Leiden Separatist first noted Leiden 1603, member of the Leiden Walloon Church. On Mayflower 1620 signed Mayflower compact. Wool comber.
When the English Separatist church in Leiden decided to go to America in 1620, Francis Cooke decided that from his family only he and his thirteen year�old son John would go over. His wife Hester and younger children would remain in Leiden until the colony was more established.
Francis is described in Leiden Walloon church marriage records dating from 1603 as a "woolcomber out of (uyt), England". Johanna W. Trammel, The Pilgrims and other people from the British Isles in Leiden, 1576-1640 (Isle of Man: Mansk-Svenska Publishing Co. Ltd. 1989), p.152 However, his origins are unknown. He could have been a refugee from religious persecution elsewhere in continental Europe.
In Leiden, sometime after July 20, 1603, as Franchoys Couck, he married Hester le Mahieu, the daughter of Protestant refugees from the Walloon Flanders area. Walter J. Harrison, "New Light on Francis Cooke and His Wife Hester Mayhieu and Their Son John," Mayflower Descendant, Vol 27, 145-153. Their betrothal was recorded on July 4 and 5, so the 20th was the soonest the marriage could have taken place after banns were read.</ref
The Mahieus, from Lille, had resided in Canterbury, then London, since the 1570s before moving to Leiden in 1590. Hester le Mahieu's sister was Marie le Mahieu, wife of Jan Lano, another Protestant refugee in Canterbury and then Leiden, whose son, Delano family|Philippe de Lannoy (anglicized to 'Delano') migrated on the Plymouth Colony#Growth of Plymouth|Fortune to join his uncle Francis Cooke and his cousin Robert at Plymouth colony in 1621, having been left behind with twenty others when the Mayflower's sailing mate, the Speedwell (ship)|Speedwell, foundered and returned to port in, England leaving the Mayflower to sail alone. Philippe is the progenitor of the branch of the Delano family from which Franklin Delano Roosevelt descends.
While in Leiden, Francis and Hester were members of the Walloon church. In 1606, they left Leiden briefly for Norwich, England, where they joined another Walloon church, returning to Leiden in 1607, possibly for religious reasons. Between 1611 and 1618, the Cookes were members of the Pilgrim Separatist congregation in Leiden. <ref>Jeremy Dupertuis Bangs. "The Pilgrims and other English in Leiden records: some new Pilgrim documents." New, England Historical and Genealogical Register, July 1989, p.195-214. </ref
The Pilgrim church was not established in Leiden until 1609, so Francis was living there long before their arrival and must have met up with and joined them afterwards.
In 1620, Francis, his son John, and nephew Philippe de Lannoy boarded Speedwell (ship)|Speedwell at Delftshaven. Cooke left wife Hester and their younger children behind to follow when the colony was established. The Leiden Separatists bought the ship in Holland. They then sailed it to Southampton, England to meet the Mayflower, which had been chartered by the merchant investors. In Southampton they joined with other Separatists and the additional colonists hired by the investors.
The two ships began the voyage on August 5, 1620, but the Speedwell leaked badly and had to return to Dartmouth to be refitted at great expense and time. On the second attempt, the two ships sailed about 100 leagues beyond Land's End in Cornwall, but the Speedwell was again found to be leaky. Both vessels returned to Plymouth where the Speedwell was sold. It would later be revealed that there was in fact nothing wrong with the ship. The crew had sabotaged it in order to escape the year long commitment of their contract.
Eleven people from the Speedwell (including Francis and John Cooke) boarded the Mayflower, leaving 20 people (including Robert Cushman and Philippe de Lannoy) to return to London while a combined company of 103 continued the voyage. For a third time, the Mayflower headed for the New World. She left Plymouth on September 6, 1620 and entered Cape Cod Harbor on November 11, 1620. The Fortune eventually followed, arriving at Plymouth Colony one year later on November 9, 1621.
Francis was active in Plymouth civil affairs in the 1630s and 40s - committees to lay out land grants and highways, petit jury, grand jury, coroner's jury. He appears on the 1643 Plymouth list of those able to bear arms. At some point in 1638 or afterward, he settled at Rocky Nook on Jones River, within the limits of Kingston, a few miles from Plymouth.<ref>Robert Charles Anderson, "Francis Cooke", The Great Migration Begins: Immigrants to New, England 1620-1633, 1995, Vol. I.
In 1651, fellow Pilgrim William Bradford (1590-1657)|William Bradford wrote of him: "Francis Cooke is still living, a very old man, and hath seen his children's children have children. After his wife came over with other of his children; he hath three still living by her, all married and have five children, so their increase is eight. And his son John which came over with him is married, and hath four children living." William Bradford, Of Plymouth Plantation 1620-1647, ed. Samuel Eliot Morison (New York: Knopf, 1991), p. 442, 446.
