# A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country/Burleigh, (Mildred, Lady)

BURLEIGH, (MILDRED, LADY) eldest Daughter of Sir Anthony Cook, Born 1526, died 1589.
Dr. Wotton, in his Reflections on antient and modern Learning, assures us, that no age was so productive of learned women as the sixteenth century. Speaking of the flourishing condition learning was in at that time, he says, "it was so very modish, that the fair sex seemed to believe the Greek and Latin added to their ​charms; and that Plato and Aristotle, untranslated, were frequent ornaments of their closets. One would think, by the effects, that it was a proper way of educating them, since there are no accounts in history of so many great women in any one age, as are to be found between fifteen and sixteen hundred." And Erasmus, speaking of those times, says, "The scene of human things is changed; the monks, famed in times past for learning, are become ignorant; and women love books. It is pretty enough that this sex should now betake itself to the ancient examples."
The reason which Mr. Strype gives for this is, the great care which Henry VIII. took in the education of his daughters. But perhaps it may more probably be ascribed to the noble art of printing, which had just then awakened the minds of people, and furnished them with a vast variety of books to improve their understanding. To this may be added the example of Sir Thomas More, whose daughters were celebrated, even in foreign countries, for their great skill in the learned languages, the arts, and sciences, before the daughters of king Henry VIII, were born. But, however this may be, parents in those times, might imagine, with a polite and elegant writer, "That, in a country where women are admitted to a familiar and constant share in every active scene of life, particular care should be taken in their education, to cultivate their reason, and form their hearts, that they may be equal to the part they have to act."
Among those gentlemen, who so worthily distinguished themselves in the care they took in the education of their daughters, none deserve greater praise than Sir Anthony Cooke, one of the tutors to king ​Edward VI. who bestowed so liberal education on his daughters, that they became the wonders of the age, and were sought in marriage, as Camden and Lloyd observe, by some of the greatest men of that time, more for their natural and acquired accomplishments than their portions. The eldest of these ladies is the subject of this narrative.
Great care and pains were taken of her education, which she fully repaid; being as eminent for her great learning and good sense, in the early part of her life, as exemplary for her piety and charity in the latter. She was extremely well skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues; but more particularly in the former, having Mr. Lawrence, the great Grecian, for her preceptor. She took great delight in reading the works of Basil, Cyril, Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, and others. She translated a piece of St. Chrysostom's out of Greek into English, as the author of the Life of Lord Treasurer Burleigh informs us. And when she presented the university library in Cambridge with the great Bible in Hebrew and other languages, she sent it with an epistle in Greek, written with her own hand.
On the 21st of December, in the year 1546, and in the 20th year of her age, she was married to Sir William Cecil, afterwards created lord Burleigh, lord high treasurer of England, and privy-counsellor to queen Elizabeth, by whom she had many children, all of whom died young, excepting two daughters.
After a long and happy marriage of 42 years; she died April 4, 1589, in the 63d year of her age. She was a woman of exemplary virtue, and engaging qualities. Of an admirable understanding, and (if a judgment may be formed by her letters) as good a politician as her ​band. She was buried in the abbey church of Westminster, where a magnificent monument is erected to her memory.
Five days after her decease, lord Burleigh wrote, what he calls, A Meditation on the Death of his Lady, 'written in sorrow;' in which he praised her zeal for the maintenance of learning; by her many benefactions to Cambridge, Oxford, and Westminster; her widely extended benevolence; and the secresy with which she did all these things, so that even he knew them not during her life.
New Annual Register; Female Worthies.