ROKES, Thomas I

Rokes’s parentage cannot be established with absolute certainty, but it is just possible that he was the ‘Thomas Roges, gentleman’, son of ‘Edmund Roges of Taunton, merchant’, whom John Roger†, the wealthy Dorset merchant, was suing for a debt in about 1439.4 KB27/714, rot. 94. The principal problem presented by this identification is that Thomas Rokes was himself a merchant, and is not otherwise known to have styled himself, or been styled, a gentleman. Another member of the family, John Roche, held property in Taunton from the bishop of Winchester in the reign of Henry V, and attested the borough elections of 1427.5 C219/13/5; C1/6/329.

Little is known of Rokes’s early life: his name was not an uncommon one, but it is just possible that he was the man who in November 1418 joined the Harfleur expedition of Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, as a mounted man-at-arms in the retinue of Sir Hugh Luttrell† of Dunster.6 E101/48/19. Certainly, Rokes possessed ties among the Somerset gentry, among whom Luttrell was pre-eminent. In September 1424 he rode to the baptism of John Hill III* at Spaxton in the company of the boy’s godmother, Isabel Courtenay,7 CIPM, xxvi. 466. and in 1437 he was one of the men who witnessed a settlement of lands near Bridgwater belonging to the Horsey family.8 CCR, 1435-41, p. 159. Rokes’s role in public life nevertheless remained limited. In 1435 he attended the Somerset shire court as part of the Taunton delegation communicating the borough’s choice of representatives to the sheriff, and he occasionally served on local juries.9 CPR, 1436-41, p. 378.

Like his putative father before him, Rokes established himself as a merchant of some standing, whose commercial dealings extended across much of southern England and beyond. Thus, in 1432 the Bridgwater gentleman Thomas Horsey owed him £34 for merchandise purchased in the Exeter staple (a debt still outstanding seven years later);10 C241/225/64; 228/56. in 1434 a similar debt of 20 marks was owing to him from John Wilford, a Hampshire merchant;11 C241/226/12. ten years later he and David Williams of Cannington owed the London grocer John Payn I* the sum of £15;12 C241/229/32. while in 1448 a leading Exeter merchant, John Hull*, sought to recover from him a debt of seven marks.13 CP40/748, rot. 32; 749, rot. 361. Meanwhile, in 1442 Rokes and two Breton business associates had complained to the chancellor that a pinnace belonging to the Bretons had been seized by John Walsh alias Gregory* and other Dartmouth men in the port of Brixham, and that Walsh was refusing to restore to Rokes his share of the goods unless he would agree to pay for their freight.14 W. Country Shipping (Devon and Cornw. Rec. Soc. xxi), no. 49; C1/73/84.

What other details of Rokes’s life have emerged chiefly relate to the kind of petty squabbles common among his contemporaries. Thus, at some point before 1438 he was said to have unlawfully deprived his neighbour John Ashford of a messuage in Taunton,15 CPR, 1436-41, p. 106. and about the same time he was in dispute with John of Ile over property at Padnoller (in Charlinch).16 CP40/706, rot. 312d; C66/442, m. 29d; KB9/230B/192; KB27/704, rot. 61. He died at an unknown point before 1475, by which date his affairs were in the hands of his synonymous son.17 C1/48/231.