They turned o’er Homer and Demosthenes,
From Aristotle’s Store of Learning too
The mystic Art of reasoning well they drew.
Then blush ye men, if you neglect to trace
Those heights of learning which the Females grace.
Associated with them in their life and studies was Margaret Giggs (1508-70), a niece of Sir Thomas More. She is included in both of Holbein’s portrait-groups of the More family, and was also distinguished for her aptitude in learning. Algebra was her special study, and Sir Thomas More sent an algorism stone of hers from the Tower. She married their family tutor, Dr. John Clement, and Leland wrote her epithalamium. Her husband made her little inferior to himself in Latin and Greek, and she assisted him in his translations. She and her husband went abroad on Elizabeth’s accession. Her only daughter, Winifred, married William Rastell, nephew of Sir Thomas More.
Sir Anthony Cooke, one of the learned tutors of Edward VI, also gave his daughters an education so liberal that they became the wonder of their age. He considered that women should be educated on the same lines as men, and that they were quite as fit. Mildred (1526-89), was well skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues, particularly Greek. She delighted in reading the works of Basil the Great, Cyril Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, and other similar writers. She translated part of St. Chrysostom into English. When she presented the Cambridge University Library with a great Bible in Hebrew and other languages, she sent with it a Greek letter. In 1546 she married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, and became the mother of Anne Countess of Oxford, and Robert Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. Her marriage was happy, and after her death her husband wrote “Meditations” upon her goodness, her private charity and helps to learning.
Anne, born 1528, second daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was also liberally educated, and distinguished among the literati of the time. She was said to be “a choice lady, eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, and exquisitely skilled in the Greek, Latin, and Italian tongues,” and was associated with her father by being made governess to King Edward VI. She translated out of Italian into English twenty-five sermons written by Bernardino Ochino, 1550. She also rendered out of Latin into English Bishop Jewel’s “Apology for the Church of England,” for which she had great praise from the author and the Archbishop. “Besides the honour done to her sex, and to the degree of ladies, she had done pleasure to the author of the Latin book, by delivering him by her clear translation from the perils of ambiguous and doubtful constructions.” She married Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and had two sons, Anthony and Francis, whose great powers she cultivated from their earliest years.
Elizabeth, born 1529, third daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was also learned in languages and sciences. She translated out of French a tract on transubstantiation, afterwards printed, and was consulted by all the learned men of her age. She married, first, Sir Thomas Hoby, Ambassador in France; and second, Lord John Russel, son and heir to the Earl of Bedford, and carefully educated her children.
Katherine, born 1530, fourth daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was also famous for learning in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and for her skill in poetry. A specimen of her talent is preserved in Sir John Harington’s notes to his “Ariosto,” and by Dr. Thomas Fuller in his “Worthies of England” (328). Probably a certain timidity of his own powers in this accomplishment induced one of her admirers to employ George Buchanan to write verses for him. These appear among George Buchanan’s epigrams and three short poems, “To the learned daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, in the name of Henry Killigrew, Englishman.” This gentleman she afterwards married.