7/26/2012

July 26: Two Disturbed Elizabethans (Only One Of Whom Ate A Nose)

William Hackett was an English workingman who converted to Puritanism after a dissolute life (once, in a pub brawl, he bit off and swallowed a schoolmaster's nose). Around Easter 1591, Hackett came down to London and announced that he was the messiah. Since he publicly demanded Queen Elizabeth abdicate her throne to him, he was put on trial for treason on July 26, 1591. The trial was quickly concluded and Hackett hanged, then drawn and quartered.

Hackett's end happened to fall near the birth of Eleanor Davies - daughter to Earl George, Lord Audley. As the English Civil War brewed in the 17th century, Davies repeatedly predicted the end of the world in her copious prophetic writings on Daniel, Revelation, and King Charles I. After vandalizing a church altar, she was committed to the asylum at Bedlam. Although she was a wife and mother, she claimed at one point that she would give immaculate birth to Christ in 19 and one half years.