William Coventry

“ Brice’s night they were “all despatched and the realm rid;” and because the matter did show “in action and rhymes” how valiantly our English women, for love of their country, behaved, the “men of Coventry” thought it might move some mirth in her majesty. “The thing,” said they, “is grounded in story, and for pastime (was) wont to be played in our city yearly without ill example of manners, papistry, or any superstition:” and they knew no cause why it was then of late laid down, “unless it was by the zeal of certain of their preachers ”

“ None but the well-to-do could enter into the ranks of [Pg 216] the drapers' craft. [461] Some of its more fortunate brethren were able to purchase estates and take rank among the county gentry. Thus John Bristowe, draper, sometime mayor and justice of the peace in Coventry, became possessed of land at Whitley; and his son William spoke of his "manor" in those parts, and frequently described himself as a "gentleman." And John, grandson of Julian Nethermill, a city dignitary of the same craft, held lands in Exhall, and had his arms blazoned among those of the great county folk. ”

“ In the early part of the fifteenth century the family entered the ranks of the country landowners by the purchase of an estate at Withybrook. Not only at Bristol, but at Southampton, the chief port of the south, where French dyes were sold, did Coventry men carry on a great part of their trade. And William Horseley, mayor in 1483 and member of the dyers' craft, brought about an agreement between the men of this port and his fellow-citizens in 1456, whereby mutual freedom of tolls was secured. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But foreigners were quick at reprisal when debts were owing to them, or any injury had been done by English merchants. And the proud traders of Lübeck and Bergen, members of the Hanseatic League, who warred with and dictated to kings, were especially sensitive in this respect. This may be seen by the fate which befell Laurence Cook, afterwards twice mayor of Coventry, in the days of his apprenticeship to William Bedforth, and Thomas Walton, servant to John Cross, another local [Pg 259] merchant, who aided in the erection of S. Mary's Hall. ”

“ This engraving is from a very curious print in Mr. Sharp’s “Dissertatien on the Pageants or Dramatic Mysteries, anciently performed at Coventry.”
[I-13,
I-14]
Coventry is distinguished in the history of the drama, because, under the title of “Ludus Coventriæ,” there exists a manuscript volume of most curious early plays, not yet printed, nor likely to be, unless there are sixty persons, at this time sufficiently concerned for our ancient literature and manners, to encourage a spirited gentleman to print a limited number of copies. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Kind and generous by nature, and judging of others by herself, she framed a thousand excuses for his negligence; and when he did condescend to write to her, answered him as though she had been unconscious of any abatement in his attentions.
Matters remained in this uncertain state for the space of three long years—at least they seemed long to Miss Coventry—when William received his licence as a preacher. He now therefore thought of redeeming a pledge he had given to the minister of his native parish, to make his first public appearance in his pulpit ”

“ You are as tawdry as Tiddy-doll. You are quite Tiddy-doll,’ &c.—Soon after the late lord Coventry occupied the house, corner of Engine-street, Piccadilly, (built by sir Henry Hunlocke, Bart., on the site of a large ancient inn, called the Greyhound;) he being annoyed with the unceasing uproar, night and day, during the fair, (the whole month of May,) procured, I know not by what means, the entire abolition of this festival of ‘misrule’ and disorder. ”

“ By the "meane of his frendes," the account goes on, he "labored vnto my lord of Warrewyk for favor and ease to be had yn the seid decree at my lordes instaunce, so that to ouer gret rebuke ne charge were not don to the seid William yn makyng therof. And theruppon the seid mair, allethough after his dimeretys, well and indifferently be hym vnderstondon, he were worthy to have made as lowly submission as cowde be thought therfore, and to have boron to the utmost of his godes besides that, and rightwesnes without mercy shold have ben don therin ”

“ So hotly, however, did the quarrel rage between them, that there were "debates, contentions, namelie killing of divers men," [98] in the streets. Doubtless, in the interests of peace, it was better that one or other of the contending parties should become predominant within the town, and force the other to consent to a compromise. The last Earl of Chester being dead, and his successors, the De Montalts, men of little mark, the chance lay with S. Mary's convent; and an enterprising prior, William of Brightwalton, was not slow to avail himself of the opportunity. ”

“ In the tracery is the Ark, Kings Solomon and Hiram, and Hiram Abiif.
The label at foot of this window reads—
"The gift of Henry William | Eaton esqre | Member | of Parliament to the | City of Coventry MDCCCLXIX."
To the initiated this window will be of special interest, the donor being a Past Warden of the Grand Lodge of Freemasons of England.
H. W. Eaton, Esqre., was first elected, in the Conservative interest, as Member of Parliament for this City, in June, 1865, upon the death of Sir Joseph Paxton; in July, same year, upon a dissolution, he was returned with Mr. Morgan Treherne ”

“ Gone, too, is the splendid conduit in the Cross Cheaping, S. Nicholas' Hall in the West Orchard, meeting-place of the Corpus Christi guild; and S. Nicholas' Church, out to the north beyond Bishop Street, which fell to ruin soon after the Reformation. But the "proud pyramidès," the "three spires," remain yet, and give greeting to all who approach Coventry, dominating the flat midland country for many a mile, changing their relative position as the spectator moves, and their colour in the shifting lights. ”

“ No doubt the side where the guild-master took his seat was sawn off, cast aside as useless on the suppression of this "superstitious" society at the Reformation. The chair bears on one side a figure of the Madonna, "the arms of Coventry surmount the back on the one side, and on the other (which was the centre in its complete state) are two lions rampant supporting a crown." [742] Several portraits line the room, those of John Hales, founder of the Free Grammar School, of Christopher Davenport, mayor of the city, and Sir Thomas White, are of great local interest ”

“ A thoroughly corrupt borough in the worst days of municipal corruption, rigidly Puritan under the Stuarts, loyal under Elizabeth, steady for hereditary right at Mary's accession—but Protestant, as witness its martyrs—Lollard in the hey-day of Lollardry, patriotic and Talbot-worshipping in the Hundred Years' War—as England was, so was Coventry. In art and letters, also, the city recalls what is most characteristic in the achievements of the English people. ”

“ It is true that the citizens, with their old supreme indifference to political party, also supplied bread and ale "to the feld of Kyng Richard," [328] and one of their number fought, we know not on which side, at Bosworth, for the accounts record that 2s. 6d. was paid by the Corpus Christi guild "towards the hurt that Thomas Maideford had in the fylde." Two years after Henry kept S. George's feast at Coventry, and also, like his predecessor, saw on S. Peter's day later on in the year (June 29) a performance of the famous mystery plays. ”

“ Henry V. seems to have been much beloved in Coventry, if we may judge by the hearty welcome given to him on his coming thither on March 21, 1421. The mayor and council ordered that £100 and a gold cup worth £10 should be presented to the King, and the same to the Queen "in suo adventu a Francia in Coventre," for those times a truly magnificent gift. The citizens never thereafter beheld the King. ”

“ After Cheylesmore and the Earl's-half became a royal manor, kings and princes very frequently visited the city; for as Coventry had by this time become an important place—already accounted the fifth city in the kingdom—its wealth was an attraction to needy kings, who desired to be on good terms with burghers who were becoming a power in the land. It was this wealth which enabled the citizens to establish their position in the reign of Edward III. and his grandson by the purchase of fuller and yet fuller charters of liberty ”

“ The tourist will show his wisdom by not going too far afield in his sight-seeing; the three churches and S. Mary's Hall will, with a passing look at many a picturesque narrow street, carved gable, or interesting relic of old Coventry, furnish him with some hours' occupation. Those, of course, who possess indomitable physical and mental energy may ascend S. Michael's spire for the view's sake, or brave a walk through the somewhat dreary environs of Coventry to the historic but commonplace-looking strip of land known as Gosford Green. ”

“ The matter of the merchant guild was only the forerunner of more serious trouble. The townspeople were rapidly growing rich, whether by soap-making, [103] or the manufacture of woollen cloth, or the entertainment of travellers, or a happy combination of all three sources of wealth. Under Edward I. they were able to pave their city, [104] which had now risen to a sufficiently important position to be accounted a borough, and to return two members to the Parliament of 1295. [105] Its prosperity attracted the notice of Edward I., who in 1303 summoned two Coventry merchants to attend a council ”

“ PULPIT, HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
Bear-baiting was highly popular likewise, and frequent gifts to Sir Fulk Greville's bearward [618] form a feature in the chamberlains' accounts in the early days of Elizabeth. Like all the great Queen's subjects the men of Coventry delighted in theatrical representations, and now that the local religious drama was dead, their [Pg 279] appreciation of the strolling players' art caused constant inroads to be made on the public purse. ”

“ Though England was rid of Suffolk, who, after his impeachment and banishment, was killed on board the Nicholas of the Tower by some political enemies, affairs in 1451 prospered no better under the guidance of Somerset and the Queen, and the whole kingdom was uneasy with foreboding of the coming strife. Doubtless the news of the good order which prevailed in Coventry, and of the great military efforts the citizens had made, reached the ears of the King, as he made a progress [Pg 116] through the Midlands in the late summer of that year. ”

“ It is fitting that the chief literary interest of Coventry should centre in a woman's name. George Eliot went to school at a house in the south-west end of Warwick Row, 1832-5. Coventry is said to be the original of Middlemarch, and S. Mary's Hall is described in the trial scene in Adam Bede.
In coming from the station down Warwick Row, as you pass the angle of Greyfriars' Green, look at the modern statue of Sir Thomas White, merchant, Lord Mayor of London in 1555, founder of S. John's College, Oxford, and benefactor of the city of Coventry. ”

“ The trees make the way through Stoneleigh a lovely one, and the village church, redolent of eighteenth century peace, with a magnificent Norman chancel arch, furnishes a fine excuse for delay. Nearer to Coventry the way winds on over Finham Bridge, shadowed by poplars, and through Stivichall, a hamlet the widow of Earl Ranulf of Chester gave to the Bishop of Lichfield for the welfare of her husband's soul. Allotment gardens and newly-built [Pg 5] streets occupy the land to the south-east of the city, formerly known as the Little Park, once part of a royal estate. ”

“ Mean streets cover the site, and of the cathedral nought remains but a few bases of clustered shafts in Priory Row and a portion of the North-West tower converted into a dwelling-place. But the outline of S. Michael's spire [131] built by the people is still the wonder of Coventry, and the guild-hall of S. Mary with its glorious roof and window has behind it five hundred years of continuous civic life.
Coventry was now a free and independent corporate borough. ”

“ Though they lacked wealth to build themselves tall and stately houses like their brethren on the Continent, the English burghers could raise tall steeples, build vast churches, adorn their common halls, and rear exquisite crosses in the market place. The fifteenth century glass in S. Mary's Hall, Coventry, still attests the skill of John Thornton, a native of the city, and one of the first acts of the council of Forty-eight was to decree that a cross should be set up in the Cheaping, which was done, though at a cost of £50. ”

“ He prevented also the hanging of men for resistance to impressment, and pointed out its illegality, since the men were not subject to martial law. While contributing thirty horse to the Scottish expedition in 1638, and lending the king £10,000 in 1639, he gave no support to the forced loan levied upon the city in the latter year. He died on the 14th of January 1640.
Lord Coventry held the great seal for nearly fifteen years, and was enabled to collect a large fortune. ”