Page:The house of Cecil.djvu/35

 WILLIAM, LORD BURGHLEY 21

learned ladies in England, saying that she " under- stands and speaks Greek like English, 1 so that it may be doubted whether she is most happy in the possession of this surpassing degree of know- ledge, or in having for her preceptor and father, Sir Anthony Cooke, whose singular erudition caused him to be joined with John Cheke in the office of tutor to the King ; or finally in having become the wife of William Cecil, lately appointed Secretary of State : a young man indeed but mature in wisdom, and so deeply skilled, both in letters and affairs, and endued with such modera- tion in the exercise of public offices, that to him would be awarded by the consenting voice of Englishmen the four-fold praise attributed to Pericles by his rival Thucydides : ' To know all that is fitting, to be able to apply what he knows, to be a lover of his country, and superior to money.' '

On the death of Henry VIII., in 1547, Cecil was in a very advantageous position. He was connected by marriage with John Cheke and Sir Anthony Cooke, the young King's tutors, and had already gained the good graces of the Earl of Hertford, who now became the Protector Somerset. He was thus identified with the rising party at Court, and about this time, the office of Gustos rotulorum brevium, of which he held the reversion, fell in, giving him, according to his own estimate, an income of about 240 a year.

1 She translated a treatise of St. Chrysostom into English.

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