Nostradamus
and
  The Angevin Empire
 


I.76.
Supplement
English Verse Translation
D'un nom farouche tel proferé sera,
By name right fierce a man shall be decreed
Que les troys seurs auront fato le nom:
Whose name is fated by those Sisters Three.
Puis grand peuple par langue & faict duira
Then a great host by word and deed he’ll lead:
Plus que nul autre aura bruit & renom.
More than all others famed, renowned he’ll be.

Source: A thirteenth-century poem in praise of the French King Philip Augustus entitled The Philippiad by the poet and chronicler Guillaume Le Breton, in which the destiny of Philip’s contemporary, King Richard Coeur de Lion of England, is woven, and his death before the castle of Châlus decided, by the three Fates of ancient Greek mythology – here presented as though it all took place long before his magnificent leadership of the international (though failed) Third Crusade of 1190 and the world-wide renown that it brought him.




VIII.58
Supplement
English Verse Translation
Regne en querelle aux freres divisé,

The realm the brothers shall at odds divide
Prendre les armes & le nom Britannique

The arms and name of Britain for to wrench:
Tiltre Anglican sera tard advisé,
Le titre 'Rex Angliae'
The English kingly rank shall, late espied,
Surprins de nuict mener à l'air Gallique
[Sur]pris [= Sur Prince]
By night surprise him, led to a song in French.

Source: The 13th century Récits d'un ménestrel de Reims, an apocryphal romance telling how the French minstrel Blondel de Nesle allegedly discovered and so brought about the release of his friend King Richard I of England from imprisonment in a variety of castles (1192-1194) by the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI, after he had been captured while trying to make his way home across Europe in disguise in the wake of the failure of the Third Crusade to recapture Jerusalem from Saladin. The story tells how Blondel wandered from castle to castle in search of his lord, finally discovering him when the latter spotted him from his prison and, through an archer's slot, sang aloud the first verse of a ballad ("L'amours dont sui espris - compare Surprins in line 4) that the two of them had privately composed together. Ransomed at huge expense and restored to his throne (to the disconcertion of his brother John, who had been plotting against him in his absence), the French-speaking Richard was duly crowned a second time before returning to France, where he spent the remaining five years of his reign before John finally succeeded him.




X.72
Supplement English Verse Translation
L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois

1999 seven months to the fore,
Du ciel viendra un grand Roy deffraieur
defrayer
Heaven sent, shall come just one King to pay
Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois
Angoumois
The noble King of Angoumois to restore,
Avant apres Mars regner par bon heur

Ere, after March shall reign by fortune's say.

Source:  The official return of Angoumois, as a feudal vassal subject to King Philip II of France, in July 1199, after Eleanor of Aquitaine decided to pay homage to him, (rather than to her son John Lackland, the newly appointed King of England), for the lands she had inherited from her father, which then allowed Philip II to consolidate France into one royal domain. This decision was greatly influenced by the death, a few months earlier, of her favourite son, Richard the Lionheart (Duke of Aquitaine and King of England), after he was struck down by a crossbow bolt from out of the blue on 26 March 1199, (see I.76). He died while besieging the castle of Châlus attempting to subdue the Viscount of Limoges who had taken a stand for the King of France, supported by the Viscount of Angouleme. Evidently, in order to project the past into the future, Nostradamus has simply altered the year of the event from 1199 to 1999. A failed prophecy. 




X.100
Supplement English Verse Translation
Le grand empire sera par Angleterre,

The noble empire from England shall be,
Le pempotam des ans plus de trois cens:
beaucoup de pompe [Lat. "pompa tam"]
For over three hundred years, such pageantry:
Grandes copies passer par mer & terre,
armées [Lat. copiae]
Mighty armies passing over land and sea,
Les Lusitains n’en seront pas contens.
Lusignans
Not one of the Lusignans are pleased to see.

Source: The acquisition of Aquitaine by Henry II of England on 18 May 1152, when he married Eleanor of Aquitaine, thus inheriting through her all the land between the Loire and the Pyrenees. The local Lusignan family, who had hitherto been powerful in the region, were so affronted by this that they even kidnapped Eleanor for a time in an attempt to win back some of the territory. However, this 'noble empire' (aka. the Angevin empire) came to an end on 20 July 1453, when John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, lost it all at the battle of Châtillon to the Bastard of Orleans, General Daunois. It had thus lasted for 301 years.