Coventry married (1) Sarah, daughter of Sir Edward Sebright of Basford, Worcestershire, and (2) Elizabeth, daughter of John Aldersey of Spurstow, Cheshire, and widow of William Pitchford. By his first wife he had a son, Thomas, and a daughter, Elizabeth. Thomas succeeded him as second Baron Coventry; married (2 April 1627) Mary (d. 18 Oct. 1634), daughter of Sir William Craven; executed the commission of array in Worcestershire in 1640; signed the engagement with the king at York in 1642; died 27 Oct. 1661, and left two sons, of whom the younger, Thomas, was created earl of Coventry on 26 April 1697. By his second wife he had four sons (John, father of Sir John Coventry [q. v.], Francis, Henry [q. v.], and William [q. v.]) and four daughters (Anne, wife of Sir William Savile, and mother of George Savile, marquis of Halifax; Mary, wife of Henry Frederick Thynne of Longleat, Wiltshire; Margaret, first wife of Anthony Ashley Cooper, first earl of Shaftesbury [q. v.]; and Dorothy, wife of Sir John Pakington).
A portrait by ‘Old Stone’ belonged to Sir William Coventry (Pepys, ii. 404), which is probably identical with the existing picture belonging to the Earl of Coventry at Croome Court, Worcestershire; another, by Jansen, belonged to Edward Hyde, earl of Clarendon, and is now at Grove Park, Watford. Five engraved portraits (by Droeshout, Elstracke, Houbraken, Martin, and Vandergucht) are known.
[Foss's Judges, vi. 277; Gardiner's History of England, ii.–ix.; Forster's Sir John Eliot; Clarendon's Hist. bk. i. 45, 131; Liber Famelicus of Sir James Whitelocke (Camd. Soc.); Granger's Hist. ii. 218; Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), ii. 650–2; Fuller's Worthies; Lloyd's Worthies; Foster's Peerage; Lady Theresa Lewis's Clarendon Gallery, iii. 341–2; Cal. State Papers (Dom.), 1616–1639.]
COVENTRY, WALTER of (fl. 1293?), historical compiler, gives his name to a volume of historical collections, entitled 'Memoriale Fratris Walteri de Coventria,' written soon after 1293. Nothing more is known about him. It is, of course, probable that he was a native of Coventry, and it has been conjectured from some slight indications in the 'Memoriale' that he was a monk of York. A manuscript in the Bodleian Library (355), entitled 'Walteri Coventrensis Chronicon,' has been wrongly ascribed to him; it is in a late hand (Hardy); nor does it appear that the Cottonian MS. (Vitell. D. v.) entitled 'Gualteri Conventriensis Historia,'and now destroyed, should have borne his name (Stubbs). 'The first part of the 'Memoriale' is of no historical value; the second part, which deals with the history of England from 1002 to 1225, is an abridgment and 'compilation from a compilation' from Florence. Henry of Huntingdon, and Roger of Hoveden, with a continuation derived from the 'Barnwell Chronicle,' which comprises the annals of the reign of John, and is of great value. This part of the work has been published in a mutilated form in the 'Recueil des Historiens' (Bouquet, xviii. 164), as a continuation of Hoveden; it was first edited in its entirety by Bishop Stubbs for the Rolls Series.
[All that is known of Walter of Coventry, and all that has been written about him and the Memoriale, will be found in the preface to his Historical Collections, ed. by W. Stubbs, bishop of Chester, in the Rolls Ser.; Hardy's Descriptive Cat. pp. 43, 70.]
COVENTRY, Sir WILLIAM (1628?–1686), politician, born about 1628, was fourth son of Thomas, lord Coventry [q. v.], by his second wife, Elizabeth Aldersey. He became a gentleman-commoner of Queen's College, Oxford, in 1642, but left the university without taking a degree. ‘He was young,’ writes Clarendon in his autobiography (1759, ii. 348), ‘whilst the war continued; yet he had put himself before the end of it into the army, and had the command of a foot company, and shortly after travelled into France, where he remained whilst there was any hope of getting another army for the king, or that either of the other crowns would engage in his quarrel. But when all thoughts of that were desperate, he returned into England, where he remained for many years without the least correspondence with any of his friends beyond the seas.’ On 22 June 1652 Hyde wrote to Secretary Nicholas that Coventry ‘had good parts, but was void of religion.’ Just before the Restoration he went to the Hague and visited the royal princes, to whom he was already personally known (1660). To James, duke of York, he offered his services, and he was straightway appointed the duke's private secretary. On returning to England he was elected to the parliament which met in May 1661 as M.P. for Great Yarmouth, and when the Duke of York became general-at-sea, Coventry was largely concerned in the administration of the navy, and in 1662 was appointed a commissioner at 300l. a year. He thus came into business relations with Pepys, who quickly became warmly attached to him, and Coventry is continually mentioned in the ‘Diary.’ Reports were soon disseminated that Coventry was ‘feathering his nest’ by a sale of offices, and quarrels with his fellow-
