BROOKE, Sir Robert (1573-1646), of Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, Suff. and Walbrook, London

Brooke’s great-grandfather was Reginald Brooke, the younger son of Thomas Brooke (returned for Dorset in 1413 and subsequently four times for Somerset) and Joan, suo jure Baroness Cobham. Reginald inherited an estate in Suffolk, where he settled, and Brooke’s cousin George sat for Eye in 1584. Brooke’s father was a younger son who made a fortune in the City and bought Cockfield Hall, with much other property in his native county, from Arthur Hopton† in 1597. Copinger, ii. 219-221; iii. 218-19; HP Commons, 1386-1421, ii. 375; HP Commons, 1558-1603, i. 492.

Brooke inherited his father’s estate in 1601. Two years later, evidently expecting Parliament to be summoned soon after James I’s accession, he wrote to the corporation of Dunwich, six miles from his home, requesting a seat. However, the borough offered one place to Valentine Knightley* and the other to one of the Stanhopes, almost certainly Sir Michael*, although it agreed to elect Brooke if Stanhope tried to nominate someone else. HMC Var. vii. 88. There is no evidence that Brooke reapplied for a seat the following year, when the borough returned Knightley and Philip Gawdy.

As sheriff of Suffolk, Brooke was ineligible for election to the 1614 Parliament. There is no evidence that he sought election in 1620. He evidently had interests in the City of London, presumably inherited from his father, as the following year, ‘having great occasions from time to time to sojourn’ there, he acquired a great house in Walbrook as satisfaction for £3,000 due from one of his father’s old servants who had gone bankrupt. C78/295/11; PROB 11/97, f. 192v. In February 1622 he paid £50 towards the Palatinate Benevolence. SP14/156/14. Brooke was not finally elected to Parliament until 1624, but played almost no recorded part in its proceedings. He was named to no committees, and is known to have spoken only once, on 14 May, when he complained to the Commons that the serving of two subpoenas on him, one at the very door of the House, had violated his privilege. ‘Earle 1624’, f. 183; CJ, i. 708. Re-elected in 1625, he received two committee appointments, one concerned with a bill to prevent the export of wool (27 June), and the other with a measure dealing with some recently drained marshland in north Kent (28 June). The latter may well have arisen from Brooke’s continuing connection with London, as William Childe, a London scrivener, had a significant interest in the property in question. Procs. 1625, pp. 252, 257; C106/21, 27 Nov. 1624, indenture between Lambard Cooke of North Cray and others.

Brooke was not re-elected the following year, but was returned again for Dunwich in 1628, possibly after a contest with Sir John Rous I*. Procs 1628, vi. 145. He was named to just three committees in the third Caroline Parliament, these being to consider the scandalous ministers bill (19 Apr.), a naturalization measure (13 June), and petitions against the office of royal exchanger (13 June) from the London Goldsmith Company and London currency exchangers. CD 1628, ii. 564; iv. 289, 292. Nevertheless he was diligent in attendance. The Cambridge theologian, Joseph Mead, wrote that after he dined with him on 7 June, Brooke ‘made haste again to the Parliament House’ at two in the afternoon to attend the committee of the whole House about the Remonstrance. T. Birch, Ct. and Time of Chas. I, i. 361. Brooke left not trace on the records of the 1629 session.

In March 1630 Brooke appeared before the Privy Council on a close warrant, for an unspecified offence, but he was allowed to return to the country four days later. APC, 1629-30, pp. 318, 324. Shortly before the Civil War he lost possession of the quay and 1,400 acres of commons at Walberswick after a bitterly fought court case with the local inhabitants, but the hostilities enabled him to regain control by force. CSP Dom. 1639, p. 205; 1639-40, p. 108; T. Gardner, Hist. Acct. of Dunwich, 172. He was a member of the parliamentarian Suffolk county committee during the war and died on 10 July 1646, when he was buried at Yoxford. No will or grant of administration has been found. He left an estate estimated at the restoration to be worth £1,200 p.a. to his son Robert, who was returned for Aldeburgh in 1660. Top. and Gen. i. 491; Add. 19083, f. 252.