Golden Lads

1

When Anthony Cooke became tutor to Prince Edward, the heir to the throne, in the closing years of King Henry VIII, he and his family of nine—five daughters and four sons—knew very well that life henceforward, for all of them, would no longer be the quiet, studious affair that it had been in the past, within the safe precincts of their home at Gidea Hall in Essex, the only rivalry permitted that of sister against sister, brother against brother, and who could translate the swiftest a page from Latin, Greek, Italian or Hebrew. It would be instead a process of manoeuvre, of political judgement, of precise timing, with the ability to hold the confidence of the Prince's uncle, Lord Edward Seymour, the surest step to winning the affection of the future King himself. 'Give me a child until he is seven, and he will be mine forever,' the Spanish founder of the Jesuits, Ignatius Loyola, is reputed to have said; and considering his new pupil, delicate, thoughtful, wise beyond his years but inclined to obstinacy, Anthony Cooke wondered which of his own five daughters was most fitted to aid him in the task of moulding the character of England's future sovereign.

His choice fell upon his second daughter, Ann, then in her seventeenth year. His eldest girl, Mildred, two years older, was equally brilliant at Greek and Latin; but, possibly better favoured in her personal appearance, was more likely to make an early and advantageous marriage. Instructed as she was to her finger-tips in the Protestant faith, with a healthy abhorrence of all things Catholic, Ann could hardly fail to impress upon her royal charge the absolute necessity of holding firm to all the tenets and maxims of the reformed church.

Ann, fond though she was of her elder sister, felt a small sense of triumph that the choice had fallen upon herself. Devotion to her father was paramount; he was almost equal to God in her eyes, and the belief that she was his favourite daughter seemed to her now proven. Adhering firmly to the doctrine of predestination, she felt that the hand of the Almighty was upon her; she had been chosen from among her sisters to interpret the Holy Word to the King's son. Proud, plump and determined, Ann Cooke set forth for Court in the wake of her father, her envious younger brothers and sisters waving farewell.

King Henry, already a sick man, and harried by affairs of state, had no time to spare for yet another of his son's attendants, and Ann arrived at Court to find that, although her father commanded Prince Edward's attention for three or four hours a day, she herself was obliged to share her duties as governess with other equally scholastic ladies of her own age or even younger, amongst them the Prince's cousins, the Ladies Seymour, whose aptitude in writing Latin verse excelled that of either Ann herself or her sister Mildred. It was a chastening experience to find them fluttering around the Prince with Latin and Greek tags upon their tongues and a cousinly air of intimacy into the bargain.

She decided to concentrate her powers upon religious instruction, but here again there was apt to be distraction, for no sooner had she caught the young Prince's attention with a dissertation upon Calvin, a matter very close to her heart, than she would be interrupted by the arrival of his nurse with broth, or the physician would come to examine his chest, which was said to be weak, or worse still one of his Seymour uncles would arrive with a pet dog, and the Prince, with a wan smile but a stubborn air, would announce to his governess that he had had enough of learning for the day. Ann appealed to her father for advice, but he could give her little comfort, for he was himself subordinate to the Prince's chief tutor, the famous scholar John Cheke, who had more important matters on his mind. Not only was he involved in endless controversy with his learned contemporaries about the pronunciation of the Greek language, but he was anxious to secure the future of his widowed son-in-law William Cecil, an extremely able young man of five-and-twenty. Cheke's daughter had died a few years previously, leaving an infant son named Thomas; and Cecil was now hovering on the fringe of Court society in the hope that his father-in-law might say a word for him in the right circles.

Cheke intimated to Anthony Cooke that young William Cecil would go far, and only needed to marry again—preferably a young woman who combined brains with beauty—to find himself in the forefront of those jostling for place in the corridors of power. Anthony Cooke found an early opportunity of falling in with young Cecil, who did indeed seem to be exceedingly able, far-sighted and agreeable, and on the first suitable occasion presented his daughter Ann. The meeting did not go well, William Cecil, whose outlook was political rather than religious, showing little interest in Ann's customary tirades against the odious practices of the Romanists. It was after this encounter that Anthony Cooke suggested to his daughter that her sister Mildred might care to relieve her for a few weeks in her capacity as governess at Court, while Ann herself would benefit from the fresh air of Essex. The exchange was made, and Mildred, slim, fair-haired, keen-eyed, and although sharply intelligent a better listener than her younger sister, made her debut at Court and was immediately liked by all, especially by William Cecil.

It came as a shock, and possibly not entirely a pleasant one, when Anthony Cooke arrived at Gidea Hall to tell his family that their sister Mildred was betrothed to William Cecil. He had given the happy pair his blessing, and the marriage would take place in December. There was general rejoicing, in which of course Ann joined; nevertheless, she could not but be aware that in a certain sense Mildred had stolen a march on her. She had found herself a husband in a short space of time, which was naturally the ultimate hope of all young women, scholarly or otherwise, and not just any young man, as her father explained to them, but one of the most promising of his generation. He had no title and as yet little land, but these would come, and appointments too, and he could not have wished a better match for his eldest daughter.

The wedding on December 25th 1546 had hardly been solemnised, the celebrations ended, when King Henry VIII fell mortally sick, and died on January 28th. Prince Edward, nine years old, was crowned in Westminster Abbey, his uncle Edward Seymour, now Duke of Somerset, became Lord Protector, and those who had won his favour during the preceding months found promotion in their turn. Anthony Cooke was made a Knight of the Bath, and later in the year he was returned as Member of Parliament for Shoreham. John Cheke became Provost of Cambridge, but the education of the young King remained in his hands. William Cecil was elected Member of Parliament for his family borough of Stamford, and the following year the Lord Protector Somerset made him his Master of Requests. His wife Mildred was not so fortunate. Her first baby died, as did subsequent infants, and a number of years passed before she produced two daughters who lived, naming them Anne and Elizabeth after her sisters.

Once King Edward had been crowned the royal training intensified. He was deemed too adult to need women about him, and Ann Cooke, who had perhaps hoped to return to Court once Mildred was married, found herself remaining at home with ample time to continue the translation from Italian into English of twenty-five sermons upon the predestination and election of God, with which she had consoled herself after her return to Gidea Hall. Her presence was often needed, however, at her sister Cecil's bedside, with the frequent stillborn babies and miscarriages, and the two became closer to one another as companions than they had ever been at home. And as William Cecil was constantly at the command of the Lord Protector Somerset, Mildred was glad to forget the anxiety of being wife to a politician, around whom storm clouds were gathering, if only by reading aloud to Ann the works of Chrysostom and Gregory Nazianzen.

The next few years were crucial for Cecil's political future. The Lord Protector had enemies, the chief of whom was the Earl of Warwick, and in October 1549 Somerset fell from power and was committed to the Tower. William Cecil followed him, but was soon released. Fortunately his father-in-law, Anthony Cooke, did not become involved. There was a patched-up truce the following February between Somerset and his rival Warwick, and Cecil took advantage of this to make overtures to the latter, whose star seemed in the ascendant. Eight months later Warwick made himself Duke of Northumberland, and William Cecil was knighted, at the same time gaining the post of Secretary of State to the young King.

The truce between the rivals was short-lived, for in the latter part of 1551 the Duke of Northumberland brought a trumped-up charge of treason against the Duke of Somerset, and in January 1552 the boy-King was obliged to sign his uncle's death warrant. Sir William Cecil, now firmly established as one of Northumberland's henchmen, could do nothing to save his former patron.

It was some time during this year that Ann Cooke, once again called to minister to Mildred's household during her sister's pregnancy, was introduced to one of her brother-in-law's closest friends, the rising lawyer Nicholas Bacon. Son of a yeoman farmer in Suffolk, Nicholas Bacon had entered Corpus Christi, Cambridge, at the age of thirteen. He took his B.A. at seventeen, coming third out of the whole university. Some few years later, deciding upon the law as a career, he was admitted to Gray's Inn. Called to the bar in 1533, when he was twenty-four, he rose rapidly in his profession and became solicitor of the Court of Augmentations in 1537, the particular work of his department being to administer the various manors, lands and estates that had been forfeit to the Crown at the dissolution of the monasteries.

He was not above dealing in property himself, and by the time he was forty owned estates in Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex and Middlesex, besides several tenements in London. He had married well. His wife, the daughter of a well-to-do London mercer, had borne him three sons and three daughters; and the mansion he had started building for her and for his family at Redgrave, Suffolk, on the site of a monastic hunting-lodge, was still in the process of completion when he met Ann Cooke at William Cecil's establishment at Burghley in Northamptonshire, an even more imposing edifice than Redgrave. There was no doubt about it, the two men thought alike, in politics and in other matters; they had risen from comparative obscurity to positions of authority by their own efforts and by keeping a prudent watch on the turn of events; and they both realised that in the rapidly changing world of the mid-sixteenth century one false step on the ladder of power which they were climbing might bring disgrace, or even death.

Ann Cooke took to her brother-in-law's friend immediately. He was only some six or seven years younger than her father, and this was a recommendation in itself. As a lawyer it amused him to argue with her, albeit he did it with courtesy and deference; and if he winked at William Cecil as he did so she was not aware of the fact. She liked older men, and Nicholas Bacon at forty-one was well set-up, even powerfully built, with a witty turn of phrase and a sense of humour; but what appealed to Ann most was his staunch defence of all things Protestant. When he asked her to visit Redgrave and help his already ailing wife with her brood of boys and girls, in the still unfinished mansion, she needed no prompting from her sister Mildred to accept. The decision changed her life.

Redgrave Hall, with its spacious rooms set in a park surrounded by woodlands, reminded her of her mother's home Milton, also in Northamptonshire, which her grandfather Sir William Fitzwilliam had bought at the beginning of the century. Perhaps the association was unfortunate. Sir William had been Cardinal Wolsey's Treasurer, and after the Cardinal's disgrace in 1530 had had the temerity to entertain the fallen prelate for five days at Milton. Although Ann, his daughter, enjoyed relating the story on every possible occasion, as reflecting past glory, it was something her own daughter and namesake preferred to forget.

Jane Bacon was a frail creature, only too willing to hand over some of her responsibility to an able-bodied young woman of four-and twenty, for six children, between the ages of thirteen and three, were more than she could manage. She did not realise that she was handing over to a successor who would take her place as wife and stepmother. In October of 1552 Jane Bacon was still living; in the spring of the following year her tomb was being erected; and shortly afterwards Ann Cooke became the second wife of Nicholas Bacon and mistress of Redgrave Hall. She had made as good a match as her sister Mildred.

She had only a few months to accustom herself to the pleasures and pains of her new status before clouds threatened to darken the serenity of married life, just as they had done for William Cecil and Mildred during their first years together. The young King Edward VI died on July 6th 1553, having only a few weeks before, at the instigation of the Duke of Northumberland, altered the succession from his Catholic sister Princess Mary to his Protestant cousin Lady Jane Grey, bride of Northumberland's own son Lord Guilford Dudley. Opinion in the country was instantly divided: some rallied to Northumberland; the majority, even though non-Catholic, to the Princess Mary. William Cecil had been a witness to the document in favour of Lady Jane, though even at the time of signing he knew that Northumberland's move was a tactical error. Sir Anthony Cooke, ardent Protestant that he was, also declared himself for Lady Jane.

Nicholas Bacon, aware that the attempt to deprive the rightful heir, Princess Mary, of the succession would prove disastrous, withdrew prudently to Redgrave. His position as Treasurer to Gray's Inn and Attorney of the Court of Wards did not appear to be at stake, but he foresaw that Princess Mary and her supporters, should they march to London from her house in Norfolk—and this was their declared intention—must pass through Cambridge and Bury St Edmund's and halt at Framlingham Castle, a short distance from Redgrave. Therefore landowners and their ladies, Protestants as well as Catholics, should be prepared to show loyalty.

It was possibly the only time in their lives that Nicholas and Ann Bacon had a serious disagreement on political matters. The decision, either way, might cost them their heads. Ann, fiercely loyal to the Protestant faith and to her father, would have moved instantly to London. Nicholas Bacon, who knew Jane's and Northumberland's cause to be doomed to failure, told his wife firmly and gravely that she should go with him to Framlingham and offer their services to the Princess Mary. He did not tell her that in his pocket was a farewell letter from her brother-in-law William Cecil, with directions that it should be delivered to his wife Mildred should Cecil's life be forfeit. Ann had sworn to honour and obey her husband. They went to Framlingham.

Mary was proclaimed Queen on July 20th, exactly a fortnight after her brother Edward's death. The Duke of Northumberland, Lord Guilford Dudley and Lady Jane were committed to the Tower, as was Sir Anthony Cooke. William Cecil, who was still Secretary of State, had been sent to Ipswich with papers for the new Queen to sign before she started out on her triumphant journey to the capital. Nicholas Bacon, already at Ipswich with his wife Ann, knew that the letter in his possession need never be delivered. William Cecil, glancing at the little group of ladies waiting upon Queen Mary, saw that Ann Bacon was of the company. If heads were to roll during the coming reign, neither William Cecil's nor Nicholas Bacon's would be amongst them.

The months that followed were probably the most agonising and humiliating of Ann Bacon's life, and were to leave a lasting impression upon her. Her husband was safe, but he had lost stature in her eyes; loyalty to a mortal princess had proved stronger than his belief in a Protestant God. The father she revered and loved was a prisoner, and her greatest fear was that the axe would fall upon him as it did later upon Northumberland, the Dudleys, and many of their friends. In the event, he was spared, and managed to leave the country and reach Strasbourg, where he remained for four years.

Nicholas Bacon was allowed to continue in his position as Attorney of the Court of Wards, but he was forbidden to leave the country, lest he should make common cause with Protestant exiles abroad. He divided his time between Bedfords, a house on the Gidea Hall estate, Redgrave in Suffolk, and his London house in Noble Street, Foster Lane. It was at one of these three that Ann gave birth to her first baby, a daughter, and, like her sister Mildred, she too knew the full sorrow of bringing a child into the world and losing it a few months later. She wondered, afterwards, whether the choice of the name Mary for the little girl, which her husband Nicholas had insisted would be wise and diplomatic, was the reason for the child's untimely death. Surely, she argued, the God she worshipped must have been displeased that an infant, dedicated by its mother to His service, should have been named for a Catholic queen.