One of the most able, conscientious and honest royal administrators of the Caroline age, Coke, who twice rescued the navy from serious decay, has justifiably been described as ‘the Samuel Pepys of his day’.
Coke’s earliest known ancestors lived in Staffordshire, near the Derbyshire border until the early fifteenth century, when the family settled at Trusley, near Derby.
Had Coke stayed at Cambridge he might have merited Clarendon’s description of him as ‘a man of a very narrow education’,
By the summer of 1597 Coke had returned to London, where he reported to Essex and expanded his trade treatise.
Loss of office was a bitter pill for the 40-year-old Coke to swallow, but now at least he had time to attend to his long-neglected personal affairs. Over the summer he courted Marie Powell, the daughter of one of Greville’s principal servants, John Powell of Preston, in Herefordshire, and by September the two were married. He initially lived with his father-in-law at Preston, but by 1608 had begun building a house of his own at nearby Kynaston, which he named Hall Court. He continued to audit Greville’s accounts and occasionally travelled to London on the latter’s behalf,
In October 1614 Greville was appointed chancellor of the Exchequer, and not long after he invited Coke to join him in London. Coke, however, remained bitter at the treatment he had received ten years earlier and judged that the time was not yet ripe for him to return to public duties, for the earl of Suffolk, whose inconstancy had helped ruin the project for naval reform, remained at the helm of government and had recently been appointed lord treasurer. Greville was offended at this rebuff, and for a while relations between the two men were severely strained.
Although ranked tenth in the list, Coke was the only one of the commissioners with previous experience of the navy’s administration, which remained under the control of the earl of Nottingham. From the outset, therefore, he played the dominant role in its activities. By mid-July he was writing directly to Greville, who showed his letters to the king, and over the summer he drafted the commissioners’ report, which claimed that annual ordinary spending could be cut from £53,000 to around £30,000. These findings were submitted to the king on 29 Sept., and although Cranfield made the formal presentation, Buckingham, who now aimed to succeed Nottingham as lord admiral, soon learned the identity of the report’s true author.
The transformation of the commissioners from a body of inquiry into a board of governors took formal effect on 12 Feb. 1619, by which time Nottingham had been replaced by Buckingham. One of the first acts of new lord admiral was to promise to promote Coke at the earliest opportunity.
Over the next few months Buckingham remained largely dependent on Coke for advice, on one occasion telling his new mentor that he had ‘followed that way which you chalked out’.
Early in November Parliament was summoned to consider the crisis, and in December Coke was provided with a seat at Warwick by his old friend Greville. This was Coke’s first Parliament, and despite the fact that the Commons Journal often fails to distinguish him from Clement Coke, who also sat, it is apparent that he played only a modest part in its proceedings. Coke probably delivered his maiden address during the free speech debate on 12 Feb., as the Mr. Coke who spoke advised that any Member with a proposal to make should not couch it in general terms, which would take up ‘many days to no purpose’, but should submit a bill or ‘a model of his proposition which may be examined’. This observation, that a scheme was only worth examining if it had been worked out in detail, is just the sort of thing that Coke, with his administrator’s mind, would have said. At any rate, the speech earned the approval of secretary Calvert for its argument that Members had no grounds for complaint, and that provided they kept ‘within the limits’ they would have ‘free allowance from His Majesty’.
Shortly before Parliament was adjourned, Buckingham promised to reward Coke soon for all his labours. Once Parliament ended Coke pressed the favourite to honour this pledge, as he had not previously received any recompense, but Buckingham proved unable or unwilling to honour his commitment. For Coke, who was now in his late fifties and could see his chance of high office slipping away, this was deeply frustrating. His sense of grievance was exacerbated by the fact that neither his naval instructions nor the navy commissioners’ report into the ordnance office had yet received formal approval. In mid July 1621 he complained to Buckingham, but though the king and Council finally agreed to implement the proposals for ordnance reform, Buckingham remained silent about Coke’s naval regulations.
Over the summer of 1622 Coke toured southern England for the king. Purveyance had resurfaced as an issue during the 1621 Parliament, and Coke was ordered to strike composition agreements with the chief gentry of each shire, but he enjoyed only limited success.
Following the journey to Spain of Prince Charles and Buckingham, the navy commissioners were instructed to prepare a fleet to fetch the two men home. Coke threw himself into the work with vigour, but his new duties at Court meant that he was not always able to consult his colleagues before taking decisions, and so incurred their displeasure.
The move from Hall Court to London kept Coke away from his desk for six weeks.
Over the summer Coke’s resentment that he had not been permitted to accomplish more began to resurface. In particular he remained bitter that the naval regulations which he had presented to Buckingham in 1619 had never been adopted. Had they been implemented, he claimed, they would have prevented any recurrence of the malpractices which had beset the navy before 1619. As it was, he now suspected that two of his fellow navy commissioners had misbehaved themselves. The man responsible for advising Buckingham that the draft regulations would ‘disturb the commission’, Coke now condemned as being ‘neither friend to the commission nor the service’.
Coke was elected to the 1624 Parliament by the Cornish borough of St. Germans on the interest of his brother-in-law Valentine Carey, bishop of Exeter. As in 1621 he was not the only Mr. Coke in the Commons, as Henry Coke had been returned for Chipping Wycombe. It seems likely that he, rather than his namesake, was appointed on 27 Feb. to help examine the charge that Buckingham had spoken dishonourably of the king of Spain at a recent conference of both Houses.
The fall of Middlesex undoubtedly gave Coke great personal satisfaction, but it coincided with the death in childbirth of his beloved wife Marie. As he had a young family to support it was not long before he was casting around for a new wife, and in November, soon after being knighted, he wed the widow of a wealthy London alderman.
Following the death of James I in March 1625, England began preparing for war with Spain. In mid-April Coke, apparently on his own initiative, formulated a proposal which he presented to Buckingham directly, bypassing the Council of War which had been set up to offer strategic advice a year earlier. While the navy harried the enemy off the Spanish coast, he suggested, a fleet of privately owned vessels, spearheaded by a few royal warships, should establish bases in Spain’s Caribbean island colonies. In the short term this would merely deprive Spain of valuable territories, but in the long term the invaders, formed into a West Indies Company, would exploit the islands for their own commercial purposes. Each fleet would cost £180,000 to set out, which sum Coke expected to be raised from public subscription. In theory all donations would be voluntary, but in practice pressure would be exerted to ensure that money was forthcoming. Towns, for example, would be induced to give under threat of withdrawal of their municipal privileges.
Coke was one of the official mourners at James I’s funeral on 7 May.
Shortly after Parliament opened the new king, Charles I, failed to indicate how much money he needed for the forthcoming war. By the end of June many Members, desperate to escape the plague that was now raging in London, decided to vote the king two subsidies, worth around £160,000 in total. As this sum was entirely inadequate, Buckingham rode to Hampton Court to speak to Charles, returning to York House at around midnight on 7 July, by which time the subsidy bill had already received two readings. The duke immediately summoned as many of his friends and clients who had seats in the Commons and announced that he wished the issue of supply to be reopened the following morning. When the privy councillors with seats in the House learned of this early the next day they were horrified. Sir Humphrey May quickly realized that any attempt to revisit the question of supply would poison relations with the Commons, whose Members would feel affronted at the king’s apparent ingratitude. Since he was disliked by Buckingham, May turned for assistance to the duke’s client (Sir) John Eliot*, who spent the next couple of hours closeted with the duke. However, Buckingham was not only immoveable, but had already decided to bypass the councillors and employ Coke as his spokesman.
By the time Coke addressed the Commons the subsidy bill had been sent to the Lords, and therefore any chance of increasing the size of the grant without introducing fresh legislation had been lost. Despite this setback, Coke set about wooing his audience. He began by thanking the House for its grant of two subsidies, and for its zeal in not waiting to be asked, and he also commended its careful examination of the accounts of the subsidies voted in 1624. As promised, he declared, this money had been spent entirely on military preparations, and although Count Mansfeld’s expedition had failed to achieve ‘that good effect which was hoped’ for, its very existence had served to keep several princes from declaring for the emperor and forced the enemy to incur the expense of keeping more soldiers in the field. There was, of course, no excuse for the disorderly behaviour of Mansfeld’s troops, he added, but to some extent their misconduct was a self-inflicted wound, as many shires had deliberately raised recruits from the dregs of society. Indeed, Mansfeld himself had complained that he had been sent ‘such men as would be kept under no government’. As for those who grumbled that Mansfeld, a German, should never have been entrusted with command, Coke observed that as his army was to have included both French and Dutch units there would have been protests had an Englishmen been appointed. Coke’s defence of Mansfeld’s expedition was a necessary prelude to the remainder of his speech, for in seeking to show that the money voted in 1624 had been well spent he was hoping to remove one of the chief obstacles to further supply. Having dealt with this matter, Coke now turned to the main part of his speech. He began by asserting that the two subsidies now voted had, in effect, already been spent, for the king had recently laid out more than £200,000 on the navy from his own resources. Indeed, the shortfall was more than £140,000, and there was also the cost of the four English regiments in Dutch service to consider, as well as the £20,000 needed each month to keep Mansfeld’s army in being and a subvention of £46,000 paid to the Danes. The king was not capable of bearing these costs himself, he said, having inherited considerable debts and expended large sums on an expanded royal Household and his father’s funeral. This meant that either Charles should cease his military preparations, ‘and so desert the cause’, which course would be dishonourable, or Parliament should vote additional supply. As no help could be expected from France, which was once again on the brink of civil war, Germany’s Protestant princes would inevitably be forced to capitulate if England abandoned them. For the sake of religion, he argued, it was essential that the fleet should sail, ‘whatsoever it shall cost’. Charles was naturally anxious not to overburden his people and appreciated that Members would want to consult their constituents before offering more subsidies. In the meantime, however, the Commons should provide the king with a line of credit by promising to finance the war for as long as it lasted. Unless either money or credit was forthcoming, Charles might be forced ‘to strain some other way’ to raise money, a course of action which Coke himself hoped would never be adopted.
Coke had made the case for additional supply as persuasively as possible under the circumstances, but the councillors present, irritated at having their role usurped and unhappy at the strategy that had been adopted, remained conspicuously silent. Only the Privy Council clerk Sir William Beecher rose to second Coke’s motion, which was quietly laid aside by the solicitor-general (Sir Robert Heath*). It was not only the councillors who were disgruntled, however, as it was widely felt that Coke’s request for a further grant was an attempt to exploit a thinly attended chamber, as many Members, fearful of the plague, had fled the capital. As Sir Robert Phelips later remarked, it looked more like a ‘surprise of enemies’ than ‘an overture from friends’.
Following the adjournment Coke fled the capital and set up home at Tottenham, where his wife owned a house.
On 8 Aug. the Commons was informed that Buckingham, who intended to address the House, wished to be assisted by Coke and two senior members of the Lords. This request, so far as it involved Coke, was a tacit acknowledgement that the king’s earlier failure to observe customary practice had been mistaken, but it also paved the way for Coke to continue to act as a senior Crown spokesman without further recriminations. After grumbling that the request was contrary to its privileges, the Commons assented, provided that it was understood that Coke would be speaking ‘as a commissioner’ or as ‘the king’s servant’, rather than as ‘a Parliament man’.
Following the dissolution Coke returned to Tottenham. Shortly thereafter secretary Morton died of the plague and, perhaps at Buckingham’s behest, Coke was appointed to succeed him.
Coke naturally expected to serve in the forthcoming Parliament, and in January 1626 wrote to his brother-in-law, Valentine Carey, bishop of Exeter, to obtain for him the seat at St. Germans which he had held previously. Carey was initially hopeful of success, but it quickly became apparent that he would be thwarted by his tenant Sir John Eliot, lord of the manor of St. Germans, who now ranged himself alongside Buckingham’s enemies.
Shortly after Parliament opened, Coke and his fellow privy councillor Sir Thomas Edmondes presented the Speaker, (Sir) Heneage Finch, to the House of Lords (8 February). The following day he became a member of the committee for privileges, and on 10 Feb. was appointed to the committee for considering all aspects of religion.
Coke did not address the Commons until 22 Feb., when Eliot reported from the select committee for grievances concerning the recent arrest of a French ship, the St. Peter of Newhaven, on suspicion of carrying contraband goods. According to the select committee, this arrest, which had occurred several months earlier, had precipitated the seizure of English ships and wares in France. Over the last few weeks the crisis had deepened, for although the St. Peter had been released in late January 1626 following an appeal by her owners, she had been re-arrested on 4 Feb. after the lieutenant of the Tower, Sir Allen Apsley, and the lieutenant of Dover Castle, Sir John Hippisley†, had alleged that her cargo was certainly Spanish. Coke, who had played a key role in the Council discussions concerning the St. Peter, and had secured her original release, hoped that, despite the second detention of the ship, a peaceful diplomatic solution to the crisis might be found. He therefore urged the Commons to leave the matter to the king, who was keenly aware of the damage done to trade by the recent French seizures. He also played down the severity of the dispute, claiming that England still enjoyed friendly relations with the French government and dismissing the seizures of English goods, which he attributed instead to a local body, the parlement of Rouen. He further asserted that the seizures were in any case unconnected with the initial arrest of the St. Peter, a claim which failed to convince Eliot, who argued that the Privy Council itself had acknowledged that the two issues were closely related. Led by Eliot, the Commons now pressed for a further examination of Apsley, whose earlier testimony had been found to be weak and contradictory. Coke was alarmed, for Apsley’s performance had indeed been unimpressive and a further interrogation was only likely to make matters worse. He therefore asked the House to make allowance for the fact that Apsley was ‘a man of slow speech’. Eliot interpreted this plea as a thinly veiled criticism of the select committee’s earlier questioning of the lieutenant, and denied that there had been any attempt to take advantage of Apsley’s ponderous manner. Coke was disregarded, and his attempts to persuade the House not to draft a petition to the king over the second arrest of the St. Peter also fell on deaf ears.
Coke’s difficulties deepened on 1 Mar., when it became clear that his version of events concerning the second stay of the St. Peter did not tally with the account related by Sir Henry Marten*, the judge of the High Court of Admiralty. At first sight this was surprising, as Marten answered to Buckingham for his office, but the judge was also a friend of Sir John Eliot, to whom he owed his parliamentary seat. Marten claimed that at a Council meeting on 15 Feb. he had told Buckingham that there was no evidence to justify the continued detention of the St. Peter, whereas Coke had affirmed that the ship was held on Marten’s advice. After hearing Marten the House sent for Coke, who was not then in the chamber, to explain the discrepancy, who agreed that Marten had not actually advised the stay of the St. Peter. However, he maintained that the judge had nevertheless told Buckingham that it was perfectly legitimate to detain the ship ‘till proofs might be produced’. In an aside he also cast doubt on Marten’s claim that he had made ‘an eloquent and elaborate oration’ at the Council meeting two weeks earlier, observing that he ‘has not the facility nor leisure to study elaborate speeches’. An outraged Marten replied that ‘if the House believe Sir John Coke, he cannot be an honest man’.
Coke’s disagreement with Marten was exacerbated by the outbreak of a fresh quarrel with Sir Robert Mansell, the former navy treasurer with whom Coke had crossed swords in August 1625. On 25 Feb. Coke had revealed to the House the advice that he and his fellow navy commissioners had recently presented to the Privy Council concerning the defence of the coasts and the Thames. Mansell, who clearly hated Coke, had thereupon expressed his disapproval and offered to lay an alternative course of action ‘before some few lords’.
It was clear that Eliot at least was trying to discredit Coke, but after 6 Mar. he switched his attention to a far more promising and important target, his former patron, Buckingham. Eliot, like many others in the House, now believed that the recent failures in naval defence were primarily the responsibility of the duke, whom they also blamed for the re-arrest of the St. Peter. It therefore followed that any further attempt to blame Coke for these offences risked weakening the case against Buckingham. Coke, who must have been relieved that he was no longer a focus of parliamentary hostility, now devoted his energies to defending Buckingham from the charges that were being drawn up against him. On 16 Mar., when Eliot sought to revive the issue of the St. Peter, Coke warned Members that they should not let their ‘inaffections to any particular person’ lead them into ‘inconvenience’.
Coke’s willingness to defend Buckingham so openly was not a strategy calculated to win him friends in the Commons. On 24 Mar. he again placed himself in the firing line after Eliot reported that the sub-committee appointed to investigate Buckingham had concluded that the responsibility for the failure to guard to the Narrow Seas lay entirely with the duke. Coke replied that lack of money rather than Buckingham was to blame, and in the heat of the moment he urged the House to consider ‘how unjustly these things are laid upon the lord admiral’. His choice of language was perhaps unwise, for the word ‘unjustly’ implied that the sub-committee had somehow acted unfairly. Consequently Eliot demanded that the House ‘take order’ with Coke, who hastily explained that he had not intended to accuse the sub-committee of any impropriety.
As well as defending Buckingham, Coke also devoted much of his energy in Parliament to trying to persuade the Commons to finance the war against Spain. Six weeks into the session the king ordered the House to hasten its vote of supply, but many Members wished first to consider the complaints against Buckingham. Coke was aghast, for until money was voted it would be impossible to make defensive preparations, and therefore, on 20 Mar., he urged that they should ‘not lose a day’. Nonetheless it was not until three days later that the Commons turned to consider the question of supply. As in 1625, Coke spelled out in detail what was required, adding that haste was needed in view of Spain’s considerable naval preparations.
As a defender of Buckingham and an advocate of a generous and immediate vote of supply Coke was out of sympathy with many of his fellow Members, but in one respect his views and theirs may have coincided sharply. Coke was a mainstream Calvinist, as his defence of the doctrine of predestination against the teaching of Richard Montagu at the York House Conference shows, and like many Calvinists he evinced a deep hatred of Catholicism. Some observers regarded him as a puritan, and to the extent that he abhorred swearing, smoking and drinking there was some truth in this charge. However, he also deplored separatists and ‘private conventicles’ and was committed to the established church, in which his brother George served as a bishop.
Following the dissolution the king, having failed to obtain parliamentary subsidies, resolved to ask his subjects for a Benevolence. Coke approved of this idea, for in a common danger men should not wilfully abandon ‘their religion, prince and country to the enemy’s power’, and he was relieved that the scheme would not involve any element of compulsion.
Although Coke had his doubts about the Forced Loan he kept them to himself. Instead he praised the king for his ‘royal care and moderation’ and considered that both Charles and the Privy Council had been overly lenient in pursuing those who had hitherto proved reluctant to contribute. Writing to Conway at the beginning of March 1627 he hoped that payments would be demanded ‘in a more earnest manner’, for otherwise those who had not contributed ‘may gather confidence out of neglect’.
The most distinctive feature of Coke’s treatise was that it proposed a way of raising additional funds independently of Parliament, for although parliamentary subsidies were needed Coke had long understood that further significant revenues were required to fight a war with Spain, as his earlier project for the creation of an English West India Company made clear. Coke advocated the creation of a society of loyal subjects modelled on the Bond of Association of 1584, whose members would swear to serve and protect both the king and ‘the religion and government established under him’ against all enemies. Admission would be upon payment of a fee, which would vary depending on the social rank of the applicant. Every adult male would be encouraged to join, and a record would be made of those who refused. However, as members would be entitled to wear either a badge or a riband, it would be easy to identify refusers on sight, who could then be exposed to shame and ridicule. Like Coke’s earlier proposal for the creation of a West India Company, the beauty of this scheme was that, in theory at least, it was entirely voluntary and thus unlike the Forced Loan not vulnerable to the charge of illegality. Coke did not overtly criticize the Loan, of course, but his treatise contains a strong hint of disapproval, for in one passage he suggested that anyone who had failed to contribute to the Loan but who now gave generously to the new association would have their previous offence remitted, ‘that no remembrance of distraction may remain among us’.
While there was considerable continuity of thought between Coke’s projects to create a West India Company and a loyal association, there were equally some sharp differences. Coke had envisaged that the West India Company would be an exclusively English affair, and had therefore ignored any financial contribution that either Ireland or Scotland might make. By contrast, in his treatise of 1627 Coke drew attention to the union of arms recently instituted in Spain, whereby the lesser kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula were forced to contribute to the Spanish war effort as well as Castile. The king, he argued, should follow Spain’s example by uniting ‘his three kingdoms in a strict union ... for their mutual defence ... every one with such a proportion of horse, foot or shipping as may be rateably thought fit’. It seems likely that Coke had been moving towards this position for some time, for in June 1626, at the height of the Spanish invasion scare, he had been deputed by the Council of War to ask the king to order the Scots to set out ships and provide mariners for military service. As a result of this initiative, which almost certainly originated with Coke himself, the Scots were forced to create a small navy of their own, which remained in being until at least the early 1630s.
Following Buckingham’s return to England, Coke drafted a royal Proclamation imposing an excise on ale, beer and cider. Coke evidently favoured this new duty, perhaps because it would help keep the army in being and the fleet at sea.
Soon after Parliament opened the Commons turned its attention to the Forced Loan. Coke, who had his own private reservations about the Loan and appreciated the explosive nature of this issue, attempted to disarm the Loan’s opponents by a candid confession. Speaking on 22 Mar. he admitted that ‘illegal courses have been taken’, but added that the government had been driven to adopt them out of necessity. Now was not the time to argue over legal niceties as this would be like trying to make minor repairs when the whole house was on fire. Besides, ‘necessity hath no law’. Everyone knew the danger posed by foreign enemies, he added, ignoring the fact that a few minutes earlier Sir Edward Coke had denied the reality of this threat. Rather than complain about the Loan the Commons should demonstrate its willingness to supply the king, which would ‘amaze the enemy more than ten subsidies’. This should be done straight away, for if grievances were handled first supply might become conditional on redress. However, Coke’s hopes of stemming the tide of criticism by admitting that the government had acted illegally out of necessity were quickly dashed as Sir Dudley Digges retorted that a king who was not fettered by the law ‘rules slaves that cannot serve him’.
Instead of debating the king’s propositions the Commons returned to the Forced Loan. On 26 Mar. Sir Robert Phelips complained that the oath associated with the Loan was ‘something resembling the Inquisition of Spain’, whereupon Coke angrily demanded that Phelips should ‘forbear such harsh words as to compare anything that is done here to the Spanish Inquisition’. For once Coke had the upper hand as Phelips was forced to explain, somewhat lamely, that ‘I did but resemble it to the better part of the Inquisition’.
It was not until 2 Apr. that the Commons, sitting as a committee, debated the 14 propositions. From the outset matters went badly for the Crown. Edward Alford stated that his local community would only be able to give when the king enabled it to do so while Sir Robert Mansell, though he agreed that all the heads for supply were needful, thought that seven of them might wait. Sir Francis Seymour wanted to know where the subsidies and loans that had already been raised had gone, for so far all that had been accomplished was to provoke powerful enemies and purchase dishonour. In the face of such a barrage of criticism Coke rose to speak. He began by glossing over many of the remarks made by previous speakers, whom he thanked, with more than a hint of irony, for having expressed ‘great judgment and affection’. However, he was unable to ignore Mansell’s suggestion that seven of the heads of supply should be set aside as the king’s propositions were interlocking and it was impossible to separate them from each other. To those who continued to complain of previous ‘disorders’ he again pleaded the excuse of necessity and urged them not to dwell on the past. The king was ‘tender’ of the country’s grievances and would not demand more money than it could bear. Indeed, he was content that the Commons should give whatever it pleased, for even a small sum would restore his credit and enhance his reputation.
Although Coke had now made a strong case for supply, both he and the king understood that the Commons would be unwilling to loosen its purse-strings without an assurance that its grievances would be redressed. Consequently the following day, after scotching a rumour that Buckingham had spoken maliciously about the Commons at the Council table, Coke revealed a conversation in which Charles had vigorously declared that the Commons should proceed with its grievances. Overcome with emotion, Coke announced that this showed Charles’s ‘true character’.
The Commons had now agreed in principle to grant supply, but until the subsidy bill was passed neither Charles nor Coke could relax. In order to speed things along it was decided to instruct Parliament to dispense with the customary Easter recess. However, while the Lords were notified in plenty of time no one remembered to inform the Commons until 10 Apr., the day before Good Friday, by which time many Members had already gone home. Coke apologized deeply for this oversight, but several Members suspected that he and his fellow councillors had deliberately withheld the instruction in the hope of being able to rush the subsidy bill through a thin House.
When the king learned of the Commons’ decision he was furious. On 12 Apr. he announced, through Coke, that while he had agreed that his affairs and those of the Commons should proceed in tandem he had never intended ‘that the one should give interruption to the other, nor the time to be spun out upon any pretence, upon which the cause of Christendom doth so much depend’. The Commons should take care not to force him to ‘make an unpleasing end of that which was so well begun’. Many of those present interpreted these words to mean that Charles was threatening to dissolve Parliament unless he had his way, but Coke warned Members not to ‘overstrain’ the royal message. The king was not looking to dissolve Parliament, he explained, since Charles hoped for its success, but he was certainly angry that his business had been suspended indefinitely and was alarmed that the Commons’ investigation into the abuse of power had begun to touch upon regal power itself. However Coke’s explanations merely exacerbated the situation as Richard Spencer wanted to know ‘into what powers we should not trench’, while Rich and Phelips suspected that Charles had privately been told that the Commons was a nest of republicans. Rather than return to the matter of supply the House decided to justify its proceedings in a petition to the king, which Coke was ordered to help prepare.
The Commons was clearly immoveable, and since the king was not yet ready to dissolve Parliament there was little choice but to wait until it had finished examining its grievances. On 22 Apr. it debated in grand committee the use of martial law. William Noye spoke for most if not all the common lawyers present when he declared that commissions of martial law were illegal. Coke was naturally unconvinced, and wondered aloud why there were complaints in this particular case when both ecclesiastical law and the law of equity were tolerated alongside the Common Law. Moreover, as soldiers needed to be governed, and their punishment lay outside the remit of the Common Law, the case for martial law was inescapable. Those who objected that martial law was needlessly sanguinary should remember that its punishments were aimed at those who acted against an entire army or the kingdom itself. Moreover, the commissions had been imposed not by central government, but at the request of the local gentry, who had been disturbed by the misbehaviour of the soldiery. By questioning the legality of martial law, Coke alleged, the Commons had undermined the authority of the army’s officers, who now ‘refuse to do their duties’.
If Coke was astonished that the Commons had inadvertently helped to make the king’s army ungovernable, he was no less amazed by its lack of discretion in military matters. On 25 Apr. the committee for trade reported that so many ships had been lost over the last few years that England’s famous ‘wooden walls’ no longer existed. Remedying this situation would be difficult, the committee concluded, because timber suitable for shipbuilding was now scarce. Coke was aghast, for ‘this decay is rather to be concealed and covered’. Indeed, it was far more important ‘to recover strength than make known our wants’.
Outwardly the Commons was delighted at Charles’s promise, but it had no intention of cutting short its debates, let alone of returning to the subsidy bill, and on 1 May it turned its attention to the matter of arbitrary imprisonment. Midway during the debate, however, Coke produced a message from the king, who demanded to know whether the Commons was prepared to rely exclusively upon the assurance he had given. The effect of this message was to produce an awkward silence, as no one dared say openly that a verbal promise from the king would be insufficient to secure their liberties. Eventually Coke decided to speak again. If Members expected to secure greater liberties for the subject than their forefathers had enjoyed, he observed, they would not have his support as this could only be achieved at the expense of the crown. Nor could they expect the king to relinquish the right to imprison without showing cause, for as one of the king’s ministers he knew that he was occasionally obliged to have men committed without revealing the cause either to a judge or gaoler in order to carry out his duties effectively. There was no risk that this power would ever be abused, for were he to imprison even the poorest porter without just cause he would suffer the loss of his office, a fate which Coke described as ‘a greater punishment than the law can inflict’. So far as the Forced Loan was concerned, Coke reminded the House that the government had already admitted that its actions had been illegal. Charles was so anxious to avoid any further acts of illegality, he claimed, that he had summoned this Parliament to settle matters accordingly.
Coke clearly hoped by this personal intervention to allay the Commons’ deepest fears, but his words merely served to inflame the situation. Eliot was astonished that ‘a Member of our House, against our resolutions’, should have the effrontery to assert that he was entitled to commit men without showing the cause, and he was scandalized that the Commons had been accused of seeking to extend the rights of the subject at the expense of the king. He branded the speech as ‘unfit’ to be heard, but Coke refused either to explain himself or to retract his remarks.
The news that the king intended to bring down the curtain in just 11 days’ time provoked howls of protest. Many Members had clearly hoped to be given plenty of time and now complained that the king had been misinformed about their intentions. Coke strongly denied that this was the case and seconded Edward Littleton, who urged the House to decide upon the substance of its bill.
During the ensuing debate - which was held in grand committee despite Coke’s objection that ‘debate in committees is a great loss of time’ - Coke remarked upon the damage that had been done to the king’s reputation abroad by the House’s unwillingness to trust him. Indeed, he had a letter in Spanish in his pocket which proved his point. John Pym, however, retorted that the king’s word was effectively worthless, as it added nothing to his Coronation oath. Coke was incensed, and demanded to know ‘whether it be fit such speeches should pass, that the king’s word adds not strength to law?’, whereupon Pym was forced to explain himself.
In fact the choices facing the Commons were not as Coke had described, for as well as the options he had outlined there was the possibility of proceeding by Petition of Right. By the end of the day it been resolved to adopt this course, which would enable the House to list specific grievances and seek confirmation that they were against the law. Coke did not oppose this decision, but over the next few days he badgered his colleagues to act more speedily.
Coke initially believed that his work at Portsmouth would be over within a week, but on his arrival he encountered greater chaos and confusion than he had expected. He threw himself into his new duties with his customary energy and efficiency, and within three weeks, despite an acute shortage of money, had made such progress that Buckingham commented that were it not for Coke’s ‘extraordinary diligence’ the preparation of the fleet would have been ‘a work almost impossible’.
Following Buckingham’s assassination Coke remained at Portsmouth to complete the fleet’s preparations, only receiving his discharge on 5 Sept., when the king congratulated him on his ‘extreme good service’.
During his absence from London Coke was appointed to the six-man strong commission which was now given the task of running the Admiralty. On paper at least Coke was the most junior of the commissioners but in practice none of his colleagues, not even lord treasurer Weston, a former navy commissioner like himself, could boast his depth of knowledge or expertise. Coke’s colleagues were quick to grasp this fact, and less than three months after the commission was established, ‘for the better dispatch of business’, they ordered that all letters and warrants for signing were to be brought to Coke first for his perusal, ‘and after their lordships will sign them’.
At the beginning of 1629, however, the management of naval affairs was not uppermost in Coke’s mind, as Parliament reassembled on 20 January. Coke was initially hopeful that this new meeting would prove less stormy than the last, for in November 1628 he wrote that the king had eliminated ‘all distempers which have transported men’s minds’. Aided by the ‘wisdom and moderation’ of lord treasurer Weston, he prophesied, Parliament would ‘settle our home affairs in unity and regularity’.
The continued collection of Tunnage and Poundage appeared to violate one of the main provisions of the Petition of Right, in which the king had bound himself not to raise taxation without parliamentary authority. Consequently Sir Humphrey May was instructed to lay a bill to put Tunnage and Poundage on a statutory footing before the Commons. In the event May was ill and therefore the task fell to Coke, who laid the bill before the House on 26 Jan. and demanded that it be read immediately, ‘that His Majesty and the world may see our affection by the speedy passage of it’. However it was objected, inter alia, that it was contrary to precedent to consider at the start of a session a measure that was, to all intents and purposes, a bill of subsidy, and consequently the House turned its attention instead to religion.
On 9 Feb. Coke seconded Sir Francis Goodwin’s motion to order the re-examination of the London sheriff involved in the seizure of the London merchants’ goods, but the House was so furious at this man’s earlier testimony, which was full of contradictory statements and prevarications, that it declared him to be a delinquent. Three days later Coke again urged that Tunnage and Poundage be given statutory authority, without which ‘our coasts are unguarded’.
Coke’s moment of glory was all too brief, for by 21 Feb. he was again at loggerheads with several leading Members over the seizure of Rolle’s goods. Phelips claimed that nothing less than the liberty of the subject was at stake, whereas Coke argued that the issue was merely one of parliamentary privilege. As ‘the king is a parliament man as well as we are’, he added, it was debatable whether Charles ‘ought not to have privilege’ to keep Rolle’s goods. This ingenious argument was rejected by William Noye, who claimed that the customs officers had not only breached Rolle’s privilege in respect of his goods, but had done so without royal permission. At this Coke retorted that the customs officers’ commission entitled them to seize goods, but it was quickly proved that he was mistaken, and following an examination of the warrants sent to the customs officers, both Coke and Sir Humphrey May were forced to admit that in this respect their opponents had been right all along.
It is unclear whether it was Coke or the Speaker (John Finch II) who delivered the king’s message of 25 Feb. adjourning the Commons until 2 March. In any event, Coke played no part in the chaotic final day of the session.
Coke spent most of his remaining years in retirement at Melbourne Hall, where he was able to indulge his love of falconry.