Eleanor Tuchet, daughter of George lord Audley, married sir John
Davies, an eminent lawyer in the time of James the First, and author
of a poem of considerable merit on the Immortality of the Soul. This
lady was a person of no contemptible talents; but what she seems most
to have valued herself upon, was her gift of prophecy; and she
accordingly printed a book of Strange and Wonderful Predictions. She
professed to receive her prophecies from a spirit, who communicated
to her audibly things about to come to pass, though the voice could
be heard by no other person. Sir John Davies was nominated lord chief
justice of the king's bench in 1626. Before he was inducted into the
office, lady Eleanor, sitting with him on Sunday at dinner, suddenly
burst into a passion of tears. Sir John asked her what made her weep.
To which she replied, "These are your funeral tears." Sir John turned
off the prediction with a merry answer. But in a very few days he
was seized with an apoplexy, of which he presently died. [219]--She
also predicted the death of the duke of Buckingham in the same year.
For this assumption of the gift of prophecy, she was cited before
the high-commission-court and examined in 1634. [220]