Thomas Coke (MP for Leicester)

Thomas Coke (died 1656) was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1645. He supported the Royalist side in the English Civil War.

Coke was the younger son of Sir John Coke of Melbourne and his wife Mary Powell, daughter of John Powell of Presteign Herefordshire. His father was MP for Warwick in 1621. Coke attended Gray's Inn.^[1] HIs brother was the Roundhead John Coke.

In April 1640, Coke was elected Member of Parliament for Leicester in the Short Parliament. He was re-elected MP for Leicester in November 1640 for the Long Parliament.^[2] Coke supported King Charles and sat in the King's parliament at Oxford. As a result he was disabled from sitting at Westminster in 1644 and fined £500 as a delinquent royalist. Coke was arrested as a conspirator in 1651 and imprisoned. He saved his life by voluminous confession of his activities and associates. Coke purchased the manor of Melton Mowbray.

Coke died at Tottenham High Cross and was buried at Melbourne on 23 August 1656.^[3]

Coke married Mary Pope, daughter of Richard Pope of Woolstaston, Shropshire. Their son John Coke was MP for Derby.

References

1. Basil Duke Henning The House of Commons, 1660-1690
2. Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. pp. 229–239.
3. John Talbot Coke Coke Family