from 1769 to 1775 were all the joint work of Rooker and his son Michael [q. v.] Rooker was an original member of the Incorporated Society of Artists, and exhibited with them from 1760 to 1768. His latest work was done for the ‘Copper Plate Magazine,’ forming a series of landscapes and portraits, which began to appear a few months before his death. He died on 22 Nov. 1774. Strutt (Dict. of Engravers) states that Rooker was a clever harlequin, and performed at Drury Lane Theatre, but his name does not occur in theatrical records.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Graves's Dict. of Artists, 1760–93; Arnold's Library of the Fine Arts, iii. 379; Dodd's Memoirs of Engravers; Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 33404; information from Joseph Knight, esq., F.S.A.]
ROOKER, MICHAEL, commonly called Michael Angelo Rooker (1743–1801), engraver and painter in watercolours, son of Edward Rooker [q. v.], was born in 1743. He was taught engraving by his father and drawing by Paul Sandby [q. v.] at the St. Martin's Lane school and at the Royal Academy. It was Sandby who called him Michael Angelo Rooker in jest, but the name stuck to him. In 1765 he exhibited some ‘stained’ drawings at the exhibition in Spring Gardens, and in 1768 a print by him of the ‘Villa Adriana,’ after Wilson, was published. In 1770 he was elected an associate of the Royal Academy. In 1772 he exhibited a painting of Temple Bar, and he contributed some illustrations to an edition of Sterne, published that year. Most of the landscapes in Kearsley's ‘Copperplate Magazine’ (1775–1777) were engraved by him, as well as a few plates in its successor, ‘The Virtuosi's Museum,’ and he both drew and engraved the headings of the ‘Oxford Almanack’ for several years, for each of which he received 50l. For a long time he was chief scene-painter at the Haymarket Theatre, and appeared in the playbills as Signor Rookerini; but a few years before his death he was discharged, in consequence, it is said, of his refusal to aid in paying the debts of Colman, the manager. In 1788 he began to make autumnal tours in the country, to which we owe most of those drawings which entitle him to an honourable place among the founders of the watercolour school. They are chiefly of architectural remains (in Norfolk, Suffolk, Somerset, Warwickshire, and other counties), which he drew well, and treated with taste and refinement. His figures and animals were artistically introduced. He became depressed after his discharge from the theatre, and died suddenly in his chair in Dean Street, Soho, on 3 March 1801. His drawings were sold at Squib's in Savile Row in the following May, and realised 1,240l. He exhibited one drawing at the Society of Artists, and ninety-eight at the Royal Academy.
[Roget's ‘Old’ Watercolour Society; Edwards's Anecdotes; Somerset House Gazette; Pilkington's Dict.; Redgrave's Dict.; Graves's Dict.; Gent. Mag. 1801, i. 480.]
ROOKWOOD or ROKEWODE, AMBROSE (1578?–1606), conspirator, born about 1578, was the eldest son of Robert Rookwood (d. 1600), of Stanningfield, Suffolk, by his second wife, Dorothea, daughter of Sir William Drury of Hawsted in the same county. Robert had by his first wife, Bridget Kemp, four sons, the eldest of whom died in 1580 of a wound received at the storm of ‘Moncron’ in the Netherlands, and was buried at Gravelines, while the other three predeceased their father without issue. The family had been possessed of the manor of Stanningfield since the time of Edward I, and its members had frequently represented Suffolk in parliament; it remained staunchly Roman catholic, and many of its members, including Ambrose's parents, suffered fines and imprisonment for their faith. Several became priests and nuns (cf. Foley, iii. 788, &c.). Ambrose's cousin Edward, who possessed Euston Hall, Norfolk, is quoted as a typical victim of the persecution of the Roman catholics under Elizabeth (Lodge, Illustrations, ii. 188; Hallam, Const. Hist. i. 142). He entertained Elizabeth at Euston in 1578, but was imprisoned at Ely from 1588 to his death in 1598, being buried at Bury St. Edmunds ‘from the jail.’
Ambrose was educated in Flanders, whither several members of the family had fled to escape persecution, but he can scarcely be the Ambrose Rookwood who appears in a list of papists abroad in 1588 (Cal. State Papers, Dom.). In 1600 he succeeded to his father's considerable estates. He was indicted for recusancy before the Middlesex county sessions in February 1604–5, and about Michaelmas following Robert Catesby [q. v.], with whom Rookwood had long been intimate, loving him ‘as his own soul,’ revealed to him the ‘gunpowder plot.’ Rookwood's accession was sought by the conspirators chiefly on account of his magnificent stud of horses. His scruples having been removed, Rookwood took up his residence at Clopton, near Stratford-on-Avon, to be near the general rendezvous. On 31 Oct. or 1 Nov. he removed to London, residing with Robert Keyes, a kinsman of his wife, and other conspirators at the house
