Forex Exchange

By Nancy Bilyeau In the spring of 1881, families across England deserted their homes, too distraught to sleep in their beds. They slept in fields or prayed in churches and chapels for God to spare their lives in the apocalypse that was foretold: "The world to an end shall come; in eighteen hundred and eighty one." The author of their terror was Mother Shipton, also known as Ursula Shipton, a woman whose prophecies had been circulating through England and beyond for centuries. The first famous man whose life she prophesied was Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, the minister to Henry VIII until 1530. In often cryptic verse, the crone-like seer predicted wars, rebellions and all matter of natural disasters. After London burned in 1666, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary: "Mother Shipton's word is out." Her prophecies were published in one form or another over 20 times between 1641 and 1700. In the 1800s, her predictions grew even more terrifying: The end-of-the-world was foretol...

Judith Arnopp   Most people would agree that England’s most memorable monarch is Henry VIII. The bloody years of his reign, the executions, the break with Rome, his complex sex life have all left their mark on our imagination. He is so synonymous with England that you might even assume that a magnificent memorial stands prominently in Westminster such as the one his parents share, or the superb edifice that enshrines the resting place of his daughter Elizabeth. But you’d be quite wrong to think so.   Indeed, although buried at Windsor alongside his third wife, Jane Seymour, there is no glorious shrine, no guilded angels, just a slab set in the floor. Where once people trembled before King Henry, now many of us do not even notice when we walk over him. Death is a great leveller. In the sixteenth century monuments were intended to mark wealth, status and power, and the building of them was usually undertaken during the lifetime of the person for whom the tomb was intended. ...