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CHARLES I, CLEMENT COKE, AND SEDITION*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 December 2015
Abstract
Clement Coke was a minor figure of the early Stuart period, especially in comparison to his brilliant and prominent father, Sir Edward Coke. People seem to have taken note of ‘Fighting Clem’ only when he engaged in a duel or punched another member of parliament. In the parliament of 1626, however, he briefly gained notoriety when he faced an unusually formidable adversary, Charles I, who accused him of making a seditious speech. A close analysis of this episode reveals much about the broad concept of sedition and the unstable atmosphere in the House of Commons. Coke's case also had repercussions later in this parliament and perhaps even in the next parliament where his father championed the Petition of Right. Yet the most interesting aspect of Coke's case is what it reveals about the mindset of the king. In contrast to the stereotypical view of Charles as prickly and paranoid, he appears here to have been both perceptive and prescient. Thus, this article, like work by the late Mark Kishlansky, concludes that we should take Charles I's view of the political landscape more seriously.
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Footnotes
*
I am grateful to Newton Key for persuading me that Clement Coke's story was worth telling, to the editor of the Historical Journal for his support, and to the three anonymous readers whose suggestions were a great help to me.
References
1 Until recently the only scholar who took much interest in Clement was Catherine Drinker Bowen. See her The lion and the throne: the life and times of Sir Edward Coke (Boston, MA, 1956), pp. 346, 401, 402, 443–4, 474, 527–9, 534.
2 This account occurs under the entry for Clement Coke in Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, eds., The House of Commons, 1604–1629 (6 vols., Cambridge, 2010), iii, pp. 556–60.
3 Conrad Russell suggested these were more ‘Buckingham's and Charles's wars, and not Parliament's wars’, in Parliaments and English politics, 1621–1629 (Oxford, 1979), pp. 78–9. By contrast, Thomas Cogswell found more support for war in parliament: The blessed revolution: English politics and the coming of war, 1621–1624 (Cambridge, 1989), especially pp. 222–5, 309–22. Historians have generally adopted Cogswell's view. For a contrary interpretation, see Michael B. Young, Charles I (Basingstoke, 1997), pp. 22–7.
4 Kevin Sharpe, ‘Re-writing the history of parliament in seventeenth-century England’, in Kevin Sharpe, Remapping early modern England: the culture of seventeenth-century politics (Cambridge, 2000), p. 275. David L. Smith's The Stuart parliaments, 1603–1689 (London, 1999) is an excellent survey, but it covers the entire seventeenth century, making it necessarily brief on the 1620s. It devotes only one page to the parliament of 1626 (p. 115).
5 Looking back on this development near the end of his career, Sharpe wrote, ‘historians – especially younger scholars – have taken “a cultural turn” and, as some scholars lament, traditional political narrative has become an unfashionable form’. Kevin Sharpe, Reading authority and representing rule in early modern England (London, 2013), p. 5.
6 Sharpe epitomizes this movement. He began by writing about parliament, subsequently produced a massive study of Charles during the eleven years when the king ruled without parliaments, and wrote numerous important works on the way power was represented in literature and the visual arts. See Faction and parliament (Oxford, 1978); The personal rule of Charles I (New Haven, CT, 1992); Criticism and compliment: the politics of literature in the England of Charles I (Cambridge, 1987); and Image wars: promoting kings and commonwealths in England, 1603–1660 (New Haven, CT 2010). Sharpe also edited, along with Peter Lake, Culture and politics in early Stuart England (Stanford, CA, 1993). Richard Cust wrote a groundbreaking essay in this field that deserves mention: ‘News and politics in early seventeenth-century England’, Past and Present, 112 (1986), pp. 69–90. See also Peter Lake and Steven Pincus, eds., The politics of the public sphere in early modern England (Manchester, 2007). See also Alastair Bellany, ‘Libels in action: ritual, subversion and the English literary underground’, in Tim Harris, ed., The politics of the excluded, c. 1500–1850 (Basingstoke, 2001), pp. 99–124, and several of Bellany's articles cited below in relation to libels and sedition. Another prodigious contributor to this field is Thomas Cogswell. See his ‘The politics of propaganda: Charles I and the people in the 1620s’, Journal of British Studies, 29 (1990), pp. 187–215 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Underground verse and the transformation of early Stuart political culture’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 60 (1997), pp. 303–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘“The symptomes and vapors of a diseased time”: the earl of Clare and early Stuart manuscript culture’, Review of English Studies, n.s., 57 (2006), pp. 310–36CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘John Felton, popular political culture, and the assassination of the duke of Buckingham’, Historical Journal, 49 (2006), pp. 357–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
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8 Chris R. Kyle, Theater of state: parliament and political culture in early Stuart England (Stanford, CA, 2012), pp. 84–5, 182.
9 Markku Peltonen, Rhetoric, politics and popularity in pre-revolutionary England (Cambridge, 2013). See especially chs. 9 and 10.
10 Alan Cromartie, The constitutionalist revolution: an essay on the history of England, 1450–1642 (Cambridge, 2006).
11 Kishlansky, Mark, ‘Tyranny denied: Charles I, Attorney General Heath, and the Five Knights' Case’, Historical Journal, 42 (1999), pp. 53–83 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Charles I: a case of mistaken identity’, Past and Present, 189 (2005), pp. 41–80 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ‘Reply’, in ‘Debate: Charles I: a case of mistaken identity’, Past and Present, 205 (2009), pp. 212–37Google Scholar; ‘Mission impossible: Charles I, Oliver Cromwell and the regicide’, English Historical Review, 125 (2010), pp. 844–74Google Scholar.
12 Mark Kishlansky, Charles I: an abbreviated life (London, 2014), pp. 26–9.
13 William B. Bidwell and Maija Jansson, eds., Proceedings in parliament, 1626 (4 vols., New Haven, CT, 1992–6), ii, p. 350.
14 Ibid., ii, pp. 248–9.
15 Ibid., ii, p. 250.
16 Morrill, John, ‘Paying one's D'Ewes’, Parliamentary History, 14 (1995), pp. 179–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For Maija Jansson's reply and Morrill's rebuttal, see ‘Dues paid’ and ‘Getting over D'Ewes’, Parliamentary History, 15 (1996), pp. 215–30Google Scholar. For another opinion about the reliability of D'Ewes, see J. Sears McGee, ‘Sir Simonds D'Ewes: a “respectable conservative” or a “fiery spirit”?’, in Charles W. A. Prior and Glenn Burgess, eds., England's wars of religion, revisited (Farnham, 2011), p. 150 n. 9. For a survey of the circumstances under which these diaries were composed and their authors, see Kyle, Theater of state, pp. 65–79.
17 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, p. 250.
18 Ibid., ii, pp. 290, 292. On this point, the diaries of Whitelocke and Nathaniel Rich support one another.
19 Bowen, Lion and the throne, pp. 443–5.
20 Thrush and Ferris, eds., House of Commons, iii, pp. 557–8.
21 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, p. 18. When Coke spoke a few days later about the controversial exclusion of his father and others from this parliament, Whitelocke recorded that ‘his passion transported him’, but it appears here that Clement was actually exercising restraint, acknowledging that if he were to speak his full mind, he would be overcome with emotion. Ibid., ii, 34. That is the interpretation of Whitelocke's diary in Thrush and Ferris, eds., House of Commons, iii, p. 558.
22 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, pp. 290, 293.
23 Thrush and Ferris, eds., House of Commons, iv, p. 153. This language comes from the entry for Sir Walter Earle, not the one for Clement.
24 Earle's ‘ambiguous role’ is discussed in ibid. See also Richard Cust, ‘Erle [Earle], Sir Walter (1586–1665)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography (ODNB).
25 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, pp. 255, 258, 262, 289, 292.
26 Ibid., ii, pp. 261–2.
27 Ibid., ii, p. 285. See also ii, pp. 278, 282, 284.
28 Ibid., ii, pp. 278, 282, 285.
29 Ibid., ii, p. 250.
30 Ibid., ii, pp. 284–5. Italics mine.
31 Ibid., ii, pp. 289, 291.
32 Ibid., ii, p. 289.
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid., ii, p. 290.
35 Ibid.
36 Ibid., ii, pp. 290, 291.
37 Ibid., ii, p. 293.
38 Ibid., ii, p. 290.
39 David H. Willson, The privy councillors in the House of Commons, 1604–1629 (Minneapolis, MN, 1940), pp. 307–8.
40 Kyle, Theater of state, p. 4.
41 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, pp. 290–1.
42 Ibid., ii, pp. 289, 292.
43 Ibid., ii, p. 289.
44 Ibid.
45 Ibid., ii, p. 292.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid., ii, pp. 289, 292.
48 Ibid., ii, p. 291.
49 Ibid., ii, pp. 291, 293.
50 Ibid., ii, p. 291.
51 Ibid., ii, p. 294.
52 Ibid., ii, pp. 391–2. See also n. 4.
53 Ibid., ii, p. 395.
54 Ibid., ii, p. 432. In fact, the committee appointed to look further into Coke's case had been scheduled to meet on 29 March when they had to attend the speeches of Lord Keeper Coventry and King Charles instead. Ibid., ii, pp. 367, 369.
55 Ibid., ii, p. 427.
56 Ibid., ii, p. 258. Toward the end of March, Joseph Mead probably reflected the public impression when he wrote that Turner and Coke were ‘both cleared’. Ibid., iv, p. 275.
57 Ibid., iv, pp. 273, 274 n. 6.
58 Robert E. Ruigh, The parliament of 1624 (Cambridge, 1971), p. 205.
59 Already in the summer of 1625, the earl of Kellie observed: ‘You can not beleive [sic] the alteratione that is in the opinione of the world tuiching his Majestie.’ Historical Manuscripts Commission, Supplementary report on the manuscripts of the earl of Mar & Kellie (London, 1930), p. 231.
60 The Booke of common prayer and administration of the sacraments, and other rites and ceremonies of the Church of England (London, 1625), sig. B1v. STC 16365.
61 David Cressy, Dangerous talk: scandalous, seditious, and treasonable speech in pre-modern England (Oxford, 2010), pp. 115–31.
62 Ibid., p. 42.
63 For the law of treason, see D. Alan Orr, Treason and the state: law, politics and ideology in the English Civil War (Cambridge, 2002), especially the introduction and chapter 1; W. S. Holdsworth, A history of English law (16 vols., 3rd edn, London, 1945), v, pp. 207–11; Theodore F. T. Plucknett, A concise history of the common law (Boston, MA, 1956), pp. 444, 488–90; Debora Shuger, Censorship and cultural sensibility: the regulation of language in Tudor–Stuart England (Philadelphia, PA, 2006), especially pp. 72–5, 80, 87–91, 96–101, 120–1; and Cressy, Dangerous talk, pp. 41–3, 115–31.
64 Manning, Roger, ‘The origins of the doctrine of sedition’, Albion, 12 (1980), pp. 99–121 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 118. See also pp. 117, 120, and 121. Clement's case adds special irony to Manning's further observation (p. 120): ‘By the end of the 1620s a reaction against Coke's doctrine of sedition had become apparent. It was one thing to use the doctrine of sedition against socially inferior persons, but when the doctrine was used against members of Parliament it came to be viewed as an instrument of tyranny.’
65 Bellany, Alastair, ‘Railing rhymes revisited: libels, scandals, and early Stuart politics’, History Compass, 5 (2007), pp. 1136–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 1151. See also Bellany, ‘The embarrassment of libels: perceptions and representations of verse libelling in early Stuart England’, in Lake and Pincus, eds., Politics of the public sphere, pp. 146–52.
66 Bellany, Alastair, ‘A poem on the archbishop's hearse: puritanism, libel, and sedition after the Hampton Court Conference’, Journal of British Studies, 34 (1995), pp. 137–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 163. See also Bellany, ‘Raylinge rymes and vaunting verse: libellous politics in early Stuart England, 1603–1628’, in Sharpe and Lake, eds., Culture and politics, pp. 285–310; and Schneider, Gary, ‘Libelous letters in Elizabethan and early Stuart England’, Modern Philology, 105 (2008), pp. 475–509 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Most recent works on libels have focused on written libels. Bellany has uncovered one example of fiddlers convicted of seditious libel in Star Chamber for libels set to song: ‘Singing libel in early Stuart England: the case of the Staines fiddlers, 1627’, Huntington Library Quarterly, 69 (2006), pp. 177–94CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The most extensive study of spoken libels is Cressy's Dangerous talk. For slander, see M. Lindsay Kaplan, The culture of slander in early modern England (Cambridge, 1997).
67 Holdsworth, History of English law, v, p. 211. Sir Edward also compared libels to poison in his discussion of ‘De Libellis Famosis’, in Fifth part of the reports… (London, 1612), fol. 125v.
68 ‘De Libellis Famosis’, in Coke, Fifth part of the reports, fol. 125r.
69 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, p. 285.
70 Thomas Birch, ed., The court and times of Charles I (2 vols., London, 1849), i, p. 101; James Orchard Halliwell, ed., The autobiography and correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes (2 vols., London, 1845), ii, p. 186.
71 A proclamation prohibiting the publishing, dispersing and reading of a declaration or remonstrance, drawen by some committees of the Commons-House of the late dissolved parliament (London, 1626). STC 8826.
72 His Majesties d[e]claration to all his loving subjects, of the causes which moved him to dissolve the last parliament (London, 1628/9), p. 41. STC 9249. Richard Cust calls this declaration ‘one of the most revealing political statements to survive from this period’. He explains that ‘Charles probably did not write it himself’, but it ‘very clearly reflected Charles's own views’. Richard Cust, Charles I: a political life (London, 2005), p. 119.
73 Curtis Perry, Literature and favoritism in early modern England (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 135–6.
74 Cust, Charles I, p. 80. See also Smith, The Stuart parliaments, p. 115.
75 David Colclough, Freedom of speech in early Stuart England (Cambridge, 2005), pp. 189–92.
76 Bellany, ‘Raylinge rymes’, p. 293; Bellany, ‘A poem on the Archbishop's hearse’, p. 163. Bellany also notes the irony of Sir Edward Coke's role.
77 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, pp. 392–3.
78 Ibid., ii, pp. 285, 294.
79 Kishlansky, Abbreviated life, p. ix.
80 Kishlansky, ‘Reply’, in ‘Debate’, p. 213.
81 Russell, Causes, p. 205.
82 L. J. Reeve, Charles I and the road to personal rule (Cambridge, 1989), p. 175.
83 Cust, Charles I, pp. 80, 466–7, 469, 474.
84 Richard Cust, ‘Charles I and popularity’, in Thomas Cogswell, Richard Cust, and Peter Lake, eds., Politics, religion and popularity in early Stuart Britain (Cambridge, 2002), pp. 236–8, 257.
85 Kishlansky, ‘Tyranny denied’, p. 83.
86 Cust, Richard, ‘Prince Charles and the second session of the 1621 parliament’, English Historical Review, 122 (2007), pp. 427–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at pp. 439–40.
87 Jonathan Scott, England's troubles: seventeenth-century English political instability in European context (Cambridge, 2000), pp. 44–5, 52, 63, 109–10.
88 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, p. 285.
89 Cressy, Dangerous talk, pp. 3–7.
90 Ibid., p. 115.
91 David Cressy, Charles I and the people of England (Oxford, 2015), pp. 308–13.
92 Scott, England's troubles, pp. 56, 59.
93 See Cromartie, Constitutionalist revolution, especially ch. 7.
94 Peltonen, Rhetoric, politics and popularity, pp. 65, 186–7, 198–209, 217, and 240–2.
95 See especially the first two chapters of Kyle, Theater of state.
96 Smith, Stuart parliaments, p. 65.
97 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, i, p. 398. Later in this same speech, Charles said, ‘I have not hitherto punished those insolent speeches against myself.’
98 Ibid., iii, p. 256. The House of Lords joined in this resolution. Ibid., iii, p. 285.
99 Ibid., iii, pp. 350–65.
100 Ibid., ii, pp. 215 n. 7, 387–9, iii, pp. 168, 170–1, 175. Thrush and Ferris, eds., House of Commons, iv, pp. 412–15.
101 With the approval of the king and Weston, the House voted to free More from the Tower on 7 June. Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, iii, pp. 384, 386.
102 Our subject is only the House of Commons. The two closest cases in the House of Lords in 1626 are not quite comparable. Charles did imprison the earl of Arundel, and he did ultimately bow to the Lords' demand that Arundel be released to take his seat in the Lords. But Arundel was arrested before parliament met, ostensibly for allowing his son to marry a woman other than the one Charles had intended for him, but more likely because of his opposition to Buckingham. He was, therefore, not singled out for words spoken in parliament or accused of sedition. The case of the earl of Bristol is somewhat closer to those in the Commons. Charles placed Bristol under house arrest prior to the meeting of parliament and attempted to charge him with treason while parliament was in session for his accusations against Buckingham. But the Lords refused to prosecute the charge of treason. After parliament was dissolved, Charles arrested Bristol, releasing him about three months later. Each man spent only about three months in the Tower, and both were loyal to Charles later, a result that supports the interpretation that temporary imprisonment was used as an effective tool by Charles. Bristol said that simply incurring the displeasure of the king was as hurtful as imprisonment. As Richard Cust explains, the primary hope of the noblemen who fell out of favour during Buckingham's ascendancy ‘was that they could now make their peace with the king and enjoy the “grace and favour” that they craved’. Richard Cust, Charles I and the aristocracy, 1625–1642 (Cambridge, 2013), pp. 46–50, 56–7, 67–72; Russell, Parliaments and English politics, pp. 287, 312–21; R. Malcolm Smuts, ‘Howard, Thomas, fourteenth earl of Arundel, fourth earl of Surrey, and first earl of Norfolk (1585–1646)’, ODNB; and David L. Smith, ‘Digby, John, first earl of Bristol (1580–1653)’, ODNB.
103 Bidwell and Jansson, eds., Proceedings, 1626, ii, p. 289.
104 J. P. Kenyon, The Stuart constitution: documents and commentary (Cambridge, 1966), pp. 51–2. For a detailed account of this case, see Reeve, Road to personal rule, pp. 118–56.
105 Cogswell, Thomas, ‘The human comedy in Westminster: The House of Commons, 1604–1629’, Journal of British Studies, 52 (2013), pp. 370–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 384.
106 Reeve, Road to personal rule, pp. 155–6. The two who remained imprisoned until 1640 were Benjamin Valentine and William Strode. The two who were among the five members Charles tried to arrest were Strode and Denzil Holles.