William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham

William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham

Sir William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, KG (1 November 1527 – 6 March 1597)[1] was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, and a Member of Parliament for Hythe. Although he was viewed by some as a religious radical during the Somerset protectorate, he entertained Elizabeth at Cobham Hall in 1559, signalling his acceptance of the moderate regime.

William Brooke was the son of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham (d. 29 September 1558), and Anne Braye (d. 1 November 1558).[2]

Brooke's father died in 1558 when he was just over thirty. Brooke married Dorothy Neville, daughter of George Neville, 5th Baron Bergavenny[2] in 1545, but the marriage was unhappy, and they separated after 1553. Brooke seems to have attended The King's School, Canterbury and Queens' College, Cambridge before 1544.[3] He spent much of his younger life in Europe. In the early 1540s he visited Padua. At the end of the decade he served in northern France, where his father was in charge of Calais and in 1549 accompanied Paget's embassy to Brussels.

Like his father, Brooke sympathized with the anti-Marian nobles; he sided with the rebels during Wyatt's rebellion, and the intervention of his brother-in-law, Henry Nevill was needed to keep him from prison. In 1555 he served as MP for Rochester.[2]

In the late 1550s, Brooke's opportunities expanded in a number of areas. His father died, making him Baron Cobham; his first wife died, leaving him free to marry Frances Newton (at Whitehall in 1560). He became Warden of the Cinque Ports, a position in which he wielded great power over a large number of seats in Parliament. Most important, the accession of Elizabeth, and his close friendship with William Cecil made him a powerful noble. Elizabeth deputed him to inform Philip II of Mary's death. This embassy was only the first in a long series of missions and intrigues. Along with Cecil, he numbered among his friends some nobles, such as Thomas Howard and the Earl of Arundel, whose loyalty to Elizabeth was far from certain. He suffered some months' house imprisonment as a result of a very tangential role in the Ridolfi plot. In 1578, he joined Francis Walsingham's failed mission to the Low Countries; on this mission he presumably served as Cecil's agent. In the late 1580s, he helped John Whitgift search for the author of the Martin Marprelate tracts.

Brooke was made a Knight of the Garter on 14 April 1585, and appointed to the Privy Council by 12 February 1586.[2] He was involved in a minor capacity in the events that ended with the death of Mary, Queen of Scots. During the Armada crisis, he was on a diplomatic mission to Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma. By the early 1590s he had assumed a less active role in government. His daughter married Robert Cecil in 1589. His second wife died in 1592. He succeeded Baron Hunsdon, as Lord Chamberlain in August 1596, and held the office until his death on 6 March 1597.[2]

William Brooke married firstly Dorothy Neville (d. 22 September 1559), daughter of George Nevill, 5th Baron Bergavenny, by his third wife, Mary Stafford, daughter of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham,[2] by whom he had a daughter, Frances Brooke (b.1549), who married firstly Thomas Coppinger (1546–1580), and secondly Edward Becher (born c.1545).[4]

He married secondly Frances Newton, by whom he had four sons and three daughters:

• Maximilian Brooke (4 December 1560 – July 1583),[5][6] eldest son and heir, who died without issue.[7]
• Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham (22 November 1564 – 24 January 1619),[8] who married Frances Howard (1566 – July 1628), widow of Henry, Earl of Kildare, by whom he had no issue.[7]
• Sir William Brooke (11 December 1565 – 1597)[9][7]
• Sir George Brooke (17 April 1568 – 5 December 1603),[10][11] who married firstly Elizabeth Burgh (died c. 1637), the eldest daughter and coheir of Thomas Burgh, 3rd Baron Burgh (d. 14 October 1597),[12] by whom he had a son, William (1601–1643), and two daughters, Elizabeth and Frances. After his death his widow married secondly Francis Reade.[7]
• Elizabeth Brooke (12 January 1562 - 24 January 1597),[13][14] who married on 31 August 1589 Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, by whom she had issue.[7]
• Frances Brooke (born 12 January 1562),[13] who married firstly, circa 1580, John Stourton, 9th Baron Stourton, (1553–1588),[15] and secondly Sir Edward More (d.1623) of Odiham, Hampshire,[7] whose first wife was Mary Poynings, daughter of Sir Adrian Poynings.[16]
• Margaret Brooke (2 June 1563 – 1621),[13][7] who in 1584 married, as his second wife, Sir Thomas Sondes (1544–1593) of Throwley, Kent, by whom she had a daughter, Frances Sondes (1592–c.1634), who married Sir John Leveson (d.1613). Sondes became convinced that the child was not his, and levied a fine of his lands, thus effectively depriving Margaret of her jointure, and died a few months later. His brother and heir, Michael Sondes, honoured Margaret's jointure, but the Sondes family never acknowledged Frances, and Margaret and Frances returned to Cobham Hall. Before he died in 1597 Lord Cobham made his eldest son, Henry, promise to care for Margaret, and she and her daughter lived at Cobham Hall on their own after Lord Cobham's death. At an unknown date Margaret went mad, and on 4 November 1602 it was reported that Doctor John Dee had been called in and 'hath delivered the Lady Sondes of a devil or of some other strange possession'. Nothing further is known of her circumstances, apart from the fact that 'the mad Lady Sondes' died in 1621, aged fifty-seven. Her daughter, Frances, had two children by Sir John Leveson (d.1613), the elder of whom was Christian Leveson.[17] After Sir John Leveson's death, Frances married, as his first wife, Thomas Savile (bap. 14 September 1590 – c.1659), later Earl of Sussex. There were no issue of the marriage. After Frances' death, Savile married secondly, shortly after November 1640, Anne Villiers, only daughter of Christopher Villiers, 1st Earl of Anglesey, by Elizabeth Sheldon, the daughter of Thomas Sheldon.[18]

From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Brooke,_10th_Baron_Cobham

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• Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham1
• M, #85248, b. 1 November 1527, d. 6 March 1597
• Father Sir George Brooke, 9th Lord Cobham1 b. c 1497, d. 29 Sep 1558
• Mother Anne Bray1 b. c 1509, d. 1 Nov 1558
• Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham was born on 1 November 1527 at Cobham, Kent, England.1 He married Dorothy Neville, daughter of Sir George Neville, Lord Abergavenny, Constable of Dover Castle, Warden of the Cinque Ports and Mary Stafford, circa 1546.1,2 Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham married Frances Newton, daughter of Sir John Newton and Margaret Poyntz, on 25 February 1560 at Westminster Palace, London, Middlesex, England.1 Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham left a will on 24 February 1597.1 He died on 6 March 1597 at age 69.1 His estate was probated on 23 May 1597.1
• Family 1 Dorothy Neville b. c 1526, d. 22 Sep 1559
• Family 2 Frances Newton b. c 1539, d. 17 Oct 1592
• Citations
• [S11568] The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom, by George Edward Cokayne, Vol. III, p. 348-349.
• [S5] Douglas Richardson, Plantagenet Ancestry, p. 95.
• From: http://our-royal-titled-noble-and-commoner-ancestors.com/p2837.htm#... ______________________
• Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham (of Kent)1
• M, #11814, b. 1 November 1527, d. 6 March 1596/97
• Last Edited=15 Feb 2015
• Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham (of Kent) was born on 1 November 1527.3 He was the son of Sir George Brooke, 9th Lord Cobham (of Kent) and Anne Bray.1 He married, firstly, Lady Dorothy Neville, daughter of Sir George Neville, 3rd Lord Abergavenny and Lady Mary Stafford, before 1559.4 He married, secondly, Frances Newton, daughter of Sir John Newton and Margaret Poyntz, on 25 February 1559/60 at Palace of Westminster, Westminster, London, England.3,5 He died on 6 March 1596/97 at age 69.3 He was buried at Cobham Church, Cobham, Kent, England.6 His will was proven (by probate) on 23 May 1597.6
• He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Hythe between 1547 and 1552.5 He held the office of Member of Parliament (M.P.) for Rochester in 1555.5 He held the office of Lord-Lieutenant of Kent between 1558 and 1596.5 He succeeded to the title of 10th Lord Cobham [E., 1313] in November 1558.3 He held the office of Constable of Dover.3 He held the office of Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports.3 He held the office of Ambassador to the Spanish Governor of the Netherlands in 1578.5 He was invested as a Knight, Order of the Garter (K.G.) on 23 April 1584.3,5 He was invested as a Privy Counsellor (P.C.) before 12 February 1585/86.5 He held the office of Ambassador to the Spanish Governor of the Netherlands in 1588.5 He held the office of Lord Chamberlain from August 1596 to 1597.3,5 His last will was dated 24 February 1596/97.
• Child of Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham (of Kent) and Lady Dorothy Neville
  • Frances Brooke3
• Children of Sir William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham (of Kent) and Frances Newton
  • Hon. Frances Brooke7
  • Margaret Brooke+3 b. 1563, d. 1621
  • Hon. Elizabeth Brooke+6 b. 1 Jan 1562/63, d. 24 Jan 1596/97
  • Sir Henry Brooke, 11th Lord Cobham (of Kent)1 b. 22 Nov 1564, d. 24 Jan 1618/19
  • Reverend George Brooke+8 b. 17 Apr 1568, d. 5 Dec 1603
• Citations
• [S6] G.E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910-1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, page 288. Hereinafter cited as The Complete Peerage.
• [S3409] Caroline Maubois, "re: Penancoet Family," e-mail message to Darryl Roger Lundy, 2 December 2008. Hereinafter cited as "re: Penancoet Family."
• [S21] L. G. Pine, The New Extinct Peerage 1884-1971: Containing Extinct, Abeyant, Dormant and Suspended Peerages With Genealogies and Arms (London, U.K.: Heraldry Today, 1972), page 78. Hereinafter cited as The New Extinct Peerage.
• [S8] BP1999 volume 1, page 17. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S8]
• [S6] Cokayne, and others, The Complete Peerage, volume III, page 348.
• [S6] Cokayne, and others, The Complete Peerage, volume III, page 349.
• [S37] BP2003 volume 2, page 2815. See link for full details for this source. Hereinafter cited as. [S37]
• [S37] BP2003. [S37]
• From: http://thepeerage.com/p1182.htm#i11814 _____________________
• William BROOKE (5° B. Cobham)
• Born: ABT 1526 / 1 Nov 1527, Cobham, Kent, England
• Died: 6 Mar 1596/7
• Buried: 5 Apr 1597, Cobham, Kent, England
• Notes: See his Biography.
• Father: George BROOKE (4° B. Cobham)
• Mother: Anne BRAY (B. Cobham)
• Married 1: Dorothy NEVILLE 4 Jun 1535 / 1550, Abergavenny, Monmouthshire, Wales
• Children:
  • 1. Dorothy BROOKE (Maid of Honour)
  • 2. Frances BROOKE
• Married 2: Frances NEWTON (B. Cobham) (b. 1539 - d. 17 Oct 1592) (dau. of Sir John Newton of Hawtrey and Margaret Poyntz) 25 Feb 1559/60, Westminster Palace, Westminster, Middlesex, England
• Children:
  • 3. Maximilian BROOKE
  • 4. Frances BROOKE (B. Stourton of Stourton)
  • 5. Elizabeth BROOKE (C. Salisbury)
  • 6. Henry BROOKE (6° B. Cobham)
  • 7. William BROOKE (b. 11 Dec 1565)
  • 8. Margaret BROOKE
  • 9. George BROOKE
• From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/BROOKE1.htm#William BROOKE (5° B. Cobham)
• Born 1 Nov 1527, first son of George Brooke, 4th Lord Cobham, and brother of George, Henry, John and Thomas. Educ. Padua 1542-5. Married first, by 4 Jun 1535, Dorothy, dau. of George Neville, third Lord Abergavenny; married secondly, 25 Feb 1560, Frances, dau. of Sir John 'Cradock' Newton of East Harptree, Som. and Hanham, Glos., 4s. inc. Henry and William. Kntd. 1 Dec 1548, KG nom 23 Apr 1584, inst. 15 Apr 1585. suc. fa. as 10th Lord Cobham 29 Sep 1558. Esquire of the body by 1553; constable, Dover castle, Kent 16 Dec 1558-d.; ld. warden, the Cinque Ports 16 Dec 1558-d.; j.p. Kent 1558/59, q. 1561-d.; ld. Lt. Kent 1559-d.; commr. Rochester bridge 1571; PC 1586-d.; keeper, Eltham pk., Kent 1592-d., ld. chamberlain, the Household 8 Aug 1596-7.
• Early in 1540 it was said that Lord Cobham had wanted to send two of his sons to the Continent with the Duke of Cleves's chancellor but that Cromwell would not allow them to leave England; in the following year, with Cromwell removed from the scene, William Brooke was licensed to go abroad ‘for his further increase of virtue and learning’, taking with him two servants, three horses and £20 in money. He also took with him a number of ‘remembrances’ from his father, to say his prayers and hear mass devoutly, to remember his marriage vows, to obey his tutor and be diligent in his study of the civil law, rhetoric and Greek, and to write home as often as possible: these precepts the young traveller subscribed:
  • ‘I will perform all these things by the grace of God.
  • By me, your son,
  • William Brooke’.
• Although he was sent to Padua to study, the outbreak of England's war with France evidently made Brooke chafe at being in Italy, and in the autumn of 1545 he left for the Netherlands determined to take part in any action he might find. Early in the following year he returned to England on a short visit and in Nov he was given a military appointment at Calais, where his father was deputy. The letter ordering the grant of this office was put forward by Sir William Paget, and Lord Cobham called his son Paget's servant in a letter of Apr 1547 asking Paget to agree to William's offering his service to the King of France for a year. During the wars of Edward VI's reign Brooke led a band of 100 men, and in Jul 1550 he conveyed £7,000 from England to the treasurer of Calais. In the summer of 1551 he formed part of the embassy to France led by his brother-in-law the Marquess of Northampton, bringing home a report from the Ambassadors in Jun and returning to France with fresh instructions from the Council.
• Brooke was three days short of 20 when the Parliament of 1547 opened. That such a stripling should have caused one of the Cinque Ports to break (so far as is known for the first time under the Tudors) the ordinance confining their representation to residents is proof enough of Brooke's enjoyment of powerful backing; apart from his father, a man of weight in Kent, his patron Paget is most likely to have procured his election, perhaps with the aid of the Protector Somerset himself. Brooke's knighthood, conferred on 1 Dec 1548 during the second session of the Parliament, suggests that he then stood well with the Protectoral regime, although his connexion with Northampton must later have aligned him with Somerset's rival Northumberland. He did not sit in the Parliament of Mar 1553, and it is not known whether he played any part in the succession crisis of that summer, but when six months later his cousin Sir Thomas Wyatt raised Kent against Queen Mary he was one of those implicated, although how deeply cannot be known; he pleaded not guilty to an indictment for treason, as did his younger brothers George and Thomas, and all three were pardoned, while his father was let off at the cost of giving the Queen an obligation for £450. Brooke's election 18 months later for Rochester, which had been the starting-point of the rebellion, could therefore have given little satisfaction at court, and even less when towards the close of this Parliament he joined the opposition to one of the government's bills. According to the Complete Peerage he received a writ of summons to the Lords for the second session of the following Parliament, that of 1558, but no trace of this summons has been found and he is not recorded as having taken his place in the Upper House until 1559.
• With the accession of Elizabeth, six weeks after Brooke's own succession to his barony, new opportunities opened out for him. The first important task assigned to him was the distasteful one of announcing Mary's death to King Felipe in Brussels. He was appointed to succeed Sir Thomas Cheney as lord warden of the Cinque Ports, placed on the commission of the peace for Kent, and in the following year made lord lieutenant of the county. Thenceforward, for nearly 40 years, Lord Cobham was a busy servant of the crown, entrusted with the defence of Kent, the mustering of soldiers, the suppression of piracy, the staying of ships in times of embargo and a host of minor duties committed to him as need arose by the Council. He twice went on embassies to the Netherlands, in 1578 with Sir Thomas Walsingham and in 1588 with Thomas, 4th Earl of Derby. In 1586 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council and ten years later was made Lord Chamberlain. He was then only three months off his seventieth birthday, and he died in the following Mar at Cobham Hall, which he had enlarged with a new south wing and a north wing still unfinished at his death.
• His second wife, whom he married 25 Feb 1559/60 at Westminster Palace, was Frances Newton was one of the nineteen children of Sir John Newton or Cradock of East Harptree, Somerset and Hanham, Gloucestershire and Margaret Poyntz. She was in Elizabeth Tudor’s service before 1558 and continued as one of her chamberers after Elizabeth became Queen. Later in the reign, Frances's sister, Catherine, also became a chamberer. On 17 Jul 1560, the Queen visited Cobham Hall on her summer progress and she returned there for another visit on 4 Sep 1573. Frances was considered to be one of the Queen’s closest friends. In the 1587 list she was recorded as one of the four Ladies of the Bedchamber. She was never gone from court for long.
• Lord Chamberlain 8 Aug 1596 - 5 Mar 1597. All the Lord Chamberlain except the first, William Howard, patronized acting companies at one time or another, though William Brooke never did so during the seven months he was. And there's also an interesting story behind the Henry Carey - William Brooke - George Carey succession in 1596-97. Henry Carey was the patron of Shakespeare's company, the Chamberlain's Men. When he died in 1596,patronage of the company went to his son George, butthe title of Lord Chamberlain unexpectedly went to William Brooke (the Careys and the Brookes were power rivals at Court). Brooke's ancestor had been Sir John Oldcastle,which was the original name of Falstaff in Shakespeare's Henry IV plays. He was forced to change the name aftercomplaints from the Brooke family, and it's often been suggested that Shakespeare used the name Oldcastle in the first place in order to get in a jab at William Brooke forgrabbing the Lord Chamberlain title. During the seven months that Brooke held the office, Shakespeare's company was forced to call themselves Lord Hunsdon's Men; they were so called on the First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet (published in 1597) and in the payment for their court performances in the 1596-97 Christmas season. When Brooke died, George Carey finally got the Chamberlainship, and Shakespeare's company got their old name back.
• He had made his will on 24 Feb 1597, trusting ‘wholly and only’ by the merits of Christ's passion to attain salvation and asking to be buried ‘after a laudable sort, and without vain pomp’, in the church at Cobham. His household servants at Cobham and at the Blackfriars, London, were to receive an extra half year's wages, and the houses to be delivered, ten days after his funeral, to his son and heir Henry Brooke. To Sir John Leveson, Thomas Fane and William Lambarde, three of his executors, Cobham left the site of the old college of Cobham on which they were to build a new college for poor people to live in; all his jewels, ornaments and plate, except those items which he bestowed otherwise in his will, were to be sold to pay his funeral expenses, debts and legacies and to provide the money for the perpetual maintenance of this almshouse. Cobham named as another executor his cousin, Sir Edward Wotton, and desired his friend Lord Burghley, and his son-in-law Sir Robert Cecil, to be overseers of his will.
• The Cobham family portrait, painted in 1567 by the artist A. W., also known as the Master of the countess of Warwick. The sitters were identified as Frances Newton (standing), her husband, her sister, Joanna (seated) and six of Cobham's children. More recently, the seated woman has been reidentified as Frances while the woman standing is said to be Elizabeth Brooke, Marchioness of Northampton, Lord Cobham's sister, who had died two years earlier. Such memorial portraits were not unheard of. A copy of the Cobham Family Portrait was commissioned c. 1590 by William's daughter Elizabeth and in this version another child, George, not yet born in 1567, is included in the group.
• From: http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/Bios/WilliamBrooke.htm ________________
• BROOKE, alias COBHAM, William (1527-97), of of the Blackfriars, London and Cobham, Kent.
• b. 1 Nov. 1527, 1sts s. of George Brooke, 8th Lord Cobham, and bro. of George, Henry†, John† and Thomas†. educ. Padua 1542-5. m. (1) by 4 June 1535, Dorothy (d. 22 Sept. 1559), da. of George, 5th Lord Bergavenny, 1da., (2) 25 Feb. 1560, Frances, da. of Sir John Newton alias Cradock of East Harptree Som. and Hanham, Glos., 4s. inc. Henry† and William†. Kntd. 1 Dec. 1548, KG nom. 23 Apr. 1584, inst. 15 Apr. 1585. suc. fa. as 10th Lord Cobham 29 Sept. 1558.2
• Offices Held
  • Esquire of the body by 1553; constable, Dover castle, Kent 16 Dec. 1558-d.; ld. warden, the Cinque Ports 16 Dec. 1558-d.; j.p. Kent 1558/59, q. 1561-d.; ld. lt. Kent 1559-d.; commr. Rochester bridge 1571; PC 1586-d.; keeper, Eltham pk., Kent 1592-d., ld. chamberlain, the Household 8 Aug. 1596-7.3
• Early in 1540 it was said that Lord Cobham had wanted to send two of his sons to the Continent with the Duke of Cleves’s chancellor but that Cromwell would not allow them to leave England; in the following year, with Cromwell removed from the scene, William Brooke was licensed to go abroad ‘for his further increase of virtue and learning’, taking with him two servants, three horses and £20 in money. He also took with him a number of ‘remembrances’ from his father, to say his prayers and hear mass devoutly, to remember his marriage vows, to obey his tutor and be diligent in his study of the civil law, rhetoric and Greek, and to write home as often as possible: these precepts the young traveller subscribed, ‘I will perform all these things by the grace of God. By me, your son, William Brooke’.
• Although he was sent to Padua to study, the outbreak of England’s war with France evidently made Brooke chafe at being in Italy, and in the autumn of 1545 he left for the Netherlands determined to take part in any action he might find. Early in the following year he returned to England on a short visit and in November he was given a military appointment at Calais, where his father was deputy. The letter ordering the grant of this office was put forward by Sir William Paget, and Lord Cobham called his son Paget’s servant in a letter of April 1547 asking Paget to agree to William’s offering his service to the King of France for a year. During the wars of Edward VI’s reign Brooke led a band of 100 men, and in July 1550 he conveyed £7,000 from England to the treasurer of Calais. In the summer of 1551 he formed part of the embassy to France led by his brother-in-law the Marquess of Northampton, bringing home a report from the ambassadors in June and returning to France with fresh instructions from the Council.4
• Brooke was three days short of 20 when the Parliament of 1547 opened. That such a stripling should have caused one of the Cinque Ports to break (so far as is known for the first time under the Tudors) the ordinance confining their representation to residents is proof enough of Brooke’s enjoyment of powerful backing; apart from his father, a man of weight in Kent, his patron Paget is most likely to have procured his election, perhaps with the aid of the Protector Somerset himself. Brooke’s knighthood, conferred on 1 Dec. 1548 during the second session of the Parliament, suggests that he then stood well with the Protectoral regime, although his connexion with Northampton must later have aligned him with Somerset’s rival Northumberland. He did not sit in the Parliament of March 1553, and it is not known whether he played any part in the succession crisis of that summer, but when six months later his uncle Sir Thomas Wyatt II raised Kent against Queen Mary he was one of those implicated, although how deeply cannot be known; he pleaded not guilty to an indictment for treason, as did his younger brothers George and Thomas, and all three were pardoned, while his father was let off at the cost of giving the Queen an obligation for £450. Brooke’s election 18 months later for Rochester, which had been the starting-point of the rebellion, could therefore have given little satisfaction at court, and even less when towards the close of this Parliament he joined the opposition to one of the government’s bills. According to the Complete Peerage he received a writ of summons to the Lords for the second session of the following Parliament, that of 1558, but no trace of this summons has been found and he is not recorded as having taken his place in the Upper House until 1559.5
• With the accession of Elizabeth, six weeks after Brooke’s own succession to his barony, new opportunities opened out for him. The first important task assigned to him was the distasteful one of announcing Mary’s death to King Philip in Brussels. He was appointed to succeed Sir Thomas Cheyne as lord warden of the Cinque Ports, placed on the commission of the peace for Kent, and in the following year made lord lieutenant of the county. Thenceforward, for nearly 40 years, Lord Cobham was a busy servant of the crown, entrusted with the defence of Kent, the mustering of soldiers, the suppression of piracy, the staying of ships in times of embargo and a host of minor duties committed to him as need arose by the Council. He twice went on embassies to the Netherlands, in 1578 with Sir Thomas Walsingham† and in 1588 with Thomas, 4th Earl of Derby. In 1586 he was sworn a member of the Privy Council and ten years later was made lord chamberlain. He was then only three months off his seventieth birthday, and he died in the following March at Cobham Hall, which he had enlarged with a new south wing and a north wing still unfinished at his death.6
• He had made his will on 24 Feb. 1597, trusting ‘wholly and only’ by the merits of Christ’s passion to attain salvation and asking to be buried ‘after a laudable sort, and without vain pomp’, in the church at Cobham. His household servants at Cobham and at the Blackfriars, London, were to receive an extra half year’s wages, and the houses to be delivered, ten days after his funeral, to his son and heir Henry Brooke. To Sir John Leveson†, Thomas Fane† and William Lambarde†, three of his executors, Cobham left the site of the old college of Cobham on which they were to build a new college for poor people to live in; all his jewels, ornaments and plate, except those items which he bestowed otherwise in his will, were to be sold to pay his funeral expenses, debts and legacies and to provide the money for the perpetual maintenance of this almshouse. Cobham named as another executor his cousin, Sir Edward Wotton†, and desired his friend Lord Burghley, and his son-in-law Sir Robert Cecil†, to be overseers of his will.7
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/br... ___________________
• William Brooke
• Birth: Nov. 1, 1527
• Death: Mar. 6, 1597
• 7th Lord Cobham. Descended from the ancient Lords of Cobham he was Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports and Lord Lt of kent. Favourite pf Elizabeth I, he entertained her locally.
• Family links:
• Parents:
• George Brooke (1497 - 1558)
• Anne Braye Brooke (1501 - 1558)
• Spouse:
• Frances Newton Brooke (1539 - 1592)*
• Children:
  • Elizabeth Brooke Cecil (1563 - 1597)*
  • Henry Brooke (1564 - 1619)*
  • George Brooke (1568 - 1603)*
• Burial: St Mary Magdalene New Churchyard, Cobham, Gravesham Borough, Kent, England
• Find A Grave Memorial# 45733213
• From: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=45733213 ________________
• BROOKE, alias COBHAM, George (1533-69 or later), of London.
• b. 27 Jan. 1533, 2nd s. of George Brooke, 8th Lord Cobham, by Anne, da. of Edmund, 1st Lord Bray; bro. of Henry†, John†, Thomas† and William. educ. Venice 1546-7. m. by 1558, Christina (d.1608) da. and h. of Richard Duke of London and Otterton Devon, 3s. 2da.1
• .... etc.
• After this episode, it is not easy to account for his return to the Parliament of 1555. Hedon lay in the lordship or seignory of Holderness, which was then in the hands of the crown but which was to be granted in February 1558 to Henry Neville, 5th Earl of Westmorland. There were various connexions between the Nevilles, both the Lords Bergavenny and the earls of Westmorland, and the Brookes: thus Cobham’s elder brother married Dorothy Neville, sister of Henry Neville, 6th Lord Bergavenny, who had been one of the leading opponents of the Wyatt rebellion. Neville influence in the borough, perhaps exercised Constable family, may have predated the grant of 1558. .... etc.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/br... ________________________
• Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study In Colonial And Medieval Families, 2nd Edition ...
• https://books.google.com/books?id=kjme027UeagC&printsec=frontcover&...
• Pg.243
• 14. GEORGE NEVILLE, K.G., K.B., Lord Bergavenny, of Birling, West Peckham, Mereworth, etc., Kent, Abergavenny House, London, etc., Keeper of Southfrith Park, Kent, 1499-1508, Constable of Dover Castle and Warden of the Cinque Ports, c. 1512-15, Keeper of Ashdown Forest, Kent, 1515, Privy Councillor, 1515-21, son and heir, born about 1469 (aged 16 in 1485). He married (1st) JOAN ARUNDEL, daughter of Thomas Arundel, K.G., K.B., 17th Earl of Arundel (descendant of King Edward III), by Margaret (descendant of King Henry III) daughter of Richard Wydeville, K.G., 1st Earl Rivers, Constable of England, Lord High Treasurer [see ARUNDEL 14 for her ancestry]. They had two daughters, Elizabeth (wife of Henry Daubeney, K.B., Earl of Bridgwater) and Jane. He was summoned to Parliament from 16 Jan. 1496/7 to 5 Jan 1533/4. He served in the wars against France, and was in the Battle of Blackheath in 1497 against the Cornish rebels. In 1506 he was indicted for keeping unlawful retainers, for which crime he was fined the enormous sum of £50,000; he was sentenced in the King's Bench in Michaelmas term 1507. His wife, Joan, died 14 Nov. 1508. In 1509 the king cancelled the debt and allowed him to retain men lawfully for the king's service. He was Chief Larderer at the Coronation of Henry VIII in 1509, and again at that of Anne Boleyn, Queen Consort, in 1533. He was granted the castle and lands of Abergavenny by King Henry VIII in 1512. He married (2nd) before 5 Sept. 1513 (date of fine) MARGARET BRENT, daughter of John Brent, Gent., of Charing, Kent. They had no issue. In 1513 he and his wife, Margaret, sold the manor of Speenhamland (in Speen), Berkshire. She was living in 1515. In 1517 Wolsey threatened to prosecute him for having too many men in his livery. George Married (3rd) about June 1519 [LADY] MARY STAFFORD, youngest daughter of Edward Stafford, K.G., K.B., 3rd Duke of Buckingham (descendant of King Edward III), by Eleanor, daughter of Henry Percy, K.G., 4th Earl of Northumberland (descendant of King Edward III) [see STAFFORD 14 for her ancestry]. They had three sons, Henry (or Harry), K.B., [Lord
• Pg.244
• Bergavenny], John, and Thomas, and five daughters, Mary (wife of Thomas Fiennes, 9th Lord Dacre, John Wotton, and Francis Thursby, Esq.), Katherine (wife of John St. Leger, Knt.), Margaret (wife of John Cheney and Henry Poole, Esq.), Dorothy (wife of William Brooke, 10th Lord Cobham), and Ursula. He and his wife attended the king at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. He was imprisoned c.May 1521, and pardoned for misprision of treason 29 March 1522. He was captain of the army in France in 1523. He married (4th) MARY BROOKE (otherwise COBHAM), formerly his servant. They had one daughter. SIR GEORGE NEVILLE, Lord Bergavenny, left a will dated 4 Jun 1535, prove 24 Jan. 1535/6 (P.C.C. 35 Hogen), and was buried in Birling, Kent.
• .... etc. __________________
• BROOKE, alias COBHAM, William (1565-97), of Cobham Hall; later of Newington, Kent.
• b. 1565, 3rd but 2nd surv. s. of William Brooke†, 10th Lord Cobham, by his 2nd w. Frances; bro. of Henry Brooke alias Cobham II and nephew of George, John, Thomas and Henry Brooke alias Cobham I . unm. Kntd. 1591.
• .... etc.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/br... __________________
• BROOKE, alias COBHAM, Henry II (1564-1619), of Cobham Hall, Kent.
• b. 22 Nov. 1564, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of William Brooke†, 10th Lord Cobham, by his 2nd w. Frances, da. of Sir John Newton alias Cradock of Glos., lady of the bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth; bro. of William and nephew of George, John, Thomas, and Henry Brooke alias Cobham I . educ. King’s, Camb. 1580. m. May 1601, Frances, 2nd da. of Charles Howard I, 1st Earl of Nottingham, wid. of Henry Fitzgerald, 12th Earl of Kildare [I], s.p. suc. fa. as 11th Lord Cobham Mar. 1597. Kntd. 1598; KG 1599.
• .... etc.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/br... ______________________
• CECIL, Robert (1563-1612), of the Savoy, London and Theobalds, Herts.
• b.1 June 1563, 2nd s. of Sir William Cecil, being o. surv. s. by his 2nd w. Mildred, da. of Sir Anthony Cooke; half-bro. of Thomas Cecil. educ. privately; St. John’s, Camb. c.1579; travelled abroad (France) 1584; G. Inn 1588. m. 31 Aug. 1589, Elizabeth (d.1597), da. of William Brooke alias Cobham†, 10th Lord Cobham, 1s. 2da. Kntd. 1591; cr. Baron Cecil 1603; Visct. Cranborne 1604; KB 1605; Earl of Salisbury 1605; KG 1606.
• .... etc.
• From: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1558-1603/member/ce... ___________________
• Links
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Nevill,_5th_Baron_Bergavenny
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brooke,_Henry_(d.1619)_(DNB00)
• https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Brooke,_George_(DNB00)

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.Thought by some scholars to have provided a physical model for Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff (originally Oldcastle).

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