COKKYS, Adam (or Atkyn)

There can be little doubt that Cokkys, an otherwise obscure man with only modest landholdings situated in western Devon in the parishes of Buckland Monachorum and Whitchurch,3 CP40/769, rot. 240d; 771, rot. 332. owed his sole return to Parliament to the patronage of Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, whom he later served as parker on his demesne at Tiverton in the east of the county.4 Add. Ch. 64717, m. 3. It is not certain whether he was among the comital servants whom the earl gathered at Taunton in September 1451 and led eastward the following February, for he is not known to have ever been indicted for his part in this enterprise, but he did take the precaution of suing for a royal pardon the following August.5 C67/40, m. 22. By this date he had probably taken up residence in the earl’s household at Tiverton, for it was as ‘late of Tiverton’ that he was appointed a royal tax collector the following June, alongside Thomas Holand* of Cowick, another Courtenay retainer.6 CFR, xix. 47.

It is possible that there was a direct connexion between Cokkys’ allegiance to the Courtenays and his clash with the earl’s adversary, the powerful Sir William, later Lord Bonville*, in October 1445, when a group of Bonville’s servants had allowed their master’s livestock to wander onto Cokkys’ land at Whitchurch and Buckland Monachorum and to graze there, claiming the land as property of Bonville and his associate, the lawyer Thomas Wyse*. It was however not until early 1453, when the conflict between Bonville and Courtenay had begun to turn violent, that Cokkys mustered up the courage to sue for redress in the court of common pleas.7 CP40/769, rot. 240d; 771, rot. 332; 774, rot. 122; 774, rot. 122.

In the light of Cokkys’ own strained relations with Lord Bonville and his circle, it is interesting that he is not known to have played any part in the earl of Devon’s campaign against his enemy in 1455-6, even though at this date he was still in the earl’s service.