COVENTRY, Thomas (c. 1606-61)

The Coventry family’s origins are uncertain. According to one tradition they were originally a London mercantile family, while another places them early on in Worcestershire. What is certain is that by the middle of the sixteenth century they were established in Worcestershire, where in 1592 Sir Thomas Coventry (1547–1606), grandfather of the subject of this piece, purchased the manor of Croome D’Abitot. Sir Thomas’s son, also Thomas, became lord keeper to Charles I and was created Baron Coventry of Aylesborough in 1628. During his lifetime the family’s estates were substantially improved and extended, and on his death the 1st baron left a vast fortune to his heir.

Coventry inherited estates in Worcestershire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Somerset and Lincolnshire, as well as several houses in London, though his principal residence remained at Croome. VCH Glos. viii. 36–37. The manor of Croome had been conveyed to Coventry by his father at the time of his marriage to Mary Craven, sister of Sir William Craven, later earl of Craven, and many of the improvements on the Worcestershire estates were carried out at the 2nd baron’s instigation. VCH Worcs. iii. 314. The extent of Coventry’s wealth is apparent by the acquisition of several estates in the county at a cost of £80,000 during the 1630s and, following the gutting of Croome Court by fire in about 1640, its lavish rebuilding. The internal woodwork alone was reported to have cost £641 13s. 10d. Gordon, Coventrys of Croome, 44.

Before succeeding to the peerage, Coventry had been a relatively inactive member of the Commons as Member for Droitwich and Worcestershire. He appears to have been more circumspect in his political dealings than his father and may have profited from his connection with families of widely differing political outlooks. Through his half-sister, Margaret, Coventry was brother-in-law to Anthony Ashley Cooper, later earl of Shaftesbury, with whom he shared a house in 1641, while his own marriage connected him not only to the staunchly loyal Cravens but also to the impoverished yet influential Catholic peer Percy Herbert, 2nd Baron Powis. Haley, Shaftesbury, 38.

On the outbreak of Civil War, Coventry supported the king initially but as the conflict increasingly went Parliament’s way, he appears to have faltered in his resolve. Private Journals of the Long Parliament: 2 June–17 Sept 1642, ed. V.F. Snow and A.S. Young, 21–22. The first battle of the war, at Powick Bridge on 23 Sept. 1642, took place on Coventry’s land, which may have contributed to his determination to quit the country. In February 1643 his two sons were granted passes to travel to France. Coventry followed them later the same year, ostensibly for his health. N and Q, cc. 194, 298.

Coventry had returned to Croome by the time of the 1651 uprising in the hopes of safeguarding his estates, and he appears to have attempted to hedge his bets by promising substantial sums to both sides. W. Dean, An Historical and Descriptive Account of Croome D’Abitot (1824), 31; Gordon, Coventrys of Croome, 46. The king, according to one report, exasperated at Coventry’s behaviour, ordered his troops to requisition horses from the stables at Croome and commanded that the recalcitrant lord should be pulled ‘out of his house by his ears’, though evidence presented to the county commissioners suggested that Coventry had in fact offered the king the horses and more besides. Gordon, Coventrys of Croome, 46; CCAM, 1363. Although Coventry was cleared on this occasion, he was arrested two years later along with a number of other cavaliers, though he seems to have suffered no further discomfiture at Parliament’s hands for the rest of the Interregnum. CCAM, 1367–9; N and Q, 7th ser. x. 41–42.

Coventry took his seat in the restored House on 11 May, following which he was present on three-quarters of all sitting days in the session. In spite of his inglorious conduct during the war and removal into France, he was included by Philip Wharton, 4th Baron Wharton, in his assessment of the peerage as one of the ‘lords with the king’. Bodl. Carte 81, f. 83. On the face of it he ought to have proved an influential member. His younger son, Thomas Coventry, later earl of Coventry, was returned for Droitwich in the Convention, on the strength of support at court, and his brother-in-law, Sir John Packington^‡, secured one of the Worcestershire county seats at the 1661 election; his brothers Henry and William were both also returned to the Cavalier Parliament. Despite this, Coventry’s contribution to the proceedings seems to have been minimal. On 19 July 1660 he was named to the committee considering the second reading of the bill confirming judicial proceedings but this was the only committee to which he was named in the session. In an attempt, perhaps, to make up for his ambiguous behaviour during the civil wars he subscribed a voluntary gift of £400 to the king. Northants. RO, Brudenell ms I.xiv.70.

Coventry took his seat again on 6 Nov. 1660. Although he was present on over 95 per cent of all sitting days in the remainder of the session, he was named to no committees, his only obvious action being to subscribe the protest of 13 Dec. against the resolution to pass Sir Edward Powell’s bill. He then took his seat at the opening of the new Parliament on 8 May 1661, after which he was named to the committees for privileges, customs and orders of the House and petitions. Having attended on just 14 occasions, he sat for the last time on 28 May, and died five months later on 27 Oct. aged 55. The cause of death was reported to have been ‘gangrene that was in several of his toes’. Diaries of Lady Anne Clifford, 154.

Coventry made a number of substantial bequests, including £5,000 to his younger son, Thomas Coventry, £500 to the poor of Evesham, £300 to the poor of Tewkesbury and a yearly rent-charge of £25 from his lands at Powick for the city of Worcester. VCH Worcs. ii. 394, iv. 413. A codicil of 2 July 1661 added a further bequest of £500 for the repair of Worcester Cathedral. He was buried at Croome and succeeded by his elder son, George Coventry, as 3rd Baron Coventry.