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Abstract
Using Eric Santner’s text The Royal Remains, which explores the way the body politic possesses and yields the excess sovereignty from the king’s deposed and dead body, this essay argues that Lady Eleanor Davies’ anointing as a prophet and handmaid of the Holy Spirit parallels Santner’s masculine examples of political and artistic agency emerging at the time of King James I’s death. Applying this argument to Lady Eleanor Davies’ initial prophecies, A Warning to the Dragon (1625, 1633) and Given to the Elector, Charles of the Rhyne (1633), this paper demonstrates how Lady Eleanor Davies established her own sovereignty through her prophecies preceding the English Civil War. This essay focuses on A Warning and Given to the Elector as the moment at which she is “reborn” into the office of prophet and claims the title “Handmaid of the Holy Spirit.” Moving beyond political agency, Lady Eleanor claims sovereignty not only to predict the downfall of King Charles I’s claim to the throne, but also to anoint a new inheritor to the throne of England. By taking up the mantle of prophecy, Lady Eleanor challenges conventional understandings of how the political figures influenced and attempted to claim sovereignty during the English Civil War.
Notes
1. Esther Cope traces the allegation that Lady Eleanor was mentally ill back to 1623 through Fraser, A. The Weaker Vessel. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1984. Additionally, her time spent in Bedlam Hospital, after she desecrated a church in 1636, did not help to counter this view. See Cope’s Handmaid of the Holy Spirit p 81–6.
2. Eric Santner extends upon the premise of Ernst Katorowicz in his The King’s Two Bodies that James I’s assertion of divine right to rule creates two bodies of the King – the fleshly/mortal body and the sovereign body that endows the King to rule. Santner’s argument is helpful in illustrating Lady Eleanor’s claim that King Charles I does not inherit the sovereign body of King James I following his death. His coronation is incomplete. Instead, Santner argues, the sovereign body is dispersed to the population who then begin to demand a greater say in how they are ruled, etc. For Lady Eleanor and the many other prophets of this era, this voice of the people emerges through prophecies. While interpreting scripture and using scripture to guide England’s policies may not seem today as a direct challenge to the King, it is important to remember that for the Church of England, the King was/is the head of the Church. For Lady Eleanor, the Catholic Queen Henrietta Marie corrupted King Charles I making him an inappropriate head of the Protestant Church of England.
3. Feroli further states: “Lady Eleanor, in essence, takes traditional ideas of divine right and patriarchal inheritance and reshapes them to suit her needs. In this way, she contributes to her contemporaries’ growing belief that individuals could construct a political system rather than merely comprehend their position in a predetermined hierarchy” (37). From this perspective, Lady Eleanor is negotiating her right to speak through the power of man (James I) rather than directly from God. The right to self-rule then would also be negotiated through a patriarchal political system where women still must “comprehend their position” rather than the divine right of self-rule or a direct subjugation to God or his divinely appointed representative.
4. Feroli also connects Carr’s psychic abilities back to James I; however, Carr’s influence seems to be stronger in her later prophecies, which are not included in the scope of this paper (62–4).
5. Santner is drawing from Carl Schmitt’s Hamlet oder Hekuba.
6. It may be possible to analyze the entire prophecy as it follows the Thirty Years War in Europe; however, this paper is too limited in scope to allow such an analysis here.
7. Cope 43–4, 56–7 & 65–6, 124.
8. Also known as Charles Louis and Karl Ludwig.
9. For clarity’s sake, the Queen of Bohemia was sister to King Charles I of England. Her father, King James I, arranged her marriage to Frederick V of the Palatinate, later elected King of Bohemia. Their marriage was a strategic political arrangement that would provide England with a viable interest in Protestant areas in central Europe during the Thirty Years War.
10. “And Samuel said unto him, The LORD hath rent the kingdom of Israel from thee this day, and hath given it to a neighbour of thine, that is better than thou” (1 Samuel 15:28).
11. There are varying reports on the type of criminals held at the Gatehouse prison, ranging from those who have committed misdemeanors awaiting trial to those guilty of treason to the state as well as heretical church officials.
12. While I have not read all of Lady Eleanor’s prophecies, I am making this claim based on the actions taken by Charles I and Charles of the Rhyne either to discredit Lady Eleanor or to assist the prophecy’s fulfillment.
13. Family Tree: www.britroyals.com