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to inform him that he would be allowed "eight of the best learned in the law to advise him for his cause," Coke, while thanking the King, sent for answer, "that he knew himself to be accounted to have as much skill in the law as any man in England, and therefore needed no such help, nor feared to be judged by the law." The real crime was, objecting to the illegal and arbitrary imposition of ship-money. It is said he owed the loss of his place to Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.

In 1616, we find Coke, at the age of 67, intriguing to be restored to the favor of the Court, and conspiring with Secretary Winwood against Chancellor Bacon, who had so long stood in his way. About the same time, he was involved in difficulty with his wife, Lady Hatton, in regard to the marriage of their daughter. It appears that Coke, in order to recover his interest at court, proposed to marry his daughter to Buckingham, then a royal favorite, and that, too, without consulting either mother or daughter. The opposition he encountered was to have been expected, and the whole affair places him in a very unfavorable light.

Lady Hatton carried off and secreted the daughter-Lord Coke, having discovered the place of her retreat, proceeded to the place and carried her away by force, he and his sons breaking through several doors, in order to obtain her. Lady Hatton complained to the privy council. But not long afterward a reconciliation was effected. This quarrel gave rise on the part of Coke's enemies. to many sarcastic observations. Thus it was said of him:

"Cum pari certare dubium; cum rege stultum ;
Cum puero clamór; cum muliere pudor."

Coke parted with a large portion of his estate for the endowment of his daughter, but did not thereby succeed in the accomplishment of his main object. Lady Hatton finally withdrew her opposition, and the marriage took place.

Coke's public life was not yet terminated, for though deprived of the Chief-Justiceship, he was again elected to the House of Commons; in which body he of course occupied a very high position.

In the trial of Chancellor Bacon, Coke was one of the ac

cusers. But he appears to have refrained from taking a very prominent part in the prosecution, actuated, as is supposed, by feelings of forbearance towards his old and talented, though fallen competitor.

A parliament was summoned to meet on the 12th of February, 1624. Coke was returned to it from Coventry, of which city he still continued Recorder. About this time, having exposed himself to the vengeance of the King, having been, as a menber of parliament, one of those who were alluded to in the royal proclamation, as ill-tempered spirits" who had "sowed tares among the corn," he was, in company with Sir Robert Phillips, arrested and committed to the tower. He was about seventy-five years of age when this outrage was committed. The severity of the proceeding was somewhat mitigated by the consideration shown him in searching among his papers; special instruction having been given not to interfere with his valuable private papers. His imprisonment appears to have been of short duration; its object being to search for documents of a political character.

In 1624, Coke represented the House of Commons in the impeachment of the Earl of Middlesex. The Earl was defended by the King, but he was nevertheless convicted.

At the age of seventy-five, Coke was now leading in the work of parliamentary reform, and withstanding the encroachments of the crown, with all the vigor of his earlier years. In the first parliament of Charles I., we find him maintaining the struggle in which he had been so prominent in preceding parliaments. A specimen of this resistance to the royal prerogative, may be given:

On the 10th of April, 1627, the King sent a message to the House of Commons, desiring the members, in order to expedite the public business, not to make any recess as usual during the Easter holidays. Coke spoke of the King's message with dissatisfaction:

"I am as tender" said he, "of the privileges of this House as of my life, for they are the heart-strings of the commonwealth. The King makes a prorogation, but this House adjourns itself; the commission of adjournment we never read, but say, "This

House adjourns itself.""-(Parl. Hist. vol. 7, p. 436.)

The malice of his enemies pursued Coke in his old age. While yet on his death bed, Sir Francis Windebank came to his house at Stoke, by virtue of an order from the Privy Council, in search of certain seditious papers-at least such was the pretense. In his search for these papers he seized and carried away Coke's will, his life of Judge Littleton in his own handwriting, his commentary upon Littleton's Book of Tenures, and upon Magna Charta, Pleas of the Crown, and Jurisdiction of Courts, besides fifty-one other manuscripts. Seven years afterward, upon the motion of Sir Edward Coke's son, the King was requested by the House of Commons to restore these valuable papers to his family. His will was never recovered, but the remainder were, in consequence of this address, principally returned.

Coke had for a neighbor in his old age, the great Hampden, who made so successfully the resistance to ship-money.

Sir Edward Coke died on the 3d of September, 1633, in the eighty-third year of his age. He was a very remarkable man, of a most pronounced character. He has been called the glory of the English law.

His faults, which were very serious, were of a political and re-. ligious character. Though in middle life and in his old age he was a strenuous advocate of the rights of the people as represented in parliament, and. fought nobly against the encroachments of the royal prerogative, in earlier life he pandered to the arrogance and cruelty of the crown, and prosecuted patriots without the slightest compunction.

So, too, as an advocate of protestantism-as defender of the royal faith, he could write letters and treatises upon the burning of catholics, without the slightest sign of disapprobation. Though great in some respects, he was not sufficiently great to free himself from the shackles of religious bigotry.

But Sir Edward Coke was never accused or even suspected of bribery or corruption. No orphan denounced him--no widow execrated his name for a betrayal of trust. He had the reputation, not only of being the greatest jurist of his age, but of acting uprightly and fearlessly in the administration of justice.

COKE'S REPORTS IN VERSE.

The following are some of the attempts which have been made to reduce the reports of each case to a verse of two lines: HUBBARD. If lord impose excessive fine, The tenant safely payment may decline.

4 Rep. 27.

[blocks in formation]

Here, also, is a rendering in verse of Coke's Littleton, sec. 1: "Tenant in fee simple, is he which hath lands or tenements to hold to him and his heirs for ever," etc.

Tenant in fee
Simple, is he,

And need neither quake or quiver,

Who hath his lands,

Free from demands,

For him and his heirs forever.

JOSEPH STORY.

AN ADDITIONAL WORD.

Of all those who have honored the legal profession, no one has more truly honored woman than Judge Joseph Story. Hence, as a woman, I would like to add a few words to the biographical sketch of him found in the January number of the CHICAGO LAW TIMES.

Josiah Quincy in some reminiscences of him (Figures of the Past), said he felt safe in saying that Judge Story was above the prominent men of his day in the adoption of views respecting women very similar to those afterward proclaimed by Mr. Mill. He would not admit that sex or temperament assigned them an inferior part in the intellectual development of the race. It was all a matter of training. Give them opportunities of physical and mental education equal to those enjoyed by men, and there was nothing to disqualify them from attaining an equal success in any field of mental effort. This was the conclusion Mr. Quincy gained from an inimitable stage-coach conversation which passed between Judge Story and himself, while journeying from Boston to Washington, in January, 1826.

Mr. Quincy's acquaintance with him had begun when, as an undergraduate, he had dined with him in Salem, Mass., during a visit to that town. He was then fascinated with the brilliancy of his conversation. Now, as at the "base of the profession which Judge Story adorned," he regarded him with peculiar reverence, and felt highly honored to be invited to join him on his annual journey to Washington, where, as Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court, he spent the winter months.

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