COVENTRY, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1628-1686), British statesman and son of Thomas, Lord Coventry, entered Queen's college, Oxford, but during the Civil War went to France where he vainly attempted to secure foreign assistance for the royalists. In 1660 he was appointed secretary to James, duke of York, lord high admiral of England, and headed the royal procession when Charles entered London in triumph. He was returned to the parliament of 1661 for Great Yarmouth, became commissioner for the navy in 1662 and in 1663 was made D.C.L. of Oxford. While his ability and energy did little to avert the naval collapse, which was due chiefly to mismanagement and ill-advised appoint ments, Coventry repudiated the charges of corruption and of re sponsibility for the Dutch War of 1665 made by the old chancellor Clarendon, and Pepys in his diary supports this repudiation. In 1665 Coventry was knighted and made a privy councillor, and was subsequently admitted to the committee on foreign affairs. His speeches in the House of Commons led to Clarendon's res ignation on Aug. 31, 1667, but two days later, he himself left the duke's service and terminated his connection with the navy. Clarendon was succeeded by the brilliant but unscrupulous and incapable duke of Buckingham, who soon brought about the ex clusion of Coventry from the cabinet council, and in 1669, his ex pulsion from the privy council and the Treasury. The real cause of his dismissal was clearly the final adoption by Charles of the policy of subservience to France and desertion of Dutch and Protestant interests. However, Coventry still retained his ascend ancy in the Commons. He retired in 1679 and died unmarried on June 23, 1686.
Coventry's writings include England's Appeal from the Private Cabal at Whitehall to the Great Council of the Nation . . . published anonymously in 1673 and reflecting his opinion on the French entanglement ; A Letter to Dr. Burnet giving an Account of Cardinal Pool's Secret Powers . . . ; and a number of papers now among the Ashburnham mss. and the Longleat mss. See A. C. Foxcrof t : Life of Geo. Saville, Marquis of Halifax (1898) ; Hist. mss. Comm. Rep. iv., v., vi. ; Clarendon's Life and Continuation (Oxford, 18S7) ; Calendar of Clarendon Papers; Wood's Athenae; and Pepys's Diary and Pepysiana (ed. Wheatley, 1903) .