ROKEBY.
[TO Tee EDITOR OF TDB " BPROTAT011.1
you allow me, as one feeling some personal interest in the matter, to correct what I believe to be a mistake in the very interesting paper on "Rokeby," in last week's Spectator ? The writer of that paper accounts for the displacement of the ancient family of Rokeby, who had held the estate since the Conquest, by the losses and. penalties incurred through their adherence to the cause of Charles I. It is right to say that Sir Walter Scott makes a statement to the same effect, in one of the notes to his poem of "Rokeby." But, on the other hand, it can, I think, be shown that the Robinsons were possessors of Rokeby and resided there before the outbreak of the Civil War. Whitaker, in his "History of Richmondshire," speaks of the ancient manor-house of Rokeby as having "been inhabited by the Robinsons at least since 1622." I believe, indeed, that the Robinsons came into possession of the place not later than the very beginning of the seventeenth century.
A certain John Robinson, "born at Rookby," was admitted foundation Fellow of St John's College in 1626. I may also be allowed to add that the representative of the family, when the war broke out, attached himself to the popular side, and joined with Fairfax and others in the effort to secure Yorkshire for the Parliament. He died, however, about a year before the battle of
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