Upon Saint Mark's Day, after the coronation of King James II. were prepared stately fire works on the Thames: it hapened, that they took fire all together, and it was so dreadful, that several spectators leaped into the river, choosing rather to be drowned than burned. In a yard by the Thames, was my Lord Powys's coach and horses; the horses were so frightened by the fire works, that the coachman was not able to stop them, but ran away over one, who with great difficulty recovered.
When King James II. was at Salisbury, anno 1688, the Iron Crown upon the turret of the council house, was blown off.- This has often been confidently asserted by persons who were then living.
In February, March, and April, two ravens built their nests on the weather cock of the high steeple at Bakewell in Derbyshire.
I did see Mr. Christopher Love beheaded on Tower Hill, in a delicate clear day about half an hour after his head was struck off, the clouds gathered blacker and blacker; and such terrible claps of thunder came that I never heard greater.
'Tis reported, that the like happened after the execution of Alderman
Cornish, in Cheapside, October 23, 1685.
Anno 1643. As Major John Morgan of Wells, was marching with the King's army into the west, he fell sick of a malignant fever at Salisbury, and was brought dangerously ill to my father's at Broad-Chalk, where he was lodged secretly in a garret. There came a sparrow to the chamber window, which pecked the lead of a certain pannel only, and only one side of the lead of the lozenge, and made one small hole in it. He continued this pecking and biting the lead, during the whole time of his sickness; (which was not less than a month) when the major went away, the sparrow desisted, and came thither no more. Two of the servants that attended the Major, and sober persons, declared this for a certainty.
Sir Walter Long's (of Draycot in Wilts) widow, did make a solemn promise to him on his death-bed, that she would not marry after his decease, but not long after, one Sir —- Fox, a very beautiful young gentleman, did win her love; so that notwithstanding her promise aforesaid, she married him: she married at South-Wraxhall, where the picture of Sir Walter hung over the parlour door, as it doth now at Draycot. As Sir —Fox led his bride by the hand from the church, (which is near to the house) into the parlour, the string of the picture broke, and the picture fell on her shoulder, and cracked in the fall. (It was painted on wood, as the fashion was in those days.) This made her ladyship reflect on her promise, and drew some tears from her eyes.*
*This story may be true in all its details, except the name of the lady, who was a daughter of Sir W. Long; she married Somerset Fox, Esq. See Sandford's Geneal. Hist, of the Kings of England, p. 344.
See Sir Walter Raleigh's history, book 4, chap. 2, sec. 7. The dogs of the French army, the night before the battle of Novara, ran all to the Swisses army: the next day, the Swisses obtained a glorious victory of the French. Sir Walter Raleigh affirms it to be certainly true.
The last battle fought in the north of Ireland, between the Protestants and the Papists, was in Glinsuly near Letterkenny in the county of Donegall. Veneras, the Bishop of Clogher, was General of the Irish army; and that of the Parliament army, Sir Charles Coot. They pitched their tents on each side the river Suly, and the Papists constantly persist in it to this very day, that the night before the action,* a woman of uncommon stature, all in white, appearing to the said Bishop, admonished him not to cross the river first, to assault the enemy, but suffer them to do it, whereby he should obtain the victory. That if the Irish took the water first to move towards the English, they should be put to a total rout, which came to pass. Ocahan, and Sir Henry O'Neal, who were both killed there, saw severally the same apparition, and dissuaded the Bishop from giving the first onset, but could not prevail upon him. In the mean time, I find nothing in this revelation, that any common soldier might not conclude without extraordinary means.