COKE (COOKE), Henry (1591-1661), of Thorington Hall, Suff.

Henry Coke was born on the evening of 27 August 1591 at the house of his maternal grandfather, John Paston, at Huntingfield in north-east Suffolk.15Harl. 6687A, f. 11. By then it was already clear that his father, Edward Coke, would rise to the top of the legal profession. He had already served as an MP (for Aldeburgh in 1589) and as recorder of London. Within a year of Henry’s birth he was appointed to his first crown law office, as solicitor-general, in January 1593 he was elected the Speaker of the House of Commons. Perhaps more than any other contemporary, Sir Edward would profoundly influence the political outlook of many Members of the 1640s but the extent to which his fifth son was to imbibe or to repudiate his political legacy is open to argument.

Sir Edward Coke’s career augmented the wealth and standing of the Coke family as never before. Although only a younger son, Henry Coke benefited from the spoils gathered by his father and he enhanced his own position by marrying well. Margaret Lovelace was a potential heiress, being the only child of Richard Lovelace of Kingsdown, Kent. It was at the house of the bride’s father at Hillingdon that the marriage took place in 1619.16London Mar. Lics. ed. Foster, 304; Pearman, ‘Kentish family of Lovelace’, 59-61. The following year Sir Edward granted to the young couple lands at Thorington in Suffolk, at Swaffham Priory in Cambridgeshire, and in north-east Essex.17G.A. Carthew, The Hundred of Launditch (Norwich, 1877-9), iii. 115-16. At some stage Sir Edward also gave Henry another of his Suffolk manors, Cratfield.18Add. 19080, f. 235v; Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 51-2. These generous arrangements made it unnecessary for him to make further provision for Henry at the time of his death in 1634.19PROB11/167/125.

During their early years of marriage, Henry and Margaret Coke appear to have lived on his father’s estate at Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire; it was there that their first four children (all boys) were born.20CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 335; Harl. 6687A, f. 15; Vis. Eng. and Wales Notes, viii. 111-13. It was probably not until 1625 or 1626 that the family moved permanently to Thorington.21Hill, Thorington, 25, 26, 71, 72, 99. The purchase by Sir Edward from the Bedingfields of Bedingfield of more land at Thorington for Henry is likely to have been concluded at about this time and may have prompted the move.22HMC 9th Rep. 423; A. Morrison, Cat. of Collection of Autograph Lttrs. (1883-92), i. 220. Soon Henry was leasing land from the corporation of the nearest town, Dunwich, probably using one of the Bedingfield brothers (more likely John than Thomas*) to handle the legal details.23Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, ff. 74, 97, 99, 101, 105. The Cokes were joined at Thorington by Margaret Coke’s very elderly stepmother, Jane Lovelace.24PROB11/158/62; Hill, Thorington, 84, 99; Pearman, ‘The Kentish family of Lovelace’, 60-1. By the late 1630s he was engaged in legal disputes over the attempted enclosures by his neighbour, Sir Robert Brooke†.25P. Warner, Bloody Marsh (2000), 27, 67, 85, 87. It was at Thornington that Coke was assessed £3 5s for Ship Money in May 1640.26Suff. Ship-Money Returns, 80. He must also have taken some interest in his estates at Swaffham Priory. The unusual choice of name for his fourth son, Ciriac, was surely inspired by the fact that the church there was dedicated to the fourth-century child martyr, St Cyriac, the only such dedication in East Anglia.27Vis. Eng. and Wales Notes, viii. 113; F. Arnold-Foster, Studies in Church Dedications (1899), i. 170-2, iii. 274, 350, 354, 388; F. Bond, Dedications & Patron Saints of Eng. Churches (Oxford, 1914), 122, 314.

Coke first entered Parliament in 1624 as MP for Chipping Wycombe, the former constituency of his late father-in-law and where his father was the high steward, and he was re-elected there in 1625 and 1626. So far as his father was concerned, these were eventful Parliaments in which Sir Edward continued to act out his role as the champion of the common law and of the kingdom’s grievances.28HP Commons 1604-1629, ‘Sir Edward Coke’. A possible indication that, in politics, Henry followed his father is provided by the fact that (with his elder brother, Arthur, and Sir Nathaniel Barnardiston*) he was summoned to appear before the privy council in December 1626 for refusing to contribute to the Forced Loan; Sir Edward Coke was, after all, one of the most outspoken critics of the loan in the 1628 Parliament.29APC June-Dec. 1626, pp. 426-7.

Henry Coke did not seek election to Charles I’s third Parliament in 1628, possibly because, by spending more time in Suffolk, he had weakened his interest at Chipping Wycombe. When the next Parliament was summoned in 1640 he turned his attention to Dunwich, the constituency closest to Thorington. The first election of 1640, held on 23 March, went smoothly: Coke was elected unopposed to the senior seat. The Bedingfield interest secured the election of Anthony Bedingfield* in the other place.30Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, f. 115v; HMC Var. vii. 99; HMC 4th Rep. 24. After playing no known part in the proceedings of the Short Parliament, Coke and Bedingfield faced the freemen of Dunwich again that autumn. There was an attempt by Sir William Playters* to contest the seat but, on election day, 23 October, almost all the voters backed the re-election of their existing MPs.31Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, ff. 118v-119.

Less self-effacing than in previous Parliaments, Coke played an occasional part in the proceedings of the Commons during the earliest years of the Long Parliament. This was almost entirely due to the Commons’ attempts to recover his late father’s papers, which had been seized in 1634, on the orders of the king, by one of the secretaries of state, Sir Francis Windebanke*, who had collected the papers in person.32CSP Dom. 1634-5, pp. 165, 340-1, 348, 351; Coke, Detection, i. 354. On 5 December 1640 Henry Coke and Edward Hyde* raised their seizure in Parliament as a matter of public as well as private concern. When a committee was set up by the Commons to establish their whereabouts, Coke was first named to it.33CJ ii. 45b-46a; Procs. LP, i. 473, 475, 477; Coke, Detection, i. 354. Later that month (21 Dec.), Sir Thomas Rowe* informed the Commons that the king had given assurances that the papers would, within days, be passed to the sole surviving executor of Sir Edward, (Sir) Ranulphe Crew†.34Procs. LP, ii. 4-5. Coke then intervened to remind the House that the manuscripts were ‘entailed’, presumably meaning that his eldest brother, Sir Robert Coke†, as heir to the estate, had a claim to them.35Northcote Note Bk. 88. The manuscripts were handed over in February 1641 and in May of that year, in the hope of strengthening their constitutional claims, the Commons asked Sir Robert Coke to have the more important of the pieces printed. The resulting publication formed the first edition of the second part of the Institutes.36CJ ii. 69b, 80a, 85a, 144a; Printing for Parliament ed. S. Lambert (L. and I., spec. ser. xx), 1.

Yet there are indications that Henry Coke was probably unhappy about some of the actions being taken by Parliament. On 29 October 1641 the Commons debated whether the former secretary of state, (Sir) John Coke† (no relation), should be summoned to appear before the House. The case against him rested on controversial orders of the court of star chamber he had signed in 1628.37CJ ii. 298a-b. Henry Coke tried to block the summons, making the awkward observation that the orders had also been signed by the 1st earl of Manchester (Henry Montagu†) as lord privy seal. John Pym* (according to the retelling of the anecdote by Coke’s son) replied that, as Manchester ‘now went right, that all ought to be forgotten’.38Coke, Detection, i. 387-8. The few other possible references to Henry Coke in this Parliament are more likely to refer to his two namesakes, Sir John and Thomas Coke, the sons of the former secretary of state.39CJ ii. 48a, 638b; D’Ewes (C), 25n; PJ iii. 163. His low profile may have been the result of illness, for on 17 January 1642 he apparently obtained leave of absence on the grounds of ill health.40PJ i. 101.

Coke’s absence, however, was soon being viewed as suspicious by Parliament – probably justifiably. The king named him as a commissioner of array for Suffolk in June 1642.41Northants RO, FH133, unfol. Thereafter the Commons began to single him out as one of their leading opponents. On 12 August, as the Commons sought to disable those MPs who had openly sided with the king, Coke and another Suffolk MP, the comptroller of the Household, Sir Thomas Jermyn*, were summoned to attend. Both failed to do so. Coke and Jermyn headed the list of 60 Members who had defaulted, presented to the Commons on 2 September by Roger Hill II*.42CJ ii. 716b, 750a; PJ iii. 330. Five days later a fellow Suffolk MP, John Gurdon*, moved that Coke be disabled from sitting in Parliament. With Sir Henry Mildmay* seconding Gurdon, the House agreed to Coke’s disablement.43PJ iii. 336; CJ ii. 756a. In due course his place as MP for Dunwich was taken by Robert Brewster* in a recruiter election held in September 1645.44CJ iv. 262a; Suff. RO (Ipswich), EE6/3/3, f. 152; HMC Var. vii. 100.

Any possibility that Coke might attempt to assist the king was quickly countered by the parliamentarian supporters in Suffolk. On 18 March 1643 he was placed under arrest and imprisoned at Great Yarmouth. The Commons then had him transferred to London.45Abbott, Writings and Speeches, i. 219; Coke, Detection, ii. 52; CJ ii. 850b, 871b; iii. 15b; Harl. 164, ff. 340v, 341v. While his brother, Sir Robert, was held in the Tower, Coke was kept in custody at London House, the residence of Bishop William Juxon.46CCAM 246. Throughout his time in prison his dealings with the agents of Parliament were conducted with spirited ill grace. Ordered to pay £300 to the Committee for Advance of Money in September 1643 on the grounds that he was resident in London, he refused, sarcastically replying that they should be resident in London in the same way that he was.47CCAM 246; Coke, Detection, ii. 52-3. The committee responded by confiscating his rents and possessions, and by increasing the sum demanded to £1,500.48CCAM 246, 265. Sequestration of the Coke brothers’ estates was approved by the Commons on 14 October 1644 and late the following year it was decided that the income from these lands should be allocated to the navy.49CJ iii. 662b, iv. 390b; Harl. 166, f. 130. Prolonged efforts by Coke’s wife on their behalf eventually produced results. Having considered her petition of late 1646, the Committee for Sequestrations recommended to the Commons on 25 February 1647 that the sequestrations against both Henry and Sir Robert Coke ought to be lifted. Consent was given at once and the brothers were probably released soon after.50CJ iv. 724b, v. 97b; CCC 96; Coke, Detection, ii. 53; SP23/147, p. 321.

Imprisonment and sequestration can hardly be said to have ruined Coke. In February 1649 he concluded a settlement for the marriage of his daughter, Theophila, to Anthony, the son of Anthony Freston of Metfield, Suffolk. (In the event it was Theophila’s elder sister, Bridget, who married Freston). The portion Coke undertook to pay before midsummer 1650 amounted to £2,000.51Bodl. Tanner 98, f. 43; Vis. Eng. and Wales Notes, viii. 114, 116. He could easily afford such a sum. Even after the rigours of the civil war, his annual income was estimated at between £1,500 and £2,000.52Soc. Antiq. MS 667, p. 456. A bequest of some marshland at Fakenham from his brother, Sir Robert, in 1653 probably made little difference to his overall prosperity.53PROB11/230/446.

Even after his release from prison, Coke’s royalist sympathies continued to endanger him. In the autumn of 1648 Edward Martin, an old friend from his time at Cambridge, took refuge at Thorington. Martin had served as a chaplain to Archbishop Laud and then later as president of Coke’s old Cambridge college, Queens’. Ejected from office by Parliament in 1643 and then imprisoned, Martin had escaped from custody in London and turned to Coke for help. Coke sheltered him until early 1650 when Martin was re-arrested. Martin’s second spell in prison was brief and he probably returned to Thorington before going into exile on the continent.54W.G. Searle, Hist. of the Queens’ Coll. (Cambridge, 1867-71), ii. 504; CSP Dom. 1650, pp. 160, 173.

The indiscretions of his sons landed Coke in prison once again in 1657. Coke’s second son, Roger, began stockpiling arms at Thorington after being recruited to a royalist conspiracy by William Rolleston. While Coke was apparently unaware of this, the regime was rather better informed, either because Rolleston’s superior was the most damaging of all the double agents, Sir Richard Willys, or because, as Roger Coke suspected, his younger brother, Robert, had let the secret out. A raid on Coke’s house failed to uncover the arms, but Henry and Robert Coke were nevertheless arrested.55Coke, Detection, ii. 53-5; SP18/200, f. 160; J.G. M[uddiman], ‘Sir Richard Willys’, N. and Q. 12th ser. x. 123; D.E. Underdown, ‘Sir Richard Willys and Secretary Thurloe’, EHR lxix. 373-87. Robert quickly confessed – an act which Roger charitably attributed to the illicit use of torture by his captors.56Coke, Detection, ii. 55-6.

Roger Coke’s account, written many years later, of how he secured his father’s release and prevented the confiscation of the family estates is amusing enough. The reader is clearly meant to find Henry Coke charmingly obstinate. In the absence of other evidence, his son’s affectionate portrait of him as a cussed old man who refuses to cooperate with his upstart persecutors, can only be taken on trust. According to Roger Coke, his efforts to get his father freed were almost wrecked when, on being asked by the governor of Great Yarmouth, William Burton*, if he knew Oliver Cromwell*, Henry Coke replied ‘yes, and his father too when he kept his brewhouse at Huntington [sic]’, a comment probably meant to show more contempt for the governor than for Cromwell. Having been released on the understanding that he would give assurances of good behaviour, Henry Coke was summoned to Bury St Edmunds so that the assurances could be taken by the deputy major-general, Hezekiah Haynes*. Coke refused to go, sending Roger instead.57Coke, Detection, ii. 56-7. In January 1656 the Suffolk commissioners for securing the peace of the commonwealth had advised that Coke was a delinquent who deserved to be taxed under the order of September 1655. The figure they proposed as the annual levy to be paid by him (equal to one-tenth of his estate) had been £150. Haynes now indicated his displeasure at his non-appearance by ordering that this recommendation be implemented.58TSP iv. 427; Knyvett Lttrs. 47. Roger Coke journeyed to London in an attempt to get this order rescinded and to secure the release of his brother, Robert, who was still languishing in prison. Hoping for an interview with the lord protector, Roger Coke approached Major-general Philip Skippon*, thinking he would help because (as he pointedly explained) Skippon’s father had been a servant to his grandfather and his uncle. Skippon refused. Coke had more success when he contacted another Cromwellian courtier from East Anglia, Nathaniel Bacon*. As one of the masters of requests, Bacon had no difficulty in arranging the audience Coke wanted. The climax to the story was that, on receiving him, Cromwell granted his wishes but spent more time assuring him that he knew his father ‘very well’ and that his sister was ‘very fair’. The hint is, of course, that, as an old friend of his father, Cromwell was a better class of person than some of those with whom he had been dealing.59Coke, Detection, ii. 57-9.

Coke spent the remainder of his life living quietly at Thorington, being by now ‘old, very fat and unwieldy’.60Coke, Detection, ii. 54. One of his last public acts was to donate the wood used to re-panel the chapel of Queens’ College in 1661. This he probably saw as a final favour to Edward Martin, recently re-instated as president, as well as an statement of his disapproval of the sort of religious radicalism represented by William Dowsing, whose iconoclastic efforts in the 1640s had made the refurbishment necessary.61Searle, Queens’ Coll. ii. 582. In a similar vein, he also presented a new set of communion plate to his local church at Thorington.62E.C. Hopper, ‘Church plate in Suffolk: deanery of South Dunwich’, Procs. Suff. Inst. Arch. ix. 23-4.

Coke was buried at Thorington on 19 November 1661.63Hill, Thorington, 73. He probably died intestate, while the loss of the 1662 probate act book of the prerogative court of Canterbury explains why there is no record of the administration of probate. Most of the lands passed to his eldest surviving son, Richard, who, shortly before his father’s death, had become the Member for Dunwich.64Copinger, Manors of Suff. ii. 52, 166. In 1674 Richard’s son, Robert†, married Lady Anne Osborne, the daughter of the lord treasurer, the earl of Danby (Sir Thomas Osborne†). The senior lines of the family in time became extinct and Robert Coke inherited the estates of the Holkham branch, thereby reuniting most of the lands which had belonged to Lord Chief Justice Coke.