Was it Sonthiel Sontheil Southill....?

 

" Agatha Sonthiel of Knaresborough in Yorkshire. "

 

This page of this Mother Shipton site looks at the assumed maiden name of the Yorkshire seer or seeress.

 

It is found spelled in several different variations in literature on the internet and in printed form. So was it Sonthiel, Sontheil, Southill, Sonthill.....?

 

The opening quote comes from a very old book called "Baldwin: or, A miser's heir, by an old bachelor." Richard Harris Barham the author is writing about an article where the subject is a hat that is said to have belonged to Agatha Sonthiel, spelled iel. The steeple crowned hat story from Barham is available to read on Google Books on page 128.

 

So there we have a point for the spelling of Sonthiel.

 

In another old magazine we find the same spelling for the baptismal name give to Ursula but it is a confusing article.

 

"She was born, according to general accounts, in the Reign of Henry the Seventh, near Knaresborough, in the county of York, and baptised by the Abbot of Beverley, with the name of "Agatha Sonthiel,".....The article is from Kirby's Wonderful and Scientific Museum and published in 1804. The magazine of remarkable characters presents Agatha Sonthiel in the Volume 2 article on page 145. Shipton baptism

 

Dickens Shipton is described in Volume 14 of his 19 Volume Household Words series. He writes her maiden name as Southiel.

 

Now to make matters even more confusing and to add mystery to an already mysterious matter let us assume for a moment that Southwell Minster could play a role in this " who the devil" charade.

 

The question here is, Who baptised the child ?. If it was Chancellor Boothe who was a head figure of the Beverley Minster in 1880 onwards the there is suspicion in the fact that he was buried at Southwell Minster.

 

...only suspicion. That the beauty of the ugly old had...she always keep you dangling by a thread, or standing on your head.