that name; M, Mary, who succeeded him; P, Philip of Spain, who,
by marrying Queen Mary, participated with her in the English diadem; and,
lastly, E signifieth Queen Elizabeth, after whose death there was a great
feare that some troubles might have arisen about the crown." As this did
not happen, Heywood, who was a sly rogue in a small way, gets out of the
scrape by saying, "Yet proved this augury true, though not according to
the former expectation; for, after the peaceful inauguration of King
James, there was great mortality, not in London only, but through the
whole kingdom, and from which the nation was not quite clean in seven
years after."

This is not unlike the subterfuge of Peter of Pontefract, who had
prophesied the death and deposition of King John, and who was hanged by
that monarch for his pains. A very graphic and amusing account of this
pretended prophet is given by Grafton, in his _Chronicles of
England_.[55] "In the meanwhile," says he, "the priestes within England
had provided them a false and counterfeated prophet, called Peter
Wakefielde, a Yorkshire man, who was an hermite, an idle gadder about, and
a pratlyng marchant. Now, to bring this Peter in credite, and the kyng out
of all credite with his people, diverse vaine persons bruted dayly among
the commons of the realme, that Christe had twice appered unto him in the
shape of a childe, betwene the prieste's handes, once at Yorke, another
tyme at Pomfret; and that he had breathed upon him thrice, saying,
'_Peace, peace, peace_,' and teachyng many things, which he anon declared
to the bishops, and bid the people amend their naughtie living. Being rapt
also in spirite, they sayde he behelde the joyes of heaven and sorrowes of
hell; for scant were there three in the realme, sayde he, that lived
christianly.

[55] _Chronicles of England_, by Richard Grafton; London, 1568,
p. 106.

"This counterfeated soothsayer prophesied of King John, that he should
reigne no longer than the Ascension-day next followyng, which was in the
yere of our Lord 1211, and was the thirteenth yere from his coronation;
and this, he said, he had by revelation. Then it was of him demanded,
whether he should be slaine or be deposed, or should voluntarily give over
the crowne? He aunswered, that he could not tell; but of this he was sure
(he sayd), that neither he nor any of his stock or lineage should reigne
after that day.

"The king, hering of this, laughed much at