Cheke

Cheke, Sir John, was born in 1514 at Cambridge, where, at St. John's College, he obtained a fellowship. An enthusiastic advocate of Greek he, in 1540, when a regius professorship of that language was founded at Cambridge, was appointed to the chair. He introduced the mode of pronouncing Greek that still prevails in England. When Edward VI. ascended the throne he loaded Cheke, who had been his tutor, with honours. Of these, however, he was deprived on Mary's accession, and cast into the Tower. This led him to renounce the Protestantism he had previously professed, and he received back property equal in value to what he had been deprived of. The degradation, however, of having recanted preyed upon his mind, and he died in 1557 of grief. His claim to distinction is based on the impulse he gave to the revival of Greek learning.