Sir Robert Brooke (c. 1572 – 10 July 1646) was an English landowner, magistrate, commissioner, administrator and MP who sat in the House of Commons between 1624 and 1629. He made his country seat at Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, Suffolk.J.P. Ferris, 'Brooke, Sir Robert (1573-1646), of Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, Suff. and Walbrook, London', in A. Thrush and J.P. Ferris, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629 (from Cambridge University Press 2010), History of Parliament.
Origins Robert Brooke was the son of Robert Brooke, citizen and Grocer of Bucklersbury in London, Sheriff of London (1590–91) and Alderman (1590–99),A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City London, temp. Henry III.-1908., 2 vols (The City Corporation, London 1913), II, p. 44 (Internet Archive). and his wife, Ursula, daughter of Robert Offley,Robert Offley, Staple Merchant, was eldest of the half-brothers of Sir Thomas Offley, Lord Mayor: see G.C. Bower (ed.), 'A Manuscript relating to the family of Offley', in H.W. Forsyth Harwood (ed.), The Genealogist (Quarterly), New Series XIX (London and Exeter 1903), pp. 83-88 (Internet Archive). who married 5 May 1572 at St Benet's, London.G.C. Bower and H.W.F. Harwood, 'Pedigree of Offley', The Genealogist (Quarterly), New Series XIX (London and Exeter 1903), pp. 217-231, at pp. 226-27 (Internet Archive). The Brooke family were seated of old at Holditch manor in Thorncombe, Devon (now Dorset), where Sir Thomas Brooke, MP (died 1418) and his wife, Joan ( Hanham; died 1437),J.S. Roskell and L.S. Woodger, 'Brooke, Thomas (c. 1391-1439), of Holditch, Dorset and Weycroft, Devon', in J.S. Roskell, L. Clark and C. Rawcliffe (eds), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421 (from Boydell and Brewer, 1993), History of Parliament Online. have a monumental brass memorial.
Their son, Sir Thomas Brooke (c. 1391–1439), married Joan Braybrooke (1404-1442), at Cooling Castle, Kent in 1410, and on the death of her mother (Joan, Lady Cobham), in 1434, the title passed to Joan Brooke as 5th Baroness Cobham in her own right. Their son Edward Brooke, 6th Baron Cobham succeeded, but his younger brother, Reginald Brooke, inherited and settled at Aspall in Suffolk. Robert Brooke the alderman was a grandson of Reginald Brooke of Aspall, and in his will names all his brothers and sisters,Will of Robert Brooke, Alderman of London (P.C.C. 1601, Woodhall quire). the sons and daughters of Reginald's son Edward Brooke of Aspall, who heads the descent shown in the 1612 Visitation of Suffolk.'Visitation of Suffolk, 1612: Brooke of Aspall', in W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Suffolk made by Hervey, Clarenceux, 1561, Cooke, Clarenceux, 1577, and Raven, Richmond Herald, 1612, with notes and an appendix (Editor, Exeter 1882), pp. 118-19 (Internet Archive).
Education and first marriage Robert Brooke, son of the alderman, was admitted at the newly founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge, a crucible of the Nonconformist movement, on 13 March 1588. He was admitted at Gray's Inn on 9 February 1592/93.J. Foster (ed.), The Register of Admissions to Gray's Inn, 1521-1889 (Hansard, London 1889), p. 82 (HathiTrust). He first married in October 1597 to Joan, daughter of Sir Humphrey Weld, Sheriff of London in 1599–1600, a leading City Grocer.Beavan, Aldermen of London, II, p. 46 (Internet Archive). Apparently in anticipation of this union, in August 1597 Alderman Brooke purchased the estate of Cockfield Hall and associated manors of Yoxford, Blythburgh, Walberswick, Westwood, Westleton, etc., from Arthur Hopton (died 1607), son of Sir Owen Hopton (died 1595).Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich: Blois Family Archives, (1) Final concord (Trinity 1591), Robert Brooke and Arthur Hopton, ref. HA30/369/147; (2) Conveyance (12 June 1592), Owen Tasburgh to Robert Brooke, ref. HA30/312/2 (Discovery Catalogue). Sir Arthur stated that he sold them to cover his father's debts.
In his will dated 18 December 1598 the alderman wrote, "I have already fullie advaunced my eldest sonne Roberte Brooke by my landes and mannors purchased of Maister Arthur Hopton Esquier, lyeng and being in the County of Suffolck." Brooke was at once required to satisfy the terms of a lease on the estate,The National Archives (UK), Chancery: Feltham v Brooke, ref. C 2Eliz/F5/53 (Discovery Catalogue). and faced a charge brought against him by Arthur Hopton for fraudulent interlineation of the conveyance to include Blythburgh Priory manor, and Blythburgh rectory, not intended to be conveyed.W.A. Copinger (ed.), County of Suffolk: Its History as Disclosed by Existing Records, Vol. 1 (Henry Sotheran & Co., London 1904), pp. 222, 223, 224 (Internet Archive), citing Common Pleas, II, 13. In the subsequent unpleasantness Hopton was for a while imprisoned by Brooke: the final decree, while reserving those premises to Sir Arthur, was costly to him, and led to a commission of inquiry at the Blythburgh White Hart.The National Archives (UK), Chancery: Final decrees, Hopton v Brooke, ref C78/89/16; View originals, rots 32-39, at AALT, images 0527-0539 (AALT). The alderman died in 1601, still having firm connections with the city.Will of Robert Brooke (P.C.C. 1601). In 1608-1609 Joan's father was Lord Mayor of London, and he died in 1610: her brother John Weld, gent., in 1610 acquired the manor of Arnolds in Edmonton, Middlesex,T. Mason, The Story of Southgate (Meyers Brooks, Enfield 1947), p. 3. and invested as a charter Council Assistant in the Newfoundland Company.'Newfoundland Company', in C.T. Carr (ed.), Select Charters of Trading Companies, A.D. 1530-1707, Selden Society XXVIII (Bernard Quaritch, London 1913), pp. 51-62 (Internet Archive).
In 1614 Robert Brooke was Sheriff of Suffolk, and he was knighted in 1615 as of Blythburgh, Suffolk. His first marriage lasted for twenty years without issue, ending in Joan's death in 1618.Ferris, 'Brooke, Sir Robert', History of Parliament. She was buried in the Cockfield chapel at Yoxford church, where she has a brass memorial:H. Parr, 'Yoxford church and the Celebrities buried therein', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History VIII Part 1 (1892), pp. 37-39 (Society's pdf). it records that she was Sir Humfrey Weld's first-born daughter and was aged 38 at her death in May 1618. The seat at Blythburgh was presumably the manor house of Westwood, or Blythburgh Lodge, the former seat of the Hoptons between Blythburgh and Walberswick.
During the second decade of the century Sir Robert rebuilt Cockfield Hall at Yoxford anew. He preserved a part of the old Tudor brick mansion built by the elder Sir Arthur Hopton, Sir Owen's father, a century before, keeping three gabled bays as the north wing of the new hall. The new construction was a grand building, also of red brick with Jacobean architectural detailing of finials externally: some surviving early 17th century details include an oak staircase with turned balusters and pierced finials, painted panelling, carved stone fireplaces, and a drawing room with a very fine ornamental plaster ceiling. These details lie at the core of the present hall, which was considerably modified during the 19th century (including the addition of the third storey).
Second marriage Sir Robert remarried in c 1620 to Elizabeth Brooke (born 1601), daughter of Thomas Colepeper (died 1613) of Great Wigsell in Salehurst, East Sussex. Elizabeth was a niece of Sir Humphrey Weld's widow, Mary Slaney, and a granddaughter of citizen and Skinner Sir Stephen Slaney, Lord Mayor of London 1595–1596, who died in 1608.Beavan, Aldermen of London, II, p. 42 (Internet Archive). According to a contemporary account, Robert and Elizabeth spent the first two years of their marriage as boarders in the house of Lady Weld. Sir Robert then purchased a residence at Abbots Langley in Hertfordshire, so that she could live within a reasonable distance of her friends in London: they continued there together for some years before moving more permanently into Cockfield Hall.'The Life and Death of the Lady Elizabeth Brooke', in N. Parkhurst, The Faithful and Diligent Christian Described and Identified (Samuel Sprint and John Harding, London 1684), pp. 41-81, at pp. 45-46 (eebo/tcp II). The house at Langley was sold in July 1637.Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich: "Release by Sir Robert Brooke and Elizabeth, his wife, to John Heydon, Lincoln Inn, Esq., and Johan, his wife, of his messuage and property at Abbots Langley, Hertfordshire" (5 July 1637), ref. HA30/369/158 (Discovery Catalogue). Sir Robert had been a justice of the peace continuously from 1614 to July 1637, and after a brief interruption resumed in November 1637 until at least 1641.Ferris, 'Brooke, Sir Robert', History of Parliament, citing: Patent Roll, 11 James I, Part 11 to 15 Charles I, Part 19; J. Broadway, R. Cust and S.K. Roberts (eds), Calendar of Docquets of Lord Keeper Coventry, List and Index Society, Special Series XXXIV-XXXVII, pp. 73-4.
By a decree of 1623, following a bankruptcy suit begun in 1621, it appears that Brooke, who often had cause to travel to London, acquired a substantial house in St Stephen Walbrook in settlement of a debt owing to him.The National Archives (UK), Chancery: Pleadings, refs C2/JasI/C20/40, C2/JasI/C20/51, C2/JasI/C23/31 (Discovery Catalogue); Final Decrees, C78/295, no. 11, View original at AALT images 0029-0041 consecutive (AALT). This was near to the site of his father's former mansion in St Mary Woolchurch Haw, and the bankrupt, Lawrence Grene, was a former servant and legatee of Brooke's father, and witness to the alderman's two codicils. John Brooke, Sir Robert's brother, to whom the refusal of the unexpired term of their father's London mansion was bequeathed, was also concerned in this affair. In 1624, Sir Robert was elected Member of Parliament for Dunwich in the Happy Parliament and was re-elected in 1625 for the Useless Parliament. Elected MP for Dunwich again in 1628, he sat until 1629 when King Charles began to rule without parliament for eleven years.Browne Willis, Notitia Parliamentaria, or, An history of the counties, cities, and boroughs in England and Wales: ... The whole extracted from mss. and printed evidences (Author, London 1750), pp. 186-239 (Google). In this period his commissions were principally for the collection of subsidies and obligatory loan.Ferris, 'Brooke, Sir Robert', History of Parliament; citing, The National Archives (UK), Chancery: Fine Rolls and Supplementary Lists of Commissioners, C 212/22/20-23 etc (James I). Elizabeth Brooke was the full sister of John Colepeper, 1st Baron Colepeper, who became a leading royalist politician during the 1640s.
Walberswick Through the 16th and early 17th centuries the town of Walberswick suffered from the decline of its fishing industry ("Fyshar-Fare") and the loss of its tithes. The Hoptons sought to support it by challenging the monopoly of dues raised by the port of Dunwich and encouraging shipping up to Walberswick. In 1584, Owen Hopton gained the town's agreement to a lading rate at the wharf of 2d per load on butter, cheese, corn and bacon, etc. to support Walberswick church.Gardner, An Historical Account of Dunwich, pp. 167-69 (Google). Accessed 27 January 2023.
Under the regime of Robert Brooke, however, the lordship adopted a less benign position towards the town.T.H.R. Oakes, 'Walberswick' (Excursion of 5 July 1894), Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History VIII Part 3 (1894), pp. 416-22 (Society pdf).