The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke, 1552-1634

by Catherine Drinker Bowen

Sir Edward Coke was perhaps the pre-eminent jurist during the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and King James of England. He was the prime author of the Petition of Right, so this biography is simultaneously the story of the roots of our form of free government. But the man who rose to be the Chief Justice of England was eventually dismissed from the bench in disgrace.

Genres: Biography, History, Law, Nonfiction

672 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1957

About the author

Catherine Drinker Bowen was born as Catherine Drinker on the Haverford College campus on January 1, 1897, to a prominent Quaker family. She was an accomplished violinist who studied for a musical career at the Peabody Institute and the Juilliard School of Music, but ultimately decided to become a writer. She had no formal writing education and no academic career, but became a bestselling American biographer and writer despite criticism from academics. Her earliest biographies were about musicians. Bowen did all her own research, without hiring research assistants, and sometimes took the controversial step of interviewing subjects without taking notes.

Reviews

[Frank Stein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though overlong and at times a bit tedious, there is no better book out there for giving one a sense of the political and legal battles of the late Tudor and early Stuart era in Britain.

Bowen uses the life of the famed lawyer and judge Edward Coke (pronounced "cook") to illuminate how one man, and his ideas, could help secure the people's liberties and freedoms. Coke was a light-hearted scholar of law from a young age, rarely happier than when he could dive into the Year Books of King Edward the First or the Rolls of Old England. During the later years of Queen Elizabeth's reign, however, he used this knowledge to become a ruthless Attorney General, one who attacked any hint of Catholicism or opposition to the Queen and was troubled by few scruples in doing so. His winning cases against the Earl of Essex, for his attempted rebellion, and Walter Raleigh, for supposedly taking bribes from Spain, were marred by his ad honimem attacks and inability to give any credence to his opponents. When the new King James I appointed Coke Chief Justice of the Court of the Common Pleas, and later simply as Chief Justice of England, there was little to indicate that he would be anything but what he was as a prosecutor, namely, an attack dog of the monarchy.

Yet something changed in the man. Where once he had carried water for the executive, now he saw himself as a fearless defender of the Parliament's and the people's rights. He blocked the Anglican High Commission from sentencing people without jury trials, freed people jailed under the King's prerogative proclamations, and brought an unbiased and unbowed attitude to all the cases great and small that came before him. When his uncompromising stances lead James to remove him from his bench, he joined the Parliament as again a staunch defender of people's rights against royal ukase. Through his hard work he managed to push through many grievances and bills, most importantly the Petition of Right in 1629 which defined the rights of individuals to know the charges against them and to not be jailed without trial. Finally, his Brobdingnagian "Reports" and "Institutes," finished in the last years of his life, came to define Anglo-American legal study for centuries, and his peculiar liberty-tilted tinge perhaps gave the common man more protections than the common law of the time warranted.

Bowen comes at the story with a novelist's fine eye, and Coke's story has many great moments that warrant such treatment. Coke's long-running feud with Francis Bacon, over everything from both men battling for what became Coke's second wife (Coke would come to regret that victory) to the treatment of the King's prerogative, makes for fine storytelling. Coke's maneuvering in the tight quarters of Westminster to protect his position as judge and MP are also engaging. Often, though, Bowen spends too much time on general descriptions of scenes, and the long transcripts of Coke's early cases as Attorney General don't have the same moral and historical weight as his later efforts. Still, the book allows one to enter the intricate world of 16th and 17th century politics in a way few books can, and deserves a read from anyone curious about the era, or the roots of our own civil liberties.

[Nancy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Lion and the Throne : The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke / Catherine Drinker Bowen. This biography/history, copyright 1956 and a National Book Award winner, was a wonderful respite from current society—not that evil, greed, deceit, etc. was not present in the 1500-1600s. It was reminiscent of Hilary Mantel’s novels of the earlier 16th century, which speaks to the historical truth of Mantel’s series. Coke, above all was a scholarly lawyer, who served the Crown in a variety of high offices. His participation in several famous trials and other affairs of state provides fascinating reading and, together with the insightful description of his personal life, is a window into the times. A major takeaway for me is the realization that the origins of the American Revolution are centuries deep in British history. And Coke is a very important player in the evolving development of democratic government. Bowen’s writing is splendidly fitting; moreover, her extensive research and consequent quoting from Coke et al. are magnificently presented.

[Lisa James · Rating 3 out of 5]

A LONG, & at times heavy book to get through, it chronicles the "father of the law", Sir Edward Coke, or Cooke. He was called both in the book in various quotes taken from the documents the author researched. He was a real character of the times he lived in, & one who had the privilege & frustration of serving 3 monarchs during his lifetime, QE1, James, & Charles.

[Paul Callister · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite personal flaws, Lord Coke played a key role in the ascension of law books above royal prerogative (absolute authority) in 17th-century England. He helped found modern notions of rule of law and lived at incredibly important time in the intersection of law, government and literature.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 5 out of 5]

I decided to re-read this because I enjoyed re-reading "Yankee From Olympus", Bowen's biography of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., so much.

I read this when I was in law school, over forty years ago. What surprised me, in a unpleasant way, is that as I re-read this excellent detailed biography of the great English lawyer, Sir Edward Coke, I had absolutely no memory of the book.

I know I read it, and read it closely. My copy still has my highlighting and notes from back then. Usually when I re-read, even long afterwards, I remember bits and pieces or tone or a character or scene. This time, nothing. It brought to mind the old joke, "The best thing about having Alzheimer's is that you make new friends every day."

Coke's life is exhausting. His father was a lawyer. He followed him into the law. He worked his way up the legal profession. He was also heavily involved in politics on the side of Queen Elisabeth. In 1593 the Queen appointed him the Speaker of the House for the Parliament she was calling. She was pleased with his control of the House. He was promoted several times and was eventually named Attorney General.

As Attorney General he prosecuted three of the most famous treason trial in English history. He won all three. He prosecuted the Earl of Essex, who at one point was Queen Elisabeth's closest adviser. He prosecuted Sir Walter Raleigh, on what some have argued was flimsy evidence. He prosecuted Guy Fawkes and the other conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot. All of the Defendants in all three case, except for Raleigh, were executed.

King James, who succeeded Elisabeth, named him the Chief Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He had been a fierce defender of the Crown. The King expected that he would be the same as a Judge. Coke shocked the King by promptly issuing a string of decisions limiting Royal power. He became a hero to the pro-freedom party. "The most offensive of Attorney Generals transformed into the most admired and venerated of Judges. "

Coke was the first Judge to claim the right of a court to limit the Royal power if it violated the common law. That was the foundation for the American idea of judicial review. He repeatedly ordered that cases had to be tried in the Common Law Courts and not the Royal Star Chamber or the clerical courts.

King James was outraged at what he considered Coke's treachery. He first promoted Coke to the Chief Justice of the King's Bench. Although technically a promotion, it was a position which gave Coke fewer opportunities to challenge the King. Coke objected to the promotion, but had no choice.

Coke eventually found ways in his new post to annoy the King James by challenging the idea that he had unfettered power. The King got fed up and eventually removed Coke from judicial office for his impudence.

Coke was elected to parliament in the third stage of his life. He lead the opposition to Royal rule in Parliament. King James appointed Coke Commissioner to Ireland to keep him from sitting in Parliament. Coke was 72 years old. He served in Ireland and then returned to Parliament.

In 1628, at the age of 76 ,Coke drafted the "Petition of Right" which Parliament adopted. It became one of the foundational documents for the theory of limited Government rather than unlimited Royal rule. It was frequently referenced by the American Revolutionaries.

Besides Prosecutor, Judge and Parliamentarian, Coke was one of the greatest legal authors. His book "Coke on Littleton" was the basic text for learning property law for hundreds of years. Daniel Webster, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, all learned property law by slogging through "Coke on Littleton". Coke also wrote multiple volumes of law reports and legal text.

He does not appear to have been very pleasant. Bowen reveals him as a stubborn, impatient fellow who liked to hear himself pontificate. He was famous for droning on in Latin to impress people.

He appears to have had a good first marriage with many children. His wife died young. He remarried a very wealthy aristocratic woman. Their marriage was a disaster. He was embarrassed when she publicly sued him for taking her property. She appears to have been as stubborn and difficult as he was.

Coke's daughter Anne left one of the great tombstone inscriptions; "Here lies the body of Anne, daughter of Sir Edward Coke by his first and best wife, Bridgett Paston."

Bowen won the National Book Award in 1956 for this book. It is a big well told story that clearly explains some very technical controversies. She is very good at showing the significance of these four hundred year old squabbles.

[Aaron Million · Rating 2 out of 5]

Catherine Drinker Bowen has written a book that is a mixture of biography and English history. It seems to have both parts equally, as she follows the life of Sir Edward Coke, a legal pioneer and someone whose works many later lawyers such as John Adams felt to be required reading. The pattern is vaguely reminiscent of Robert Caro's work on Lyndon Johnson: using one man's life to write about the history of a particular time. Except, for me at least, this was far less interesting.

This book is not an easy read. Full of Latin phrases (only some of them being translated) and lots of Olde English spelling, the reader can easily and repeatedly get bogged down. Bowen likes to provide many examples of contemporary writing, and she leaves the spelling intact. There are some words that are almost indecipherable because they are spelled so differently than what they are now, and there were some words that I had no idea what they really meant or if there is even a modern equivalent of. While I do understand wanting to get a flavor for the spirit in which people wrote, a little bit went a long way. And considering a majority of the pages contained either this or the Latin phrases, it made trying to get into a flow somewhat difficult.

Coke lived in the late 1500s and early 1600s and served Queen Elizabeth, King James, and finally King Charles. One of the most interesting parts of the book, to me, was how Coke and others (in the House of Commons) began to fight for certain rights and protections of everyday citizens from a hither to unchecked monarchy. Coke, mellowing as he got older, thought it wrong that someone could be jailed indefinitely solely based on a King's or Queen's wishes, without the monarch having to provide any justification for the imprisonment. As you can imagine, this type of thinking did not go over well with King James, who had Coke himself imprisoned in "the Tower" for several months. It seemed like just about everyone was being imprisoned back then for saying something that the King didn't like or somebody else didn't like. The times were truly barbaric, with people being hanged, quartered, and sometimes having their heads put up on spikes on a seemingly regular basis. Unless you were wealthy, life was not good back then.

Other interesting parts were when Bowen describes some famous trials that Coke was a part of as Attorney General. There was some crazy stuff happening back then, like a group of guys stockpiling gunpowder in the basement of Parliament, with the intention of blowing it up on its opening day. If you think nothing was going on way back then, think again because there was all kinds of plots swirling around London. This is not a bad book, but I never really got into it. And while some of the origins of our laws in the U.S. can be traced back to this time period, I did not find it particularly enlightening.

Grade: D

[Doris Raines · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LIKE THIS BOOK.

[Toni Wyatt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This well-written biography of Lord Coke is a great read. If you are interested in the law or know someone who is, this is the perfect informative read.

[Will Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yes I know this looks like a ridiculous book to read, but the only thing ridiculous is how hard it is to get the thing and how good it is. Actually it's not that hard. You can buy it on Amazon new for 170 bucks. I was working in the Law Library last summer and I came upon it in the stacks and thought it was probably the only book worth reading in the entire collection except for, of course, Gastonia 1929: the Story of the Loray Mill Strike (communists, murder, rednecks: the only book that has ever featured communists and rednecks together).
Sir Edward Coke was an extraordinary man. He pretty much upheld English common law single-handedly against the absolutist minded Stuarts. Because he fought tooth and nail we now enjoy freedom of speech, Habeous Corpus, procedure and jurisdiction and he can probably be accorded credit for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The prose is engaging and rich. The cast of characters is long and so is the important historical events that Coke was witness to and an actor in: the Spanish Armada, the Union of the Crowns, the Gunpowder Plot, the execution of Sir Walter Raleigh. the British Civil War, Sir Francis Bacon being a toady little jerk while also establishing the scientific method and creating the game "Six Degrees of Separation from Sir Francis Bacon" (not as fun as it sounds). You can easily see why it won the 1956 National Book Award, or at least I can.

[Craig Bolton]

The Lion and the Throne: The Life and Times of Sir Edward Coke : 1552-1634 by Catherine Drinker Bowen (1990)

[Rdb]

Not this edition. Read 105 of 553 pages.