Mary’s date with death
QUESTION Did astrologer John Dee predict the exact day that Mary, Queen of Scots, would die?
John Dee was an elizabethan scientist, philosopher, astrologer, alchemist and occultist. The magic and alchemy he practised was not, at the time, seen as controversial.
he interpreted a number of predictions made by the clairvoyant edward Kelley, including the death of Mary, Queen of Scots — but not the exact date.
Dee was a polymath born to a merchant family in London in 1527 and educated at St John’s College, Cambridge.
he rose to eminence during the reign of elizabeth I, when he became one of the few commoners to be honoured with personal visits from the Queen. he was also close to the major figures of her court, such as Sir Walter Raleigh and the spymasters Francis Walsingham and William Cecil.
While casting the horoscopes of the rich and powerful was Dee’s passion, he was also a key figure in england’s voyages of exploration by aiding ship captains in the mathematics of navigation.
By the early 1580s, a lack of progress in Dee’s scientific research saw him concentrate on his spiritual work, in particular his attempts to commune with the angels.
In seances with Kelley, he claimed to have been given the gift of a new alphabet. They called the language Angelic and later it became known as enochian.
Dee recorded these meetings and his other investigations in his five-volume work the Libri Mysteriorum. At the end of a long session on May 5, 1583, Dee ‘contacted’ the archangel Uriel in order to interpret one of Kelley’s visions:
‘Dee: “As concerning the vision which yesternight was presented (unloked for) to the sight of e. K. as he sat at supper
with me, in my hall, I meane the appering of the very sea, and many ships thereon, and the cutting of the hed of a woman, by a tall black man, what are we to imagine thereof.”
‘ Uriel: “The one did signifie the prouision of forrayn powres against the welfare of this land: which they shall shortly put into practise. The other, the death of the Quene of Scotts. It is not long unto it.” ’
It may not have been difficult to guess that the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots, was a possibility and perhaps a foreign invasion appeared probable in 1583. But, nevertheless, this stands out as a remarkably detailed prediction.
Mary was beheaded in 1587, and the Spanish Armada was destroyed off the coast of england in the middle of 1588.
Arthur O’Grady, Brighton.
QUESTION Why did George VI have the nickname Mr Johnson?
MeMBeRS of the Royal Family who entered the Royal naval College were given nicknames — often disparaging ones. For instance, cadets nicknamed the future George V The Sprat, while edward VIII was The Sardine.
The more serious, studious nature of Prince Albert (later George VI) earned him the nickname of Dr Johnson, which soon became Mr Johnson.
Albert was commissioned as a midshipman on September 15, 1913, and a year later began service in World War I.
his nickname served a practical purpose during World War I because if the enemy got wind he was serving on a specific ship, it would have become a target.
he was mentioned in dispatches for his action as a turret officer aboard hMS Collingwood during the Battle of Jutland, May 31 to June 1, 1916, the largest naval action of the war.
he did not see further action because of ill health caused by a duodenal ulcer.
Don Cairns, Shrewsbury, Shropshire.
QUESTION How did The Great Escape’s Charles Bronson win the Purple Heart? Have any other actors been given this U.S. military decoration?
FURTheR to the earlier answer, Audie Murphy, the star of numerous cowboy films, was the most decorated U.S. soldier of World War II. A self-deprecating man, he used to describe himself as ‘a fugitive from the law of averages’.
he was a teenager when he volunteered for army service and served in north Africa, Sicily, Italy and Germany.
he was decorated 23 times, including the Congressional Medal of honour, the U.S.’s highest military honour. he was awarded three Purple hearts for wounds received in action.
During the Vosges campaign in France on September 15, 1944, an enemy mortar round impacted and exploded between his feet. Though wounded, he was lucky because the shrapnel exploded away from the impact site, killing two other men.
he earned his second Purple heart on october 26, 1944. Fighting his way through Montagne Forest, near St Die, France, a bullet from a sniper ricocheted off a tree and went through his right hip, exiting his buttock. Murphy spotted the German and shot him ‘between the eyes’.
his third Purple heart was earned on January 25, 1945, in the Riedwihr Woods near holtzwihr, France, when a razor sharp piece of shrapnel from a mortar penetrated his leg.
After the war, Murphy suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and slept with a loaded handgun under his pillow. his 1949 film To hell And Back recounts his wartime actions. In 1971, he died in a plane crash in Virginia.
Mike Finch, Swansea.
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