COVENTRY, SIR JOHN (d. 1682), grandson of Thomas, Lord Keeper Coventry, was returned to the Long Parliament in 1640 as member for Evesham. During the Civil War he served for the king, and at the Restoration was knighted. In 1667, and in the following parliaments of 1678, 1679 and 1681, he was elected for Weymouth, and opposed the government. On Dec. 21, 1670, owing to his jest in the House of Commons on the subject of the king's amours, Sir Thomas Sandys and others, by the order of Monmouth, and (it was said) with the approval of the king himself, waylaid him as he was returning home and slit his nose to the bone. The outrage led to the passing of the "Coventry Act" declaring assaults accompanied by personal mutilation a felony without benefit of clergy.