To which somewhat over–bold remark the Queen is stated to have replied sarcastically:—
“Your gracious Majesty
Is very glad to see
Ye men of Coventree,
Good lack, what fools ye bee!”
In the year previous to the Queen’s visit the plague had committed great ravages in the city, hundreds of the inhabitants falling victims, and the “dreadful dead carts passing constantly through the streets taking their horrible toll from most houses, and picking up those who had fallen of the sickness in the streets.” Thus with the clothing business falling to decay without any substitute being introduced to fill its place, and suffering from the suppression of the religious houses, Coventry was in but a poor state at the time of Elizabeth’s visit. The Recorder’s speech, however, which was very lugubrious, probably exaggerated the situation, although, as Mr. Brewer says, “the ardour of the natives had been damped when they saw the gorgeous piles of religious splendour, so long their pride and boast, one vast heap of ruins.”
The Queen during her visit lodged at the White Friars, then a residence of the Hales family, and was, notwithstanding the reputed decay and poverty of the times, entertained with lavish magnificence.
The next Royal visitor within the city walls had no pageants, addresses, or honours showered upon her, but hapless Mary Queen of Scots was brought to Coventry and shut up a prisoner in the Mayor’s parlour during the year following the coming of her royal cousin. Again, three years later, in 1569, she was brought to Coventry and incarcerated in the Bull Inn (the site of which is now occupied by the Barracks), and kept under the charge of the Earls of Shrewsbury and Huntingdon. The citizens had during her incarceration within their walls the melancholy and troublesome task of keeping watch and ward night and day at each of the gates, so that none might pass to or fro without good cause.
In 1610 King James I., in a letter addressed to the heads of the city and the Church, commanded that the inhabitants should kneel whilst receiving the sacrament, and when they several years later applied to him for a renewal of their charter the King refused to grant it until he had been satisfied that his command regarding their kneeling when receiving of the sacrament had been obeyed. A few years later the King visited Coventry and was presented with what must be almost considered the inevitable £100, and in addition thereto with a silver cup of fine workmanship weighing forty–five ounces, out of which, the King exclaimed, that he would drink wherever he went.
During the succeeding reign and the Civil War which broke out, Coventry attached itself to the side of Parliament; the influence of Lord Brooke of Warwick overpowering that of the Earl of Northampton, who was Recorder and a staunch Royalist. At the outset of the war, King Charles, after he had raised his standard at Nottingham, sent to Coventry and demanded quarters, and these being refused he attacked the city in full force and succeeded in capturing one of the gates. He was, however, finally repulsed with considerable loss, and obliged to abandon his attempt to take the town. For this act of contumacy and the fact that it was garrisoned by Parliamentary troops until the Restoration it was destined to suffer later on. Charles II., notwithstanding the enthusiastic demonstrations of the inhabitants at his restoration and the surrender of possessions which the city had originally purchased from the Crown, did not forget the part Coventry had played during the Civil War, and a commission held in 1662 prescribed the demolition of the city walls as a mark of the King’s displeasure for the disloyalty of the inhabitants to his father. This act was immediately put into effect by the Earl of Northampton. All that now remains of the fortifications are two of the gates, Cook Street Gate, now a mere roofless shell, and the Swanswell or Priory Gate in Hales Street, which after the archway had been blocked up some years ago was converted into dwellings.
Twenty–five years later, when King James II. visited Coventry, the citizens, no doubt remembering the exactions and punishment under which they suffered in the previous reign for their old–time disloyalty to the Crown, paid the King the greatest marks of attention and respect. They presented him with a gold cup and cover, and even went the length of smoothing the rough surfaces of their streets with sand, white–washing their houses, and decorating them with garlands and flags. Occasionally interesting relics of the Roman occupation are discovered when excavating foundations for new buildings, and when laying out new roads.
Rich in ancient buildings Coventry is full of interest to the students of medieval architecture and to the archæologist. Of the ancient monastery church of the Grey Friars, which was built in the reign of Edward III., little now remains save the beautiful octagonal tower and spire, which rises to a height of upwards of 200 feet. This church became so rich in later years from the gifts bestowed upon it by various benefactors that the historian William of Malmesbury writes of it: “It was enriched and beautified with so much gold and silver that the walls seemed too narrow to contain it; insomuch that Robert de Limesie, Bishop of this diocese in the time of King William Rufus, scraped from one beam that separated the shrines 500 marks of silver.” The church was also a rich storehouse of relics, amongst which, placed in a beautiful silver shrine, was an arm of St. Augustine, and on the casket containing it was a notification of its purchase from the Pope by Agelnethus, Archbishop of Canterbury.