Rebel Britannia

February 19th 1593:

Edward Coke became Speaker of the House of Commons on this day, during a career that included terms as Attorney General, Solicitor General, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas and Chief Justice of the King's Bench. He was a notoriously merciless, even savage, prosecutor of enemies of the crown such as Sir Walter Raleigh and Guy Fawkes - and also spent a spell in the Tower of London for campaigning in favour of civil liberties.

Coke was a highly unexpected rebel, and a historically significant one. But he mainly commands the attention of Rebel Britannia because of his prosecution of Bartholomew Steer, who in 1596 called a revolution. Unfortunately, only four people turned up. Which, you know, must have been embarrassing - but the amazing thing is that Steer's failed uprising nonetheless achieved its main demand. "You don't have to succeed to be successful" is one of the main lessons of rebel history.

Bartholomew Steer (or Steere, who might have been born in 1568, and probably died in 1597) was an Oxfordshire carpenter, and clearly something of an amateur historian: he seems to have been well informed of his county's long record of rebellions against tyranny and poverty.

The crux of his protest was opposition to the enclosures, in which land was stolen from the common folk and fenced off so as to make the rich richer. His uprising would start with tearing down the hedges, after which his followers would see to the executions of the wealthy and powerful men who were behind the policy. They would then march on London, where the disaffected youth would rally to their cause. All this would lead, Steer explained, to what in those days was called "Cockayne," a utopian future in which hunger would be abolished, all property would be held in common, and work would be unnecessary.

On the appointed hour in November 1596, Steer and three of his lieutenants waited in the dark at the chosen rendezvous spot for the arrival of the masses. After they'd waited a while, and were still alone, they went home.

Sadly, the authorities learned of the attempted rising and Steer and his comrades were arrested. The Attorney General, Sir Edward Coke, pronounced Cook, was determined to prosecute them to the full extent of the law, going so far as to authorise torture for the purpose of gaining information.

Coke (1552-1634) was a lawyer's son who became himself one of the greatest legal stars of his time, and eventually one of the most important jurists of all time. Not only did he gain fame for winning apparently impossible cases, but he was also, when still quite a young man, an important and admired writer about the law.

His political career was as impressive as his courtroom triumphs - and both tracks made him a fortune, too (all quite legally); some contemporaries wrote that he was among the richest men in the kingdom, and he is known to have owned more than 100 houses. (Which is great, until you can't find your reading glasses.)

A loyal, indeed frighteningly ruthless, servant of the crown for many years, it seems that Coke had a greater loyalty to the law and the constitution. His political and judicial activism in the cause of setting limits on the power of the monarchy, and of protecting ancient liberties from the state, saw him spending most of 1622 under lock and key - first in the Tower of London, and latterly in Stoke Poges, which doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Not to worry, though - he was back in parliament before long, with much of his most lasting work still ahead of him. He died of old age, peacefully at home without illness, and with the immortality of his reputation already assured.

Bartholomew Steer, on the other hand, was never heard of again after he made a full confession to Coke in 1597. Others stood trial for their part in what became known, rather grandly, as the Oxfordshire Rising, but Steer did not appear in court. It's assumed that he died in prison, either as a result of being questioned, or from illness.

But he, too, had a posthumous effect on the world. The government evidently took Steer's attempted revolution very seriously, for all it looks to us like a farcical flop. Legislation was hastily introduced to stiffen the regulation of enclosures, exactly as Bartholomew and his comrades had initially demanded.

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Sources:

www.oxforddnb.com

The Cambridge biographical encyclopedia second edition ed. David Crystal (CUP 1998)

The Oxford companion to British history ed. John Cannon (TSP, 1997)

www.bbc.co.uk/legacies/work/england/oxford/article_3.shtml

www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18501534.sj-bradley-oxfords-failed-peasant-uprising-1596/