Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/251

 In the parliament of 1621 Coke sat for the borough of Warwick ; in the parliaments of 1624 and 1625he was returned for the borough of St. Germains by the interest of Valentine Gary [q. v.], bishop of Exeter, the husband of his sister, Dorothy Coke. In the parliaments of 1626 and 1628 he represented the university of Cambridge. Coke lost his wife in February 1624, but married a second time in the November of the same year. His second wife was Joan, widow of Sir John Gore, late alderman of London, and daughter of Sir John Lee, another alderman (Melbourne Papers). On 9 Sept. 1624 Coke was knighted, and about the same time rumours began to designate him as the successor of Calvert or Conway in one of the secretaryships of state (Court and Times of James I, ii. 484, 506). Although this promotion was deferred, Buckingham selected Coke to act as the mouthpiece of the government in the parliament of 1625. Dr. Gardiner, in criticising this selection, describes Coke as an experienced official, a man without any particular political views, except a fixed dislike of anything which savoured of the papacy ; ' in general a mere tool, ready to do or say anything he was bidden by Buckingham and the king' (History of England, v. 370). In this first parliament of Charles I, Coke's duties were confined to explaining the plan of the war, begging supply for the king's necessities, and defending the administration of the navy against the attacks of Eliot (Debate of the Commons in 1625, Camden Society, 56, 74, 90, 138). He was also actively engaged in preparing the fleet for the Cadiz expedition, was concerned in the complicated intrigues relating to the loan of English ships to France for the reduction of Rochelle, and eagerly pressed the severe measures against French ships carrying contraband of war, which were the chief cause of the breach with France. In 1625, on the death of Sir Albert Morton, Coke was appointed one of the principal secretaries of state, and received the seals at Plymouth in September (Nicholas Papers, i. 14). The appointment was unfortunate, for Coke was, according to Dr. Gardiner, 'the only man amongst the government officials who had incurred the positive dislike of the opposition leaders of the commons ' (op. cit. 311), and this statement is confirmed by the terms in which he is referred to by Eliot (Negotium Posterorum, ed. Grosart, i. 113). In the parliament of 1628 Coke's unpopularity and want of tact helped to produce the rupture between king and commons. He was obliged to begin the session by confessing that the King had broken the law, and urging the law of necessity as his excuse (Parliamentary History, vii. 372). Vainly he endeavoured to turn the rising excitement of the commons against ' the intended parliament of Jesuits at Clerkenwell' (ib. 373). On 7 April, when he reported to the house the king's thanks for the subsidies they had granted, he foolishly spoilt their effect by representing Buckingham as mediating with the king to grant the desires of parliament (ib. 431). On 12 April he gave fresh offence by accusing the house of attacking not merely the abuses of power, but power itself, and on 1 May, during the discussions on the question of imprisonment, he announced that, whatever laws they might make on the point, he should consider it his duty as a privy councillor to commit persons without showing cause to any but to the king himself (ib. vii. 437, viii. 95). He is also credited with a speech in which he urged the commons to comply with the king, because the wrath of a king was like a roaring lion, and all laws with his wrath were of no effect (ib. viii. 79). In the second session of the same parliament he had to apologise to the commons for words used when introducing the bill for tonnage and poundage (ib. viii. 277-9). In the administration of the kingdom during the period of the king's personal government Coke found a more suitable sphere. Strafford praised his carefulness, and the ' full, clear, and reasonable answers ' which he gave to the questions which the lord deputy laid before him for decision (Strafford Letters, i. 346). He praised also the fidelity with which Coke guarded the interests of the revenue (Strafford to the King, Letters, i. 492). For these reasons he pressed the king in 1635 to reward the secretary by a grant of Irish lands, and advised him two years later to put the charge of all Irish business into his hands (Strafford Letters, ii. 83). Coke was employed in 1633 in the intrigues carried on by the king to induce the discontented Netherlanders to set up an independent Belgian state (, State Papers, ii. 54-92), but he was not in the secrets of the king's foreign policy. On 15 March 1635 Coke was appointed one of the five commissioners of the treasury, which office he held till the appointment of Juxon as lord treasurer. On 22 June in the following year he delivered Laud's new statutes to the university of Oxford. In a remarkable speech, printed in Laud's history of his chancellorship, he set forth the theory of the king's absolute power in the strongest terms, and compared the prosperity enjoyed by England under it with the troubles and miseries of foreign countries. This is the most complete exposition of Coke's political creed (, Works, v. 126-32). But although a favourer of absolute monarchy, Coke enjoyed a certain popularity as