Sir John Coke (5 March 1563 – 8 September 1644) was an English office holder and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1621 and 1629.
Coke was the son of Richard and Mary Coke of Trusley, Derbyshire. He was educated at Westminster School and Trinity College, Cambridge. After leaving the university he entered public life as a servant of William Cecil, Lord Burghley, afterwards becoming deputy-treasurer of the navy and then a commissioner of the navy, and being specially commended for his labours on behalf of naval administration.
In 1621 Coke was elected Member of Parliament for Warwick. He was knighted in 1624. In 1624 he was elected MP for St Germans and was re-elected for the seat in 1625. In the parliament of 1625 Coke acted as a secretary of state; in this and later parliaments he introduced the royal requests for money, and defended the foreign policy of Charles I and Buckingham, and afterwards the actions of the king. His actual appointment as secretary dates from September 1625. He was elected MP for Cambridge University in 1626 and 1628. Disliked by the leaders of the popular party, his speeches in the House of Commons did not improve the king's position..
King Charles ruled without a parliament from 1628 and he found Coke's industry very useful to him. Coke kept his post until 1639, when he was scapegoated for the humiliating Pacification of Berwick with the Scots. Dismissed from office, he retired to his estate at Melbourne in Derbyshire, and then resided in London, dying at Tottenham on 8 September 1644.
Coke in his earlier years had been a defender of absolute monarchy and greatly disliked the papacy. He was described by Clarendon as "a man of very dumb education and a narrower mind"; and again he says, "his cardinal perfection was industry and his most eminent infirmity covetousness."
Coke's elder son, Sir John Coke was a Parliamentarian in the English Civil War, while his younger son Thomas Coke was a Royalist.
The Coke family continued to own Melbourne Hall until George Lewis Coke, an ambiguous figure who died childless. His sister married the family's lawyer and the Coke name was lost.
Famous quotes containing the words john and/or coke:
“Take heed of enemies reconciled, and of meat twice boiled.”
—Collected in John Ray, English Proverbs. English proverb (1670)
“One of the oddest episodes I remember was an occasion in which [Clarence] Thomas was drinking a Coke in his office, he got up from the table, at which we were working, went over to his desk to get the Coke, looked at the can and asked, “Who has put pubic hair on my coke?””
—Anita Hill (b. 1956)