This book is a study of five remarkable sixteenth-century women. Part of the select group of Tudor women allowed access to a formal humanist education, the Cooke sisters were also well-connected through their marriages to influential Elizabethan politicians. Drawing particularly on the sisters' own writings, including those in classical languages, this study provides a comprehensive analysis of the lives of Mildred Cooke Cecil (1526-89), Anne Cooke Bacon (1528-1610), Margaret Cooke Rowlett (c. 1533-58), Elizabeth Cooke Hoby Russell (c. 1540-1609) and Katherine Cooke Killigrew (c. 1542-83).
The book demonstrates that the sisters' education extended far beyond that normally prescribed for sixteenth-century women, in doing so challenging the view that women in this period were excluded from using their humanist education to practical effect. It reveals that the sisters' learning provided them with opportunities to communicate effectively their own priorities through their translations, verse and letters. By reconstructing the sisters' political and religious networks, it demonstrates their contribution to Elizabethan diplomacy and the political divisions of the 1590s, as well as their support of puritan preachers, providing new perspectives on these key issues. While the activities of their husbands are well known, particularly those of the privy councillors William Cecil and Nicholas Bacon, this study reveals the role of the Cooke sisters working alongside - and sometimes against - family members over matters of politics and religion, empowered by their exceptional education.
The book will be essential reading for historians and literary scholars of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Gemma Allen is Lecturer in Early Modern History at The Open University and Retained Lecturer at Pembroke College, Oxford

Introduction
1. 'Nouzeled and trained in the studie of letters': reading and learning
2. 'Quod licuit feci': the power of the word
3. 'Haud inane est quod dico': female counsellors
4. 'Cecil's wife tells me': political networks
5. 'Building up of the bodie of the fellowship of Saincts': religious networks
6. 'Of more learning than is necessary for that sex': responses to learned women
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index