Sir Aston Cockayne, 1st Baronet (1608–1684) Also spelt Aston Cockain was, in his day, a well-known Cavalier and a minor literary figure, now best remembered as a friend of Philip Massinger, John Fletcher, Michael Drayton, Richard Brome, Thomas Randolph, and other writers of his generation.

Like many other aristocrats of his time, he travelled through Europe in his youth, spending much of 1632 in France and Italy;[2] like a few, he became fluent in their languages, and translated works of literature into English.

[citation needed] Cockayne is the author of A Masque at Bretbie, which was performed on Twelfth Night of the Christmas season in 1639, and of Small Poems of Divers Sorts, published in 1658.

His works and his surviving letters constitute still-useful sources of information on the social and cultural affairs of mid-17th-century England.

[citation needed] Cockayne's Small Poems collection of 1658 included verses to Humphrey Moseley, publisher of the 1647 Beaumont and Fletcher folio.