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Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CLI-COM |
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COKE, SIR EDWARD (1552-1634) , English lawyer, was born at Mileham, in Norfolk, on the 1st of February 1552. From the grammar school of Norwich he passed to Trinity College, Cam-bridge; and in 1572 he entered Lincoln's Inn. In 1578 he was called to the bar, and in the next year he was chosen reader at Lyon's Inn. His extensive and exact legal erudition, and the skill with which he argued the intricate libel case of Lord Cromwell (4 Rep. 13), and the celebrated real property case of Shelley (1 Rep. 94, 104), soon brought him a practice never before equalled, and caused him to be universally recognized as thegreatest lawyer of his day. In 1586 he was made recorder of Norwich, and in 1592 recorder of London, solicitor-general, and reader in the Inner Temple. In 1593 he was returned as member of parliament for his native county, and also chosen speaker of the House
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In 1582 Coke married the daughter of John Paston, a gentle-man of Suffolk, receiving with her a fortune of 30,000; but in six months he was left a widower. Shortly after he sought the hand of Lady Elizabeth Hatton, daughter of Thomas, second Lord Burghley, and granddaughter of _the great Cecil. Bacon was again his rival, and again unsuccessfully; the wealthy young widow becamenot, it is said, to his future comfortCoke's second wife, In 16o6 Coke was made chief
chief
opinion that the royal proclamation cannot make that an offence which was not an offence before. An equally famous but less satisfactory instance occurred during the trial of Edmund Peacham, a divine in whose study a sermon had been found containing libellous accusations against the king and the government. There was nothing to give colour to the charge of high treason with which he was charged, and the sermon had never been preached or published; yet Peacham was put to the torture, and Bacon was ordered to confer with the judges individually concerning the matter. Coke declared such conference to be illegal, and refused to give an opinion , except in writing, and even then he seems to have said nothing decided. But the most remarkable case of all occurred in the next year (1616). A trial was held before Coke in which one of the counsel denied the validity of a grant made by the king to the bishop of Lichfield of a benefice to be held in commendam. James, through Bacon, who was then attorney-general, commanded the chief justice to delay judgment till he himself should discuss the question with the judges. At Coke's request Bacon sent a letter containing the same command to each of the judges, and Coke then obtained their signatures to a paper declaring that the attorney-general's instructions were illegal, and that they were bound to proceed with the case. His Majesty expressed his displeasure, and summoned them before him in the council-chamber, where he insisted on his supreme prerogative, which,he said, ought not to be discussed in ordinary argument. Upon this all the judges fell on their knees, seeking pardon for the form of their letter ; but Coke ventured to declare his continued belief in the loyalty of its substance, andwhen asked if he would in the future delay a case at the king's order, the only reply he would vouchsafe was that he would do what became him as a judge. Soon after he was dismissed from all his offices on the following charges,the concealment, as attorney-general, of a bond belonging to the king, a charge which could not be proved, illegal interference with the court of chancery and disrespect to the king in the case of commendams. He was also ordered by the council to revise his book of reports, which was said to contain many extravagant opinions (June 1616).Coke did not suffer these losses with patience. He offered his daughter Frances, then little more than a child, in marriage to Sir John Villiers, brother of the favourite Buckingham. Her mother, supported at first by her husband's great rival and her own former suitor, Bacon, objected to the match, and placed her in concealment. But Coke discovered her hiding-place; and she was forced to wed the man whom she declared that of all others she abhorred. The result was the desertion of the husband and the fall of the wife. It is said, however, that after his daughter's public penance in the Savoy church, Coke had heart enough to receive her back to the home which he had forced her to leave. Almost all that he gained by his heartless diplomacy was a seat in the council and in the star
In 162o a new and more honourable career opened for him. He was elected member of parliament for Liskeard; and hence-forth he was one of the most prominent of the constitutional party. It was he who proposed a remonstrance against the growth of popery and the marriage of Prince Charles to the infanta of Spain, and who led the Commons in the decisive step of entering on the journal of the House
Coke published Institutes (1628), of which the first is also known as Coke upon Littleton; Reports (1600-1615), in thirteen parts; A Treatise of Bail and Mainprize (1635); The Complete Copyholder (1630); A Reading on Fines and Recoveries (1684). See Johnson, Life of Sir Edward Coke (1837); H. W. Woolrych, The Life of Sir Edward Coke (1826); Foss, Lives of the Judges; Campbell, Lives of the Chief Justices; also ENGLISH LAW. End of Article: COKE, SIR EDWARD (1552-1634) If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
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