Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 11.djvu/233

 Ashbourne and became one of the governors. His most important county work was in 1587, when Sir Ralph Sadler, then conducting Mary Stuart from Wingfield to Tutbury, desired him ‘to be ready to attend the queene to Derbie, with but a small traine.’ After this he prepared his book, ‘A Short Treatise of Hunting, compyled for the Delight of Noblemen and Gentlemen,’ and dating it ‘from my house neere Ashbourne, the last of December 1590,’ he dedicated it to Gilbert Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, the grandson of his early friend, and it was published in 1591. This quaint, little work concludes with directions for blowing huntsmen's horns. These are, Cokayne asserts, the identical measures of blowing ordered by Sir Tristram, King Arthur's knight, whose ‘first principles of hunting, hawking, and blowing’ are the best he knows.

Cokayne was of the reformed religion. He died in 1592, aged about seventy-two, and was buried at night on 15 Nov. at Ashbourne. The monument erected to him and his wife (who died 1595) still exists.

 COKAYNE, THOMAS (1587–1638), lexicographer, born at Mapleton, Derbyshire, 21 Jan. 1587, was of the family of Cokayne or Cockaine, of Ashbourne, Derbyshire, and was son and heir of Sir Edward Cokayne, his mother being Jane, daughter of Nicholas Ashby of Willoughby-in-the-Wolds, Nottinghamshire (Cockayne Memoranda, i. 35). He was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, which he left without taking a degree. About 1607 he married Ann, daughter of Sir John Stanhope of Elvaston, Derbyshire, by whom he had two sons and five daughters, the eldest being Sir Aston Cokayne [q. v.] He abandoned his wife and children at Ashbourne, and hid himself in London under the name of Browne. Lodging in Gray's Inn Lane, he died there in 1638, aged 51 (ib. 36), and was buried in St. Giles's Church, 27 Jan. In 1640 the inquisition into his property was held, this being the last of the kind in his family (ib. ii. 222 et seq.).

Wood says, that Cokayne published an ‘English-Greek Lexicon, containing the derivations and various significancies of all the words in the New Testament, with a complete index in Greek and Latin,’ in London, 1658, and printed with it an ‘Explanation on Romans II, with all the Greek dialects in the New Testament.’ This statement is accepted in the ‘Cockayne Memoranda.’ Wilson's assumption that Thomas Cokayne is confused with George Cockayne, independent minister, to whom he assigns the lexicon, is improbable. Wood states that ‘he had assistants in this work.’ No copy is in the British Museum.

 COKAYNE, WILLIAM (d. 1626), lord mayor of London, was second son of William Cokayne of Baddesley Ensor, Warwickshire, merchant of London, sometime governor of the Eastland Company, by Elizabeth, daughter of Roger Medcalfe of Meriden, Warwickshire, being descended from William Cokayne of Sturston, Derbyshire, a younger son of Sir John Cokayne [q. v.] of Ashbourne in that county. Apprenticed, Christmas 1582, to his father, he was made free of the Skinners' Company by patrimony 28 March 1590. On his father's death, 28 Nov. 1599, he succeeded to his business. He was sheriff of London 1609, and alderman of Farringdon Without 1609–13, of Castle Baynard 1613–18, of Lime Street 1618–25, of Broad Street 1625 till death. In 1612, when the plantation of Ulster was commenced, he was the first governor of the colonists sent thither, and under his directions the city of Londonderry was established. On 8 June 1616 the king honoured him with his presence at dinner at his house in Broad Street (Cokayne House, exactly opposite St. Peter's Church), where he dubbed him a knight. During Cokayne's mayoralty (1619–20) James visited St. Paul's Cathedral with a view to raising money to complete the spire, and was received by Cokayne in great state. A pageant entitled ‘The Triumphs of Love and Antiquity’ was performed; the entertainments, which commenced at Cokayne's house on Monday and Tuesday in Easter week 1620, terminated on Saturday with service for the lords of the privy council, when ‘that noble marriage was celebrated [22 April 1620] betwixt Charles, lord Howard, baron of Effingham, and Mary, first daughter of the said Sir William Cokaine.’ The king frequently consulted with him both in council and privately, speaking most highly of his method of handling business, and of ‘his language, accent, and manner of delivering himself.’ By him and others of the Merchant Adventurers' Company the well-known William Baffin was equipped for one of his northern voyages, and in his honour a harbour in Greenland, called in the admiralty chart ‘Cockin's Sound,’ was named. He purchased large estates in several counties, more 