of the constitutional party. It was he who proposed a
remonstrance against the growth of popery and the marriage of Prince
Charles to the infanta of Spain, and who led the Commons in the decisive
step of entering on the journal of the House the famous petition of the
18th of December 1621, insisting on the freedom of parliamentary
discussion, and the liberty of speech of every individual member. In
consequence, together with Pym and Sir Robert Philips, he was thrown
into confinement; and, when in the August of the next year he was
released, he was commanded to remain in his house at Stoke Poges during
his Majesty's pleasure. Of the first and second parliaments of Charles
I. Coke was again a member. From the second he was excluded by being
appointed sheriff of Buckinghamshire. In 1628 he was at once returned
for both Buckinghamshire and Suffolk, and he took his seat for the
former county. After rendering other valuable support to the popular
cause, he took a most important part in drawing up the great Petition of
Right. The last act of his public career was to bewail with tears the
ruin which he declared the duke of Buckingham was bringing upon the
country. At the close of the session he retired into private life; and
the six years that remained to him were spent in revising and improving
the works upon which, at least as much as upon his public career, his
fame now rests. He died at Stoke Poges on the 3rd of September 1634.

Coke published _Institutes_ (1628), of which the first is also known as
_Coke upon Littleton_; _Reports_ (1600-1615), in thirteen parts; _A
Treatise of Bail and Mainprize_ (1635); _The Complete Copyholder_
(1630); _A Reading on Fines and Recoveries_ (1684).

See Johnson, _Life of Sir Edward Coke_ (1837); H. W. Woolrych, _The
Life of Sir Edward Coke_ (1826); Foss, _Lives of the Judges_;
Campbell, _Lives of the Chief Justices_; also ENGLISH LAW.

COKE, SIR JOHN (1563-1644), English politician, was born on the 5th of
March 1563, and was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. After
leaving the university he entered public life as a servant of William
Cecil, Lord Burghley, afterwards becoming deputy-treasurer of the navy
and then a commissioner of the navy, and being specially commended for
his labours on behalf of naval administration. He became member of
parliament for Warwick in 1621 and was knighted in 1624, afterwards
representing the university of Cambridge. In the parliament of 1625