Omens and prophecies

[Modena]

Charles I wore white to his coronation, which was considered bad luck, since white clothes were sometimes used by royals as mourning. � After the execution, his body was brought to Windsor for burial; the black cloth that covered his coffin became covered with snow during the journey. � This reminded people of his coronation outfit, and led to his posthumous nickname of the White King.

After Charles set up his Standard in 1642, it was blown down during the night.

While Charles was being held prisoner after the Civil War ended, one of the beds he slept in had a motto emblazoned on it: � “Remember thy end.”

During Charles’s trial, the head of his cane fell off.

In 1688, William of Orange landed in England on the 83rd anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot. � It was also his birthday. � 

William’s supporters wore orange scarves, feathers, and ribbons. � The troops of the Earl of Essex, who commanded Parliament’s army during the first years of the Civil War, wore “tawny” or orange scarves, feathers and ribbons.

William III died from complications from a broken collarbone. � He broke his collarbone after being thrown while riding a horse that he had confiscated from the estate of a Jacobite, Sir John Fenwick, whom he had recently executed.

Some of Nostradamus’s quatrains are said to be about the Stuarts:

http://www.sealedknot.org/knowbase/docs/0030_Nostradamus.htm

This is quite fascinating!  

[palatine]

Charles II was lighted to his bedchamber one evening by one of his friends and courtiers, Lord Ailesbury.  As they walked together, the candle Ailesbury held mysteriously went out even though there was no reason for it to do so.  After they reached his bedchamber, Charles talked to Ailesbury about a new palace that he was building and said that “I shall be most happy this week, for my building will be covered with lead.”  Before the week was out, Charles was buried at Westminster Abbey in a lead coffin.

[palatine]

After James II’s coronation ceremony was over, a flag with his coat-of-arms was raised at the Tower.  It was a very windy day; the flag was blown down and ended up in the Thames.

When James exited Westminster Abbey, his crown “tottered extremely.” 

A gold canopy that was carried over James’s head as he made his way to Westminster Hall was torn by the wind and “hung down very lamentably.” 

James visited Salisbury during the Glorious Revolution.  Soon after he arrived, an iron crown that was on a turret of the city’s council house was blown down by a sharp gust of wind.

When James made his state entry into Dublin, the gentleman that bore the mace before him stumbled, dropped it, and discovered that it had gotten stuck between two cobblestones.  It was removed with difficulty and the procession continued.

A contemporary of James II documented these omens.  He also documented some common medical treatments of the day, including one that was said to cure a childhood illness that was called “Thrush":

“Take a living frog, and hold it in a cloth, that it does not go down into the child’s mouth; and put the head into the child’s mouth ‘til it is dead; and then take another frog, and do the same.”