Individual Details
Sir George "9th Baron Cobham" Brooke KG
(Abt 1497 - 29 Sep 1558)
[[Category: Knights Companion of the Garter]]
[[Category: England, pre-1500 Managed Profiles]]
[[Category: Bray, Visitations of Sussex, 1530 and 1633-4]]
}
== Biography ==
George Brooke was an English courtier during the reign of King Henry VIII and his early successors.
=== Ancestry and Family ===
George Brooke was the second-born son of Thomas Brooke, 8th Baron Cobham, and his first wife Dorothy Heydon.Cokayne, George E. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom : Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. III'. London : The St. Catherine Press, 1910, pp.347-48. [https://archive.org/details/completepeerageo03coka/page/346 Archive.org] His birth was about 1497 at the family seat of Cowling (Cooling) Castle near Cobham in Kent, where his Cobham ancestors had been lords since the twelfth century.Hasted, Edward. "Parishes: Cobham." The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3. Canterbury: W Bristow, 1797. 404-442. British History Online. Web. 1 June 2020. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp404-442.
The names of George Brooke's immediate family included some of the most notable in the realm: Neville, Howard, Mowbray, and Beaufort. He was a third cousin of Henry VIII. This was cause for caution in the courts of the early Tudors, who were perennially suspicious of any persons who might be able to advance a claim to the throne they had seized. During his lifetime, George Brooke would have seen a number of such relatives executed, such as his third cousin [[Stafford-5|the Duke of Buckingham]] in 1521.
Lord Thomas Brooke's eldest son John Brooke is said to have died during the lifetime of his father, Green, Nina. “George Brooke (1497-1558).” The Oxford Authorship Site. Accessed October 11, 2019. [http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Probate/PROB_11-43-628.pdf George Brooke c1497-1558] presumably young, as by 1514 George Brooke was treated as his father's heir when he accompanied Thomas in the royal entourage escorting Henry VIII's sister, the Princess Mary, to France for her marriage to King Louis XII. He would at that time have been no more than eighteen years of age.
=== Career Under Henry VIII ===
During the intermittent wars between England and France, George Brooke served in the fighting around Boulogne during 1522 with sufficient distinction that he was knighted after the victory at Morlaix by Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey and commander of the English forces. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Brooke, George, ninth Baron Cobham (c 1497-1558)[https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/70783]
In 1529, at the death of his father, George Brooke succeeded to the title and became the 9th Baron Cobham, one of the most important magnates in Kent. He was summoned to Parliament from 2 November of that year by writs addressing him as Georgio Brooke de Cobham.
From about this time, the effects of the Protestant Reformation were being felt in England, and Lord Cobham appears to have adopted the Protestant position. He was an important supporter in Kent of Protestant Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.MacCulloch, Diarmid. Thomas CranmerNew Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. p. 203. His brother [[Brooke-286|Thomas Brooke]] was Cranmer's steward and married Cranmer's niece Susanna, daughter of John Cranmer of Aslockton; their son was named Cranmer Brooke.Waters, Robert Edmond Chester. Genealogical memoirs of the kindred families of Thomas Cranmer . . . London: 1877. p. 6.
As the Protestant reformers dissolved monastic institutions in the 1530s, Lord Cobham, with other supporters of the king, was rewarded with substantial grants of confiscated property, including [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobham_College Cobham College], a chantry founded in 1362 by his ancestor the third Baron.Wikipedia: George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham.[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Brooke,_9th_Baron_Cobham&oldid=902899382]
In 1536, Lord Cobham served as one of the lords jurors at the trial of King Henry's 2nd wife, Queen Anne Boleyn (his 2nd cousin). She was beheaded.
In 1544, King Henry invaded Scotland and Lord Cobham was appointed lieutenant-general of his forces under the command of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Seymour,_1st_Duke_of_Somerset Edward Seymour], then Earl of Hertford, who praised his "ryght honist and paynfull sarvis." In June, Cobham was appointed Deputy (governor) of the English stronghold in Calais, France.
=== Career Under Edward VI ===
When King Henry died in 1547, the throne went to his nine-year-old son Edward VI. This reign was the high point of Lord Cobham's royal service. King Edward's supporters - Lord Protector Edward Seymour, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dudley,_1st_Duke_of_Northumberland John Dudley] Archbishop Cranmer - were longtime allies of Cobham and fellow Protestants. Honors and office came to him: he was made Knight of the Garter in 1549 and a member of Edward's Privy Council in 1550.
=== Career Under Mary I ===
Unfortunately for Lord Cobham, King Edward's reign was a short one. By the time the young king died in 1553, he had written his Will naming his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as heir to the English throne. Lady Jane was the daughter-in-law of John Dudley, then first minister, who was the force behind the attempted succession. Lord Cobham, as an ally of Dudley, supported it. However, the attempt failed, and Mary Tudor, a militant Catholic, took the crown.
The threat of charges for treason and heresy was very real (Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake), but Lord Cobham saved himself by making submission to Queen Mary. He was pardoned on 11 October 1553, but he was put into new peril early the next year by his nephew [[Wyatt-244|Sir Thomas Wyatt]], who raised a rebellion in Kent against the Queen's marriage to King Phillip of Spain. Wyatt appealed for his support, but Cobham, at least nominally, supported the royal forces under the Duke of Norfolk."Queen Mary - Volume 2: January 1554." Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth, 1547-80. Ed. Robert Lemon. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1856. 56-58. British History Online. Web.[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/domestic/edw-eliz/1547-80/pp56-58.]
On 30 January, Wyatt brought artillery to attack Cobham's position at Cowling Castle and did considerable damage, then departed.Hasted, Edward. "Parishes: Cowling." The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3. Canterbury: W Bristow, 1797. 516-525. British History Online. Web.[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp516-525.] Lord Cobham was sent to the Tower charged with complicity in the treasonous attack, but later released on payment of a fine.
From that time, Lord Cobham prudently withdrew as much as possible from national affairs and retired to Kent. He did, in 1555, host Cardinal Reginald Pole at Cowling Castle on his journey to the Queen, which was apparently not so much destroyed by the previous year's fighting as to be uninhabitable.
=== Marriage and Children ===
Before 1526, Sir George Brooke married Anne, daughter of Edmund, Lord Braye and coheir of her brother John, Lord Braye. There were ten sons and four daughters of the marriage. These were, according to Green, citing George Brooke's 1558 Will:
: (Sir) William - heir - b. 1 Nov 1529, m. (1) Dorothy Neville (2) Frances Newton, d. 6 March 1597
: Henry - b. 1529, d. before 1558, without issue
: George - b. 27 Jan 1533, m. Christian Duke, d. c 1569
: Thomas (the elder) - b. 30 Dec 1533, m. Katherine Cavendish, d. 1578
: John - b. 22 April 1534, m. Alice Cobbe, d. 1594
: Edward - b. 1536, d. before 1588 without issue: (Sir) Henry (Cobham) - b. 5. Feb 1538, m. 27 Jan 1673 Anne Sutton, d. 13 Jan 1592
: Thomas (the younger) - b. 22 April 1539
: Edmund - 31 Oct 1540, d. c 1587
: Edward - b. before 1544, d. perhaps before 8 Feb 1594
: Elizabeth - b. 12 June 1526, m. (bigamously) 1547 William Parr, (legitimately) 31 March 1551, d. 2 April 1565, without issue
: Anne - b. 1531, d. before 1558, without issue
: Mary - b. 1542, d. before 1558, without issue: Katherine - b. 7 April 1544, m. (1) John Jerningham, (2) Bellamy, d. c 1617Note:Henry Brooke (b. 1529) and Edward Brooke (b. 1536) were not named in their father's 1558 Will, so it can be assumed that they died before that date. However, the existence of Henry Brooke (b. 1538) and Edward Brooke ("my youngest son"), suggest that the older brothers of this name died before the births of the younger.However, his Will makes it clear that George Brooke did have two sons named Thomas, both still living at the date of his Will - the elder b. 1533 and the younger b. 1539.
=== Death and Burial ===
George Lord Cobham survived the reign of Mary I and almost lived to see Queen Elizabeth on the throne of England. He died 29 September 1558 and was buried in the Cobham parish church of St Mary Magdelene, where he was joined by Lady Anne on 26 November 1588 after her death on 1 November. His inquisition post mortem was 20 January 1559, and his Will, dated 13 January 1557/1558, proved 6 December 1560. Their tomb, on which their effigies lie side-by-side, was completed in 1561, with a memorial inscription praising his "defence of the Gospel".
== Research Notes ==Although this [https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/william-brooke_27353442 Ancestry link] still works, it goes to a William Brooke of Maryland 1740-1823. ([[Fitz-Henry-9|Fitz-Henry-9]] 21:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC))
== Sources ==
* Wikipedia contributors, "George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Brooke,_9th_Baron_Cobham&oldid=902899382 (accessed October 11, 2019). * Edward Hasted, 'Parishes: Cobham', in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3 (Canterbury, 1797), pp. 404-442. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp404-442 [accessed 11 October 2019].*Green, Nina. “George Brooke (1497-1558).” The Oxford Authorship Site. Accessed October 11, 2019. [http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Probate/PROB_11-43-628.pdf George Brooke c1497-1558].*Cokayne, George E. (George Edward), Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis Howard de Walden, Duncan Warrand, Vicary Gibbs, H. Arthur (Herbert Arthur) Doubleday, and Geoffrey H. (Geoffrey Henllan) White. ''The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom : Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. III''. London : The St. Catherine Press, 1910, pp.347-48. [https://archive.org/details/completepeerageo03coka/page/346 Archive.org]
See also:*Benolte, Thomas; Philipot, John; & Owen, George. ''The Visitations of the County of Sussex: 1530 and 1633-4''. London: The Harleian Society, 1905. Vol LIII, [https://archive.org/stream/visitationscoun00owengoog#page/n34/mode/1up p 20].
[[Category: England, pre-1500 Managed Profiles]]
[[Category: Bray, Visitations of Sussex, 1530 and 1633-4]]
}
== Biography ==
George Brooke was an English courtier during the reign of King Henry VIII and his early successors.
=== Ancestry and Family ===
George Brooke was the second-born son of Thomas Brooke, 8th Baron Cobham, and his first wife Dorothy Heydon.Cokayne, George E. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom : Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. III'. London : The St. Catherine Press, 1910, pp.347-48. [https://archive.org/details/completepeerageo03coka/page/346 Archive.org] His birth was about 1497 at the family seat of Cowling (Cooling) Castle near Cobham in Kent, where his Cobham ancestors had been lords since the twelfth century.Hasted, Edward. "Parishes: Cobham." The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3. Canterbury: W Bristow, 1797. 404-442. British History Online. Web. 1 June 2020. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp404-442.
The names of George Brooke's immediate family included some of the most notable in the realm: Neville, Howard, Mowbray, and Beaufort. He was a third cousin of Henry VIII. This was cause for caution in the courts of the early Tudors, who were perennially suspicious of any persons who might be able to advance a claim to the throne they had seized. During his lifetime, George Brooke would have seen a number of such relatives executed, such as his third cousin [[Stafford-5|the Duke of Buckingham]] in 1521.
Lord Thomas Brooke's eldest son John Brooke is said to have died during the lifetime of his father, Green, Nina. “George Brooke (1497-1558).” The Oxford Authorship Site. Accessed October 11, 2019. [http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Probate/PROB_11-43-628.pdf George Brooke c1497-1558] presumably young, as by 1514 George Brooke was treated as his father's heir when he accompanied Thomas in the royal entourage escorting Henry VIII's sister, the Princess Mary, to France for her marriage to King Louis XII. He would at that time have been no more than eighteen years of age.
=== Career Under Henry VIII ===
During the intermittent wars between England and France, George Brooke served in the fighting around Boulogne during 1522 with sufficient distinction that he was knighted after the victory at Morlaix by Thomas Howard, then Earl of Surrey and commander of the English forces. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Brooke, George, ninth Baron Cobham (c 1497-1558)[https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/70783]
In 1529, at the death of his father, George Brooke succeeded to the title and became the 9th Baron Cobham, one of the most important magnates in Kent. He was summoned to Parliament from 2 November of that year by writs addressing him as Georgio Brooke de Cobham.
From about this time, the effects of the Protestant Reformation were being felt in England, and Lord Cobham appears to have adopted the Protestant position. He was an important supporter in Kent of Protestant Archbishop Thomas Cranmer.MacCulloch, Diarmid. Thomas CranmerNew Haven: Yale University Press, 1996. p. 203. His brother [[Brooke-286|Thomas Brooke]] was Cranmer's steward and married Cranmer's niece Susanna, daughter of John Cranmer of Aslockton; their son was named Cranmer Brooke.Waters, Robert Edmond Chester. Genealogical memoirs of the kindred families of Thomas Cranmer . . . London: 1877. p. 6.
As the Protestant reformers dissolved monastic institutions in the 1530s, Lord Cobham, with other supporters of the king, was rewarded with substantial grants of confiscated property, including [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobham_College Cobham College], a chantry founded in 1362 by his ancestor the third Baron.Wikipedia: George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham.[https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Brooke,_9th_Baron_Cobham&oldid=902899382]
In 1536, Lord Cobham served as one of the lords jurors at the trial of King Henry's 2nd wife, Queen Anne Boleyn (his 2nd cousin). She was beheaded.
In 1544, King Henry invaded Scotland and Lord Cobham was appointed lieutenant-general of his forces under the command of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Seymour,_1st_Duke_of_Somerset Edward Seymour], then Earl of Hertford, who praised his "ryght honist and paynfull sarvis." In June, Cobham was appointed Deputy (governor) of the English stronghold in Calais, France.
=== Career Under Edward VI ===
When King Henry died in 1547, the throne went to his nine-year-old son Edward VI. This reign was the high point of Lord Cobham's royal service. King Edward's supporters - Lord Protector Edward Seymour, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dudley,_1st_Duke_of_Northumberland John Dudley] Archbishop Cranmer - were longtime allies of Cobham and fellow Protestants. Honors and office came to him: he was made Knight of the Garter in 1549 and a member of Edward's Privy Council in 1550.
=== Career Under Mary I ===
Unfortunately for Lord Cobham, King Edward's reign was a short one. By the time the young king died in 1553, he had written his Will naming his cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as heir to the English throne. Lady Jane was the daughter-in-law of John Dudley, then first minister, who was the force behind the attempted succession. Lord Cobham, as an ally of Dudley, supported it. However, the attempt failed, and Mary Tudor, a militant Catholic, took the crown.
The threat of charges for treason and heresy was very real (Archbishop Cranmer was burned at the stake), but Lord Cobham saved himself by making submission to Queen Mary. He was pardoned on 11 October 1553, but he was put into new peril early the next year by his nephew [[Wyatt-244|Sir Thomas Wyatt]], who raised a rebellion in Kent against the Queen's marriage to King Phillip of Spain. Wyatt appealed for his support, but Cobham, at least nominally, supported the royal forces under the Duke of Norfolk."Queen Mary - Volume 2: January 1554." Calendar of State Papers Domestic: Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth, 1547-80. Ed. Robert Lemon. London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 1856. 56-58. British History Online. Web.[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/domestic/edw-eliz/1547-80/pp56-58.]
On 30 January, Wyatt brought artillery to attack Cobham's position at Cowling Castle and did considerable damage, then departed.Hasted, Edward. "Parishes: Cowling." The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3. Canterbury: W Bristow, 1797. 516-525. British History Online. Web.[http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp516-525.] Lord Cobham was sent to the Tower charged with complicity in the treasonous attack, but later released on payment of a fine.
From that time, Lord Cobham prudently withdrew as much as possible from national affairs and retired to Kent. He did, in 1555, host Cardinal Reginald Pole at Cowling Castle on his journey to the Queen, which was apparently not so much destroyed by the previous year's fighting as to be uninhabitable.
=== Marriage and Children ===
Before 1526, Sir George Brooke married Anne, daughter of Edmund, Lord Braye and coheir of her brother John, Lord Braye. There were ten sons and four daughters of the marriage. These were, according to Green, citing George Brooke's 1558 Will:
: (Sir) William - heir - b. 1 Nov 1529, m. (1) Dorothy Neville (2) Frances Newton, d. 6 March 1597
: Henry - b. 1529, d. before 1558, without issue
: George - b. 27 Jan 1533, m. Christian Duke, d. c 1569
: Thomas (the elder) - b. 30 Dec 1533, m. Katherine Cavendish, d. 1578
: John - b. 22 April 1534, m. Alice Cobbe, d. 1594
: Edward - b. 1536, d. before 1588 without issue: (Sir) Henry (Cobham) - b. 5. Feb 1538, m. 27 Jan 1673 Anne Sutton, d. 13 Jan 1592
: Thomas (the younger) - b. 22 April 1539
: Edmund - 31 Oct 1540, d. c 1587
: Edward - b. before 1544, d. perhaps before 8 Feb 1594
: Elizabeth - b. 12 June 1526, m. (bigamously) 1547 William Parr, (legitimately) 31 March 1551, d. 2 April 1565, without issue
: Anne - b. 1531, d. before 1558, without issue
: Mary - b. 1542, d. before 1558, without issue: Katherine - b. 7 April 1544, m. (1) John Jerningham, (2) Bellamy, d. c 1617Note:Henry Brooke (b. 1529) and Edward Brooke (b. 1536) were not named in their father's 1558 Will, so it can be assumed that they died before that date. However, the existence of Henry Brooke (b. 1538) and Edward Brooke ("my youngest son"), suggest that the older brothers of this name died before the births of the younger.However, his Will makes it clear that George Brooke did have two sons named Thomas, both still living at the date of his Will - the elder b. 1533 and the younger b. 1539.
=== Death and Burial ===
George Lord Cobham survived the reign of Mary I and almost lived to see Queen Elizabeth on the throne of England. He died 29 September 1558 and was buried in the Cobham parish church of St Mary Magdelene, where he was joined by Lady Anne on 26 November 1588 after her death on 1 November. His inquisition post mortem was 20 January 1559, and his Will, dated 13 January 1557/1558, proved 6 December 1560. Their tomb, on which their effigies lie side-by-side, was completed in 1561, with a memorial inscription praising his "defence of the Gospel".
== Research Notes ==Although this [https://www.ancestry.co.uk/genealogy/records/william-brooke_27353442 Ancestry link] still works, it goes to a William Brooke of Maryland 1740-1823. ([[Fitz-Henry-9|Fitz-Henry-9]] 21:10, 28 April 2020 (UTC))
== Sources ==
* Wikipedia contributors, "George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Brooke,_9th_Baron_Cobham&oldid=902899382 (accessed October 11, 2019). * Edward Hasted, 'Parishes: Cobham', in The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 3 (Canterbury, 1797), pp. 404-442. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-kent/vol3/pp404-442 [accessed 11 October 2019].*Green, Nina. “George Brooke (1497-1558).” The Oxford Authorship Site. Accessed October 11, 2019. [http://www.oxford-shakespeare.com/Probate/PROB_11-43-628.pdf George Brooke c1497-1558].*Cokayne, George E. (George Edward), Thomas Evelyn Scott-Ellis Howard de Walden, Duncan Warrand, Vicary Gibbs, H. Arthur (Herbert Arthur) Doubleday, and Geoffrey H. (Geoffrey Henllan) White. ''The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom : Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. Vol. III''. London : The St. Catherine Press, 1910, pp.347-48. [https://archive.org/details/completepeerageo03coka/page/346 Archive.org]
See also:*Benolte, Thomas; Philipot, John; & Owen, George. ''The Visitations of the County of Sussex: 1530 and 1633-4''. London: The Harleian Society, 1905. Vol LIII, [https://archive.org/stream/visitationscoun00owengoog#page/n34/mode/1up p 20].
Events
| Birth | Abt 1497 | Cowling, Kent, England | |||
| Death | 29 Sep 1558 | Cobham Hall, Cobham, Kent, England | |||
| Reference No | 983238 | ||||
| Reference No | 1004314 | ||||
| Reference No | 60 |
Families
| Father | Sir Thomas "8th Lord Cobham" Brooke (1470 - 1529) |
| Mother | Dorothy Heydon (1470 - 1566) |
| Sibling | Elizabeth Brooke (1503 - 1560) |
| Sibling | William Brooke (1503 - 1558) |
| Sibling | Mary "Lady Bergavenny" Brooke (1504 - 1535) |
| Sibling | Thomas Brooke (1505 - 1547) |
| Sibling | Margaret Brooke (1507 - 1579) |
| Sibling | Henry Brooke (1508 - 1590) |
| Sibling | Faith Brooke (1509 - 1574) |