Coke, Sir Edward, also called Lord Coke or Lord Cooke 1552-1634
English judge and jurist

Born in Mileham, Norfolk, he studied at Norwich and Trinity College, Cambridge, and was called to the Bar in 1578. He became Speaker of the House of Commons (1593), Attorney-General (1594), Chief Justice of the Common Pleas (1606), Chief Justice of the King's Bench (1613), and Privy Councillor. He vigorously prosecuted the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, but after 1606 increasingly supported the idea of national liberties vested in parliament, against the royal prerogative. He was dismissed in 1617, and from 1620 led the popular party in parliament, serving nine months in prison. The Petition of Right (1628) was largely of his making. Most of his epoch-making Law Reports were published from 1600 to 1615.

Bibliography: Catherine Drinker, The Lion and the Throne (1957)