Sir Knight Anthony Cooke, KB (1500 – 1576) English Humanist, Scholar, Prince Edward’s Tutor , Knight of the Order of the Bath

Sir Anthony Cooke was Francis Cooke‘s (1583 – 1663) grandfather. Francis was one of the 27 Co-Signers of Mayflower Compact.

A master of Greek and Latin languages, Anthony was the sole tutor-companion to Prince Edward, the only legitimate son of Henry VIII Tudor (1491 – 1547) King of England and Ireland. He was the first English king raised as a Protestant. Edward knighted Anthony into the Order of the Bath soon after his coronation.

Before Lady Jane Grey‘s execution by Queen Mary I (1516 – 1558), he spent some time in the Tower of London because of his alleged political affiliation with her monarchal movement. Lady Grey was an agnatic descendant of Anchetil de Greye (1052 – 1087). who was one of the knight companions of William The Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings. He was the primogenitor of the ancient noble House of Grey.

Sir Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (1561 – 1626) MP was his grandson.

By Steven Wood Collins

I spent most of my life unaware of my ancestral heritage. Sure, I knew of the personal history of my more immediate relatives; but beyond that, I never had any inkling as to my ancestral heritage. Then one day many years ago my sister said to me, “I sometimes wonder about our family background.” And so my quest to discover our genealogical roots commenced.

I started building my family tree with the very basic relationships, going back in time from my grandparents, one ancestor at a time. That initial effort proved to be the hardest part of the pursuit, mainly due to my lack of expertise as a novice genealogical researcher. As I gained familiarity with the databases and how to efficiently mine them, my progress gained ever-increasing momentum. Today, The Patricians! tree (Ancestry.com) contains nearly 120,000 individuals, stretching over 135 generations, 5,800 of which are my direct ancestors in a genealogical sense.

During this trek back in time, I encountered fascinating figures in both history and obscurity. This blog contains many stories about their genealogical relationship to me (and many of you). By far and away, as a student of history, the historically obscure individuals are of particular interest to me. I cite Baron “Blue Beard” Montmorency-Laval de Rais (1405 – 1440) as an example of a historically maligned personage whose real contribution to history, as both a playwright and hero of France, has yet to be properly recognized. Another example is Earl Edward de Vere (1550 – 1604), who’s yet to gain widespread recognition as the actual author of the body of literary work wrongly ascribed to William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616).

My life-long interest in international economics and finance continues unabated. I primarily demonstrate this professional involvement as a contributor to the Long Room, the members-only international finance professionals' forum hosted by the Financial Times of London.

I'm an avid recreational scuba diver who enjoys traveling to exotic dive sites. My love of the sea and marine life gives me an unbounded appreciation and support of “green” issues, especially those devoted to the conservation of endangered species and coral reefs.

He continually posts results of his personal genealogical research to his Goodreads Authors Blog. Entitled The Patricians - The Ancestral Heritage of Steven Wood Collins, the work represents thousand of hours of his research efforts and related commentary.

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