Background
Cooke was the son of Sir William Cooke of Highnam and his wife Joyce Lucy daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote Warwickshire.
Cooke was the son of Sir William Cooke of Highnam and his wife Joyce Lucy daughter of Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote Warwickshire.
He graduated at Magdalen College, Oxford on 20 January 1615 and entered Gray"s Inn on 21 May 1617.
He served in the Parliamentarian army in the English Civil War. He was knighted on 21 July 1621. He was Lord of the Manor of Highnam and was one of the seven commissioners who surveyed the Forest of Dean in 1639.
In November 1640 he stood at Tewkesbury but there was a double return and he was not seated as Member of Parliament in the Long Parliament until August 1641.
He held the seat until his death in 1643. Cooke raised a regiment of foot for the parliamentary army by commission from Sir William Waller and was made a colonel.
He was Governor of Cirencester and then Governor of Tewkesbury in April 1643 when he left the town ungarrisoned. Cooke married Dorothy Fleetwood, daughter of Miles Fleetwood of Aldwincle, Northamptonshire.
Short Parliament]
In April 1640, Cooke was elected Member of Parliament for Gloucestershire in the Short Parliament.