in public affairs, and William had devoted himself more especially to the service of the Duke of York, whose secretary he continued to be while the duke held the office of lord high admiral (Pepys's Diary). Henry remained in the service of the crown, and in Sept. 1664 went as ambassador to Sweden, where he remained for two years, ‘accustoming himself to the northern ways of entertainment, and this grew upon him with age’ (Burnet, Hist. of his own Time, Oxford, 1823, i. 531). In 1667 he was sent, jointly with Lord Holles, as plenipotentiary to negotiate the treaty of peace with the Dutch, which, after the disgraceful summer, was finally concluded at Breda. In 1671 he was again sent on an embassy to Sweden, and on his return was appointed secretary of state. In this office he continued till 1680, when his health, which was shattered by frequent attacks of gout, compelled him to retire from public life. According to Burnet ‘he was a man of wit and heat, of spirit and candour. He never gave bad advices; but when the king followed the ill advices which others gave, he thought himself bound to excuse if not to justify them. For this the Duke of York commended him much. He said in that he was a pattern to all good subjects, since he defended all the king's counsels in public, even when he had blamed them most in private with the king himself’ (ib. loc. cit.) It is to his credit that after holding public office for nearly twenty years he had not accumulated any large fortune; and though no doubt in easy circumstances, he wrote of himself as feeling straitened by the loss of his official salary on 31 Dec. 1680. He died in London on 7 Dec. 1686. He was never married. Writing to Sir Robert Carr on 12 Sept. 1676, and regretting his inability to fulfil some promise relative to a vacant post, he said: ‘Promises are like marriages; what we tie with our tongues we cannot untie with our teeth. I have been discreet enough as to the last, but frequently a fool as to the first.’
[Collins's Peerage (5th ed. 1779), iv. 163; Clarendon State Papers, and Calendar of Clarendon State Papers (see Index); Calendars of State Papers (Domestic), 1660–7; British Museum, Add. MS. 25125: this is a collection of private letters, including several to Francis Coventry, which give some curious hints as to his peculiar troubles both in his money matters and in his family.]
COVENTRY, HENRY (d. 1752), miscellaneous writer, a native of Cambridgeshire, born about 1710, was educated at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1729, and was elected to a fellowship, proceeding M.A. in 1733. He was the author of ‘Philemon to Hydaspes, relating a conversation with Hortensius upon the subject of False Religion,’ in five parts, 1736–37–38–41–44, 8vo. Warburton accused Coventry of making unfair use of information, confidentially communicated, which was about to be published in the second volume of the ‘Divine Legation.’ A pamphlet entitled ‘Future Rewards and Punishments believed by the Antients,’ 1740, has been attributed to Coventry, who was also one of the contributors to the ‘Athenian Letters.’ He died 29 Dec. 1752. Cole, who had met him frequently in the society of Conyers Middleton and Horace Walpole, remarks: ‘He used to dress remarkably gay, with much gold lace, had a most prominent Roman nose, and was much of a gentleman.’ The five parts of ‘Philemon to Hydaspes’ were republished in one vol. 1753, by his cousin, Francis Coventry [q. v.]
[Nichols's Literary Anecdotes, iii. 43, v. 564–71, ix. 801; Cole's Athenæ; Walpole's Letters, ed. Cunningham, i. 7.]
COVENTRY, Sir JOHN (d. 1682), M.P. for Weymouth, was son of John Coventry, second son of Lord-keeper Thomas Coventry [q. v.] His mother belonged to a Somerset family named Colles. His father is described by his friend and brother-in-law the first Earl of Shaftesbury as ‘every way an extraordinary person,’ who ruined his great mental gifts by drink. The father John was first elected to the Long parliament for Evesham in 1640, and as a zealous cavalier was disabled from sitting in the House of Commons in 1645. The son John served in the royalist army, and his attachment to the crown was so well known that he was made a knight of the Bath on the coronation of Charles II in 1661. He was elected M.P. for Weymouth on 25 Jan. 1667, and though his uncles Henry and William were both in office, he at once went into opposition. In 1670 the opponents of the government proposed in parliament to levy a tax on playhouses, and in the course of the debate Coventry asked ‘whether did the king's pleasure lie among the men or the women that acted?’ The allusion was obviously intended to apply to Nell Gwyn and Moll Davies. The king's friends expressed great indignation and prepared to avenge the insult. On 21 Dec., while on his way home to his house in Suffolk Street, Coventry was taken out of his carriage by a band of ruffians, headed by Sir T. Sandys, and his nose slit to the bone. This deed caused the greatest excitement in the House of Commons, and a special act was passed (22 & 23 Car. II, c. 1)
