passim). The latter's daughter Agnes married Thomas, first baron Poynings, and was mother of Michael, second baron Poynings [q. v.] Nevertheless the inquisition taken on his death affirmed his heir to be Roger de Risslepe, son of Gregory's sister Agnes (Roberts, Cal. Gen. i. 441). The Rokesley arms, which appeared with nearly thirty others among the designs in the windows of old St. Paul's, were azure a fess gules between six shields sable, each charged with a lion rampant argent. Rokesley's will, undated and enrolled in the court of Husting on 25 July 1291 (Calendar, ed. Sharpe, i. 98–9), mentions, among other property in London, Canterbury, and Rochester, his dwelling-house, with adjoining houses ‘towards Cornhulle,’ charged to maintain a chantry in the church of St. Mary Woolnoth, where his wife lies buried; a ‘former dwelling-house’ in the parish of All Hallows at the Hay towards the Ropery, also charged with the maintenance of a chantry in that parish church. He possessed eight manors in Kent, two in Surrey, and one in Sussex (Cal. Inq. post mortem, i. 109). After legacies to numerous relatives, he left the residue of his estate to the poor. Rokesley had in his lifetime built on the site subsequently long occupied by Christ's Hospital in London a dormitory for the friars minors.
[Archæol. Cantiana, vols. ii. and x.–xviii. passim; Hasted's Kent contains many errors in the account of the Rokesley family; Parl. Writs, passim; Roberts's Cal. Genealog. i. 441, ii. 757; John de Oxenedes (Rolls Ser.), pp. 328, 332; Annales Londin. apud Ann. Edw. I and Edw. II (Rolls Ser.), passim; Liber Albus, ed. Riley; Strype's Stow, 1755, ii. 214–15, 486; Sharpe's London and the Kingdom, i. 107–22, and authorities there quoted; Maitland's Hist. of London, 1760, i. 105; Simpson's Gleanings from Old St. Paul's, pp. 66, 68.]
ROKEWODE, AMBROSE (1518?–1606). [See Rookwood.]
ROKEWODE, JOHN GAGE (1786–1842), antiquary, born on 13 Sept. 1786, was the fourth and youngest son of Sir Thomas Gage, the fourth baronet of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk, by his first wife, Charlotte, daughter of Thomas Fitzherbert, esq. of Swinnerton, Staffordshire, and of Maria Teresa, daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton, bart. He was descended in the female line from Ambrose Rookwood [q. v.] Educated in the college of the jesuits at Stonyhurst, Lancashire, he afterwards travelled on the continent. On his return he studied law in the chambers of Charles Butler (1750–1832) [q. v.], the conveyancer, and he was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 10 Feb. 1818, but he never practised. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries on 5 Nov. 1818, and he also became a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1829 he was elected director of the Society of Antiquaries, and he held that post until his death. On the death, 31 July 1838, of his brother, Robert Joseph Gage Rookwood (who had taken the name of Rookwood in 1799), he inherited the estates of the Rookwood family, with their mansion at Coldham Hall in the parish of Stanningfield, near Bury St. Edmunds, and he received the royal license to assume the name of Rokewode. He died suddenly on 14 Oct. 1842, while on a visit to his cousin, Thomas Fitzherbert Brockholes, at Claughton Hall, Lancashire, and was interred in the family vault at Stanningfield.
His works are:
- ‘The History and Antiquities of Hengrave in Suffolk,’ London, 1822, royal 4to, dedicated to the Duke of Norfolk. This work is valuable no less for its ornamental and useful illustrations than for its curious details of private history and biography, and of ancient customs and characters.
- ‘The History and Antiquities of Suffolk, Thingoe Hundred,’ London, 1838, royal 4to, in a large and highly embellished volume, dedicated to the Marquis of Bristol.
For the Camden Society he edited ‘Chronica Jocelini de Brakelonda, de rebus gestis Samsonis Abbatis Monasterii Sancti Edmundi,’ London, 1840, 4to. An English translation by T. E. Tomlins appeared in 1844, under the title of ‘Monastic and Social Life in the Twelfth Century,’ and on Rokewode's book Carlyle based his ‘Past and Present’ in 1843 [see Jocelin de Brakelond].
Rokewode was an occasional contributor to the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ and to the ‘Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica.’ In vol. ii. of the latter work he printed an ancient genealogy and charters of the Rokewode family. His communications to the Society of Antiquaries are enumerated in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine’ for 1842, ii. 659. The more important are (a) ‘A Dissertation on St. Æthelwold's Benedictional,’ an illuminated manuscript of the tenth century, in ‘Archæologia,’ xxiv. 1–117, with thirty-two plates; (b) ‘A Description of a Benedictional or Pontifical, called Benedictionarius Roberti Archiepiscopi,’ an illuminated manuscript of the tenth century in the public library at Rouen, ib. pp. 118–136; (c) ‘The Anglo-Saxon Ceremonial of the Dedication and Consecration of Churches,’ ib. xxv. 235–74; (d) ‘Remarks on the Louterell Psalter,’ printed, with six plates, in the ‘Vetusta Monumenta,’ vol. vi.; (e) ‘A Memoir on the Painted Chamber in the Palace at Westminster,’ printed, with four
