Edmond Cockayne

Church of Saint John the Baptist, Cockayne Hatley, Bedfordshire, England:

Effigies of Edmond Cokayn, Esquire, 1515, in armor, and wife Elizabeth [Lock], with twelve sons and four daughters, one shield, and a three-line English foot-inscription. On the floor of the center aisle of the nave.

Foot-inscription: 'Of yo' charite pray for the soules of Edmond Cokayn squyer and Elizabeth his wyf which Edmond decessed the iij day of septeber the yere of our lord md & xv on whose soules ihu have mercy'

Below to the left on a separate plate are the twelve sons of the Cokayns, all represented as bareheaded and wearing long gowns with full sleeves. Only the eldest on the right is differentiated by having a fur collar. As the sons are turned slightly to our right, so the four daughters under Elizabeth are turned to the left. All wear long gowns with fur-trimmed cuffs, and all have flowing hair to suggest that they are unmarried. Above and between the two parents is a shield on which the arms of Cokayn, here represented as a pierced roundel in the center of the shield, impale the canting arms of Elisabeth's family, the Locks: a chevron between three fetter locks complete with key holes

The great-grandson of John Cockayne who died in 1429 and the son and heir of John Cockayne who died in 1490 and his wife Elizabeth, the eldest daughter and coheir of John Boyville, Edmond Cokayn married Elizabeth Lock and, if we are to believe the representation on the brass, had twelve sons and four daughters. From his mother, Edmond inherited a third interest in the manor of Packington-Pigott in Warwickshire, and, of course, succeeded to the manor of Hatley. We know little more about Edmond except that he served as a sheriff of Bedfordshire in 1492 and died on 3 September 1515. Despite the figure of twelve sons on the brass, we hear of only four of them. The eldest son and heir, Humphrey, died on 26 March 1515, leaving as his heir his year-old daughter, so the estate passed to Edmond's second son William. Edmond's will mentions two other sons, John and Edmond, and one daughter, Ann, who was to be given one hundred marks "if she will be ruled by testator or his executors." Should she not be so ruled, then the executors were to "dispose this sum in alms deeds to works of mercy for wealth of souls.”

Source: Hamline - Brass Rubbings

29th Nov. 1474, Edward [Edmond] Cokayn, gentleman, son and heir of John Cokayn, gentleman acknowledged in the chamber an acquittance date 25 Nov. made by him and Elizabeth his wife, daughter of John Lok, late alderman and mercer to John Broune, alderman and Richard Shiffe, [could be Sniffe] mercer, for 104 marks belonging to the said Elizabeth by the death of William, son of the said John Lok, and also acquitting the mayor, alderman and William Philip chamberlain.

(Calender of Plea & Memoranda Rolls of the City of London AD 1458-1482, page 88)

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Edmund/Edmond and Edward were often used interchangeably in the past, sometimes because war and mun/mon were difficult to distinguish (and the same for Edmd and Edwd, the standard abbreviations for the two names) leading to errors when the record was produced or later transcribed. More importantly, there doesn’t appear to have been the same sense of distinction between the two names then, as there is now.

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• The visitations of Bedfordshire, annis domini 1566, 1582, and 1634, made by William Harvey, Robert Cooke, and George Owen as deputy for Richard St. George : together with additional pedigrees, chiefly from Harleian ms. 1531; and an appendix con ....
• https://archive.org/details/visitationsofbed19blay
• https://archive.org/stream/visitationsofbed19blay#page/17/mode/1up
  • Cokayne [of Hatley = Port]. Pg.17-18
• .... etc.
• John Cokayne of Cokayne Hatley ar. sonne and heire. = [Elizabeth] daughter of [John] Boyfeld [al's Bosvile]. ; ch: (Pg.18 Edmond (m. Elizabeth Locke), [Beatrice (m. Sr Thom. Tirrell) Cokayne.
  • https://archive.org/stream/visitationsofbed19blay#page/18/mode/1up
  • Edmond Cokayne of Cokayne Hatley ar. sonne and heire. = Elizabeth daughter of . . . . Locke. ; ch: Humfrey (m. Catherine Savage), Will'm (m.[Margaret ]) Cokayne.
  • .... etc. _______________________