Background
Coventry was son of John Coventry (died 1652), the second son of lord keeper Thomas Coventry of Croome Park, Worcestershire.
Coventry was son of John Coventry (died 1652), the second son of lord keeper Thomas Coventry of Croome Park, Worcestershire.
The Queen"s College.
Between 1655 and 1659, he travelled on the continent with his tutor the poet Edward Sherburne. He matriculated at Queen"s College, Oxford in 1660 and was made a Knight of the Bath at the coronation of Charles II, the following year. That year and in the following parliaments of 1678, 1679 and 1681, he was elected for Weymouth.
On 21 December 1670, owing to a jest made by Coventry in the House of Commons on the subject of the King"s amours, Sir Thomas Sandys, an officer of the guards, with other accomplices, by the order of Monmouth, and (it was said) with the approval of the king himself, waylaid him as he was returning home to Suffolk Street and slit his nose to the bone.
The outrage created an extraordinary sensation in the Commons, and in consequence Parliament debated a bill ‘to prevent malicious maiming and wounding’ (22 & 23 Chas II, c1), a measure known as the "Coventry Acting" was passed, declaring assaults accompanied by personal mutilation a felony without benefit of clergy, an Acting not repealed until 1828. The character of Amnon in John Dryden"s Absalom and Achitophel (1681) is thought to be based on him.
He was suspected of having become a Roman Catholic while abroad in the 1650s and evidently was when he made his will in 1667.
He followed Lord Ashley in politics, and was a fairly active member. However during the Exclusion Crisis, he sided with the party seeking the exclusion of the Duke of York from the king"s presence.
Cavalier Parliament; Exclusion Bill Parliament. Habeas Corpus Parliament.