No. 39 The Lord Keeper Coventry
BORN 1578, DIED 1640.
In robes of office.
The founder of the family’s fortunes was one John, who, assuming the name of his native town, went to London, where he became a mercer, and, doing well in business, was elected Lord Mayor in 1425.
Thomas, a descendant of the worshipful aforesaid (a lawyer, and eventually a Judge of Common Pleas), married Margaret, daughter and heir of —— Jefferies of Croome d’Abitot, county Worcester, still the residence of the Earls of Coventry. The subject of this notice was his son and heir, educated under the eye of his father, till he was fourteen, afterwards at Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained three years, then passed to the Inner Temple, London, to study law, which he did zealously. ‘By an indefatigable diligence he attained the bar, and appeared in the lustre of his profession above the common expectations,’ according to the magniloquent phrases of the time. In 1616 he was elected Recorder of London, and in the following year Solicitor-General, and shortly afterwards he was knighted at Theobalds.
1620 saw him Attorney-General, and in 1625 Buckingham recommended him to the King, as Lord Keeper, the Duke being most anxious to oust his old enemy Bishop Williams, who then held the Seals. A letter is extant from Coventry to the Duke, in which, with many circumlocuting paragraphs, he accepts the responsible post, which it would appear he had at first declined from diffidence. ‘But after a great conflict in himself against those disabilities,’ he laid himself ‘in all humility and submission at the feet of his Sovereign, hoping that God and His Majestie would accept his true hart and willing endevor,’ etc. etc.
But although he wrote in a style that may seem to us time-serving, it should be rather attributed to the fashion of the day, since not long after he had the independence to resist the grasping ambition of the Duke, his original patron.
Buckingham was moving heaven and earth to induce the King to revive in his favour the dormant post of Lord High Constable. The Lord Keeper was well aware what a dangerous power would thus devolve on a dangerous man, and he strongly advised the King to refuse.
Buckingham, furious, insolently demanded, ‘Who made you, Coventry, Lord Keeper?’ ‘The King,’ was the reply. ‘’Tis false, ’twas I, and you shall see that I who made, can and will unmake you.’ ‘Did I conceive,’ answered the Lord Keeper, with dignity, ‘that I held my place by your favour, I would presently unmake myself by resigning the Seals to His Majesty.’
The arrogant Buckingham dashed off, breathing revenge, and there is little doubt that he would have done his worst against the man who presumed to oppose him, had not his career been so soon ended by the knife of the assassin.
But Coventry had other enemies, and he offended the Marquis of Hamilton and the Earl of Manchester by the rigid discharge of his duties; the Earl of Portland, Lord High Admiral, was also much opposed to him, nevertheless he stood high at Court. In 1628 he was created Baron Coventry of Aylesborough, and Lord Clarendon says that ‘he discharged all his offices with great ability and singular reputation of integrity. He enjoyed his place of Lord Keeper for sixteen years, and sure justice was never better administered, even until his death; no man had held the post so long, for the lapse of forty years.’ The whole character of the man by Lord Clarendon is most admirable, and shows what a true friend he was to the King he loved, by opposing him in any unwise or unjust proceeding, even on his deathbed sending him good and wholesome counsel. Another witness says of him, ‘He had a noble fame—not that he passed unaccused, for envy is a constant follower of greatness, and detraction an utter enemy of desert.’ ‘Amongst all and the many felicities of his life,’ we again quote Clarendon, ‘that of his short sickness and willing embracement of deathe with open armes, were of the most remarkable observacion, for it is our finis qui coronat opus.’
The venial charges brought against this great and good man are so slight as to demand no place in these pages. ‘He was of a venerable aspect, wise, grave, and severe almost to moroseness, yet tempered with courtesy, discreet and reticent, speaking to the point without much eloquence—few enemies and some well-wishers—a man rather exceedingly than passionately loved.’ He died at Durham House, Strand. His first wife was the daughter of Edward Sebright of Besford, county Worcester, by whom he had a daughter, and a son, his successor, the mother dying in childbirth.
His second wife was the daughter of John Aldersey of Spurston, county Chester, and widow of William Pitchford of London, citizen—‘lovely, young, rich, and of good fame.’ She brought him four sons, of whom two at least, and four daughters, were all celebrated for some high quality—Anne, married to Sir William Saville; Mary, wife to Sir Henry Frederick Thynne of Kempsford; Margaret, to the first Earl of Shaftesbury; and Dorothy, to Sir John Pakington, Bart., of Westwood, county Worcester. ‘This lady,’ says Lodge, ‘stood at one time first candidate for the honour of having written The Whole Duty of Man, a possibility which at least speaks well for the consideration in which her talents and piety were held at the time.’
Lord Coventry published some legal works.