Mildred, Anne, Elizabeth, Katherine and Margaret – these were the highly educated, celebrated daughters of Anthony Booke, the tutor to Edward IV and active parliamentarian under Elizabeth. There are all interesting in different ways, but I confess that I struggle to keep them all separate – as they acquire husbands and new names, it all seems a bit of a tangle. So since I’ve been re-reading Silent But for the Word, one of the early classics of Renaissance women’s studies, thought I’d set out a primer:

Mildred, the eldest, married William Cecil, the first Baron Burghley and Queen Elizabeth’s principal secretary. She was celebrated by Roger Ascham as one of the most learned women in England, doing translations from Greek of early church fathers, being said to particularly like reading Basil the Great, Cyril, Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen. (Important at the time because this was the “pure” church, uncorrupted by Catholicism.) She was described by the Spanish ambassador as a “furious heretic” who had greaty influence over her husband.

Anne, who married Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, translated Latin sermons and the Apologia Ecclesiae Anglicanae, which was an official document of the English Church, ordered to be widely distributed by the Convecation of 1563. She was a strong supporter of Reformist preachers.

Elizabeth first married Sir Thomas Hoby (who had translated the influential Castiglione’s Courtier, and then Lord John Russell. She also translated from religious material from Latin, and was acclaimed for her skills in writing epitaphs, in Latin, Greek and English. Her letters also show a mind well attuned to legal niceties.

Katharine married the diplomat Sir Henry Killigrew. Her Latin verse to Mildred asking for one of his missions to be withdrawn, has survived, and is less than subtle. In George Ballard’s translation: “His staye let Cornwall’s shore engage; / and peace with Mildred dwell./ Else war with Cecil’s name I wage/ Perpetual war. – farewell.”

Little is known of Margaret, who died young.

From: Mary Ellen Lamb, “The Cooke Sisters: Attitudes towards Learned Women in the Renaissance, pp. 107-125, in Silent.