X. CHAP. anxious about the personal favour of the sovereign, and he considered it among the felicities of his lot that he had obtained his preferments nec precibus, nec pretio. Notwithstanding his independence, King James had an excellent opinion of him, and, having failed in his attempts to disgrace him, used to say, "Whatever way that man falls, he is sure to alight on his legs." His habits and manners. Contempo rary testi monies in Sir Edward Coke was a handsome man, and was very neat in his dress, as we are quaintly informed by Lloyd:"The jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a beautiful body with comely countenance; a case which he did wipe and keep clean, delighting in good clothes, well worn; being wont to say that the outward neatness of our bodies might be a monitor of purity to our souls.”* "The neatness of outward apparel," he himself used to say, "reminds us that all ought to be clean within."+ The only amusement in which he indulged was a game of bowls; but, for the sake of his health, he took daily exercise either in walking or riding, and, till turned of eighty, he never had known any illness except one slight touch of the gout. His temper appears to have been bad, and he gave much offence by the arrogance of his manners. He was unhis favour. amiable in domestic life; and the wonder rather is, that Lady Hatton agreed to marry him, than that she refused to live with him. Nor does he seem to have formed a friendship with any of his contemporaries. Yet they speak of him with respect, if not with fondness. "He was," said Spelman, "the founder of our legal storehouse, and, which his rivals must confess, though their spleen should burst by reason of it, the head of our jurisprudence." Camden declared that " he had highly obliged both his own age and posterity;"§ and Fuller prophesied that he would be admired "while Fame has a trumpet left her, and any breath to blow therein." || Modern writers have treated him harshly. For example, * Worthies, ii. 297. There are many portraits and old engravings of him extant, almost all and exhibiting features which, accordindicate high genius. § Britannia, Iceni, p. 351. CHAP. X. Hallam. Hallam, after saying truly that he was "proud and overbearing," describes him as "a flatterer and tool of the Court till he had obtained his ends."* But he does not seem at He is unall to have mixed in politics till, at the request of Burleigh, justly censured by he consented to become a law officer of the Crown; and although, in that capacity, he unduly stretched the prerogative, he at no time betrayed any symptom of sycophancy or subserviency. From the moment when he was placed on the bench, his public conduct was irreproachable. Our Constitutional Historian is subsequently obliged to confess that "he became the strenuous asserter of liberty on the principles of those ancient laws which no one was admitted to know so well as himself; redeeming, in an intrepid and patriotic old age, the faults which we cannot avoid perceiving in his earlier life." In estimating the merit of his independent career, which led to his fall and to his exclusion from office for the rest of his days, we are apt not sufficiently to recollect the situation of a "disgraced courtier" in the reign of James I. Nowadays, a political leader often enhances his consequence by going into opposition, and sometimes enjoys more than ever the personal favour of the sovereign. But, in the beginning of the 17th century, any one who had held high office, if forbidden "to come within the verge of the Court - whether under a judicial sentence or not, was supposed to have a stain affixed to his character, and he and those connected with him were shunned by all who had any hope of rising in the world. would you have been Bacon? Most men, I am afraid, would rather have been Bacon than Whether Coke. The superior rank of the office of Chancellor, and the titles of Baron and Viscount, would now go for little in the Coke or comparison; but the intellectual and the noble-minded must be in danger of being captivated too much by Bacon's stupendous genius and his brilliant European reputation, while his amiable qualities win their way to the heart. Coke, on the contrary, appears as a deep but narrow-minded lawyer, knowing hardly anything beyond the wearisome and crabbed learning of his own craft, famous only in his own country, and repelling all friendship or attachment by his harsh man† Ib. 476. *Const. Hist. i. 455. CHAP. X. Part taken by Lady Hatton in the civil war. Coke's descendants. ners. Yet, when we come to apply the test of moral worth and upright conduct, Coke ought, beyond all question, to be preferred. He never betrayed a friend, or truckled to an enemy. He never tampered with the integrity of judges, or himself took a bribe. When he had risen to influence, he exerted it strenuously in support of the laws and liberties of his country, instead of being the advocate of every abuse and the abettor of despotic sway. When he lost his high office, he did not retire from public life "with wasted spirits and an oppressed mind," overwhelmed by the consciousness of guilt,-but, bold, energetic, and uncompromising, from the lofty feeling of integrity, he placed himself at the head of that band of patriots to whom we are mainly indebted for the free institutions which we now enjoy. Lady Hatton, his second wife, survived him many years. On his death she took possession of the house at Stoke Pogis, and there she was residing when the civil war broke out. Having strenuously supported the Parliament against the King, when Prince Rupert approached her with a military force she fled, leaving behind her a letter addressed to him, in which, having politely said "I am most heartily sorry to fly from this dwelling, when I hear your Excellency is coming so near it, which, however, with all in and about it, is most willingly exposed to your pleasure and accommodation," she gives him this caution: "The Parliament is the only firm foundation of the greatest establishment the King or his posterity can wish and attain, and therefore, if you should persist in the unhappiness to support any advice to break the Parliament upon any pretence whatsoever, you shall concur to destroy the best groundwork for his Majesty's prosperity.' Sir Edward Coke, by his first wife, had seven sons, but none of them gained any distinction except Clement, the sixth, who, being a member of the House of Commons at * British Museum. Stoke Pogis House, so memorable in our legal annals, one of the places of confinement of Charles I. when in the power of the Parliament, and celebrated by Gray in his "Long Story," having passed from the Gayers, the Halseys, and the Penns, is now the property of my valued friend and colleague, the Right Honourable Henry Labouchere. A column has been erected in the park to the memory of Sir Edward Coke; but there is no other vestige in the parish of his existence, and there are no traditional stories concerning him in the neighbourhood. the beginning of the reign of Charles I., in the debate upon CHAP. the impeachment of the Duke of Buckingham, had the courage to use these words: "It is better to die by an enemy Feb. 1627. than to suffer at home:" for which there came a message of complaint from the Crown, and he would have been sent to the Tower*, but for the great respect for the ex-Chief Justice, who was sitting by his side, and disdained to make any apology for him. Roger Coke, a grandson of the Chief Justice, in the year 1660 published a book entitled "Justice Vindicated," which, although without literary merit, contains many curious anecdotes of the times in which the author lived. In 1747, Thomas Coke, the lineal heir of the Chief Justice, was raised to the peerage by the titles of Viscount Coke and Earl of Leicester; but on his death the male line became extinct. The family was represented, through a female, by the late Thomas Coke, Esq., who, inheriting the Chief Justice's estates and love of liberty, after representing the county of Norfolk in the House of Commons for half a century, was, in 1837, created Viscount Coke and Earl of Leicester, titles now enjoyed by his son. Holkham I hope may long prove an illustration of the saying of the venerable ancestor of this branch of the Cokes, that "the blessing of Heaven specially descends on the posterity of a great lawyer." * 2 Parl. Hist. 50. CHAPTER XI. LIVES OF THE CHIEF JUSTICES FROM THE DEMISE OF SIR EDWARD CHAP. A. D. 1616. To lessen the odium of Sir Edward Coke's violent removal from the office of Chief Justice of the King's Bench, there was selected as his successor a man who was very inferior to Sir Henry him in learning and ability, but who was generally popular, Montagu. and who was capable of performing the part with decent credit. It used to be said of him, "He is perfectly qualified to be a Fellow of All Souls; for if mediocriter doctus, he is bene natus and bene vestitus." Not only was he remarkable for being well born, and dressing genteelly, but he was very good-looking, he had sprightly parts, and his manners were delightful. Though idly inclined, he was capable of occasional application; and all that he had acquired he could turn to the best advantage. In morals he was accommodating; but he would do nothing grossly dishonourable. This was a man to get on in the world and to avoid reverses of fortune, much better than the possessor of original genius, profound knowledge, and unbending integrity. His family. SIR HENRY MONTAGU, the subject of the following sketch, who added fresh splendour to an illustrious line, was the grandson of Sir Edward Montagu, whom I have commemorated as making a distinguished figure in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Mary; being a younger son of the eldest son of that Chief Justice. He was born in his father's castle of Boughton, in Northamptonshire, about the middle of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. While yet a baby, a wizard, on examining the palm of his right hand, foretold that he would be "the greatest of the Montagus." This was, then, believed to be a true prophecy; but was interpreted by the supposition that his elder brothers would all die in |