Robert Coke (MP for Coventry and Fowey)

For other MPs of this name, see Robert Coke (disambiguation).

Sir Robert Coke (1587–1653) was an English politician.

Life

He was the second son of Sir Edward Coke and his wife Bridget Paston, daughter of John Paston, becoming his father's heir when the eldest son Edward died as an infant. He was knighted in 1607. After marrying Theophila, daughter of Sir Thomas Berkeley,[1] he resided at Caludon Castle, owned by his wife's family the Berkeleys, and was elected to parliament for Coventry, in the vicinity, in 1614.[2][3] That year he was the dedicatee of a mathematics book by William Bedwell, based on a work by Lazarus Schöner.[4]

In summer 1617, when Frances Coke was defying her father Sir Edward's wishes over a marriage, she was sent to her brother Sir Robert at Kingston upon Thames.[5] This was one step in a complex story mostly played out along the River Thames.

Coke was heavily in debt in the 1620s. He was elected again to parliament, in 1624, for Fowey, thought to be a nominee for William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. When his father died in 1634 he was deeper in debt; he inherited a family home at Huntingfield, Suffolk.[2] He also inherited his father's legal papers; but they had been marked down in advance as of interest to the king, and Sir Edward's study was sealed up on his death. Sir Robert received only what was left after royal officers had been through the documents; and he was still petitioning in 1640 for some of those that had been taken, with a view to publication.[6]

In 1634, also, Coke had the monument at Bramfield church completed by Nicholas Stone, to his late indebted brother Arthur and his wife.[7] Having lived in Suffolk for a period, he then moved to a family house "Durdans" near Epsom in Surrey.[2] There was a performance of the play Philaster in the early 1640s at Durdans, with the young Samuel Pepys in the cast.[8]

A royalist of the First English Civil War, Coke was detained in the Tower of London.[2] There his wife, Lady Theophila, visited him, but she died in 1643, of smallpox.[9] Coke was made to pay a fine, and had his lands sequestered until 1647.[2]

The royalist cleric John Pearson had to give up his Suffolk living at Thorington, controlled by Henry Coke, in 1646. He made his way to Surrey and Durdens, acting as chaplain to Sir Robert Coke there in 1650.[10]

Coke died at Epsom, on 19 July 1653.[2]

Family and legacy

Coke married in 1613 Theophila, daughter of Sir Thomas Berkeley and Elizabeth Carey, Lady Berkeley; there were songs at the wedding from Edward Lapworth, They had no children.[2][11] The main Coke estate around Holkham descended to Thomas Coke, 1st Earl of Leicester (1697–1759), grandson of Robert Coke (c.1651–1679), grandson of Henry Coke of Thurrington, Robert Coke's younger brother.[12][13]

Durdans, Epsom, Surrey today

Durdans at Epsom had been acquired in 1617 by Lady Berkeley, who gave it to her daughter Lady Theophila.[14] Coke left Durdans to his nephew George Berkeley, 1st Earl of Berkeley. Berkeley also received a significant collection of books, containing Sir Edward Coke's noted London library; a manuscript collection of Méric Casaubon was part of it. The books went eventually to Sion College, in 1680, from Durdans.[3][15][16] Berkeley built up Durdans with materials taken from Nonsuch Palace, not far away at Ewell, in the early 1680s.[17]

Notes

  1. ↑  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1892). "Lapworth, Edward". Dictionary of National Biography. 32. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Coke, Sir Robert (1587–1653), of Caludon Castle, nr. Coventry, Warws. and Huntingfield, Suff.; later of Epsom, Surr., History of Parliament Online". Retrieved 30 June 2016.
  3. 1 2 The Farmer's Magazine. Rogerson and Tuxford. 1843. pp. 2–.
  4. ↑ Alastair Hamilton (1985). William Bedwell the Arabist: 1563-1632. Brill Archive. p. 47. ISBN 90-04-07241-1.
  5. ↑ The Letters and the Life of Francis Bacon Including All His Occasional Works: Namely Letters, Speeches, Tracts, State Papers, Memorials, Devices and All Authentic Writings Not Already Printed Among His Philosophical, Literary, Or Professional Works. Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts. 1872. p. 240 note 1.
  6. ↑ J. H. Baker, Coke's Note-Books and the Sources of His Reports, The Cambridge Law Journal Vol. 30, No. 1, 1972(A) (Apr., 1972), pp. 59–86, at pp. 78–80. Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of Editorial Committee of the Cambridge Law Journal. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4505528
  7. ↑ Adam White, A Biographical Dictionary of London Tomb Sculptors c. 1560-c. 1660: Addenda and Corrigenda, The Volume of the Walpole Society Vol. 71 (2009), pp. 325–355 at p. 346. Published by: The Walpole Society. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41830759
  8. ↑ Martin Wiggins; Catherine Richardson (2015). British Drama 1533–1642: a Catalogue: Volume VI: 1609-1616. Oxford University Press. p. 19. ISBN 978-0-19-873911-1.
  9. ↑ Claire Tomalin (3 July 2003). Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self. Penguin Books Limited. p. 556. ISBN 978-0-14-191031-4.
  10. ↑ Quehen, Hugh de. "Pearson, John". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/21717. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  11. ↑ Bakewell, Sarah. "Lapworth, Edward". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/16066. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  12. ↑ Bernard Burke (1866). A Genealogical History of the Dormant, Abeyant, Forfeited, and Extinct Peerages of the British Empire. Harrison. p. 127.
  13. ↑ Hanham, A. A. "Coke, Thomas". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68316. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  14. ↑ Bernard Falk (1944). The Berkeleys of Berkeley Square & some of their kinsfolk. Hutchinson & Co. Ltd. p. 106.
  15. ↑ Sion College and Library. CUP Archive. p. 259. GGKEY:ZARA8NG8R2Z.
  16. ↑ Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom. J. Murray. 1834. pp. 352–.
  17. ↑ The Quest for Nonsuch. London. 1962. p. 207.
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