At about the same time, or shortly afterwards (1544), Cecil’s connection with the court was made closer by the appointment of his brother-in-law, John Cheke, to be tutor to the young Prince Edward, and of his friend, Roger Ascham, to a similar position to the Princess Elizabeth. A general supervision over the studies of Prince Edward was entrusted to his governor, Sir Anthony Cooke, who was one of the pioneers of the new learning, and a member of the Protestant party in Henry’s court led by Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, Prince Edward’s uncle. The secular educational movement, which was now in full swing, had spread to the training of girls of the upper classes. The working of tapestry and the cares of a household were no longer regarded as the sole ends and aims of a lady’s life, and it was a fashion at court for Greek and Latin, as well as modern languages, to be imparted to the daughters of gentlemen of the newer school. Amongst the first of the ladies to be thus highly educated were the four daughters of Sir Anthony Cooke, who were afterwards to be celebrated as the most learned women in England, at a time when education had become a feminine fad under the learned Elizabeth. To the eldest of these paragons of learning, Mildred Cooke, aged twenty, William Cecil was married on the 21st December 1545, and thus bound himself by another link to the rising progressive party at court.[11] Already the struggle of the Reformation on the Continent had begun. The Emperor, alarmed at the firm stand made by the Protestant princes of the empire, had hastily made peace with Francis I., and had left his ally the King of England in the lurch. The spectre of Lutheranism had drawn together the lifelong rivals with the secret object of crushing religious dissent, which struck at the root of their temporal authority. The ambition of Maurice of Saxony, and disunion in the Protestant ranks, enabled Charles to destroy the Smalkaldic league, and in April 1547, after the battle of Muhlberg, to impose his will upon the empire. Henry VIII. had deeply resented the desertion of his ally Charles V., when in December 1544 he had been left to fight Francis alone, and during the closing years of his life the Protestant influence in his Councils grew stronger than ever. The old King died on the 28th January 1547. Parliament was sitting at the time, but the King’s death was kept secret for nearly three days, and it was Monday, 31st January, before Lord Chancellor Wriothesley, his voice broken by sobs, informed the Houses of Parliament that King Edward VI. had ascended the throne, under the regency, during his minority, of the Council nominated in King Henry’s will. The star of Seymour and the Protestants had risen, and soon those papistically inclined, like Wriothesley, and Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, shed tears indeed for the master they had lost, schismatic though he was.