I've heard somewhere the phrase "word of hand". What does "word of hand" mean?
Can it mean something like "word of advice/help/aid", similarly to the phrase "to give hand to somebody"?
UPDATE: Here is an example of the phrase, from Algernon Charles Swinburne, Bothwell (1874):
Queen. My lords, ye hear by his own word of hand
How fair and loyally our father writes,
To purge his name that had indeed no soil
Of any blame to us-ward; though he have
No power upon our wedded lord, his son
To heal his heart's disease of discontent :
Best Answer
From the quote you've provided it is clear that by "word of hand" means by "what her father wrote". Since this is a poem you've quote, Swineburne is crafting the phrase from the familiar "word of mouth"