COKE, Sir EDWARD, a distinguished Engligh lawyer and judge, was b. at Mileham, in Norfolk, on the 1st of Feb., 1551-52. Educated at the free grammar-school of Nor wich, and at Trinity college, Cambridge, he passed thence to Clifford's inn, and subse quently to the Inner Temple, to study law, and was called to the bar in April, 1578. His great ability, legal learning, and the tact lie exhibited in the conduct of his cases, secured him an immense practice on the very threshold of his career. In 1586, he was appointed recorder of Norwich; in 1592, recorder of London. a position he resigned the same year for the solicitor-generalship. In the following year, he was elected mem ber of parliament for the co. of Norfolk, and was chosen speaker of the house of com mons. In 1594, he was made attorney-general, an office he continued to hold until 1606, when he was appointed chief-justice of the common pleas, the duties of which position he discharged in a manner that secured for him a great reputation. Upright and inde pendent, with a high notion of the dignity and importance of his office, he did not, in an age of judicial sycophancy, hesitate to oppose any illegal encroachment by royalty. The court thought to win him, over by making him, in 1613, chief-justice of the king's bench. But here he proved equally incorrigible, maintaining, among other things, that the king had no power to stay the proceedings in a court of justice, even when his craven-hearted colleagues begged the royal pedant's pardon on their knees for ever hav ing entertained such an opinion. This was too much: C., in a few months (Nov., 1616),
was relieved from his chief-justiceship; but in no long time after, the royal favor was in some measure again extended to him. His support of liberal measures in parlia ment, however, soon brought him into trouble with the court-party, and in 1621-29, he suffered seven months' imprisonment in the Tower. In the third parliament of Charles I. (1628), C. took an active part in framing the celebrated bill of rights, and it was in a great measure owing to his advocacy that the lords were induced to agree to it. C. died 3d Sept., 1633. He is now best known for his law treatise, Coke upon Littleton, or the First Institute, a work which is still the standard one on all questions of constitu tional and municipal law in England. His other works are the Second, Third, and Fourth Institutes; The Complete Copyholder; and Reading on Fines; while his collection of law reports, which made an epoch in the history of law on their appearance, are still of great value for the profession.