My Wife and Children, etc., Two Horses, etc.

 

LIBER PEREGRINATIONIS PRIMAE

videlicet

A Mortlaco Anglia ad Craconiam Poloniae.

Saturday, September 21, 1583. Die Sancti Matthaei.

We departed from Mortlake about three of the clock after noon, the Lord Albert Laski, Voyvode of Siradia, in Polonia, meeting me on the water, as we had appointed. And so brought night to London, and in the dead of the night by wherries we went to Greenwich, to my friend Goodman Fern the potter, his house, where we refreshed ourselves. 

And thither came a great Tylt Boat from Gravesend, to take us in, by appointment of me and Mr Stanley, to go to our ships, which we had caused to lie seven or eight mile beyond Gravesend; to which ships we came on Sunday morning by sunrise. In the greater of them, being a double fly-boat of Denmark, my Lord Laski, I, and Edward Kelly, with my wife and children, etc., two horses, etc. went; and in another ship by me also hired for this passage went some of my Lord his men, two horses, etc. That ship was a boyer, a pretty ship. 

With little wind, we straightway hoysed sail, and began our voyage in the ship. 

This twenty-second day, we were in great danger of perishing on the sands, called the Spits, about midnight; we had, by force of wind contrary anchored by them, and the anchor came home, no man perceiving it till the ship was ready to strike the sands. Then, upon great diligence and policy used by our mariners in hoysing sail and cutting our cable to leave our shot anchor, and committing ourselves to the hands of God, and most earnestly praying for a prosperous wind, it pleased the Almighty and most merciful God suddenly to change the winds, which served us to bear from the sands, and to recover Queensborough back again. 

The twenty-third day, being Monday, we came to the mouth and entrance of Queensborough Creek or Haven; and as we made to land in small fisher-boats, the Lord Laski, my wife and children in one boat, and I with Edward Kelly, Elizabeth and John Crokar in another, it fell so out that at the ship's side our fisher-boat, his sail-yard and sail was entangled on the mainyard of the fly-boat, being stroke down, so that in our setting from the ship's side, the top of our boat being fast above, and the winds and stream carrying the boat off below, it inclined, and the water came so in by the intangling before specified, not easily to be undone or loosed, that my Lord, my wife, and all that saw us thought that of necessity our boat must sink, and so we to have perished. 

But God in his providence and mercy had greater [ . . . ] of us, so that we became clear, the boat half full of water, so that we sat wet to the knees, and the water with the billow of the sea came still beating in more and more; and in this mean trouble, one of our boatmen had lost his long oar out of the boat into the water. And so not only we lacked the help of that oar, but also by reason they would have followed the wind and ebb, for that oar, contrary to our course in hand, and not able to become by, with much ado we constrained them with the sail, our one oar, and the rudder to make such shift as they could to get to Queensborough Town.

And in the mean space, Edward Kelly with a great gantlet did empty most part of the water out of the boat, else it must needs have sunk by all men's reason. At length, to be brief, we came to the townside, up the crooked creek, where, when as the master of our ship would have taken me out in his arms, standing in the water with his boots, he fell with me in the water, where I was foul arrayed in the water and ooze. 

God be praised forever, that all that great danger was ended with so small grief or hurt.

In brief, this is what happens at the Queensborough seance.

They pray, and a spirit appears about six feet in the air, seemingly from a cloud. Edward recognises him as Michael.

He admonishes them for contention, and the neglect of good government in increasingly apocalyptic terms; they are encouraged to choose the better path of wisdom, like Solomon and Adam.

A spirit wearing a crown appears, and take Michael's sword, and bids them behold God's strength; they make the sign of the cross three times, and tells them a mariner is on his way from London with a new anchor. The crowned spirit then tells them they will face great opposition and adversity, but prevail if they act according to God's dispensation. 

And with that, they depart. 

At Queensborough.

Wednesday, September 25, circa 3 a meridie, jam pleno mari. 

D - Oravimus ad Deum, eius implorabamus, cortina statim apparuit. Oravi denuo solus, pro auxilio tempore necessitatis. Sex pedum altitudine apparebat unus in aere, quasi altera ex parte nubis, inter E.K. Et illum interpsitae. 

EK - Ego illum congnosco. 

. . . Tu habes causam me congnoscendi, et illum qui me misit, vel jam non vixisses . . .

Videtur esse Michael.

D - Gratias agimus Creatori nostro, qui bonum, potentem et fidelem ministrum suum miserit ad nostram protectionem tempore necessitatis nostrae. 

Michael - Loquor de tribus rebus, de meipso et illo qui me misit; de vobis, respectu illius quod estis, et de servitio Dei quod futurum est. O vos potestates caeli et terrae, colligite vos in simul, respicite Deum vestrum. Considerate beneficia eius, a non vos colligavit simul? Et concatenavit vos in seipsos?

A non estis glorificatis respectu officii vestri, ad quod praestandum potenter assignati estis, in voluntate eius, qui glorificat seipsum. 

Ecce quomodo vosmet dedidistis principi tenebrarum, vel quare vestri principes contendunt contra altissimum, et colligitis vosmet in simul ad contendum contra ipsum qui est potentissimus, vel illum velletis subjugare, cuius arma sunt super omnem fortitudinem; quo modo audetis contendere cum eius fortitudine? Vel que est causa quod tam impii esse velitis?

Sed ita oportet esse, quia vobis siigilavit gubernationem, et in vestras manus dedit violam destructionis. Sed date locum fini vostro, quia in eius fortitudine dispersi eritis, et omnium rerum conclusioni ostia vestra debent esse aperta. Ne mirentur servi Dei, de fortitudine temptationis, quia magna est potestas impii et hiantis Leonis, quando illi est cum sigillo tradita. 

Ne dedignemini, hac hora, scio vestram gubernationem per illum. Ecce clavis justiae aperta mihi est. Nihilominus vestra adhuc erit major iniquiras et vestrum regnum erit dispersum in eius potenti superbia. Quam magnus est Sathan qui resistit fortitudini Dei? Quam magna, igitur, debet esse vestra humilitas, quae debet vel superare vel mori. Sed vobis sic dicit Dominus. 

Aperiant venti ora sua et rabientes aquae profunda et potentia guttura. In omnes partes navinum vestrarum. Aperiat terra os suum et dicat quod devorare vellet. Tamen non praevalebunt quia tili addam, inquit Dominus, qui es fortitudo mea, potentiam meam praevalescentem. Et vos eritis duae flammae ignis, imo, ignis potentis suffocantis as totius malitiae. 

Id circa, vobis bene sit, quia inimicus est fortissimus, ubi praeda est maxima. Mementote, quod homines sitis. Mementote, quod terra sitis. Mementote, quod peccatores. Mementote, quid eratis et ne tradatis oblivioni quid estis. In illo enim vivitis qui omnia in sua habet subjectione. Sed ille, qui cum illo est, crucifixus ad gloriam, debet in medio mortalitatis componere se ipsum ad immortalem potentiam,

Servi Dei, semper praevaluerunt, sed semper per adversitates. Qui non est de hic mundo, vos praeparavit, nihilo minus debetis ea implere, quae ipse providit. Quod mundus possit fieri novus et ipse agnosci. Potens ipse est, potens est ille, aquila illa quae cooperit magnum montem alis suis. 

Sed potentior est eius fortitudo qui numerat stellas et montes colligit; nam quicquid ipse loquitur, est veritatis ignis, et est simul potentia et actus, in immediata proportione. Etiam ipse qui fecit orbem, hominem in simul compegit et omnia operatus est, omnia ipse existens. Ipse est qui vobis praeceptum dedit, et ego vobis dico, respicite de puncto in punctum, ad medium caeli et per circulum terrae; considerate omnia in uno et unum in omnibus. 

Ponderate,vel per rationem numerentur, vel mensurate quemadmodum Saloman fecit, vel quemadmodum Adamo erat concessum, quod nunc non potes sed facias.

Tunc conclude, obervant omnia cursum suum, sed verbum Domini res est [ . . . ] sempternum. Amate Deum quia justus est. Amate vos invicem quia [ . . . ] justificati. Observate mandatum Dei quia est mensura justitiae. 

EK - Jam venit alter ad illum, cum corona in capite, quasi [ . . . ] et accipit gladium Michaelis.

Coronatus - Ecce magna est fortitudo Dei, et praevalebit.

Michael - Id circo est benedictus Deus, vos justificati et nos santificati.

EK - Iam faciebant signum crucis flammae tribus vicibus, et si nauta noster cum nova anchora a Londino hodie redierit nonne est consilium, quod statim hinc navigemus, si ita ille velit, etc.

Redeunt. 

Coronatus - Ego sum de caelo, non respicio terram. Nihilominus terra per caelos vivit. Sequimini vos cursum terrenorum. Praeparate vos semen, nos volumus, O Domine, in te, esse parati, cum incremento. Vestra cura non potest praevalere, quia vestri inimici sunt fortes, sed quare dedecore afficior, cum sale terrestrium vanitatum? Destruat una vanitas, aliam. Ast electi praevalebunt in fortintudine, contra illum principem vanitatis, et regem stultorum omnium, Quia Deus noster est sapiens, Judicia eius imperserutabilia, patientia immensurabilis. Laborate vos et nos gubernabimus.

EK - Jam recedunt. 

Vox - Ne disputetis ulterius cum Deo; victoria vestra erit. 

D - Magnificetur nomen Dei nostri solius omnipotentis et optimi. Amen. 

Thursday 26 September.

We went to ship, and lay in it all night at anchor.

Friday 27 September.

We sailed from Queensborough, and so by the land's end into the main sea, north-east.