Besides, we learn a world of things from these Portents and Prodigies,
and many are the warnings and admonitions we receive from them, and
not only from them indeed, but from a number of extraordinary
accidents, upon which daily use and constant observation has fixed
such marks, that from thence the whole art of divination has been
compounded.
OMENS.
BEFORE the battle at Philippi began, two eagles fought in the air
between the two armies: both the armies stood still and beheld them,
and the army was beaten that was under the vanquished eagle.
See Appian's Hist. part 2, lib. 4, g. 2.
It is worthy of notice, that, at the time the cities of Jerusalem and
Antioch were taken from the Pagans, the Pope that then was, was called
Urban, and the Patriarch of Jerusalem was called Eraclius, and the
Roman Emperor was called Frederick; in like manner when Jerusalem was
taken from the Christians by the siege of Saladin, the Pope was called
Urban; the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Eraclius; and the Emperor,
Frederick: and it is remarkable, that fourscore and seven years
passed between these two events. Hoveden, f. 363.
Mathew Parker, seventieth Arch-Bishop of Canterbury, in the seventieth
year of his age, feasted Queen Elizabeth on her birth day, 1559, in
his palace at Canterbury. Parker. Vitae, 556.
It is a matter of notable consideration, says a Spanish historian,
that the royal throne of the Morish Kings of Granada, began and ended
in the times of the Fernandos of Castille: beginning in the time of
Saint Fernando, the third of that name, and ending in that of the
Catholic King, Don Fernando the fifth, his successor in the ninth
descent. In the same manner, it is observable that the first Morish
King was called Mahomad, and the last had the same name of Mahomad:
which resembles what passed in the empire of Constantinople, where the
first and last Emperors were called Constantines.
Garibay, 1. 40, c. 43.
The same author mentions it as an extraordinary circumstance that, at
one time lived in Castille, Arragon, and Portugal, three Kings called
Pedros, and whose fathers were named Alonsos, who were also Kings at
the same time. L. 14, c. 35.
While Edward, Duke of York,* was declaring his title, in the Chamber
of the Peers, there happened a strange chance, in the very same time,
amongst the Commons in the nether house, then there assembled: for a
Crown, which did hang in the middle of the same, to garnish a branch
to set lights upon, without touch of any creature, or rigor of wind,
suddenly fell down, and at the same time also, fell down the Crown,
which stood on the top of the Castle of Dover: as a sign and
prognostication, that the Crown of the realm should be divided and
changed from one line to another. Halle's Chronicle, H. 6. F. 181.
* Father of Edward IV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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