George Coke - Civil War

Civil War

During the civil war he was one of the protesting bishops, and was imprisoned on that account. On the 30 December 1641 he was impeached by the House of Commons together with eleven other bishops in order to weaken the Royalist party in the House of Lords. Coke retired to Hereford, and was there in 1643 when it was first captured by parliamentary forces, but the articles of surrender protected his position.

After Naseby, the city was captured for the second time, the forces this time led by Colonel John Birch. Birch and Colonel Morgan took a number of people captive on 8 December 1645, including Coke, Judge Jenkins, Sir Henry Bedingfield, Sir Walter Blunt, Sir Henry Miller, Sir Marmaduke and Sir Francis Lloyd, Giles Mompesson, Sir Nicholas Throgmorton, and others who were initially taken to Gloucester. On 3 January 1646, Coke and others were ordered to London by the Commons and many were sent to the Tower on the 22nd to answer charges of high treason. Birch rifled the bishop's palace and afterwards took up his habitation there until the Restoration. Moreover, he had a great part of the revenues of the diocese to his own use, and John Walker complained in 1714 that "to this day, the manor of Whitborn, by the sorry compliance of some who might have prevented it, continues in his family". Coke's estate of Queest Moor was sequestred on 13 August 1646, and despite his always frugal habits, he was forced to rely on the charity of other family members. Bishop Coke died on 10 December 1646, at either Quedgeley, Gloucestershire, or Eardisley and was buried in Eardisley parish church. After the Restoration of 1660, a handsome cenotaph was erected to his memory in Hereford Cathedral, which was much altered in the 19th century.