdom but not to see them”’ (1641, 4to). Meteorological predictions of ‘Mother Shipton’ also multiplied. [q. v.], the astrologer, in ‘A Collection of Ancient and Modern Prophesies’ (1645), quoted eighteen prophecies which had already been identified with ‘Mother Shipton's’ shadowy name, and showed that sixteen had been duly fulfilled, while the fulfilment of the remaining two was confidently anticipated. All ranks of society admitted the prophetess's foresight. Pepys relates that when Prince Rupert heard, while sailing up the Thames, on 20 Oct. 1666, of the outbreak of the fire of London, ‘all he said was, now Shipton's prophecy was out’ (, Diary, ed. Wheatley, vi. 30).

[q. v.] is responsible for a further extension of ‘Mother Shipton's’ fame. In 1667 he published what purported to be a full account of her ‘Life and Death.’ He represented her as the daughter of the devil. According to Head, her hideous aspect and power of prophesying disaster, of which he invented numerous instances, fully attested her paternity. Head's imaginary biography, which was often