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John Eliot was educated at Blundell's SchoolBlundell's School is a British public school, located in Tiverton in the county of Devon. It was founded by Peter Blundell in 1604. External links ., TivertonTiverton is a town in Devon, England. It is the administrative centre for the Mid Devon district. It's name is derived from 'The Town on Two Fords' or 'Twy-Ford-Ton' 'Twyverton'. It was recorded in the domesday book, and setylement in the area dates back, and matriculated at Exeter College, OxfordExeter College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. History The college was founded in 1314. It is still located at its original site. Exeter College was founded by Walter de Stapeldon from Devon. He was th, on December 4December 4 is the 338th day (339th on leap years) of the Gregorian calendar. There are 27 days remaining. Events 771 Austrasian King Carloman dies, leaving his brother Charlemagne king of the now complete Frank kingdom. 1110 First Crusade: The Crusaders c 1607Events April 25 Battle of Gibraltar Dutch fleet destroys anchored Spanish fleet April 26 English colonists make landfall at Cape Henry, Virginia, later moving up the James River to found Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in North America., and, leaving the university after three years, he studied law at one of the Inns of CourtThe Inns of Court in London, are where barristers train and practise. They were originally any of a number of public houses where barristers met to do business, but are now formal institutions. Over time, the number of active Inns of Court reduced to just. He also spent some months travelling in France, Spain and Italy, in company, for part of the time, with young George Villiers, afterwards 1st Duke of Buckingham. Eliot was only twenty-two when he began his parliamentary career as Member of Parliament for St Germans in the " Addled Parliament" of 1614. In May 1618 he was knighted, and next year through the patronage of Buckingham he obtained the appointment of Vice-Admiral of Devon, with large powers for the defence and control of the commerce of the county. It was not long before the characteristic energy with which he performed the duties in his office involved him in difficulties. After many attempts, in 1623, he succeeded by a clever but dangerous manoeuvre in entrapping the famous pirate John Nutt , who had for years infested the southern coast, inflicting immense damage upon English commerce. However, the pirate, having a powerful protector at court in Sir George Calvert , the secretary of state, was pardoned; while the Vice-Admiral, upon charges which could not be substantiated, was flung into the Marshalsea prison, and detained there nearly four months.
A few weeks after his release, Eliot was elected Member of Parliament for Newport ( February 1624). On February 27 he delivered his first speech, in which he at once revealed his great powers as an orator, demanding boldly that the liberties and privileges of Parliament, repudiated by James I in the former Parliament, should be secured. In the first Parliament of Charles I, in 1625, he urged the enforcement of the laws against the Roman Catholics. Meanwhile he had continued the friend and supporter of Buckingham and greatly approved of the war with Spain.
Buckingham's incompetence, however, and the bad faith with which both he and the King continued to treat the parliament, alienated Eliot. Distrust of his former friend quickly grew in Eliot's mind to a certainty of his criminal ambition. Returned to the parliament of 1626 as Member for St Germans, Eliot found himself, in the absence of other leaders of the opposition whom the King had secured by nominating them sheriffs, the leader of the House. He immediately demanded an inquiry into the recent disaster at Cádiz. On March 27 he made an open and daring attack upon Buckingham and his administration. He was not intimidated by the King's threatening intervention on March 29, and persuaded the House to defer the actual grant of the subsidies and to present a remonstrance to the King, declaring its right to examine the conduct of ministers. On May 8 he was one of the managers who carried Buckingham's impeachment to the Lords, and on May 10 he delivered the charges against him, comparing him in the course of his speech to Sejanus.
Next day, Eliot was sent to the Tower. When the Commons declined to proceed with business as long as Eliot and Sir Dudley Digges (who had been imprisoned with him) were in confinement, they were released, and Parliament was dissolved on June 15. Eliot was immediately dismissed from his office of Vice-Admiral of Devon, and, in 1627, he was again imprisoned for refusing to pay a forced loan, but liberated shortly before the assembling of the Parliament of 1628, to which he was returned as Member for Cornwall. He joined in the resistance now organized to arbitrary taxation, was foremost in the promotion of the Petition of Right, continued his outspoken censure of Buckingham, and after the latter's assassination in August, led the attack, in the session of 1629, on the ritualists and Arminians.
In February the great question of the right of the King to levy tonnage and poundage came up for discussion. On the King ordering an adjournment of Parliament, the speaker, Sir John Finch , was held down in the chair by Denzil Holles and Benjamin Valentine while Eliot's resolutions against illegal taxation and innovations in religion were read to the House. In consequence, Eliot, with eight other members, was imprisoned on March 4 in the Tower. He refused to answer in his examination, relying on his parliamentary privilege and, on October 29, was again sent to the Marshalsea. On January 26 he appeared at the bar of the King's Bench, with Holles and Valentine, to answer a charge of conspiracy to resist the King's order, and refusing to acknowledge the jurisdiction of the court(see R v. Eliot, Hollis and Valentine .) He was fined £2000 and ordered to be imprisoned during the King's pleasure and till he had made submission. This he steadfastly refused. While some of the prisoners appear to have had certain liberty allowed to them, Eliot's confinement in the Tower was made exceptionally severe. Charles's anger had always been directed chiefly against him, not only as his own political antagonist but as the prosecutor and bitter enemy of Buckingham; "an outlawed man," he described him, "desperate in mind and fortune."
Eliot languished in prison for some time, during which he wrote several works:
In the spring of 1632 he fell into a decline. In October he petitioned Charles for permission to go into the country, but leave could only be obtained at the price of submission, and was finally refused. He died of consumption on November 27 1632 and was buried at St Peter's Ad Vincula Church within the Tower.
When his son requested permission to move the body to St Germans, Charles refused, saying: "Let Sir John Eliot be buried in the church of that parish where he died." The suspicious manner of Eliot's death, as the result of the King's implacability and severe treatment, had more effect, probably, than any other single incident in embittering and precipitating the dispute between King and parliament. Eliot was a great orator, inspired by enthusiasm and high ideals, which he was able to communicate to his hearers by his eloquence, but he was inferior to John Pym both as a party leader and as a statesman.
In 1611, Eliot had married Radigund or Rhadagund, (c. 1595 - June 1628), daughter of Richard Gedie of Trebursye in Cornwall, by whom he had five sons and four daughters:
In 1668, the House of Lords reversed his conviction, restating the law in Strode’s case , affirming that the conviction ...was an illegal judgment, and against the freedom and privilege of Parliament.