When hempe is sponne
England's done:
whereby it was generally conceived, that after the princes had reigned which had the principal letters of that word hempe (which were Henry, Edward,[1] Mary,[2] Philip,[3] and Elizabeth), England should come to utter confusion; which, thanks be to God, is verified only in the change of the name; for that the King's style is now no more of England, but of Britain. There was also another prophecy, before the year of eighty-eight, which I do not well understand.
There shall be seen upon a day,
Between the Baugh and the May,[4]
The black fleet of Norway.
When that that is come and gone,
England build houses of lime and stone,
For after wars shall you have none.
It was generally conceived to be meant of the Spanish fleet[5] that came in eighty-eight: for that the king of Spain's surname, as they say, is Norway. The prediction of Regiomontanus,[6]
Octogesimus octavus mirabilis annus,[7]
- ↑ Edward VI., 1537–1553, King of England, 1547–1553, son of Henry VIII. by his third queen, Jane Seymour.
- ↑ Mary Tudor, called 'Bloody Mary,' 1516–1558, Queen of England, 1553–1558, daughter of Henry VIII. and Catherine of Aragon.
- ↑ Philip II., 1527–1598, King of Spain, 1556–1598, married Queen Mary in 1554.
- ↑ Other persons besides Bacon "do not well understand" this prophecy. Mr. W. Aldis Wright thinks that "the Baugh and the May" are Bass Rock and the Isle of May in the Firth of Forth, where some ships of the Armada were wrecked in 1588.
- ↑ The Invincible Armada.
- ↑ Johann Müller, surnamed Regiomontanus, 1436–1476, German mathematician and astronomer, Archbishop of Ratisbon.
- ↑ Eighty-eight, the wonderful year.
