Sir Robert Brooke (1637 – 5 June 1669) was an English landowner, magistrate, commissioner, military officer, knight and MP who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1669.
[1] Dying at the age of 32, his promise was cut short, and the core of his estates in East Suffolk passed by marriage into the Blois family.
Following the death of his father in 1646, the Yoxford estate remained under the oversight of his mother Dame Elizabeth; his elder brother, John Brooke Esq (born c. 1626), married Jane Barnardiston, upon whom the Blythburgh estate was settled as a jointure,[3] and was seated at Westwood Lodge, the house associated with the principal manor of Blythburgh.
John, who continued his father's unpopular policies towards the townsfolk of Walberswick,[4] died suddenly and unexpectedly in October 1652 without a male heir, making his widow Joan his sole legatee and administratrix.
By his codicil of 1667, his manor, messuage, park and rectory advowson of Wanstead were left to his cousin german John Brooke (of Ipswich).
Sir Robert went to France in 1669 and was drowned while bathing in the River Rhône at Avignon in June.
Therefore, when his aunt Mary Brooke died in 1693 it was as Sir Charles Blois, 1st Baronet that he, and subsequently his heirs, became masters of Cockfield Hall at Yoxford.