COICE, kok, Silt Edward, English jurist: b. Mileham, Norfolk, 1 Feb. 1552; d. Stoke Pogis, 3 Sept. 1634. He yvas educated at Trin ity College, Cambridge. From the university he went to London and entered the Inner Temple. He pleaded his first cause in 1578 and the fol lowing year was appointed reader of Lyon's Inn, where his lectures were much frequented. His reputation and practice rapidly increased and he was placed in a situation of great respecta bility and affluence by a marriage with a co heiress of the Paston family. He was chosen recorder of the cities of Norwich and of Cov entry; was engaged in all the great causes at Westminster Hall and in 1592 chosen one of the knights of the shire for his county and speaker of the House of Commons. In 1592 he became solicitor-general and soon afterward was appointed attorney-general. He acted the usual part of a Crown lawyer in all state prose cutions; and one of the most important that fell under his management, as attorney-general, was that of Essex, which he conducted with great asperity. Soon after the accession of James I he was knighted. The celebrated trial of Sir Walter Raleigh followed, in which Coke displayed a degree of arrogance to the court and of rancor and insult toward the prisoner, which was universally condemned at the time, and is one of the greatest stains upon his char acter. On the discovery of the gunpowder plot he obtained great credit by the clearness and sagacity with which he stated the evidence. In 1606 he was appointed chief justice of the Common Pleas; and in 1613 became chief jus tice of the Court of King's Bench, but was in much less favor with James than his rival, Lord Bacon. He was, in fact, too wary and staunch a lawyer to commit himself on the subject of the prerogative; and as his temper was rough and his attachment to law truly professional, he could scarcely forbear involving himself with a court so notorious for arbitrary principles as was the English during the reign of James. The
honorable zeal which he displayed in the ex ecrable affair of Sir Thomas Overbury and in the prosecution of the king's wretched minions, Somerset and his countess, for that atrocious murder, made him enemies; and advantage was taken of a dispute in which he erroneously en gaged with the Court of Chancery, to remove him, in 1616, both /from the council and his post of chief justice. His real offense, how- • ever, was a refusal to favor the new favorite, Villiers, in some pecuniary matter. Coke was recalled to the council in 1617 and actively en gaged in prosecutions for corruption in office and for offenses the punishment of which by exorbitant fines wa, designed as a means of replenishing an exhausted treasury. On the accession of Charles I he was nominated sheriff of Bucicinghamshire, in order to prevent his being chosen member for the county, which, however, he represented in the Parliament which met in 1628. The remainder of his career was distinguished by his defense of the law against the attacks of the royal prerogative; he greatly distinguished himself by his speeches for re dress of grievances; vindicated the right of the Commons to proceed against any individual, however exalted; openly named Buckingham as the cause of the misfortunes of the kingdom; and, finally sealed his services to the cause by proposing and framing the famous °Petition of Rights,* the most explicit declaration of Eng lish liberty which had up till that time appeared. This was the last of his public acts. His principal works are 'Reports,' from 1600 to 1615; 'A Book of Entries> (1614) ; 'Institutes of the Laws of England,' in four parts; the first of which contains the commentary on Lit tleton's 'Tenures' ; the second, a commentary on Magna Charta and other statutes; the third, the criminal laws or pleas of the Crown; the fourth, an account of the jurisdiction of all the courts in the kingdom; 'A Treatise of Bail and Mainprise> (1636).