1796 Mezzotint by Federico Bartolozzi,
after Hans Holbein's Sketch from the 1530s.
SIR GEORGE BROOKE, 9th Baron Cobham, was born around 1497, son of Thomas Brooke, 8th Baron Cobham, and Dorothy Heydon. The first notice of him appears in 1514, when he and his father accompanied Mary Tudor, sister of King Henry VIII, to France upon her wedding to the French king, Louis XII.1
In 1526, Lord Cobham married Anne, daughter of Edmund, Lord Bray. The marriage produced fourteen children.2 He was summoned to parliament in 1529, after his father's death. In 1533, Queen Anne Boleyn sent him an announcement on the birth of Princess Elizabeth. Less than three years later, in 1536, he was one of the 27 peers who presided at Anne Boleyn's trial. A year later, the new queen, Jane Seymour, gave birth to the new crown prince, Edward, and Cobham served a role of honor at the christening. For his services to the King, he was one of the many who benefited from the Dissolution of the Monasteries, obtaining a grant in fee of the manor of Chattingdon, in Kent, among other grants.3
In 1544, Cobham served as Lieutenant-General of the army under Edward Seymour, Lord Hertford, in the Scots campaigns.4 He was rewarded for his exemplary service by being made Deputy of Calais in June 1544, a post he held until 1550. He was created Knight of the Garter in 1549.5 On his return to England in 1550, he was made a Privy Counsellor and granted further lands from the dissolved monasteries.6 He was also one of the committee appointed by the House of Lords to examine Lord Protector Seymour on the charges of treason. As a reward for his good services, King Edward VI granted him various lands and tenements, making his income considerable.7 In 1551, Cobham was sent to the north as Lieutenant-General, to fortify against a possible attack by the French.
In 1553, Lord Cobham was one of the Council who signed the device for succession, which disinherited both Mary and Elizabeth (see Lady Jane Grey). Though Lord Cobham was most likely a Protestant sympathiser,8 he was present at the coronation of Queen Mary and was thus forgiven under the general pardon.
In the following year, 1554, he was suspected of complicity in the rebellion of Sir Thomas Wyatt, the Younger, who was Cobham's nephew through his sister, Elizabeth. Two of Cobham's sons were certainly with Wyatt, and Lord Cobham, whose guilt or innocence is difficult to ascertain, was sent to the Tower with them. Thanks to the intervention of Lord Paget, Cobham and his son William were released with a sizable fine.
In November 1554, Cardinal Pole returned to England after a two-decade absence. His route to London took him through Kent and Lord Cobham had the honor of welcoming the Cardinal at his castle of Cowling. The last official notice of Lord Cobham is in 1556, when his name appears on a commission inquiring into heretics.9 Lord Cobham died on September 29, 1558, only a few weeks before the death of Queen Mary.
In his will, Lord Cobham ordered for his body "to be buried and broughte to the grounde, if I die in England, at Cobham churche, wthowte any pompe or superstitious ceremony."10 His eldest son and heir, William Brooke, had a magnificent tomb featuring Cobham, his wife, and their 14 children, erected in 1561 in the Chancel at Cobham Church, where it can still be seen today.
1. Archaeologia cantiana. Vol XII.
London: Kent Archaeological Society, 1878. 113.
2. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
3. John Burke. A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerages of England, Ireland, and Scotland.
London: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley, 1831. 81.
4. Archaeologia, 114.
5. ODNB.
6. Archaeologia, 116.
7. ibid., 117.
8. This is suggested by the fact that he had hired a succession of Reformers as tutors to his sons,
that he was suspected of complicity in the anti-Catholic Wyatt Rebellion, and by the wording of his will.
9. Archaeologia, 124.
10. ibid.
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