Who was MOTHER SHIPTON? | A real Tudor witch? | Ursula Shipton, Tudor soothsayer | @HistoryCalling

History Calling August 11, 2025
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History Calling

@historycalling

About

Weekly history documentaries from a former university lecturer, with an emphasis on royalty & original sources. WHAT MAKES ME DIFFERENT: I am a fully qualified historian from Northern Ireland (I get lots of questions about the accent!) whose videos are thoroughly researched and based on a reading of the original evidence. I will never just regurgitate Wikipedia entries at you and there will be no crazy conspiracy theories or claims of alien involvement here unless I'm debunking them. Just 100% history. Music used in video intros: Friday Fugue, YouTube Audio Library. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. The links below are to my only other genuine online platforms.

Video Description

WITCH, SOOTHSAYER, PROVEN PROPHETESS & DAUGHTER OF THE DEVIL? This is the story of the real Mother Shipton (aka Ursula Shipton, Ursula Southill or Ursula Soothtell), a legendary Englishwoman who even Henry VIII seems to have been aware of and who has been credited with predicting everything from the fall of Thomas Wolsey to the Great Fire of London. How much of her incredible story is true though? In this Mother Shipton documentary from History Calling (which also doubles as a case study of the history of witchcraft in England) we look at the earliest surviving sources which tell the story of Mother Shipton to try to establish if she was a real woman, or a myth invented by the Tudors and Stuarts. Supposedly born in Knaresborough in Yorkshire, Ursula Shipton reportedly came into the world in what is now known as Mother Shipton’s cave which is near a local landmark called the Dropping Well. According to the stories, she was the daughter of a 15-year-old orphan called Agnes Shipton who refused to reveal the identity of her child’s father. There are virtually no sources from her lifetime to support her existence, bar one cryptic comment from Henry VIII, but in the following century a number of salacious pamphlets appeared which said she was deformed, the daughter of Satan, had magical powers including levitation and was able to predict the future. What were Mother Shipton’s predictions though and did any of them come true? I’ll look at a few of Mother Shipton’s prophecies in this episode and we’ll ask, did Mother Shipton predict the death of Thomas Wolsey and did Mother Shipton predict the Great Fire of London? I’ll also reveal what famed diarist Samuel Pepys had to say about this supposed English witch. BUY MY BOOK (Find Your Irish Ancestors Online): https://amzn.to/3Z2ChnG Website (with 2 FREE DOWNLOADS): https://www.historycallingofficial.com/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/historycalling Amazon storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/historycalling Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/historycalling/ YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE THE MISERABLE DEATH & TOTAL DISAPPEARANCE OF THOMAS WOLSEY https://youtu.be/LBbt37Lw87c THE MYTHICAL ISLAND OF HY BRASIL https://youtu.be/_74GYWj9NuE THE LEGEND OF THE GIANT’S CAUSEWAY https://youtu.be/Xd-v7O-ZrMw THE OLDEST WOMAN EVER? https://youtu.be/MhF97H4E0hs LEARN MORE The Prophesie of Mother Shipton in the Raigne of King Henry the Eighth (1641) https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A93157.0001.001?view=toc Richard Head, The life and death of Mother Shipton … (London, 1667) https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo/A43162.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext GEAR USED Apple MacBook Pro Laptop (for video editing): https://amzn.to/3S6IoRK Blue Yeti Microphone: https://amzn.to/3FgEDYq Go-Pro Hero 13 camera: https://amzn.to/41H4Xnt GoPro 3-Way 2.0 (Tripod/Grip/Arm): https://amzn.to/3vaVxjU Memory Card: https://amzn.to/3KeLZZs DJI Drone: https://amzn.to/39hROZm NB: Links above may be affiliate links. This means if you make a purchase through one of these links, I earn a small commission. It in no way affects the price you pay. Open Street Map copyright information https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright Creative Commons licenses used see https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ #MotherShipton #UrsulaShipton #HistoryOfWitchcraft

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