English classical scholar and statesman (1514–1557)
Sir John Cheke (or Cheek; 16 June 1514 – 13 September 1557) was an English classical scholar and statesman. One of the foremost teachers of his age, and the first Regius Professor of Greek at the University of Cambridge, he played a great part in the revival of Greek learning in England. He was tutor to Prince Edward, the future King Edward VI, and also sometimes to Princess Elizabeth. Of strongly Reformist sympathy in religious affairs, his public career as provost of King's College, Cambridge, Member of Parliament and briefly as Secretary of State during King Edward's reign was brought to a close by the accession of Queen Mary in 1553. He went into voluntary exile abroad, at first under royal licence (which he overstayed). He was captured and imprisoned in 1556, and recanted his faith to avoid death by burning. He died not long afterward, reportedly regretting his decision.
Origins and earlier career.
The Cheke or Cheeke family is said to have originated in Northamptonshire and to be descended from Sir William de Butevillar. At the time of John's birth, the family seat had been, for more than a century, at Mottistone in the Isle of Wight. John's father, Peter Cheke of Cambridge (the son of Robert Cheke of Mottistone), was Esquire Bedell of the University of Cambridge from 1509 until his death in 1529. John's mother was Agnes Duffield, daughter of Andrew Duffield of Cambridge: John was born in that city in 1514, and had five sisters, Ann, Alice, Elizabeth, Magdalen, and Mary. His grammatical education was begun by John Morgan, M.A. He was educated at St John's College, where he proceeded to receive a B.A. in 1529, and obtained a Fellowship. He commenced with an M.A. in 1533. His tutor was George Day, who became an opponent of the Edwardian Reformation.
At university, Cheke, and his friend, Thomas Smith (a student of Civil Law at Queens' College), were thought so outstanding that each was granted an exhibition by King Henry to support them in their studies. Both were largely impressed by the classical learning of John Redman, who had studied in Paris, and sought to emulate him. Both Queens' College (where the influence of Erasmus remained) and St John's fostered Reformist principles which Cheke and Smith embraced.
During the early 1530s Cheke and Smith studied together privately to restore proper definition to the pronunciation of ancient Greek diphthongs, which by custom had become obscured. The language itself, its cadences and inflexions of meaning, thereby gained new life and the works of the ancient scholars and orators were freshly received and understood. Smith, giving Greek lectures from 1533, around 1535 began to make public trial of these effects, and soon gained a following. Smith's student John Poynet, succeeding his tutor, maintained the new pronunciation in his lectures: both Cheke and Smith began to coach students in their method, and the "Plutus" of Aristophanes was acted at St. John's in the new manner. After Poynet as Greek Reader came Roger Ascham, Cheke's student, who read Isocrates, at first disputing but afterwards coming round fully to the innovations, which also won the approval of John Redman.
Academic manoeuvres.
Through the mediation of Matthew Parker, Cheke obtained the support of Anne Boleyn for his student William Bill to continue his studies. After a year as Master of St John's, and as University Vice-Chancellor, George Day was appointed by King Henry to be provost of King's College in 1538, Smith having become University Orator in 1537 in succession to him. In 1540, at the King's creation of the Regius Professorships, Smith was made Professor of Law, Cheke Professor of Greek, and John Blythe (of King's College) Professor of Physick. Blythe married Alice, one of Cheke's sisters, before 1536, and in 1541 William Cecil (afterwards Lord Burleigh), Cheke's distinguished student, married Mary Cheke, another. (Mary Cecil died two years later, leaving Cecil with a son, Thomas Cecil.) In 1542 one "Mistress Cheke" was still resident in the Cheke home at Market Hill, Cambridge.
In June 1542, Bishop Gardiner, as chancellor of the university, issued his Edict to all who recognized his authority that the sounds customarily used for the pronunciation of Greek or Latin should not be changed by anyone, and gave a list of them with phonetic explanations. He pronounced severe and potentially exclusionist penalties at all levels of the academic hierarchy for those who contravened this ruling, and further wrote to the vice-chancellor requiring that his edict be observed. Cheke, as one of the principal targets of Gardiner's disapproval, entered into a correspondence of seven letters with him, but the Bishop remained inflexible. However the seeds of his method had been sown, and took root. At that time the letters remained unpublished.
In that year Cheke was incorporated M.A. at the University of Oxford, being made a canon of King Henry VIII's College. In 1544 he succeeded Smith as Public Orator in the University of Cambridge. Day, consecrated Bishop of Chichester in 1543, remained provost of King's. At this time Cheke prepared his Latin translation (dedicated to the King) of the "De Apparatu Bellico" of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI, often sharing and talking over his work with Roger Ascham. Thomas Hoby was then one of his pupils. Cheke's reading and thought in the Greek Histories, and his use of them to extract examples of policy and conduct, can be studied in his annotations to print copies (from the Aldine Press) of Herodotus and Thucydides.
In 1543 and 1545, his Latin versions of the homilies of St John Chrysostom were published, opening with a letter of dedication to his patron the King. On 10 June 1544 Cheke was appointed tutor to the future King Edward VI of England, as a supplement to his tutor Dr Richard Cox, to teach him "of toungues, of the scripture, of philosophie and all liberal sciences" (as the Prince wrote in his Journal), and commenced his duties at Hampton Court soon afterwards. At the Prince's invitation, the young Henry Hastings shared in his studies. Roger Ascham felt strongly Cheke's absence from the university, where his example was so inspirational. Special interest has been found in Cheke's lengthy preface to his Latin translation of Plutarch's "De Superstitione", prepared as a New Year's gift for the King in 1545 or 1546.
Edward's tutor in French, the Huguenot Jean Belmain, was Cheke's nephew by marriage. Ascham's pupil William Grindal was, at his recommendation to Cheke, chosen to read Greek to Princess Elizabeth, until his untimely death in 1548. By that time William Bill was Master of St John's, and John Redman Master of the newly-founded Trinity College (1546), in which Bill succeeded him in 1551.
On 11 May 1547, Cheke married Mary, daughter of Richard Hill (formerly Sergeant of the Wine-cellar to Henry VIII) and now stepdaughter of Sir John Mason. Cheke's religious and scholarly purpose bore fruit in the highest quarters. Gerard Langbaine the elder expressed it thus:"under God M. Cheek was a speciall instrument of the propagation of the Gospell, &amp; that Religion which we now professe in this Kingdome. For he not only sowed the seeds of that Doctrine in the heart of Prince EDWARD, which afterwards grew up into a generall Reformation when he came to be King, but by his meanes the same saveing truth was gently instilled into the Lady ELIZABETH, by those who by his procurement were admitted to be the Guides of her younger Studies."
Edwardian statesman.
Status and compromise.
Upon the accession of Edward to the throne Cheke, now Schoolmaster to the King, was made a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, being allowed an annuity of £100 from the Augmentations in August. On 1 October, he was returned to Parliament as a member for Bletchingley, Sussex, probably under the patronage of Sir Thomas Cawarden. He was very soon placed in a compromise by Thomas Seymour (brother of the Duke of Somerset), who had drafted a letter as from the King to the Lords of the Parliament House seeking their approval to separate the offices of Lord Protector and Lord Regent, and to appoint Thomas Seymour himself as Protector. He urged Cheke to pass the letter to the King and to induce him to sign it, which Cheke refused to do, stating that Lord Paget had prohibited any such dealings. At Christmas, Seymour followed this up with a gift of £40 to Cheke, half for himself and half for the King. Seymour approached the King himself without success: Edward took Cheke's advice, and refused to sign it.
On 1 April 1548 Cheke was chosen by special mandate of the King, overriding university statutes, to replace his former tutor George Day as provost of King's College. He received by purchase a large grant of lands in London and elsewhere, including the site of the former College of St John the Baptist at Stoke-by-Clare in Suffolk, in October 1548. Matthew Parker, its dean, had established a school there, and after its superstitious constitution had been dissolved he advised Cheke on its condition and maintenance.
The Seymour affair came to a head in January 1548/9, when Thomas Seymour was formally charged with using improper means to influence King Edward, and Cheke became implicated as his likely accomplice. On 11 January Cheke came near to losing his office as schoolmaster to the King. Seymour confessed the gift, but on 20 February Cheke exonerated himself by an honest declaration of his dealings in the matter. 
Unfortunately, Mistress Cheke offended the Duchess of Somerset in the course of these proceedings; an apology had to be made. Following Seymour's execution in March Cheke retreated to Cambridge for a time, tending his library and readjusting his circumstances, aware that he had come near to losing his position (as his letter to Peter Osborne indicates). Other royal preceptors, Sir Anthony Cooke or Dr. Cox, maintained the young King's instruction.
In the Epistle to his "Arte of Logique" (published 1551), Thomas Wilson speaks of Cheke and Cooke as "your Maiesties teachers and Scholemaisters in all good litterature".
The antiquary Francis Blomefield dates to 1550 Cheke's receipt of a 21-year lease of the manor and rectory of Rushworth, Norfolk (a former collegiate estate established by the Gonville family), which he re-leased to his brother-in-law, George Alyngton, of Stoke-by-Clare.
Religious reform: friends and rewards.
In discharge of their Commission, in May–July 1549 the Bishops Goodrich of Ely and Ridley of Rochester, Sir William Paget and Sir Thomas Smith, John Cheke and two others conducted the King's Visitation of the University of Cambridge to investigate and amend statutes tending towards ignorance and Romish superstition. William Bill was now Master of St John's and vice-chancellor. On 6 May Cheke delivered the King's statute before the University Senate. Colleges were visited, complaints were heard, investigated and acted upon; two disputations (20 and 25 June) were held in the Philosophy Schools upon the question of the Real Presence in the Sacrament. Their business concluded, the congress broke up on 8 July.
In that year Cheke published his lasting work "The Hurt of Sedition", in the aftermath of the suppression of Kett's rebellion. This made plain his full commitment to the Edwardian reform and its authority. He was chosen one of 8 divines, among 32 Commissioners, to draw up a reform of laws for the governance of the Church. The Latin form of their report, which Cheke prepared with Walter Haddon, remained long unpublished. He returned to London, giving evidence at the examination of Bishop Bonner in September 1549, and sitting in the Parliamentary third session, towards the close of which he was granted property in Lincolnshire and Suffolk worth £118 a year for his care in the King's instruction. In April 1550, following Somerset's fall, Cheke was given licence to keep 50 retainers. In May he acquired the manor and town of Dunton Wayletts in Essex, and the manors of Preston and Hoo in Sussex, from John Poynet. He obtained for Roger Ascham the role of secretary to Sir Richard Morison's Embassy to Emperor Charles V.
Archbishop Cranmer reputedly told Cheke that he might be glad all the days of his life to have such a scholar as the Prince, "for he hathe more divinitie in his litle fynger, then all we have in al our bodies." Cheke meanwhile prepared a Latin version of the first Book of Common Prayer, the form