liant parts,-of great skill in his own science, but without any or namental accomplishments,-unscrupulous where any great object was to be gained, yet with tact to stop without too much shocking public opinion,-though unaided by principle, knowing how to preserve a certain reputation for honesty,-uniformly prosperous while living-and fortunate in his death.

The Great Seal having been surrendered up by Lord Keeper Williams, at Foxley, in Wiltshire, remained with

the King for a few days till he returned to [Nov. 1, 1625.] Whitehall, and on the 1st of November, 1625, was delivered to Sir THOMAS COVENTRY.*

His family is traced to an inhabitant of the city of Coventry, who, coming to push his fortune in London in the reign of Henry IV., took the name of his native place. He left a son, John, who being an eminent mercer rose to be Sheriff in 1416, and Lord Mayor of London in 1425. He is much celebrated in the Chronicles for his discreet carriage in the struggle which took place during his Mayoralty between Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, and Henry Beaufort, Bishop of Winchestert, and for having been appointed one of the executors of the famous Richard Whittington, who had risen to be thrice Lord Mayor from having had no property in the world but his cat. He bought an estate at Cussington, in Oxfordshire, long possessed by his posterity. From him was descended Sir Thomas Coventry, a very learned Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the reign of James I.‡, who married the heiress of a family of the name of Jeffreys, settled at Croome, in Worcestershire.

Thomas, the Lord Keeper, was their eldest son, and was born there in the year 1578. He was an instance, not so rare in former as in more recent times, of the son of a great lawyer proving a greater lawyer, although he laboured under the disadvantage of being heir to considerable wealth both by his father's and mother's side. But he showed from infancy uncommon quickness and vigour of application. He remained under the paternal roof with a private tutor till he was fourteen, when he was entered a gentleman commoner at Baliol College, Oxford. He resided there three years, till he took his Bachelor's degree. He was then removed to the Inner Temple, of which his father was a bencher, and he now diligently devoted himself to the study of the law. Instead of making acquaintance with William Shakspeare, or any of Burbage's company of players, he attached himself to Sir Edward Coke, then Attorney General. To law students and worshippers of his greatness this tyrant of the bar was condescending and kind, carrying them with him to publle disputations, directing

*Rot. Pat. 1 Car. 1. p. 24. n. 7.

† Ante, Vol. I.

Appointed Jan, 25, 1606. See in Dugl. Or. Jur. p. 93, a curious account of the procession on this occasion from Serjeant's Inn to Westminster, when the frightful mistake was committed of making those of highest dignity march first, so that the students of the inns of Chancery came last.

their private reading, and warning them against prepropera praxis as well as propostera lectio.

When called to the bar, young Coventry's progress was slow but sure. In 1606 his father died, and it was expected that he would have retired to the family estates; but he was ambitious, and he continued assiduously to follow his profession in the hope of political advancement.

So great did his reputation become in the course of a few years, without the prestige of office, that when Sir Edward Nov. 1616.] Coke was to be dismissed from the Chief Justiceship of the King's Bench, Coventry, only thirty-seven years old, was designated by the public voice as his successor. Bacon, however, who had then a powerful ascendancy, disliked him for having been protected by Coke, and thus wrote to James:

"I send a warrant to the Lord Chancellor for making forth a writ for a new Chief Justice, leaving a blank for the name, to be supplied by your Majesty's presence; for I never received your Majesty's express pleasure in it. If your Majesty resolve of Montagu, as I conceive and wish, it is very material, as these times are, that your majesty have some care that the Recorder succeeding be a temperate and discreet man, and assured to your Majesty's service. If your Majesty, without too much harshness, can continue the place within your own servants, it is best. If not, the man upon whom the choice is likely to fall (which is Coventry) I hold doubtful for your service; not but that he is a well learned and an honest man; but he hath been, as it were, bred by Lord Coke, and seasoned in his ways."*

Montagu was appointed Chief Justice; and Coventry, contriving to make it understood that, however much he respected the learning of his old master, he could not but lament his recent popular courses, was permitted to succeed as Recorder of London. An adhesion to ancient friendships, and a recollection of benefits received, do not seem in those days to have stood much in the way of promotion.

Having lost his first wife, who was of an ancient Worcestershire family, he now married the widow of a citizen,-lovely, young, rich, and of good fame.” "We may represent his happiness," says his biographer, "in nothing more than this, that London had first given him the handsel of a place both honourable and gainful, together with a wife as loving as himself was uxorious, and of that sort which are not unaptly styled housewives ; so that these two drew diversely, but in one way, and to one and the self-same end,—he in the exercise of his profession-she in the exercise of her domestic; for they that knew the discipline of their house aver, that he waved that care as a contiguous distraction to his vocation, and left her only as a helper to manage that charge which best suited to her conversation.”†

* Bac. Works, vi. 131.

† Ms. Life of Lord Coventry in the British Museum.

Coventry so rapidly got rid of all suspicion of favouring Sir E. Coke, that on the 14th of March in the following year he was made Solicitor General; and two days after, going down to Theobald's to be presented to the King, he received the honour of knighthood.

He was counsel for the Crown on the trial of the Somersets for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury, and in all the state prosecutions which followed for some years; but, either from his own inclination, or the jealousy of the King's Serjeant and the Attorney General, he did not act a conspicuous part in any of them. Nevertheless he managed not only to enjoy favour while Lord Bacon was Chancellor, but, on the disgrace of that great

statesman, in which Yelverton the Attorney General [A. D. 1621.] shared, to intrigue himself into the office of Attorney General.

His great object was quietly to nurse his fortnne. He devoted himself to the discharge of his professional duties, and to gaining the good graces of all those who might serve him. He not only cultivated Buckingham assiduously, but supported the new Lord Keeper Williams in the Court of Chancery, and tried to veil his deficiencies in legal acquirements, till it was evidence that the Bishop's official career was drawing to a close. The Great Seal

being then within his own grasp, it would perhaps have been too much to have expected that he should not, by a few winks and shrugs, and stories of the Welshman's towering passions and ludicrous blunders, seek to precipitate his fall.

The only public prosecution I find him conducting while Attorney General, was that against Edward Floyde, for slandering the King and Queen of Bohemia. This case has been grossly misrepresented or misunderstood, and I am glad of an opportunity to explain it. It has been often cited as an instance of the abusive exercise of parliamentary privilege, whereas it was an instance of parliamentary impeachment. Floyde, a Catholic barrister, having said, "I have heard that Prague is taken; and Goodman Palsgrave, and Goodwife Palsgrave, have taken to their heels and run away, and, as I have heard, Goodwife Palsgrave is taken prisoner," the Protestant zeal of the country was very much excited, and the House of Commons, whose powers were as yet very undefined, took the case up as a fit subject of impeachment, and contended that they had judicial criminal jurisdiction as much as the Lords. They never pretended that any offence had been given to their body, or to any member of it; but they alleged that a public crime had been committed, of which they had cognisance. He was accordingly "impeached before the Commons in Parliament assembled," and the words being proved, a heavy sentence was passed upon him. He appealed to the King, who next morning sent to the Commons to inquire on what precedents they grounded their claim to judge offences which did not concern their privileges, and by what reasoning it could be shown, that a court which did not receive evidence upon oath, could justly condemn a prisoner

who asserted his innocence. This led to a conference between the two Houses, the Lords contending that their judicature was trenched upon, and the leaders of the Commons finding that this new pretension could not be supported, it was agreed that Floyde should be impeached before the Lords, an entry being made in the Journals to soften the defeat, "that his trial before the Commons should not prejudice the rights of either House."

-an

Coventry now conducted the prosecution at the bar of the House of Lords, not as Attorney General, but as manager for the Commons. He stated the case with moderation, and proved it by certain written depositions which he read. The defendant having been heard, he was found guilty, nemine dissentiente.

Coventry then came to the clerk's table, and recapitulating his offence, prayed judgment against him, whereupon sentence was pronounced, "That he should be incapable to bear arms as a gentleman,that he should ever be held infamous, and his testimony not taken in any court or cause, that he should be set on a horse's back at Westminster Hall, with his face to the horse's tail, and holding the tail in his hands, with papers on his head and breast declaring his offence,—that he should ride to the pillory in Cheapside, there to stand two hours on the pillory, and be branded on the forehead with the letter K.,—that he should on a subsequent day be whipped from the Fleet to Westminster Hall, at the cart's tail, and then stand on the pillory there two hours, that he should be fined in the sum of 500(.,—and that he should be imprisoned in Newgate during life." So shocked were the Lords themselves with this inhuman punishment, that they made a standing order, “That in future when upon any person prosecuted before the House being found guilty, judgment shall not be given till a future day, that time may be taken to consider thereof." Still upon this occasion, the Lords were acting in the exercise of their power of trying Commoners for misdemeanours on the accusation of the Commons, and there is no pretence for citing the case to throw odium upon parliamentary privilege.*

Buckingham had found it difficult to get rid of Williams as Lord Keeper in the latter end of James's reign, but held the Crown in his pocket on the accession of "Baby Charles." Sir Henry Hobart, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, who was first thought of for the Great Seal, having shown some symptoms of independence, the dictator resolved to give it to the discreet Cov

* 2 St Tr. 1153. The sentence is happily ridiculed by Sheridan, who said of a person who had published a pamphlet against him- I suppose that Mr. thinks I am angry with him; but he is mistaken, for I never harbour resentment. If his punishment depended on me, I would show him that the dignity of my mind is superior to all vindictive feelings. Far should I be from wishing to inflict a capital punishment upon him grounded on his attack upon me; but yet, on accouut of his general character and conduct, and as a warning to others, I would merely order him to be publicly whipped three times; to be placed in the pillory four times; to be confined in prison seven years; and then, as he would enjoy freedom the more, after so long a confinement, I would have him transported for the remainder of his life.”—2 John Taylor's Records, 174.

entry, on whom he thought he might implicitly rely. He accordingly wrote him an offer "to step into the shoes of my Lord of Lincoln,”—giving him time to consider of it. Mr. Attorney returned an answer, in which he declares that he had undergone a sharp conflict and perplexity of thoughts in measuring his fitness for such promotion, but concludes by expressing the dutiful resolution, "to lay himself in all humility and submission at the feet of his Sovereign, to dispose of him as should seem best to his own princely wisdom and goodness," which, says he, "if it be that way as your Grace told me his Highness did incline, I shall dutifully obey, and faithfully undergo it, my hope being that God and the King's Majesty will bear with my infirmities, and accept my true heart and willing endeavour."

Before his formal appointment, when his approaching elevation was known, Lord Bacon, now living in retirement in his chambers in Gray's Inn, applied to him to provide for an old dependant who had been cast away like his master, and was now in great straits. His refusal is unfeeling and discreditable. After adverting to Bacon's polite compliment on his appointment, and declaring "his unaptness to so great an employment, nothingtheless his submission to stand in that station where his Majesty will have him," he says, ---“as for the request you make for your servant, though I protest I am not yet engaged by promise to any, because I held it too much boldness towards my Master, and discourtesy towards my Lord Keeper, to dispose of places while he had the Seal; yet in respect I have some servants, and some of my kindred apt for the place you speak of, and have been already so much importuned by noble persons when I lately was with his Majesty at Salisbury, as it will be hard for me to give them all denial; I am not able to discern how I am able to accommodate your servant; though for your sake, and in respect of the former knowledge myself have had of the merit and worth of the gentleman, I should be most ready and willing to perform your desire, if it were in my power." How different from this heartless civility would have been his reply to a worthless courtier basking in the sunshine of court favour! The new Lord Keeper was appointed by patent, whereby he was empowered" to hear, examine, and determine such causes, matters, and suits as shall happen to be, as well in the Chancery as in the Star Chamber, like as the Chancellor of England might and was accustomed to do." The Close Roll of this year is lost, and I find no account of the delivery of the Great Seal to him by the King, or of his installation.

He set to work very assiduously in the Court of Chancery, and there were many re-hearings before him,--as he was considered an accomplished Equity lawyer, and so little confidence could be placed in the skill of his right reverend predecessor. He is said to have behaved with great moderation, always speaking of Williams respectfully, reversing as seldom as possible, and under