[Sir] John Davies

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), discoursing on the colonial design ‘to make the Irish grow civil, and become English’, arguing that the Irish would gladly relinquish native law for a superior system; and Speaker of Irish Parliament, 1613; issued A Contention betwixt a Wife, a Widdow, and a Maide (1656, earlier performed before the Queen in 1602; issued a treatise on taxation; also wrote poetry, Orchestra (1594), Hymnes of Astrae (1599), and Nosce Teipsum (1599), on the immortality of the soul; it was he who first denominated the Anglo-Norman invaders ‘English adventurers’. ODNB OCEL ODQ OCIL FDA

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Works
Contemporary & older editions
  • A discouerie of the true causes why Ireland was neuer entirely subdued, nor brought vnder obedience of the crowne of England, vntill the beginning of his Maiesties happie raigne ([London]: Printed [by W. Jaggard] for Iohn Iaggard, dwelling within Temple Bar, at the signe of the Hand and Star, 1612) [see copy has .htm, .docx or pdf.]
  • The Civil Warres of Great Britain and Ireland: containing an exact history of their occasion, originall progress and happy end / by an impartiall pen (Glasgow: Printed by Robert Sanders ... 1664), [20], 418pp.
  • A Discoverie of the True Causes Why Ireland was Neuer Entirely Subdued: nor brought vnder obedience of the crowne of England, vntill the beginning of His Maiesties happie raigne (London: Printed for A. Millar 1747), 283pp. [Ded. signed John Davies].
  • 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. [see details].
Modern editions
  • Henry Morley, ed., Ireland under Elizabeth and James the First, described by Edmund Spenser, by Sir John Davies, Attorney-general for Ireland under James the First and by Fynes Moryson, Secretary to the Lord Mountjoy, Lord Deputy [Carisbrooke Library] (London: George Routledge 1890), 445pp. [see contents].
  • John Barry, ed. & intro., A Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (Shannon: IUP 1969), viii, 287pp. [see Introduction - infra].
  • J. P. Myers, ed., A Discoverie of the True Causes … &c. (Washington 1988).
Miscellaneous
  • Orchestra or A poeme of dauncing : Iudicially proouing the true obseruation of time and measure, in the authenticall and laudable vse of dauncing (London: Printed by I. Robarts for N. Ling 1596).
  • Nosce teipsum. This oracle expounded in two elegies [by sir J. Davies] (London: Printed by R. Field for J. Standish 1599); another edn., as Nosce teipsum: This oracle expounded in two elegies 1. Of humane knowledge. 2. Of the soule of man, and the immortalitie thereof (London: Printed by Richard Field for Iohn Standish 1602),  ([6], 66, 87-101, [1]pp.; ded. signed Iohn Dauys [Huntingdon Lib.J
  • Hymnes of Astræa: in acrosticke verse. (London: Printed [by R. Field] for I. S[tandish] 1599) [first letters of each line make up ‘Eliza betha Regina’.]
  • Epigrammes and elegies: By I.D. and C.M. (At Middleborugh [i.e. London?]: s.n. ca.1599]).

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Bibliographical details
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.]

Henry Morley, ed., Ireland under Elizabeth and James the First, described by Edmund Spenser, by Sir John Davies, Attorney-general for Ireland under James the First and by Fynes Moryson, Secretary to the Lord Mountjoy, Lord Deputy [Carisbrooke Library] (London: George Routledge 1890), 445pp. CONTENTS: Introduction; Spenser, View of the State of Ireland (1597); Sir John Davies, Discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued ... until the beginning of His Majesty’s happy reign (1612); Letter from Sir John Davies [...] Robert, earl of Salisbury, touching the state of Monaghan, Fermanagh and Cavan (1607); Plantation of Ulster: A letter from Sir John Davies (1610); Irish Parliament: Sir John Davies’s speech (1613); Description of Ireland by Fynes Moryson (1599 to 1603); Appendix.

Some remarks on the digital copy of A Discovery of [...] Why Ireland was Never Entirely Subdued (1612)
Bibliographical details: A Discovery of the true causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (...) [1612] - Extracted from Morley, ed., Ireland under Elizabeth and James the First, described by Edmund Spenser, by Sir John Davies, Attorney-general for Ireland under James the First and by Fynes Moryson, Secretary to the Lord Mountjoy, Lord Deputy [Carisbrooke Library] (London: George Routledge 1890), 445pp.. pp.217-342.]
[ Source: CELT / UCC - online at https://celt.ucc.ie/published/E610003/text001.html. ]

This copy has been taken from the CELT Irish text website - first treated as a Word document and then saved as PDF and HTML. The current version is derived from the HTML created in Word, purged of its MS codes and markers and treated in the same style as other RICORSO documents. In the course of this conversion some gains and some losses have been registered. In general, it reads more fluently since the page-breaks have five way to page-numbers in square brackets. At the same time, the system of linked notes used by CELT has neither been reproduced nor included in the usual footnote format.

Those notes, introduced especially for Irish and Latin phrases in the text - include some explanations probably stemming from Henry Morley's edition since they include remarks about the polity of the time and its modern counterpart in parliamentary terms. The copy-text at CELT is certainly not the IUP facsimile addition which was censured form its inevitable retention of the typographical vagaries of the original and its dearth of analytic criticism. The footnotes themselves stand as testimony to the fact that a modern edition has been used and the reader who is interested in reading them will find them in the CELT copy - online.

In one other respect this copy differs from that given at CELT from which it is derived by conventional computer means of copy-and-paste into various commonplace applications and their conventional extensions (.doc., .pdf., and .html): I have italicised all the copious Latin sentences and inserted indents for the verses of poetry quoted by Davies from statues and their medieval commentators as well as classical writers whether soldiers, poets or philosophers. ]

The RICORSO Edition of Discovery (1612; Morley ed., 1890) is available in a separate window
- as attached. Raw copies of this text in .docx and .pdf formats are also available here.

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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).

See also Thomas Herron & Michael Potterton, eds., Ireland in the Renaisance c.1540-1660 (Dublin Four Courts Press 2008), for case study of Sir John Davies; Anne Fogarty [on Davies’ Irish writings], in Timothy R. Foley, Lionel Pilkington, Sean Ryder & Elizabeth Tilley, ed., Gender and Colonialism [Nineteenth-Century Ireland Conference 1992] (Galway UP 1995), q.pp.

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Commentary

P. W. Joyce, A Short History of Ireland (1893), pp.- citing Davies on the Anglo-Irish exploitation of the Gaelic custom of coinmed or coyne - being the custom of hosting the chief at his will:
Though the custom of visiting tenants' houses for coiney or refection was carefully safeguarded in the Brelion law, it was obviously liable to great abuse. In imitation of the Irish, the Anglo-Irish lords adopted the custom of Coyne and Livery,^ which in several forms was known by various other names — coshering, cuddying, cutting, spending, &c. The first of them to practise it was Maurice Fitzgerald the first earl of Desmond, in 1330 ; and his example was followed by the earl of Ormond, the earl of Kildare, and others, as well as by the Irish chiefs.^ It was such a crying evil that several acts of parliament were passed, making it high treason ; but they were seldom carried into effect. Whenever a military leader could get no money to pay his soldiers after an expedition, he adopted the simple plan of sending them with arms in their hands among the people — most commonly the settlers — to extract payment for themselves in food and money. This was coyne and livery : and the evil custom was continued with little intermission for many generations.
But the Anglo-Irish lords made no distinctions, and were restrained by neither old customs nor legal rules. They cared nothing for the Brehon law. They simply turned their followers loose over the whole country to do as they pleased, and the Irish chiefs, breaking through their own customs, only too often followed their example. It is from English writers we get the most vehement denunciations of the custom. Davies says that when the English had learned [78] coyne and livery, “they used it with more insolency and made it more intollerable” (Discoverie, 1747 Edn., p.175) and that the soldiers, while they were quartered on the people, committed murders, robberies, and many other crimes (Ibid., p.190). Several times he states that it almost destroyed the English settlements; for the settlers, ruined by constant exactions, fled the country in great numbers, while those that remained joined the Irish (ibid., pp.153, 189). In one passage, seeming at a loss for words strong enough, he says — quoting from an ancient writer — that it would ruin hell itself if introduced there (ibid., 33).
A Short History from the Earliest Times to 1608 (London: Longmans, Green 1893), pp.78-79.
Later, Joyce quotes Davies further:

These two great kings would have been glad to comply with the prayer of their Irish subjects; but it did not suit the selfish purposes of the Anglo-Irish barons, who ‘persuaded the king of England that it was unfit to communicate the Lawes of England unto them; that it was best pollicie to holde them as Aliens and Enemies and to persecute them with continuall warre .... wherefore I must stil cleare and acquit the Crown and State of England of negligence or ill pollicie, and lay the fault uppon the Pride, Covetousnesse, and ill Counsell of the English planted heer, which in all former ages have been the chiefe impediments of the final Conquest of Ireland.’ [1]

Elsewhere in the same essay Davies writes: ‘This then I note as a great defect in the civill policy of this Kingdom, that the English lawes were not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit and protection thereof allowed unto them, though they earnestly desired and sought the same.’ [2] This measure ‘would have prevented the calamities of ages, and was obviously calculated for the pacification and effectual improvement of their country. But it would have circumscribed their [the barons’] rapacious views and controlled their violence and oppression.’ [3] The barons accordingly opposed it on various pretences, and the two petitions came to nothing. [4]

The Irish, totally unprotected as they were, and heartily sick of turmoil, would have been only too glad to live under English law and be at peace with their English neighbours; for then, as now, they would cheerfully submit to the law if they believed it to be just: ‘For there is no nation of people under the sunne that doth love equall and indifferent (i.e. impartial) justice better then the Irish; or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it bee against themselves; so as they may have the protection and benefit of the law, when uppon just cause they do desire it.’ [5]

Ftns: 1. Davies, Dlscoverie, pp.145, 146; 2. Ibid. p.118; 3. Leland, Hist. of Ireland, i. 245; 4: Ibid. i. 243, 289. See also Carew Papers, 1603-1624, p.165; and Richey’s Short History of the Irish People, pp.176, 177; 5. This is the concluding sentence of Davies’ thoughtful and valuable essay, A Discoverie of the True Causes, &c. (All in Joyce, op. cit., p.299.)

Further quotes - speaking of the Statutes of Kilkenny which aimed to separate the English settlers from the ‘Irish enemies’:
‘Whereby it is manifest that such as had the government of Ireland under the crowne of England, did intend to make a perpetuall separation and enmity betweene the English and the Irish - pretending (no doubt) that the English in the end should roote out the Irish; which the English not being able to do, did cause a perpetuall warre betweene the two nations, which continued foure hundered and odd yeares’ (Discoverie, 1747 edn., p.114; here p.320.)
Note: Davies is also cited as a witness to the importance of fosterage in the native social system (Discoverie, 1747 Edn., p. 169; Joyce, op. cit., p.85.)


Rudolf Gottfried, ed., Spenser’s Prose Works, Vol. 10, Commentary on A View of the Present State of Ireland, l.379-82; p.287: Davies denied that Ireland was really conquered in the reign of Henry II (Discoverie, pp.14-24) and later historians support this opinion rather than Spenser’s (vide Bagwell, I.56-7) Further: Davies explains at some length that the laws apply only to English, though repeatedly sought for themselves. (Discoverie, p.110-32.)

T. Crofton Croker: in Researches in the South of Ireland [... &c.] (1824), Croker writes: Sir John Davies mentions that “fosterage was considered a stronger alliance than blood, and that foster-children do love and are beloved of their foster-fathers and their septs more than of their natural parents and kindred.” (p.10.)
W. E. H. Lecky: In History of Ireland in the Eighteenth Century (Cabinet Edn. 1892, &c.), W. E. H. Lecky devotes a chapter-section to “The Description of Ulster by Sir John Davis” [sic] (pp.25-26.)

Russell Alspach, Irish Poetry [ … &c.] (1959): In 1603 Sir John Davies could announce ‘an universal and absolute conquest of all the Irishrie’. (Alspach, p.7; see further under Quotations, infra.)

John Barry, Introduction to Discovery [… &c.; 1612] (Shannon: IAP 1969): ‘Davies starts with an encomium of the land of Ireland, including ‘“he bodies and minds of the people endued with extraordinary abilities of nature.” Further quotes: ‘If the king would not admit them to the condition of subjects, how should they learn to acknowledge and obey him as their Sovereign. [The next generation] will in tongue and heart and every way become English.’ Barry paraphrases Davies’s historical perspective: ‘Conquest was not the exploitation of a subject people, but rather their Anglicisation, and the consequent extension to them of the benefits, as he would style it, of English law and culture.’ The first edition bears the imprint, ‘Iohn Iaggard at the Signe of the hand and Star’.

Richard Kain, Dublin in the Age of William Butler Yeats and James Joyce (Oklahoma UP 1962; Newton Abbot: David Charles 1972): ‘Less sensitive than Spenser, the lawyer-poet Sir John Davies applauded himself for his establishment of the plantation system, the settlement of English exploiters (rightly termed “undertakers”) on lands confiscated from their Irish owners. To the Attorney General this system of organized robbery could be regarded as “the masterpiece, the most excellent work of reformation,” in which glorious activity and natives were, “with sword, pestilence and famine,” prepared to become proper “admirers of the Crowne of England.” (p.110.)

W. B. Stanford, Ireland and the Classical Tradition (IAP 1984), Sir John Davies, Historical Relations, or a Discovery of the True Causes by Ireland was never Intirely Subdued (1613), investigating the failure of conquest and colony, sadly contrasted with the efficient methods of the Romans. Citing the remark of Agricola that Ireland could be conquered with one legion, he said, ‘I make no doubt, but that if he had attempted the conquest thereof with a far greater arm, he would have found himself deceived in his conjecture’.

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Quotations

Discoverie of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (1612) [1]: ‘The Irish generally, were held and reputed Aliens [within the Pale during reign of Henry II], or rather enemies to the Crowne of England; insomuch, as they were not only disabled to bring anie actions, but were so farre out of the protextion of the Lawe, as it was often adiudged no fellony to kill a meere Irish-man in the time of peace (Discoverie [1612], p.102.)

Discoverie [. .. &c.] (1612) [2]: ‘I note as a great defect in the Civill policy of this kingdom ... the English lawes were not communicated to the Irish, nor the benefit and protection thereof allowed unto them, though they earnestly desired and sought the same ... If the king would not admit them to the condition of Subjects, how could they learn to acknowledge and obey him as their Sovereigne? When they might not converse or Commerce with any Civill men, nor enter into any Towne or Citty without perrill of their Lives; whither should they flye but into the Woods and Mountains, and there live in a wilde and barbarous maner?’ (A Discovery of the True Cause [... &c.], 1612; IUP edn. 1969, p.116-17; quoted in Andrew Hadfield, ‘Rethinking Early-Modern Colonialism: The Anomalous State of Ireland’, in Irish Studies Review, April 1999, p.20).

Discoverie [. .. &c.] (1612) [3]: ‘[T]he English, both Lords and Free-holders, became degenerate and meer Irish in their language, in their apparell, in their armes and maner of fight [...] They did not only forget the English language and scorne the use thereof, but grew to bee ashamed of their very English Names, though they were noble and of great Antiquity; and tool Irish Surnames and Nickenames.’ (q.p.; quoted in Russell Alspach, Irish Poetry [... &c.], 1959; see Loreto Todd, The Language of Irish Literature,1989, pp.13-4.)

Discoverie [... &c.] (1612) [4]: ‘Because the [the Irish] find inconvenience in moving their suits by an Interpreter, they do for the most part send their children to Schools especially to learn the English language; so as we may conceive a hope that the next generation will in tongue, and heart, and every way else, become English; so as there will be no difference or distinction but the Irish Sea betwixt us.’ (Q.p.; q.source.)

Discoverie [. .. &c.] (1612) [5]: ‘Idlesnesse, together with fear of imminent mischiefes, which did continually hange ouver their heads, haue bin the cause, that the Irish we euer the most inquisitive people after newed, of any Nation in the world’ (p.176).

Darrell Figgis, The Historic Case for Irish Independence (Maunsel 1920) - remarks:

‘Even the most venal English lawyer of the time, the Attorney-General, Sir John Davies, under whose crafty manipulation of law the plantations were prosecuted, was compelled to admit: “There is no nation of people under the sun that doth love equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish.”’ (Figgis, op. cit., Chap. 18: ‘Contrast of the Two Contending Conceptions of Civilisation 1550-1641.’

See full text in RICORSO Library, “Writers” - via index or direct.)
 
Note that Figgis might have learnt of Davies’s remark - actually connected with with his argument that the Irish actually desire to be included in a legal realm as rational and justice as English law - in a number of anterior historical reviews of Angl-Irish relations - as illustrated by Google search of John Carr’s A Stanger in Ireland (1806) - as infra.

Sir John Carr, A Stranger in Ireland (1806) - quotes Sir John Davies on the Irish sense of justice:

“Equal and indifferent justice”

Irish Justice ...: ‘For there is no nation of people under the sun that doth love equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish, or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it be against themselves ; so as they may have the protection and benefit ... ’ (Sir John Davies, History of Ireland.)

Quoted in John Carr, A Stranger in Ireland, as follows:—

‘Sir John Davies too (attorney-general in the reign of James the First), acknowledges, “That there is no nation under the sun that love equal and indifferent justice better than the Irish; or will rest better satisfied with the execution thereof, although it be against themselves”- Davies’s History of Ireland.’ (American edition [Pennsylvania & Boston] (1806) p.180 - available at Google Books - online.

Note: The many iterations of the above sentence - incoporating Davies’s apparent concession about the Irish sense of justice - are given in a computer-generated list pertaining to the Google copy of Carr’s A Stranger in Ireland (Phil. 1806) where it is quoted - include the following:

Edmund Burke (Annual Register, 1817 [edn.]); Henry Brooke (Trial of the Roman Catholics, 1762); John Curry (Historical Memoirs of the Irish Rebellion, 1765); Francis Plowden (An Historical Review of the State of Ireland ..., 1805); Sir John Carr (The Stranger in Ireland, 1806); William Sampson (Including Particulars of his Adventures, 1807); The Irish Magazine .. Monthly Asylum for Neglected Biography, 1810). [See also Darell Figgis - supra.]

Note: Carr’s A Stranger in Ireland is available at Google Books - online; also at Internet Archive, variously in London and American editions (all 1806). For allusions to Davies, see Carr’s Stranger in Ireland for <justice>; accessed 07.07.2023.)

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References

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., The 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). Incls. remarks: 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[e] (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); also Irish Parliament; Letters to Lord Salisbury; Plantation of Ulster [in H. Morley, 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)

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Notes

George Story: Story made extensive use of The Discovery in his An impartial history of the Wars of Ireland (1693).

Daniel O’Connell: O’Connell’s A Memoir on Ireland Native and Saxon (1844), and its recurrent 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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