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More about: History, Local Author, Local History
Deborah Spring explores the lives of the five Cooke sisters, recognised as among the most learned women in sixteenth-century Europe
‘Learned women be suspected of many’. So wrote the scholarly author of a plan of study for Princess Mary in 1523. Most intelligent women were denied access to an advanced education but, as this talk explores, the mid-sixteenth century in England nevertheless became a time of educational opportunity for a small number of girls, including the five Cooke sisters. They were “esteemed the most learned women in Europe” wrote historian Revd William Urwick, “closely associated with our county of Hertfordshire and foremost among the illustrious Protestants of Elizabeth’s reign”, who married men of similar education and religion. Strong-minded, active and influential, despite being, as women, excluded from formal public roles, their education and undoubted impact on the Tudor age are explored in this lecture.
Deborah Spring is a Hertfordshire writer whose new book Lady Anne Bacon: A woman of learning at the Tudor Court will be published in October 2024.
