Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

INTRODUCTION. lxv
Temple, where Nath. Brent writing in November, 1617, says
he still remained, sending for his diett to our tenant in Ram Alley,
described as " Goodman Gibbes, a slovenly cook." 2 In the same
year (1617) Queen Ann appointed him her justice in eyre o/
all her forests, etc., parcel of her jointure, and here he inserts in the
memorandum to which I have referred, " for 24 years from 34 Eliz :
to 14 Jac : he was attendant and assistant to the Lord's house of
Parliament and called thereto by writ." On the 27th December,
1620, he was committed to the Tower, and he adds, " his study and
chamber in the Temple were searched, and 38 MSS. and his papers
by Sir Robert Cotton and Sir Thomas Wilson taken away with
them and perused, and yet nothing could be found in any of them to
bring him into question." On the 8th August, 1622, he was
released and returned to the Temple,3 where he still remained in
November of that year. In the first year of King Charles he was
elected for Coventry, and afterwards sat for Norfolk and for Bucks.
Here the memorandum ends with these words in Coke's hand, " He
came to all his offices and places sine prece el sine prelio." During
the reign of King Charles, though he held a prominent position in
parliament and in the country as a friend of liberty and an opponent
of the royal prerogative, yet he escaped the penalty of prosecution or
imprisonment. On the 26th July, 1634, however, a warrant passed
under the sign manual of the king, authorizing Sir Francis Windebank,
the secretary of state, to seize Coke's chambers and his study,
and to carry off such of his MSS. and papers as the secretary might
think fit.4 No steps, except the sealing and locking up of Coke's
chambers in Fuller's Rents seem to have been taken towards putting
this warrant into execution until after his death, which took place
at Stoke Pogis on the 3rd September, 1634, in the eighty-eighth
year of his age. On the 4th of December, Secretary Windebank
1 "State Papers, Dom. Jac.," vol. xciv., p. 29.
2 Goodman Gibbes' unsavoury reputation seems to have been well established.
In Massinger's " A New Way to pay Old Debts," act ii., sc. 2, is the following passage :
" This term-driver Marrall—this snip of an attorney,
The knave thinks still he's at the Cook's shop in Ram Alley,
Where the clerks divide and the elder is to choose : and feeds so slovenly !"
Massinger's Plays, vol. iii., p. 530. London, 1813.
" State Papers, Dom. Jac.," vols. cxxxii., No. 97 ; cxxxiv., No. 15.
" State Papers, Dom. Car. I.," vol. cclxxii., No. 62.