Sir Roger de Coverly was the name of a rakish character in popular literature in the early 18th century. He was supposedly a country squire from Worcestershire, and a member of a small club which ran the popular newspaper The Spectator that appeared daily from 1711 to 1712, and his grandfather was said to have invented the dance that went by his name.

In fact, save for the existence and popularity of The Spectator, it was all a fiction by Joseph Addison, one of the principal contributors to the paper. Kidson, writing in Groves, says the prefix 'Sir' in the title is not found until after Addison and Steele used the name in their paper. What is revealing about this is that "Roger of Coverly" was considered an old dance at the time the paper was published.


http://www.ibiblio.org/fiddlers/SIR.htm