This is a study of non-biblical prophetic traditions current in England from the sixteenth century to the present day, especially Mother Shipton, Merlin and Nixon the Cheshire prophet. The term ‘prophecy’ covers a wide variety of phenomena in the early modern period. These overlap far more than is sometimes allowed, but it is nonetheless necessary and legitimate to focus for the moment on one element of ‘prophecy’, in this case ‘ancient prophecy’ (to use a term of Keith Thomas's), that is prophecy allegedly uttered or written by figures in the past, who might or might not be religious figures but who were not formally part of the biblical tradition and apocrypha. Its influence on events, through both its mass appeal and its specific relevance to the conduct of politics by elites, and on a day-to-day level and in specific crises, makes it as significant as many of the economic, social, cultural and ideological factors familiar to political historians. Yet, for example, neither Shipton nor Nixon has been subjected to proper study in the present century, and Merlin is usually treated as part of the Arthur myth. This is in spite of their appearance in many of the major and more of the minor works of literature produced in the last few centuries, and in the writings of men as humble as John Clare and as prominent and educated as Samuel Pepys, Horace Walpole and Henry Fielding.