MacLean, Gerald, editor. The Return of the King : An Anthology of English Poems Commemorating the Restoration
of Charles II / edited by Gerald MacLean
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library
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"In the eight Kings reign"
verses from
The Strange and Wonderfull Prophesie.
14 December
Titlepage: verses in: The Strange and Wonderfull / PROPHESIE / OF / DAVID Cardinal / OF / FRANCE, / Touching His Sacred Majesty / King Charles II. / DESCRIBING / The manner how part thereof hath been / already fulfilled, And also foretelling what shall happen / in the Kingdom of England for the space of / three hundred years yet to come. / [rule] / Newly translated out of the French Chronicles into English, but never / suffered to be put to publick view till this present. / [rule] / LONDON, / Printed by J. C. for S. R. and are to be sold near the Royal Exchange / in Cornhill, 1660
This is a short prose tract containing the embedded poem below, which is followed by the explanatory prose note which I have included. Curiously, the tract ends with a "prose" version of Sadler's Majestie Irradiant.
Reverse italics throughout.
In the eight Kings reign Englands race shall cease,
And to the second turn to have a settled Peace,
Which in the second King, shall for a while decay,
Yet by a MONCK, his Issue banisht shall bear sway.
And then the Lilly, Thistle, Rose in one shall joyn,
And subvert all, who shall against them combine.
When 160 Fore-fathers shall have left
Their Country, then their Son of it shall be bereft,
And put to flight, until a valiant warlike Monck
shall come and help -- -- -- [sic
Which more plainly take thus, viz,
Charles Mighty Monarch shall the C. begin
After whose death a Tyrant C. comes in,
By will and force, he shall a while bear sway
Nothing but blood his fury will allay.
But yet this hundred and his crooked Race,
Shall like Usurpers, turn out from the place
Of Honour, as they will deserve indeed,
And next the L for fifty will succeed,
And for a time shall boldly dominier
Until the thousand in the North appear.
Then Neptune's left, and by a Monck so bold,
Who doth appear this Riddle to unfold.
Right shall have right, for in a little space
A hundred shall be of the hundred's race.
The Monck then joyns, in spight of all his foes,
The exil'd Thistle to the happy Rose.
Who shall in peace (these Nations free from 1 fears)
Govern in safety for three hundred years.
This prophesie hath been fuliflled in part in our age, as for the first hundred, it was King Charles the first of blessed memory, after the cruel murther committed on him, came in that usurping tyrant Cromwel, whose name began with a hundred, he tyranizeed for a time over them that install'd him, by cropping off the head of the Thistle and the Rose, the next after him the half hundred for a while opposed the thousand, as appeared by Lamberts withstanding that happy Gen. the Lord Monck Duke of Albermarle, who gathered the Thistle and the Rose presenting it to the Last hundred, which is his sacred Majesty Charles the second, whose Royal Issue (as is plain by this Prophesie) shall govern this Kingdom in peace for three hundred years.
[1] from] froms copytext