COKETT, Anthony (by 1517-60/61), of London and South Mimms, Mdx. and Sibton, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. by 1517, 1st s. of Edward Cokett of Appleton, Norf. by Anne, da. of Thomas Froxmere of Droitwich, Worcs. m. Margaret, da. of Sir Arthur Hopton of Cockfield in Yoxford, Suff., 1s. 1da. suc. fa. 1540/41.1

Offices Held

Biography

Anthony Cokett inherited from his father three manors in Norfolk and four in Suffolk and the remainder to another three Norfolk manors after the death of his mother; at the same time he was, so his brothers alleged, charged with the payment of five annuities of £5 to them, a responsibility which he vigorously denied, preferring to spend the money ‘in the charges of the law before that ever his said brethren should compel him to pay’. In 1543, as Anthony Cokett esquire, of Middlesex and Appleton, Norfolk, he sold the reversion to Appleton and Newton manors to John Coningsby in exchange for Old Ford Park, parcel of the manor of South Mimms. During 1544-5 he acquired the house and site of Bushmead priory, Bedfordshire, from Sir John Gascoigne and in July 1546 he bought a manor in the same county from the crown for £397; both these properties he sold in 1552 to William Gery.2

Cokett and another East Anglian, Thomas Poley, were probably not the two men chosen by the electors of Melcombe Regis in 1545 since their names appear over an erasure on the sheriff’s schedule. Cokett may have owed his return to Foley, who as joint receiver of the former lands of the Knights of St. John was himself doubtless the nominee of his superior in augmentations and one of the knights for Dorset in the same Parliament, Sir Thomas Arundell; but if (Sir) William Herbert I was already steward of the neighbouring town of Weymouth, Cokett may have benefited by Herbert’s friendship with his kinsman the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury. His maternal grandfather’s earlier Membership for Weymouth also perhaps conduced to his return.3

Before the end of Mary’s reign Cokett had sold two of his manors in Suffolk, Stanton in Knettishall and Livermere Parva. Although South Mimms was his chief residence he was described after his death as of Sibton. He died intestate in 1560 or early in 1561 and the administration of his estate during the minority of his son and daughter was on 21 Apr. 1561 granted to his brother, Thomas Cokett. In 1571 further letters of administration were granted to Anthony Cokett’s widow, who had since married a half-brother of Amy Robsart. In 1576 Cokett’s son likewise obtained letters of administration but these were revoked as invalid ten years later.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Helen Miller

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., E150/641/8, 34. Vis. Norf. (Harl. Soc. xxxii), 81; PCC Admins. ed. Glencross, i. 18.
  • 2. E150/641/8, 34; C1/1113/30; LP Hen. VIII, xx-xxi; Lysons, Magna Britannia, i(1), 80, 169; PROT/S ‘Cal. deeds enrolled in CP’, 15-47.
  • 3. C219/18C/26.
  • 4. Copinger, Suff. Manors, i. 323, 342, 346; PCC Admins. i. 18, 122; ii. 76; PCC 8 Windsor.