them not to enter on any new business that might bring scandal to the state or its members, which meant not to discuss the conduct of Buckingham. This second message led to one of the most dramatic episodes in the history of parliament. Eliot, alluding, though not by name, to Buckingham, was stopped by the speaker. It was felt to be a supreme moment in the struggle for liberty of speech. Digges, Rich, Pym, and lastly Coke himself, attempted to speak, but were overcome with tears. The whole house was in confusion, the greater part weeping, the others, as we are told, blaming those that wept. Some signs of wavering restored courage ; the house went into committee to consider as to the safety of the kingdom, and the door was locked so that no man might leave. After others had referred in general terms to the ill-advisers of the king, Coke rose and spoke what was in every one's mind. He recalled how previous parliaments had dealt plainly with dangerous ministers, and declared that they themselves had been over-patient ; ' and, therefore, he not knowing whether ever he should speak in this house again would now do it freely, and there protested that the author and cause of all those miseries was the Duke of Buckingham; which was entertained and answered,' says a reporter of the scene, 'with a chearful acclamation of the house; as when one good hound recovers the scent the rest come in with a full cry, so they pursued it, and every one came on home, and laid the blame where they thought the fault was' (Letter of Alured in Rushworth, i. 609). This was Coke's last great speech in parliament. His name appears in connection with the presentation of the remonstrance and with financial bills, but it is absent from the records of the next session.
The height of Coke's legal fame has overshadowed his other claims to greatness. It is often forgotten how largely in the great struggle against personal government his courage and the extraordinary weight of his influence contributed to the final result. He had certainly many grave defects. It was a liberty of a restricted kind for which he fought, and in more placid times he would have been distinguished as a stout defender of authority. In matters of religion he was the most intolerant of men, regarding all forms of laxity as the chief of political dangers. During the debate on Dr. Montague's book in 1625, he expressed a wish that 'no man may put out any book of divinity not allowed by convocation ' (Com. Journ. i. 809); while he represented in its most exaggerated form the prevailing dread of the growth of popery. He has been charged very justly with other forms of narrowness ; with a want of generosity to his opponents, and of breadth of view in his treatment of public questions. Of originality in his political ideas there is no trace ; and he probably despised the vast political schemes of Bacon as much as he did the 'Novum Organum.' Yet his fanatical narrowness may well be considered to have been of as much service as would have been a temperate wisdom. The key to his whole life is his veneration for the law, for its technicalities as well as I for its substance, and the belief that on its 'rigorous maintenance and the following of precedents depended the liberties of England. Possessed with this one idea he exercised a great and beneficial restraint on two of the most dangerous and unwise of English kings. He has been accused of inconsistency ; but in reality no man's life was more of a piece. The same spirit which he showed in requiring the king's assent ' in a parliamentary way ' is evident in his conduct in the case of commendams, and even in his violence at the bar. To his unity of purpose and to his intense earnestness, as well as to the reputation which he bore of boundless legal learning, we can trace the influence which he exerted over his contemporaries. From the fragments of his parliamentary speeches which survive, we can still understand how, with all their grim pedantry, they stirred the blood of those who listened to them.
Coke's remaining years were spent at Stoke, among his 'much honoured allies and friends of Buckingham,' as he says in the preface to his 'Institutes.' We have few facts of his life during these years. In 1630 one Jeffes was convicted of libelling him, having affirmed his judgment in the case of Magdalen College ' to be treason, and calling him therein "traitor, perjured judge," and scandalising all the professors of the law.' We hear of him again in 1631. A friend, learning that he was in ill-health, sent him ' two or three doctors ; ' but he told them that ' he had never taken physic since he was born, and would not now begin ; and that he had now upon him a disease which all the drugges of Asia, the gold of Africa, nor all the doctors of Europe could cure old age. He therefore both thanked them and his friend that sent them, and dismissed them nobly with a reward of twenty pieces to each man.'
Coke died at Stoke Pogis, 3 Sept. 1634, and was buried at Tittleshall in Norfolk, where his epitaph records in English the chief facts of his life, and in Latin his virtues and genius. 'His parts were admirable,' says Fuller ; 'he had a deep judgment, faithful memory, active fancy; and the jewel of his mind was put into a fair case, a beautiful body, with a
