The College Fellow Married a 14 Year Old

Richard Cooke’s early life resembled his father’s, Sir Anthony Cooke. Raised in the same milieu as his five famously accomplished sisters, he followed his father to the English court and served alongside him in the privy chamber. In the spring of 1553 he sat in Parliament for the borough of Stamford in his father’s stead, because the reclusive Sir Anthony simply declined the honor.

Richard died in 1579, a mere three years after his father. His chief heir, another Sir Anthony Cooke, proved to be a flamboyant, Cavalier-type wastrel, and the rest of the family watched helplessly (well, some of them tried to help, but he was a lost cause) as he frittered away the estate his forefathers had so prudently accumulated.

Another son, William Cooke (1562) magnified his grandfather’s Dissenter Protestant inclinations. He received his BA on 3 November 1582 and his MA on 22 July 1587 from Magdalen College. He became a fellow of that college, but Magdalen College fellows weren’t permitted to marry. He resigned his position in 1598 when a spunky, fetching fourteen-year-old girl (an attested “daughter of a gentleman”) came to his studious attention. Once a family man, he became the second vicar of Crediton, Future events suggest that he raised his children in the Dissenter creed.

Crediton High Street today. Source: http://www.geograph.org.uk

Life in Crediton was a far cry from the splendors of Gidea Hall where he was raised. Located directly northeast of the Cornwall peninsula, it lies in a narrow vale not far from those two storied wastelands, Dartmoor and Exmoor. In 1644 a traveler described it as “a big lousy town…houses be mostly of clay without any timber in the walls…”

Sir Anthony, A Protestant Reformer

One of Sir Anthony Cooke's daughters married William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who funded Sir Anthony’s exile to the Continent. Our noble progenitor made the mistake of supporting Lady Jane Grey’s quest for the throne, so when Mary Tudor became Queen, he fled the country. While in Strasbourg he heard Peter Martyr lecture, and the experience reinforced his Protestant inclinations. He stayed abroad for three years, corresponding with the leading reformers in Europe and writing pamphlets for circulation in England.

He returned home when Elizabeth I ascended the throne and promptly began writing her lists of instructions on how to handle religious issues. Gloriana reacted as she always did when some male presumed to give her orders: she totally ignored him. Undiscouraged, he participated in a number of commissions concerning the establishment of the Church of England, but fussed about the new church being too elaborate and “Popish”.

Book of Common Prayer, Church of England. Source: http://www.search.windowsonwarwickshire.org.uk/

A modern biographer condemns Sir Anthony as having a “dark and unforgiving nature.” A seventeenth-century historian was kinder: “Sir Anthony took more pleasure to breed up statesmen than to be one. Contemplation was his soul, privacy his life, and discourse his element.”

The last decade of his life was spent in consolidating his estate and refurbishing Gidea Hall, where Queen Elizabeth visited him in the summer of 1568.

Gentleman of the Privy Chamber

 Cooke noblemen married aristocratic women with the names of de Malpas, Knollys-Belnap, and Saunders. The ladies’ backgrounds were Norman, usually results of various Plantagent indiscretions.

Sir Thomas’ grandson Sir John Cooke (1473) died at 43, leaving his eleven-year-old son Anthony to be raised by his uncle Richard Cooke, a diplomat for Henry VIII, and his stepmother, first a lady-in-waiting to Katherine of Aragon and later to Princess Mary.

Sir Anthony Cooke of Gidea Hall proved to be one of our most distinguished ancestors.  At the end of Henry VIII’s reign, he obtained his only court office, “Gentleman of the Privy Chamber,” which he maintained until the death of Edward VI. He taught the boy king, who made him a knight of the Bath, “good letters and manners”. Other children in the royal circle like Lady Jane Grey were also his students.

Etching of Sir Anthony Cooke. One statement from his funeral monument states: "Sir Anthony Cooke, knight, named tutor to King Edward VI because of his exceptional learning, prudence, and piety. Source: Wikipedia.

When he was about 17, he married a girl he had long been contracted to, Anne Fitzwilliam. Anne was a wealthy knight’s daughter and a descendant of Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, by mistress #1, mistress #2, or mistress #3. By the way, Geoffrey in turn claimed direct descent from Charlemagne.

Please don’t get too excited about this. Every person of European origin can claim Charlemagne as a forefather. He lived a long time ago, and fathered 20 children. And the Plantagenets were very, er, sociable fellows themselves. Years ago, a book called The Last Plantagenets hit the best-seller list. Even its author, Thomas B. Costain, must have realized the title was misleading:  our earth will harbor Plantagenet offshoots until the sun supernovas and engulfs it.

 Anthony Cooke wrote Anne a touching epitaph, where he praised her for being attractive, but not so stunning that her beauty interfered with his studies.

Sir Anthony “The Scholar” was famed in Tudor England for personally educating his daughters as well as his sons. These daughters married spectacularly well and were renowned as poets and translators of religious and classical works in their own rights. Eventual Cooke offspring ranged from Sir Francis Bacon to the marvelous historical romance novelist Daphne du Maurier. Oh, and to some politician named Barack Obama.