Alexander Cooke

received his first breath in Yorkshire, (at, or near to, Beeston by Leeds,) and educated in Grammar learning in those parts. In Michaelmas-Term, an. 1581. he was admitted a Member of Brasnose coll. being then 17 years of age, and after he had taken one degree in Arts, he was chosen into a Percy-Fellowship of Vniversity coll. in 1587. In the year following he took the degree of M. of A. and about that time holy Orders: So that applying himself solely to the study of the sacred writ, became a frequent and noted Preacher in these parts, took the degree of Bach. of that Faculty in 1597. and had some little Cure bestowed upon him. At length upon the decease of his Brother Robert, (whom I have mentioned under the year 1614.) he became Vicar of Lee [•] s in his own Country. He was a person most admirably well read in the controversies between the Protestants and the Papists, vers’d in the Fathers and Schoolmen, a great Calvinist, yet witty and ingenious, and a Satyrical Enemy in his writings against the Romanists, as it evidently appears in these books following, which have been much taken into the hands of ingenious men.

Pope Joan. A dialogue between a Protestant and a Papist, manifestly proving that a Woman called Joan was Pope of Rome, &c. against Rob. Bellarmine, Caes, Baronius, Flor. Raemundus, &c. impudently denying the same. Lond. 1610. qu. Which book being in great request among Protestants beyond Sea, was translated into French by J. de la Montagne. Printed at Sedan 1633. in oct.

The abatement of Popish Brags, pretending Scripture to be theirs. Lond. 1625. qu.

The Weather-cock of Rome’s Religion, with her several changes: or, the World turned topsie turvie by Papists. Lond. 1625. qu.

More work for a Mass-Priest. Lond. 1621. qu.

Yet more work for a Mass-Priest. Lond. 1622. qu.

Work, more work, and yet a little more work for a Mass-Priest. Lond. 1628. &c. qu. ’Tis the same with the two former immediately going before, only some alterations in, and several additions put to, it, especially in that edition which came out in 1630. What other things he published I know not, nor anything else of him, only that he was buried in Leeds Church near to the Body of his Brother Rob. Cooke, 23. June in sixteen hundred thirty and two, 1632 and that he left behind him the character of A good and learned man, a man abounding in charity, and exemplary in his life and conversation, yet hated by the R. Catholicks who lived near Leeds and in Yorkshire, and indeed by all elsewhere who had read his works.