COIRE COKE. 



307 



(For farther information in regard to coins, see Standard, Mint, Money, and 

 Snliange.) 



COIRE (CAur) ; the capital of the Swiss canton 

 of the Grisons, on the rivers Plessur and Rhine, with 

 3350 inhabitants. The trade between Germany and 

 Italy is the cause of the wealth of this city. Not far 

 from Coire the Rhine begins to be navigable for 

 small vessels. This town contains several scientific 

 establishments, and a bishop's see, whose income 

 amounts to 10,000 guilders, chiefly derived from the 

 Tyrol. The secular possessions of the bishops were 

 given, hi 1802, to the Helvetic republic, as an in- 

 demnification for losses which it had suffered in other 

 quarters. Until 1498, Coire was a free imperial city, 

 but at that time came under the government of the 

 bishop, who was under the archbishop of Mentz. 

 There is a very good school here. 



COKE. See Coal. 



C ORE, Si a EDWARD, one of the most eminent Eng- 

 lish lawyers, the son of Robert Coke, esquire, of 

 Norfolk, was born in 1550. He received his early 

 education at the free school of Norwich, whence he 

 was removed to Trinity college, Cambridge. From 

 the university he went to London, and entered the 

 Inner Temple. He pleaded his first cause in 1578, 

 nnd was appointed reader of Lyon's Inn, where his 

 lectures were much frequented. His reputation and 

 practice rapidly increased, and he was placed in a 

 situation of great respectability and affluence, by a 

 marriage with a co-heiress of the Paston family. He 

 was chosen recorder of the cities of Norwich and of 

 Coventry ; was engaged in all the great causes at 

 Westminster hall, and, in the 35th year of Elizabeth, 

 chosen knight of the shire for his county, and speaker 

 of the house of commons. In 1592, he became so- 

 licitor-general, and, soon after, attorney-general ; and 

 the death of his wife, who brought him ten children, 

 gave him another opportunity of increasing his influ- 

 ence, by a marriage with the widow lady Hatton, 

 sister to the minister Burleigh. He acted the usual 

 part of a crown lawyer in all state prosecutions ; and 

 one of the most important that fell under his manage- 



ment as attorney-general, was that of the unfortunate 

 earl of Essex, which he conducted with great asper- 

 ity. Soon after the accession of James I., he was 

 knighted. The celebrated trial of Sir VV alter R aleigh 

 followed, in which Coke displayed a degree of arro- 

 gance to the court, and of rancour and insult towards 

 the prisoner, which was universally condemned at the 

 time, and has been deemed one of the greatest stain 

 upon his character, by all posterity. On the discov- 

 ery of the gunpowder plot, he obtained great credit 

 by the clearness and sagacity with which he stated 

 the evidence ; and, in 1606, he became chief justice 

 of the common pleas. In 1613, he succeeded to the 

 important office of chief justice of the court of king s 

 bench, but was in much less favour with James than 

 his rival, lord Bacon. He was, in fact, too wary and 

 staunch a lawyer to commit himself on the subject of 

 prerogative ; and as his temper was rough, and his 

 attachment to law truly professional, he could scarce- 

 ly forbear involving himself with a court so notorious 

 for arbitrary principles as was the English during the 

 reign of James. The honourable zeal which he dis- 

 played in the execrable affair of Sir Thomas Overbury 

 and in the prosecution of the king's wretched min- 

 ions, Somerset and his countess, tor that atrocious 

 murder, made him enemies; and advantage was 

 taken of a dispute, in which he erroneously engaged 

 with the court of chancery, to remove him, in 1616, 

 both from the council and his post of chief justice. 

 His real offence, however, was a refusal to favour 

 the new favourite Villiers in some pecuniary matter. 

 Coke meanly made up this breach by marrying his 

 youngest daughter, with a large fortune, to the elder 

 brother of Villiers, and was, in consequence, rein- 

 stated in the council in 1617, and actively engaged 

 in prosecutions for corruption in office, and other 

 crimes of a nature to recruit an exhausted treasury 

 by the infliction of exorbitant fines. He, however, 

 supported the privileges of the commons with great 

 tenacity ; for which, after the prorogation of parlia- 

 ment, in 1621, he was committed to the Tower. He 

 was, however, quickly liberated ; but was again ex- 

 pelled the privy council, with peculiar marks of dis- 

 pleasure on the part of James. On the accession of 

 Charles I. he was nominated sheriff of Buckingham- 

 shire, in order to prevent his being 1 chosen member 

 for the county, which, however, he represented in 

 the parliament which met in 1628. The remainder 

 of his career was highly popular ; he greatly dis- 

 tinguished himself by his speeches for redress of 

 grievances ; vindicated the right of the commons to 

 proceed against any individual, however exalted , 

 openly named Buckingham as the cause of the mis- 

 fortunes of the kingdom ; and, finally, sealed his ser- 

 vices to the popular part of the constitution, by pro- 

 posing and framing the famous " petition of rights," 

 the most explicit declaration of English liberty which 

 had then appeared. This was the last of his public 

 acts. The dissolution of parliament, which soon fol- 

 lowed, sent him into retirement, at Stoke Pogis, in 

 Buckinghamshire, where he spent the remainder of 

 his life in tranquillity. He died in Sept., 1634, in 

 the 85th year of his age, leaving behind him a nu- 

 merous posterity and a large fortune. Sir Edward 

 Coke was a great lawyer, out a great lawyer only. 

 In mere legal learning he has, perhaps, never been 

 excelled ; but he was essentially defective in the 

 merits of systematic arrangement and regard to gene- 

 ral principles, without which law is a mere collection 

 of arbitrary rules, undeserving the name of science. 

 It must be admitted, however, that his writings, and 

 especially his Commentary on Littleton's Treatise on 

 Tenures, form a vast repository of legal erudition. 

 In short, he was a man of immense professional re- 

 i search, and great sagacity and perseverance in a cho- 

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