Whip me up a coke

Edward Coke served as Lord Chief Justice from 1613-1616. An excerpt from a book review demonstrates that he meted out ‘justice’ at home quite as forcefully as he did in court:

“Edward Coke, the father of English liberties in his struggle against the absolutist tendencies of the Stuarts, tied his daughter to the bedpost and whipped her until she agreed to the match he had arranged for her”

Not altogether surprisingly, “the marriage was a disaster.” I had to dig further into this intriguing tale. Project Gutenberg helped, as it so often does, recording an account from those who had:

“…heard it from a noble Peer, a near relation of the Danvers family, and Mr. Villiers, Brother to the person who now claims the Earldom of Buckingham, as his Brother assumed the Title, that the Lady Frances Viscountess Purbeck was tyed to the Bed-Poste and severely whipped into consent to marry with the Duke of Buckingham’s Brother, Sir John Villiers.. who was 2 years after created Viscount Purbeck…”

A man like Coke would have no difficulty in persuading himself that a marriage with Sir John Villiers would be for his daughter’s welfare, and, consequently, that a whipping to bring that marriage about would also be for her welfare.

Coke had often waited for the confessions of men who were in frightful agony on the rack, in the dungeons of the Tower; so it must have been a mere trifle to him to await his daughter’s consent to a marriage which she detested, while he whipped her, or watched her being whipped, reflecting upon the luxury of the bed-post in comparison with the agony of the rack, flattering himself that he was acting in obedience to Holy Scripture, and piously meditating upon the gratification he must be giving to the soul of Solomon by this exercise of domestic discipline.

Whippings seem to run in the family. Another relative, Lady Exeter, faced trial at around the same time.

She was found innocent, and her accusers, Sir Thomas and Lady Lake, were imprisoned and fined 10,000 to the King, and 5,000 to Lady Exeter as damages for the libel. A chambermaid who was one of the witnesses, was whipped at the cart’s tail for her perjury.

One presumes that a cart’s tail is rather less comfortable than a bedpost.