Bacon, Anne Cooke (1528–1610)

English writer. Born in 1528 in England; died in 1610 in England; daughter of Anthony Cooke (a scholar and tutor) and Anne Fitzwilliam Cooke; married Nicholas Bacon, in 1556; children: two sons, Anthony and Francis Bacon (1561–1626, the theologian).

Born into an affluent family, Anne Cooke and her sisters were given an unusually thorough education by their father Anthony Cooke, who was the tutor of King Henry VIII's only son, Edward (later King Edward VI). The young girl showed a remarkable aptitude for learning and would eventually speak and write in several languages, including Latin and possibly Greek. A devoted follower of the new Protestant faith, she employed her facility with foreign languages to produce many English translations of Protestant works and thus contribute to the spread of Protestantism in England. When she was only 22, her translations from the Italian of works by Barnadine Ochine were published. Six years later, she married Nicholas Bacon, another Reformation scholar, but marriage and subsequent motherhood did not deter her from her studies and writing. One of her more important translations appeared in 1564, an English edition of the Latin "Apology in Defense of the Church of England" by John Jewett. Anne Cooke Bacon, who died about age 82, lived long enough to see her younger son, Sir Francis Bacon (born 1561), gain international renown for his theological writings on the new faith.

Laura York , Anza, California