George Brooke (conspirator)

Brooke was the fourth and youngest son of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, by second wife Frances, daughter of Sir John Newton, and was born at Cobham Hall, Cobham, Kent, on 17 April 1568 and was baptised with the name of George Cobham. He matriculated at King's College, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, in 1580, and took his M.A. degree in 1586.^[1] At the time of his marriage, in 1598 John Chamberlain mentioned that he was lame.^[2]

He obtained a prebend in the prebendary of the church of York, and was later promised the mastership of the Hospital of St Cross, near Winchester, by Queen Elizabeth. The queen, however, died before the vacancy was filled up, and James gave it instead to an agent of his own, James Hudson. This caused Brooke to become disaffected.^[3]

Brooke and Sir Griffin Markham persuaded themselves that if they could get possession of the royal person they would have it in their power to remove the present members of the council, compel the king to tolerate the Roman Catholics, and secure for themselves the chief employments of the state. As part of their arrangements Brooke was to have been Lord Treasurer. From this scheme sprang the Bye Plot, also known as the 'treason of the priests.'^[3]

To Brooke's connection with the Bye may be ultimately traced the discovery of a second plot, known as the Main Plot, in which Sir Walter Raleigh and Henry Brooke, 11th Baron Cobham were implicated. Brooke being the brother of Cobham, Cecil, who had been married to their sister Elisabeth (who died in 1597), suspected that Cobham and Raleigh might be concerned in the first treason, and by acting at once vigorously he discovered the second plot. Brooke was arrested and sent to the Tower of London for his involvement in the Bye Plot in July 1603; he was arraigned on the 15th. He pleaded not guilty, though his confessions had gradually laid bare the whole details of the plots.