Mildred Cooke

Mildred Cecil, Baroness Burghley (née Cooke; 1526 – 4 April 1589) was an English noblewoman and translator. She was the wife of William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, the most trusted adviser of Elizabeth I, and the mother of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, adviser to James I.

Family Mildred Cooke, born in 1526, was the eldest of the five daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke (d. 11 June 1576), son of John Cooke (d. 10 October 1515), esquire, of Gidea Hall, Essex, and Alice Saunders (d. 1510), daughter and coheiress of William Saunders of Banbury, Oxfordshire by Jane Spencer, daughter of John Spencer, esquire, of Hodnell, Warwickshire. Her paternal great-grandparents were Sir Philip Cooke (d. 7 December 1503) and Elizabeth Belknap (died c. 6 March 1504). Her paternal great-great-grandparents were Sir Thomas Cooke, a wealthy member of the Worshipful Company of Drapers and Lord Mayor of London in 1462–3, and Elizabeth Malpas, daughter of Philip Malpas, Master of the Worshipful Company of Drapers and Sheriff of London.

Mildred Cooke's mother was Anne Fitzwilliam, the daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam, Master of the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors and Sheriff of London, by his first wife, Anne Hawes, daughter of Sir John Hawes.

She had four brothers, Anthony, Sir Richard, Edward and William, and four sisters, three of whom were also known for their scholarship: Anne Cooke, who married, as his second wife, Sir Nicholas Bacon; Catherine Cooke, who married Sir Henry Killigrew; Elizabeth Cooke, who married firstly Sir Thomas Hoby and secondly John, Lord Russell (c.1553–1584), second son of Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford and first wife Margaret St John (1533–1562), daughter of Sir John St John (great-grandson of Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso) and Margaret Walgrave.

Career Basilii Magni et Gregorii Nazanzeni in the British Library - this copy belonged to Lord and Lady Burghley, the names 'William. Myldred Cicyll' are stamped on the cover and the titlepage bears the autograph 'Mildred: Cecili' According to Caroline Bowden, she was educated at home by her father, Sir Anthony Cooke, who provided his five daughters with an education equal to that afforded to his sons. In 1559 William Bercher attested to their learning in his Nobility of Women. John Strype lauded her ability to speak Greek as easily as English, and Roger Ascham, tutor to the future Elizabeth I, ranked Mildred Cooke and her sisters alongside Lady Jane Grey for their erudition.

She served briefly at court as a lady of the privy chamber when Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558.

Thomas Drant's A Medicinable Moral, that is, Two Books of Horace His Satires (London, 1566) Ulpian Fulwell's The First Part of the Eighth Liberal Science Entitled Ars Adulandi (London, 1576) Christopher Ockland's Eirenarchi siue Elizabetha (London, 1582)

Lady Burghley did not publish her own translations, however, and few survive in manuscript. One that is extant is her translation dating from about 1550, circulated in manuscript, of Basil the Great's sermon on Deuteronomy, which she dedicated to Anne, Duchess of Somerset, in whose household she had served before her marriage. She also translated a work by John Chrysostom, which has not survived. A second daughter, Anne, was born in 1556, and married, as his first wife, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford. Two sons, both named William, died shortly after their respective births in 1559 and 1561. In 1563 a third son was born, Robert, who succeeded his father at court and was created Earl of Salisbury by James I. Another daughter, Elizabeth (born 1 July 1564), who married William Wentworth of Nettlestead (c. 1555–1582), eldest son of Thomas Wentworth, 2nd Baron Wentworth, but both she and her husband died shortly afterward without issue.

Lady Burghley died 1589 and is buried alongside her daughter Anne, Lady Oxford, in Westminster Abbey.