Talk:Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (seventh creation)

Old discussions
Discrepancy: Article says 7th creation, but the title says 2nd creation. I shouldn't imagine that there have been 7 creations, but they did well if they only got to 2. Geogre 01:02, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I created this page. To be honest, my interest in the guy is through the area of Norfolk he worked in, and his work in agriculture. When I started looking, I realised there were some pretty serious mislinks of the name 'Thomas Coke'. Tthe article on the British Agricultural Revolution incorrectly attributed the agricultural ideas to a methodist bishop, whilst the List of Privy Counsellors (1679-1714) had the same methodist bishop appointed to the privy council some 40 years before he was born. So I made an attempt to resolve this ambiguity, creating both the disambiguation page Thomas Coke and this page.


 * The ambiguity actually originates in the article Earl of Leicester, in its list of holders of the title. This article does list seven different creations of the title of 'Earl of Leicester', and talks about them in text as the 1st to 7th creation. However its link to the Thomas Coke of agricultural fame contained the disambiguator (2nd creation), and that is apparantly because, believe it or not, he is the second '1st Earl of Leicester' to be called 'Thomas Coke'.


 * I neither know (nor to be honest care) enough about the minutiae of the way British aristocratic titles work to know whether the two different ways the Earl of Leicester article uses creation ordinals is reasonable or not. I'll try and clarify why the ambiguity occurs in the article; if you or somebody does know that this usage of creation ordinals is wrong, please correct what I've done. -- Chris j wood 09:55, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * You've been misled by a mistake in the Earl of Leicester article. This gentleman was not an "Earl of Leicester" but rather the first "Earl of Leicester of Holkham": the article probably belongs at Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham. Coke, in the words of the Complete Peerage, "prevailed on the Melbourne Ministry to grant him a sort of sham duplicate" of the Earldom of Leicester "so as to appear to be an Earl of Leicester", which his collateral relatives had actually been, but which title had already been recreated for, and was held by, an unrelated family. - Nunh-huh 10:18, 23 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * Thanks for that clarification, and the rename of the page. I've amended all the pages that linked to the old page name to now link to Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester of Holkham, and changed text in line with this. -- Chris j wood 13:15, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)

There is a letter in The Times of 2 December 1938 p 10 to the effect that the then 95 year old Earl had a half sister who had died 150 years before in infancy - his father having married first in his 20s then in his 70s (the earl being the product of this marriage). Jackiespeel (talk) 17:25, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Clarification
Clarification: Under "Death" it is reported that Coke's last words were "perhaps I have talked too much". Notwithstanding that Coke's foremost legacy was as an agricultural reformer, let us not forget that the secondary but also significant accomplishment of Coke's life was his approx. 50 years as a member of parliament, and as such, the "greatest commoner in England". Thus I fear that without additional background, reporting that Coke's last words were that he talked "too much" could be misconstrued to mean that as a member of parliament, for example in opposing the war in the colonies and incurring the displeasure of his Sovereign, he should have been wiser and kept quiet. While various historical accounts of Coke's life report that Coke was a great storyteller, as a politician it is also reported that he was not an expert orator and preferred to let his friends do the political speechmaking. The background relating to his last words is as follows: Coke spent the last day of his life unable to speak. In the evening, however, he regained his strength for a few hours, and spoke for a few hours about various personal matters, including how grateful he was for the love of his second wife Anne, that people had scorned his decision to remarry at such an old age, but that it had brought him so much happiness. It was after exhausting his strength in this personal conversation, unrelated whatsoever to his life as a politician, that he uttered the last words "perhaps I have talked too much". For the sake of the integrity of this page, due to the lack of background offered and because the statement is potentially misleading if read as applying to his political career, I respectfully propose that this comment be removed. User:Ekvcpa 09:58, 14 Jun 2011 (UTC)
 * Could we not just reorganise a tad? I'm loathe to remove information if it could be included in a more accurate form with a bit of tweaking. Ironholds (talk) 22:28, 14 June 2011 (UTC)