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41-473: A sovereign is the supreme lawmaking authority within a particular jurisdiction. Sovereign may also refer to: Sovereign The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch , ruler or head of state to head of municipal government or head of a chivalric order. As a result, the word sovereignty has more recently also come to mean independence or autonomy. The word sovereign is frequently used synonymously with monarch . There are numerous titles in

82-517: A Catholic majority there, additional boroughs were created in areas with a strong Protestant base. A direct result of this was the Protestant majority of 232 to 100 in the 1613 House of Commons. The new charters placed the government of the borough with the Sovereign and twelve chief burgesses, who are to elect all the rest and stipulated that all had to conform to the established church by taking

123-470: A Poem of Dancing as "brilliant and graceful". This poem, written in rhyme royal , reveals a typical Elizabethan pleasure: contemplating and trying to understand the relationship between the natural order and human activity. Davies's works are very well represented in Elizabethan anthologies. The last complete edition of his poems appeared in 1876 and is long out of print. In political terms, Davies

164-460: A boat at the Temple steps and retired to Oxford, where he chose to write poetry. Another of his works, Nosce Teipsum ("Know Thyself"), 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 to Astraea in 1599. Later that year, however, his Epigrams was included in

205-562: A city-state status however with the unification of Ireland under the crown in 1603 they were transformed into more ordinary municipal towns on the English model. Part of this was to reduce the autonomy of the Irish borough and partly to establish the new rules by which the planted towns of Ireland were to operate. Since the MPs to the Irish parliament were elected by the borough council, and to prevent

246-454: A city-state status to the locality in existence since the Norman conquest. These were most typically in the denser populated provinces of Munster and Leinster . The provision of the borough and the corporation was established through a charter, the granting of which was known as incorporation. Freemen and burgesses were the usual governing members of the council and elected their chief officer,

287-532: 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. Davies travelled to the Netherlands in 1592 with others of

328-498: A dinner with friends. When asked why, she explained it was in anticipation of Davies's 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

369-646: A knighthood and appointments (at Mountjoy's recommendation) as solicitor-general and, later attorney-general , in Ireland . Davies arrived in Dublin in November 1603, where Mountjoy had accepted the submission of the rebel Hugh O'Neill 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

410-420: 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 sat 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's poetry, and rewarded him with

451-498: A monarchical rule which can belong to the sovereign. The sovereign is the autonomous head of the state. Examples of the various titles in modern sovereign leaders are: In some settings the use of the words Sovereign lady (sometimes with a capital L in lady ) have been used referring to female sovereigns, notably in Charles III's proclamation of accession . The term sovereign is generally used in place of "grand master" for

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492-472: Is a contemporaneously written account of the proceedings of Kilkenny municipality beginning in 1230 and running to 1538. Attempts have been made to identify the names of Kilkenny's sovereigns and currently there is a list of the names of 244 sovereigns from 1282 to 1608. At that point a new charter was established for the town and in 1609 the first mayor of the City of Kilkenny is elected. Early Irish borough had

533-452: 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, John (Jack), was deaf and dumb; his daughter Lucy married Ferdinando Hastings and became Countess of Huntingdon . On 28 July 1625, Eleanor

574-401: The knight of the shire for County Tipperary . Everard was an open recusant , and despite his behaviour on this occasion, a man of good reputation. A scene of comical disorder ensued when Everard was placed in the chair and refused to vacate in favour of the government candidate. Davies, always a very heavy man, was seized by his own supporters and lifted bodily into his opponent's lap; Everard

615-533: The Middle Temple ( William Fleetwood , Richard Martin ). There, in Leiden , he met the jurist Paul Merula , to whom the group had a letter of introduction from William Camden . In 1594, Davies's 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 ,

656-602: The Oath of Supremacy. Sir John Davies , Attorney General for Ireland wrote "the newly erected boroughs . . . will be perpetual seminaries of Protestant burgesses". Historically the number of boroughs varied considerably. There were 117 boroughs in Ireland from 1685 to 1800. Prior to the passing of the Municipal Corporations Act 1835 , there were sixty-eight borough corporations in Ireland. As each of

697-455: The Sovereign. In earlier incarnations the council also managed the law court known as the "hundred court" and dealt with local administrative and legal business. Boroughs also elected the local MP. Positions on the council were predominantly from among the wealthy and related families in the area. The first mention of the sovereign in Kilkenny dates from 1231. The Liber Primus Kilkenniensis

738-495: 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. In 1617 Davies failed to win the position of Solicitor General for England and Wales and consequently resigned as Attorney-General in Ireland, having ensured that he would be replaced by his nephew William Ryves . In 1619 he returned to England permanently, in

779-453: The changes and new charters were brought in and with the loss of the parliamentary franchise, sovereigns became less powerful and more ceremonial. There is a sailing race held in Kinsale which references back to the chief officer of the town council. When looking to name a new trophy the local yacht club discovered that the 'Sovereign of Kinsale' used to put up a trophy for a sailing race in

820-462: The charter which established the local town borough or council. This was commonly used throughout Ireland . This usage was less common in the United Kingdom and occasionally meant a Marcher Lord . The candidate for this position was elected by the freemen and burgesses of the town, borough and city councils and had to be a burgess himself. And in later years he also had to be approved by

861-533: 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

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902-579: The constitutional standing of Ireland. In England, Davies spent much time 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 he met fierce opposition from the Catholic members, who formed a very large minority and nominated a former High Court judge, Sir John Everard ,

943-570: The death of Cecil, his patron, and his own absence from the court. Davies became heavily involved in government efforts to establish a plantation in the lately rebellious province of Ulster . 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

984-527: The election of the local MP. Once the parliamentary franchise was lost with the Acts of Union 1800 , the role became largely ceremonial or forgotten. The title of the chief officer of a city council has become known as a mayor . In some municipal boroughs the titles borough master or Burgomaster , bailiff , portreeve , warden and provost were used interchangeably with mayor and sovereign. Ireland had established self-governing municipal boroughs which gave

1025-481: 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

1066-559: 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 Antiquaries . In 1621, he was elected MP for Hindon , and Newcastle-under-Lyme, choosing to sit for the latter constituency. He occasionally spoke in parliament on Irish matters. Davies retired to Englefield House in Berkshire , but

1107-524: The late 1700s. The result is that the race and trophy today is known as The Sovereign's cup. Kinsale had been given its charter to set up a borough led by a Sovereign around 1319. Sir John Davies Sir John Davies (16 April 1569 (baptised) – 8 December 1626) was an English poet, lawyer, and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1597 and 1621. He became Attorney General for Ireland and formulated many of

1148-662: The legal principles that underpinned the British Empire . Davies was born in Wiltshire , 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 just eighteen months, with most historians questioning whether he received

1189-402: The marriage, Eleanor published numerous books of prophecy, particularly anagrammatic prophecies; her prophetic writings were a source of conflict in the marriage and Davies burned a set of the prophecies that Eleanor had been writing. 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". She

1230-426: The patron. The level of responsibility ranged from enacting by-laws about tolls up to the death penalty. Some charters established the sovereign as the local magistrate or justice of the peace . The office generally had no salary though some patrons provided a stipend to the sovereign in their borough. In some localities the sovereign was appointed directly by the patron of the borough which allowed him to influence

1271-483: The phrase Elisabetha Regina . His most famous poem, Nosce Teipsum , gained him the favour of James I, by which he won promotion in Ireland. The three-part poem is written in decasyllabic quatrains, and is concerned with one's self-knowledge and the immortality of the soul. A. H. Bullen described it as being "singularly readable for such a subject: highly accomplished verse, no Elizabethan quaintness, both subtle and terse". Bullen also described Davies's Orchestra, or

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1312-483: 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 and Queen's counties, 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

1353-568: The sloth of the protestant clergy and the ruin of the churches were 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

1394-536: The supreme head of various orders of European nations. In the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , the Grand Master is styled "Sovereign", e.g. Sovereign Grand Master, due to its status as an internationally independent sovereign entity. Examples of the Sovereign of a chivalric order are: As chief officer of municipal government, the sovereign had duties and responsibilities deriving from

1435-511: Was published in July, prior to his call to the bar from the Middle Temple . He was elected Member of Parliament for Shaftesbury in 1597. 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 Martin was a noted wit who had insulted him in public, and Davies immediately took

1476-472: Was set to music by the composer Hubert Parry in his choral work, Songs of Farewell (1916–18). Davies married Eleanor Touchet , daughter of the first Earl of Castlehaven , in March of 1609. She was one of the most prolific women writing in early seventeenth-century England, author of almost seventy pamphlets and prophecies, and one of the first women in England to see her works through to print. During

1517-529: Was significant in his work on constitutional law and in framing the terms of the Plantation of Ulster , 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 . Davies's poem "I know my soul hath power to know all things"

1558-512: Was then appointed Lord Chief Justice . 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 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's work, and these poems contain acrostics that spell out

1599-508: Was then ejected from the chair and withdrew 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. Everard, his rival, was summoned to England and briefly imprisoned, but was quickly pardoned and thereafter loyally supported the Crown. In 1615, Davies's reports of Irish cases were published; he had appeared as counsel in many of these, including

1640-521: 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

1681-550: Was working on a commentary of the Book of Daniel and believed she heard the voice of the prophet; she wrote about the experience 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 her husband's appointment, Eleanor started weeping during

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