Note 413 — CCCIX.—To John Cheke.[413]

John Cheke, preceptor of Edward VI., King of England, and distinguished alike in science and in letters, won the esteem and confidence of his royal pupil, who raised him to the rank of knighthood, and who gave him in many ways the most precious testimonies of his affection.—See Fuller's Church History, B. vii.; sixteenth cent., 19, 20. Though a man of sincere piety, Cheke was not possessed of a firmness of character equal to the variety of his knowledge and the greatness of his talents. He survived his pupil only to make a deplorable manifestation of the infirmity of his faith under fear of the scaffold and of martyrdom. Arrested in the Low Countries in 1556, by a secret order of Philip II., he was conducted to London, imprisoned in the Tower, and escaped death only by a solemn retractation. He then fell into a profound melancholy, and soon after died, exhibiting sentiments of sincere repentance, asking pardon of God and men for the sin of which he had been guilty. See Strype, Memoirs, III., i. 515, and Zurich Letters, first series, passim