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Clement Coke was not an important person. He did not merit an entry in the Oxford dictionary of national biography. He was not even mentioned by name in the entry for his illustrious father, Sir Edward Coke, the legal scholar, jurist, and prominent parliamentarian in the early Stuart period. Clement was Sir Edward's youngest son. From the very little we know about Clement, he appears to have lived in the shadow of his famous father. He may have wished to follow in his father's footsteps but lacked the talent to do so. Although he studied the law, he never practised it. He died in 1630 without having accomplished anything of note, and one can sense the disappointment of his father in the inscription placed on Clement's tomb: 'Being a Fellow of the Inner Temple.'1Yet even Clement had a brief brush with fame in 1626 when his speech in the House of Commons attracted the attention and ire of Charles I. The best account of this episode amounts to little more than one page.2A more thorough analysis reveals much about the dangerously broad concept of sedition at this time, the unstable emotional state of the Commons, and the viewpoint of King Charles, which turns out to have been more perceptive and valid than most previous historians have appreciated.
Coke stepped into the limelight at an exceptionally volatile moment. Charles had become embroiled in the Thirty Years War under the impression that he had gained the support of parliament for this action back in 1624, the last year of his father's reign.3Much of that support, however, was based on the dream of a renewed naval war against Spain, harking back to the heroic era of Sir Francis Drake. By contrast, under King James's influence, the subsidy money from 1624 had been spent on an ignominious land expedition led by the mercenary soldier Count Mansfeld. It was intended to intervene directly in the battle for the Palatinate, but it landed on the continent in the dead of winter and quickly disappeared due to weather, disease, and desertion. Meanwhile, in an abortive effort to enlist France as an ally, Charles had entered into a highly unpopular marriage with Louis XIII's...