John Davies (poet)
Encyclopedia
Sir John Davies was an English
poet
and lawyer
, who became attorney general in Ireland and formulated many of the legal principles that underpinned the British Empire
.
, possibly at Chicksgrove Manor at Lower Chicksgrove
, to John and Mary Davies. He was educated at Winchester College
for four years, a period in which he showed much interest in literature. He studied there until the age of sixteen and went to further his education at the Queen's College, Oxford
, where he stayed for a mere eighteen months, with most historians questioning whether he received a degree. Davies spent some time at New Inn after his departure from Oxford, and it was at this point that he decided to pursue a career in law. In 1588 he enrolled in the Middle Temple
, where he did well academically, although suffering constant reprimands for his behaviour. Following several suspensions, his behaviour cost him his enrolment.
In 1594 Davies' poetry brought him into contact with Queen Elizabeth
. She wished him to continue his study of law at the Middle Temple and had him sworn in as a servant-in-ordinary. In the following year, his poem, Orchestra, was published in July, prior to his call to the bar from the Middle Temple
.
In February 1598 Davies was disbarred for the offence of entering the dining hall of the Inns in the company of two swordsmen and striking Richard Martin
with a cudgel. The victim was a noted wit who had insulted him in public, and Davies immediately took a boat at the Temple steps and retired to Oxford, where he chose to write poetry. Another of his works, Nosce Teipsum, was published in 1599 and found favour with the queen and with Lord Mountjoy, later lord deputy of Ireland.
Davies became a favourite of the queen, to whom he addressed his work, Hymns of Astraea, in 1599. Later that year, however, his Epigrams was included in a list of published works that the state ordered to be confiscated and burned. In 1601 he was readmitted to the bar, having made a public apology to Martin, and in the same year served as the member of parliament for Corfe Castle. In 1603, he was part of the deputation sent to bring King James VI of Scotland to London as the new monarch. The Scots king was also an admirer of Davies' poetry, and rewarded him with a knighthood and appointments (at Mountjoy's recommendation) as solicitor-general
and, later attorney-general
, in Ireland
.
some six months earlier, at the close of the Nine Years War. Finding pestilence and famine all over Ireland, Davies noted that the courts still commanded respect, but that the sloth of the protestant clergy and the ruin of the churches was detrimental to religion. He condemned the practice of issuing debased coinage and, in pursuit of the establishment of regular quarter-sessions of the courts, went on the Leinster circuit through seven counties in April 1604. In 1605 he travelled to England with the commendation of Sir Arthur Chichester, who succeeded Mountjoy in government, and had returned to Ireland by July.
Davies was very much committed to reform not just in the law but in religious affairs too. He was all for banishing catholic clergy from Ireland and for enforcing church attendances, and strict measures to this end were taken on his return. He delivered a powerful speech on 23 November 1605 in the court of Castle Chamber, dealing with the summonsing of recusants to answer their contempt of the king's proclamations. In May 1606 he submitted his report of his circuit of the province of Munster
to Sir Robert Cecil
, the king's secretary, and was made serjeant at law after his appointment as attorney general. In the summer he travelled through counties Monaghan, Fermanagh and Cavan, and a year later through Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King's county and Queen's County, both of which circuits he reported to Cecil. Davies always looked at Ireland as a stepping-stone towards major political office in England but he knew that his chances were hurt by the death of his patron, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and his absence from the court.
. In September 1607, he delivered to Cecil his report of the Flight of the Earls
, a seminal event in Irish history and, before long, had travelled into the absent earls' territories to lay indictments against them there. In August 1608, he went with Chichester to view the escheated lands, reporting that the people, "wondered as much to see the king's deputy as the ghosts in Vurgil wondered to see AEneas alive in hell[sic]". In October he was in England, pushing for the plantation of the province
.
In May 1609, Davies was made serjeant, with a grant of lands valued at £40 p.a. He revisited England in 1610 on plantation business, which had so advanced that he thought his assistance to the commission charged with bringing the project to fruition would no longer be needed. In 1610 he defended proceedings brought by the Irish against the plans for the plantation of Cavan, but in the following year he begged for recall from Ireland. At about this time he wrote the Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (pub.1612), a well-written - albeit polemical - account of the constitutional standing of Ireland.
In England, Davies spent much time in preparing the way for the Irish parliament of 1613, to which he was returned for County Fermanagh. In the first sitting he was proposed as speaker with the Crown's approval, but an Irish candidate was proposed in opposition to him, and comical disorder ensued when the Irishman was placed in the chair and refused to vacate in favour of the government candidate. Davies was seized by his own supporters and lifted bodily into his opponent's lap; his opponent was then ejected from the chair and withdrew himself from the chamber with 98 supporters, whereupon the vote was taken in their absence. Davies was approved as speaker by Chichester, and delivered a memorable speech on the history and role of parliament in Ireland.
In 1615, Davies' reports of Irish cases were published; he had appeared as counsel in many of these, including the case of the Bann
Fishery and the cases of Tanistry
and Gavelkind
, which set precedents in Irish constitutional law, with wider implications for British colonial policy.
, and in 1621 again served as a member of the English parliament, where he occasionally spoke on Irish matters. Davies retired to Englefield House in Berkshire
, but was then appointed lord chief justice of one of the superior courts in England. He had always been corpulent, and on 7 December 1626 he died in his bed of apoplexy brought on after a supper party, and thus never enjoyed the appointment he had been angling for throughout his career.
Davies is a great example of "new" poetry in the 1590s. This was a poetry characterized by a burning delight in intellectual analysis and a pure passion for knowledge. Davies' works are very well represented in Elizabethan anthologies. The last complete edition of his poems appeared in 1876 and is long out of print.
His most famous poem, Nosce Teipsum, was reprinted numerous times, and was one of the first English poems to use the decasyllabic quatrain
instead of the heroic couplet
for a poem of its scope. It won him the favor of James I, by which he won promotion in Ireland. The poem summarizes the main issues in religious thought in the Elizabethan Era
, addressing the relation of body to soul, and of Materialism
to Idealism
. A.H. Bullen described it as being "singularly readable for such a subject: highly accomplished verse, no Elizabethan quaintness, bothe subtle and terse".
A.H. Bullen also described Davies' Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing as "brilliant and graceful". This poem, formed in tiny octavos, reveals a typical Elizabethan pleasure: contemplating and trying to understand the relationship between the natural order and human activity.
Much historical knowledge can be gained from the reading of Davies' poetry. Queen Elizabeth's anger at Bishop Fletcher's second marriage, to a beautiful young woman, becomes more understandable after taking into account her loose character explained in Davies' writings. Another epigram speaks of a practice of "masochism" at the time. This is where sexual gratification comes from physical pain and suffering, perhaps being whipped by women.
, a model that served the English crown as it extended its colonial reach in North America and elsewhere. In literary terms, he was a fine poet who lay quite neglected from the mid-17th century, until his cause was championed by T. S. Eliot
.
. She was one the most prolific women writing in early seventeenth-century England, but there was a history of insanity in her family, and she had developed a devotion to prophecy based on scriptural anagrams.
During the marriage, Eleanor published several fanatical books of prophecy, a manuscript for one of which her husband had burned. Davies was exasperated by his wife's excesses and once addressed her, "I pray you weep not while I am alive, and I will give you leave to laugh when I am dead". But she is said to have accurately foretold the date of his death and wore mourning clothes for the three years leading up to the predicted time: as the date approached – three days before – she "gave him pass to take his long sleep".
Davies had three children by his marriage. His only son to survive infancy was deaf and dumb but his daughter married Ferdinando Hastings
and became Countess of Huntingdon
. It is thought by many that his wife Eleanor may have been one of Davies's biggest problems in getting a job. On 28 July 1625 she was working on a commentary of the book of Daniel and believed she heard the voice of the prophet. Following this experience she wrote about it and took it to the Archbishop of Canterbury. When Davies found and burned her writing she predicted he would die within three years and went into mourning. In November 1626 Davies was appointed to high office in England. In early December, following Davies' new appointment, Eleanor started weeping during a dinner with friends. When asked why, she explained it was in anticipation of Davies' funeral. Davies was found in his home, dead of apoplexy on the morning of 8 December. In 1633, Eleanor was brought before the high commission in England on charges relating to her religious anagram practices. During a fruitless examination of her under oath, one of the commissioners devised an anagram of his own: Dame Eleanor Davys - never so mad a ladye. She was sent to prison, and afterwards remarried, but was deserted by her new husband and buried next to Davies on her death in 1652.
She continued to make prophesies until her death.
Citations
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
and lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...
, who became attorney general in Ireland and formulated many of the legal principles that underpinned the British Empire
British Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
.
Early life
Davies was born in WiltshireWiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
, possibly at Chicksgrove Manor at Lower Chicksgrove
Lower Chicksgrove
Lower Chicksgrove is a hamlet in the civil parish of Tisbury in the south of the county of Wiltshire, England. The settlement is recorded in the 12th century as Chicksgrove and a nearby settlement as Stoford; Chicksgrove was first recorded as Lower Chicksgrove and Stoford as Upper Chicksgrove in...
, to John and Mary Davies. He was educated at Winchester College
Winchester College
Winchester College is an independent school for boys in the British public school tradition, situated in Winchester, Hampshire, the former capital of England. It has existed in its present location for over 600 years and claims the longest unbroken history of any school in England...
for four years, a period in which he showed much interest in literature. He studied there until the age of sixteen and went to further his education at the Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College, Oxford
The Queen's College, founded 1341, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Queen's is centrally situated on the High Street, and is renowned for its 18th-century architecture...
, where he stayed for a mere eighteen months, with most historians questioning whether he received a degree. Davies spent some time at New Inn after his departure from Oxford, and it was at this point that he decided to pursue a career in law. In 1588 he enrolled in the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
, where he did well academically, although suffering constant reprimands for his behaviour. Following several suspensions, his behaviour cost him his enrolment.
In 1594 Davies' poetry brought him into contact with Queen Elizabeth
Elizabeth I of England
Elizabeth I was queen regnant of England and Ireland from 17 November 1558 until her death. Sometimes called The Virgin Queen, Gloriana, or Good Queen Bess, Elizabeth was the fifth and last monarch of the Tudor dynasty...
. She wished him to continue his study of law at the Middle Temple and had him sworn in as a servant-in-ordinary. In the following year, his poem, Orchestra, was published in July, prior to his call to the bar from the Middle Temple
Middle Temple
The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers; the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn and Lincoln's Inn...
.
In February 1598 Davies was disbarred for the offence of entering the dining hall of the Inns in the company of two swordsmen and striking Richard Martin
Richard Martin (Recorder of London)
Richard Martin was an English lawyer, orator, and supporter of the Virginia Company who was appointed Recorder of the City of London at the recommendation of James I of England in 1618 but died shortly thereafter.-Lawyer and tavern wit:...
with a cudgel. The victim was a noted wit who had insulted him in public, and Davies immediately took a boat at the Temple steps and retired to Oxford, where he chose to write poetry. Another of his works, Nosce Teipsum, was published in 1599 and found favour with the queen and with Lord Mountjoy, later lord deputy of Ireland.
Davies became a favourite of the queen, to whom he addressed his work, Hymns of Astraea, in 1599. Later that year, however, his Epigrams was included in a list of published works that the state ordered to be confiscated and burned. In 1601 he was readmitted to the bar, having made a public apology to Martin, and in the same year served as the member of parliament for Corfe Castle. In 1603, he was part of the deputation sent to bring King James VI of Scotland to London as the new monarch. The Scots king was also an admirer of Davies' poetry, and rewarded him with a knighthood and appointments (at Mountjoy's recommendation) as solicitor-general
Solicitor-General for Ireland
The Solicitor-General for Ireland was the holder of an Irish and then United Kingdom government office. The holder was a deputy to the Attorney-General for Ireland, and advised the Crown on Irish legal matters. At least one holder of the office, Patrick Barnewall played a significant role in...
and, later attorney-general
Attorney-General for Ireland
The Attorney-General for Ireland was an Irish and then United Kingdom government office. The holder was senior to the Solicitor-General for Ireland, and advised the Crown on Irish legal matters...
, in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
.
Ireland
Davies arrived in Dublin in November 1603, where Mountjoy had accepted the submission of the rebel Hugh O'NeillHugh O'Neill, 3rd Earl of Tyrone
Aodh Mór Ó Néill, anglicised as Hugh The Great O'Neill , was the 2nd or 3rd Earl of Tyrone and was later created The Ó Néill...
some six months earlier, at the close of the Nine Years War. Finding pestilence and famine all over Ireland, Davies noted that the courts still commanded respect, but that the sloth of the protestant clergy and the ruin of the churches was detrimental to religion. He condemned the practice of issuing debased coinage and, in pursuit of the establishment of regular quarter-sessions of the courts, went on the Leinster circuit through seven counties in April 1604. In 1605 he travelled to England with the commendation of Sir Arthur Chichester, who succeeded Mountjoy in government, and had returned to Ireland by July.
Davies was very much committed to reform not just in the law but in religious affairs too. He was all for banishing catholic clergy from Ireland and for enforcing church attendances, and strict measures to this end were taken on his return. He delivered a powerful speech on 23 November 1605 in the court of Castle Chamber, dealing with the summonsing of recusants to answer their contempt of the king's proclamations. In May 1606 he submitted his report of his circuit of the province of Munster
Munster
Munster is one of the Provinces of Ireland situated in the south of Ireland. In Ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial purposes...
to Sir Robert Cecil
Robert Cecil
Robert Cecil may refer to:*Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury , statesman, spymaster and minister to Elizabeth I of England and James I of England...
, the king's secretary, and was made serjeant at law after his appointment as attorney general. In the summer he travelled through counties Monaghan, Fermanagh and Cavan, and a year later through Meath, Westmeath, Longford, King's county and Queen's County, both of which circuits he reported to Cecil. Davies always looked at Ireland as a stepping-stone towards major political office in England but he knew that his chances were hurt by the death of his patron, Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury, and his absence from the court.
Ulster
Davies became heavily involved in government efforts to establish a plantation in the lately rebellious province of UlsterUlster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
. In September 1607, he delivered to Cecil his report of the Flight of the Earls
Flight of the Earls
The Flight of the Earls took place on 14 September 1607, when Hugh Ó Neill of Tír Eóghain, Rory Ó Donnell of Tír Chonaill and about ninety followers left Ireland for mainland Europe.-Background to the exile:...
, a seminal event in Irish history and, before long, had travelled into the absent earls' territories to lay indictments against them there. In August 1608, he went with Chichester to view the escheated lands, reporting that the people, "wondered as much to see the king's deputy as the ghosts in Vurgil wondered to see AEneas alive in hell[sic]". In October he was in England, pushing for the plantation of the province
Plantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...
.
In May 1609, Davies was made serjeant, with a grant of lands valued at £40 p.a. He revisited England in 1610 on plantation business, which had so advanced that he thought his assistance to the commission charged with bringing the project to fruition would no longer be needed. In 1610 he defended proceedings brought by the Irish against the plans for the plantation of Cavan, but in the following year he begged for recall from Ireland. At about this time he wrote the Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (pub.1612), a well-written - albeit polemical - account of the constitutional standing of Ireland.
In England, Davies spent much time in preparing the way for the Irish parliament of 1613, to which he was returned for County Fermanagh. In the first sitting he was proposed as speaker with the Crown's approval, but an Irish candidate was proposed in opposition to him, and comical disorder ensued when the Irishman was placed in the chair and refused to vacate in favour of the government candidate. Davies was seized by his own supporters and lifted bodily into his opponent's lap; his opponent was then ejected from the chair and withdrew himself from the chamber with 98 supporters, whereupon the vote was taken in their absence. Davies was approved as speaker by Chichester, and delivered a memorable speech on the history and role of parliament in Ireland.
In 1615, Davies' reports of Irish cases were published; he had appeared as counsel in many of these, including the case of the Bann
River Bann
The River Bann is the longest river in Northern Ireland, the total length being 80 miles . The river winds its way from the south east corner of Northern Ireland to the north west coast, pausing in the middle to widen into the enormous Lough Neagh...
Fishery and the cases of Tanistry
Tanistry
Tanistry was a Gaelic system for passing on titles and lands. In this system the Tanist was the office of heir-apparent, or second-in-command, among the Gaelic patrilineal dynasties of Ireland, Scotland and Man, to succeed to the chieftainship or to the kingship.-Origins:The Tanist was chosen from...
and Gavelkind
Gavelkind
Gavelkind was a system of land tenure associated chiefly with the county of Kent, but found also in other parts of England. Its inheritance pattern bears resemblance to Salic patrimony and as such might testify in favour of a wider, probably ancient Germanic tradition.It was legally abolished in...
, which set precedents in Irish constitutional law, with wider implications for British colonial policy.
Later career
In 1617 Davies failed to win the position of English Solicitor General and consequently resigned as Attorney-General in Ireland. In 1619 he returned to England permanently, in the expectation that his chance of gaining office there would be improved by his presence. He practised as king's serjeant, and eventually went on circuit as a judge. He was a founder member of the Society of AntiquariesSociety of Antiquaries of London
The Society of Antiquaries of London is a learned society "charged by its Royal Charter of 1751 with 'the encouragement, advancement and furtherance of the study and knowledge of the antiquities and history of this and other countries'." It is based at Burlington House, Piccadilly, London , and is...
, and in 1621 again served as a member of the English parliament, where he occasionally spoke on Irish matters. Davies retired to Englefield House in Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, but was then appointed lord chief justice of one of the superior courts in England. He had always been corpulent, and on 7 December 1626 he died in his bed of apoplexy brought on after a supper party, and thus never enjoyed the appointment he had been angling for throughout his career.
Poetry
Davies wrote poetry in numerous forms, but is best known for his epigrammes and sonnets. In 1599 he published Nosce Teipsum (Know thyself) and Hymnes of Astraea. Queen Elizabeth became an admirer of Davies' work, and these poems contain acrostics that spell out the phrase Elisabetha Regina.A list of his works can be found at:Davies is a great example of "new" poetry in the 1590s. This was a poetry characterized by a burning delight in intellectual analysis and a pure passion for knowledge. Davies' works are very well represented in Elizabethan anthologies. The last complete edition of his poems appeared in 1876 and is long out of print.
His most famous poem, Nosce Teipsum, was reprinted numerous times, and was one of the first English poems to use the decasyllabic quatrain
Decasyllabic quatrain
Decasyllabic quatrain is a term used for a poetic form in which each stanza consists of four lines of ten syllables each, usually with a rhyme scheme of AABB or ABAB. Examples of the decasyllabic quatrain in heroic couplets appear in some of the earliest texts in the English language, as Geoffrey...
instead of the heroic couplet
Heroic couplet
A heroic couplet is a traditional form for English poetry, commonly used for epic and narrative poetry; it refers to poems constructed from a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines. The rhyme is always masculine. Use of the heroic couplet was first pioneered by Geoffrey Chaucer in...
for a poem of its scope. It won him the favor of James I, by which he won promotion in Ireland. The poem summarizes the main issues in religious thought in the Elizabethan Era
Elizabethan era
The Elizabethan era was the epoch in English history of Queen Elizabeth I's reign . Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history...
, addressing the relation of body to soul, and of Materialism
Materialism
In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance...
to Idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
. A.H. Bullen described it as being "singularly readable for such a subject: highly accomplished verse, no Elizabethan quaintness, bothe subtle and terse".
A.H. Bullen also described Davies' Orchestra, or a Poem of Dancing as "brilliant and graceful". This poem, formed in tiny octavos, reveals a typical Elizabethan pleasure: contemplating and trying to understand the relationship between the natural order and human activity.
Much historical knowledge can be gained from the reading of Davies' poetry. Queen Elizabeth's anger at Bishop Fletcher's second marriage, to a beautiful young woman, becomes more understandable after taking into account her loose character explained in Davies' writings. Another epigram speaks of a practice of "masochism" at the time. This is where sexual gratification comes from physical pain and suffering, perhaps being whipped by women.
Legacy
In political terms, Davies was significant in his work on constitutional law and in framing the terms of the Plantation of UlsterPlantation of Ulster
The Plantation of Ulster was the organised colonisation of Ulster—a province of Ireland—by people from Great Britain. Private plantation by wealthy landowners began in 1606, while official plantation controlled by King James I of England and VI of Scotland began in 1609...
, a model that served the English crown as it extended its colonial reach in North America and elsewhere. In literary terms, he was a fine poet who lay quite neglected from the mid-17th century, until his cause was championed by T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
.
Family
Davies' wife, Eleanor Touchet (married in March 1609), was the daughter of the first Earl of CastlehavenGeorge Tuchet, 1st Earl of Castlehaven
George Tuchet, 1st Earl of Castlehaven , was the son of Henry Tuchet, 10th Baron Audley and his wife, née Elizabeth Sneyd....
. She was one the most prolific women writing in early seventeenth-century England, but there was a history of insanity in her family, and she had developed a devotion to prophecy based on scriptural anagrams.
During the marriage, Eleanor published several fanatical books of prophecy, a manuscript for one of which her husband had burned. Davies was exasperated by his wife's excesses and once addressed her, "I pray you weep not while I am alive, and I will give you leave to laugh when I am dead". But she is said to have accurately foretold the date of his death and wore mourning clothes for the three years leading up to the predicted time: as the date approached – three days before – she "gave him pass to take his long sleep".
Davies had three children by his marriage. His only son to survive infancy was deaf and dumb but his daughter married Ferdinando Hastings
Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon
Ferdinando Hastings, 6th Earl of Huntingdon was the son of Henry Hastings, 5th Earl of Huntingdon and Lady Elizabeth Stanley, the daughter of Ferdinando Stanley, 5th Earl of Derby and Alice Spencer...
and became Countess of Huntingdon
Earl of Huntingdon
Earl of Huntingdon is a title which has been created several times in the Peerage of England. The title is associated with the ruling house of Scotland, and latterly with the Hastings family.-Early history:...
. It is thought by many that his wife Eleanor may have been one of Davies's biggest problems in getting a job. On 28 July 1625 she was working on a commentary of the book of Daniel and believed she heard the voice of the prophet. Following this experience she wrote about it and took it to the Archbishop of Canterbury. When Davies found and burned her writing she predicted he would die within three years and went into mourning. In November 1626 Davies was appointed to high office in England. In early December, following Davies' new appointment, Eleanor started weeping during a dinner with friends. When asked why, she explained it was in anticipation of Davies' funeral. Davies was found in his home, dead of apoplexy on the morning of 8 December. In 1633, Eleanor was brought before the high commission in England on charges relating to her religious anagram practices. During a fruitless examination of her under oath, one of the commissioners devised an anagram of his own: Dame Eleanor Davys - never so mad a ladye. She was sent to prison, and afterwards remarried, but was deserted by her new husband and buried next to Davies on her death in 1652.
She continued to make prophesies until her death.
Footnotes
NotesCitations