Davies

Davies, Sir John (1570-1626), an English poet and statesman, was born in Wiltshire. He was educated at Queen's College, Oxford, and in 1595 was called to the bar, but was shortly afterwards disbarred for striking a fellow barrister who insulted him. He returned to Oxford in 1599, and there produced a work on the immortality of the soul, under the title of Nosce Teipsum. In the same year he published a set of Elizabethan acrostics, called Hymns to Astraea. In 1601 he was re-admitted to the Middle Temple, and was elected M.P. for Corfe Castle. In 1603 he became James I.'s Solicitor-General for Ireland, and in 1606 he was knighted, made serjeant-at-law, and Attorney-General. He sent home some valuable reports upon the state of Ireland, and had a great share in the planting of Ulster. Returning to England, he was again elected to Parliament, and was nominated Chief Justice, but death prevented his exercising the functions of the office.