Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry

Thomas Coventry, 1st Baron Coventry (1578 – 14 January 1640) was a prominent English lawyer, politician and judge during the early 17th century.

He entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1592, and the Inner Temple in 1594, becoming bencher of the society in 1614, reader in 1616, and holding the office of treasurer from 1617 till 1621. His exceptional legal abilities were rewarded early with official promotion. On 16 November 1616 he was made Recorder of London in spite of Francis Bacon's opposition, who, although allowing him to be "a well trained and an honest man," objected that he was "bred by my Lord Coke and seasoned in his ways." On 14 March 1617 he was appointed Solicitor General and was knighted.

He was returned for Droitwich to the Parliament of 1621; and on 11 January in that year was made attorney-general. He took part in the proceedings against Bacon for corruption, and was manager for the House of Commons in the impeachment of Edward Floyd for insulting the elector and electress palatine.

On 1 November 1625 he was made Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; in this capacity he delivered Charles I's reprimand to the Commons on 9 March 1626, when he declared that "liberty of counsel" alone belonged to them and not "liberty of control." On 10 April 1628 he received the title of Baron Coventry of Aylesborough in Worcestershire. At the opening of parliament in 1628 he threatened that the king would use his prerogative if further thwarted in the matter of supplies. In the subsequent debates, however, while strongly supporting the king's prerogative against the claims of the parliament to executive power, he favoured a policy of moderation and compromise. He defended the right of the council in special circumstances to commit people to prison without showing cause, and to issue general warrants. He disapproved of the king's sudden dissolution of parliament, and agreed to the liberation on bail of the seven imprisoned members on condition of their giving security for their good behaviour.

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