Democratic Sentinel, Volume 21, Number 10, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 March 1897 — Whence It Came. [ARTICLE]

Whence It Came.

The phrase “sending a man to Coventry” dates from the days of the Civil Wars. When any straggling Royalists were found on the Warwickshire l>attlefields, it was the custom to send them to Coventry for incarceration. Hence the origin of the term, which became a by-word.