COBBE, Richard (d.1658), of Barton and Winchester, Hants.

Cobbe was the illegitimate scion of a minor branch of a family which was well established in Hampshire, although one far from constituting a prominent or wealthy part of the county elite. The entry for his baptism in the parish register of Selborne – eight miles north of Petersfield – styled his mother as meretr[i]cula (pretty harlot) and mentioned John Cobbe (who already had other children) only as the ‘reputed father’.13Selborne par. reg. Illegitimacy would account for the obscurity of this Richard’s early life and his apparent lack of a formal education, but some significant professional or mercantile activity, such as has not yet come to light, would be needed to underpin the subsequent career.

He must be distinguished from another of the same name, the second son of Thomas Cobbe of Micheldever, a captain of the county militia in the 1620s who compounded for knighthood at £15, and who died in 1638.14Berry, Pedigrees of Hants, 292; Vis. Hants (Harl. Soc. lxiv), 109-10; Al. Ox.; W. L. W. Eyre, A Brief Hist. of the Parishes of Swarraton and Northington (1890), 23; Add. 21922, ff. 5, 60, 108, 176, 188; Add. 26781, f. 17; Cornwall RO, ME 2886, 2882-3. This Richard Cobbe, who entered Winchester College as a 10-year-old scholar in 1617, was created MA at Oxford in 1636, was a ‘servant’ of William Laud from the mid-1630s, was authorized in October 1643 to attend the archbishop in the Tower, and after the latter’s execution in 1645, received a bequest of £150 and an annuity of £50.15Winchester Scholars, 167; PROB11/178/414; VCH Hants iv. 196; Al. Ox.; Laud, Works, iii. 227, 244, 460; iv. 35n, 447-8; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 326, 340, 343, 388-9, 490-1, 502; SP18/11, ff. 11-12. This man was listed on the royalist council of war for Hampshire and placed by the king on his commission of the peace in January 1644. 16Add. 26781, f. 115; Docquets of Letters Patent ed. Black, 121.

Cobbe the future MP was living in 1643 in Barton, where Laud’s servant leased land from the dean and chapter of Winchester cathedral, confirmed in his possession by the archbishop’s will.17CSP Dom. 1650, p. 326; SP18/11, ff. 11-12; Laud, Works, iv. 447-8. Cobbe himself seems to be the man subsequently holding this and related property, and probably the man called in 1650 to answer questions about debts owed to Laud’s executors.18Winchester Coll. mss. 29837-8, 29925-6; SP18/11, f. 20. In February 1648 the future MP was appointed an assessment commissioner, and he continued to be so named regularly for the rest of his life.19A. and O. That June, he was placed on the Hampshire commission of the peace.20SP23/248, p. 69. In 1650 he was active as a magistrate in examining the scandalous sectaries, William Franklin and Mary Gadbury, and had acquired the position of joint receiver-general in Hampshire. In May 1651, Cobbe and other local officials were directed by the council of state to provide a list of prisoners in the county.21Humphrey Ellis, PseudoChristus (1650), 38 (E.602.12); Add. 24861, ff. 37, 56; CSP Dom. 1651, p. 196. He worked alongside Major-general William Goffe* during the protectorate. In November 1655 Goffe told John Thurloe* that Cobbe had been appointed one of the commissioners for preserving the peace of the commonwealth, on the recommendation of Richard Cromwell* and Richard Maijor*.22TSP iv. 238-40, 363. Cobbe also assisted Goffe in implementing the decimation, and as a result secured Goffe’s approval as one of the knights of the shire for Hampshire in the Parliament of 1656. Writing on 21 August, Goffe expressed his hope to Secretary John Thurloe* that Cobbe would ‘be for a settlement’.23TSP v. 329.

For a novice, Cobbe was fairly noticeable in the opening weeks of the Parliament, being appointed to nine committees between 25 September and 2 December. Several related to social, educational and legal matters: writs of certiorari, alehouses, the wages of artificers, the abuses of manorial stewards and provision for scholars at Cambridge.24CJ vii. 428b, 430a, 435a, 438a, 457a. Some reflected his local interests and expertise, such as committees relating to the preservation of timber and the state of forests, and the case of a local gentleman, John Cole.25CJ vii. 444b, 457b. Perhaps more significant were the committees on trade (20 Oct.) and for Drury House and the sale of delinquents’ estates, to which Cobbe was added on 2 December.26CJ vii. 442a, 463b. He was recorded as being absent on 31 December, and there is no evidence of his attendance until 2 February 1657.27Burton’s Diary, i. 286.

He then resurfaced briefly to be named two committees relating to petitions (2, 9 Feb.), only to disappear again until early May.28CJ vii. 485a, 488a. That month he was nominated to discuss the bill for restraining building in London (9 May) and to inspect treasuries (30 May), but more importantly, to consider how to define the powers of the lord protector in the Humble Petition and Advice (19 May).29CJ vii. 532a, 535a, 543a. His stance on this issue does not appear. The diarist Thomas Burton* recorded that on 4 June Cobbe was a teller against a motion to postpone the trial of Colonel Edward Cook, although the Journal did not mention him, but he was a teller for the majority with Sir Thomas Honywood* on 8 June in a division over a proviso for the bill concerning naturalizations.30Burton’s Diary, ii. 175, 194; CJ vii. 549b. Cobbe’s only recorded appearance during the second session of the Parliament was on 22 January 1658, when he was appointed to a committee to consider absentee college masters.31CJ vii. 581b.

Cobbe died sometime between the end of January 1658 and 9 July that year, when an inventory was made of his estate. His personal effects were valued at a little under £400. Honor Cobbe was living in November 1681, while Richard the younger, educated at Oxford and the Inner Temple, died in 1717.32Winchester Coll. ms. 29839; Hants RO, 8M56/38; 1717A12; Al. Ox.; Hants Hearth Tax 1665, 133. No later member of the family sat in Parliament.