Famous Fulfilled Prophecies of Nostradamus

For your reference, the complete Centuries collection of quatrains is published in Part 5 at the end of this book. The quatrains used in these examples are quoted from there.

1. Death of Henry II

The Death of Henry II from a jousting accident is one of Nostradamus first and most famous fulfilled prophecies.

         Henry II, King of France

 

Here is the quatrain:

The young lion will overcome the older one,
On the field of combat in a single battle;
He will pierce his eyes through a golden cage,
Two wounds made one, then he dies a cruel death.

(Century 1, Quatrain 35)

In June 1559, Henry II ignored all warnings that Nostradamus gave him and participated in a jousting tournament against the Comte de Montgomery. Both men used shields embossed with lions. Montgomery was six years younger than Henry.

During the final bout of fighting in the tournament, Montgomery failed to lower his lance in time. It shattered, sending a large splinter through the king’s gilded visor (golden cage). The result was two moral wounds (two wounds made one and then he will die a cruel death.) One splinter spliced eye; the other impaled his temple just behind the eye. Both splinters from the lance penetrated his brain. Henry lived for ten days in agony, thus fulfilling the Nostradamus prophecy that he would die a cruel death.

2. The Fire of London

This is one of the few prophecies in the quatrains where Nostradamus actually got the year dead on!

The blood of the just will be demanded of London,
Burnt by the fire in the year 66

(Century 2; Quatrain 51)

On Sunday morning, the 2nd September 1666, the destruction of medieval London began with one simple spark. In five days a cataclysmic fire destroyed the city of Shakespeare. An area of one and a half miles by half a mile lay in ashes; 373 acres inside the city walls and 63 acres outside, 87 churches destroyed (including St. Paul’s Cathedral) and 13,200 houses. Although the blood of the just in the quatrain was demanded of London, only six people died.

Some people see the blood of the just as it was translated from the French to mean that justice was done to the Black Death. This fire did the city a great service by destroying the millions of rats that were carrying the Black plague through the city’s population.