Family and Education

b. by 1493, ?yr. s. of Thomas Coke of Budridge, Arreton, I.o.W., prob. by Joan, da. of William Hawles. educ. L. Inn, adm. Sept. 1517. ?m. Thomasin, at least 3s. 2da.2

Offices Held

Town clerk, Winchester by 1514; clerk of the peace, Hants 1524-30; commr. subsidy, Winchester 1523, 1524.3

Biography

Thomas Coke of Budbridge, who died in 1519 leaving an infant granddaughter Mary as his sole heir, had purchased the manor of North Budbridge from George Bramshott in 1510: he had earlier made an unsuccessful claim to the manor in right of his wife, Joan, daughter and heir of William Hawles (d.1480). If, as is likely, it was his younger son who was to sit in Parliament for Winchester in 1529, this namesake was related to his fellow-Member, another William Hawles. It may have been to Hawles, his senior at Lincoln’s Inn, that Coke owed his entry to the service both of the city and of the bishops of Winchester, although he was perhaps also a kinsman of John Coke, registrar-general of the diocese from 1524 to 1561. In an undated letter to Bishop Fox (which must predate Fox’s death in 1528) Coke and Hawles, writing from Lincoln’s Inn, style themselves ‘your servants’: no other trace of Coke’s service with Fox has been found and it is not known whether, like Hawles, he passed from it into Wolsey’s. Neither Member is likely to have needed episcopal patronage in 1529. Coke was probably still town clerk and as such he may well have sat in either or both of the two previous Parliaments, the Winchester Members for which are unknown.4

Coke’s Membership was to be cut short by death. By his will dated simply 1530 and witnessed on 17 Oct. of that year he left 4d. to Winchester cathedral and named his wife residuary legatee and sole executrix. His widow made her will on 15 May 1531 asking for burial beside Coke in the cathedral graveyard and providing for their children, kinsfolk and servants. His death was noted on the list of Members for the Parliament of 1529 when it was revised during 1532-3; he was probably replaced in the Commons by Walter Chandler.5

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Authors: Patricia Hyde / Alan Davidson

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. VCH Hants, v. 142; Hants RO, wills R1530, 1531.
• 3. Hants RO, Winchester chamberlains’ accts. 4-5 Hen. VIII; E. Stephens, Clerks of the Counties, 93; LP Hen. VIII, iii, iv; E179/281.
• 4. VCH Hants, v. 142; C1/125/39; Black Bk. L. Inn, i. 197, 199; Letters of Richard Fox, ed. Allen, 159; Letters of Stephen Gardiner, ed. Muller, 541.
• 5. Hants RO, wills B1530, R1530, 1531.