Robert Coke

Sir Robert Coke (1587–19 July 1653) of Caludon Castle, Coventry, Huntingfield, Suffolk and Epsom, Surrey was an English politician. Life He was the second son of Sir Edward Coke and his wife, Bridget Paston, daughter of John Paston (MP), becoming his father's heir when the eldest son Edward died as an infant. He was knighted in 1607. After marrying Theophila, daughter of Sir Thomas Berkeley, he resided at Caludon Castle, owned by his wife's family the Berkeleys, and was elected to parliament for , in the vicinity, in 1614. That year he was the dedicatee of a mathematics book by William Bedwell, based on a work by Lazarus Schöner. In summer 1617, when Frances Coke was defying her father Sir Edward's wishes over a marriage, she was sent to her brother Sir Robert at Kingston upon Thames. This was one step in a complex story mostly played out along the River Thames. Coke was heavily in debt in the 1620s. He was elected again to parliament, in 1624, for , thought to be a nominee for William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke. When his father died in 1634 he was deeper in debt; he inherited a family home at Huntingfield, Suffolk. He also inherited his father's legal papers; but they had been marked down in advance as of interest to the king, and Sir Edward's study was sealed up on his death. Sir Robert received only what was left after royal officers had been through the documents; and he was still petitioning in 1640 for some of those that had been taken, with a view to publication.