Robert Rochester (knight)

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Sir Robert John Rochester, (c. 1494 – 1557), Knight of the Garter.

The son of John Rochester, of Terling, Essex, and Grisold, daughter of Walter Writtle, of Bobbingworth. He was the elder brother of Dom John Rochester, a Carthusian monk and Catholic martyr, executed at York in May 1537, and like his brother a steadfast Catholic.

By 1551 Robert had received the appointment of comptroller of the household to Princess Mary Tudor, the daughter of King Henry VIII and Katharine of Aragon, declared illegitimate after Henry divorced her mother and married Anne Boleyn. In that year the Edward VI's Privy Council ordered him to prevent any priest saying Mass in the princess's household, but he refused and was accordingly sent to the Tower. The next year he was allowed to retire to the country on account of his health, and was soon permitted to take up the post of comptroller once more. When the princess ascended the throne as Queen Mary, she remembered Rochester's faithful service and he was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, entering also into the inner circle of the Privy Council. He was one of the parliamentary representatives of Essex, in the years 1553-1555. He died on November 28, 1557 and was buried at the Charterhouse at Sheen, the house reconstituted by the remnant of the English Carthusians under Dom Maurice Chauncy.