Anthony Wood states that he was educated at one of the universities; Sidney Lee thought it probable that, like his brother Samuel Brooke, he was a member of Trinity College, Cambridge.
Shortly before Christmas 1601 he witnessed Donne's secret marriage with the daughter of Sir George More, lieutenant of the Tower of London, performed by his brother, Samuel Brooke, and witnessed by the father of the bride, who opposed the match and contrived to commit Donne and his two friends to Marshalsea Prison immediately afterwards.
William Browne lived on terms of intimacy with him, and to Donne he left by will his portrait of Elizabeth Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton.
In the fifth eclogue of the Shepheard's Pipe, 1615, which is inscribed to Brooke, Browne urges him to attempt more ambitious poetry than the pastorals which he had already completed.
[4] Lady Jacob had the reputation of a female 'wit' and once caused comment by ridiculing Count Gondomar, the Spanish Ambassador.