Green’s Dictionary of Slang

cock lorel n.

[cock adj.1 + losel, a worthless rogue, a profligate. Usu. as the proper name Cock Lorel, who may poss. have been a genuine person and who features largely in the literature of Elizabethan villainy, orig. as the eponymous anti-hero of Cock Lorel’s Bote (c.1515), a ship-master (Rowlands claims ‘a tinker’), whose ‘crew’ is a group of rogues drawn from the workshops and gutters of London. Together they ‘sail’ the country, engaging in a variety of villainies. He appears in a number of works, as well as in the glossaries compiled by Awdeley (whose Fraternity of Vagabonds (c.1561) was ‘confirmed by Cock Lorel’) and Rowlands (in Martin-Mark-all, 1610), who suggests he was a tinker. In all he remains at the head of his marauding beggars, sometimes plotting against the state, on one occasion even entertaining the Devil to dinner. According to Rowlands’ generally fictitious ‘history’ of the canting crew, Cock Lorel’s rule supposedly lasted c.1511–33]

(UK Und.) the chief rogue or rascal.

Show quotations
[UK]R. Copland Hye way to the Spyttel House Eiii: Come any maryners hyther of Cok lorels bote?
[UK]Trial of Treasure Aiii: Moste like I haue ridden on the flying Pegasus, Or in Cock Lorel’s barge I haue been ventringe.
[UK]U. Fulwell Art of Flattery 8th dialogue 40: Lo now the foole is come in place / though not with patcht pyde cote, / To tel such newes as erst he sawe / within cocklorels bote.
[UK]Jonson Gypsies Metamorphosed 39: Our first lord Cock-Lorell he height on a time did invite the Devill to a feast.