Status and compromise by
William Scrots,
Royal Collection, Windsor 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 in which
Peter Martyr read it when consulted over its review by Cranmer. Peter Martyr doubted if the bishops would approve it, but Cheke foreknew the King's determination to implement it. In October 1550 his friend
Martin Bucer, Cambridge Regius Professor of Divinity (who was indebted to Cheke for some favour offered by the King towards his countryman
Johann Sleidan), presented him with the draft manuscript of his
De Regno Christi (which remained unpublished until 1557). With Sir Thomas Smith, William Cecil, Sir
Anthony Wingfield, Sir
Thomas Wroth and Sir
Ralph Sadler, Cheke gave evidence at the interrogation and deprivation of Stephen Gardiner in January 1551. At that time he was appointed to a weighty Commission to inquire into, amend and punish heresies, renewed in the following year. Martin Bucer died in February. In May 1551 Cheke's annuity was cancelled, and in its place he received an enhanced grant of Stoke-by-Clare with its former lands and dependencies in Suffolk, Essex, Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Huntingdon, etc, with other properties, worth £192 per annum, for his industry in teaching the King. He was serving as commissioner for relief in Cambridgeshire, and, having conducted a Visitation of Eton in September, he and his brother-in-law Cecil (now a
Secretary of State and chancellor of the
Order of the Garter) on 11 October received knighthoods, the day upon which the Earl of Warwick was created Duke of Northumberland, and others of the nobility were advanced. Shortly thereafter Cheke took part in two important private
disputations upon the Real Presence, one at Cecil's house and the second at Sir Richard Morison's, held as a preparation for the review of the Prayer Book to be conducted in 1552. Among the auditors were Sir Thomas Wroth, Sir Anthony Cooke, Lord Russell and Sir
Nicholas Throckmorton, and the debate lay between Cheke, Cecil,
Edmund Grindal and others, against the presence, and
John Feckenham, Dr Yong and others upholding it. The matter of the debates was printed by
John Strype. The commission for examination of ecclesiastical laws, as required by Act of Parliament, was issued on 12 February. At this time Cheke, who had the books and papers of Martin Bucer, was attempting to build up the royal Library, and at the death of his friend and admirer
John Leland, the antiquary, in April 1552 acquired his materials for the same purpose. Having suffered a severe inflammation of the lungs in May 1552, he held a further disputation in Cambridge upon the doctrine of the
Harrowing of Hell, with
Christopher Carlile, before joining a royal progress. In July 1552, he was granted a special licence to shoot at certain fowl and deer with crossbow or hand-gun; in August he was created Chamberlain of the Receipt of the King's Exchequer, in the place of Anthony Wingfield, deceased, with a lifetime authority to appoint its officers (he entered office on 12 September 1552), and was also awarded the wardship and marriage of the heir of Sir Thomas Barnardiston. In mid-September he received from Archbishop Cranmer the
Forty-two Articles prepared for the revision of the Prayer-Book with the instruction to discuss them with Cecil and to set them in order. Being approved by the Convocation they were published in 1553: in the same period Cheke had apparently prepared the Latin translation of Cranmer's
Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of 1550, and this too was published in 1553. During 1552, he was visited in London by
Girolamo Cardano, who lodged with him. Cheke was, like others of his time, somewhat given to
judicial astrology.
John Dee claimed that Cheke had declared his 'good liking' of him to William Cecil. At least two
horoscopes of Cheke's birth exist, one by Sir Thomas White and one by Cardano. Cardano's observations on Cheke were published in his
De Genituris Liber. Cheke gave him some exact dates concerning events in his life, and Cardano described him as a slender, manly figure with fine skin of good colour, well-set and sharp eyes, of noble bearing, handsome and hirsute.
Apotheosis (the
Streatham Portrait) Cheke was returned again for the Parliament of March 1553, and was at about that time a clerk of the Privy Council. In May 1553 he was further rewarded for his services to the King's education both in childhood and in youth, by the grant of the manor of
Clare, Suffolk and the fees of various possessions of the
Honour of Clare in Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, worth £100 per annum. As the King's health declined and the question of succession became imminent, on 2 June 1553 Cheke was sworn as one of the principal
Secretaries of State and took his place in the
Privy Council. If that had been in anticipation of the resignation of Sir
William Petre or Sir William Cecil, in the event neither resigned and there were for that time three Secretaries, all of whom signed the Engagement of the Council written out by Petre to certify the King's appointment of the succession, and the Duke of Northumberland's
Letters Patent to that effect, dated 21 June 1553. In Edward's last weeks Sir Thomas Wroth
enfeoffed Cheke, and members of his own family, with his estates to the uses of his Wroth descendants, probably anticipating the danger of dispossession. Roger Ascham wrote from Brussels to congratulate Cheke on future hopes for the King's reign, but too late. The King died on 6 July and
Lady Jane Grey was proclaimed Queen on the 10th. Cheke remained as her Secretary of State and was loyal to her to the last. The council received a letter from Mary dated 9 July, from
Kenninghall in Norfolk, stating her claim to the throne and demanding their loyalty. Sir John Cheke composed the reply of the same date, signed by the Lords of the council, informing her of Jane's rightful succession, of the witnessed and sealed deeds declaring the late King's will, and of their duty to her. He was present at the proclamation of
Queen Mary on 19 July, hours after he had written to
Lord Rich on behalf of the council to ensure his loyalty to Jane. He bowed to the inevitable. Among the numerous arrests which followed, Sir John Cheke and the
Duke of Suffolk (Queen Jane's father) were taken on 27 or 28 July 1553 and imprisoned in the Tower, articles of indictment being drawn up against him two weeks later. Cranmer, also imprisoned, wrote to Cecil for news of Cheke's welfare. Following the executions of the Duke of Northumberland and Sir
John Gates on 22 August, Mary's initial response was one of clemency. Cheke was released from the Tower on 13 September 1553. He ceased to be provost of King's College, Cambridge. His office in the Exchequer was granted to
Robert Strelley in November 1553 and to Henry, Lord Stafford in February 1554. Cheke's property was seized, but in the spring of 1554 he was granted licence to go abroad. By the time his pardon for offences before 1 October 1553 was granted, on 28 April 1554, he had already left England. == Marian exile ==