COOKE, Tristram (by 1530-72/73), of Scarborough, Yorks. and Flixborough, Lincs.

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

Constituency

Dates

Nov. 1554

Family and Education

b. by 1530. m. by 1562, Margaret, prob. 1da.1

Offices Held

Biography

Although Tristram Cooke’s christian name was relatively uncommon, several persons bearing both it and his more common surname can be traced in the Household and in Essex, the Midlands and Humberside during the middle years of the century. Of these only one is known to have lived at Scarborough, where as ‘one of the burgesses’ of the town he received on 9 June 1551 a warrant from the Privy Council for £200 towards the repair of its pier and harbour. His election with the town’s recorder Reginald Beseley to the third Parliament of Mary’s reign thus complied with the crown’s directive for the return of townsmen. All that is known of his part in this, his only, Parliament is that he was not among the Members who incurred prosecution in the King’s bench for quitting it prematurely without leave.2

During the 1560s Cooke brought a series of actions about his title to lands in Scarborough and the neighbourhood. He eventually settled in Lincolnshire, and it was at Flixborough that as a sick man he made his will on 13 July 1572. After remembering several charities in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, he provided for his wife, his ‘son’ George Tomson of Scarborough and other relatives. He left his nephew and namesake land which he had recently bought in the lordship of Scarborough, John Fish of Scarborough 40s. ‘for token of friendly remembrance’, and Thomas Stanhope a hawk and a couple of spaniels. He also remembered James Aislabie, a younger son of the Francis Aislabie who had followed him in Parliament. As executors he named his cousins William Johnson, perhaps the Member for Kingston-upon-Hull, and Richard Cooke, probably not the Member for Stamford, who confusingly had a cousin Tristram at Chigwell in Essex, and as supervisors Roger Dalton (father of the Elizabethan Member), Christopher Johnson, Marmaduke Lacy and John Skarthe. Cooke also gave (Sir) Henry Gates £20 to help in the execution of the will, which was proved on 7 Feb. 1573.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Davidson

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Feet of Fines (Yorks. Arch. Soc. rec. ser. ii), 258; PCC 8 Peter.
  • 2. LP Hen. VIII, xvii, xix; CPR, 1555-7, pp. 392-3; 1560-3, p. 263; VCH Essex, iv. 26; APC, iii. 299.
  • 3. Feet of Fines, 258, 350, 351, 360; PCC 8 Peter.