This morning, ‘Nostradamus predictions for 2022’ was trending on Google as a major search query. Why? Because according to The Daily Star, an expert on the 16th Century astrologer has interpreted some of his prophecies as predicting the Queen’s death.
The late author Mario Reading, who wrote a series of books about Nostradamus’ prophecies made 447 years ago, interpreted cryptic poems written in 1555 which predict that ‘Queen Elizabeth II will die, circa 2022, at the age of around ninety-six, five years short of her mother's term of life.’
He goes on to claim that King Charles III will soon be forced to give up the throne, replaced by Prince William. ‘Prince Charles will be seventy-four years old in 2022, when he takes over the throne, but the resentments held against him by a certain proportion of the British population, following his divorce from Diana, Princess of Wales, still persist,’ Reading wrote in 2015.
However, in a revised book the following year, Reading interprets a line from Nostradamus that reads ‘a man will replace him who never expected to be king’ in a wholly different way. ‘Does that mean that Prince William, who would have expected to succeed his father, is no longer in the picture?,’ Reading asks. ‘ThatPrince Harry, by process of default, becomes king in his stead? That would make him King Henry IX, aged just 38.’
Who is Nostradamus?
Michel de Nostredame, known as Nostradamus, was a French astrologer best known for his book Les Prophéties, a collection of 942 poetic quatrains allegedly predicting future events. His poems are said to have predicted the death of King Henry VIII aged 40, as well as The Great Fire of London in 1666.
‘The blood of the just will commit a fault at London,’ he wrote. ‘Burnt through lightning of twenty threes the six:/ The ancient lady will fall from her high place/ Several of the same sect will be killed.’
Some have since decoded that ‘twenty threes the six’ means 66, foreshadowing the year of the Great Fire. Nostradamus is also thought to have predicted the rise of Adolf Hitler, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs and the Kennedy Assassination.
Of course, not all of his predictions can be interpreted accurately. In 1999, one major claim was that on 4 July of that year, the world would witness a monstrous calamity, perhaps even the end of the world. Unless we’re living in a Black Mirror virtual reality simulation, that did not happen.
There’s much to be sceptical about then, particularly when it comes to Prince Harry taking the throne. Because, unbeknownst to Reading in 2016, even if William could not replace King Charles, the current line of succession dictates that Prince George would be next in line to the throne, then Princess Charlotte, then Prince Louis. Only if all four of them abdicated would Harry be called up to rule. We can chalk this up to good old tabloid fodder then, although Nostradamus’ prediction of other world events does warrant a raised eyebrow.