Anthony Cooke

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Portrait of Anthony Cooke from the 16th century

Sir Anthony Cooke (* 1505 or 1506; † June 11, 1576 in Gidea Hall ) was an English nobleman and politician who was elected three times as a member of the House of Commons . However, he was best known as a humanist who carefully raised his children.

Origin and upbringing

Anthony Cooke was the only son of John Cooke (also Coke ) (1485-1516) and his wife Alice Saunders , the only daughter and heiress of William Saunders from Banbury in Oxfordshire . His father was a grandson of the wealthy cloth merchant Sir Thomas Cook , who had been Lord Mayor of London from 1462 to 1463 . He owned substantial estates at Havering-atte-Bower near Romford , Essex, including the Gidea Hall manor . After the death of his first wife Alice in 1510, John Cooke married Margaret Pennington for the second time . Anthony Cooke was still a minor when his father died in 1516, making him the heir to his estates. His stepmother and diplomat Richard Coke , a brother of his father, took on his upbringing and inheritance administration. Before 1523 Anthony Cooke was married to Anne († 1553), the widow of Sir John Hawes from London. She was the daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam , a London merchant who had temporarily served as Sheriff of the City of London . The contacts of his father-in-law enabled Cooke to study at the Inner Temple in London from 1523 .

Early years as a country nobleman

Almost nothing is known about the next few years in Cooke's life, except that he administered the lands he had inherited from his father. In addition, in 1521 he had inherited a quarter of the estates of Sir Henry Belknap , his maternal great-grandfather, which included lands in Warwickshire and the adjacent counties. Although his stepmother served as maid of honor to Queen Catherine of Aragon and later to Princess Maria and his father-in-law in the household of Lord Chancellor Wolsey , Cooke did not come to the royal court. From 1531 he served regularly as a judge in Havering. In 1536 he participated as a soldier in the crackdown on the Pilgrimage of Grace in northern England, and then possibly served until 1537 during the Earl of Kildare's Rebellion in Ireland. From 1543 to 1544 he was called to serve in the war against France , but it is uncertain whether he actually took part in the campaigns in Flanders and France. From 1537 he was Justice of the Peace in Essex and was a member of various local committees. From 1544 to 1545 he then served as Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire .

Activity during the reign of Edward VI.

Not until 1539 was Cooke mentioned as one of the fifty members of the newly formed Spears Royal Guard , and over the next several years he attended several ceremonial occasions at the royal court. By 1546 at the latest, Cooke was part of the retinue of the young heir to the throne Edward , and on the occasion of his coronation he was made Knight of the Bath on February 20, 1547 . Cooke had evidently acquired some education through self-study and was considered a good father and educator to both his sons and daughters. In 1550 he was named by John Hooper together with John Cheke as one of the teachers and tutors of the young Edward VI. called, although it is not exactly clear whether Cooke had not only taken on this task formally. In May 1550 Cooke was awarded an annual lifelong pension of £ 100 for the upbringing of the king. On the other hand, the King never mentioned Cooke in his diary, and Cooke was never officially designated as a teacher. Most likely, Cooke took over the king's upbringing and training in 1550 after Richard Cox retired from court. But Cooke took on the role of a consultant rather than a teacher. Already in the general election in November 1547 he had been elected as a member of Parliament for Borough Lewes . The choice had obviously been falsified, possibly in the interests of Cooke's relative, John Sackville, or of his neighbors. There is also no evidence from Cooke that he was active in the House of Commons at the time. Only in Essex did he continue to hold local offices, so in 1549 he was a member of a committee to prosecute heresy, and in 1552 he was a member of a committee to review church rules. In the general election in March 1553, his son-in-law William Cecil made him a candidate for Stamford in Lincolnshire . Cooke was also elected, but the sheriff instead reported the election of Cooke's son Richard , which Cooke accepted without protest. A little later he supported after the death of Edward VI. the succession to the throne of Jane Gray , which is why he was briefly imprisoned in the Tower of London .

Exile during the reign of Maria I.

Cooke was reluctant to embrace Protestantism, but after his release and following the succession of Mary the Catholic , he voluntarily went into exile in the spring of 1554. Together with John Cheke, he arrived in Strasbourg on April 14, 1554. There he heard sermons from Peter Martyr Vermigli . He was financially supported by his son-in-law, William Cecil. In autumn 1554 he followed Cheke, who had previously traveled to Italy, and spent the winter with Thomas Hoby in Padua , who later married one of his daughters. Before June 1555 he returned to Strasbourg. There he wrote Protestant leaflets that were to be circulated in England. After the death of Mary the Catholic, he returned to England in 1558.

Activity during the reign of Elizabeth I.

Even as he was on his way back to England, the respected Cooke in the general election in January 1559 together with William Petre as a Knight of the Shire elected for Essex. In the House of Commons he was now a Puritan . It was widely expected that the new Queen Elizabeth I would transfer him to a high office, but despite Cooke's close contacts with high-ranking members of the government, he was not given higher offices. He was disappointed by the compromises the new government made on religious matters, and this religious intransigence may have prevented his political career from continuing. He was only reappointed justice of the peace and a member of several commissions that dealt with religious questions. In the general election in 1563 he was re-elected as Knight of the Shire for Essex, but in the same year he largely withdrew from politics and did not deal with religious issues. Perhaps his health was already in bad shape, but over the next few years he took great care of his family, his possessions and the expansion of Gidea Hall, where the Queen honored him with a visit in 1568. With an estimated annual income of £ 1,100, he was one of the wealthiest landowners in Essex.

Elizabeth Cooke, one of Anthony Cooke's daughters. Painting from the last quarter of the 16th century

Importance as an educator

With his wife, Anne Fitzwilliam, Cooke had four sons and five daughters, including:

  1. ∞ Sir Thomas Hoby
  2. ∞ John Russell, Lord Russell

Where Cooke got his education from is unknown. He probably acquired his knowledge himself. Probably in the 1530s he wrote a treatise on the Fathers of the Church, and by 1541 he was able to translate a sermon given by St. Cyprian in Latin . He dedicated his translation, which was not published, to King Henry VIII. Apparently he had already dealt with the humanism that was emerging in England at the time , although there is no evidence that Cooke read texts by the humanists of the time. In his text Cooke praises the king for having freed his subjects from captivity and bondage by the Pope in Rome. However, the text has not yet been influenced by Protestants, probably with cautious restraint.

In the 1530s Cooke turned to raising his children, taking special care of his daughters. Parents who were enlightened at the time already provided for a certain education for girls, but Cooke taught his five daughters the same knowledge as his sons. He probably taught them more than that. His daughters not only had to learn Greek and Latin, but also basic knowledge of Hebrew and other foreign languages. They read early Christian works as well as writings by contemporary Protestant theologians and became famous for their education. Cooke's eldest daughter, Mildred, was particularly famous for her knowledge of Greek, while Anne translated works by Ochino and Jewel from Italian and Latin, respectively. The strictly Protestant Catherine was also known for her language skills. Elizabeth published a translation of a Latin treatise on the sacraments in 1605. Margaret, the fifth daughter, died shortly after their marriage.

Death and inheritance

Cooke wrote his will on May 22, 1576, which he expanded on June 9 with an addendum. After that, his sons Richard and William should receive his land. His sons-in-law, Nicholas Bacon and William Cecil, received £ 200 each as executive executors . All of his surviving children received gifts and his daughters were allowed to choose two Latin and one Greek books from his library. His handsome cash fortune, nearly £ 1,200, he shared among a number of grandchildren, including Robert Cecil , Anthony and Francis Bacon and Thomas Posthumous Hoby . Surprisingly, in his will he only made the most necessary provisions for the salvation of his soul and made no religious or charitable gifts. After his death he was buried in St Andrew's Church in Romford. His funerary monument was later moved to St Edward's Church in the same place.

literature

  • MK McIntosh: Sir Anthony Cooke: Tudor humanist, educator, and religious reformer. In: Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 119 (1975), pp. 233-250
  • MK McIntosh: Some new gentry in early Tudor Essex: the Cookes of Gidea Hall, 1480-1550. In: Essex Archeology and History, 9, 129-138 (1977)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cooke, Anthony
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman, politician and humanist
DATE OF BIRTH 1505 or 1506
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1576
Place of death Gidea Hall