Coventry was a smallish cloth making town that had a strong Puritan community. Not only this but it was in the heart of a Parliamentary stronghold. Being a cloth making town it was to supply Parliament with uniforms for it's armies and at all times was 100% behind Parliament as a town. In fact such was it's support of Parliament that Royalist Officer and Gentlemen prisoners were sent to Coventry under licence. Such was the ardour of the townsfolk that these Royalist prisoners found that hardly a person would ever talk to them, hence if you are to be ignored or given the silent treatment you are sent to Coventry.
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Friday, 30 March 2012
Sent To Coventry
OK here is a little help for anyone not from the UK who probably do not know what the title means. Being 'Sent to Coventry' means to have people not talking to you. For years I assumed that just meant the people of fair Coventry were just ignorant gits. If your hoping the picture above is a clue then no it's nothing to do with the Blitz, that's just the nicest image I could find of Coventry and as far as I know it's totally unfounded that the Mayor of Coventry did not send a thank you note to Goering during the war. I can tell you though that during the recent riots that £500,000 worth of improvements was done by the mob. But Sent To Coventry predates all of these events, and by a fair margin and yes of course it's yet another ECW tit bit.
I didn't know this expression. Thanks a lot for the bit of History there
ReplyDeleteExcellent education lesson there Ian. It makes a change for one of our sayings to not be derived from the Navy!
ReplyDeleteYet more great knowledge and wisdom, nice one!
ReplyDeleteGreat bit of info there! I will be using that.
ReplyDeleteI knew the saying but have to admit that I didn't realise that it owed its creation to the ECW.
ReplyDeleteThanks guys, I am almost out now though, will start to pull out some of the more normal stuff after the weekend. I have always been facinated by the ECW and have quite a collection of books and pamphlets. I even have a single sermon that comes in a two volumn set. I must get round to reading that at somepoint LOL
ReplyDeleteIan