Mary, Lady Cheke (

née The birth name is the name of the person given upon their birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name or to the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a births registe ...

Hill; - 30 November 1616) was an English

courtier A courtier () is a person who attends the royal court of a monarch or other royalty. The earliest historical examples of courtiers were part of the retinues of rulers. Historically the court was the centre of government as well as the officia ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

, and

epigram An epigram is a brief, interesting, memorable, sometimes surprising or satirical statement. The word derives from the Greek (, "inscription", from [], "to write on, to inscribe"). This literary device has been practiced for over two millennia ...

matist. She served as privy chamber, lady of the privy chamber to Elizabeth I.

Biography

Born Mary Hill in

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

around 1532, her father was Richard Hill (d. 1539), of

Hartley Wintney Hartley Wintney is a large village and civil parish in the Hart district of Hampshire, England. It lies about northwest of Fleet and east of Basingstoke. The parish includes the smaller contiguous village of Phoenix Green as well as the ...

; he had served as Sergeant of the Wine Cellar to

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

. After her father's death, her mother remarried Sir John Mason. On 11 May 1547, she married Sir John Cheke of Mottistone Manor, an English classical scholar and statesman. They had at least three children: sons Henry, John, and Edward. After Mary Tudor became Queen in 1554, Mary Cheke's husband left England. From

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

, he requested Sir John Harrington to look after his wife. John Cheke died in 1557. Late in 1558, Mary Cheke married Henry Macwilliam of Stambourne Hall, a gentleman pensioner, but retained the title of Lady Cheke. She is remembered as an important attendant to Elizabeth I, and for a "witty poetic exchange" at her court. In the late 1590s, Harrington wrote an

with negative connotations regarding women in the Bible, and Cheke wrote back a lyrically-clever counter-epigram, "Erat quaedam mulier (a reply to John Harrington's poem, Erat quidem homo)". Cheke died 30 November 1616.

Selected works

* "Erat quaedam mulier (a reply to John Harrington's poem, Erat quidem homo)", late 1590s

References

Bibliography

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cheke, Mary 1530s births 1616 deaths 16th-century English poets Ladies of the Privy Chamber 16th-century English women writers 16th-century English writers Epigrammatists English women poets People from Hampshire (before 1974) Wives of knights Court of Elizabeth I