William Coventry

Owing to the outbreak of the English Civil War he was forced to abandon his studies, but according to Sir John Bramston, the younger he had a good tutor,[1] and through travelling, he learned to speak the French language fluently.

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 the prospect of a restoration appeared in 1660, Coventry hurried to Breda, was appointed secretary to James, Duke of York (who was Lord High Admiral of England) and headed the royal procession when Charles II entered London in triumph.

"I perceive," writes Pepys on 23 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."

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 Treaty of Dover.

He now withdrew definitely from official life, still retaining, however, his ascendancy in the House of Commons, and leading the party which condemned and criticised the reactionary and fatal policy of the government, his credit and reputation being rather enhanced than diminished by his dismissal.

[3] In 1673 a pamphlet entitled England's appeal from the Private Cabal at Whitehall to the Great Council of the Nation by a true Lover of his Country went through five editions.

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 criticised 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, George Savile, 1st Marquess of Halifax, incurred later.

[4] 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.

In his will he ordered his funeral to be at small expense, and left £2000 to the French Protestant refugees in England, besides £3000 for the liberation of captives held by the Barbary Pirates in Algiers.

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".

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.

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.

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.