[1] Spedding's _Bacon_. vi. 97.
[2] Hacket's _Life of Bishop Williams_, ii. 19.
[3] Rushworth (1680), part ii. vol. i. 294.
[4] _Ath. Oxon._ ii. 650.
[5] There is an adverse opinion also expressed in Pepys's _Diary_,
August 26, 1666, probably based on little real knowledge.
COVENTRY, SIR WILLIAM (c. 1628-1686), English statesman, son of the lord
keeper, Thomas, Lord Coventry, by his second wife Elizabeth Aldersley,
was born about 1628. He matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford, at the
age of fourteen. Owing to the outbreak of the Civil War he was obliged
to quit his studies, but according to Sir John Bramston "he had a good
tutor who made him a scholar, and he travelled and got the French
language in good perfection." "He was young whilst the war continued,"
wrote Clarendon, "yet he had put himself before the end of it into the
army and had the command of a foot company and shortly after travelled
into France." Here he remained till all hopes of obtaining foreign
assistance and of raising a new army had to be laid aside, when he
returned to England and kept aloof from the various royalist intrigues.
When, however, a new prospect of a restoration appeared in 1660,
Coventry hastened to Breda, 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 Restoration parliament of 1661 for Great
Yarmouth, became commissioner for the navy in May 1662 and in 1663 was
made D.C.L. at Oxford. His great talents were very soon recognized in
parliament, and his influence as an official was considerable. His
appointment was rather that of secretary to the admiralty than of
personal assistant to the duke of York,[1] and was one of large gains.
Wood states that he collected a fortune of L60,000. Accusations of
corruption in his naval administration, and especially during the Dutch
war, were brought against him, but there is nothing to show that he ever
transgressed the limits sanctioned by usage and custom in obtaining his
emoluments. Pepys in his diary invariably testifies to the excellence of
his administration and to his zeal for reform and economy. His ability
and energy, however, did little to avert the naval collapse, owing
chiefly to financial mismanagement and to the ill-advised appointments
to command. Coventry denied all responsibility for the Dutch War in
1665, which Clarendon sought to place upon his shoulders, and his
repudiation is supported by Pepys; it was, moreover, contrary to his
well-known political opinion. The war greatly increased his influence,
and shortly after the victory off Lowestoft, on the 3rd of June 1665, he
was knighted and made a privy councillor (26th of June) and was
subsequently admitted to the committee on foreign affairs. In 1667 he
was appointed to the board of treasury to effect financial reforms. "I
perceive," writes Pepys on the 23rd of August 1667, "Sir William
Coventry is the man and nothing done till he comes," and on his removal
in 1669 the duke of Albemarle, no friendly or partial critic, declares
that "nothing now would be well done." His appointment, however, came
too late to ward off the naval disaster at Chatham the same year and the
national bankruptcy in 1672.
Meanwhile Coventry's rising influence had been from the first the cause
of increasing jealousy to the old chancellor Clarendon, who especially
disliked and discouraged the younger generation. Coventry resented this
repression and thought ill of the conduct of the administration. He
became the chief mover in the successful attack made upon Clarendon, but
refused to take any part in his impeachment. Two days after Clarendon's
resignation (on the 31st of August), Coventry announced his intention of
leaving the duke's service and of terminating his connexion with the
navy.[2] As the principal agent in effecting Clarendon's fall he
naturally acquired new power and influence, and the general opinion
pointed to him as his successor as first minister of the crown. Personal
merit, patriotism and conspicuous ability, however, were poor passports
to place and power in Charles II.'s reign. Coventry retained merely his
appointment at the treasury, and the brilliant but unscrupulous and
incapable duke of Buckingham, a favourite of the king, succeeded to Lord
Clarendon. The relations between the two men soon became unfriendly.
Buckingham ridiculed Sir William's steady attention to business, and was
annoyed at his opposition to Clarendon's impeachment. Coventry rapidly
lost influence, was excluded from the cabinet council, and six months
after Clarendon's fall complains he has scarcely a friend at court.
Finally, in March 1669, Buckingham having written a play in which Sir
William was ridiculed, the latter sent him a challenge. Notice of the
challenge reached the authorities through the duke's second, and Sir
William was imprisoned in the Tower on the 3rd of March and subsequently
expelled from the privy council. He was superseded in the treasury on
the 11th of March by Buckingham's favourite, Sir Thomas Osborne,
afterwards earl of Danby and duke of Leeds, and was at last released
from the Tower on the 21st in disgrace. The real cause of his dismissal
was clearly the final adoption by Charles of the policy of subservience
to France and desertion of Holland and Protestant interests. Six weeks
before Coventry's fall, the conference between Charles, James,
Arlington, Clifford and Arundel had taken place, which resulted a year
and a half later in the disgraceful treaty of Dover. To such schemes Sir
William, with his steady hostility to France and active devotion to
Protestantism, was doubtless a formidable opponent. He now withdrew
definitely from official life, still retaining, however, his ascendancy
in the House of Commons, and leading the party which condemned and
criticized the reactionary and fatal policy of the government, his
credit and reputation being rather enhanced than diminished by his
dismissal.[3]
In 1673 was published a pamphlet which went through five editions the
same year, entitled _England's appeal from the Private Cabal at
Whitehall to the Great Council of the Nation ... by a true Lover of his
Country_, an anonymous work universally ascribed to Sir William, which
forcibly reflects his opinions on the French entanglement. In the great
matter of the Indulgence, while refusing to discuss the limits of
prerogative and liberty, he argued that the dispensing power of the
crown could not be valid during the session of parliament, and
criticized the manner of the declaration while approving its ostensible
object. He supported the Test Act, but maintained a statesmanlike
moderation amidst the tide of indignation rising against the government,
and refused to take part in the personal attacks upon ministers, drawing
upon himself the same unpopularity as his nephew Halifax incurred later.
In the same year he warmly denounced the alliance with France. During
the summer of 1674 he was again received at court. In 1675 he supported
the bill to exclude Roman Catholics from both Houses, and also the
measure to close the House of Commons to placemen; and he showed great
activity in his opposition to the French connexion, especially
stigmatizing the encouragement given by the government to the levying of
troops for the French service. In May 1677 he voted for the Dutch
alliance. Like most of his contemporaries he accepted the story of the
popish plot in 1678. Coventry several times refused the highest court
appointments, and he was not included in Sir W. Temple's new-modelled
council in April 1679. In the exclusion question he favoured at first a
policy of limitations, and on his nephew Halifax, who on his retirement
became the leader of the moderate party, he enjoined prudence and
patience, and greatly regretted the violence of the opposition which
eventually excited a reaction and ruined everything. He refused to stand
for the new parliament, and retired to his country residence at Minster
Lovell near Witney, in Oxfordshire. He died unmarried on the 23rd of
June 1686, at Somerhill near Tunbridge Wells, where he had gone to take
the waters, and was buried at Penshurst, where a monument was erected to
his memory. In his will he ordered his funeral to be at small expense,
and left L2000 to the French Protestant refugees in England, besides
L3000 for the liberation of captives in Algiers. He had shortly before
his death already paid for the liberation of sixty slaves. He was much
beloved and respected in his family circle, his nephew, Henry Savile,
alluding to him in affectionate terms as "our dearest uncle" and
"incomparable friend."
Though Sir William Coventry never filled that place in the national
administration to which his merit and exceptional ability clearly
entitled him, his public life together with his correspondence are
sufficient to distinguish him from amongst his contemporaries as a
statesman of the first rank. Lord Halifax obviously derived from his
honoured mentor those principles of government which, by means of his
own brilliant intellectual gifts, originality and imaginative insight,
gained further force and influence. Halifax owed to him his interest in
the navy and his grasp of the necessity to a country of a powerful
maritime force. He drew his antagonism to France, his religious
tolerance, wide religious views but firm Protestantism doubtless from
the same source. Sir William was the original "Trimmer." Writing to his
nephew Viscount Weymouth, while denying the authorship of _The Character
of a Trimmer_, he says:--"I have not been ashamed to own myself to be a
trimmer ... one who would sit upright and not overturn the boat by
swaying too much to either side." He shared the Trimmer's dislike of
party, urging Halifax in the exclusion contest "not to be thrust by the
opposition of his enemies into another party, but that he keep upon a
national bottom which at length will prevail." His prudence is expressed
in his "perpetual unwillingness to do things which I cannot undo." "A
singular independence of spirit, a breadth of mind which refused to be
contracted by party formulas, a sanity which was proof against the
contagion of national delirium, were equally characteristic of uncle and
nephew."[4] Sir William Coventry's conceptions of statesmanship, under
the guiding hand of his nephew, largely inspired the future revolution
settlement, and continued to be an essential condition of English
political growth and progress.
Besides the tract already mentioned Coventry was the author of _A Letter
to Dr Burnet giving an Account of Cardinal Pool's Secret Powers ..._
(1685). _The Character of a Trimmer_, often ascribed to him, is now
known to have been written by Lord Halifax. "Notes concerning the Poor,"
and an essay "concerning the decay of rents and the remedy," are among
the Malet Papers (_Hist. MSS. Comm._ Ser. 5th Rep. app. 320 (a)) and
_Add. MSS._ Brit. Mus. (cal. 1882-1887); an "Essay concerning France"
(4th Rep. app. 229 (b)) and a "Discourse on the Management of the Navy"
(230b) are among the MSS. of the marquess of Bath, also a catalogue of
his library (233(a)).
BIBLIOGRAPHY.--No adequate life of Sir William Coventry has been
written; the most satisfactory appreciation of his character and
abilities is to be found in the several passages relating to him in
the _Life of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax_, by Miss A. C.
Foxcroft (1898); see also _Hist. MSS. Comm._ 3 and 4 Rep. (Longleat
Collection), 5 Rep. (_Malet Collection_ and see Index) now in the
Brit. Mus. add. Cal. (1882-1887), Some of his papers being also at
Devonshire House; _MSS. of Marquis of Ormond_, iii. of _J. M.
Heathcote and Miscellaneous Collections_; Clarendon's _Life and
Continuation_ (Oxford, 1857); _Calendar of Clarendon Papers; Burnet's
Hist, of His Own Times_ (Oxford, 1823); _Hallam's Constitutional
Hist_. (1854), chap. xi.; John Evelyn's _Memoirs_; Pepys's _Diary_ and
_Pepysiana_ (ed. H. B. Wheatley, 1903); _Calendar of State Papers,
Domestic; Savile Correspondence_ (Camden Society, 1858, vol. lxxi.);
A. Grey's _Debates_; Sir John Bramston's _Autobiography_ (Camden Soc.,
1845); Wood's _Athenae Oxonienses_, iv. 190; _Saturday Review_ (Oct.
11, 1873). (P. C. Y.)