COVENTRY, John (1654-87)

Coventry inherited an estate that, while still lucrative, was in need of serious attention. Although he did not live to see the estate restored, the policies that he initiated with his agent, Francis Taylor, ensured the continued wealth of his family. C. Gordon, Coventrys of Croome, 50. Soon after coming into the title, Coventry made use of his influence in the election of 1681 when he was active in company with his relative Thomas Windsor, 7th Baron Windsor (later earl of Plymouth), in supporting the royalist Samuel Sandys^‡ as knight of the shire for Worcestershire. HP Commons 1660-90, i. 462. At a meeting of the local gentry on 10 Feb. Windsor headed a subscription in the event of the election ending in a poll, with his pledge of £200 matched by Coventry. Add. 29910, f. 172. Windsor and Coventry expended over £500 during the campaign but despite their efforts Sandys lost out to the exclusionists Bridges Nanfan^‡ and Thomas Foley^‡. Windsor and Coventry’s defeat inspired a ballad celebrating Nanfan and Foley’s victory over the ‘court designers’, ‘Not Guilty’ (Windsor) and ‘Coventry Blue’. Bagford Ballads, second division, ‘The Worcestershire Ballad’, 998-1000.

During his short career in the House, Coventry appears to have departed from his father’s political path and to have taken a sympathetic stance to the plight of the imprisoned former lord treasurer, Thomas Osborne, earl of Danby (later duke of Leeds). A forecast drawn up by Danby estimated that if Coventry did not support his efforts to be bailed in the coming sessions he would abstain. Coventry took his seat in the House on the first day of the session held at Oxford on 21 Mar. 1681 and sat for six of its seven days. He was named to the committees for privileges and petitions and on 25 Mar. to the committee receiving information about the plot. Despite opposing Exclusion and standing against the Whigs, on the news of the death of his great-uncle, Anthony Ashley Cooper, earl of Shaftesbury, Coventry, Windsor and other relatives went into public mourning. Hatton Corresp. ii. (Cam. Soc. n.s. xxiii), 22; Haley, Shaftesbury, 735.

Coventry appears to have been a passionate follower of the turf. His enthusiasm was remarked on by his kinsman, Henry Savile^‡, who commented at Newmarket in March 1683 how the young lord ‘comes little to court, his business being most amongst the jockeys.’ Savile Corresp. 272. Two years later Coventry was roused into renewed activity with James II’s accession. The Coventry family was traditionally associated with staunch support for the Church of England and in a series of forecasts compiled over the next few years Coventry was estimated as an opponent of repeal of the Test Act and of the king’s policies in general. At the election of 1685, Plymouth (as Windsor had since become) ‘with the approbation of Lord Coventry’ was successful in overturning the disappointment of 1681 by setting up Sir John Pakington^‡ and James Pytts^‡ in opposition to Foley and Nanfan. CSP Dom. 1685, p. 23. Coventry took his seat in the House at the opening of Parliament on 19 May 1685 but appears to have exerted little influence. He was again named to the committees for privileges and petitions but absented himself after 6 June and there is no record of his entering a proxy. He was present again shortly after the summer adjournment on 16 Nov. and sat on each of the five days the session lasted.

Coventry died in July 1687 aged just 32 of a violent fever following a long illness. Hogsdun (Hoxton) waters were said to have added dramatically to his suffering. He died intestate, leaving it to his mother to take out letters of administration. Add. 29596, f. 13. Coventry left a substantial estate, which was valued by Roger Morrice at £11,000 p.a. and ‘the most and the richest jewels that any one subject of England had.’ Morrice, Ent’ring Bk. iv. 114. Estate records at Croome suggest the total annual income was in fact nearer £8,471. Gordon, 51. He was buried at Croome and succeeded by his uncle Thomas Coventry as 5th Baron Coventry. VCH Worcs. iii. 315.