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More than any other man, Davies was the
architect of the great strengthening of the English
legal system in Ireland, which marked the reign
of James I. Of course, the coming of the common
law to our island was further in the past from
Davies than he is from us today. But it is only
from the early seventeenth century that it became
obvious that it was there to stay—common law
yers, for example, were prominent in the Catholic
opposition later in the century.
But there was work of destruction as well as
construction awaiting him. The old Irish system
of land tenure and succession had to be repudi
ated, as it was in the
Case of Tanistry
and the
Case of Gavelkind.
No more than his contem
poraries could Davies appreciate another civil
isation. He belonged fundamentally to what might
be called the 'imperial mission' school of colon
isers, rather than that which stressed economic
advantage
to
the colonising power. Indeed he
criticised sharply those English rulers who thought
of Ireland merely as a source of wealth. But his
tributes to the Irish love of justice, often quoted,
did not mean he thought the Irish could be left
to devise their own system of laws.
While at work
in
the
legal administration,
Davies had also much to do with the general
government of Ireland. In 1612 he became M.P.
for Fermanagh and was
the Government and
Protestant candidate for the office of Speaker of
the House of Commons in circumstances that add
nothing to his reputation. In the same year he
produced his greatest book:
A discovery of the
true causes why Ireland was never subdued until
the beginning of His Majesty's happy reign.
It has
been called
'a masterpiece in English political
literature'. The
Discovery
is marked by shrewd
and surprisingly objective judgments and by the
masterly use of the great collection of public
records, dating back almost four centuries, which
Davies found in Dublin when he came there.
The great doctrine of Davies was that English
attempts to conquer Ireland had failed because
the Irish had not been offered equality before the
law. He had an unquenchable faith in the superi
ority of the legal tradition to which he belonged.
His concluding sentence is perhaps the summation
of his beliefs about the government of Ireland:
'For, there is no nation of people under
the sun, that doth love equal and indiffer
ent justice, better than the Irish; or will
rest satisfied with the execution thereof,
although it be against themselves; so as
they may have the benefit and protection
of the Law, when upon just cause they do
desire it'.
If Sir John Davies the poet rests his fame on
The Orchestra
and
Nosce Teipsum;
if the states
man and historian is revered for the
Discovery;
Davies the lawyer is best measured to-day by his
Reports.
An early seventeenth-century reporter
was not like one to-day; he exercised very wide
liberties in his presentation of the case and at
times it is not easy to distinguish passages in the
Reports from mini-treatises slipped in by the re
porter.
Davies saw that to crown the newly-
strengthened common law system and to assist
the expanding Irish legal profession regular report
ing would be necessary; and he set the example
by producing the first-ever Irish
Reports.
As fie
himself pointed out, Ireland had not had, either,
the
Year Books
which for earlier centuries of
English
lawyers had performed
some of
the
functions of reporting. So, in 1615, he brought
out his
Reports
of eleven major Irish cases from
the years 1604 to 1612.
In fact, every one of the eleven cases has a
'political aspect: the replacement of native Irish
law
(Tanistry
and
Gavelkind);
the impact of the
Reformation
(Dean and Chapter of Ferns, Bastardy,
Commenda, Premunire);
the property and finan
cial rights of the Crown
(Proxies, Customs, Mixt
Moneys, Bann Fishery,
and
County Palatine of
Wexford).
For that was the kind of law in which
Davies was interested: plainly, private law had
little interest for him. He was very much a law
officer of the Crown. Over and over again he
brings in Roman Law because by equating the
King with the Rowan Emperor the Crown could
be exalted.
The
Reports,
quite apart from Sir John's
editorial work, bear ample witness to his legal
learning and abilities, for he himself had led one
side or the other in several of the cases. Not that
the collection was confined
to what might be
called his outright forensic victories: the parties
in the
Case of Tanistry
settled and in the
Case of
Commenda
Davies published his report of the
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