Cooke was educated at Shrewsbury School in 1583. He became Clerk of Liveries on the death of his father in 1589, though he was only 17. He was admitted for the study of law at Gray's Inn in 1592. In 1593 he went abroad, with a two-years’ licence to travel after his mother's unsuccessful attempt to arrange a marriage for him while he was a minor. By 1596 he was a Justice of the Peace for Hertfordshire. Cooke's father's eldest sister, Mildred Cooke, had married Lord Burghley, and Cooke received patronage from both Burghley and Sir Robert Cecil, his own first cousin. Cecil's influence may have secured him his seats in Parliament. In 1597 he was elected a Member of Parliament for Helston. By January 1599 he was Purveyor to the Stable and had sufficient property to offer himself, with six men and horses, for service to Queen Elizabeth I. In 1601 he was elected an MP for Westminster. He was knighted at Theobalds House on 7 May 1603. In 1604 he was elected an MP for Wigan. He enhanced his estates by purchasing further land in and around Gloucester, and also owned Ribbesford Manor and other property in Worcestershire. In the reign of King James I he was keeper of the lodge and herbage of Hartwell Park, Northamptonshire. By 1605 he was a JP for Gloucestershire. He was steward of the manor of Bury St. Edmunds by 1614. In 1614 he was elected as an MP for Gloucestershire.
Marriages and children
Cooke married twice:
Firstly to Joyce Lucy, only child of Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, Warwickshire by his first wife, Dorothea Arnold, only child and sole heiress of Ronald Arnold of Highnam Court in Gloucestershire. As Joyce's mother died soon after her birth, she became the heiress of Highnam which she thus brought to Cooke on her marriage. By his wife he had at least three sons and five daughters, including:
Secondly he married Radigan Boscawen, second daughter of Nicholas Boscawen of Cornwall and widow of Richard Cole of Slade in the parish of Cornwood, Devon, and of Bokish in the parish of Woolfardisworthy in North Devon, whose large monument with effigy survives in All Hallows Church, Woolfardisworthy. The marriage was childless. She was clearly popular with her two Cooke step-daughters who each named one of their daughters "Radagand" after her.
Death
Cooke died at the age 45 and the clerkship of the liveries, which had become ‘quasi-hereditary’, stayed in his family.
