Elizabeth shone more as a linguist. She is said to have been very conversant with Latin, French, and Italian; to have had some knowledge of Greek when quite a young girl; and at twelve years of age, to have translated a series of Prayers and Meditations from English into Latin, French, and Italian. Her first instructor was Lady Champernon, a lady noted for her accomplishments. With Roger Ascham, she read the classics; with Dr. Grindal, Professor of Divinity, she studied theology; and, after she came to the throne, pursued her studies with great diligence. Latin she both spoke and wrote with ease and grace. In Italian she was instructed by Signore Castiglioni. Greek and Latin she was accustomed to have read to her by Sir Henry Savil and Sir John Fortescue. She was a great student of Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon; one of Xenophon’s Dialogues she translated and published, and translated two Orations of Isocrates from Greek into Latin.
Lady Jane Grey is another notable example of learning and scholarship. Fox writes of her--
“If her fortune had been as good as her bringing up, joyned with fineness of wit, undoubtedly she might have seemed comparable, not only to the house of the Vespasians, Sempronians, and mother of the Grachies; yea, to any other women besides that deserveth high praise for their singular learning; but also to the University men, who have taken many degrees of the Schools.”
Lady Jane Grey’s short and troublous life was lightened and cheered by study. Roger Ascham commended her facility in Greek composition. Her studies were very extensive, for Sir Thomas Chaloner said of her that she was well versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French, and Italian.
None of these royal ladies were destitute of lighter accomplishments. Elizabeth, as is well known, was a very graceful dancer, and could sing and play exceedingly well; Lady Jane Grey was a musician, and clever at needlework.
But it was not royal ladies alone who were celebrated for their learning in the sixteenth century. The three daughters of Sir Anthony Coke, preceptor to Edward VI., were as accomplished as Queen Elizabeth and Lady Jane Grey, and attracted the attention of the great men of the age. The eldest married Lord Burleigh, the Treasurer; the second, Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and became the mother of the celebrated Francis Bacon; the third became wife to Lord John Russell, after the death of her first husband, Sir Philip Hoby. Sir Anthony was a father much in advance of his time. He considered that women should be educated on the same lines as men, and that they were quite as capable of acquiring knowledge. So he imparted to his clever daughters the lessons he gave to the precocious boy-king, Edward VI.