422
NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. VIL MAY 31, 1913.
of Virginia," 24 May, 1631 ; one of the
undertakers for draining the Fens, 18 May,
1634 ; on the Commission for the reforma-
tion of the abuses of the drapery of the
kingdom, 28 Jan., 1639. He was also
Standard -Bearer to the King in the Scottish
war, 1639, and on 4 Jan., 1642, was appointed
Keeper and Captain of the Forts of Holy
Island and Fern Island, co. Durham, at a
fee of 80Z. a year.
In Parliament he sat for Gatton in 1614, Oxford City 1620-21, Great Bedwin 1625, and was returned for Appleby to the Long Parliament of November, 1640. He was among the members who took the Protesta- tion, 3 May. 1641, but otherwise played no active part in the proceedings of this historic Parliament, being named once only on a minor Committee, 18 Dec., 1640. On 23 Aug., 1642, he was summoned to attend the service of the House forthwith ; but, not obeying, was, on 15 March following, formally
" disabled from continuing any longer a member, for signing a warrant on 4 March for raising money for the King's service in Lincolnshire,"
and his estate ordered to be sequestered. He sat in the King's anti-Parliament at Oxford in January, 1644, but took no part in military affairs/probably on account of his age. He was created at Oxford, by the King Baron Cobham, on 3 Jan., 1644/5 a dignity, of course, not recognized by Parliament.
In September, 1643, upon the death of his cousin Sir William Brooke, K.B. (who was slain in the Parliament service), he became heir-male of Henry, the attainted Lord Cobham. and as such succeeded to such portion of the estates as by the Act of Attainder, 3 James I., was allowed to the family. On 30 April, 1646, he petitioned to compound, declaring that he " never bore arms against the Parliament and had taken the National Covenant and negative oath." On 1 June, 1647, his fine was fixed at 1,3007. For an interesting debate in the Crom- wellian Parliament of 1656 on his title to his inheritance and the rival claim of Sir William Brooke's daughters, see ' Burton's Diary,' i. 184-90. In the course of this debate Lord Cobham is described as being then "90 years old" an over - statement by a few years. For his two wives, see G. E. C'.'s ' Peerage.' He died s.p. on the eve of the Restoration, being buried at Wakerley, Northants, 20 May, 1660, at which date he would be probably 86 or 87 years of age.
Can some genealogical correspondent of ' N. & Q.' say who was heir-male to Lord
Cobham in 1660 ? An exhaustive pedigree
of the Brookes is still a desideratum, and
it is likely that some of the younger branches
left male descendants who continued long
after the attainder of the peerage. During
the debate in the Commons in 1656 before
referred to allusion was made to the will
of George, ninth Lord Cobham, by which
he entailed his estates upon his eight sur-
viving sons in succession and their male
descendants. Of these sons, the line of
the eldest failed with Sir William Brooke
in 1643. John, Lord Cobham, represented
Sir Henry, the fifth son, but it was stated
by one speaker that the entail was then " not
yet spent, for there were heirs-male living
of Thomas, the second son." The imperfect
pedigrees given by the usual authorities
seem to contradict this. Thomas, second
(or rather third) son of the ninth lord
" my ungracious brother " of the tenth lord
who spent many years of his life in piratical
doings, died about 1578 (Cecil MSS.), leaving,,
it is stated, issue one daughter only, viz..
Frances, married to Arthur Mills. This,,
however, appears to be not quite accurate,,
inasmuch as the Cecil MSS. name, seemingly,
another daughter, the wife of a Daniel
Girton. But no mention is made of a son.
It is probable that the whole of the male descendants of the eight sons of George, Lord Cobham, failed in' 1660. And to find the next heir-male it will be necessary to go one generation further back to the sons of Thomas, eighth lord. Of these Thomas, second or third son, married a niece of Archbishop Cranmer. According to the ' Visitation of Kent, 1619,' he had a son, Cranmer Brooke, whose son Thomas was living when the Visitation was made. I cannot help thinking that this is the Thomas alluded to in the debate, whose heirs-male then existed. When did the Cranmer Brooke line fail ? Are the Brookes of Aspall now heirs -male of the Cobham family ? YV. D. PINK.
Winslade, Lowton, Newton-le-Willows.
AN ATTEMPT TO DETERMINE THE
DATE OF WEBSTER'S ' APPIUS AND
VIRGINIA.'
(Concluded from p. 403.)
To DEAL with the evidence from Hey- wood's writings, there is an interesting parallel between Webster's play and Heywood's ' The English Traveller ' : First Soldier. How goes the day ? Second Soldier. My stomach hath struck twelve. ' Appius and Virginia,' IV. ii.