align="left">Dedications.--ii. To the Prince

Memorial-Introduction.

I. BIOGRAPHICAL.

As in other instances, the first thing to be done in any Life of our present Worthy, is to distinguish him from other two contemporary Sir John Davieses—non-attention to which has in many biographical and bibliographical works led to no little confusion. There was

I. Sir John Davis (or Davys or Davies) of Pangbourne, Berkshire, who 'sleeps well' under a chalk-stone monument in the parish church there. He was mixed up with the 'Plots' (alleged and semi-real), of the Elizabethan-Essex period. Many of his Letters—various very long and matterful and pathetic—are preserved at Hatfield among the Cecil-Salisbury MSS. The Blue-Book report of the "Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts" (3rd, 1872), makes a strange jumble of our Sir John and this Sir John's Letters (see Index, s. n.). He was Master of the Ordnance 31st January, 1598, and was knighted at Dublin 12th July, 1599. His Will is dated 6th April, 1625, and it was proved at London ... May, 1626. Our Sir John was appointed one of his executors. Arms: Sable, a griffin, segt., or. He is supposed to have been of Shropshire descent.

II. Sir John Davies (or Davys or Davis) Knight-Marshal of Connaught and Thomond: temp. Elizabeth. He had large grants of lands in Roscommon. He is now represented by the family of Clonshanville (or Loyle) in Roscommon, who are of Shropshire descent (see Archdall's Peerage of Ireland.) His Will is dated 14th February, 1625. He died 13th April, 1626. His Will was not proved (at Dublin) until 17th November, 1628. Arms: Sable, on a chevron, argent, three trefoils slipped, vert.: crest; a dragon's head erased, vert.

According to Mr. J. Payne Collier, the following entry is found in the register of S. Mary, Aldermanbury: "Buried Sir John Davyes, Knight, May 28, 1624." (Bibliographical Account of Early English Literature, i., 193). If there be no mistake here, we have another contemporary Sir John Davies. Certainly it was not ours, and as certainly neither of the two preceding.[1]

The spelling of the family name, which is now Davies, varies very much. I have found it as Dyve, Dayves, Davyes, Dauis, Davis, and Davies. Usually our Worthy signs 'Dauyes;' but in his books changes, e.g., in 'Nosce Teipsum' of 1599, to the verse-dedication to Elizabeth, it is 'Dauies;' in 1602 'Dauys,' and in 1608 'Davis,' and so diversely in his Prose.

Among the Carte Papers in the Bodleian are rough jottings by the Historian for a Memoir of our Sir John Davies, wherein it is stated that the family came originally from South Wales to Tisbury, Wiltshire. The words are: "His family had continued several generations in y^e place, though descended from a family of that name in South Wales: but planted heere in England Temp. Hen. 7: accompanying at that time y^e Earle of Pembrooke out of Wales.[2]

The 'estate' of the Davieses at Tisbury was named Chicksgrove (sometimes spelled Chisgrove.) Only a small fragment of the Manor-house remains "unto this day." The Tisbury parish registers, however, yield abundant entries of the family-names under the wonted three-fold 'Baptisms,' 'Marriages,' 'Burials;' and the church itself, in tablets and communion plate, and other memorials, possesses various evidences of their influential position for many generations, and in many lines of descent and local intermarriage. It must suffice here briefly to summarize the Pedigree, and to extract the entries immediately bearing on our present Life.

Confirming the Carte statement of a Welsh descent, one John Davys, of ... wyn, in Shropshire, temp. Henry VIII., recorded by Carney (1606) in the Visitation of Dublin in Ulster Office, and according to Chalmers settled at Tisbury, temp. Edward VI., came from Wales with the Earl of Pembroke, and was living in 1517 and 1541.[3] This John Davys married Matilda, daughter of ... Bridemore, who was buried as "Maud, Master Davys widow, 18 May, 1570." There was a numerous family of sons and daughters from this union.[4] We have only now to do with their eighth, and youngest son, John, who was living in 1517 and 1541.[5] He was of 'New Inn,' London; and thus, like his more famous son, was brought up to the study of the Law. This will appear authoritatively onward; but at this point it is needful to correct and explain a long-continued error, originated by Anthony à-Wood "Athenæ," by Dr. Bliss, Vol. ii., p. 400) apparently, viz. that the father was "a wealthy tanner," and so Sir John, of "low extraction," etc., etc. I do not know that there should have been reason for shame had the paternal Davies been a 'tanner,' wealthy or otherwise, if otherwise he was that Christian gentleman which all reports represent. But the matter-of-fact is that through the premature deaths of his elder brothers, John Davyes, of Chisgrove, seems to have inherited the family possessions and wealth, and to have been in the front rank of the country gentry. The explanation of the mistake as to his having been a 'tanner,' is unexpectedly found in the Will of Thomas Bennett, brother (as we shall see) of Sir John Davies' mother. Among other things he leaves "a certain mess, or tent, in West Hatch now (1591) in the use of Edward Scannell, and all lands thereto belonging, [to] be held by John Bennett my son, Thomas Rose and Nicholas Graye as trustees to my own use for life, and after my decease to the use and behoof" of various relatives, of whom one is described as "Edward Davys of Tyssebury, tanner." This Edward Davys, tanner, was no doubt of the Chisgrove family; and hence the confusion. In all probability he was one of the younger sons, and so brother of our Sir John. When he came to make his Will (now before me), though engaged in trade, he asserts his gentility by styling himself 'gentleman.' So much in correction of a second important biographical mistake.

John Davyes, of Chisgrove, was married to Mary, daughter of John Bennett (alias Pitt) of Pitt House, Wilts., (Visitation of Wilts., 1563) by Agnes his wife, daughter of ........ Toppe, of Fenny Sutton, in Wilts. Hoare[6] and others, give ample proof of the almost lordly position of the Bennetts. Woolrych observes (1869) "The Bennetts of Pyt, have been well known in our own time. The