COKE (John, 1635-1671, MP for King’s Lynn in Norfolk)

Clerk Written Document Signed addressed to "Charles Godsalve Bailliffe of my manor of Martham Moregroves" saying that he has “appoynted my Auditt for the period of my half years revenue in Norfolk due at our Ladyday next to be... att my house in Holkham on Munday the eighteenth day of Aprill... pray be carefull in tallying all... moneys and other taxable benefitts as are and shall be then due to mee within your charge and fail not in paying the same att or on the day and place aforesaid...”, 1 side 4to., no place, 16th March

Coke’s grandfather, Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634), founded the fortunes of the family and began a notable parliamentary record as MP for Aldeburgh in 1589. His father took the side of Parliament during the Civil War, serving on local commissions during the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and in 1653 inherited most of the family estate, comprising 60 manors in Norfolk alone, besides large estates in Hertfordshire, Suffolk and Berkshire, valued at £8,200 p.a. They were, however, heavily mortgaged through the extravagance and mismanagement of his predecessors. At the Restoration he was proposed as a knight of the Royal Oak, when his Norfolk estate was grossly undervalued at £1,000 p.a. Coke himself was a great traveller, telling Philip Skippon, who met him at Florence in 1664, that he was on his way to Constantinople. Meanwhile he entrusted the stewardship of his estate to his ‘close friend’, Andrew Fountaine, who was said to have saved him from drowning. But when Coke embarked on marriage negotiations in 1669 for the daughter of Sir Nicholas Crisp, many of the title-deeds could not be produced, and Fountaine was discovered to have converted £20,000 to his own use. In the following year Coke was returned unopposed for Lynn on the family interest; but he took no known part in the Cavalier Parliament. He died on 1st August 1671, and was buried at Holkham. He bequeathed Holkham as well as the property entailed by his great-grandfather to his cousin Robert Coke.

Item Date:  1663

Stock No:  41852      £325

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