Life
1569-1626; ed. Winchester and Oxford; Attorney Gen. for Ireland and poet;
appointed chief justice by Charles I but died without taking office; letters
to Cecil recording miserable state of the country; MP Fermanagh; A
Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued
(1612); and Speaker of Irish parliament, 1613; A Contention betwixt
a Wife, a Widdow, and a Maide (1656, earlier performed before the
Queen in 1602; also a treatise on taxation, and a discussion of recent
Irish discontent (1612); also wrote poetry, Orchestra (1594), Hymnes
of Astrae (1599), and Nosce Teipsum (1599), on the immortality
of the soul. DNB OCEL ODQ OCIL FDA
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Works
A Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued
[1612], in Henry Morley, ed., Ireland under Elizabeth and James (London
1980), pp.213-342; John Barry, ed., The Discovery [... &c.]
(1969); J. P. Myers, ed., A Discoverie of the True Causes ... &c.
(Washington 1988).
Historical Tracts by Sir John Davies (Dublin: printed by William Porter, for Mess. White, Gilbert, Byrne, Whitestone, W. Porter, and Moore MDCCLXXXVII [1787]), 313pp. 4o. [Title-page:] Attorney General and Speaker of the House of commons in Ireland, consisting of A discovery of the True Cause by Ireland was never brought under obedience of the crown of England’ [1-213]; A letter to the Earl of Salisbury on the State of Ireland in 1607 [touching the state of Monaghan, Fermanagh, and Cavan; wherein is a discourse concerning the Corbes and Irenahs of Ireland [M DC VII; 1607] [217-71]; A letter to the Earl of Salisbury in 1610, giving an account of the Plantation in Ulster’ [1610]; A speech to the Lord Deputy in 1613, tracing the Ancient Constitution of Ireland [290], to [all of] which is prefixed A New Life of the Author, from authentic documents [i-xxxvii]. Victi victoribus leges dedere [the vanquished gave laws to the conquerors]. A just punishment to our nation, that would not give laws to the Irifh when they might, and therefore, now the Irish gave laws to them. [125]; ‘And though heretofore it hath been like the lean cow of Egypt, in Pharoah’s dream, devouring the fat of England, and yet remaining as lean as it was before, it will hereafter be as fruitful as the land of Canaan; the description whereof, in the eighth of Deuteronomy, doth in ever part agree with Ireland, being, Terra rivorum, aquarumque, & fontium, in cujus campus, & montibus, erumpunt fluviorum abyssi ... &c.’ [Text retains s/f font passim.]
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Criticism
C. L. Falkiner, ‘Sir John Davis’ [sic] in Papers Relating
to Ireland (1909), pp.32-55.
Hans S. Pawlisch, Sir John Davies and the Conquest of Ireland: A Study in Legal Imperialism (Cambridge UP 1985).
W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (1984).
John Barry, intro. Discovery [1612] (Shannon: IAP 1969).
Gottfried, Spenser’s Prose Works, Vol. 10, Commentary on A View, l.379-82, p.287.
Andrew Hadfield, ‘Rethinking Early-Modern Colonialism: The Anomalous State of Ireland’, in Irish Studies Review, April 1999, p.20).
Russell Alspach, Irish Poetry [... &c.] (1959).
Loreto Todd, The Language of Irish Literature, 1989, pp.13-4.)
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Notes
Margaret Drabble, ed., Oxford Companion of English
Literature (OUP 1985), omits any reference to his Irish works. Oxford
Dict. Quot. selects from Nosce Teipsum, Orchestra, and
Respice Finem [‘Judge not the play until the play be done’].
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing (Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 1: Discovery ... (1612); Le Primer Report des Cases in les Courts del Ray (Dublin 1615); Robert Kreuger, ed., The Poems of Sir John Davies (Oxon. 1975); REM, The conquest of Ireland as envisaged by Sir John Davies in 1603 [when he proposed the establishment of a parliament in Ireland to mark the replacement of the old Gaelic order by a new English political system] was intended to ensure that the whole Irish people would, in a relatively short time, become in every way a part of English civilisation. [FDA ed.]
TCD Library holds Les reports des cases & matters en ley resolves & adjudges en les Courts del Roy en Ireland (Dublin 1674), 2o.; Une exact table al report de Sir John Davys (Dublin 1677), 2o. [both reissues of other editions than those stated, the latter in London after 1700; see Long Room, 1978.]
Belfast Public Library holds Discoverie of the true Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued ... (1747); Historical Tracts (1787); Irish Parliament ; Letters to Lord Salisbury; Plantation of Ulster [in Morley, H., Ireland under Elizabeth and James (1890); ?
Belfast Linen Hall Library holds Discoverie of the True Causes Why Ireland was Never Subdued (1761); Historical Tracts (1787); A Report of Cases and Matters in Law (1762)
George Story made extensive use of The Discovery for An impartial history of the wars of Ireland (1693).
Daniel O’Connell’s Memoir and its source, Matthew Carey’s Vindiciae Hiberniae, both quote extensively from Davies as giving a frank account of the atrocities of the Tudor conquest.
Seamus Heaney quotes ‘Sir John Davies’s dispatch on his progress from Glenshane Pass with Chichester in 1608: ‘The wild inhabitants wondered as much / To see the King’s deputy, as Virgil’s ghosts / Wondered to see Aeneas alive in Hell.’ (“A Retrospect”, in Seeing Things, 1991, pp.42-43.)
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)