Davies, Eleanor (1590–1652)

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Davies, Eleanor (1590–1652)

British religious writer. Name variations: Lady Eleanor Audeley Davies; Lady Eleanor Douglas or Lady Eleanor Davies Douglas; (pseudonyms) Eleanor Audeley; Reveale O Daniel; The Lady Eleanor. Born Eleanor Touchet, 1590, in Ireland; died July 5, 1652; dau. of George Touchet, Baron Audeley, and Lucy (Mervin) Touchet; m. Sir John Davies (poet and barrister), 1609 (died 1626); m. Sir Archibald Douglas, 1627; children: (1st m.) 3, including Lucy Davies.

"Heard a great voice from heaven" and began prophesying (1625); predicted death of husband and of 1st earl of Buckingham; brought before High Commission for illicit printing, and saw some of her work burned; sentenced by Commission for Causes Ecclesiastical to 2 years in prison; imprisoned again (1637) and committed to Bedlam after defacing tapestries at Cathedral of Lichfield; jailed several more times after 1646; wrote more than 60 prophetic tracts, including A Warning to the Dragon and all His Angels (1625), All the Kings of the Earth (1633), Her Appeale (1641), Amend, Amend (1643), Discovery (1644), Great Brittains Visitation (1645), Day of Judgement (1646), Writ of Restitution (1648), For the States (1649), Hells Destruction (1651) and Tobits Book (1652).

See also Esther S. Cope, ed., Prophetic Writings of Lady Eleanor Davies (U. of Nebraska, 1995).

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