COOK, John II.

It is now impossible to be certain about the identity of the MP, since at least four other men of the same name were active in Staffordshire at the end of the 14th century.Namely, John, son of William Cook of Onecote (fl. 1382-1404) (C67/29 m. 9; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xvi. 44); John Cook of Abbot’s Bromley (fl. 1367-90) (ibid. xi. 176; xiii. 157; CFR, x. 19, 70; CCR, 1389-92, pp. 281-2); John Cook of Burton-upon-Trent (fl. 1398) (C67/30 m. 15); and John Cook of Pelsall (fl. 1383-5) (CFR, x. 19; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xvi. 24). A John Cook contributed 3s.4d. towards the cost of building the new guildhall at Newcastle in 1375, which would suggest that the subject of this biography was a local man. Edmund, earl of Stafford, who exercised considerable influence in the borough, numbered a John Cook, esquire, among his retainers, and in June 1401 awarded him an annuity of ten marks payable from the lordship of Caus in Shropshire. This fee was confirmed to Cook by the Crown after the earl’s death in 1403. Perhaps it was the MP who, in January 1406, was indicted before a local jury for disturbing the peace in Stafford during the previous August.T. Pape, Med. Newcastle-under-Lyme, 148; Wm. Salt Arch. Soc. xiv. 264; CPR, 1401-5, pp. 308, 348, 379; CCR, 1402-5, pp. 212, 239; CIMisc. vii. no. 320.