[11] Roger Ascham, writing to Sturmius (August 1550), says: “But there are two English ladies whom I cannot omit to mention.… One is Jane Grey … the other Mildred Cooke, who understands and speaks Greek like English, so that it may be doubted whether she is most happy in the possession of this surpassing degree of knowledge, or in having for her preceptor and father Sir Anthony Cooke, whose singular erudition caused him to be joined with John Cheke in the office of tutor to the King; or finally, in having become the wife of William Cecil, lately appointed Secretary of State: a young man, indeed, but mature in wisdom, and so deeply skilled, both in letters and affairs, and endued with such moderation in the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded, by the consenting voice of Englishmen, the fourfold praise attributed to Pericles by his rival Thucydides: ‘To know all that is fitting, to be able to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superior to money.’”
[12] Desiderata Curiosa, and Camden.
[13] State Papers, Dom., 1547-80.
[14] Ibid., and Tytler.
[15] December 1547, Lansdowne MSS., 2, 16.
[16] Diarium Expeditionis Scoticæ.
[17] Desiderata Curiosa.
[18] This is the assertion made by Nares, but it is very questionably correct, as a letter dated 1st July 1548 from Sir Thomas Smith in Brussels (State Papers, Foreign) is addressed to Mr. Cecil, Master of Requests to the Lord Protector’s Grace, and a similar letter from Fisher at Stamford on the 27th July 1548 bears the same superscripture (State Papers, Dom.).
[19] Harl. MSS., 284.
[20] State Papers, Dom.