Daily Strange's Sacred Saturday: The Plowboy Prophet

1400s Henry V Of England Speaking Poster by Vintage Images

Robert Nixon, a rural visionary who, by reputation, was held to be mentally retarded, was born around 1467 on a farm in the county of Cheshire, England. He began his working life as a plowboy, being too stupid, by all appearances, to do anything else. He was mostly a silent youth, though sometimes given to strange, incomprehensible babblings that were taken to be a sign of his limited mentality.

One day, however, while he was plowing a field, he paused in his work, looked around him in a strange way, and exclaimed: “Now Dick! Now Harry! Oh, ill done, Dick! Oh, well done, Harry! Harry has gained the day!” This outcry, more cogent than most, though still incomprehensible, puzzled Roberts fellow workers, but the next day everything was made clear: at the very moment of Roberts strange seizure King Richard III had been killed at Bosworth Field, and the victor of that decisive battle, Henry Tudor, was now proclaimed Henry VII of England.

When Henry Tudor was crowned King Henry VII after the defeat and death of Richard III at Bosworth Fields the event was “seen” from afar by a clairvoyant plowboy.

Before long, news of the bucolic seer reached the new king, who was much intrigued and wanted to meet him. An envoy was sent from London to escort Nixon back to the palace. Even before the envoy left the court, Robert knew he was coming and was thrown into a fit of great distress, running about the town of Over and crying out that Henry had sent for him, and he would be clammed — starved to death!

In the meantime Henry had decided on a method of testing the young prophet, and when Nixon was shown into his presence the king appeared to be greatly troubled. He had lost a valuable diamond, he explained. Could Nixon help him locate it? Nixon calmly replied, in the words of a proverb, that those who hide can find. Henry had, of course, hidden the diamond and was so impressed by the plowboy s answer that he ordered a record to be made of everything the lad said. What he said, duly interpreted, forecast the English civil wars, the death and abdication of kings, and war with France. He also forecast that the town of Nantwich, in Cheshire, would be swept away by a flood, though this has not yet happened.

But the prophecy that most concerned Nixon was the most improbable of all: that he would starve to death in the royal palace. To allay these fears, Henry ordered that Nixon should be given all the food he wanted, whenever he wanted it, an order that did not endear the strange young man to the royal kitchen (whose staff, in any case, envied his privileges).

One day, however, the king left London, leaving Robert in the care of one of his officers. To protect his charge from the malice of the palace domestics, the officer thoughtfully locked him safely in the king’s own closet. The officer was then also called away from London on urgent business and forgot to leave the key or instructions for Roberts release. By the time he returned, Robert had starved to death.

SOURCE: (Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, pp.277-80)

#prophecy #phenomena #henrytudor #plowboyprophet #robertnixon

Sacred Saturday: Walking around to the other side of the horses --- Benjamin Bathurst's Story

Age of Wisdom Alphonse Mucha 1936 - 1938

In 1809 England sought to persuade Austria to join the confederation opposing Napoleon. Benjamin Bathurst, a 25-year-old diplomat who had already distinguished himself in foreign service, went to Vienna to promise an attack on the French who were occupying Spain in return for Austria’s alignment with England. It proved a bad bargain: Napoleon was victorious at Wagram on the Danube River, and Austria was forced to cede territory to him.

That fall, Bathurst began to make his way back home through Germany. On November 25, traveling under the name of Koch and posing as a wealthy merchant, he and his secretary and valet stopped at an inn in Perleberg. A witness at the inn reported that he seemed very nervous. He asked the commander of the local garrison to provide armed guards against mysterious pursuers - perhaps agents of Napoleon.

Benjamin Bathurst, a British envoy sent on a secret mission to Austria in 1809, was on his way back to England when he vanished forever in a small German town. The distinguished young diplomat, who was traveling incognito, may have been trailed and assassinated by French soldiers. In the middle of the evening, as his coach was preparing to leave, Bathurst went out into the otherwise deserted street, walked around his horses...

And was gone.

His valet, who had been at the rear of the coach with the baggage, cast a look down each side of the coach and saw only the hostler who had harnessed the horses. His secretary, standing in the doorway of the inn to pay the bill, had not seen him return. The soldiers stationed at each end of the street had seen no one pass.

The authorities searched first the inn and then all of Perleberg. Inquiries from the British Foreign Office brought a denial from Napoleon that his agents had been involved. Stories circulated that Bathurst had been robbed and murdered, that he had secretly gone on to a port and been lost at sea, and so on — but all that is known about Benjamin Bathurst’s disappearance from a quiet street in a small German town is summed up in the words of Charles Fort, that tireless collector of events that have no rhyme or reason:“Under observation, he walked around to the other side of the horses.”

SOURCE: (Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. 1, p.1327;Charles Fort, The Complete Books of Charles Fort, p.681; Colin Wilson, Enigmas and Mysteries, p.37)

#disappearance #mysteries #enigmas #benjaminbathurst

Daily Strange's Tricky Tuesday: A Feeling of Terror and Panic...

Daily Strange's Trikcy Tuesday: A Feeling of Terror and Panic...

Hereward Hubert Lavington Carrington (October 17, 1880 - December 26, 1958) was one of the pioneers of psychical research in the United States, a tireless investigator of telepathy, mediums, poltergeists, and hauntings. He claimed to have “witnessed highly curious and inexplicable phenomena in haunted houses ”on several occasions. He chose the following account as one of the most striking:

Motorists whose cars crashed at this London corner explained that they swerved to avoid a mysterious red bus. It had hurtled toward them, they said, and then suddenly vanished.

On the night of August 13, 1937, a party of seven of us spent the night in a reputed “haunted house,” situated some 50 miles from New York City.... The group consisted of the former occupant [who had rented the house and left before his rental expired, because of the disturbances], two of his friends, two friends of our own, my wife and myself. We also brought with us a dog which had lived in the house while it was occupied, and which, according to reports, had behaved in an extraordinary manner on several occasions.

Hereward Hubert Lavington Carrington

After having spent years investigating psychical phenomena in England, Dr. Hereward Carington came to the United States in the 1920's to continues his research. It led him to one of the most terrifying ''hauntings'' he ever experienced.

Carrington suggested that the house, which was lit from top to bottom upon their arrival, be explored to make sure that it was not practical jokers, cats, bats, rats, or mice that were causing the disturbances:

Examination of the cellar and the ground floor revealed nothing unusual. On the second floor, however, two or three of us sensed something strange in one of the middle bedrooms. This feeling was quite intangible, but was definitely present, and seemed to be associated with an old bureau standing against one wall....

Walking along the hall, we came to a door which had escaped our attention the first time we had passed it.

''Where does this lead?'' I asked.

''To the servants' quarters,'' Mr. X. replied

''Would you like to go up there?''

''By all means,'' I said, opening the door.

Glancing up, I could see that the top floor was brilliantly lighted, and that a steep flight of stairs lay just ahead of me. Leading the way, with the others close behind me, I ascended the stairs, and made a sharp turn to the right, finding myself confronted by a series of small rooms.

The instant I did so, I felt as though a vital blow had been delivered to my solar plexus. My forehead broke out into profuse perspiration, my head swam, and I had difficulty in swallowing. It was a most extraordinary sensation, definitely physiological, and unlike anything I had ever experienced before. A feeling of terror and panic seized me, and for the moment I had the utmost difficulty in preventing myself from turning and fleeing down the stairs! Vaguely I remember saying aloud:

“Very powerful! Very powerful!” My wife, who was just behind me, had taken a step or two forward. She was just exclaiming, “Oh, what cute little rooms!” when the next moment she was crying, “No! No!” and raced down the steep flight of stairs like a scared rabbit.

Carrington pointed out that both he and his wife were seasoned investigators, “accustomed to psychic manifestations of all kinds,” and that neither had previously experienced a comparable moment of terror. He went downstairs to make sure that his wife was all right and found her sitting on the porch “slowly collecting her scattered faculties.” She reassured him. The group, whose other members had all been strongly affected, then gathered in a circle in one of the bedrooms. The lights were turned out, and they waited, cameras and flashbulbs ready.

After passing an uneventful hour they ascended the stairs again, and“ this time not a sensation of any kind was to be felt! The room seemed absolutely clear of all influences, clean, pure and normal... Even the dog, which had growled and bristled like a cat and refused to be coaxed upstairs on the first occasion, now ran up quite willingly, with its tail wagging.

It was only after Carrington and the others had made their original inspection of the place and experienced their“first violent reactions” that the former tenant told them “a suicide had actually been committed on the upper floor, and that these rooms were thought to be the seat’ of the haunting.”

Source: (Hereward Carrington, Essays in the Occult, pp.19-25)

#haunting #poltergeist #physic #oddites #occult #mystery #spectralincursion #dailystrange#ghostbus #londonghost #urbanlegend #trickytuesday #HerewardCarrington #HerewardHubertLavingtonCarrington