ROKES, John

John’s precise relationship to Thomas Rokes II* has not been discovered, yet that they were kinsmen is strongly suggested by the way that he followed the older man into the service of the Crown, and the various points of contact between them in the course of their careers. Our MP may well have been the relation named John to whom Thomas left 66s. 8d. in his will of 1458.9 PCC 12 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 88v-89). For their association in lawsuits in 1448 see CP40/750, att. rot. 12. Thomas, who came from Halifax in Yorkshire, moved south in the employment of Sir Thomas Brounflete during Henry IV’s reign, and rose to be receiver-general and attorney-general for Henry V’s widow, Katherine de Valois, whom he served from 1422 until her death early in 1437. He was probably instrumental in securing for John subordinate roles in the administration of the queen’s estates, notably the post of receiver in the honour of Wallingford, and shortly after she died John secured in addition the position of receiver in the duchy of Lancaster estates in several southern counties which she had also held in dower. The offices led to his appointment to ad hoc commissions specifically concerned with these lands, including one, in February 1439, in which he was associated with Thomas.10 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 148, 199, 200, 270. Rokes occupied these positions until early in 1441, and it is unclear why he was then dismissed,11 CPR, 1436-41, pp. 289, 523. especially as he does not seem to have fallen out of favour with the King. He remained in royal service, as an esquire of the hall and chamber of the Household, for at least 11 years longer.12 E101/409/9, 11, f. 38v; 410/1, f. 30v, 3, 6, f. 40v, 9. The answer may lie in his failure to establish an amicable personal connexion with the all-powerful William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, who was pre-eminent at Wallingford.

Although Thomas Rokes settled in Buckinghamshire, John chose to live in Berkshire – at least in the 1430s and 1440s – probably as this was most convenient for the performance of his official duties. Significantly, he took up residence at Hinton Waldrist, a manor in the Thames valley which formed part of Queen Katherine’s dower. He became well known in Wantage, a few miles to the south, where he testified at the inquisition post mortem for (Sir) Richard Hankford* in 1431, and conveyed land to William Borde* and his wife later in the decade.13 Devon RO, Hankeford mss, 47/5/1; Hants RO, Jervoise of Herriard mss, 44M69/C/615. He was listed among those of Berkshire required to take the oath not to maintain peace-breakers, as imposed by the Parliament of 1433-4.14 CPR, 1429-36, p. 402. Of Rokes’s landholdings in the county only a few references remain. He is known to have acquired in 1444 from John Borne, the nephew and heir of the duchy official Robert Andrew*, a rent of 53s. 4d. p.a. from a moiety of the manor of ‘Bysshoppystore’ in Pusey, which Borne himself held for life by grant of William Richard, and the recognizance in £10 which Richard made to Rokes in the following year was no doubt connected with this arrangement.15 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 342, 346. VCH Berks. iv. 474, regarding Bishop’s manor in Pusey, does not supply additional information. Together with his wife Cecily, whose parentage has not been discovered, he held from the 1430s for some 30 years copyhold land pertaining to Abingdon abbey. This was the location of a tenement called ‘Bassez’, for which in accordance with manorial custom they gave the abbot 20 oxen worth £20. The property later became known as the manor of Basses in Longworth.16 C1/38/119; VCH Berks. iv. 469. In addition, John and Cecily acquired land in Newbury and Speenhamland, for which in the late 1440s they paid a rent of £2 p.a. to John Norris*, the esquire for the King’s body. In March 1452 Rokes joined Norris and other neighbours in obtaining royal permission to grant to Abingdon abbey property in Radley, Sunningwell and elsewhere. His tenants in Berkshire included Richard Adderbury of Newbury, whom was to sue for a debt of £40 in 1455, but by then Rokes was more often resident in Dorset: he was styled in the court roll as ‘formerly of Hinton, esquire’.17 CCR, 1447-54, p. 92; CPR, 1446-52, p. 549; CP40/779, rot. 54. He was still living at Hinton in 1448 and in Nov. 1451 as ‘of Hinton esquire’ he entered obligations in a total of £30 7s. 11d. to John Markham, j.KB: CP40/750, att. rot. 12; KB27/762, rot. 32.

The Crown continued to make use of Rokes’s skills as an administrator in the localities in the 1440s. Thus, when Walter Strickland I* died in office as escheator of Hampshire and Wiltshire in the spring of 1446, Rokes was assigned to take his place, and he was appointed to the same office in Oxfordshire and Berkshire in November 1448. Shortly before that appointment, in April 1448, and as a belated reward for his good service to the King’s mother and the King himself in carrying out his difficult tasks as receiver of Wallingford, he was granted a licence to export 40 sacks of wool every year for the next seven years, without having to resort to the staple at Calais.18 C76/130, m. 12. It is possible, but not certain, that he was returned to the Parliament of February 1449 for the Wiltshire borough of Hindon, although the electoral return is now largely illegible. Significantly, the other MP for this borough, the Cheshire-man John Troutbeck*, was also a member of the royal household, but neither he nor Rokes had any recorded connexion with Hindon itself, nor with the borough’s lord Bishop Waynflete of Winchester. While the Parliament was in recess, on 12 Apr. Rokes was appointed with the assent of the treasurer as controller of customs and subsidies in Poole and Melcombe Regis, a post he continued to fill for nearly four years.19 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 239, 313, 504. Perhaps he had sought it in order to facilitate his own shipments of wool under royal licence. Rokes was elected to the succeeding Parliament, in November 1449, as a representative for another Wiltshire borough, Downton, which also pertained to Bishop Waynflete (who was almost certainly instrumental in the return of his fellow MP Robert Tilney*). During the second parliamentary session, in January 1450, he was granted the office of gauger in Southampton, in direct succession to his putative kinsman Thomas Rokes II.20 CPR, 1446-52, p. 309. The two men had long been connected with the port: they had been called ‘of Southampton, gentlemen’ 20 years earlier: KB27/678, rot. 38d; 679, rot. 31.

Although his landed holdings had continued to link him with Berkshire, after losing his receivership of the dowager queen’s estates Rokes had entered the service of William Aiscough, bishop of Salisbury; and for many years he officiated as bailiff of the episcopal liberties in Somerset and Dorset in the employment of Aiscough and (following his murder in June 1450) his successor Richard Beauchamp. Probably for this reason he took up residence at Sherborne where the bishop had a castle.21 CP40/758, rot. 186d. Richard Fitton*, one of his predecessors, had similarly lived at Sherborne while he was bailiff. As an ‘esquire of Dorset’ he had brought suits in the common pleas in the late 1440s, and it was on his property in the same county that distraint was later ordered to be made for his failure to render account at the Exchequer as gauger in Southampton.22 CP40/745, rot. 255; CPR, 1446-52, p. 290; E122/141/34. Some slight uncertainty remains as to whether it was he or his son John who was elected to the Parliament summoned to assemble at Reading on 6 Mar. 1453 as a Member for the Dorset borough of Melcombe Regis. Up until 14 Jan. that year (four weeks before the election) the older man had been controller of customs and subsidies at Poole, with authority extending over all the Dorset ports, including Melcombe, but two weeks into the parliamentary session John Rokes ‘the younger’ was granted the same office, swiftly replacing Thomas Doge* who had died very soon after his appointment.23 CPR, 1452-61, p. 25. A case might be made for either of the two John Rokeses to have been sitting in the Commons at the time, but it seems much more likely to have been the older, more experienced man. Later in the 1450s Roger Juye, an esquire from Poole who had been collector of customs while Rokes senior was controller, sued him as ‘of Sherborne, esquire’ for two debts amounting to £40.24 CP40/788, rot. 41; 789, rot. 39; 793, rot. 15d. It appears to have been the older man, too, who served as collector at Poole in 1459-61, for in a royal pardon granted on 5 May 1462 the former collector was similarly identified by his armigerous rank and residence at Sherborne.25 C67/45, m. 23.

The date that this John Rokes died has not been ascertained. He entered a bond for £50 in October 1464 to his namesake, the younger son of the late Thomas Rokes II and executor of his will;26 CAD, ii. C2218; PCC 12 Stokton; CP40/817, rot. 492d; E13/149, m. 37d. in the same month he was a juror at the inquisition post mortem held in Sherborne on Sir Edward Brooke*, Lord Cobham, and he performed a similar task a year later.27 C140/13/26; 16/17. In about 1467 he and his wife Cecily together with their son John petitioned the chancellor to complain that the abbot of Abingdon had put them out of their property known as Basses, ‘for a singuler avauntage offered’.28 C1/38/119. He would appear to have carried on as bailiff of the bishop of Salisbury’s liberties for some seven years longer, although there is always the possibility that his son had succeeded him in the role.