Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
History
Characters from the Histories & Memoirs of the Seventeenth Century
Great Britain -- Biography; Great Britain -- History -- Stuarts, 1603-1714
founde it ther, and was a garment necessary for that ayre; nor was
it more in his power to be without promotion, and titles, and wealth,
then for a healthy man to sitt in the sunn, in the brightest dogge
dayes, and remayne without any warmth: he needed no ambition who was
so seated in the hartes of two such masters.
4.
SIR THOMAS COVENTRY.
_Solicitor-General 1617. Attorney-General 1621. Lord Keeper 1625.
Created Baron Coventry 1628. Born 1578. Died 1640_.
By CLARENDON.
S'r Thomas Coventry was then L'd Keeper of the Greate Seale of
England, and newly made a Barron. He was a Sunn of the Robe, his
father havinge bene a Judge in the courte of the Common pleas, who
tooke greate care to breede his Sunn, though his first borne, in
the Study of the common law, by which himselfe had bene promoted to
that degree, and in which, in the society of the Inner Temple, his
Sunn made a notable progresse, by an early eminence in practice and
learninge, insomuch as he was Recorder of London, Sollicitor generall,
and Kings Atturny before he was forty yeeres of age, a rare ascent,
all which offices he discharged, with greate abilityes, and singular
reputation of integrity: In the first yeere after the death of Kinge
James, he was advanced to be Keeper of the Greate Scale of Englande,
the naturall advancement from, the office of Atturny Generall, upon
the remoovall of the Bishopp of Lincolne, who though a man of greate
witt, and good scholastique learninge, was generally thought so very
unæquall to the place that his remoove was the only recompence and
satisfaction that could be made for his promotion, and yett it was
enough knowne, that the disgrace proceeded only from the pri[v]ate
displeasure of the Duke of Buckingham[1]: The L'd Coventry injoyed
this place with a universall reputation (and sure justice was never
better administred) for the space of aboute sixteen yeeres, even to
his death, some months before he was sixty yeeres of age, which was
another importante circumstance of his felicity: that greate office
beinge so slippery, that no man had dyed in it before, for neere the
space of forty yeeres, nor had his successors for some tyme after him
much better fortune: and he himselfe had use of all his strenght and
skill (as he was an excellent wrastler) to præserve himselfe from
fallinge, in two shockes, the one given him by the Earle of Portlande,
L'd High Treasurer of Englande, the other by the Marq's of Hambleton,
who had the greatest power over the affections of the Kinge, of any
man of that tyme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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