Edward IV. had a passion for astrology, divination, and every kind of fortune-telling, in which he imitated the pursuits of Henry V.; and Elizabeth of York relates how “her father, being one day studying a book of magic in the palace of Westminster, was extremely agitated, even to tears, and, though earls and lords were present, none durst speak to him but herself. She came and knelt before him for his blessing, upon which he threw his arms around her, and lifted her into a high window; and when he had set her there, he gave her the reason or horoscope he had drawn, and bade her show it to no one but Lord Stanley, for he had plainly calculated that no son of his should wear the crown after him. He predicted that she should be queen, and the crown would rest with her descendants.”
In Wyatt’s “Memorials of Anne Boleyn” the following incident is related as having happened previous to her marriage with Henry: A book, assuming to be of a prophetic character, and of a similar class with the oracular hieroglyphic almanacs of succeeding centuries, was mysteriously placed in her chamber one day, on seeing which she called her principal attendant, Anne Saville.
“Come hither, Nan,” said she. “See, here is a book of prophecies; this is the King, this is the Queen, and this is myself, with my head cut off.”
Anne Saville answered, “If I thought it true, I would not myself have him were he an emperor.”
“Tut! Nan,” replied Anne Boleyn, “I think the book a bauble, and I am resolved to have him, that my issue may be royal, whatever may become of me.”
But such a forecast of the future was at this period of common occurrence, and was no doubt occasionally adopted as a device for deterring the sovereign from some design which his opponents desired to frustrate.
Another anecdote is told of Catherine Parr, illustrative of her power of retort when quite young. It seems that some one skilled in prognostications, casting her nativity, said that “she was born to sit in the highest seat of imperial majesty, having all the eminent stars and planets in her house.” This forecast of her life she did not forget, and, when her mother used at times to call her to work, she would reply, “My hands are ordained to touch crowns and sceptres, and not spindles and needles.”
But fortune-tellers have sometimes told uncomfortable things to royalty. There is a singular anecdote of Charles I. traditional at Hampton Court Palace. The story runs that one day he was standing at a window of the palace, when a gipsy came up and asked for charity. Her appearance and attitude excited ridicule, which so infuriated and enraged the gipsy, that she took out of her basket a looking-glass and presented it to the King, who saw therein his own head decollated.
Another tradition of a similar nature—of which there is more than one version—is connected with the mode of divination known as the Sortes Virgilianæ. According to one account, King Charles when at Oxford was shown a magnificent Virgil, and when induced by Lord Falkland to make a trial of his fortune by the Sortes Virgilianæ, he opened the volume at the Fourth Book of the Æneid (615 et seq.), which contained the following passage:—
“By a bold people’s stubborn arms opprest,
Forced to forsake the land he once possess’d,
Torn from his dearest son, let him in vain
Seek help, and see his friends unjustly slain.
Let him to base unequal terms submit,
In hope to save his crown, yet lose both it
And life at once, untimely let him die,
And on an open stage unburied lie.”