COKER, Robert (1617-97), of Mappowder and Athelhampton Hall, Dorset.

The ‘ancient and well-respected family of Coker’ had originated in Somerset, but moved to Dorset on acquiring the manor of Mappowder from Lords de la Warr and Cobham in the reign of Henry VIII.30Coker’s Survey of Dorsetshire (1732), 98; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 721-2. The family quickly gained political influence in Dorset, with Henry Coker† being elected for Shaftesbury in the 1559 Parliament. By the reign of Charles I, Robert Coker's father, William, had become a respected figure in county politics: his wife was a member of the Williams family, which was allied by marriage to the influential Trenchard clan.31Dorset RO, D/BLX/T104. This William Coker dutifully served as j.p. during the 1630s and early 1640s, and was praised by Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper* as ‘a most worthy and discreet gentleman, very knowing in the justice, government, and affairs of the county, of a good estate’.32Dorset RO, QSM/1/1, pp. 816-961; Western Circuit Assize Orders ed. Cockburn, 97-237; Christie, Shaftesbury, i. appx i. pp. xix-xx. William Coker joined the king in 1642, and was granted a commission to raise and command a regiment of foot under the Somerset MP, Sir Ralph Hopton*.33Bayley, Dorset, 36. In October 1642 he was reported to be a supporter of the Dorset royalists, led by Ashley Cooper, Sir Gerard Naper* and Sir John Strangways*, in their attempts to win over the parliamentarian Sir Walter Erle*.34Add. 18777, f. 27. Although William Coker was later to claim that his active royalism had ceased at the end of 1643, he had been sufficiently active to warrant the sequestration of his estates. William Coker’s lands were recovered on the payment of a modest composition of £280 in 1646.35CCC 1072.

Robert Coker was not of the same mould as his father. While William Coker was busy maintaining the peace in Dorset during the 1630s, Robert was actively disrupting it. In October 1635 he had joined Richard Swayne in stirring local opposition to the king’s saltpetre-man, Thomas Thornhill.36CSP Dom.1635, pp. 425, 449. Coker’s matriculation at Oxford in the same month, and his admission to the Middle Temple in 1638 removed him from the county and its politics during the later 1630s and early 1640s.37Al. Ox.; M. Temple Admiss. i. 134. He was possibly drawn into the parliamentarian fold by his marriage to the daughter of one of the local oppositionist leaders, John Browne I*, in 1642.38Hutchins, Dorset, ii. 303. Coker’s activities at the beginning of the civil war are also obscure, although he was serving as a lieutenant-colonel by the summer of 1644.39HMC Salisbury, xxii. 380. From the beginning of 1646, his position becomes much clearer. He was present at the fall of the Dorset stronghold Corfe Castle to the parliamentarian forces under John Bingham* in March, and in April he was a principal signatory in the agreement with the royalist garrison for the surrender of Portland Castle in the south of the county, being described in that document as ‘lieutenant-governor’ of Weymouth, deputy to Colonel William Sydenham*.40Bodl. Tanner 60, ff. 510-1; LJ viii. 268b. By this time he had also been made a justice of the peace for the county.41Christie, Shaftesbury i. appx i. p. xxxiv. After the defeat of the last royalist outposts in Dorset, Coker was active in the disbandment of supernumerary troops in the county. In this, he was aligned to the conservative elements in Dorset who opposed the billeting of the brigade of Major-general Edward Massie* in the south west. On 11 April 1646 Coker signed a letter from the county committee to Sydenham ordering the reform and disbandment of the county forces and on 8 July he subscribed a similar letter to Speaker William Lenthall requesting the removal of Massie’s troops.42Add. 29319, ff. 36-7; Bodl. Tanner 59, f. 392. The brigade was not finally disbanded until October 1646, and Coker’s involvement in the process can be seen a month later, when he was reimbursed for money paid to the soldiers ‘upon their discontent for want of pay’.43Bodl. Gough Dorset 14, f. 30v.

Coker’s role in suppressing Massie’s brigade suggests that he was sympathetic to the political Independents at Westminster. His main connection with this group may have been through the 2nd earl of Salisbury, who was employing Coker as one of his agents in Cranborne Chase by 1646.44Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, f. 38. The importance of this connection can be seen in Coker’s actions during the disputed election at Shaftesbury in the autumn of 1646. John Fitzjames*, one of the candidates, was advised to approach Coker, apparently in the hope of securing the support of Salisbury and, through him, that of his friend and ally, the 4th earl of Pembroke.45Alnwick, Northumberland MS 547, ff. 49, 53. Such influential men may have secured Coker’s appointment to the county committee in September 1646 and as sheriff of Dorset in December.46Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 8, 9; List of Sheriffs, 39. Coker’s links with Salisbury may have increased his local difficulties in the new year of 1647. The parliamentary resolutions of February 1647 to disband much of its armed forces sparked rivalry between the officers in Dorset. William Sydenham had given up command of Weymouth at the beginning of March.47Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 208. On 13 March, when the Commons debated the appointment of his replacement, ‘there [was] a competition between Lt.-Col. Coker and Capt. Doyley for the command of Weymouth’.48Add. 31116, p. 608. Doyley was a staunch Presbyterian, who went on to support the coup at Westminster in the summer of 1647, and his opposition to Coker may have had a political edge. Coker’s eventual appointment as governor came on 4 June, at a time when the Independents had re-asserted their authority in Parliament.49LJ ix. 238a. The decision was confirmed by an order of both Houses was issued on 17 June.50CSP Dom. 1645-7, p. 563.

Coker’s success in securing this appointment was undermined by growing unrest over army pay, allied to increasing disquiet within the army over the Presbyterian resurgence at Westminster. As early as 21 January 1647, the garrison at Weymouth had petitioned the county committee for debentures to cover £2,637 in arrears of pay, and had been granted an engagement on the public faith for satisfaction of the debt with interest.51Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 162. During the spring of 1647, Coker, as lieutenant-governor, certified other claims for arrears directed to the committee.52Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 186, 232, 266. The problem of pay arrears probably exacerbated the crisis which followed: at the same time as the Presbyterians in Parliament staged their coup in July 1647, the garrison of Weymouth rioted and ran amok. As Coker reported to Lenthall on 8 July: ‘this last night in our garrison, the extreme poverty and necessity of the soldiers ... caused them mutinously to gather together and the most part of them armed, broke forth of the garrison, marched to Dorchester, and there rudely seized on some of the gentlemen of the [county] committee’. Coker emphasized that his efforts to appease the troops were only a temporary fix: ‘myself being present endeavoured by threats and persuasions to appease them, but unless I would engage myself [that] they should have their pay assured them, I could not prevail, which to stop their violence [I] was compelled to do’.53Bodl. Tanner 58, f. 350. Coker had his own reasons for wanting the government to address the concerns of the soldiery: he too was owed arrears amounting to £1,198.54Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 162.

Coker relinquished his office as governor of Weymouth in October 1647, pleading his commitments as sheriff of Dorset and ‘much other employment’.55Perfect Occurrences no. 41 (8-15 Oct. 1647), 283-4. He was a regular attender at the county committee from November 1647 until August 1648, and was active as a magistrate.56Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 281-430; Christie, Shaftesbury i. appx. i. p. xlvii. He was also named to the new militia commission for the county in April and again in December, and worked in cooperation with John Fitzjames in settling the militia for Sherborne division at the height of the second civil war.57Weymouth Min. Bks. 66; Christie, Shaftesbury i. appx. i. p. xlviii; A. and O.; Alnwick, Northumberland MS 548, f. 18v. Unlike Fitzjames, Coker had no qualms about serving the commonwealth immediately after the execution of the king. In July 1649 he warned Parliament of a royalist plot to capture Weymouth and Portland, and in the following December was made assessment commissioner for Dorset.58Bayley, Dorset, 359; A. and O. He continued to sit on the county committee in 1649 and 1650, and he was re-appointed to the commission of the peace in September 1650.59Dorset Standing Cttee. ed. Mayo, 548-9, 560, 570; The Names of the Justices (1650), 14 (E.1238.4). Coker’s willingness to support the commonwealth gradually declined, however, and in the early 1650s he kept a low profile. As a justice, he officiated at weddings at Mappowder from 1653, and in 1654 he took as his second wife the eldest daughter of John Brune, an influential puritan gentleman, and from the time of his marriage resided at the Brune mansion at Athelhampton.60Dorset RO, Mappowder par. regs.; Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 723, 725. Something of his religious sympathies can be gleaned from his appointment, as patron of the living, of the puritan John Chadwell as minister of Mappowder church in the same year.61Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 734. Coker maintained his contacts with a wide spectrum of the county gentry, however, and relied on Fitzjames to keep him informed of affairs at Westminster early in 1655.62Alnwick, Northumberland MS 551, f. 15. Coker was appointed to the new Dorset militia commission issued in March 1655 in response to Penruddock’s rising.63SP25/76A, f. 14.

The events surrounding Coker’s election for the second protectorate Parliament in 1656 demonstrate his continued prominence in Dorset. His candidature was sponsored by a small group of influential county gentlemen who had selected six trustworthy men to represent Dorset under the new franchise system established by the Instrument of Government. Coker’s part in this process is revealed in two letters from Fitzjames, both dated 14 August 1656. Fitzjames had arranged to meet Coker and John Bingham* to discuss how to proceed; but as this had fallen through, he arranged a new meeting with Coker, Erle, Ashley Cooper and Thomas Trenchard*.64Alnwick, Northumberland MS 551, f. 94. This group then put forward six candidates: Coker, Erle, Fitzjames, John Trenchard*, his son-in-law William Sydenham, and Thomas Moore.65Alnwick, Northumberland MS 551, f. 94v. In the subsequent elections, this arrangement proved only partially successful: of the six mentioned, only Fitzjames, Coker and Sydenham were returned.

In the early months of the Parliament that followed, Coker was named to seven committees. These included the privileges committee (18 Sept.), a committee on the declaration against the profanation of the sabbath (22 Sept.) and a committee to consider the petition from Coker’s erstwhile patron, the earl of Salisbury (10 Dec.).66CJ vii. 424a, 426b, 466b. On 16 December, Coker was involved in the debates on the trial of the notorious Quaker, James Naylor, when he advocated the lenient punishment of cutting off the hair of the condemned. This proposal was opposed by Major-general Philip Skippon, who exclaimed: ‘I doubt [not] cutting off his hair will be but too private a punishment’.67Burton’s Diary i. 153. The only instance of Coker promoting Dorset interests in Parliament is his presentation of a letter from the county to the parliamentary committee for trade on 18 December, although local concerns may have prompted his inclusion in the committee on the bill for repairing highways on 2 January 1657.68Burton’s Diary i. 169; CJ vii. 478a. After the latter appointment, Coker disappears from the parliamentary record for four months, and his absence from the House, rather than any political motive, may account for his name not appearing in the list of those who voted for kingship on 25 March.69Narrative of the Late Parliament (1657), 22 (E.935.5). Coker had reappeared in the Commons by the beginning of May, when he was named to two minor committees, but on 20 June, only a few days before the adjournment, he was given leave to go into the country.70CJ vii. 529b, 534a, 567b. He joined the second sitting in January 1658, being named to the committee on a bill for the registration of births, marriages and deaths.71CJ vii. 581a.

Coker’s local position was beginning to improve even before the 1656-8 Parliament. On 13 May 1656, he had petitioned the protectoral council to secure the lands of his recently deceased father from decimation, and presented certificates from the county commissioners attesting to his own faithful service; he was granted relief a fortnight later.72CSP Dom. 1655-6, p. 318. After the recess of Parliament in June 1657, Coker continued to play a part in the local administration, being reappointed as assessment commissioner for the county in the same month.73A. and O. In December 1657 he joined John Fitzjames, James Dewy I* and his father-in-law, Edward Hooper, as referees of Mary Fitzjames’s petition to the protector, for relief from sequestration for her husband’s part in the Penruddock rising.74CSP Dom. 1657-8, p. 211. Coker’s willingness to involve himself in this case suggests that the moderation of his political views had continued in the later 1650s. This process would culminate in his involvement in the factionalism surrounding the elections for Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in the winter of 1658-9, when Coker came out in support of Fitzjames and Ashley Cooper. He had been brought into this alliance through the intercession of his brother-in-law by his first marriage, John Browne.75Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 52v. In December 1658 Fitzjames told another moderate ally, James Baker*, of his hopes of securing the county seats for well-affected men: ‘the contest will be (if any) betwixt Col. Coker, Col. Bingham and myself. I am for the first and the last, if you please’.76Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 50v. But Fitzjames’s optimism was ill-founded. As the county election approached, it became clear that Bingham had chosen the veteran parliamentarian, Sir Walter Erle, as his running-mate, and that, as Fitzjames told Coker on 22 December, ‘there are monstrous plots in agitation against you and myself’.77Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 58. Fitzjames’s exaggeration does not hide the fact that Cooper and his cronies had been successfully out-manoeuvred.

The county election of 3 January 1659 duly went against Coker and his friends, who had to settle for borough seats instead.78Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 65. Fitzjames told Ashley Cooper that he had tried to secure a seat for Coker in Somerset, but admitted that the latter was now reluctant to stand at all: ‘I called upon my cousin Coker at Mappowder, and most heartily used that little rhetoric I had to persuade him to the acceptance of Milborne Port, but could not prevail’.79Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 70. Fitzjames was concerned that the seat would be lost to John Pyne*, and asked Cooper ‘to lay your commands upon him [Coker] in this particular, which I hope will sway more than my arguments’.80Alnwick, Northumberland MS 552, f. 70. Whether from disillusion with his allies, or from a wish to remain aloof from further local power-struggles, Coker did not sit in Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament, although he continued to be named to local commissions.81A. and O.

At the Restoration, Coker joined Fitzjames and Ashley Cooper, in signing the Dorset message of thanksgiving for the return of the king.82Bayley, Dorset, 387. He was elected with Fitzjames as knight of the shire for the Convention of 1660, although he did not distinguish himself at Westminster.83C219/45, unfol. At a local level, Coker prospered. He was made deputy lieutenant for Dorset in July 1660; was notably active as a magistrate in the county from 1664 to 1674; and, despite his earlier Puritan inclinations, was appointed as a commissioner for taking the oath of conformity in 1666.84SP29/8/67; Dorset Hearth Tax, 116, 117. Coker remained a close friend of Fitzjames and Ashley Cooper during the 1660s, and in the same decade he was also on good terms with former royalists.85Alnwick, Northumberland MS 550, f. 65; 553, f. 15; PRO30/24/7/560-3. In 1661 the rising star of the county, Sir Ralph Bankes*, married Coker’s step-daughter, Mary Brune; Coker was godfather to Sir Ralph’s first daughter in 1662, and by 1671 was acting as feoffee of the Bankes estate.86Dorset RO, D/BKL, Box 8C/61: ‘Liber Johannis Banckes’, unfol.; PROB11/354/126. Although he lost local office at the accession of James II, Coker regained his position under William III, and had an influence on local affairs until his death on 19 September 1698. In his will, written a fortnight before, Coker left small gifts to his family and the poor of Mappowder.87Dorset RO, Ad/Dt/W/1699. He was buried in the parish church on 23 September.88Dorset RO, Mappowder par. regs. Coker was succeeded by his eldest son by his second marriage, Robert Coker.89Hutchins, Dorset, iii. 723.