Signs and Wonders in Britain’s Age of Revolution A Sourcebook

Chapter 1. Warning-Pieces

Introduction

The Supernatural in the English Revolution

Witchcraft in the English Civil War

Documents in the Collection

Notes on the Illustrations, Transcriptions, and Editorial Conventions

Document

• "A Briefe Discourse of Prodigies," Preface to The Warnings of Germany (1638)

Chapter 2. Prelude to War: ‘Fore-Runners of Destruction’

Introduction

Documents

• Motus Mediterraneus; or, A True Relation of a Fearefull and Prodigious Earthquake (1626)
• Looke Up and See Wonders (1628)
• "Dreadfull and Prodigious Aspects," excerpts from Warnings of Germany (1638)
• Irelands Amazement, or the Heavens Armado (1642)
• A Strange Wonder or, The Cities Amazement (1642)

Chapter 3. Civil War: ‘These Troublesome and Distracted Times’

Introduction

Documents

• John Vicars’ Prodigies & Apparitions, or Englands Warning Pieces (1643)
• A Great Wonder in Heaven (1643)
• The New Yeares Wonder (1643)
• Signes and Wonders from Heaven (1645)
• The Most Strange and Wounderfull apperation of blood in a poole at Garraton (1645)
• Sad Newes from the Eastern Parts (1646)

Chapter 4. Cavaliers and Roundheads: ‘The Divells Agents Still’

Introduction

Documents

• The Devils Last Legacy (1642)
• The Kingdomes Monster Uncloaked from Heaven (1643)
• A Most Certain, Strange, and true Discovery of a Witch (1643)
• A Dogs Elegy, or Rupert’s Tears (1644)
• The Devills White Boyes: Or, A mixture of malicious Malignants (1644)
• The English Devil: or, Cromwel and his Monstrous Witch (1660)

Chapter 5. Christian Astrology: ‘Amongst the Celestiall Hieroglyphicks’

Introduction

Documents

• "Epistle to the Student in Astrology," from Lilly’s Christian Astrology (1647)
• William Lilly’s 1648 Almanac: Merlini Anglici Ephemeris 1648
• "To the Reader," from H. Johnsen’s Anti-Merlinus: Or, A Confutation of Mr. William Lillies Predictions for this Year 1648 (1648)
• The Divels Delusions (1649)

Chapter 6. Sectarians and Recusants: ‘Recant…Those Dangerous Errors’

Introduction

Documents

• A Relation of a Strange Apparition in an Ale-house (1641)
• A Strange and Lamentable Accident…at Mears-Ashby (1642)
• A Declaration of a Strange and Wonderfull Monster (1645)
• Strange Newes from Scotland (1647)
• The Ranters Monster (1652)
• Strange Newes from Cambridge (1659)
• A Lying Wonder Discovered (1659)

Chapter 7. The Removal of the King: ‘Innocent Blood calls for vengeance’

Introduction

Documents

• Vox Infantis (1649)
• A Miracle of Miracles (1649)
• Strange Newes from the North (1650)
• A True Relation of the Strange Apparitions Seen in the Air (1650)
• More Warning Yet, Being A True Relation of a Strange and most Dreadful Apparition (1654)
• The Five Strange Wonders (1659)

Biography

Timothy G. Fehler is Professor of History at Furman University. His previous books include Poverty and Protestantism: The Evolution of Social Welfare in Sixteenth-Century Emden (1999), and Religious Diaspora in Early Modern Europe: Strategies of Exile (2014).

Abigail J. Hartman (BA, Furman University; MLitt, University of St. Andrews) is pursuing doctoral work in Medieval History.

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'This sourcebook is a valuable resource for advanced undergraduate students of the English Revolution. Its central theme of signs and wonders resonates with today’s crises of truth-telling and responds to recent historiographical developments. It will therefore capture the interest of students while simultaneously exposing them to serious scholarship.'

William J. Bulman, Lehigh University, USA