Peter Cheke of Pirgo, co Essex

"Item, where of late one Peter Cheek, and other certain persons artificers dwelling in the said town, were indicted before the Kings justices of his peace, at the Sessions of peace holden within the same town, for using of unlawful games, and other misorders, contrary to the Kings statute, proclamations, and ordinances; The said Vicechancellor, at the procurement of the said Peter and others, called the said mayor before him, for violating his oath and breaking the privilege of the University, whereby they remained unpunished, to the great boldness of all other offenders."

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"The Bedell, thus we hope unjustly accused, led a busy life (1), like his friend and fellow, Mr Robert Hobbs, being churchwarden of Great St Mary's Church (2), auditor, custodian of certain properties during the rebuilding, etc., as well as a liberal contributor to the funds thereof. Indeed he was active to the last, for there are entries in the Grace Book (3) not long before his death; which event took place soon after the signing of his will on 7 January 1529-30. This document and the will of his wife Agnes are given in Bowtell's MSS. (4), and printed in the second volume of Cooper's Annals (pp 135, 6). They supply interesting details of their family. We have already seen (5) that they were connected with John Canterbury, Esquire Bedell, and Isabel his wife. Their only son was afterwards the distinguished Sir John Cheke, but the father did not live to see his success, for the future Orator had only just taken his B.A. degree (6) when the death of "Magister Petrus" occurred. One of the daughters married William Cecil (7), afterwards Lord Burghley another was the wife of John Blythe Regius Professor of Physic.

Footnotes for the above:

"Both Mr and Mrs Cheke left legacies to John Pickerell, Esquire Bedell; and Mrs Cheke (1) calls him "my Sunn John Pyckerell," to whom she bequeathed a considerable estate. If we may infer from this that William Pickerell, the elder, Esquire Bedell or deputy at the beginning of the century, was her first husband, we have another instance of the intimate relationships between various holders of the office with which we are dealing.
    Peter Cheke by his will (Cooper's Annals ii p 135) ordered his "body to be buryd in St Mary Chyrche before Sent Poll." He was one of the Bedells commemorated in the Last of Benefactors mentioned above.

Footnote for the above:

William Cecil was born in 1520.  His father Richard had sent him to St John's College, Cambridge.  While there, William became friends with John Cheeke (later knighted) who was six years his senior, and this connection is probably how William met his first wife Mary, John's sister.  No source tells us what year Mary was born.  Their father Peter Cheke had died by 1534, but their mother Agnes was not to die until 1548.

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Cecil was admit to Grey's Inn May 1541, and three months later, against his father's wishes, he married Mary Cheke.  Although we don't know what year she was born, two of her sisters were already married by this time, Anne to George Alington, and Alice to Dr John Blythe, who would later become the Regius professor of Physick at Cambridge.

Cecil's father Richard had been groom of the robes and constable of Warwick Castle.  The year before this married, he had been Sheriff of Rutland.  It's likely that he opposed the marriage because he had plans for his son to wed into a higher level of society.  The Cheeke's were not then of the interest that they would become later when Sir John Cheeke came into more prominence.  The mother Agnes was apparently a widow with several children, probably not yet married, and possibly then or earlier had run an inn.

St John's was considered the best education in England at the time, and John Cheeke the best Greek scholar.  His father Peter had been university beadle but died a few months after John's March 1529 admission to a fellowship.  A "beadle" is a person who has some kind of management function at a university.  Another source tells us that Agnes the widow kept a wine shop in the parish of St Mary's.

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By the time Cecil came to St John's, John Cheeke was a Greek professor, at least one source calls him the "greatest English scholar at the time".  His sister Mary only had a fortune of 40 pounds a year.  Richard Cecil immediately pulled his son from college in an attempt to thwart the relationship, but William married Mary anyway, perhaps secretly.  It's possible the marriage was kept from his father's knowledge, but Richard was rumored to have intended to alter his will because of his distaste for the union.  William Cecil and Mary Cheeke only had a child Thomas before she died 22 Feb 1543/4 at Cambridge.  A few months later, July 1544, John Cheeke was appointed tutor to Edward VI.

Cecil kept up a friendly acquaintance with his first wife's family, when Agnes died in 1548, she bequeathed her "new bed with the bolsters and hangings" to her grandson "Thomas Sysell" to be kept by her executors "until the said Thomas shall come to school at Cambridge."

Strype wrote a "Life of Sir John Cheke"


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Sources

• http://books.google.com/books?id=Vt84AAAAIAAJ&pg=RA3-PA72 The esquire bedells of the University of Cambridge from ... Cambridge Antiquarian Society, Henry Paine Stokes, Walter William
  
• Visitation of England and Wales, ed Frederick Arthur Crisp, Notes Vol 7, 1907, page 25 : "Anne Cheeke, dau of Peter Cheeke of Pirgo, co Essex, esquire married George Alington of Rushford, co Norfolk"  Their first son Hugh Alington was born between 1526 and 1529.  Hugh married his sister-in-law-in-law... Elizabeth Cecil, sister to Baron Burghley, in 1580.
  
• Linc Ped V1, page 44 : "Anne, dau of Peter Cheeke, esq of Pirgo, Essex, sister of Sir John Cheeke, Knt; married George Alington of Rushforth, Norfolk.  He died 25 Sep 1558, she died 25 Nov 1557"
  
• CP "Burghley"
  
• The Cecil Family, by George Ravenscroft Dennis. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1914
• Dictionary of National Biography, "Cecil, William"

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